Journalist Zahraa Al-Akhrass lost her job for speaking truth to power amidst Israel’s genocide in Gaza. [Picture: LinkedIn]
“Zionism is Nazism,” read the opening line of one of the online posts that might have later cost Zahraa Al-Akhrass her job in the dear free West. The Palestinian journalist took to X, formerly Twitter, to challenge the narrative and paid the price.
In a subsequent interview on Salaamedia, the former Canadian-based Global News journalist lambasted Western media outlets for treating the Palestinian issue as a “trend”.
She said, “When there is [a] so-called ‘armed conflict’, when there is ‘tension’, when there is ‘violence’, the media takes up the story and starts talking about it.”
The result of this inconsistent reportage on the ongoing ethnic cleansing, she said, was that “the audience has no clear understanding” while apartheid Israel committed all sorts of “human rights violations … against the Palestinians, with complete international impunity, with no consequences whatsoever”.
Zionism is Nazism.
— Zahraa Al-Akhrass (@ZahraaAkhrass) October 13, 2023
This narrative led by occupation media and politicians and so dumbly repeated by everyone in the West without even fact-checking the lies, is so dangerous.
It dehumanizes Palestinians and the only response to it is to fight back. We owe you nothing. https://t.co/kuTVwZ6sWU
SMread: Eight countries withdraw diplomats from Israel as Gaza genocide escalates
Al-Akhrass axed for speaking truth to power
Freedom is one of the most highly-emphasised values in the Western world. In fact, a free press is what its passionate proponents like to boast as a fundamental difference between the “democracies” of the West and “dictatorships” of the Middle East and Africa, those lands of barbarians.
Yet Al-Akhrass was not the only pro-Palestinian voice to have been suppressed in the wake of Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza. Palestinian model Bella Hadid, otherwise glorified by this materialistic society, received death threats after condemning Israel. So too has Egyptian-American comedian Bassem Yousseff after showing up on Uncensored.
Until this day, said Al-Akhrass, her former employer has not pinpointed the exact post that cost her her job. “They just told me I’m being unbalanced and my criticism for Israel has given a perception of bias according to their standards”.
She tried to speak to them in the hope of getting a better understanding of the accusations levelled against her. Nothing.
“We’re watching Palestinians being killed on live TV. Already, more than 10 000 of them have been killed and people finding themselves in such a situation, they must speak up. It’s an obligation as a human being and as a Palestinian to speak up for my people.”
When Al-Akhrass attempted to challenge the narrative in that post on 13 October, 447 children had been killed by Israel. That figure stands north of 4 000 by the time of writing. The world watched as the number of Palestinians killed lept from zero to 200, 1 000 to 5 000 and now 10 328. It continues to climb. A society is being erased.
