The Cycle Repeats itself

Today I am full of rage and pain and exhaustion. Mine is a generation of broken promises. Promises of hope, of equality and equity, of peace and prosperity. When I was fourteen my country, in response to the September 11th attacks in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, went to war in two countries, one of which was partially involved, and one of which had no involvement at all. At the same time, we rolled back civil liberties, increased military funding, and pushed our political rhetoric further to the right. We dug deeper into political aggression on a global scale, doubled down as the worlds police, and re-entrenched conflict in the middle east, as it seems we must every decade or two, to ensure neo-liberalism and modern capitalism can survive an attempted domestic overthrow.

It is easy for some to forget that George W. Bush lost the popular vote, and should have lost the election, to a man who became the face of climate reform for much of the next twenty years. Al Gore was a threat to Big Oil and under regulated industrialism in the year 2000 in a way that, in hindsight, makes the repetition of the cycle today all the more obvious in its compression.

In response to the Inflation Reduction Act, the Trump administration ran on unwinding regulations around coal, fracking, and offshore drilling, while their advocates spread spurious ideas about the risks of wind, the dangers of China in the solar industry, and the miraculous speed with which the US could localize its own energy production industry from start to finish. But the reaction from all sectors to the latest spending bill, the bill that is only “Big” in its growth of the deficit, and only “Beautiful” in its destructive force, has been markedly negative. Cuts in funding to new energy programs, when taken with the trade wars the Trump administration has already started, will be incredibly harmful to US energy production, especially in Republican aligned states like North Carolina. At the same time, environmentalists and energy investors find themselves agreeing that that push for US coal investment makes no sense. Aside from the ecological drawbacks, it simply lacks financial viability in the short or long term.

And so, as the planet races ever faster toward temperature thresholds we may never come back from, the choice is clear. We must once more sacrifice the Fertile Crecent to the alter of Western Colonial convenience, the genocide in Gaza no longer being sufficient to pull our attention from the dangers here at home. President Trump launched a strike on Iran, during a declared diplomatic window, without the support of Congress or the people of the United States, and it feels so much like I am fourteen again. But timelines are compressed. The recession is almost here; we will not have six years of war and wondering before it comes. But we can look back at this history and start to be ready.

We are called now more than ever to support and protect our neighbors. The Latinx communities have been hit hardest by ICE so far, but just as we need to protect them, just as we have been protecting our Palestinian families and those raising their voices loudest, we must now be ready to stand up for all Muslim communities, because they will be targeted next, no matter their “status” under US law. We must hold our supposed political allies accountable. While they are not perfect bedfellows, we need loud voices in as many places as possible. We must prepare for retaliation and be mindful and temperate in our responses. The US is the aggressor in this conflict. This aggression is meant to illicit a response, so that further action can be taken. We must focus on defending our communities, neighbors, families, friends, from the blowback of this unnecessary but purposeful conflict.

It is hard to be back here twenty some years later. But we are more awake now. We are no longer children. We can be ready for what the Trump Administration will try to justify under all of this. Mine is a generation of broken promises. Promises of hope, of equality and equity, of peace and prosperity. We can at least promise not to let things play out the same way again.

Media and the Crisis in Gaza

December 11, 2023

In war, we see reporting about troop movements, battle lines, tactics, and displacements – global news media reports on ongoing offensive and defensive actions from military actors. However, in Israel’s bombing and invasion of Gaza, there is little reporting on mainstream western news outlets, such as BBC and CNN, on Hamas’ top movements or tactics, beyond their initial attack. The one notable exception is the week long negotiation of hostage exchanges, and an apparent openness to continued negotiations. We hear a lot about tunnels and historical violence, but because of this lack of reporting on specific military movements by Hamas, the reporting inadvertently implies is that this is a one-sided conflict. This is a conflict with two fronts. While the eyes of the world are on the bombing of Gaza and the Israeli government’s steady push to occupy the city from north to south, there is increasing military activity through detention of Palestinians by Israeli police and an increased IDF presence in the West Bank.

Simultaneously, the media has presented a significant asymmetry in how it has portrayed dissent within the Israeli and Palestinian communities. At the same time that we are hearing horror stories about Palestinian civilian casualties, we are also hearing the reaction: dissent from Israeli citizens and the Jewish community around the world, and an increasing level of support for the Palestinian people. To their credit, many news outlets are doing their best to distinguish between the Israeli government, Israeli citizens, and the Jewish communities around the globe, as well as Hamas and the citizens of Palestine.

