Removing the passive voice would be something like "When Israel invaded Gaza in response to Hamas attacks" or "When the Israeli government launched a counterattack in response to Hamas led attacks" or so on.

It's the classic "Man shot when running from police" stuff, where one actor or actors are demphasised or erased in order to implicitly bias readership. It is especially notable when the most recent or destructive actions are passive voiced away.

[–] Echinoderm 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I agree with you there, and think your active wording is better.

What confuses me is that I don't see the conceptual jump from the Guardian using a passive voice which de-emphasises the Israeli government's responsibility in this, and rampant antisemitism. Particularly when you give examples of how this is a larger problem in media.

Unless I'm missing something here, is it not more likely to be just a questionable grammatical choice with no ill intent?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

That bit is sarcastic hyperbole. Often we're seeing people and media orgs who are anything shy of sycophantic to the Israeli government get accused of antisemitism.

The guardian has been better than most but they're still doing a lot of laundering of genocide and settler-colonialism in their coverage. I am frustrated by stuff like the passive voice diminishing that literally every civilian dead and aid convey bombed is an activity policy choice. Jestingesting that to reduce it to mere reaction is to deny the Jewish people in government human qualities like agency and a moral compass.

Which I think there is a kernel of truth in.

edit: awkward phrasing, I think there is a kernel of truth in the idea it's antisemitic to believe that Israeli people/the state somehow are less morally culpable because of the horror visited in Jewish people on the past/the present to a lesser extent.

[–] Echinoderm 3 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks, I didn't catch the sarcasm, which was what had me confused.

[–] Zagorath 3 points 2 weeks ago

If I can attempt to explain what I thought @[email protected] was doing (certainly, it's how I interpreted their initial comment), it's that they were playing off of the very, very common refrain from Israel and its supporters that any criticism of Israel is antisemitic. Sometimes they'll be quite explicit about that, but they'll also often pretend otherwise while levying the "antisemitism" critique at anyone who calls out the actions of the state of Israel.

A reasonably common response to this is that actually, no, that is itself antisemitic. Because it's implicitly tying the actions of one country with the Jewish people. And so the Israeli government and its supporters are being antisemitic when they try to deflect blame for Israel's actions by calling the blame antisemitic.

Naeva was doing something kinda similar to that here. Except this time instead of being about deflecting the blame, it was about how the article implicitly phrases it as though Israel had no choice but to commit genocide. It was just automatically triggered by the Hamas attack.