In which Karyn Taylor-Moore makes a complaint to the head of TVNZ about an interview in which a representative of Palestine was grilled harder over genocide & civilian deaths than the Israeli Ambassador 2 weeks before. This article was first published by Karyn on her substack, you can find the original here.

On Sunday May 5th TVNZ aired an interview with Dr Izzat Abdulhadi, Head of the Palestinian Delegation to New Zealand. This interview was, no doubt, conducted to provide some semblance of ‘balance’ after the offensive, discriminatory, inaccurate and grossly unfair interview with the Israeli Ambassador – Ran Yaakoby – aired on April 21. Both interviews were conducted by Jack Tame. I wrote to you outlining my concerns about the interview with Yaakoby over a month ago - on 26 April, 2023 - but have yet to receive a reply. I am now writing to express similar concerns about the interview with Dr Abdulhadi – which was also discriminatory, offensive, inaccurate and grossly unfair.

Firstly, there was the matter of the imbalance – and thus unfairness and implicit bias – inherent in the respective positions of the two interviewees vis a vis their ability to speak with authority about the current conflict on behalf of Israel, in the case of Yaakoby, and the Palestinians, in the case of Dr Abdulhadi.

Ran Yaakoby is a career diplomat who has served Israel in a number of diplomatic postings and who, prior to his appointment to New Zealand, was the ‘Director for Combating Antisemitism and for Holocaust Remembrance at the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs’. With this background and given his current role as Israel’s Ambassador to New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Samoa, and Tonga, Yaakoby is well placed to present Israel’s case forcefully and with rhetorical skill. There is little doubt, he succeeded in doing just this during his interview with Jack Tame who was, to put it frankly, no match for him.

Dr Abdulhadi, however, was considerably less well placed to speak with the same force for the Palestinians in Gaza because of his affiliation with the Palestinian Authority, the governing body that has overseen parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the mid-1990s. According to Al Jazeera its creation was supposed to pave the way for an independent Palestinian state but “today it is considered to have little real power and is operating under the control of the Israeli military”. The PA has “actively helped Israel to keep tight control over the Palestinian population and many Palestinians perceive it to be a tool of the Israeli security apparatus”.

Secondly, there was the matter of the overall discursive framing of both interviews– a framing which consistently favoured the Israeli point of view and positioned the vastly more well-resourced, nuclear-armed state of Israel as the innocent victim of Palestinian aggression, while positioning the comparatively defenceless Palestinians as the aggressors. This framing informed and shaped the approach taken to both interviewees – a ‘sympathetic and understanding approach for the ambassador and, by contrast, a combative and highly sceptical approach for Dr Abduhadi.

This discursive framing was obvious in one of Tame’s earliest questions which he opened by telling – in a nutshell – the story of Gaza and the lead-up to October 7 from Israel’s perspective, positioning Israel as the innocent victim of Palestinian violence.

You’ve talked about the context for the attacks. Israel has not occupied the Gaza Strip in the same way it occupies the West Bank today for almost 20 years - before Oct 7 a ceasefire of sorts was in place - some Gazans - albeit with significant restrictions were able to work & travel in Israel - receiving healthcare in Israel. Do you accept that Israel’s ongoing attacks in Gaza would not be happening if not for October 7th?

This “story” suggests that the Palestinians of Gaza have been left pretty much to their own devices since Israel withdrew its settlers and that anything Israel did do for them was of a helpful nature – Israel ‘allowed’ them to “work and travel in Israel” and to access medical care after all. What could they possibly have to complain about?

Dr Abdulhadi explained to Tame that Israel did not actually leave Gaza – it was simply a re-deployment of their forces. This is a simple statement of fact. Israel withdrew its settlers from Gaza in 2006 but because the IDF then took control over everything and everybody going in and out of Gaza the area is still considered occupied under international law by a broad range of organizations, including the United Nations. Note, also, that blockades, in and of themselves, are considered ‘acts of war’ under international law, a point that highlights the lop-sided ‘context’ provided by Tame.

