A searing indictment of Western media that lays bare how a so-called free press, long tasked with speaking truth to power, instead became a vital part of the machinery that enabled the genocide in Palestine.

If you're not writing the truth about crimes against humanity, you're culpable in them.

Human rights activist and Middle East scholar Assal Rad is known online as the 'headline fixer' - with a special focus on exposing double standards in Western media, especially about Palestine. Israelis are described as 'children' and 'civilians', while Palestinians are 'people under 18' and 'collateral damage'; Israelis are killed; Palestinians die. Even in the wake of the ceasefire, major Western media continually obfuscates Israeli violence in Palestine,

This pattern of dehumanizing language, Don't Say Palestine reveals, has been so consistent throughout the Palestinian genocide that it amounts to a policy. Over the past three years, headlines in outlets from CNN to Reuters to the New York Times have consistently downplayed Israeli responsibility, 'othered' Palestinians, and called into question inviolable tenets of international law like the sanctity of hospitals and journalists in warzones. Highlighting the linguistic moves and framing devices at play and surfacing stories Western media decided not to report, Rad maps with devastating clarity mainstream media's instrumental role in sanitizing, white-washing, and downplaying a human rights crisis.

Don't Say Palestine offers both a moral reckoning and an urgent call to action. When these years are studied, this will be the book people read to understand how 'this' was allowed to happen, and the one people turn to when looking to rebuild their faith in the media.


'Amidst some of the worst journalistic failures of this century, Assal Rad has consistently done vital work to point out the myriad ways institutional hypocrisy, cowardice and willful obliviousness work hand-in-hand with state violence to justify and normalize any manner of atrocity. Her intellectual rigor and moral clarity - not only on the journalistic malpractice that so often marks Western media coverage of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, but on how this malpractice eventually seeps into all coverage - is unwavering. At a time when it would have been so much more convenient to stay silent, I and so many others are grateful for her willingness to speak' -- Omar El Akkad , National Book Award winner of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

'A poignant reminder of the power of words to normalise, or legitimise, genocide' -- Yanis Varoufakis, author of 'Technofeudalism'

'If you've ever wondered how the media manipulated perception through subtle use of language this is the book for you to read. Assal Rad in her superb book shows how no other institution is as instrumental in shaping perception like the media which is not a record of truth telling but a carefully curated narrative and elaborate system of erasure, euphemism and deference to power' -- Raja Shehadeh, author of What Does Israel Fear From Palestine?

Details

ISBN13: 9781805467106
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 256
Edition: Main
Publication Date: 08 Sep 2026
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Publication City, Country: London, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 21.6(H)x13.8(L)434
Weight (gm): 434

Author Biography

ASSAL RAD is an activist, historian of the modern Middle East, and a Fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC and DAWN. Her first book, The State of Resistance: Politics, Culture, and Identity in Modern Iran, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022. Her writing has appeared in Newsweek, The National Interest, The Independent, Foreign Policy, and more, and she has appeared as a commentator on BBC World, Al Jazeera, CNN, NPR, and elsewhere.

Reviews

'Assal Rad brilliantly exposes how, for the past years, reality itself has been distorted to fit a political ecosystem ... Rad demonstrates how media narratives create permissive conditions for genocide through strategic omission, selective visibility, euphemism, and the erasing of Palestinian voices ... This is not reporting - it is complicity' -- Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories
'A poignant reminder of the power of words to normalise, or legitimise, genocide' -- Yanis Varoufakis, author of 'Technofeudalism'
'Amidst some of the worst journalistic failures of this century, Assal Rad has consistently done vital work to point out the myriad ways institutional hypocrisy, cowardice and willful obliviousness work hand-in-hand with state violence to justify and normalize any manner of atrocity. Her intellectual rigor and moral clarity - not only on the journalistic malpractice that so often marks Western media coverage of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, but on how this malpractice eventually seeps into all coverage - is unwavering. At a time when it would have been so much more convenient to stay silent, I and so many others are grateful for her willingness to speak' -- Omar El Akkad , National Book Award winner of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
'If you've ever wondered how the media manipulated perception through subtle use of language this is the book for you to read. Assal Rad in her superb book shows how no other institution is as instrumental in shaping perception like the media which is not a record of truth telling but a carefully curated narrative and elaborate system of erasure, euphemism and deference to power' -- Raja Shehadeh, author of What Does Israel Fear From Palestine?
'Eighty years ago, George Orwell wrote that "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible." Assal Rad shows, in painful detail, that in the case of Israel-Palestine, this remains true' -- Peter Beinart, author of Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza
'When so many chose indifference and obfuscation, Assal insists on clarity, honesty, and integrity. She documents how complicity for a livestreamed genocide was perpetrated. It is a chronicle of depravity and the depraved, and of the operation of cynicism on a grand dehumanizing scale' -- Ussama Makdisi, author of Anti-Palestinianism
'Using her own X feed in real time to response to media complicity in atrocities, Assal Rad, demonstrates how genocides can happen again, even in the age of human rights, even before our very eyes. Don't Say Palestine is an incisive critique of Western media that illuminates how personal, economic, and political interests compromise the project of journalism and threatens our collective future. The book will infuriate you as much as it will inspire us all to be the change we need' -- Noura Erakat, Professor at Rutgers University
'A beacon of clarity in a media landscape clouded by lies ... A powerful call for accountability, justice and truth' -- Molly Crabapple, bestselling author of 'Here Where We Live Is Our Country'
'Assal Rad offers a profound meditation on the role of the media in a democratic society ... This book is a shocking exposé illuminating the ways in which the media molds public opinion to help perpetuate and build consent for atrocities. A must read' -- Dr. Josh Ruebner, Georgetown University, author of 'The United States and the Palestinian Nakba: A Transnational History, 1947-1950'