STATEMENT
9 June 2024
Sunday Mail Puts Zero Value on Palestinian Lives
The Australian Friends of Palestine Association (AFOPA) is appalled by the article in today's Adelaide Sunday Mail about the rescue in Gaza of 4 Israeli hostages by Israeli military forces. While describing this operation, the prominent article makes absolutely no mention - does not make a single comment - about the fact that over 200 Palestinians, many of them children, were killed and over 400 people were wounded by Israel in this operation. It is clear that this number of Palestinians who were killed to retrieve the 4 Israelis is of no consequence in the eyes of the Sunday Mail.
Other media outlets in Australia and overseas have at least mentioned the terrible cost in civilian Palestinian lives, and many have shown the horror scenes with children's bodies ripped apart and patients on the floor in hospitals in pools of blood - patients who will likely die for lack of medical attention or medications due to Israel's cruel blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza. This is apparently of no concern to the Sunday Mail.
This is consistent with the position of the Murdoch press, which appears to only place value on Israeli lives and no value on the lives of innocent Palestinians. There is an habitual inability to see this war through anything other than Israeli eyes and propaganda. There appears to be a determination by the Sunday Mail and its stable mate, The Advertiser, to convince South Australians that Palestinians and Palestine don't matter. Only Israel and Israeli lives matter.
The Sunday Mail’s indifference to Palestinian loss of life in this operation is completely consistent with the paper’s indifference to Palestinian deaths during the entire 8-month Israeli campaign. This indifference mirrors Israel’s complete disregard for Palestinian lives. At the time of writing this statement, since 7 October, at least 36,801 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 15,000 children, have been killed, more than 83,680 people have been injured and more than 10,000 people are missing. In the West Bank, the Israeli military and extremist illegal settlers have killed at least 532 Palestinians, including 133 children, with 5,000 people injured. Homes, cars and other infrastructure have been burned or severely damaged and people have been driven from their homes and villages. All this without a murmur from the Adelaide Advertiser and the Sunday Mail. The rescue of 4 people, however, warrants a prominent article.
The News Corp Australia Code of Conduct includes standard 1.1, which states that “publications should take reasonable steps to ensure reports are accurate and not misleading". In addition, the Australian Press Council Standards in section 1 states that the press must “ensure that factual material in news reports and elsewhere is accurate and not misleading and is distinguishable from other material such as opinion". Section 3 of these standards states that the press should "ensure factual material is presented with reasonable fairness and balance, and that writers' expression of opinion are not based on significantly inaccurate factual material or omission of key facts".
By failing to report the indiscriminate and disproportionate killing of innocent Palestinian people, today’s article falls well short of these standards. We have to ask " Who, other than Israel and the Zionist Lobby is served by this biased reporting, as published today and continuously since October 7. This ongoing indifference to the killing of Palestinians and the complete silence on the 76 years of injustice suffered by Palestinians since the loss of their country to enable Israel to be created, the 57 years of an illegal military occupation and the 17-year blockade of the Gaza strip, and now a genocide, is shameful and flies in the face of responsible journalism.
ENDS