The Brief – Looking out of the window

This weekend saw a new episode in the battle of digital narratives in Israel and Palestine — the uncanny horrors of which were haunting, even by recent standards.

An article published by the Jerusalem Post, Israel’s most-read English newspaper, reported that widely-circulated photos of a Palestinian baby’s corpse held by his mother and grandfather were, in fact, pictures of a doll. 

The claim has been debunked by several journalists and fact-checking sites, and the baby was identified as Muhammad Hani Al-Zahar, five months of age.

The Jerusalem Post has since retracted the article and issued a statement that they regret the incident. 

But – as is the case in an information landscape where the validation or condemnation of a foreign country’s actions is increasingly arbitrated online – the damage was already done.

Multiple posts have since circulated on digital platforms, fanning the flames of the ‘fake babies’ theory and playing into insidious ‘Pallywood’ conspiracy theories of staged suffering. 

“I’ve done fact-checking during several conflicts. Never have I seen one where so much disinformation is posted with the direct intent of dehumanising real victims of war on both sides,” Shayan Sardarizadeh, senior journalist at BBC Verify, wrote on X.

EU DisinfoLab has described the scale of misinformation since Hamas’ October 7 attacks and Israel’s retaliation as “unprecedented”, with Commissioner Thierry Breton writing to X, TikTok, and Meta to urge them to take timely action in line with new EU rules on illegal content online.

According to the New York Times, Iran, Russia and, to a lesser extent, China have used state media social networking platforms to spread support for Hamas.

For journalists, the burden of verification and accuracy is high. These are not new tasks, but as became clear in many conversations with friends and colleagues, the scale, urgency – and emotional toll – are only increasing.

The flames have not only been fanned by rogue X users or ideological chaos agents. Established media outlets and news organisations have made consequential errors in their reporting. 

In a video segment aired on CNN, a spokesperson for the Israel Defence Forces pointed to a timetable with Arabic writing found in the basement of a hospital in Gaza, describing it as a “terrorist shift schedule”.

The clip was widely derided for simply showing the days of the week.

In another instance, the BBC published a shortened clip of statements by a freed Palestinian prisoner with the English translation incorrectly stating that she “loves Hamas very much”. It has since been withdrawn and updated.

Basic translation accuracy aside, for media organisations reporting from afar, finding balance and accuracy in such complex, turbulent and disrupted information landscapes is no simple feat.

As the old journalism adage goes, if someone says it’s raining and another says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both for the sake of balance – your job is to look out of the window. 

But looking out of the window is harder in Gaza, where Israel has severely limited access for the international press, creating risks of a “news desert”, as described by non-profit International Media Support.

The region has seen multiple near-total internet blackouts, resulting in a complete loss of communications for all residents, as documented by internet observatory NetBlocks.

The task of documenting the destruction has fallen disproportionately on the shoulders of Palestinian media workers.

“The phase of risking your life to show what’s happening is over now, and the phase of trying to survive has started,” 24-year-old Motaz Azaiza, who has been sharing what’s happening on the ground in Gaza since the beginning of Israel’s military campaign, wrote on his Instagram.

As of 5 December, 63 journalists and media workers were confirmed dead: 56 Palestinian, four Israeli, and three Lebanese, with a further 33 reported injured, missing or arrested, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

“The first month of the Israel-Gaza war is now the deadliest month for journalists since CPJ began documenting journalist fatalities in 1992,” the organisation wrote.

The charge on international journalists’ shoulders is layered. In an age of online influence operations, it is firstly one of fact-checking and professional due diligence.

In the face of conflicts where ‘neutrality’ is itself an increasingly active stance, it is one of examining confirmation biases built over years through personal experiences, national histories, and the echo chambers of our social media feeds.

With such extremes of human experience meted out daily onto our tiny screens, it is also one of self-protection and mitigating vicarious trauma. 

Succeeding in these charges – and staying sane in the process – is a fraught task. But it is increasingly urgent, for all our sakes.

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The Roundup

As EU ministers gather to discuss the proposed ‘Net-Zero Industry Act’ on Thursday, representatives of the European solar industry have warned against the European Parliament’s demand to exclude Chinese solar panels from solar auctions.

European citizens want the fight against poverty and the issue of social exclusion to top the European Parliament’s agenda ahead of next June’s EU elections, according to Eurobarometer, the bloc-wide survey carried out on behalf of EU institutions and published on Wednesday.

The European Commission’s proposal for an EU defence industry strategy is likely to include setting up and securing bloc-wide supply chains of defence products with mapping, monitoring, prioritisation of orders and facilitated intra-EU exports, according to a document seen by Euractiv.

Hungary’s ruling party submitted a resolution to parliament on Wednesday, calling on the government not to support the start of talks on Ukraine’s EU accession as Budapest steps up pressure on Brussels ahead of a crucial summit next week.

President Vladimir Putin was escorted to the Middle East by four Russian fighter jets on Wednesday for a rare trip abroad, during which he will discuss oil, Gaza and Ukraine with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Don’t miss this week’s Green Brief: COPping out; and this week’s Health Brief: Council wrapping up the 2023 health agenda.

Looking out for…

• COP28 ongoing until 12 December.
• Commission Vice President Vĕra Jourová receives Mircea Geoană, Deputy Secretary General of NATO, in Belgium on Thursday.
• Commission President Ursula von der Leyen participates in EU-China summit in Beijing Thursday.
• Eurogroup meets in Brussels Thursday.
• Competitiveness Council (Internal market and industry) meets in Brussels Thursday.

Views are the author’s

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic/Alice Taylor]