Skip to content
  • Image
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Youtube
  • Podcasts
  • Email
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Opinion
  • News
  • Features
  • Comment
  • Store
The Arab Daily News

The Arab Daily News

Original news, features, opinions from Chicago to Jerusalem

  • About
    • About
    • Our Writers
    • Subscribe to Ray’s Columns
    • Book Store
    • Contact
    • Submit Book Reviews, Press Releases
    • Advertise
    • Privacy Corrections Policy
    • Profile on Ray Hanania
    • Submit Press Release
  • Features
    • Food
    • Book Review
    • Humor
    • Movies
    • Travel
  • Arab Stores Targeted
  • Arab Community Network Page
    • Arab Community Network Page
    • Arab Heritage America resources
    • Directory
      • Groups & Organizations
      • Mosques, Churches
      • Restaurants
      • 2008 & 2014 Arab Media Directories
    • National Arab Heritage Month
    • Video: Chicago Arab History
    • Video: Photo Array of Chicago Arabs
    • Overview of Arabs in America
    • Hanania standup comedy
    • Arabs on the Titanic
    • Obituaries
  • Podcasts
    • Arab News Ray Hanania Radio
    • Ray Hanania on Politics Podcast
    • Podcast Info
    • Hanania Podcast intro
    • Live Arab Radio
  • Your Views
  • Hanania on Tiktok
  • Toggle search form
  • Arab Democratic Club Feb 12, 2023 Forum & Brunch flier
    Arab Democrats host forum for Chicago and suburban candidates Feb. 12 American Arabs
  • The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced Dr. Manal Fakhoury has been elected to the position of Chair of the National Board of Directors, and that attorneys Spojmie Nasiri of California and John Floyd of Texas have joined the organization’s National Board.
    CAIR Announces Dr. Manal Fakhoury as New Board Chair, New Board Members Spojmie Nasiri and John Floyd American Arabs
  • AHRC Executive Director Imad Hamad
    AHRC: Honor Dr. King Day with Civility, Unity, and Action American Arabs
  • Citgo Gas Station and Quik Mart at 3759 W. Chicago Ave in Chicago ordered closed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot because a street gang member with an AK-47 killed someone in front of the store. Only Arab and Muslim stores are being closed by the Mayor
    When Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot targeted Arab businesses in 2021 and 2022 Activism
  • Hussam al-Mayman, The Mayman Show, podcast Arab News
    Arab News launches third season of The Mayman Show podcast Arab News
  • State Rep. Cyril Nichols interviewed on live Arab American radio in Detroit with host Ray Hanania Friday Dec. 9, 2022
    Nichols discusses need to improve Arab-Black relations in Chicagoland American Arabs
  • Voting sticker issued to voters in Cook County elections in 2016. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania
    Gov. Pritzker Announces Six Appointments to Boards and Commissions — no Arabs included American Arabs
  • Closure notice posted on the doors and windows of Arab American businesses during Mayor Lori Lightfoot's closure of Arab owned stores in June - Sept. 2021. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania
    Pritzker again ignores needs of Arab businesses in latest appointments Activism
  • Arab American Democratic Club (AADC) official candidate endorsements for the November 8, 2022 General elections.
    Arab American Democratic Club issues endorsements for Nov. 8, 2022 Cook County Illinois elections Activism
  • Arab Democrats urge NO VOTE on Gov. J.B. Pritzker re-election bid Activism
  • Assyrian American GOP issues endorsements in Nov, 8, 2022 elections
    Assyrian American GOP group endorses candidates in Illinois Activism
  • Abdullah Hammoud, elected Mayor of Dearborn Nov. 2, 2021. Photo courtesy of Abdullah Hammoud Facebook Page
    AHRC’s 2022 Spirit of Humanity Gala a Great Success American Arabs
  • Interlink 2022 Cookbooks Make the Best Holiday Gifts
    Interlink 2022 Cookbooks Make the Best Holiday Gifts Arab World
  • Rep. Cyril Nichols to be feted by supporters at fundraiser Saturday Oct. 22 Activism
  • Stand up For Human Rights website, United Nations
    UN experts condemn Israel’s ‘sadistic’ punitive measures against French-Palestinian rights defender Salah Hammouri Activism
راى حنانيا. Ray Hanania

American news media exploits Khashoggi torture-killing for their own agenda

Posted on October 19, 2018October 19, 2018 By rayhanania No Comments on American news media exploits Khashoggi torture-killing for their own agenda
SHARE ...
          
