Image: Priti Gualati Cox.

Before the third week of July, when mass-starvation alarms finally started sounding, only a tiny minority of Americans were focused on the crimes against humanity that Israel was committing in Gaza. CounterPunch readers had long known what was going on, of course, but most Americans who depend on establishment media, whether liberal or MAGA, for their news had little idea. In a Harvard-Harris poll published in early June, only 2 percent of respondents said Israel’s war on Gaza was the most important issue to them. Only 5 percent believed it was even one of the most important issues facing the country today.

Why would so many people think that if their government is enabling a campaign of slaughter and starvation against a civilian population of 2 million human beings, it’s not an important issue? Much of the blame can be assigned to government officials, other public figures, faith leaders, and establishment news media who have either defended Israel’s actions or treated its crimes as a minor issue, if they mention them at all.

Then, in the last week of July, when a host of international experts, monitors, and humanitarian aid groups declared that Gaza was plunging into a state of famine, I wondered if big media would expand or improve their coverage accordingly. Now that Palestinian photographers have provided us with countless images of mothers holding skeletal children in their arms, one might expect that Israel’s campaign to expel the Palestinian people from their homeland, if not wipe them out entirely, would be the story at every news outlet every day. You’d think the issue would be blowing up on social media across the political spectrum. You’d think that, as a result, Congress and the White House would be inundated with demands that they crack down on Israel and finally get enough food into Gaza.

So I looked around, and some establishment media have indeed increased their quantity of coverage. But few are expressing the heightened sense of horror and urgency that’s needed at this juncture. Their tone often reads or sounds as if they’re reporting on the aftermath of a wildfire or earthquake or plane crash. And context is still missing. In every report or commentary, they should be reminding readers, viewers, or listeners that Israel could not have inflicted such unspeakable cruelty and human suffering on this vast scale for almost two years without Washington’s full support. They’re neglecting (or deciding?) not to provide that crucial background, much less recognize the Palestinian people’s right to live free in their own homeland.

When it comes to cheerleading for Zionism—and blithely supporting a full-blown genocide to boot—the New York Times is the consensus champion. In the past two years, Palestine supporters have blasted the old paper harder than ever for spreading pro-Israel propaganda with its reporting, for the smug callousness of its opinion writers, and for passive-voice headlines giving the impression that the source of Palestinians’ endless suffering is a mystery. Here, though, I’ll leave monitoring of the Times to the pros and focus instead on many liberals’ favorite “objective” news source, the beleaguered National Public Radio.

Famine Finally Spurs Coverage, Sort of

It had been clear since this spring that if the Israeli occupation continued blocking food supplies from entering Gaza, famine would eventually sweep through the territory. Then on July 29, the International Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the technical body that declares when and where famines occur, issued an alert stating in part,

The worst-case scenario of Famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip. Conflict and displacement have intensified, and access to food and other essential items and services has plummeted to unprecedented levels. Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths. Latest data indicates that Famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza........

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