COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

Notes from The Edge of the Narrative Matrix
Acting on orders from the White House, immigration agents arrested a Columbia University graduate for deportation due to his leadership of campus protests against Israel’s genocidal atrocities in Gaza last year.

Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil is reportedly married to an American citizen and had had permanent residency in the US, but his green card has been revoked by the State Department as the Trump administration works to deport everyone they can possibly get away with deporting for criticising Israel.

This is the equivalent of the Australian government revoking the permanent residency of my American husband Tim and deporting him because of our work criticising the Gaza holocaust. The suffering that can be unleashed by a policy like this in the United States is hard to fathom.

This comes as we learn that the US government will be using AI to compile lists of people suspected of expressing support for Hamas on social media, and as the Trump administration announces that funding will be killed for any schools which allow “illegal protests” in support of Palestinians on their campuses.

I have said it before and I will say it again: there is no greater threat to free speech in our society than Israel and the Western governments who support it. Civil rights are being stomped out throughout the Western world to shut down all criticism of Israel.

We’re now seeing escalations in Western Zionism’s assault on civil rights on a daily basis. Pretty much every day I’m reading about at least one Western government silencing criticism of Israel with some new authoritarian abuse.

Zionism is the number one threat to free speech in our society.

Westerners need to understand that Israel and the West’s support for it are a direct threat to our personal freedom. This is about YOU now. If you didn’t have enough compassion to oppose Israel for its genocidal atrocities, you should at least now oppose it to protect yourself.

Arrest The Real Criminals pic.twitter.com/hPmXeFzXLP

— Ryan Rozbiani (@RyanRozbiani) March 12, 2025

❖

Trump supporters are falling all over themselves trying to justify Trump’s assaults on free speech the same way Bush supporters fell all over themselves to justify the authoritarianism of the Bush administration. Republicans haven’t changed. They think they have but they haven’t.

❖

This happens as opposition to Israel becomes more urgently needed than ever. Israel has cut off all electricity to Gaza, which is expected to cripple Gaza’s water supply by killing power to critical desalination plants. Once again this genocidal apartheid state is targeting civilians with deadly force in order to advance its depraved agendas, but anyone who wants to criticise such things is being aggressively targeted by increasingly tyrannical measures throughout the Western world.

❖

The most horrifying thing about all the footage of HTS thugs massacring people in Syria is not the violence itself, it’s how happy its perpetrators are in the videos. Grinning. Laughing. Joking. It’s deeply disturbing how easily people can be turned into monsters.

I’ve been on the receiving end of shrieking vitriol ever since I started this gig for opposing the Western empire’s regime change operations in Syria. Got a good dose of it last December when the operation finally succeeded.

Now look. Look where it landed.

Always oppose the empire.

“British troops should be in Ukraine, but I’m a conscientious objector”

Asking young British men if they’d fight in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/FGr5Xu97AA

— PoliticsJOE (@PoliticsJOE_UK) March 6, 2025

There’s a video going around of young British men at some kind of pro-Ukraine event advocating sending British troops to Ukraine, and when the interviewer asks them if they themselves would volunteer to go put their own boots on the ground they act shocked and start stammering about how they’re conscientious objectors and are not physically fit enough.

It’s fascinating how often you’ll see this sort of response from Western armchair proxy warriors when you suggest that they should go and fight in this military intervention they’re so keen on perpetuating. They often cannot seem to comprehend why anyone would think it’s a compelling point that they are pushing the continuation of a war that they themselves would never agree to fight in, which is just so very revealing.

It shows that they see the idea of other people fighting and dying in a war as a completely different and unrelated category to the idea of themselves fighting and dying in a war.

It shows that they don’t view the people who fight in wars as fully human, with dreams and fears and families just like they have, who don’t want to die a violent death any more than they do. It’s genuinely never occurred to them to put themselves in the shoes of the people who are fighting and dying and getting their limbs blown off, and to think about what it would be like if the same thing were happening to them.

It’s like a video game to these people. They don’t see it as real in the same way their own lives are real. A war is something they watch unfold on social media and cheer and boo like a sporting event, not something involving real people who are just as capable of suffering and loss as they are.

