Framing Genocide: Media Hypocrisy, Legal Boundaries, and the Palestine Narrative

OpenAI, Illustration of a journalist surrounded by tools of journalism (AI-generated image)

1. Introduction:

The media plays a crucial role in sharing accurate information and holding those in power accountable. This is essential for helping the public to stay informed and engage in meaningful discussions. Yet, its coverage of the Palestine situation, particularly allegations of genocide, reveals a profound hypocrisy that undermines this mission. Western media outlets, which has been frequently praised for their high journalistic standards and commitment, have come under severe scrutiny for their coverage of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Critics argue that these outlets often rely on selective language, omit crucial historical and political context, and sometimes frame narratives in ways that appear to justify or downplay the severity of Israel’s actions in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories. This selective reporting can shape public perception in biased ways and hinder a fair understanding of the realities on the ground. These practices distort public understanding and violate the international journalism laws and ethical codes that mandate accuracy, fairness, and amplification of marginalized voices.

In Bangladesh, a country with a long-standing history of solidarity with Palestine, these biases are often met with strong reactions, ranging from official government condemnation to public protests and efforts by local media to challenge one-sided narratives. This response reflects not only national sentiment but also a growing global demand for fairness, accuracy, and accountability in international reporting.

2. The Palestinian Context: History, Occupation, and Current Crisis:

The Palestine-Israel conflict is rooted in more than seven decades of dispossession and occupation. The 1948 Nakba, during which approximately 750,000 Palestinians were displaced in the course of Israel’s establishment, and created a refugee crisis that has now escalated. According to the report of United Nations Relief & Works Agency, an estimated 5.9 million Palestinian refugees are currently eligible for UNRWA services. Israel has occupied  the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza since 1967. Since 2007, it has imposed a siege on Gaza that limits supplies, aid, and travel; the UN has called this “collective punishment.”

Since 1967, Israel has occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, imposing a blockade on Gaza since 2007 that restricts aid, movement, and resources, deemed “collective punishment” by the United Nations (UN). By April 2025, Gaza faced catastrophic destruction following Israel’s large scale military response to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, which killed 1,200 Israelis. Israel’s campaign has killed over 52,000 Palestinians, including 17,000 children, destroyed  70% of Gaza’s infrastructure, and triggered famine through aid blockades according to the report on Global Humanitarian Overview 2024 by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

In January 2024 verdict in South Africa v. Israel, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) cited hunger practices and civilian targeting as "reasonable grounds" to look into genocide. In a 2024 Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) press statement, Francesca Albanese and other UN experts later referred to Israel's conduct as a “textbook case of genocide,” citing the deliberate loss of Palestinian life. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented apartheid and war crimes, including settler violence and home demolitions, in Amnesty’s 2024 report and Human Rights Watch’s 2024 report. Even though Israel maintains its claims about actions targeting Hamas, not civilians, but evidence of indiscriminate bombings and civilian deaths on designated safe routes undermines this claim.

3. The Anatomy of Media Hypocrisy:

Western media’s coverage of the Palestinian crisis has been widely criticized for its selective language, leaves out important historical context, and often helps justify violence. By supporting certain political interests and ignoring Palestinian voices, it spreads a biased and harmful narrative. This kind of report shapes how the world sees conflict, often painting the oppressor as the victim. Headlines focus on Israeli suffering while downplaying or erasing the mass killing of Palestinians. Words like “clashes” and “self-defense” are used to soften violence. Meanwhile, Palestinian resistance is framed as terrorism, stripping away their right to speak, mourn, and fight for freedom.

The New York Times, Washington Post, and BBC are among the well-known western media outlets have been sanitizing Israel's acts while exaggerating Palestinian violence through selective terminology and framing. According to the Intercept’s quantitative analysis in 2024, a leaked editorial memo from the New York Times in 2023 told reporters to limit their use of Palestine and to refrain from using terms like "genocide," "ethnic cleansing," or "occupied territory" unless they were quoting sources. The October 7 attack by Hamas is continuously referred to as a massacre or terrorist crime, whereas Palestinian fatalities are referred to as casualties. The Intercept found that New York Times used massacre fifty-three times in reference to Israeli deaths but only once for Palestinian casualties in late 2023, despite the disproportionate toll.

This linguistic double standard dehumanizes Palestinians. Israeli strikes killing civilians are framed as collateral damage, even when evidence, such as Al Jazeera’s 2024 video footage of a grandmother shot while waving a white flag, suggests intent. Meanwhile Palestinian resistance is branded terrorism, with Hamas being called a death cult in opinion pieces by the New York Times. Despite the ICJ’s genocide ruling, outlets avoid the term, opting for humanitarian crisis, misrepresenting the crisis’s scale.

Omission of Historical Context

Western media frequently erase Palestine’s historical context, starting their coverage with Hamas’s October 7 attack and framing Israel’s response as justified self-defense. The Nakba, Gaza’s blockade, and systemic apartheid are rarely mentioned, ignoring issues documented by Amnesty and Human Rights Watch. For example, CNN and Fox News emphasize Hamas’s rocket attacks but seldom report Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s hospitals, schools, and water systems, which UN experts classify as war crimes in a 2024 OHCHR statement. This selective timeline perpetuates a narrative of Palestinian aggression and Israeli defense, distorting the conflict’s root causes.

