The Intercept - If you challenge Israel, you’re fired

The confirmed death toll in Gaza is now over 20,000 — nearly 1 percent of the entire population. Thousands more bodies are believed to be trapped under rubble. Hospitals, schools, ambulances, and refugee camps have been bombed.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration continues to furiously lobby Congress to give Israel another $14 billion in military aid — with absolutely zero restrictions on how those weapons are used.

Yet major U.S. news media outlets have continued to repeat the Biden administration’s preposterous claims that they are doing everything possible to reduce civilian deaths — and some outlets are firing journalists or sanctioning them for speaking out about the crimes being committed against Gaza. At The Intercept, that is part of our job.

The Intercept stands nearly alone among U.S. news outlets in holding our government accountable for its actions in this war: arming, funding, supporting, and lying on behalf of Israel’s annihilation of the people of Gaza.

As a reader-supported news outlet, our year-end fundraising campaign is critical to our ability to continue providing this coverage.

Will you make a donation to help The Intercept meet our year-end fundraising goal of $700,000?

From the moment President Joe Biden spoke to his “great, great friend” Benjamin Netanyahu on October 7, the U.S. has not just supplied Israel with additional weapons and intelligence support, it has also offered crucial political cover for the scorched-earth campaign to annihilate Gaza.

The propaganda from the Biden administration has been so extreme at times that even the Israeli military has suggested they tone it down a notch or two. Biden has continued to repeat his false claims that he personally saw images of “terrorists beheading children,” even after the Israel Defense Forces itself was forced to admit it had no evidence of such killings.

In addition, Biden has baselessly questioned reports from the Gaza Health Ministry on the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza while justifying the bombing of hospitals and refugee camps under the rubric of Israel’s right to defend itself.

None of this is by accident, nor can it be attributed to the president’s propensity to exaggerate or stumble into gaffes. On the contrary, everything we know about Biden’s 50-year history of supporting and facilitating Israel’s worst crimes and abuses leads to one conclusion: Biden wants Israel’s destruction of Gaza to unfold as it has.

This is the essential historical context that readers desperately need, but reporters at corporate news outlets know that if they challenge the pro-Israel consensus, they risk losing their jobs and maybe their entire careers.

The Intercept’s adversarial journalism is needed now more than at any other time since our founding — and this year-end drive is a key part of how we plan to keep our newsroom fully funded in the year ahead.

If you value this reporting and share our belief that great journalism can make a difference in times of war, please make a year-end donation to The Intercept.

STAND WITH THE INTERCEPT →

Thank you,