Dr Abdulhadi also explained that Israel controls all the crossings in and out of Gaza and that transferring patients to Israeli hospitals is by no means straight-forward and nor is it free of charge. A report by B’Tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) documented that in 2022, in keeping with past policy, Israel rejected thousands of applications, denying more than 20,000 requests by patients and persons escorting them to access medical care in hospitals outside Gaza. Some applicants received no answer at all by the scheduled appointment. This, of course, means that many patients die while awaiting a response to their application.

Tame acknowledged “there were severe restrictions in place” but kept insisting Dr Abdulhadi concede that Israel’s actions in Gaza would not be taking place if not for October 7. He continued to insist on this even after Dr Abdulhadi reminded him of the periodic deadly bombing raids over Gaza – nine in total – between June 2006 and May 2023. These bombing raids have been widely condemned by international human rights organizations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations and Amnesty International.

Not only was Tame’s summary of the Gaza situation completely inaccurate so too was his suggestion that there was a “ceasefire – of sorts – in place”. This, once again, is another common Israeli talking point but it is incorrect, there was not a ceasefire in place. Indeed, in the months preceding October 7 more than 200 Palestinians had been killed in the West Bank, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs (OCHA). The OCHA reported on marked increase in settler violence in 2023 in their September fact sheet. “Three settler-related incidents per day occurred on average in the first eight months of 2023 compared to an average of two per day in 2022,” the office said.

For Tame to suggest that the responsibility for Israel’s current actions in Gaza is due solely to the actions of Hamas on October 7 betrays a profound ignorance of the history of the conflict. Tame’s suggestion that Israel’s assault on Gaza happened ‘because’ of October 7 also strongly implies that the blame for those actions should be sheeted home to Hamas, rather than Israel. And indeed, Tame doubles down on this point, suggesting to Dr Abdulhadi that “Israel would argue that the reason it exerts so much control over Gaza is that the enclave was governed by a group explicitly committed to destruction of state of Israel & that the blockade was in place to stop Hamas from militarising. What is the alternative”, Tame asked earnestly. “Should they leave Hamas to militarise as they wish?”

Again, this is a common Israeli framing of the conflict – one trotted out by every Israeli spokesman and politician, including the Israeli Ambassador in his interview the week before when asked to explain or justify the blockade of Gaza and/or the current level of carnage in the enclave. "Hamas are explicitly committed to the destruction of the state of Israel. What alternative do we have but to try and wipe them out?" I note, also, that Tame opens this question with ‘Israel would argue …’ and then shifts to seeming to accept as fact (rather than merely as an ‘argument’) that, left to itself, Hamas would ‘militarise as they wish’. This, in effect, elevates the Israeli ‘argument’ to the level of a reality to which Dr Abdulhadi must respond.

Essentially, this question implies that 75 years of Israeli occupation and oppression does not justify, or even explain, the October 7 attacks and ignores the right – enshrined in international law – of occupied peoples to resist occupation by whatever means necessary, including violence. This question also implies that October 7 – an event that lasted less than one day and killed just over 1000 people – justifies Israel’s response – 7 months of relentless bombing and waves of ground invasions resulting in over 35,000 deaths (and that is a very conservative estimate which doesn’t take into account the thousands of people still lost under the rubble) and nearly 80,000 wounded. In other words, this question betrayed a profound anti-Palestinian / pro-Israeli bias on the part of the interviewer.

What made this line of questioning even more egregious is that the claim that Hamas wants to destroy Israel was derived from a particular section of Hamas’ 1988 charter, a charter that has since been superseded by a more recent charter in 2017, a point that Dr Abdulhadi made very clear in his answer to Tame’s initial question. In the 2017 charter Hamas acknowledges Israel’s existence within 1967 borders. Tame, however, repeated his claim that Hamas were “specific in their desire to destroy Israel” and even quoted directly from the 1988 charter in some detail to illustrate his point. To insist upon continuing this line of questioning in the face of Dr Abdulhadi having already told him he was incorrect, as a point of verifiable fact, was, to put it bluntly, profoundly disrespectful and could even be construed as overtly hostile. Imagine criticising modern-day South Africa for the fact that, some thirty years ago, it had apartheid laws on its books. Or, closer to home, consider an interviewer criticising the current New Zealand government for its opposition to women having bank accounts in their own name (as was the case decades ago) and, in each case, persisting with the criticism even after being told such laws had been rescinded and superseded.

