TEHRAN - Western corporate media has been busy in the past eleven months of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, marketing for all sorts of war crimes conducted by the Israeli war machine in Western and global public opinion.

They have been using propaganda techniques to sell the mass murder of more than 41,000 Palestinians, 70% of whom innocent children and women, as side effects of a necessary war against terrorism, while hiding major facts about Israeli crimes against humanity. 

By hiding the facts, damping the news, setting false discourse, framing unfavorable narratives, and justifying tactics, Western media has played a significant role in the current act of genocide in Gaza, acting as the third pillar in Israel’s ongoing war crimes against the whole inhabitants of a major urban center living under brutal and inhumane siege for long decades.

The Israeli army, which is armed to the teeth by the West, and the comprehensive support provided by the US, UK and some other Western countries, are two major pillars that have enabled Netanyahu and his criminal team to continue mass murder in Gaza and elsewhere and resist all international calls and requests for cease fire, including by International Criminal Court (ICC). At the same time, Western media, as an important environmental catalyst intervened in the favor of Israel by all sorts of distortion tactics to prevent broadcasting the horrific developments in Gaza to their audience.

By "discourse setting techniques" and "news framing tactics" they have engaged intentionally in creating a fake environment in which Netanyahu could simply escape global scrutiny and public outrage, enabling him to market his war crimes in the West freely, getting rare military and unequivocal political support and even applauses in the US Congress despite his clear act of genocide and passing all international redlines, dismissing all ICC and ICJ calls and measures. 

By such a shameless support, the US, UK and some European media have enabled the Israeli butcher to continue such unprecedented level of violence and brutality against all people of Gaza and endanger regional and global peace and security. 

Mainstream media in the West in general and in the US and UK in particular have neglected in the past 11 months their international responsibilities to serve the truth but to help and encourage Israel's campaign of genocide and war crimes through an illegitimate, irresponsible and unethical policy of preventing horrific news and information about the depth of humanitarian disaster to reach to the public.

Far from their responsibility of providing accurate and verified news and information, they have knowingly and intentionally broadcasted and continue to broadcast false information about developments in Gaza, dehumanize the Palestinian nation, promote Israeli propaganda, victimize Israel, blame the real victim, reject Palestinians’ right of survival as a state and their right of resistance against the occupying power, and justify Israeli war crimes. The Palestinians are depicted by these media outlets as a group of terrorists and backward people or even inhuman by nature. They are also blamed for everything wrong.

Historically, media have been misused by dictators as a source of soft power in order to mislead their own or foreign public and create suitable space for their evil intentions and genocidal actions. European Fascism and Nazism were based on propaganda campaigns using media to "otherize" and "dehumanize" millions of people based on race, ethnicity, religion or other factors.

Seventy-six years ago, when representatives of nations who gathered in New York after the Second World War to draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they noticed this terrible fact about the role of media in helping and supporting war crimes. They discussed it in their negotiations and added a paragraph to the final document about the responsibilities of media.

It was clear for the UN conference that "speech" and "word" have the potential to be used as a powerful weapon to destroy the rights of others in mass, including the most basic right of life. They clearly stated in the final document that the rights and freedoms of expression by media "may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations", and that freedom of expression shall not in any way give states, media institutions and companies or anyone else the right to conduct "any activity or any behavior with the aim of destroying any of the rights and freedoms of others." 

At the same time, in another large-scale meeting in the UN on the issue of prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, the participants warned about the dangers of "expression" and "speech" which may "dehumanize" others and incite violence. The final convention which was ratified by the member states criminalizes and prohibits not only genocide, but also incitement to genocide and complicity in genocide, and specifies that these prohibitions apply not only to governments but also to non-state and private actors. 

As these two documents were prepared at the Nuremberg tribunal for the leaders of Nazi Germany, the owner of a German media organization named "Julius Sebastian Streicher" was accused and condemned for inciting murder and violence through media reports and analyses and his engagement in harassment for political and racial reasons via media. He was charged with providing media coverage and propaganda support for Hitler's crimes, sentenced to the heaviest punishment for "crimes against humanity" and executed by hanging. The court verdict stated that Streicher's magazine called "Sturmer" has published articles that were considered as "incitement to murder and massacre" while he was aware of the crimes by Hitler and Nazi Germany against other ethnicities and religions in Europe. 

Streicher was not a member of the German army, nor he had participated in planning any massacre, military action, or attack against any country or nation. However, according to prosecutors, his articles and speeches during the war were significant enough to put him on trial as a war criminal. They argued that his media was so inflammatory that they effectively made him a perpetrator of the murder and therefore as guilty as other defendants who actually ordered the mass killings.

In another legal case, in 1994, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) convicted three journalists for their role in inciting genocide. Two of these journalists worked for Mille Collines radio and television station and one for the Kangora newspaper. The court convicted and sentenced all three for incitement to genocide (among other crimes). Navi Pillai, the judge of that court who now serves as the commissioner of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Israeli Crimes on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, announced in his verdict against these journalists that: "you were fully aware of the power of words and phrases, and you have used mass media with the widest reach to spread hatred and violence. . . . Without using a firearm, pulling a trigger or any other physical weapon, you have caused the death of thousands of innocent civilians." According to Judge Pillai, "The power of the media to produce or destroy basic human values comes with great responsibility. Those who control these media are responsible for the consequences."

