'Genocide Unfolding’: Social Media Exposing Israeli Narrative, US Scholar Says
The Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, which have killed more than 21,000 people in 12 weeks, are a "genocide unfolding" that is being documented "minute by minute" by international media outlets, Professor Hatim Bazian said.
“This is the first time in the history where we actually have a minute by minute documentation of a genocide unfolding,” Bazian, who lectures at the University of California, Berkeley, told Anadolu Agency in an interview published on Saturday.
He said journalists reporting from Gaza, despite censorship and restrictions on pro-Palestinian content on social media, have become the "eyes and the witnesses" of the atrocities committed by Israel against the civilian population.
“We are going to have millions and millions, if not billions, of data, minute by minute, second by second, of this unfolding genocide. We're going to have minute by minute the destruction of these apartment buildings, with civilians living in their midst and collapsing them," he said.
Bazian, who is also the founder and president of the American Muslims for Palestine, one of the prominent Muslim civil society groups in the US, said mainstream media in the US tends to be pro-Israel due to its dependence on the Israeli army as a news source, resulting in the spread of the Israeli narrative and overshadowing the stories of Palestinians.
However, he said, this was challenged by the social media space, where the Palestinian narrative was amplified by many people who joined and wrote about what they were seeing coming to them directly.
“So, we could see a difference between mainstream versus the social media,” he added.
He said this impact on social media has also exerted pressure on the US government, forcing politicians to make changes in policies and rhetoric.
Since the start of the aggression, Israel has killed more than 21,600 Palestinians, mostly women and children. It has also imposed a complete siege on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
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Bazian also spoke at the largest Muslim NGO congress in the US, organized twice a year by the Muslim American Society (MAS) and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), where he stressed the importance of social media in making the voice of Palestinians heard globally.
He highlighted the risk of legal repercussions under terrorism laws for posts made on social media accounts of organizations and entities classified as terrorist in the US, and recommended sharing content from reliable news sources instead.
He emphasized the importance of verifying emotionally impactful content from two or three sources, and said sharing misinformation should not cast a shadow over the just cause of Palestine.
Source: Agencies
