2024/10/16•
AFP via Getty Images
Brandon Kemp
Taipei-based writer exploring queer desire in East Asian cinema, media, and culture, with a focus on the Sinophone world.
What you need to know
Taiwan's media coverage of Palestine often lacks depth and understanding, presenting a misleading both-sidesism that ignores the vast asymmetry between Israel and the Palestinian territories. Taiwan's domestic media sometimes demonizes Palestinian civilians and fails to acknowledge the well-documented discrimination they face within Israel.
To the extent that Palestine receives any coverage in Taiwan’s domestic media, it is often portrayed as a distant conflict with little relation to the lived experiences and aspirations of ordinary Taiwanese people. Despite this Taiwanese companies continue to profit from the war (link in Chinese) alongside Israel’s abetment of China’s authoritarian surveillance state.
At its best, Taiwan’s media landscape often presents a lamentable both-sidesism that misleadingly frames the ongoing violence as one between equal sides. This ignores the vast asymmetry between Israel, a country with a fearsome military and billions of dollars of backing from the United States, and the Palestinian territories, which lack anything like meaningful sovereignty (despite widespread international recognition), with illegal Israeli settlements slowly whittling away at even these areas. At its worst, Taiwan’s domestic media demonizes Palestinian civilians as extremists and dangerous threats to “the Middle East’s only democracy,” despite the well-documented discrimination they face within Israel’s borders and what the U.N. has labeled a likely genocide unfolding in Gaza.
According to Oxfam, the daily death rate in Gaza, at around 250 per day, is higher than any other twenty-first-century conflict. The overwhelming majority of these deaths are women and children—6,000 women and 11,000 children over the past year alone. The horrific events of October 7th, in which Hamas extremists killed over a thousand people and kidnapped hundreds of Israelis and other nationals, cannot serve as a pretext for the subsequent collective punishment of an entire people, which is illegal under international law, nor can it be used to erase the broader legitimate grievances of the Palestinian people over illegal land grabs and endless occupation. It is this very sense of hopelessness, combined with Israeli brutality, that breeds such deplorable groups and acts; one need not excuse them, nor whitewash Palestinian leaders’ past mistakes, to understand as much.
As Jewish psychoanalyst, feminist, and cultural critic Jacqueline Rose has put it, at present the far-right Israeli government operates under the childish logic of “You made me do it.” The wholesale leveling of mosques, churches, schools, hospitals, villages? “You made me do it.” We had to because the Palestinians use civilians as human shields. That, apparently, justifies shooting children and medical workers in the head with what observers have called surgical precision. Never mind, too, that the New York Times has recently reported that Israelis themselves use Palestinian hostages as human shields.
When otherwise progressive Taiwanese politicians like Miao Bo-ya say that downgrading Taiwan’s cooperation with Israel wouldn’t serve the country’s national interest, it boggles the mind. How exactly does embracing an international pariah, whose prime minister is wanted for arrest by the International Criminal Court, help Taiwan’s international image? To demand understanding and solidarity without giving these in return to those seeking safety and self-determination is ludicrously arrogant and self-defeating. Offering goodwill is the precondition for building and receiving it.
Some politicians and commentators argue that Taiwan can and should learn from Israel’s military might. That’s all well and good, as Taiwan has real defensive concerns that don’t entail the occupation and partial eradication of one of its historic ethnic groups, though it’s a stretch to say this justifies an island-nation that prides itself on its human rights progress looking the other way when rights are violated in so brutal a fashion. Others point to Israel’s record on LGBTQ rights as a reason to back it, as though this pinkwashing will spare queer Palestinians from the bombs being dropped on their heads.
Taiwan stands at a crossroads. In Hong Kong, where China has cracked down on human rights, activists have risked their safety in brave shows of solidarity with Palestinians. In Taiwan, groups like Amnesty International (link in Chinese) have called for an end to the supply of weapons components to Israel. Others, like For Peace Taiwan, have staged small-scale protests and die-ins to draw attention to the plight of Palestinians who, like so many at home, want only peace, security, and self-determination. The time for excuses is over. Stand up en masse against invasion and oppression everywhere, including in Gaza, or don’t be surprised when the world doesn’t stand up for Taiwan.
READ NEXT: One Year On: What’s Next for the Gaza Strip?
