Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been toppled by a coalition of opponents. Most of the world has welcomed the change. Netanyahu presided over a long list of human rights violations against Palestinians. The new government may not change this. The following (Days of Palestine 12 June 2021) is about 500 journalists in the United States, who have signed an open letter demanding American media reports on the realities of the Israeli occupation and its policies in Palestine.
More than 500 journalists in American media published a joint letter, in which they demanded that news in the country reflect the realities of the Israeli occupation and its policies in Palestine.
The letter, entitled “An Open Letter on the American Media’s Dealing with Palestine”, called for an end to the concealment of the Israeli occupation and the systematic oppression of Palestinians in the production of news.
The letter was signed by 514 journalists, including journalists from leading media outlets in the United States such as the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times, Anadolu Agency reported.
“Finding the truth and holding the powerful accountable are fundamental principles of journalism, but for decades, our news industry has abandoned these values in news about Israel and Palestine,” the letter read.
“We have failed our readers with a narrative that obscures the essential aspects of the story: the Israeli military occupation and the apartheid regime,” the journalists said in their letter.
The journalists pointed to the need to put an end to these decades of bad press practices, and urgently change the course of journalism.
The letter added that the evidence of Israel’s systematic oppression of the Palestinians is abundant, and this news should not be hided any longer.
The letter referred to the 213-page Human Rights Watch report published on April 27 on the crimes of apartheid and persecution of the Israeli authorities, explaining that the aforementioned report documented the Israeli authorities’ commission of crimes against humanity through the policies of apartheid.