On Palestine

by Noam Chomsky

The recent appeal by Western governments to the prosecutor in the International Court of Justice in The Hague not to look into Israel’s crimes in Gaza is a case in point. Wide sections of the Western media have followed suit and have justified by and large Israel’s actions—including the French media, especially France 24, and the BBC, which continue to shamefully parrot Israeli propaganda. This is not surprising, since pro-Israel lobby groups continue to work tirelessly to press Israel’s case in France and the rest of Europe as they do in the United States. This distorted coverage is also fed by a sense among Western journalists that what happens in Gaza pales in comparison to the atrocities in Iraq and Syria. Comparisons like this are usually provided without a wider historical perspective. A longer view on the history of the Palestinians would be a much more appropriate way to evaluate their suffering vis-à-vis the carnage elsewhere.