TNL Editor: Kim Chan (@thenewslensintl)
Brandon Kemp
Taipei-based writer exploring queer desire in East Asian cinema, media, and culture, with a focus on the Sinophone world.
What you need to know
Taiwan's media coverage of Palestine often lacks depth and understanding, presenting a misleading both-sidesism that ignores the vast asymmetry between Israel and the Palestinian territories. Taiwan's domestic media sometimes demonizes Palestinian civilians and fails to acknowledge the well-documented discrimination they face within Israel.
To the extent that Palestine receives any coverage in Taiwan’s domestic media, it is often portrayed as a distant conflict with little relation to the lived experiences and aspirations of ordinary Taiwanese people. Despite this Taiwanese companies continue to profit from the war (link in Chinese) alongside Israel’s abetment of China’s authoritarian surveillance state.
At its best, Taiwan’s media landscape often presents a lamentable both-sidesism that misleadingly frames the ongoing violence as one between equal sides. This ignores the vast asymmetry between Israel, a country with a fearsome military and billions of dollars of backing from the United States, and the Palestinian territories, which lack anything like meaningful sovereignty (despite widespread international recognition), with illegal Israeli settlements slowly whittling away at even these areas. At its worst, Taiwan’s domestic media demonizes Palestinian civilians as extremists and dangerous threats to “the Middle East’s only democracy,” despite the well-documented discrimination they face within Israel’s borders and what the U.N. has labeled a likely genocide unfolding in Gaza.
According to Oxfam, the daily death rate in Gaza, at around 250 per day, is higher than any other twenty-first-century conflict. The overwhelming majority of these deaths are women and children—6,000 women and 11,000 children over the past year alone. The horrific events of October 7th, in which Hamas extremists killed over a thousand people and kidnapped hundreds of Israelis and other nationals, cannot serve as a pretext for the subsequent collective punishment of an entire people, which is illegal under international law, nor can it be used to erase the broader legitimate grievances of the Palestinian people over illegal land grabs and endless occupation. It is this very sense of hopelessness, combined with Israeli brutality, that breeds such deplorable groups and acts; one need not excuse them, nor whitewash Palestinian leaders’ past mistakes, to understand as much.
As Jewish psychoanalyst, feminist, and cultural critic Jacqueline Rose has put it, at present the far-right Israeli government operates under the childish logic of “You made me do it.” The wholesale leveling of mosques, churches, schools, hospitals, villages? “You made me do it.” We had to because the Palestinians use civilians as human shields. That, apparently, justifies shooting children and medical workers in the head with what observers have called surgical precision. Never mind, too, that the New York Times has recently reported that Israelis themselves use Palestinian hostages as human shields.
When otherwise progressive Taiwanese politicians like Miao Bo-ya say that downgrading Taiwan’s cooperation with Israel wouldn’t serve the country’s national interest, it boggles the mind. How exactly does embracing an international pariah, whose prime minister is wanted for arrest by the International Criminal Court, help Taiwan’s international image? To demand understanding and solidarity without giving these in return to those seeking safety and self-determination is ludicrously arrogant and self-defeating. Offering goodwill is the precondition for building and receiving it.
Some politicians and commentators argue that Taiwan can and should learn from Israel’s military might. That’s all well and good, as Taiwan has real defensive concerns that don’t entail the occupation and partial eradication of one of its historic ethnic groups, though it’s a stretch to say this justifies an island-nation that prides itself on its human rights progress looking the other way when rights are violated in so brutal a fashion. Others point to Israel’s record on LGBTQ rights as a reason to back it, as though this pinkwashing will spare queer Palestinians from the bombs being dropped on their heads.
Taiwan stands at a crossroads. In Hong Kong, where China has cracked down on human rights, activists have risked their safety in brave shows of solidarity with Palestinians. In Taiwan, groups like Amnesty International (link in Chinese) have called for an end to the supply of weapons components to Israel. Others, like For Peace Taiwan, have staged small-scale protests and die-ins to draw attention to the plight of Palestinians who, like so many at home, want only peace, security, and self-determination. The time for excuses is over. Stand up en masse against invasion and oppression everywhere, including in Gaza, or don’t be surprised when the world doesn’t stand up for Taiwan.
READ NEXT: One Year On: What’s Next for the Gaza Strip?
TNL Editor: Kim Chan (@thenewslensintl)
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