While the world is on fire, the media are still obsessed with Israel
No one likes to think they’re being hysterical. And nothing makes hysterical people angrier than being described as such. So, let me offer my apologies in advance for what follows.
Jeremy Musighi, an independent researcher, recently released a study analyzing 14.7 million news articles published across 65 languages over the last decade. He found that, in 2024, news outlets published “more than twice as many stories about Israel as about all 48 countries of sub-Saharan Africa combined.”
Given that many countries focus on Israel to distract from their own problems, that’s not that shocking. But Musighi also found that, “On American cable news, Israel was the most-mentioned country- ahead of Iran, Russia, Ukraine, China. On the BBC’s news channel, 1 in every 17 broadcast minutes mentioned Israel.”
One might argue that given Israel’s recent actions, it earned such coverage. But Israel gets wildly disproportionate coverage in peacetime too. In 2019, long before the war in Gaza, “1 of every 112 news articles on Earth — from all the world’s outlets minus Israel’s — was primarily about Israel. 1.8 million international articles mentioned it.”
Now, I have reservations about Musighi’s methodology, given how media outlets recycle and syndicate content. But rather than wade into the statistics, for argument’s sake let’s just cut all of his findings in half. That would still be hard to defend rationally.
Also, this says nothing of the quality of the reporting. If it was objective, the quantity wouldn’t matter much. But a sizable portion is objectively anti-Israel, often taking Hamas’ claims at face value. When Hamas shrieked that Gaza was on the brink of famine, the Western press breathlessly repeated the claim, which was utterly false.
In a recent interview on Taqarrab, an Arab-language podcast, acclaimed photo “journalist” Motaz Azaiza admitted that he refused to publish images of Hamas abuses — to protect the abusers. The New York Times’ Nick Kristoff launched weeks of coverage with the claim that Israelis train dogs to rape Palestinians. American media covered the controversy over Macklemore’s criticisms of Israel like a free speech martyr.
In fairness, a lot of coverage is driven by news, like when the United Nations condemns Israel, which it has done 187 times since 2015 — nearly six times more often than it has condemned Russia, and 17 times more often than Iran or North Korea.
Founded in 1948, modern Israel is middle-aged as countries go.
Look at a list of 195 countries in order of their founding date and Israel ranks somewhere between the 85th- and 90th-oldest (if we acknowledge biblical Israel, then it’s the fourth-oldest nation in the world). And yet many talk about Israel as if it’s a sort of recent mistake, easily remedied, like outgoing mail that hasn’t been picked up yet.
Israel is only slightly older than modern Tibet, which was, according to the Chinese government, “liberated” in 1951. Many Tibetans use the term “occupied.”
We don’t hear much about “occupied Tibet” from people fixated on the evils of occupation. Nor do we hear about China’s system of apartheid- another charge casually hurled at Israel. Nor do we hear about China’s genocidal policies toward the Muslim minority Uyghur population in Xinjiang. The charge of cultural genocide is irrefutable, but there’s also strong evidence of more literal genocide thanks to the regime’s violent and coercive reproduction policies, slashing birthrates in half.
Nor do we hear much about China’s policy of settler-colonialism in Tibet and Xinjiang, where Han Chinese are incentivized to migrate as part of the regime’s policy of “sinicization.” I think China’s pretty powerful, but criticizing Israel, according to the popular online streamer Hasan Piker (who will not condemn China), is “speaking truth to power.”
To that end, we hear a lot about Israel’s occupation, settler-colonization and genocide. We don’t have the space to contend with all of these charges, so for the sake of brevity and reasonableness let’s concede, for now, the first two. Besides, it’s the false genocide charge that fuels anti-Israel obsessions more than any other. The claim is more than 40 years old. And yet, since the founding of Israel, the Palestinian population has grown more than fivefold.
When you hear that Israeli genocide proves Israelis are the “new Nazis” keep in mind that the Holocaust killed 2 out of every 3 European Jews.
A new documentary, “Naza,” that purports to prove that Israel is committing genocide bases its claim on the fact that Israel goes to great lengths to track collateral damage. Never mind that there’s no such thing as collateral damage when you intend genocide.
It should take the average reader five minutes to read this column. When “Naza” debuted at the Venice Film Festival this month, the audience’s standing ovation lasted five times as long. That, I’m sorry to tell you, is a sign of hysteria.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.