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Abstract
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On Oct 27, 2023, a day after Richard Horton's Offline was published online, the telephone lines fell silent in Gaza.
Available information suggests that the night of Oct 27 saw the most intense Israeli bombardment of Gaza since Oct 7, 2023. During this spiralling situation, we read Horton's Offline with shock and confusion. Horton describes a "worsening humanitarian crisis" in Gaza with a death toll "over 5000 and rising" (which is now over 10 300 in Gaza alone). He also refers to the atrocities committed by the military wing of Hamas and other armed groups on Oct 7, including the taking of hundreds of hostages.
We fully agree that violence against civilians should be condemned, irrespective of the perpetrator. Horton also seeks to condemn an "asymmetry of outrage".1
We echo this sentiment but have drawn different conclusions of where and how this asymmetry has developed, with reference to persistent anti-Palestinian bias in reporting across influential media outlets, both in the past month, and extending across several decades.
Of even greater concern are Horton's unsubstantiated claims that medical clinics in Gaza are "adorned with pictures of [Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden]".1
This bizarre and dangerously timed statement risks encouraging people who seek to cause violence and attack essential health services. This claim is also inconsistent in the eyes of the authors and signatories of this Correspondence, who have decades of experience visiting health facilities in Palestine (and specifically Gaza) and have never come across such images...
Language: en |