Another example of Israeli framing appeared in Tame’s line of questioning about the International Court of Justice ruling. Rather than beginning his question with the fact that the ICJ found it plausible that Israel could be committing genocide, Tame stated that the ICJ did not ask Israel to stop fighting immediately – a point made by every Israeli politician and spokesperson when commenting on the ICJ judgement. He also said that whether Israel has upheld its obligations under the Genocide Convention since the ICJ ruling is “a significant point of contention”.

*ICJ / CIJ - Frank van Beek - ICJ delivering its verdict in January, 2024*

This seems a bizarre thing to suggest given the reports coming out of Gaza from Palestinian journalists on the ground and from international organisations such as the United Nations, Médecins Sans Frontières, and Euromed Monitor of deliberate targeting of civilians by the IDF, indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets, sniping of civilians lining up for aid, the blocking of aid by the state of Israel and by groups of Israeli civilians (amounting to a deliberate attempt to inflict starvation on a trapped population), mass graves wherein evidence was found suggesting torture, extra-judicial executions and people being buried alive as well as numerous other war crimes.

Let’s be honest, the only ones ‘contesting’ whether Israel is upholding its obligations under the Genocide Convention are Israel itself and those assisting Israel in this genocide – specifically the United States and the United Kingdom. That Tame could suggest to Dr Abdulhadi that there was really any serious doubt around whether or not Israel was upholding its obligations under the Genocide Convention was not only profoundly disrespectful it was also downright cruel given the vast number of well documented war crimes currently being carried out in Gaza.

*AFP - 392 bodies recovered at the Nasser Medical Complex, in Southern Gaza*

*Via AFP - Image grab from a handout video from the Israeli military, February 29, 2024 showing what the IDF says are Palestinians around an aid truck in Gaza City*

BBC - The car in which the body of Hind Rajab was found after she called paramedics to come and save her following the killing of all her fellow passengers in an IDF attack earlier. The paramedics sent to rescue Hind were also killed.

The problematic framing of this interview from a consistently Israeli perspective also led Tame to present the conflict as if the Palestinians are as threatening – and as destructive – towards Israel, if not more so, than Israel is towards the Palestinians. At one point Tame said “From October 7 forth people on both sides of this conflict have inflicted terrible violence affecting each other’s civilian populations”, and then asked Dr Abdulhadi “how do you morally distinguish between Israel and Hamas’ actions?” as if the two could – in any sane world – be reasonably compared.

Not only has Israel killed tens of thousands more people since October 7 than Hamas did on that date (or for the entirety of its existence as a resistance organisation) this disrespectful and, frankly, ignorant, question entirely ignores, once again, the historical context within which October 7 occurred. The truth of the matter is that the Palestinian people have been under an occupation that has subjected them to continual violence from Israel – from the Nakba of 1948 right up through the siege on Gaza, the repeated bombing raids on the enclave and the continuous – and violent – expansion of settlements in the West Bank. Indeed, even prior to October 7, 95% of the victims of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were Palestinian.

It is incumbent upon journalists covering the current Israeli onslaught in Gaza to bear in mind that it is Israel that is illegally occupying Palestinian land, subjecting the Palestinians of Gaza to an illegal and brutal blockade, and subjecting those in the West Bank to a profoundly unjust apartheid system. It is also important to remember that all this is in direct contravention of international law and countless United Nations resolutions.

Furthermore, Hamas’s incursion into Israel on October 7 was in no way equal in either numbers killed or in levels of barbarity to what Israel had already inflicted on the Palestinian people prior to October 7 (despite the deluge of now debunked atrocity propaganda since that date which has attempted to convince us otherwise), let alone being in any way equivalent to the absolute horror Israel has unleashed since that date.