 
  

  • Tweet

American news media exploits Khashoggi torture-killing for their own agenda

The mainstream American news media plays a hypocritical role in managing partisan views of the Middle East and the Arab World. Criticism of the Arab World is heightened but criticism of Israel is suppressed and often whitewashed. The coverage of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi is a good example. Khashoggi’s killing has dominated the news media coverage for two weeks, during which coverage of the killings of Palestinians by Israel has been downplayed, marginalized or not reported at all.

By Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania
راى حنانيا
Ray Hanania

A recent story in the New York Times inadvertently raises issues about the hypocrisy of the mainstream news media in championing the details of the tragic torture-murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

The story, published Wednesday, was headlined “How One Journalist’s Death Provoked a Backlash That Thousands Dead in Yemen Did Not.” But as a Palestinian and former journalist who has been a longtime critic of American news media bias, I see it differently.

The mainstream American news media picks and chooses it’s outrageous very carefully. When Khashoggi was a Saudi Royal Family insider, he was just another of the cacophony of voices often ignored by the American press. But when he broke with the Royal Family and became one of their most vociferous critics, suddenly they embraced him, and the Washington Post hired him.

The media hypocrisy is obvious. But the mainstream American news media doesn’t stop there, as the New York Times did in selectively conflating Khashoggi’s horrible and outrageous killing at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul Turkey on Oct. 2, 2018.

The New York Times, and much of the American news media, has been hinting at the same message: The Arab World is a dangerous place where inhumane torture a bounds and the killing of civilians is a daily occurrence. And yet, they seem to draw a protective circle around one Middle East country, excluding it from similar assertions, Israel.

The New York Times headline could just as easily have been “How One Journalist’s Death Provoked a Backlash That Thousands Dead in Israel Did Not.” That would have more accurately described how Israel has turned the murder of Palestinian civilians into a National Pursuit, which the media has turned a mostly or limited blind eye.

There are ways to kill people in the Middle East if you want to avoid intensive mainstream news media scrutiny, and it’s not just Arab governments who are involved. Israel is the one Middle East nation that seems to be above mainstream American news media scrutiny when it comes to cruelty, murder and horrendous killings.

Although leaked details from Turkey paint a horrendous picture of Khashoggi’s torture and murder, the end result of murder is all the same. Does it really matter if a government torture’s someone to death or indiscriminately shoots someone in the back of the head?

The Israelis have mastered the art of de-criminalizing murder, using several strategies that work. That’s how Israel manages to escape mainstream American new media scrutiny in its constant human rights abuses.

Why kill someone when it is enough to destroy their home, destroy their life, deny their existence and bury them away in a detention camp someplace in the middle of the Negev Desert.

You don’t need to be cruel to achieve your goal. The Israelis have taught the world much about how to murder innocent civilians and get away with it, if you have the complicity of the mainstream American news media.

Put out a press release in English that denounces the victim as a “terrorist.” Accuse of the victim of plotting some outrageous act of violence. Don’t worry about the facts. The accusation and headline are enough.

Give the murder process a fancy name, especially one that sounds like it has legal standing in the International Rule of Law. Something like, “extra-judicial killing.” “Extra-judicial killing” actually sounds like it is a legalized form of human rights protection that involves “extra” concern for justice and the International Rule of Law, apparently to the mainstream America news media which reports on the incidents as if they are justified.

When fancy labels don’t work, all Israel does is call its victims “terrorists.” If the victim is in Gaza, expand the label with the word “Hamas.” Oh yea, “Hamas terrorist” sounds really bad, justifying the murder, right?

The number of labels Israel uses to accommodate American news media complicity is endless. For Israel, managing murder isn’t about stalling, as the Saudis seem to be doing, but rather about defining phrases to accommodate the mainstream American news media’s blindness to Palestinian suffering.

Israel disguises murder for the Western media applying the phrase “human shield.” That’s how they described the killing of Razan al-Najjer who was shot to death by an Israeli soldier sniper along the Gaza border, along with hundreds of other civilians, as she was trying to provide medical attention. Toss in another powerful label, “Hamas operative,” and even the murder of a first responder helping the injured won’t raise mainstream American news media ire.

Another is “collective punishment” which suggests the persons brutalized deserve the violence. The term “collective” is used to disguise the massive extent of the process by which Israel uses to destroy the lives of Palestinians.

Sometimes, you don’t have to actually kill someone to destroy them. All you have to do is take their home, take their lands, expel them, deny them the ability to put food on their table, jail them and shut them up for six to eight months without habeas corpus, an American legal term referring to the right to a public trial.