A majority of Ukrainians now oppose the war and want a negotiated settlement as quickly as possible. If you want this horrific war to continue and yet you are not on front lines serving in the Foreign Legion, then you should definitely shut up.

If you want Ukrainians to keep throwing their lives into a war against their will when you yourself are unwilling to do the same, then you have failed to mature as a human being on this planet. You lack a functioning empathy center in your brain, and it’s a major character flaw, and you should go fix it.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

New Zealand’s One News interviewed a Gaza journalist last week who has called out the Western media for its complicity in genocide.

For some 15 months, the Western media have framed Israel’s genocidal rampage in Gaza as a “legitimate” war.

Pretending to provide an objective and impartial view of “the Gaza War”, the Western media has failed to report on the atrocities that the Israel has committed in Gaza. The true face of Israel’s genocidal assault has been hidden behind the Western media’s determination to sanitise genocide.

Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed’s appeal to the world and the Western media. Video: Dawn News

Even the deliberate targeting of journalists by the Israeli “Defence” Force (IDF), a war crime, has not moved the Western media to take action. More than 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza and the Western media has remained silent.

The New Zealand and Pacific media also have nothing to be proud of in their coverage of events in Gaza. They, too, have consistently framed Israel’s genocidal rampage as a legitimate war and swept Israel’s war crimes under the carpet.

Some news outlets, like NZ’s Newstalk ZB, have gone as far as to defend Israel’s actions.

With the announcement of a ceasefire in Gaza last week, One News, for the first time since Israel began its murderous assault, chose to talk live to a Palestinian journalist in Gaza. That journalist was 22-year-old Abubaker Abed.

Ignored by Western media
While One News introduced him as a reporter for the Associated Press, most of Abed’s reports have been for Palestinian news outlets like The Electronic Intifida.

On January 11, Abed made a speech condemning the Western media’s complicity in genocide. While the speech has been widely circulated in the social media, it has been ignored by the Western media.

In New Zealand, the important speech has failed to make it to the One News website.

This article was first published on Steven Cowan’s website Against The Current. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

An Israeli airstrike destroyed the press office of the Lebanese news broadcaster Al Mayadeen on Wednesday night, continuing Israel’s historically unprecedented military assault on the press.

Also in continuation of Israel’s war on journalism, the IDF has published the names of six Al Jazeera reporters who it claims are actually members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, citing as evidence documents which it claims Israeli forces found in Gaza.

These allegations would mark these journalists as legitimate military targets.

Al Jazeera has denounced these claims as unfounded, saying in a statement: “The Network views these fabricated accusations as a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region, thereby obscuring the harsh realities of the war from audiences worldwide.”

There is of course no reason to ever believe any claim Israel makes about anything whatsoever absent mountains of independently verifiable evidence, after the mountains of lies it has churned out over the last year.

The fact that Western news outlets are treating these allegations as plausible is evidence of their propagandistic nature.

Israel claims everyone it wants to kill is Hamas. The journalists are Hamas, the hospitals are Hamas, the UN is Hamas, the aid trucks are Hamas, the schools are Hamas, the mosques are Hamas, the water infrastructure is Hamas, the civilian homes are all Hamas, and Hamas is hiding behind every woman and child in Gaza.

The only exception to this rule is in Lebanon, in which case everyone Israel wants to kill is Hezbollah.

“Israel hates truth” . . . Gaza: The Al Jazeera investigation into Israeli war crimes.

Why journalists are killed
Israel hates truth, which is why it kills journalists at every opportunity and blocks them from entering Gaza. This is because truth tends to have a marked anti-Israel bias.

We saw this illustrated recently when Israel announced that there is a secret Hezbollah bunker underneath a hospital in Beirut, so the press simply sent a bunch of reporters to go and investigate because Israel can’t block the press from entering Lebanon like it can in Gaza.

Even Western outlets like the BBC and Sky News entered the hospital and interviewed medical staff, reporting that they found no trace of evidence supporting Israel’s claims and that the hospital staff all denied the existence of any Hezbollah bunker on the premises.

