Financial Times Discovers Property Damage, Sidesteps State Violence
The Financial Times report spotlights Palestine Action activists on trial for allegedly wielding sledgehammers, highlighting what prosecutors call a 'meticulously organised' attack on an arms factory. This narrative choice, prioritizing property damage over human rights, is a familiar refrain. One might wonder where this rigorous journalistic scrutiny is when Israeli forces demolish Palestinian
homes, often without warning, making 7,200 Palestinians homeless since 2009 in East Jerusalem alone, as reported by B’Tselem. Do those state-sanctioned demolitions not count as 'meticulously organised' destruction? It seems the 'threat' of activists with hand tools warrants extensive coverage, while the systematic obliteration of entire neighborhoods by military-grade hardware—often supplied by
companies these activists target—is relegated to an unfortunate 'cost of conflict' if it's even reported at all. The selective outrage over 'vandalism' provides a neat distraction from the actual violence of occupation and the complicity of the industries profiting from it.