Today Western media outlets such as Fox News, Washington Post, Times of London, Sky News, BBC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc. know well what they are doing about Gaza, inciting violence and genocide there, alienating, terrorizing, and "dehumanizing" the Palestinian nation and supporting war crimes by Zionist regime. It is not hard to compare these media corporations with the condemned media in the international war criminal courts. The above two historical examples show that there are a series of ethical boundaries for journalism which the Western media have completely crossed in the case of Gaza, and made themselves liable to stand trial in international courts. 

By inciting and justifying tactics, Western media are complicit in the current war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Gaza, as grave as their governments. 

It is unrealistic to claim that Western media are not aware of the horrific situation on the ground and the ongoing genocide in Gaza and that they are not aware of what they are doing to justify, create ambiguity, or hide humanitarian catastrophe and crimes from public scrutiny. It is clear that they have intentionally and consciously decided to hide the genocide from their audience, systematically portrayed Palestinian victims as a bunch of terrorists and "sub-humans", and help Israeli perpetrators to escape any accountability. Despite findings by the ICC that Netanyahu and his criminal team can be charged for war crimes and crimes against humanity, the ICC chief prosecutor’s demand for an arrest warrant against Netanyahu, and the interim measure by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to stop genocide by Israel, and despite all strong reports by UN bodies and independent human rights mechanisms about Israeli war crimes, Western media have decided to suppress and hid these developments from Western audience and instead double their news coverage in favor of Israel.

The relationship between media incitement and encouragement and the crimes committed by Israel in Gaza is quite clear. The target audience for those American and British media includes the officials and policymakers of the Western governments who provide military, economic, intelligence and diplomatic support to Israel. If the only source of information for these officials, as well as Western public opinion that influences the officials through elections, is the Western mainstream media, they may have no idea about the extent of Israel's crimes. 

It is possible that with such news distortion and manipulation, Western officials and the public have never heard about numerous statements by the ICC about the genocidal intention of the Israeli president, its prime minister, cabinet members and military commanders. They probably still believe in fake news produced by media about the beheading of Israeli babies which has long been proved to be false, or they are unaware of the large number of Palestinian babies who have actually been beheaded. It is safe to say that many authorities and people in the West are not aware of the systematic killing of Palestinian civilians, children, infants, women, elders, people with disabilities and others, the torture camps, the systematic rape of prisoners, and Israeli snipers who target minors in Gaza. They are ignorant and don't even know that Israel now holds the world record for the deliberate killing of journalists, aid workers, UN forces and health workers.

At the same time, false information produced by Israel's Hasbara and propaganda machinery and its justifications are regularly published in the American and British media without due verification and criticism. They are produced by the same war criminals to justify their war crimes, dehumanize Palestinians and depict them as mostly terrorists, of another race, strange backwards who celebrate death, etc. They justify Israel's genocide by diverting public opinion from its daily crimes, censoring narratives related to genocide and suppressing the voices of Palestinians, independent journalists and human rights activists. 

According to verified reports, journalists and media in the US and UK have received media guidelines that order them to avoid some influential words and phrases in their reports, words such as "occupied territories", "Palestine" or "displaced refugee camps."

Palestinian victims are at best "war casualties" or "human shields" or even "terrorists." They simply call mass killings the "death of Palestinians" without mentioning that they were killed by Israel. In the media guidelines, Israel's actions are only self-defense and no genocide has ever taken place. In their narrative, the date of starting the war is October 7th, without reference to the 76 years of occupation, aggression, continuous ethnic cleansing, persecution, mass prisons, pure violations of human rights and apartheid.

With such details, American and British media companies, some owned by Zionists such as Robert Murdoch who is famous for his calling about "the responsibilities of Jewish owned Media to defend Israel", have made themselves part of the genocidal campaign in Palestine, misusing the international rule of freedom of expression and acting as mouthpiece of Israel’s war machine and its psychological operation system.

In the absence of intervention by the international community and the ICC to stop such irresponsibility and prevent the use of media power in a biased manner, they continue to abuse their power, resulting in further violations of human rights and the encouragement of war criminals.

Another illegal tactic used by Western media has been their intentional suppression of the voice of the Palestinian nation and its supporters. It is not an exaggeration to say that no group in the modern history of humankind has faced official silencing attempt by the Western authorities and media more than the Palestinian nation and the Palestinian cause. Speaking and commenting about any issue regarding Palestine and its developments has been considered a crime by Western governments. The fast and complete suppression of the protests by university students and their professors who simply protest the current genocide and their dismissal is a clear example of silencing people who oppose Israel's war crimes.

While the ICC has started its efforts to bring Israeli officials to justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and as many in the international community expect to follow the case with further serious steps in the future, at the same time it is necessary, just like the cases of Nuremberg and Rwanda, that certain Western media which has supported and enabled such atrocities to be summoned by ICC judges and tried for violating international law, media ethics and responsibilities of media to serve the truth. They are clearly guilty for their heinous role in the current genocide in Gaza and their intentional policy of providing cover and support for Netanyahu and his criminal team to mass murder innocent Palestinian people and suffocate the voice of the victims. It is time to call the ICC’s prosecutor, Karim A. A. Khan, to update and expand his summoning list as he recently mentioned that "anyone who breaks the law will be held accountable."