And you may be sure those outlets would have eagerly reported any sign of Hezbollah if they were given the opportunity.

Israel Continues Its War On Journalism

Article with supporting links.https://t.co/hnsKnHaOqZ

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) October 24, 2024

Criminal institutions need to function in the dark. They cannot function in the light of visibility and critical journalism and inconvenient video footage.

That’s why the mafia murders witnesses. That’s why the inner workings of the US war machine are shrouded in government secrecy. That’s why Julian Assange spent five years in a maximum security prison.

And that’s why Israel does everything it can to kill and obstruct journalists who tell the truth about its crimes.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

On Wednesday, the Israeli army killed two more Palestinian journalists in Gaza.

Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi were working when they were struck by Israeli forces in Gaza City.

Al-Ghoul, whose Al Jazeera reports were popular among Arab audiences, was wearing a press vest at the time he was killed.

The latest killings bring Israel’s world-record journalist kill total to at least 113 during the current genocide in Gaza, according to the more conservative estimate. However, the Gaza Media Office has documented at least 165 media people being killed by Israeli forces.

No other world conflict has killed as many journalists in recent memory.

Israel has a long history of violently targeting journalists, so their Gaza kill total is not necessarily surprising.

In fact, a 2023 Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) report documented a “decades-long pattern” of Israel targeting and killing Palestinian journalists.

Targeted attacks
For example, a Human Rights Watch investigation found that Israel targeted “journalists and media facilities” on four separate occasions in 2012. During the attacks, two journalists were killed, and many others were injured.

In 2019, a United Nations commission found that Israel “intentionally shot” a pair of Palestinian journalists in 2018, killing both.

More recently, in 2022, Israel shot and killed Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank.

Israel attempted to deny responsibility, as it almost always does after it carries out an atrocity, but video evidence was overwhelming, and Israel was forced to admit guilt.

There have been no consequences for the soldier who fired at Abu Akleh, who had been wearing a press vest and a press helmet, or for the Israelis involved in the other incidents targeting journalists.

CPJ has suggested that Israeli security forces enjoy “almost blanket immunity” in incidents of attacks on journalists.

Given this broader context, Israel’s targeting of journalists during the current genocide is genuinely not surprising, or out of the ordinary.

Relative silence
However, what is truly surprising, and even shocking, is the relative silence of Western journalists.

While there has certainly been some reportage and sympathy in North America and Europe, particularly from watchdog organisations like the CPJ and Reporters Without Borders (RSF), there is little sense of journalistic solidarity, and certainly nothing approaching widespread outrage and uproar about the threat Israel’s actions pose to press freedoms.

Can we imagine for a moment what the Western journalistic reaction might be if Russian forces killed more than 100 journalists in Ukraine in under a year?

Even when Western news outlets have reported on Palestinian journalists killed since the start of the current war, coverage has tended to give Israel the benefit of the doubt, often framing the killings as “unintentional casualties” of modern warfare.

Also, Western journalism’s overwhelming reliance on pro-Israel sources has ensured the avoidance of colourful adjectives and condemnations.

Moreover, overreliance on pro-Israel sources has sometimes made it difficult to determine which party to the conflict was responsible for specific killings.

BREAKING: Al Jazeera “journalist” Ismail al-Ghoul has reportedly been killed in Gaza.

Everything you need to know about him can be found in my thread below ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/HZq9I3b0wP

— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) July 31, 2024

A unique case?
One might assume here that Western news outlets have simply been maintaining their devotion to stated Western reporting principles of detachment and neutrality.

But, in other situations, Western journalists have shown that they are indeed capable of making quite a fuss, and also of demonstrating solidarity.

The 2015 killing of 12 Charlie Hebdo journalists and cartoonists provides a useful case in point.

Following that attack, a genuine media spectacle ensued, with seemingly the entire institution of Western journalism united to focus on the event.

Thousands of reports were generated within weeks, a solidarity hashtag (“Je suis Charlie,” or “I am Charlie”) went viral, and statements and sentiments of solidarity poured in from Western journalists, news outlets and organisations dedicated to principles of free speech.