Then use the labels. Assert that the victims are related to a “terrorist” and that they enabled the terrorist because they are the mother, the father, the sister, the brother. Maybe the infant child. Throw them to the street and watch their lives fall apart slowly but deliberately.

Finally, strip the victims of any and all humanity. Don’t refer to them by name. Don’t provide details of their “life.” Just keep the victims obscured under the various labels like Terrorist, Human Shield, Extra-judicial killing, and terrorist. You can’t over use the word “terrorist” when demonizing opponents.

Instead, provide extensive personal details about the lives, family and loves and wants of the person you are protecting, like the poor Israeli soldier who felt the Palestinian terrorist stabber killer lying on the ground was a threat. Show him with his mother, relatives. Let people into his life, living in fear of Palestinian terrorism.

I know it is hard to believe. But this works. Just ask Israel.

(Ray Hanania is an award-winning Palestinian American syndicated columnist who covered Chicago City Hall and American for more than three decades. His personal website is www.Hanania.com. Email him at rghanania@gmail.com. This column was first published in the Middle East Monitor.)

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
rayhanania
rayhanania
Op-Ed writer, author, radio host, podcaster at The Arab Daily News
RAY HANANIA — Op-Ed writer, author, radio host, podcaster

Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.

Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).

Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.

Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.

His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.

Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.

Click here to send Ray Hanania email.

Follow RayHanania on Gettr.com, the uncensored Twitter Ray Hanania on Gettr, the new Twitter
rayhanania
Latest posts by rayhanania (see all)
  • Israeli-push behind effort to ban Tiktok in the United States - January 19, 2023
  • Arab Democrats host forum for Chicago and suburban candidates Feb. 12 - January 18, 2023
  • CAIR Announces Dr. Manal Fakhoury as New Board Chair, New Board Members Spojmie Nasiri and John Floyd - January 12, 2023

  • Tweet

SHARE ...
          
 
  
 
          
 
 Tweet 
Arab World, Bloggers, Commentary, Gulf States, Israel, Journalism, Media Bias, Middle East, Middle East Monitor, Opinion, Palestine & Jordan, Politics, Ray Hanania Tags:collective punishment, criticizing Arab World, defending Israel, extra-judicial killing, Gaza Strip, human rights violatons, human shields, Jamal Khashoggi, killing civilians, media bias, murder, Palestinians Israeli snipers

Post navigation

Previous Post: Saudi leaders acknowledge role in death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi
Next Post: Illinois legislator introduces law to recognize Arab Heritage month in April

Related Posts

  • President Trump at UN Sept 25 2018. Photo courtesy of the United Nations
    Healing the Nation after Trump Bloggers
  • Palestinian Film “The Wanted 18” speaks to Israeli occupation American Arabs
  • Film on Israel-Palestine wins Best Documentary in Pasadena American Arabs
  • Ruthless Thanksgiving this year with politics as side dish American Arabs
  • The Crone, Iraq and a Cool Cat American Arabs
  • CNN’s Chris Cuomo pressed Netanyahu on Israel’s WMD and Slipped in The Truth Arab World

More Related Articles

migrants, refugees, mother with child. Creative Commons license, free Migrants Asking for Protection, Aid not Five-Star lodging Abdennour Toumi
The State of American Souls, Must See TV and Trumpism Bloggers
Why Smith defeated Tlaib in Michigan legislative Democratic primary American Arabs
US Navy 030507-N-1050K-031 From left, Kuwait Defense Minister Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak al-Sabah completes a troop review and inspection with Commander, Kuwait Naval Forces, Maj. Gen. Ahmed Y. al-Mulla during the Sheikh (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Trump reinforces relations with Arab World American Arabs
Syrian Journalist Halla Barakat and her mother found murdered in their apartment in Turkey. Photo courtesy of Orient News English website Syrian journalist murdered with mother in Turkey Arab World
Daniel earl, murdered in Karachi, Pakistan in 2002. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Blinken condemns Pakistan decision to acquit killers of Daniel Pearl Arab World

