Media hypocrisy in Gaza and Ukraine

Truth is the first casualty of imperialist war.

The imperialist ruling class owns the corporate media. The government and the military serve that same class interest. It should be no surprise that when the politicians and generals lie, the media repeats it.

The contradiction the liars faced this July is that the U.S. has been supplying weapons in two major areas of conflict: Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza and NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. And the propaganda blitz of July 8-11 regarding an alleged attack on a hospital in Ukraine clashed with the daily genocide in Gaza that can be seen across social media.

According to reports, Russia launched 40 missiles on targets in Ukraine on July 8. That day an explosion destroyed part of a large hospital for children in Kiev. The July 9 New York Times reported 38 deaths from the missiles, 27 in Kiev and one death, a doctor, and 10 wounded in the hospital explosion.

Spokespeople for the Russian government denied that its military targeted the hospital. They said that debris from a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile fell on the building. A direct hit from a Russian missile would have destroyed the entire hospital, they added.

All U.S. corporate media — the major newspapers, the major television broadcasts — repeated on July 9-11 that the Russian military targeted the Kiev hospital. It was hardly reported that the Russian government denied this charge. Most articles led with misleading headlines that implied that all 38 Ukrainian deaths that day were at the hospital.

The most glaring contradiction, however, arises if you compare the fate of hospitals in Ukraine to those in Gaza. The U.S.-armed Israel Occupation Forces (IOF) have targeted Gaza hospitals for nine months, bombing and invading them, destroying equipment and murdering medical staff.

Already in March, some of the European medical staff who had been volunteering at Gaza hospitals said the Israeli forces had dismantled the entire health care system. On May 20, top officials of the European Commission — who are no friends of the Palestinians, let alone of the resistance organizations — said that 31 of the 36 hospitals in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. This included the large al-Shifa hospital, which the Israelis not only bombed but raided, destroying oxygen tanks and CT scanners.

And the World Health Organization said that since October 7, the IOF has carried out attacks on 890 health care facilities, 443 in Gaza and 447 in the West Bank.

It is a war crime to bomb hospitals, which are never legitimate military targets.

If Washington objected simply to attacks on hospitals or other health care facilities, we ask, why then haven’t the U.S. politicians and media exposed Israel’s wanton, mass destruction of the health care system that was serving Palestinians?

The answer is obvious: U.S. imperialism arms NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, and its corporate media will spread any attack on the Russian government, while U.S. imperialism arms the Israeli regime, considers it an ally not only in the Middle East but worldwide, so U.S. politicians and media refuse to condemn the IOF’s genocidal war on the Palestinians.

This double standard is another reminder that imperialism treats civilians, including children, as collateral damage in their wars of aggression and domination.