For example, America’s Society of Professional Journalists called the attack on Charlie Hebdo “barbaric” and an “attempt to stifle press freedom”.

Freedom House issued a similarly harsh commendation, calling the attack “horrific,” and noting that it constituted a “direct threat to the right of freedom of expression”.

PEN America and the British National Secular Society presented awards to Charlie Hebdo and the Guardian Media Group donated a massive sum to the publication.

All journalists threatened
The relative silence and calm of Western journalists over the killing of at least 100 Palestinian journalists in Gaza is especially shocking when one considers the larger context of Israel’s war on journalism, which threatens all journalists.

In October, around the time the current war began, Israel told Western news agencies that it would not guarantee the safety of journalists entering Gaza.

Ever since, Israel has maintained a ban on international journalists, even working to prevent them from entering Gaza during a brief November 2023 pause in fighting.

More importantly, perhaps, Israel has used its sway in the West to direct and control Western news narratives about the war.

Western news outlets have often obediently complied with Israeli manipulation tactics.

For example, as global outrage was mounting against Israel in December 2023, Israel put out false reports of mass, systematic rape against Israeli women by Palestinian fighters on October 7.

Western news outlets, including The New York Times, were suckered in. They downplayed the growing outrage against Israel and began prominently highlighting the “systematic rape” story.

ICJ provisional measures
Later, in January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued provisional measures against Israel.

Israel responded almost immediately by issuing absurd terrorism accusations against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).

Western news outlets downplayed the provisional measures story, which was highly critical of Israel, and spotlighted the allegations against UNRWA, which painted Palestinians in a negative light.

These and other examples of Israeli manipulation of Western news narratives are part of a broader pattern of influence that predates the current war.

One empirical study found that Israel routinely times attacks, especially those likely to kill Palestinian civilians, in ways that ensure they will be ignored or downplayed by US news media.

During the current genocide, Western news organisations have also tended to ignore the broad pattern of censorship of pro-Palestine content on social media, a fact which should concern anyone interested in freedom of expression.

It’s easy to point to a handful of Western news reports and investigations which have been critical of some Israeli actions during the current genocide.

But these reports have been lost in a sea of acquiescence to Israeli narratives and overall pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian framing.

Several studies, including analyses by the Centre for Media Monitoring and the Intercept, demonstrated overwhelming evidence of pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian framing in Western news reportage of the current war.

Is Western journalism dead?
Many journalists in the United States and Europe position themselves as truth-tellers, critical of power, and watchdogs.

While they acknowledge mistakes in reporting, journalists often see themselves and their news organisations as appropriately striving for fairness, accuracy, comprehensiveness, balance, neutrality and detachment.

But this is the great myth of Western journalism.

A large body of scholarly literature suggests that Western news outlets do not come close to living up to their stated principles.

Israel’s war on Gaza has further exposed news outlets as fraudulent.

With few exceptions, news outlets in North America and Europe have abandoned their stated principles and failed to support Palestinian colleagues being targeted and killed en masse.

Amid such spectacular failure and the extensive research indicating that Western news outlets fall well short of their ideals, we must ask whether it is useful to continue to maintain the myth of the Western journalistic ideal.

Is Western journalism, as envisioned, dead?

Mohamad Elmasry is professor in the Media Studies programme at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar. Republished from Al Jazeera.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch

Pro-Palestinian protesters dressed in blue “press” vests tonight staged a vigil calling on New Zealand journalists to show solidarity with the media of Gaza who have suffered the highest death toll in any war.

They staged the vigil at the Viaduct venue of NZ’s annual Voyager Media Awards.

Organised by Palestinian Youth Aotearoa (PYA) and People for Palestine (P4P), supporters were making a stand for the journalists of Gaza, who were awarded the 2024 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize earlier this month.

Fathi Hassneiah of PYA condemned the systematic killing, targeting and silencing of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) throughout the war on Gaza that is now in its eighth month.