Dr Abdulhadi made this point in his response, noting that this “is not a fair equation - we are the victims - we are occupied - we are subjected to discrimination, colonisation and suppression and if you say this is two states – equal – and Israel have the right to respond - to self-defence - this is wrong - our own resistance is recognised under international law . . . we should not forget at any minute that we are under Israeli occupation and we have the right to resist”.

Which leads me to my final and perhaps most serious concern about this interview – that Tame subjected Dr Abdulhadi to far more aggressive and sceptical questioning on every issue than he did the Israeli Ambassador. He pressed the Israeli Ambassador – gently – on the issue of proportionality, and, even more gently, on the question of genocide, as I will discuss further below, but he did not suggest that specific points the Israeli Ambassador made in response – many of which were provable lies – were contestable, let alone imply that he may be lying. This was no doubt a function of the fact that Tame was conducting the interview from within the Israeli framing of the conflict – a framing which, as discussed above, is inaccurate and deeply unfair to the Palestinians. To approach both interviewees so differently betrayed an inherent anti-Palestinian / pro-Israel bias which has no place in journalism about this issue and for which Tame, and TVNZ, should feel deeply ashamed.

One example of this obvious bias was on the matter of civilian deaths. Tame did not pursue the Israeli Ambassador for the thousands of civilian deaths caused by the Israeli army since October 7, or for any of the countless Palestinian deaths Israel was responsible for before that date, with anything like the same zeal with which he pursued the Head of the Palestinian Delegation to New Zealand for the roughly 800 civilian casualties inflicted by Hamas.

Indeed, all of Tame’s attempts to question the Israeli Ambassador on the issue of civilian deaths were framed as concerns about ‘proportionality’ rather than concerns about the morality of killing civilians per se. The implication of such framing of course is that Israel is, in fact, justified in killing at least some civilians – the only thing at issue is the proportion of civilians compared to the number Hamas killed on October 7. Behind all his questions to Dr Abdulhadi, however, is the strong implication that for Hamas to kill even one Israeli civilian is beyond the pale morally. In other words – Israel is morally justified in killing at least some Palestinian civilians in response to October 7, while Hamas is not morally justified in killing any Israeli civilians in response to 75 years of occupation, oppression, apartheid, land theft and violence.

Perhaps the most obvious example of the anti-Palestinian / pro-Israel bias shown in this interview, however, was Tame’s aggressive questioning of Dr Abdulhaid on whether he believed that Hamas’ October 7 attack constituted a genocide. Upon first being asked this question Dr Abdulhadi pointed out that Hamas said they are willing to be present in front of any court in this context and noted that “the implementation of international law should not be selective”. Tame was not satisfied with this answer and continued to pursue the issue, asking a total of five times if he thought the Hamas attack could be considered a genocide. Each time the response was the same: no.

I’d like to briefly draw your attention to how genocide is defined in the Genocide Convention before I go on to compare and contrast how Tame approached this subject with the Israeli Ambassador and Dr Abdulhadi.

*New York Public Library / Digital Collections - Ratification of the Genocide Convention*

Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements:

A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and
A physical element, which includes any of the following five acts: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Both the mental element and the physical element must be proven when accusations are made. As already discussed above, Tame made a valiant effort to prove intent on Hamas’ part by constantly referring to the group’s 1988 Charter, a Charter that has now been superseded by an updated version in 2017 as discussed above. Tame provided no other evidence (e.g., verifiable orders from Hamas to its fighters to kill as many Israelis as possible) that could meet the first criterion. As for the physical element – given the strong implication by Tame that an incursion by a relatively small group of lightly armed men resulting in around 1,200 deaths – many of whom were soldiers – could plausibly be a genocide, it would seem that in Tame’s estimation, what Israel is currently doing in Gaza must, without a shadow of a doubt, also be a genocide.

Given this, you would think Tame would have pursued the Israeli Ambassador on this point even harder than he pursued Dr Abdulhadi. After all, if Tame was seriously wondering if Hamas committed genocide on October 7 you would think he would also be seriously wondering if Israel has been committing genocide for the past 7 months in Gaza. Despite this, however Tame’s questioning of the Israeli Ambassador on the issue of whether Israel is currently committing genocide was considerably less combative than his questioning of Dr Abdulhadi on the issue of whether Hamas committed genocide on October 7.