Complicity Through Silence or Justification

Media outlets downplay genocide allegations despite substantial evidence. UN rapporteurs and scholars like Raz Segalargue Israel’s actions meet the 1948 Genocide Convention’s criteria, deliberate destruction of a group. Yet, the BBC and Washington Post amplify Israel’s human shields claim without scrutinizing evidence of civilian deaths on designated safe routes, as reported by the Guardian in 2024. Opinion pieces have incited violence: a Wall Street Journal column justified Gaza’s destruction to eliminate Hamas, dismissing ceasefire calls. New York Times contributors have labeled Palestinians savages, echoing rhetoric condemned in other genocides. This hypocrisy, championing human rights elsewhere while justifying Palestinian suffering, aligns with U.S. and Israeli geopolitical interests.

4. How Hypocrisy Undermines the Core Values of Journalism:

Journalism’s moral and ethical foundations rest on principles of truth-seeking, accountability, independence, and minimizing harm, as outlined in the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Code of Ethics and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Code of Ethics. Western media’s hypocrisy in Palestine coverage violates these principles in several ways.

First, avoiding the term genocide despite ICJ and UN evidence breaches the SPJ’s mandate to “seek truth and report it.” The New York Times’s internal memo prioritizing narrative control over factual accuracy undermines public trust in journalism’s commitment to honesty. Second, failing to challenge Israel’s restrictions on Gaza access or the targeted killings of journalists, such as Shireen Abu Akleh, violates the SPJ’s call for accountability principles, allowing impunity for potential war crimes. Third, corporate influences, such as CNN’s reported ties to pro-Israel advocacy groups like AIPAC, compromise the IFJ’s principle of independence, aligning coverage with political agendas, as noted in a report by the Guardian. Finally, opinion pieces demonizing Palestinians as savages incite harm and defy the SPJ’sethic to avoid stereotyping, contributing to dehumanization and violence against a vulnerable population.

Ethically, journalism must amplify marginalized voices, yet Palestinian journalists like Motaz Azaiza are sidelined in favor of Israeli briefings. This selective empathy condemning violence in conflicts like Ukraine but justifying it in Gaza scrapes away journalism’s moral credibility, fostering distrust and perpetuating injustice.

5. Legal Frameworks for Authentic Journalism:

Journalism is bound by legal and ethical frameworks that require authenticity and accuracy, yet these standards are often disregarded in coverage of the illegal occupation and genocide in Palestine, further exposing the hypocrisy within mainstream media. Following are the international and domestic legal frameworks.

International Laws and Media Ethics

International laws set clear standards for journalism. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Declaration on Fundamental Principles of 1978 mandates media to promote human rights and avoid incitement to violence. The IFJ Code of Ethics requires accuracy, fairness, and amplification of marginalized voices. The  UN Human Rights Council Resolution 7/36 2008 protects journalists’ freedom to report truthfully, the Geneva Conventions of 1949, specifically Article 79 of Protocol I safeguard journalists in conflict zones. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966 Article 19 guarantees the right to disseminate accurate information.

Western media violate these standards by avoiding genocide despite ICJ findings, omitting Palestinian perspectives due to Israel’s access restrictions, and publishing opinion pieces that incite harm. The killing of Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022, a Palestinian American journalist shot by Israeli forces while reporting in Jenin, was deemed deliberate by UN and Al Jazeera investigations, violating Article 79, as noted in a UNHCR press release. Yet, CNN framed it as a clash, downplaying Israel’s accountability, unlike its condemnation of journalist killings in Ukraine. Similarly, the Wael Al-Dahdouh case in 2024, where an Al Jazeera journalist’s family was killed in an Israeli airstrike deemed targeted, received minimal Western coverage, undermining ICCPR protections.

Domestic Legal Provisions

Domestic laws also mandate authentic and impartial reporting, the UK’s Ofcom Broadcasting Code , 2023 also known as the Broadcasting Code requires broadcasters like BBC to ensure due accuracy and impartiality. The U.S. Communications Act of 1934 imposes  public interest obligations for broadcasters to report truthfully. Israel’s Press Ordinance 1933, still in effect, these provisions also demanding accurate reporting but its selectively enforced to restrict Palestinian coverage. These provisions are constantly undermined. The BBC’s Gaza coverage, which often favors Israeli sources, breaches Ofcom’s accuracy requirement. In the U.S., corporate influence sidesteps public interest obligations, allowing biased reporting. Israel’s Press Ordinance is used to censor Palestinian journalists, with more than 120 killed by mid-2024, as reported by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

6. Conclusion: Returning Journalism to Its Core Duty

The media’s hypocrisy, made worse by ethical failures and disregard for legal standards, has tangible and devastating consequences. It shapes how the world understands the violence in Palestine, often justifying the suffering of Palestinians while rationalizing and shielding Israel from meaningful accountability. When media outlets ignore guidelines set by organizations like UNESCO, the IFJ, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the Geneva Conventions, they not only betray the trust of the public but also silence the voices of those most affected.

The “right to information” is not just a legal concept or principle; it is a lifeline, especially in places like Gaza, where journalists are barred from access and Palestinian voices are consistently pushed aside. Without these stories being told, the world is left with only fragments of the truth. To begin rebuilding that trust, legal reforms are essential: protecting journalists from intimidation and defamation, allowing safer and freer access to conflict zones, and pushing back against vague anti-terror laws that silence critical reporting. The media must return to its core responsibility, telling the truth. That means calling genocide by its name when the evidence supports it and placing at the center of coverage the voices of those historically excluded from the narrative.