Global media freedom watchdog groups have had differing figures for the death toll of Gazan journalists, but the Al Jazeera network says 142 have been killed.

Often the families of journalists have been martyred alongside them, Hassneiah said.

A media spokesperson, Leondra Roberts, said PYA and P4P were calling on “all journalists in Aotearoa to stand in solidarity with the courageous journalists of the Gaza Strip who continue to report on what the International Court of Justice has called a plausible genocide”.

Maori journalists commended
She commended Kawea Te Rongo (Māori Journalists Association) for their support for their Palestinian colleagues in November 2023 with co-chair Mani Dunlop saying: “Journalists and the media are integral to ensuring the world and its leaders are accurately informed during this conflict …

“Daily we are seeing stories of journalists who face extreme brutality . . .  including the unconscionable worry of their families’ safety while they themselves risk their lives.

“It is a deadly trade-off, every day they put on their press vest and helmet to do their job selflessly for their people and the rest of the world.”

PYA spokesperson and musician Rose Freeborn appealed to journalists reporting from Aotearoa to critically examine Israel’s treatment of their peers in Gaza and called on “storytellers of all mediums to engage with Palestinian voices”.

“We unequivocally condemn the mass murder of 105 journalists in Gaza by the IDF since October 7, as well as Israel’s longstanding history of targeting journalists across the region — from Shireen Abu Akleh to Issam Abdallah — in an attempt to smother the truth and dictate history,” she said.

She criticised the “substandard conduct” of some journalists in New Zealand.

Media industry ‘failed’

“At times, the media industry in this country has failed not only the Palestinian community but New Zealand society at large by reporting factual inaccuracies and displaying a clear bias for the Israeli narrative.

“This has led to people no longer trusting mainstream media outlets to give them the full story, so they have turned to each other and the journalists on the ground in Gaza via social media.

“The storytellers of Gaza, with their resilience and extraordinary courage, have provided a blueprint for journalists across the globe to stand in defence of truth, accuracy and objectivity.”

A Palestinian New Zealander and P4P spokesperson, Yasmine Serhan, said: “While it is my people being subjected to mass murder and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, it is the peers of New Zealand journalists who are being systematically targeted and murdered by Israel in an attempt to stop the truth being reported.”

RNZ News reports that RNZ won two major honours tonight at the annual Voyager Media Awards, which recognise New Zealand’s best journalism, with categories for reporting, photography, digital and video.

RNZ was awarded the Best Innovation in Digital Storytelling for their series The Interview and longform journalist te ao Māori Ella Stewart took out the prize for Best Up and Coming Journalist.

Le Mana Pacific award went to Indira Stewart of 1News, and Mihingarangi Forbes (Aotearoa Media Collective) and Moana Maniapoto (Whakaata Māori) were joint winners of the Te Tohu Kairangi Award.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan.

She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in northern Gaza.

RSF has demanded that the Israeli military “shed light on the disappearance of @BayanPalestine”, her X handle.

On March 19, she posted a message on her X account saying “Israeli forces just murdered my only brother in front of my eyes”.

Israeli forces just murdered my only brother in front of my eyes.
أخويا شهيد.

— Bayan (@BayanPalestine) March 19, 2024

She has not been heard from since and RSF is investigating.

Meanwhile, to support journalists in the region affected by the war in Gaza, RSF has opened a new press freedom centre in the Lebanese capital of Beirut.

Following the opening of two centres in Ukraine in the aftermath of Russia’s large-scale invasion of the country in 2022, this initiative by RSF underlines the organisation’s ongoing commitment to helping information professionals meet the specific challenges they face.

Equipped with internet access, the Beirut centre, a regional hub for the media in the Middle East, will welcome journalists to work there if they wish.

RSF and its local partners will offer training in physical and digital security, particularly for those wishing to travel to Palestine.

Bullet-proof vests
Access to psychological support and legal assistance will also be provided, as well as protective equipment to cover dangerous areas (bullet-proof vests, helmets, first-aid kits, etc.).

