Netanyahu and the extermination of journalists

The targeted and intentional assassination of five Al Jazeera journalists once again demonstrates the Israeli government's lack of moral compass (or respect for international law). Even war has a series of rules, and one of the most essential is that journalists should not be military targets. Reporters' ability to report and testify is essential to denounce the failure to comply with conventions in times of conflict. The systematic eradication of media professionals shows how Netanyahu refuses cameras or microphones on the eve of the occupation of Gaza City.

To perpetrate these murders, a bit of narrative is necessary. In that case, Anas Al Sharif was accused of being a Hamas terrorist, but Israel has provided no evidence to support this claim. This correspondent, who spent long days from dawn to dusk showing the horrors of Gaza on camera, could have engaged in little terrorist activity: hardly anyone had their daily work so thoroughly documented. In fact, the Committee to Protect Journalists, founded by the legendary Walter Cronkite, warned a month ago of the smear campaign aimed at Al-Sharif and expressed concern—justifiably, as we have seen—for his physical safety. More journalists have already died in the Gaza war than during the two world wars: Vietnam, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan, according to a study by the Costs of War project at Brown University. Numerically and emotionally, it cannot be compared with the equally systematic massacre of children and the hunger campaign with which Netanyahu will be associated for centuries to come. But preventing access to the international press and silencing local reporters—whom we have all left too alone—by the most expeditious means is the necessary lever to commit the rest of the atrocities.