Last week an unarmed Palestinian boy was murdered by the Israeli Defence Force and his body was dangled from and mangled by an Israeli bulldozer. The video is utterly horrifying.

Is it any wonder Israeli troops act like this when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says “the only way to treat Palestinians is to beat them up, not once but repeatedly beat them up, until it’s unbearable”.

Late last year Netanyahu described Palestinians involved in an Israeli government as an “existential threat to Israel” – a comment which mirrors what was said in Rwanda before the genocide, in Burma before the Rohingya massacres and in Germany before the Nazi atrocities.

If the word Palestinians were replaced by the word Jews in any of Netanyahu’s statements the world would rightly be outraged.

So why the silence when Palestinians are talked about and treated this way?

The silence is because journalists and media outlets are terrified of being called anti-semitic by the pro-Israeli “media police” who determine what is acceptable and what is not to be reported.

The simple, unreported fact is that the Israeli leadership is driven by race-hatred towards Palestinians. The current Israeli election is being decided on which party will be the most racist and the most brutal towards Palestinians.

The sheer unadulterated brutality (there is no nice way to put it) of the Israeli state has been a constant in Palestinian lives for 70 years.

Gutless, one-sided media reporting bears a large part of the blame.

John Minto

National Chair PSNA