“There is a clear and urgent need to support Palestinian journalism and the right to information throughout the Middle East, particularly the parts of the region most affected by the war in Gaza,” said RSF campaign director Rebecca Vincent.

“Drawing on our experience in Ukraine, where we opened two press freedom centres during the war, RSF is launching a regional centre in Beirut dedicated to supporting journalists.

“The centre will provide a crucial space, and essential services to reinforce the safety of journalists working in the region, and to defend press freedom.”

Pacific Media Watch collaborates with RSF.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, who has been documenting the impact of the war in the Gaza Strip, has left the enclave for Qatar and gave his first interview there with the Doha-based Al Jazeera global news channel.

Azaiza announced on Instagram yesterday that he was leaving the besieged enclave before boarding a Qatari military airplane at Egypt’s El Arish International Airport.

However, it was unclear how he was able to leave Gaza or why he had evacuated, reports Al Jazeera.

“This is the last time you will see me with this heavy, stinky [press] vest. I decided to evacuate today. … Hopefully soon I’ll jump back and help to build Gaza again,” Azaiza said in a video.

The 24-year-old Palestinian captured the attention of millions globally — including in the South Pacific — as he filmed himself in a press vest and helmet to document conditions during Israel’s war, which has killed more than 25,000 people in Gaza.

“Motaz Azaiza – A 24-year-old man from Gaza, in 108 days, did what CNN, Fox, the BBC, and all their ‘journalism’ predecessors refused to do for 75 years.

“Humanise a people!”

– Khaled Beydoun

Israel launched its offensive after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,139 people and taking more than 200 people captive.

Azaiza’s coverage often took the form of raw, unfiltered videos about injured children or families crushed under rubble in the aftermath of Israeli air strikes.

He said he has had to “evacuate for a lot of reasons you all know some of it but not all of it”.

In his post, he was seen on a video about to board a grey plane emblazoned with the words “Qatar Emiri Air Force”.

I’m at Al Jazeera studios where they are streaming.
حلل يا دويري pic.twitter.com/fWoABDKD3t

— MoTaz (@azaizamotaz9) January 24, 2024

“First video outside Gaza,” he said in one clip, revealing that it was his first time on a aircraft. “Heading to Qatar.”

He also shared a video of the inside of the plane as it landed in Doha.

Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza leaves Gaza after his “heroic” humanitarian reporting . . . “we are all Palestinian.” Video: Al Jazeera

Since the start of the war, the photojournalist has amassed millions of followers across multiple platforms.

His Instagram following has grown from about 27,500 to 18.25 million in the more than 108 days since October 7, according to an assessment of social media analytics by Al Jazeera.

His Facebook account grew from a similar starting point to nearly 500,000 followers. He now has one million followers on X, formerly known as Twitter.

As well as his social media posts, Azaiza has produced content for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNWRA).

I left Gaza with a broken heart and eyes filled with tears.
There was no other option after 108 days of continuous massacres against us.
It’s time to move somewhere else so I can do more work and I pray that I can be a reason to stop this war and help rebuild Gaza again.
I’ve… pic.twitter.com/kg3FwTi38d

— MoTaz (@azaizamotaz9) January 24, 2024

Social media users thanked Azaiza for his coverage of the war, many saluting him as a hero.

“Thank you for everything you have done, you have moved mountains, what you have done in the last 100 days people can’t do in their whole lifetime. You were a pivotal voice in showing the world the Israeli atrocities in Gaza. Wishing you well and safety,” one user said on X.

Another, Khaled Beydoun, wrote on Instagram, “Motaz Azaiza – A 24-year-old man from Gaza, in 108 days, did what CNN, Fox, the BBC, and all their ‘journalism’ predecessors refused to do for 75 years.

“Humanise a people!”

“I’m so glad you had the opportunity to get out, God willing, YOU WILL RETURN TO A FREE PALESTINE,” wrote another.

“We love you so deeply,” American musician Kehlani wrote, adding, “Thank you for your humanity.”

“Frame that vest. It’s the armor of one of history’s greatest heroes,” comedian Sammy Obeid said.

Pacific Media Watch sourced from Al Jazeera.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz