Seeking ‘permission to narrate’: Debunking the global media reporting of the Israeli War on Gaza and the Palestine exceptionalism

This article attempts to debunk the global media’s agenda-setting role in covering the war on Palestine since October 2023. It argues that the western media coverage has unveiled yet another level of bias, which amounts to complicity by fully embracing the Israeli narrative as a settler colonial state. Along various tech companies, growing evidence reveals that global media giants are responsible for the systematic censorship of pro-Palestine content while amplifying the Israeli narrative. By juxtaposing the Gaza war coverage with the media reporting of the war on Ukraine, this paper unveils a significant failure in fact-checking on the part of scores of European and American media outlets. It has become evident that such outlets have systematically become caught in a web of disinformation campaigns which aim primarily to deny the humanity of Palestinians’ lives along with their right to exist. Also, by drawing on patterns of reporting the war on Gaza and other Palestinian cities and villages under Israeli occupation, this paper argues that there exists a whole echo system of global media organizations, politicians and lobby groups who work together to create, sustain and consolidate a support system for the settler-colonial state. Missing in their coverage is a genuine critique of the ongoing Israeli genocidal policies condemned by international law against Palestinian people and by contrast an unwavering support of the Israeli narrative vis-à-vis this war.