Assal RadHumbled to share the cover of my forthcoming book.
A project born of heartbreak, urgency, and the unbearable reality of watching Israel’s genocide against Palestinians unfold in real time.
A
searing indictment of Western media that lays bare how the "free
press," long tasked with speaking truth to power, instead became a vital
part of the machinery that enabled the genocide in Palestine
If you’re not writing the truth about crimes against humanity, you’re culpable in them.
Activist
and Middle East historian Assal Rad is known as the “headline fixer”
for her powerful posts that illustrate how mainstream Western media’s
coverage of the Gaza Genocide is filled with double standards. Israelis
are described as "children" and "civilians," while Palestinians are
"people under 18" and "collateral damage"; Israelis are killed; Palestinians die.
Even in the wake of the so-called ceasefire, major Western media
continually obfuscates Israeli violence in Palestine: For example, the
Associated Press reported that "Gaza's living conditions worsen as
strong winds and hypothermia kill 5." No, Rad corrects: Gaza's living conditions worsen as Israel blocks aid.
In Don’t Say Palestine, Rad reveals a pattern of dehumanizing language—in outlets from CNN and the AP to the BBC and The New York Times—so
consistently employed throughout the Palestinian genocide that it
amounts to a policy. Mainstream Western media consistently downplays
Israeli responsibility, “others” Palestinians, and casts doubt on
inviolable tenets of international law like the sanctity of hospitals
and journalists in war zones. This groundbreaking, eye-opening exposé
offers both a moral reckoning and an urgent call to action, mapping with
devastating clarity the media’s complicity in whitewashing a human
rights crisis.
[AS
ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO
READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP
SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and
conversations) THAT EMPOWER
DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE &
PEACE... and hopefully
Palestine]
Praise
“Amidst some of the worst journalistic failures of this
century, Assal Rad has consistently done vital work to point out the
myriad ways institutional hypocrisy, cowardice, and willful
obliviousness work hand-in-hand with state violence to justify and
normalize any manner of atrocity. Her intellectual rigor and moral
clarity—not only on the journalistic malpractice that
so often marks Western media coverage of the ongoing genocide in Gaza,
but on how this malpractice eventually seeps into all coverage—are
unwavering. At a time when it would have been so much more convenient
to stay silent, I and so many others are grateful for her willingness to
speak.”
—Omar El Akkad, National Book Award–winning author of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
“If
you’ve ever wondered how the media manipulated perception through
subtle use of language, this is the book for you to read. Assal Rad in
her superb book shows how no other institution is as instrumental in
shaping perception like the media, which is not a record of
truth-telling but a carefully curated narrative and elaborate system of
erasure, euphemism, and deference to power.”
—Raja Shehadeh, National Book Award finalist and author of We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I
“A poignant reminder of the power of words to normalise, or legitimise, genocide.”
—Yanis Varoufakis, author of Technofeudalism