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

  • OPINION COLUMNS
  • Tiktok.com/@RayHanania
    Israeli-push behind effort to ban Tiktok in the United States
    January 19, 2023
  • Ghassan Rubeiz
    To what extent is Hezbollah responsible for the current crisis in Lebanon?
    January 17, 2023
  • Image from Rashid-al-Din Hamadani's "A Compendium of Chronicles. Image courtesy of Wikipedia
    Why allow religious extremists to re-define Islam in the West?
    January 10, 2023
  • CAIR Executive Director and co-founder Nihad Awad
    This Thanksgiving, let’s use our Blessings for good
    November 23, 2022
  • NEWS
  • Arab Democratic Club Feb 12, 2023 Forum & Brunch flier
    Arab Democrats host forum for Chicago and suburban candidates Feb. 12
    January 18, 2023
  • The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced Dr. Manal Fakhoury has been elected to the position of Chair of the National Board of Directors, and that attorneys Spojmie Nasiri of California and John Floyd of Texas have joined the organization’s National Board.
    CAIR Announces Dr. Manal Fakhoury as New Board Chair, New Board Members Spojmie Nasiri and John Floyd
    January 12, 2023
  • AHRC Executive Director Imad Hamad
    AHRC: Honor Dr. King Day with Civility, Unity, and Action
    January 11, 2023
  • Citgo Gas Station and Quik Mart at 3759 W. Chicago Ave in Chicago ordered closed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot because a street gang member with an AK-47 killed someone in front of the store. Only Arab and Muslim stores are being closed by the Mayor
    When Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot targeted Arab businesses in 2021 and 2022
    January 4, 2023
  • NEWSWIRE
  • Arab Democratic Club Feb 12, 2023 Forum & Brunch flier
    Arab Democrats host forum for Chicago and suburban candidates Feb. 12
    January 18, 2023
  • The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced Dr. Manal Fakhoury has been elected to the position of Chair of the National Board of Directors, and that attorneys Spojmie Nasiri of California and John Floyd of Texas have joined the organization’s National Board.
    CAIR Announces Dr. Manal Fakhoury as New Board Chair, New Board Members Spojmie Nasiri and John Floyd
    January 12, 2023
  • AHRC Executive Director Imad Hamad
    AHRC: Honor Dr. King Day with Civility, Unity, and Action
    January 11, 2023
  • Stand up For Human Rights website, United Nations
    UN experts condemn Israel’s ‘sadistic’ punitive measures against French-Palestinian rights defender Salah Hammouri
    October 19, 2022

Creative Commons License
All work on this website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Do not edit original work. Give credit to the original source.

  • ZiyadBrandLogo-2016BlackRedBackgrnd.jpg
  • 08-09-21-Ziyad-Ad-Pantry-essentials.jpg
  • 08-09-21-Ziyad-Sices-Ad.jpg
  • BOOK REVIEWS
  • Interlink 2022 Cookbooks Make the Best Holiday Gifts
    Interlink 2022 Cookbooks Make the Best Holiday Gifts
    October 24, 2022
  • Stories My Father Told Me by author and artist Helen Zughaib, book cover. Photo courtesy of Cune Press
    Stories My Father Told Me by author and artist Helen Zughaib
    November 1, 2021
  • ENTERTAINMENT
  • Hussam al-Mayman, The Mayman Show, podcast Arab News
    Arab News launches third season of The Mayman Show podcast
    December 15, 2022
  • Interlink 2022 Cookbooks Make the Best Holiday Gifts
    Interlink 2022 Cookbooks Make the Best Holiday Gifts
    October 24, 2022
  • Comedian Ramy Youssef courtesy of his Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ramysfaceboo/
    “Ramy” cable series melds Arab world reality with every day American life
    October 22, 2022
  • The Ray Hanania Radio Show Live Wed 5 PM EST in Detroit, Washington DC, Ontario and on Thursday in Chicago. Watch the program live at Facebook.com/ArabNews
    Second Season of “The Ray Hanania Show” Arab American radio launches April 6
    April 4, 2022
  • American Arab CHamber President HassanNijem accepts the Proclamation from Chicago Ald. Roderick Sawyer at the Chamber dinner March 30, 2022
    Chicagoland celebrates Arab American Heritage Month
    March 31, 2022
  • New-iTunes-1400-x-1400-The-Ray-Hanania-Show-Podcast-Icon-300-x-300.jpg
  • The-Kings-Pawn-Book-300-x-300.png
  • terroristbookcover-300-x-300.jpg
  • powerpr300x300ad.jpg
  • Podcast-iTunes-Logo-Chi-City-Hall-1985.jpg
Arab News Newspaper Logo
Read the Arab News, the leading English language newspaper in the MIddle East

Follow Ray Hanania at Gab.com, MeWe.com and IDobbinate.com, the alternatives to Facebook and Twitter Censorship.

Click here to get information on The Ray Hanania Radio Show and its podcasts

Copyright © 2023 The Arab Daily News.

Powered by PressBook Premium theme