On Saturday, April 27, journalists from prominent news outlets are invited to join U.S. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and other Biden administration officials at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner. The event takes place as the Biden administration continues to send weapons to Israel to continue its genocide in Gaza, which has to date killed more than 33,000 Palestinians, including over 125 Palestinian journalists.
Palestinian journalists from Gaza have put out an urgent appeal to their fellow journalists in the U.S. and across the world to stand with their colleagues in Gaza and refuse to whitewash Biden's complicity in genocide by publicly boycotting the dinner. It is unacceptable and unethical for journalists to attend a dinner to cozy up to the Biden administration while it supports a regime that is targeting their colleagues for doing their jobs.
Stand in solidarity with journalists in Gaza and fill out the form below to endorse their call to boycott the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Find the full text of their letter with the names of the signatories at: https://bit.ly/GazaPressAppeal.
This appeal is being organized with the help of Adalah Justice Project and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. Please reach out to press@adalahjusticeproject.org for more information.
__________
APPEAL: BOYCOTT THE WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ DINNER & STAND WITH YOUR COLLEAGUES IN GAZA
In the past six months alone, the Israeli military has executed over 125 Palestinian journalists in Gaza — 10 percent of Gaza's community of journalists. The year 2023 marked the bloodiest year for journalists worldwide in over a decade, with over 75 percent of killed journalists targeted by Israel’s attacks on Gaza.
As Palestinian journalists, we urgently appeal to you, our colleagues globally, with a demand for immediate and unwavering action against the Biden administration's ongoing complicity in the systematic slaughter and persecution of journalists in Gaza. We insist you publicly boycott the upcoming White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 27 as an act of solidarity with us – your fellow journalists – as well as with the millions of Palestinians currently being starved in Gaza due to the Biden administration’s continued political, financial, and military backing of Israel and cut off of funding for live-saving humanitarian aid.
As Palestinian journalists who have been reporting from the ground in Gaza, we bear the enormous burden of exposing the realities of Israel’s genocidal campaign to the world while living through it in real time. Israel has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians as we watch on.
The toll exacted on us for merely fulfilling our journalistic duties is staggering. We are subjected to detentions, interrogations, and torture by the Israeli military, all for the 'crime' of journalistic integrity. More than 1,500 Palestinian journalists in Gaza have been displaced after our neighborhoods, homes, and families were targeted. We continue our work in makeshift tents without electricity, fuel, or internet, and with limited amounts of food and water. Journalists remaining in the north and Gaza City, like other Palestinians there, are under strict siege and at risk of starvation.
In Gaza, journalism is synonymous with putting our lives on the line as Israel methodically targets us in its desperate bid to silence our voices and obscure the grim reality of its genocidal actions and its project of ethnic cleansing in Palestine. For Palestinian journalists in Gaza, the blue press vest does not offer us protection, but rather functions as a red target.
The Biden administration's ongoing support for Israel’s genocidal policies implicates it directly in the relentless targeting and massacring of journalists in Gaza, including hundreds of our colleagues and their families.
Western media has played an integral role in manufacturing consent for Israel’s ongoing violence against the Palestinian people, while obfuscating U.S. complicity. Over the past six months, the mainstream press has become the mouthpiece of the homicidal Israeli regime, promoting dehumanizing anti-Palestinian propaganda and platforming genocide apologists and perpetrators, while simultaneously ignoring, downplaying, and underreporting Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians.
The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is an embodiment of media manipulation, trading journalistic ethics for access. For journalists to fraternize at an event with President Biden and Vice President Harris would be to normalize, sanitize, and whitewash the administration’s role in genocide.
The press plays an integral role in standing up against injustice by illuminating the truth and holding power to account. Journalists in Gaza cannot continue to bear the burden of doing so alone.
As journalists reporting from the belly of the beast, you have a unique responsibility to speak truth to power and uphold journalistic integrity. It is unacceptable to stay silent out of fear or professional concern while journalists in Gaza continue to be detained, tortured, and killed for doing our jobs.
We have witnessed how journalists across the U.S. have demanded justice for fellow journalists like Jamal Khashoggii, Shireen Abu Akleh, and Evan Gershkovich. It is past time journalists take action for journalists in Gaza.
We call on all journalists of conscience to stand with us and uplift our call to boycott the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
You can learn the name and stories of some of the Palestinian journalists killed through the Committee to Protect Journalists.
