Queen Rania of Jordan highlights CNN’s Israel-Gaza coverage in an interview with Christiane Amanpour
In a heated interview broadcast on Tuesday, Queen Rania of Jordan sat down with veteran journalist Christiane Amanpour and criticized what she called a “blatant double standard” in mainstream Western media coverage of the Israel-Gaza war .
“It was very disappointing to see the double standards in the world today, the strong condemnation of what happened on October 7, but very little condemnation of what is happening today,” the Jordanian king continued Amanpour & Coin a video interview from the capital Amman, Jordan.
“Why is there no immediate call for a ceasefire? Today we are experiencing shocking human suffering. So why is the narrative always focused on the Israeli side? Western media and policymakers are quickly adopting the Israeli narrative. If Israel attacks, the Palestinians willdie,’ but when Israelis die, they are ‘killed,’ murdered in cold blood.”
Although the 53-year-old queen has long advocated for the rights of the Palestinian people, her interview with Amanpour struck a particularly sharp tone not often seen among royals. She called Israel’s bombing of Gaza a “mass slaughter” and even criticized US President Joe Biden’s public statements about the October 7 attacks on Israel – even directly addressing CNN.
“When the President of the United States was told that he had evidence, he saw evidence of child beheading, only to withdraw it because the IDF said there was no evidence of it. This is confirmation bias. Even your channel Christiane, the CNN website, ran a headline early in the conflict about Israeli children found slaughtered in an Israeli kibbutz. And if you read through the story, you’ll see that this hasn’t been independently verified. Now my question to you: Would you publish such a damning but unconfirmed claim from a Palestinian?”
Amanpour then interjected: “Queen Rania, I just have to stop you right here because the Israelis were showing pictures and our journalists were down there. “I’m not talking about beheadings, I’m talking about bullet-riddled baby bodies,” before saying that Change subject.
Speaking about the Arab world’s response to the airstrikes that hit Gaza in recent weeks, killing about 5,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s health minister, the queen said many felt that the Western world was “in the crowd.” “complicit” is the death of civilians.
“We’re told that it’s wrong to kill a family, an entire family, at gunpoint, but it’s OK to shoot them to death…” And it’s just shocking to the Arab world,” she said later added: “This is the first time in modern history that there is so much human suffering, and the world is not even calling for a ceasefire. “So the silence is deafening.”
During the interview, Amanpour warned the queen that she would “endure a lot of criticism from Israel and its supporters” for calling Israel an “apartheid state.” The king replied: “Let me just emphasize that apartheid is a label given not by Arabs but by Israeli and international human rights organizations.”
“This is a 75-year-old story, a story of overwhelming death and displacement for the Palestinian people,” the queen said, referring to the Israeli occupation and the “dehumanization” of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip through “daily humiliations.” and human rights violations.”
“Because of the events of the last few weeks, there is now an excessive fixation on Hamas. But this is a problem that far preceded Hamas and will continue after Hamas. This is a fight for freedom and justice.”
