28 October 2023
We, the new editorial team of The Sunday Paper, revive the publication from its hiatus to express outrage at the genocide being committed against the Palestinian people and the misinformation being fabricated. As journalists and writers, we understand how words can be weaponised to dehumanise. We are currently witnessing a mainstream rhetoric that dehumanises Palestinians to manufacture consent for the erasure of Gaza and the genocide of Palestinian people. While a murderous western media narrative enables zionist war crimes, Palestinian journalists are deliberately targeted. Since 7 October, the zionist entity has murdered at least 26 journalists, including: Duaa Sharaf, Jamal Al-Faqawi, Saed Al-Halabi, Ahmed Abu Mhadi, Salma Mkhaimer, Mohammed Imad Labad, Roshdi Sarraj, Muhammad Jarghoun, Mohammed Ali, Khalil Abu Aathra, Sameeh Al-Nady, Mohammad Balousha, Issam Bhar, Abdulhadi Habib, Yousef Maher Dawas, Salam Mema, Husam Mubarak, Issam Abdallah, Ahmed Shehab, Saeed al-Taweel, Mohammed Sobh, Hisham Alnwajha, Assaad Shamlakh, Mohammad Al-Salhi, and Ibrahim Mohammad Lafi, Mohammed Fayez Yousef Abu Matar We unequivocally condemn the zionist entity’s targeting of journalists – alongside its silencing of an entire population – in attempts to commit genocide in total darkness. We understand this has been a tactic used by the zionist entity since its inception: from Ghassan Kanafani’s assassination in 1972 to the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022 and up to now. The occupation also deliberately targets the families of Palestinian journalists. Al Jazeera’s veteran Gaza reporter Wael al-Dadouh was reporting live on air when the zionist entity killed his family. The zionists’ own channel 13 admitted: ‘Generally, we know the target. For example, today the target was the family of an Al Jazeera reporter. In general, we know.’ The bravery of Palestinian journalists in Gaza is starkly contrasted with the sheer cowardice of australian and international media, who hide behind colonial notions of ‘objectivity’ and ‘balance’ to provide conditions in which the zionist entity can commit war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide. There are no ‘two sides’: this is an occupier massacring an occupied people, green-lit by australian and international media. For decades in the west, we have seen spineless reporting on Palestine from so-called ‘progressive’ media who selectively silence Palestinians, de-legitimise Palestinian resistance, and dishonour Palestinian martyrs. This representational violence has horrific consequences, reproducing itself upon Palestinians everywhere – not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank, Jerusalem and occupied 48, and in the camps and the diaspora, where millions of Palestinians are denied the right to return to their homelands. We co-editors of The Sunday Paper are committed to amplifying and uplifting Palestinian voices of resistance, until return and liberation.We unconditionally and unequivocally support the Palestinian right to resist ongoing settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing, including the brutal 16-year blockade of Gaza. As we write, the zionist entity has bombed Gaza’s telecommunications infrastructure, severing the besieged strip from the outside world, intensifying its campaign of genocide in a deliberate media blackout.–Jeanine Hourani, Amy McQuire & Matt Chun