Before Chris Hedges could even deliver his speech on the silencing and betrayal of Palestinian journalists, the National Press Club of Australia cancelled the Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent’s invitation. Last week he delivered the speech anyway, at an event in Sydney.
He started by saying his talk wasn’t sponsored by Raytheon Australia, Thales, Lockheed Martin, Amazon Web Services, Deloitte or Mastercard, all companies who work with the genocidal Israeli government (and also corporate members of the National Press Club).
Hedges identified two types of war correspondents; those who refuse to accept the official line and will take any risk to reveal the truth, and those who stay safe and ‘slavishly disseminate whatever they are fed by officials – much of which is a lie – and pretend it is news.’
He said the second type (and their political and corporate masters) tend to publicly attack the first type, who are in the tiny minority, with the dividing line between the two types of journalists existing in every war he has covered.
It’s worth remembering that very few people have reported from as many war zones as Chris Hedges, and most of those are now dead.
Regarding the media’s reporting on the genocide in Gaza, Hedges said, ‘It is not a divide of professionalism or culture. Palestinian reporters expose Israeli atrocities and implode Israeli lies. The rest of the press does not.’
One result of this situation has been the murder of more than 245 journalists.
Grim numbers
‘Since October 7, Israel has killed more journalists than the US Civil War, World Wars I and II , the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the conflicts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan combined,’ he said.
Hedges then relayed personal stories of his journalist friends and their families being murdered, their blue helmets and press jackets providing no protection, but making them targets.
He described a recent video made by his friend Salman al-Bashir, Palestinian TV network’s correspondent in Gaza, as he reported live on the killing of fellow journalist and friend Mohammed Abu Hatab, along with his family of ten.
“‘Here we are victims losing our lives one after another at no cost.’ (Salman removes the chin strap of his helmet and takes the helmet off). ‘We are waiting for our turn, one after another.’ (Salman undoes his flak jacket, lets it drop to the ground.) ‘We can’t take it anymore,’ he says. “We’re exhausted. Here we become martyrs. It is only a matter of time. No one sees us or the size of this catastrophe. No one sees the crime we are experiencing in Gaza.'”
Chris Hedges was scathing about Western journalists who repeated obvious Israeli lies about Palestinian journalists being terrorists, despite evidence to the contrary.
‘My colleague, Clyde Haberman of The New York Times once said that I would parachute into any war with or without a parachute,’ he said. ‘I have obvious personality defects, but I fault those who pretend to be war correspondents. They do tremendous damage. They peddle false narratives. They mask reality. They serve as witting or unwitting propagandists.
‘They discredit the voices of the victims and exonerate the killers. They betray those who take great risks to report the truth.’
Ground truth
Hedges reminded his audience it was the duty of journalists to investigate reality and not simply accept the claims of governments, whether in El Salvador, Iraq, the Sudan or Israel.
‘The slander used to discredit my Palestinian colleagues claiming they are members of Hamas is sadly familiar. Many Palestinian reporters I know in Gaza are, in fact, quite critical of Hamas,’ he continued, noting that it was a violation of Article 79 of the Geneva Convention to murder those who were aligned with the al-Aqsa media network.
‘I’ve worked with reporters and photographers who had a wide variety of beliefs, including Marxist Leninists in Central America. This did not prevent them from being honest,’ he said.
‘I was in Bosnia and Kosovo with a Spanish cameraman, Miguel Gil Morena, who was later killed with my friend Kurt Schork. Miguel was a member of the right-wing Catholic group Opus Dei. He was also a journalist of tremendous courage, great compassion and moral probity, despite his opinions about Spain’s fascist ruler Francisco Franco. He did not lie.’
‘In every war I covered, I was attacked as supporting or belonging to whatever group the government – including the U.S. government – was seeking to crush.’
Chris Hedges said Israel bans the foreign press from entering the Gaza war zone because there’s a bias in Europe and the United States in favor of work from Western reporters.
‘Israel is aware that the scale of the genocide is too vast for Western outlets to hide or obscure, despite all the ink and airtime they give to Israeli and U.S. apologists. Israel also cannot continue its systematic campaign of annihilation of journalists in Gaza if it has to contend with foreign media in its midst,’ he said.
Lies worthy of Pravda
‘Israeli lies amplified by Western media outlets – including my former employer The New York Times – are worthy of Pravda,’ Hedges continued.
‘Beheaded babies. Babies cooked in ovens. Mass rape by Hamas. Errant Palestinian rockets that cause explosions at hospitals and massacre civilians. Secret command tunnels and command centers in schools and hospitals. Journalists who direct Hamas rocket units. Protestors of the genocide on college campuses who are anti-Semites and supporters of Hamas…
‘I covered the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis, much of that time in Gaza, for seven years. If there is one indisputable fact, it is that Israel lies like it breathes. The decision by Western reporters to give credibility to these lies, to give them the same weight as documented Israeli atrocities, is a cynical game,’ said Hedges.
‘The reporters know these lies are lies. But they, and the news outlets that employ them, prize access — in this case access to Israeli and U.S. officials — above truth. The reporters, as well as their editors and publishers, fear becoming targets of Israel and the powerful Israel lobby. There is no cost for betraying the Palestinians. They are powerless.’
In closing, Chris Hedges didn’t pull his punches. ‘The barrage of Israeli lies amplified and given credibility by the Western press violates a fundamental tenet of journalism; the duty to transmit the truth to the viewer or reader. It legitimises mass slaughter. It refuses to hold Israel to account.
‘It betrays Palestinian journalists, those reporting and being killed in Gaza, and it exposes the bankruptcy of Western journalists whose primary attributes are careerism and cowardice.’
Chris Hedges has made this complete speech available on his YouTube channel. Watch it and be reminded what real journalism is about, in a world that often seems to have forgotten.
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
You can find more of his writing at Patreon and Gumroad.
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