{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Ep 226: The Importance of 'Seriousness,' or Why Palestinians Can't Be Witness to Their Own Genocide (Part I)","description":"\u201c12 UN Relief Works Agency staff members are accused of involvement in Hamas' attack against Israel,\u201d reports NPR. \u201cDetails Emerge on U.N. Workers Accused of Aiding Hamas Raid,\u201d announces The New York Times. \u201cHamas Military Compound Found Beneath U.N. Agency Headquarters in Gaza,\u201d claims The Wall Street Journal. In January 2024\u2014literally on the same day the International Court of Justice deemed Israel was committing \u201cplausible genocide\u201d\u2014a number of sensationalistic headlines broke across U.S. media, namely The Wall Street Journal and New York Times, telling us in 40-point font that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the single most important supplier of food and medical aid in Palestine, was in fact a front for "Hamas." Western audiences were told that, based on \u201cIsraeli intelligence\u201d, 12 workers at the agency may have been involved in the attacks on October 7, 2023, and, in another blockbuster claim, that \u201cAround 10% of Palestinian aid agency\u2019s 12,000 staff in Gaza have links to militants, according to intelligence dossier.\u201d Given this history, the logic went, who knows how else the agency might be operating at the behest of Hamas? It would have been a major revelation if there were any evidence to support it. But there wasn\u2019t and the story was later dropped, walked back or ignored by the media. But the damage was done: President Biden quickly defunded UNRWA and Israel criminalized it, helping fast track mass starvation in Gaza. So why did media outlets publish so many breathless and lurid headlines about Israel\u2019s claims without an ounce of independent confirmation? To what extent, if any, have outlets acknowledged their journalistic and moral recklessness? And how has this contributed to the mass starvation, immiseration, and wholesale murder of the population of Gaza? On this episode, Part I of our two-part season finale on \u201cThe Importance of Seriousness, or Why Palestinians Can\u2019t Be Witness to Their Own Genocide,\u201d we examine the role of legacy news media in inciting the starvation of millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the racist double standard of what sources and experts can be trusted and the broader incitement campaign against the UN Relief and Works Agency which directly caused today\u2019s mass starvation in Gaza. Our guest is Moureen Kaki, Head of Mission at Glia. ","author_name":"Citations Needed","author_url":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/citationsneeded\/","html":"