Ingrained Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment remain pervasive in how news media is covering this crisis. And while antisemitic attacks are on the rise, we’re seeing a parallel increase in anti-Islamic violence and discrimination. This is often worsened by news media and talking heads conflating Zionism with Judaism, and anti-Zionism with antisemitism, which we are seeing play out in the coverage of protests, teacher, and faculty statements at universities like Harvard and Columbia. This parallels a negative argument established primarily by American news media and western politicians in the months and years following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, that Jihadism and Islam are synonymous, and that to support Muslim communities is to support terrorists. Again, while some activists in anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian communities have made antisemitic comments, many if not most activist organizations have pushed the distinction between the Israeli government, Israeli citizens, and Jewish communities around the world. These same groups have called out the blurring of the line between

Palestinian civilians and Hamas. All of which is reinforced by the number of vocal Jewish and Israeli groups who are fighting for an end the current occupation and offensive, many of whom have long opposed the circumstances Palestinians have lived in for decades.

As we have seen over the last two decades, conflating extremist movements within ideological or faith groups is often inaccurate, and leads to acts of hate against innocent Jews, Muslims, and activists around the world. It also plays directly into the narratives that extremist and hate groups, like Hamas and the Taliban, want to portray. The othering of whole communities based on their extremes drives members of those communities away from shared spaces. In this way, western news coverage of conflicts like the escalation between the Israeli government and Hamas primarily serves Hamas in the long term. The more alienated Israelis and Palestinians feel, the more separated Jewish and Muslim communities become around the world, the more antagonistic rhetoric and then behavior becomes, the easier it is for Hamas to recruit, develop partnerships amongst similarly minded governments, and the defensive, reactive, and isolated Israel becomes from many of its neighbors and an increasingly progressive youth amongst its populous. The same progressive age groups across Europe and North America are echoing their descent, and recognizing the intersectionality of the conflict across issues of human rights, climate justice, and military proliferation. This is increasingly apparent, as reports from COP28 and the climate resolution placed before the UN seem to align with suspicions that US support of Israel’s occupation is at least in part tied to natural gas reserves off of the Gaza coast.

While reporting on war always includes images of atrocities and carnage, whether in action or in aftermath, we are seeing more of the pain and suffering of the Palestinian people and the devastation of Gaza as it is happening. We are seeing similarly disturbing images from the October 7th attack by Hamas, and often hearing accounts from survivors and the families of victims. This is desperately important for our understanding of the unfolding crisis, even as it pushes against our ability to continually consume news media, including social media, without experiencing negative emotional consequences or becoming desensitized to these images. And when we look at ongoing global responses to conflicts in Sudan, Myanmar, and Tunisia, or ongoing human rights crises in Xinjiang, Afghanistan, Brazil, and others this type of reporting has an impact. Reporting on the oppression and encampment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, like interviews with survivors on the conditions within the camps, and drone footage demonstrating their staggering size and scope had consequences, including blowback against Disney’s live action Mulan, and pressure on multinational companies to pull back production associated with those camps. But this didn’t last.

When we look at the long-term impact, news media and our attention spans were not able to maintain the state of outrage and pressure required to end the crisis, only to mitigate how much we think we are complicit in them. We have seen this play out in corporate greenwashing, token DE&I efforts, responses to police violence, child labor in mining, the impact of social media on teenagers…the list truly does go on. Meanwhile, these stories sell when they are novel, when something outstanding or extreme occurs, but often the news cycle won’t allow major outlets to report on these ongoing issues, beyond reminding us of the basics and the latest think pieces from experts in the moment. This makes it increasingly tempting to oversimplify, catastrophize, and again conflate the extremes with the norm, whether as an avenue to attention through audience reaction (often fear,) or to maintain the appearance of equitable reporting. This incentivizes and initial intense reaction from audiences; whether through protests, boycotts, donations, voting, or violence, followed by a necessary shift to the next new topic, or additional escalation of the crisis at hand.

In some cases, sustained, consistent, and public support or reporting can move the needle. We are seeing this right now in conversations around abortion, and how focus on this issue is leading to actual change in the behaviors of politicians and voters. This was also the case, though slower, in providing medical aid to 9/11 first responders and survivors. But war moves quickly. We cannot undo the loss of life in military conflicts, the displacement of people, the trauma and impact on individuals, communities, and global relationships. While there may come a time where consistent a regular news coverage holds Israel’s government and those empowering Hamas accountable, we cannot save civilians today with our will and attention a year from now.

This is why a permanent peace is so important in conflicts like Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Not just a return to the lesser crisis which Gaza lived in before October 7th, 2023, but to an actual end to ongoing conflict, and an international movement to establish equity for the Palestinian people. This awareness is what is sorely lacking from news media coverage today. While we report on the crisis, we are not learning from the outcomes of the past, or the present. News media has an obligation to not only report the ongoing situation, but to create a broader context, both regionally, and globally, as to what allowing this crisis to continue will mean both for Palestinians and our complacency in their pain.