An article entitled “Israel backtracks on location of hostages”, appearing in the weekend edition of The Australian, evidences the failure of our media to properly inform the Australian public on the Israel/Palestine issue.

It should immediately be pointed out that The Australian is not alone in its journalistic failure. It is, in fact, a failure extending across the press and wider media.

Whilst the subject article commenced with a detailed analysis of the position appertaining to the remaining hostages in Gaza, it then moved to a news item related to the death of two Israelis at the Allenby Bridge i.e., the border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan. The item asserted that the assailant arrived on a truck bringing humanitarian aid into the West Bank from Jordan. The assailant was said, impliedly by the Israeli Defence Force, to have been “neutralised” by security forces.

It can be presumed that “neutralised” means killed. Whilst it was suggested that the assailant was a Jordanian, it was said that “there was no immediate confirmation of this”. Yair Lapid, Israel’s main opposition leader, confirmed that the two deceased were Israelis. Lapid described the attack as a “terror attack”, consistent with the IDF’s description of the attacker as a “terrorist”.

What then was the reader of the article not informed of?

The first, and critical matter, is that the two deceased Israelis, and the Israeli security forces present, were illegally present at the site of the incident, there being no issue with the fact that Israel is illegally occupying the West Bank. There is no need to go beyond the 2016 Security Council Resolution 2334, the 19 July 2024 International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion, and the 18 September 2024 UN General Assembly Emergency Special Session under the “uniting for peace” precedent to so establish such illegal occupation.

The second critical matter that the reader was not informed about is that Palestinians, including Palestinian refugees who might reside principally in Jordan, have a right to resist such illegal occupation, an illegal occupation which has continued since 1967 and Security Council Resolution 242 which followed the Six-Day War. The ICJ Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024 specifically finds the inalienable right of peoples to self-determination. In so finding, the ICJ relies upon numerous earlier UN resolutions, which specifically affirm the right of illegally occupied peoples to resist such occupation.

One such earlier resolution, specifically relied upon by the ICJ, is UNGA (United Nations General Assembly) Res 40/25 (29 Nov. 1985) which “reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for their independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle” (emphasis added).

What follows? Well, if the assailant, as seems highly likely, was a Palestinian, he cannot be identified as an “terrorist”. Rather, he was surely a freedom fighter, exercising his right to engage in armed struggle in his resistance of an illegal occupation. The reader of the subject article should have been so informed.

Why wasn’t he/she so informed? Is it just poor journalism?

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.