For example, at no point did Tame ask the Ambassador directly “Do you think Israel’s actions constitute genocide”, a question he asked Dr Abdulhadi five times. Instead, he asked the ambassador how he felt about the ruling. This works discursively to subtly infer that the ICJ ruling of plausible genocide is contestable and possibly even quite unfair. No such implication of contestability was present when Tame directly asked Dr Abdulhadi whether he thought Hamas had committed genocide. The Israeli Ambassador batted the question away by discussing the definition of ‘plausible’ and noting that the ICJ did not order Israel to stop it’s attack on Gaza. Tame made a few more ineffectual efforts to pursue the issue but his questions were easily dismissed by Yaakoby, who is clearly very practiced at presenting Israel’s actions in a positive light. Tame even let the Ambassador away with making a flippant and cruel comment about how Israel is “really failing at this genocide’ because the Palestinian population - around the world and in Gaza – Judea Sumaria – has tremendously increased since the ’67 war”.

Furthermore, as already discussed above, Tame subjected Dr Abdulhadi to a particularly stringent line of questioning about Hamas’ intentions towards Israel, as expressed in their 1988 charter, Tame even quoted from this charter directly to drive his point home concerning Hamas’ ‘intentions’, but he failed to ask the Israeli Ambassador about even one of the clearly stated and thoroughly current intentions of scores of Israeli politicians to destroy Gaza – to wipe it off the map – when discussing the possibility Israel may be committing genocide in Gaza. In other words –Hamas’ intentions, as expressed in an out-of-date charter, were of far more interest to Tame than Israel’s clearly stated intentions; intentions which they are currently carrying out in full view of the entire world.

In summary, there was more than a very strong whiff of orientalism, Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian bias in Tame’s approach to Dr Abdulhadi. This was evident throughout the interview in the pro-Israel / anti-Palestinian framing employed by Tame and in the combative and sceptical approach taken to almost everything Dr Abdulhadi said. This bias was particularly obvious when compared to the way Tame carried out his interview with the Israeli Ambassador – who, by comparison, he approached with considerably more empathy, understanding and respect. One would expect an independent, objective and professional journalist to adopt a much more consistent approach to both interviewees given the gravity of the topic at hand.

I ended my email to the head of TVNZ with a list of demands - including an apology to the Palestinian people resident here in New Zealand and the New Zealand public and I asked him to respond without unnecessary delay. I am still waiting for him to respond to my email about the interview conducted on Q+A two weeks earlier with the Israeli Ambassador which I have published here.

I have gone to the effort of writing these two complaints - and sharing them here - because I am deeply concerned about the way in which the Gaza genocide is being represented in the Western media - including here in New Zealand - and the impact of that representation on Western audiences.

There have been a number of reports published recently which have demonstrated a widespread and systematic bias across many Western mainstream media outlets - an issue Palestinians have been pointing out for years. In the UK there are reports showing this occurring at the BBC, The Times, The Sun, and the Daily Mail, while in the US reports show it occurring at The New York Times, The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times as well as at CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox and CBC 1. The Intercept has also revealed that CNN’s Jerusalem bureau has “long reviewed all CNN stories relating to Israel and Palestine” and shown that it is now “helping shape the network’s coverage of the war”.

US public broadcasters PBS and NPR are similarly guilty of such bias as are Australian media outlets ABC News, The Daily Aus, The Australian, News.com.au, 9News and The Daily Telegraph.

Furthermore, it was revealed by The Intercept that the New York Times sent out an internal memo instructing journalists covering Israel’s attack on Gaza to

restrict the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to “avoid” using the phrase “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land. The memo also instructs reporters not to use the word Palestine “except in very rare cases” and to steer clear of the term “refugee camps” to describe areas of Gaza historically settled by displaced Palestinians expelled from other parts of Palestine during previous Israeli–Arab wars.

