University protests dominate media coverage, obscuring the true horror of the Gaza war

The mention of mass graves is so deeply disturbing that it is better to think of such wartime horrors as dark relics of another era, chapters of history we will never repeat. Armenian Genocide, Bolshevik Revolution, Nazi Germany, El Salvador, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The fairy tale that mankind has evolved beyond such barbarity was shattered (again) last week when reports emerged that three mass burial sites had been unearthed in Gaza. This shocking development should have made headlines, but it barely crossed most people’s radar.

The media is overly focused on how we protest against atrocities rather than the atrocities themselves.

Anti-war demonstrations on college campuses dominate conversation and coverage about the Israel–Hamas war. Every imaginable news source – legacy print outlets, user-generated posts, broadcast and cable news – has its sights set on the camps and rallies taking place on campuses across the country.

The protests are worthy in their own right of drawing attention to important issues. They have raised awareness (and heckles) about the staggering Palestinian death toll, anti-Semitism, occupation, oft-forgotten hostages and free speech. The largely peaceful demonstrations, dealt with ineptly by university leaders and law enforcement, are rightfully the leading national story, and its stars are a generation that many older people wrote off as apathetic.

In SEO terms, protests present the perfect setting for a media attack. They are happening in colleges and they come with powerful images and ample social media content. For example, the protests at USC were broadcast live on television on various local stations, with helicopters capturing the action from every imaginable angle. They’re also an easy way to go to war, bringing the Mideast conflict to America without the fear of seeing actual fighting.

But the widespread coverage of the student revolt is so ubiquitous that it overshadows the news of the very war they are protesting.

There has been a surprising lack of coverage and outrage following an announcement by Palestinian authorities on Friday that they had recovered 390 bodies from mass grave sites around Gaza’s Nasr and Shifa hospitals, facilities which were raided and destroyed in Israeli attacks. Went. The bodies were reportedly found in pits, buried under bulldozer debris, after Israeli Defense Forces ended operations in the area.

The dead also included women and children; The majority are still unidentified. Some of the dead were reportedly found naked and with their hands tied behind their backs. “This indicates serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law and should be investigated further,” said Raveena Shamdasani, chief spokeswoman for UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.

The sheer barbarity of these scenes may explain why they have not attracted much attention. It’s too horrible to process, so we turn away from it.

And if the discovery of mass graves is a hard story to watch, it’s even harder to cover. Israel continues to restrict international journalists’ access to Gaza, so there are fewer journalists there to testify. For those who have been there, it is one of the deadliest wars on record for media workers, and there have been more than 34,000 civilian casualties. If journalists survive, they face intense investigations to get to the truth. And when their stories are finally reported, they will be lambasted, trolled and harassed by one side – or both – for their alleged bias.

But we need answers, and in the absence of an independent investigation (the Biden administration has left it up to Israel to investigate itself), we are left to guess whether war crimes may have occurred.

The lack of information is partly due to the shrinkage of American newsrooms. Journalistic outlets large and small have lost the resources, access, and expertise to cover wars as they once did. It is also up to elected officials to draw attention to potential war crimes, especially when the US plays such a central role in the conflict.

Politicians like Mike Johnson are instead busy raising their profiles by inserting themselves into the Palestinian-Israeli quagmire. Portraying himself as a defender of student safety, the Republican House speaker combined his pro-Palestinian stance with sympathy for Hamas to endanger hundreds if not thousands of anti-war protesters — including Jewish students. “The things that have happened at the hands of Hamas are horrific, and yet these protesters are waving flags for the people who have committed those crimes. That’s not how we are in America,” Johnson posted on Twitter on Thursday.

It was refreshing to see that ABC News didn’t just quote him and move on, as many other news outlets did. The network reported that there have been no documented cases of protesters waving Hamas flags. Details like this matter when student safety is at risk.

But serious questions remain about Gaza’s mass graves and there is also the issue of accountability.

Israel Defense Forces spokesman Nadav Shoshani tweeted, “The grave in question was dug up by Gazans a few months ago.” “This fact is confirmed by social media documents uploaded by Gazans at the time of the burial. Any attempt to blame Israel for burying civilians in mass graves is clearly false and merely an example of a disinformation campaign aimed at delegitimizing Israel.

Israeli officials said bodies buried near Nasser Hospital were exhumed to check whether they were those of Israeli hostages. An Israeli military official said all the remains were “respectfully returned to their place.”

Gaza officials confirmed that the graves were dug before Israeli forces arrived, but alleged that the IDF had dumped bodies at the site. Gaza Civil Defense stated that only about 100 people were buried in graves before the IDF raid, and that 390 to 392 bodies (details vary) have since been recovered.

Widespread reports of widespread killings and hostage-taking of innocent Israelis and Palestinians first inspired the protests. Now, the screams of the protesters are the story. But we can certainly pay attention on both fronts, even if one of them requires a lot of work and emotional restraint. It is our moral imperative to pay attention or risk becoming bystanders as another dark chapter on wartime atrocities is being written itself.