Mainstream Media’s Anti-Palestinian Double Standard Is On Full Display
Another day, another racist attack on Rep. Rashida Tlaib that our media completely ignores.
Adam Johnson
Newly elected U.S. Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) has been launching unhinged racist attacks against Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and the Muslim and Arab community writ large for years. But one would hardly be aware of this troubling reality by consuming mainstream U.S. media, which has decided it’s not worthy of reporting — much less condemnation or outrage.
Fine has called Tlaib “a terrorist” who “shouldn’t be American.” (Tlaib was born in Detroit.) He said Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota “might consider leaving before I get [to Congress]. #BombsAway.” He has advocated running over and killing pro-Palestine protesters, called Palestinians “animals,” referred to Muslims as “rapists,” and — as of late — openly cheer-leads starving civilians in Gaza. In his most recent online tirade on Friday, Fine once again engaged in a racist attack on Rep. Tlaib, posting on X, in response to her condemning Israel’s starvation campaign in Gaza, “Tell your fellow Muslim terrorists to release the hostages and surrender. Until then, #StarveAway.”
The response from U.S. media has been to completely ignore it. Fine’s bigoted attack on a fellow Congressperson, to say nothing of his advocating mass starvation, wasn’t reported on at all by The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Politico, Axios, CNN, MSNBC, NBC News, CBS News or ABC News. This amounted to a total mainstream media blackout on this clear-as-day act of racist incitement.
Contrast this silence with the week-long media meltdown last September when Rep. Tlaib suggested that Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel filed charges against pro-Palestinian activists at the University of Michigan because she was possibly biased against pro-Palestine protesters. “We’ve [protested for] climate, the immigrant rights movement, for Black lives, and even around issues of injustice among water shutoffs,” Tlaib told The Detroit Metro Times. “But it seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs.”
This comment turned out to be completely vindicated after a Nessel-led prosecution raided and arrested seven pro-Palestine protesters in a pre-dawn raid last month. (The charges were later dropped after Nessel was pressured to recuse herself for alleged bias.) But at the time, despite the interviewer himself defending Tlaib, the Congresswoman’s remarks solicited multiple instances of media hand-wringing about Tlaib’s alleged antisemitism in USA Today, Newsweek, Fox News and The Free Press,. This culminated with a particularly sleazy smear campaign from CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, which outright asserted Tlaib was an anti-Jewish bigot. This was is addition to the torrent of articles and segments in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Axios, CNN, MSNBC, NBC News, CBS News, and ABC News in late 2023 lamenting Tlaib’s alleged, or perceived, antisemitism because she supports freedom for everyone “from the River to the Sea.”
Recall as well the dozens of articles and meta-articles written about Rep. Omar’s suggestion in February 2019 that former House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy was threatening to punish Omar for being critical of Israel because “it’s all about the Benjamins baby,” suggesting McCarthy was being unduly influenced by AIPAC’s significant influence in Congress.
Comments from Tlaib, Omar and anyone in Congress vaguely sympathetic to Palestine are pored over, hyper-analyzed, interpreted in the least generous way possible, turned into meta-scandals, spurring censure votes in the House of Representatives and Official Condemnations from Democrats, thus spurring even more media cycles creating a fever pitch of innuendo, panicked responses and vibes-based denouncements. This outsized response then gives the public the vague impression that antisemitism on the Left is out of control and unchecked. Plumes and plumes of smoke with very little, if any, fire.
But out-in-the-open racist screeds from pro-Israel radicals like Fine are simply nonstories. No one at any major U.S. publication saw fit to report on, much less condemn, Fine’s racist attacks accusing his Muslim colleague of being a “terrorist,” then openly advocating the starvation of civilians in Gaza. Imagine if a Muslim elected tweeted at a Jewish Congressman celebrating war crimes leveled against Israelis and calling them a racially-coded slur. There would likely be nonstop public condemnations, media coverage and calls for resignation. When Fine does it, however, it’s just another Friday.
Indeed, Fine is often covered like a wacky fun uncle who’s just a little edgy. A puff profile of Fine in Politico last month after his election was headlined, “DC, get ready for Randy Fine: ‘Hardest right hook in the business.’” It framed Fine as a “firebrand and confrontational lawmaker” who has “gained a reputation for his bare-knuckle style of politics and spats with local officials.” The piece detailed many of Fine’s bigoted statements, but never referred to them as such. The words “racist,” “bigoted” “sexist,” “homophobic,” and “Islamophobic” never appear in the piece. He’s just rough around the edges but, as a source claims in the piece, “smart” and can “articulate policy in ways people could easily understand.”
If one needs any more evidence of glaring double standards in our media’s supposed Deep Concern Over Bigotry, look no further than how our media has welcomed Fine into Congress and allowed his open racism to remain entirely unchecked. Meanwhile, there’s a perpetual media outrage machine, existing in an entirely different universe, that feigns indignation over comments that are slightly critical of Israel made by Squad members and other pro-Palestinian voices.
Adam H. Johnson is a media analyst and co-host of the Citations Needed podcast.