The New York Times has also been caught out essentially making up stories about ‘mass rape’ occurring on October 7 - as outlined in this report by Al Jazeera.

Finally, Molly Schumann, a producer at CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Commission) resigned in protest over the “double standards and discrimination in [CBC’s] coverage of Palestine” and recounted her direct experience of how CBC disciplines those who speak out in this piece for The Breach.

As Schumann notes

Being a journalist is a huge privilege and responsibility, especially in a time of war. You’re curating the news for the audience; deciding which facts to include and which to omit; choosing whose perspectives to present and whose to ignore. I believe that a good journalist should be able to turn their critical eye, not just on the news, but on their own reporting of the news. If you’re unable to do this, you shouldn’t be in the profession.

All the above demonstrates that numerous Western journalists and commentators have, in many cases knowingly, aided Israel in providing a veneer of false legitimacy for its relentless assault on Gaza. As was pointed out by William L. Youmans in his content analysis of the pro-Israel / anti-Palestinian bias shown by US and Canadian TV talk shows such findings are not terribly surprising “given the strongly pro-Israel in US foreign policy” a ‘tilt’ that is dutifully echoed by all of the US’s allies - including, shamefully, New Zealand. Youmans goes on to note, however that such findings

reflect an abandonment of the ideal that news media’s purpose is to scrutinize government policies and the actions of those in power and to inform the public so it can forge independent opinions.

Believe it or not, despite the fact my name is Karyn, I’m not actually all that keen on making complaints to the manager; it is time-consuming and usually results in either no action at all or ends up being more trouble than it’s worth. In this case, however, the blatant blatant pro-Israeli / anti-Palestinian bias in the two interviews aired on Q+A with the Israeli Ambassador and the Head of the Palestinian Delegation to New Zealand compelled me to do so because the way in which the Palestine / Israel conflict is represented in Western media is directly responsible for the continuation of that conflict and for the continuation of the suffering of the Palestinian people.

As many academics and commentators, including Palestinian Australian academic Dr Randa Abdel Fattah, Middle East scholar and author, Dr Assal Rad, and historian of Palestine Dr Zachary Foster, have pointed out, due to their deliberate laundering of Israeli crimes for of Western audiences - not just during the current genocide but for the last 75 years - Western media organisations are directly complicit in these crimes. There is no way Israel could have continued in its gross breaches of international law for so long and with so little pushback if not for the active and enthusiastic help of the Western media.

The way in which the conflict between Palestine and Israel is framed, the silencing or smearing of Palestinian voices, the hysteria over Israeli deaths and the taking of Israeli hostages on October 7 compared to the silence and lack of empathy over the thousands of Palestinian deaths and the thousands of Palestinians imprisoned without charge by Israel both before and following October 7 all contributes towards a profound lack of understanding on the part of Western audiences about both the roots of the conflict and about the realities on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank. This deliberately manufactured ignorance undermines solidarity and understanding and directly results in less pressure on Western governments to put the brakes on Israel.

I will leave the last word to Vidya Krishnan, who through bitter personal experience can say it so much more eloquently than I . . .

In this slick propaganda of war, Western journalists are obscuring the true story we are faced with here – that Israel, backed by the most powerful military in the world, is waging war on a stateless people living under its occupation and pulverising innocent men, women and children in their thousands. The story that Western governments have been enabling this carnage while lecturing the world about their superior values, decency and love for democracy. Anyone living in the post colonial world knows that their talk of decency and love for democracy and exceptional journalism and decent politicians – it is all but a swindle.
At this late hour, as war rages and children starve and Israel is tried for “plausible genocide”, it is crucial to point at the blood on the hands of Western journalists. They have, in perfect coordination with their powerful governments, maligned and disempowered multilateral institutions like the United Nations, gave Israeli narratives of “self-defence” a veneer of respectability, and drove Palestinian stories and perspectives into irrelevance. [emphasis mine]

Karyn Taylor-Moore is a recovering academic psychologist & a long-time leftist anti-imperialist from Ōtautahi

Attacking the victim: Another gross breach of journalistic standards by TVNZ