Newsweek Discovers Humanitarian Concern, Forgets History
Newsweek, ever vigilant for human rights (sometimes), spotlights Mamdani's defense of Khalil after a 'court loss.' What the mainstream outlet conveniently leaves out is the ongoing history of Palestinian resistance and the legal frameworks often used to criminalize it. Khalil's 'court loss' isn't an isolated incident but a ripple in a vast ocean of arrests, detentions, and extrajudicial actions
against Palestinians for decades. One might wonder if Newsweek applies the same rigorous scrutiny to the military courts that regularly process and convict Palestinians with little due process. This selective empathy highlights a familiar pattern: focus on individual stories divorced from systemic oppression. It's almost as if acknowledging the historical context—like the 1948 Nakba or the
continuous displacement and subjugation—would complicate the neat 'court loss' narrative too much. Imagine if they centered the discussion on human rights violations under occupation, rather than the isolated legal struggles of those resisting it. (But then, wouldn't that imply a certain accountability the 'news' often avoids?)