Hypocrisy of Western media amidst ongoing anti-Semitic protests in the US

As the world witnesses anti-Semitic protests erupting across universities in the United States, numerous questions regarding Western media reporting have ignited among free thinkers. This isn’t the first instance of the Western media’s hypocritical behaviour coming to light; rather, it signals the onset of the worst credibility crisis the Western media has faced since its inception. With the advent of digitalisation and the rise of social media, previously unheard voices are now gaining prominence and challenging the established credibility of hegemonised media outlets. Numerous articles and books have been penned with the aim of exposing and debunking the orchestrated agenda of the Western media.

The worst phase for the credibility of the Western media reached its zenith when it tried to create a perception regarding the possession of WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction) in Iraq under the reign of military general Saddam Hussain without giving any evidence to their claims. There have been allegations in the Western media pertaining to the reporting of the possession of WMD by Iraq that it favoured the narrative that justified the NATO-led invasion of Iraq. The United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix said in January 2003 that Iraq had cooperated well with the investigation team, and after the completion of the investigation on whether Iraq possessed WMD, they did not find any evidence pertaining to the alleged claims of the presence of WMD.

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Was it the first instance or the last, when the United States and the Western media accepted its mistake and tendered an apology? The answer to this question is no. There have been several instances in history where the US acted as the aggressor and participated in the killings of innocents, more than what we know about Hitler-led Germany.

In the context of India, there have been various instances in history when the Western media have shown hypocrisy in covering similar issues through two lenses and tried to present different perspectives catering to their interests. In the pandemic era, the Western media left no stone unturned to criticise India for the number of deaths due to COVID-19, labour migrants, vaccines, etc., ignoring all the efforts of the Indian government that micromanaged the crisis with a population of around 1.3 billion people (approximately).

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Similarly, during the Russia-Ukraine war, there was a huge influx of negative reporting in the context of India, especially when she abstained from voting in a UN General Assembly that condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the oil was purchased from Russia despite calls for sanctions on India.

Assessing the level of anti-India reporting by the Western media, India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said while addressing a joint press conference with his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock in December 2022, “Our trade with Russia is at a very small level—$12–13 billion, in comparison to European countries.” “I would urge you to look at these figures. There is a website called ‘Russia Fossil Fuel Tracker’ that would give you country-by-country data of who is really importing what, and I suspect that might be very, very helpful,” he added. The statement was made during a period when the Western media sparked a controversy about India by asserting that it was providing financial support to Russia for the war.

The hypocrisy of Western media

Recently, more than 100 students and faculty members have been arrested in a pro-Palestine protest at the University of California, Berkeley, which is yet another centre of anti-Asian and anti-Semitic activities in the United States. The reporting of the Western media on such arrests is not as aggressive as it happened at the time of the arrests of three JNU students, Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, and Anirban Bhattacharya, who allegedly raised controversial and anti-national slogans like ‘Bharat Tere Tukde honge’ and ‘Tum kitne Afzal maaroge, har ghar se Afzal niklega’.

As discussed at the beginning of the article, there have been various instances when the Western media has exposed itself by reporting in a way that caters to the interests of the US and its allies. A recent example is the recent reporting of the ongoing anti-Semitic protests in the universities of the US by the Western media.

A social media page on X (formerly Twitter) named Stop Hindu Hate Advocacy Network (SHHAN) shared a thread on the comparative reporting of ten Western media houses with their headlines on similar actions taken by the Delhi police in 2016 on JNU students and another by the local police in the United States. Reporting on both actions by different police on similar types of protests appears to be different, yet again highlighting the hypocrisy of the Western media.

Comparative headlines of the Western media are shared below:

1. The Conversation

· US: Campus protest escalate, surrounding Israel-Gaza war, Ontarios’ Bill 166 is not the answer (Adam Davies, university of Guelph & Zuhra Abawi, Niagara University; April 25, 2014)

· India: University freedoms in India under threat as student leader charged with sedition (Deborah Sutton, Lancaster University; February 17, 2016)

2. Time Magazine

· US: Pro-Palestinian Columbia Student Protests Continue despite arrests, suspensions (Sanya Mansoor; April 19, 2024)

· India: Arrest of a Student leader at a Top University reignites India’s Intolerance Debate (Rishi Iyengar; February 15, 2016)

3. The Guardian

· US: Police allegedly use rubber bullets and teargas at university protest in Georgia (Timothy Pratt in Atlanta, Maya Yang in New York and Erum Salam in Princeton; April 26, 2024)

· India: Another Indian student arrested on charges of sedition (Aman Sethi; February 23, 2016)

4. The Economist

· US: Efforts to tackle student protests in America have backfired badly (April 23, 2024)

· India: The Last refuge: The government of Narendra Modi seeks to define Indian patriotism, and to own it (March 05, 2016)

5. The Washington Post

· US: Where campus protests have led to arrests across the US (April 29, 2024)

· India: Indian students called it free speech. The government called it sedition (Annie Gowen and Rama Lakshmi; February 24, 2016)

6. The Independent

· US: As some universities negotiate with pro-Palestinian protestors, others quickly call the police (Steve Leblanc, Nick Perry; April 26, 2024)

· India: Kanhaiya Kumar arrest: Britain’s top universities join global academic community to condemn ‘illegal police action’ in India (Aftab Ali; February 18, 2016)

7. CNN

· US: Police arrest pro-Palestinian protesters at Emerson College (April 25, 2024)

· India: Student leader urges freedom of speech after arrest, release in India (Harmeet Shah Singh; March 04, 2016)

8. The New York Times

· US: Campus Protests Over Gaza Intensify Amid Pushback by Universities and Police (J. David Goodman, David Montgomery, Jonathan Wolfe and Jenna Russell; April 24, 2024)

· India: Sedition Arrests in India Inflame Old Free-Speech Tensions (Nida Najar and Swati Gupta; February 24, 2016)

9. ABC News (An Australia-based media house)

· US: Pro-Palestine protests sweep across US colleges, with dozens of students arrested at Yale, NYU and Columbia (Stefan Jeremiah, AP, April 24, 2024)

· India: India’s apocalyptic politics: The violence at Jawaharlal Nehru University reflects a need always to find new enemies (Bhanu Pratap Mehta, 13 Jan 2020)

10. Le Monde France

· US: US campus protests for Gaza turn into electoral trap for Biden (Arnaud Leparmentier, April 25, 2024)

· India: In India, Modi’s worrying nationalism (Article not available on the Le Monde website, Business standard covered the article, March 28, 2016)

What parameters make the reporting of Western media anti-India? Considering the above reports of Western media, harsh terminologies like intolerance, worrying nationalism, apocalyptic tensions, etc. are used for India, while for the US, the terminologies are quite soft in nature. Hence, it could be understood that the majority of the Western media houses carry hatred and a divisive agenda against India. Such reporting also signifies that the Western media house caters for the hegemony of the West over other nations like India. Accordingly, Western media does not appear to be free and independent, which has been portrayed for a long time, and accordingly, it loses its credibility.

The writer is a doctoral candidate at SCNSS, JNU, and is a published author of a book titled- ‘The Puritan Movement: US Universities and their anti-Bharat Approach’. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.