From what I can gather this conflict as been going on a long time and the Hamas group has existed for a while too. Why are all the news cycles suddenly focusing on this the past few weeks?
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the thousands of violent deaths may have something to do with it.
Have you heard about Yemen recently?
No? Then it must be quiet there. No deaths at all.
A cynical news producer would say “Yemen? Who cares? Muslims killing other Muslims is about as interesting as gang members killing other gang members. Give me Muslims and Jews killing each other, though, and we’re talking RATINGS, baby!”
Something like 10,000 civilians dead in the period of a month. Tends to draw the attention
OP has a point. There are other conflicts that have high body counts that don’t drive front page stories. Yemen. The stuff going on in Myanmar. Uyghurs. Even the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean.
You’re right that this is a significant conflict, but our news industry doesn’t assign column inches to body count.
Not the volume of deaths, but the continuousness of deaths.
Everyday another ~300 people die on average.
Not to mention media availability, because it’s basically a prison having rockets thrown at it, media can get really good information. They’re not really in a war zone. It’s a one-sided killing field more or less. So great reporting conditions great visuals. Conflicts really concentrated. Just put the cameras right there. You’ll capture most of it.
If it bleeds it leads.
It’s that combined with the likelihood for this to turn into WWIII due to the complex web of nation alliances involved in this conflict. Also, many major religions believe the end of the world is tied to this situation.
Because things escalated significantly in the last few weeks.
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/06/1210831466/death-toll-gaza-israel-hamas-conflict
Not to underplay the severity of the thousands and thousands of deaths, but it’s because christians are obsessed with Israel somehow being a keystone to their end of the world cult.
Muslims too
Also Jews
The world is something fundamentally different from what you see in your news.
I’m pretty sure these news are mostly in Europe and north America.
Israel is one of the US’s biggest allies, calling the attention of the American media, and the world often talks about what the US is talking about. Didn’t Zelenskyy talk about the Israel-Hamas conflict taking attention off Ukraine?
Probably because this conflict is good for Russia to get the west focusing on something else. I bet they are tunneling money/weapons to Hamas, and probably using their troll army to keep it relevant.
Other big conflicts and humanitarian catastrophes are not covered by the media strangely.
Fuck war, fuck authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, fuck people wanting to hurt other people.
Recently, Hamas carried out their largest and most brutal attack on Israel, killing many innocent people and generating international shock
Israel is now responding by invading Gaza: a dense, poor city with about 2 million people in it to try to wipe out Hamas.
There is now worldwide outrage at Israel’s response, which is disproportionately deadly due to their advanced military and billions of foreign aid. People are protesting Israel as an apartheid state and claiming that they are now pursuing genocidal goals.
It’s been simmering on the stove for a while but someone must have put the lid on the pot or something because it boiled out all over the place and burnt grandma
There is something photographic to cover.
I mean, shit hit the fan. That tends to get attention.
It’s an easy story, there are clear sides, and there are vocal demographics in the West that really care about it.
So it drives clicks. Local Palestinian, Jewish, and related groups are saying stuff that makes for easy interviews. The “other side” is easy to find, so creating multi-source stories is a breeze. For journalists with tight daily deadlines, it’s a gift.
Even better, politicians are courting those groups, so they’re saying stuff that, again, is easy to report on. And it’s local news!
There are clear sides?
The sides are clearly defined. Which, if any is the good side, not so much. However people have strong opinions about one or the other so there’s lots of opportunity for arguments
I don’t feel people who can pick a side here have done much homework on this.
The right side, and the wrong side,. Plus you can interview people who argue about right versus wrong. It’s a lot of content that can be farmed
In your opinion, Which sides are which sides? I don’t need an essay, just a definition :)
From a media perspective it doesn’t matter. Also there’s more than two sides.
Which was the point I was getting to with the original commenter. But thanks for… ya know… jumping in.
Having “clear sides” doesn’t mean there’s a clear “right side” and “wrong side”, imo.
The sides aren’t very clear when you start looking closer. And they’re both the wrong side of you think about it. The best side is the “wow that’s a shit show I’m glad I’m not involved with” side.
the media requires people to pay attention to it or they cant sell ad placement. bad news sells better than good news does.
the war in Ukraine is basically at a standstill, no one is going to watch it. media needs a new focus and Israel vs Iranian funded hamas terrorists is the next big thing. in a few months it’ll be something else - it’s just the focus of the “now”.
Israel’s genocidal revenge campaign is finally on full display with no legitimate distractions in the news cycle. Even in the US, despite the Israeli government’s efforts to influence ours, there’s public pushback that can’t be ignored.
Also, if anything happening on the planet right now is going to ignite World War III, this is it.
For years many in Syria have said that WW3 has already begun and is being fought in the middle east. You could very well argue this is the opening stage of World War 3. We’re only one misclick, or one civilian airliner being shot down away from even greater catastrophe.
I posted this question too and got called a racist. I was just curious where all the Ukraine stuff went. Sounds like a planned distraction to me. And since Hamas announced it loves Russia…
There’s no doubt that Russia are backing Hamas and doing so mainly to divert resources and attention away from Ukraine.
At the same time, the war in Ukraine is slowing down while the situation in Israel/Palestine has rapidly escalated.
Nothing is slowing down. But yes, it’s ramping up elsewhere as a distraction
No you’re absolutely right. Russia’s even behind some of that “anti-semitic tensions in Europe” stuff making headlines.
It’s an actual influence operation.
Watch out for those “Foreign couples” 😎
News tends to be a zero sum game. There are a finite number of reporters that fit into a news budget, and they usually have a fixed number of stories they need to submit. News publications are usually measured in words or minutes, after which the publication stops for the current news cycle.
So yeah, this topic will prevent coverage of other topics.
