ISTANBUL
At the Gaza Tribunal’s final session in Istanbul on complicity, international systems, resistance, and solidarity, experts on Saturday accused Western media outlets, US universities, government officials, and corporate actors of enabling Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Speaking on media complicity, US journalist, comedian and filmmaker Katie Halper said Western news organizations have played a central role in shaping public perception by selectively reporting and obscuring facts about civilian suffering.
“In 2020, while working as a co-host of The Hill’s show Rising, I prepared a monologue in which I argue that Israel was an apartheid state. The producers refused to air my segment,” she said.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, she argued, “Western corporate media’s complicity is so pervasive, and in some cases, quantifiable … It often uses passive or misdemeanor attribution … and dehumanized Palestinians.”
Halper pointed to what she called misleading coverage of sexual violence allegations, saying: “The US media and Western media and US political leaders are still talking about the rape that didn’t happen, yet inside [Israel] it’s happening — sexual violence ... .”
She accused major outlets of suppressing contradictory evidence and amplifying narratives that bolster Israeli government claims.
Universities 'actively supporting' Israel
Testifying on university complicity, Maura Finkelstein, who identified herself as a formerly tenured professor in the US dismissed for her stance on Palestine, said higher education institutions have “actively supported Israel’s genocide” through finances, partnerships, and repression of dissent.
Students, however, chose boycotts and divestment from "directly aiding in the dispossession and ethnic cleansing and genocide,” she said, citing US weapons manufacturers and firms whose equipment “Israel’s military uses to destroy homes.”
She also described intelligence-sharing and research ties. “There are 15 UARC (University Affialited Research Center) schools in the US, and one of them, University of Southern California, was also recently revealed to provide human cadavers to the US and Israeli military for trauma surgery training in Gaza.”
Finkelstein warned the tribunal that suppression of Palestine advocacy has intensified.
“These ongoing repressive measures … have created a chilling effect across higher education,” including surveillance, suspensions, and police crackdowns on student encampments, she said. “I am one of those faculty members. The number of faculty and staff who are targets continues to grow.”
US government made deliberate decisions
In remote testimony on government complicity, Lily Greenberg, a former Biden administration political appointee who resigned in May 2024, said she could no longer serve in a government “complicit in the genocide of Palestinians.”
“There was an almost immediate cloud,” she said of the period following the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks. “Colleagues … felt like they could not express any discipline,” while leadership emphasized Israel’s right to self-defense “omit[ting] any acknowledgement of international law.”
Greenberg testified that officials were fully aware of civilian casualties and infrastructure collapse. “These reports circulated internally … and yet none of these warnings changed policy.”
“What made me complicit,” she said, “was the US’ support and enabling of Israel’s system of apartheid and inequality and occupation that created the conditions for Oct. 7.”
She urged “a suspension of all US military and all transportation to Israel” and reforms to reduce political influence from pro-Israel lobbying groups.
Profit from 'a militarized state economy'
Also testifying online, Shahd Hammouri, who is a law lecturer at the Kent Law School, described corporate and weapons-industry involvement as a structural driver of atrocities.
“Israel is a militarized state economy,” she said. “During the genocide of Gaza, Israel produced over 102,000 tons of explosives … Israel tested new weapons in Gaza.”
She argued that global markets and corporate investors profit from militarization and extractive ventures involving Israeli-linked firms worldwide, calling the genocide “the effect of the current globalized market economy.”
Gaza Tribunal
The four-day public session at Istanbul University from Thursday to Sunday marks the culmination of a year-long effort by international jurists, scholars and civil society figures to document crimes committed against Palestinians.
Presided over by Richard Falk, former UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, the tribunal aims to produce a comprehensive “people’s record” of what participants describe as genocide, apartheid and systemic violations of international law in Gaza.
The tribunal’s jury of conscience includes Kenize Mourad, Christine Chinkin, Chandra Muzaffar, Ghada Karmi, Sami Al-Arian and Biljana Vankovska.
The Tribunal’s panel of jurists and observers is expected to issue a final opinion on Sunday summarizing findings on genocide, apartheid, and systemic violations in Gaza.
