New Zealand journalism has reached new lows of racism and complicity with genocide in the past week with the uncritical broadcast of the most blatant Israeli propaganda direct from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu – the man the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court wants to arrest for trial on war crimes – and Israeli military spokespeople.

This uncritical broadcasting of Israeli propaganda is common in western media and is led here by Television New Zealand and Radio New Zealand. This morning on RNZ’s Morning Report a New Zealand journalist asked a commentator the Israeli propaganda question:

What’s Israel doing to stop these attacks by Hezbollah?

Unbelievable. As though attacks by Hezbollah were the problem rather than 76 years of Israeli massacres, ethnic cleansing and a brutal military occupation.

It is clear to the rest of the world, if not RNZ, that Israel has been deliberately trying to provoke a wider war in the Middle East but no-one listening or watching our state broadcasters would be any the wiser.

While the people of the world want Israel to stop the carnage, TVNZ and RNZ are all but egging it on.

Israel’s deliberate provocations to widen the war include:

• The assassination of Hezbollah leader Fuad Shukr in Beirut
• The assassination of Hamas Leader Ismail Hanniyah who was negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Israel. The assassination took place in Iran in a flagrant breach of Iranian sovereignty
• The Israeli missile attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria which killed several top Iranian officials
• The “exploding pager” attack in Lebanon
• Extending its genocidal slaughter to Lebanon and Yemen
• The assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah

And yet while Israel fans the flames of war, our state broadcasters report that Israel is the victim.

Yes, TVNZ and RNZ cover the killing of innocent civilians but only in the context of Israeli propaganda narratives which dominate the reporting. Israeli propaganda about “human shields”, so religiously and uncritically reported by western media, blames the Palestinian resistance organisations for the deaths.

Last night Israel slaughtered Palestinian journalist Wafa Aludaini and most of her family in a direct missile strike on her home. Wafa was friend to New Zealand and a women with more journalistic integrity than the combined news leadership of both our state broadcasters.

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