The journey to Moderation.
It's personal.
Prefer to listen instead? Rebecca Davis reads The journey to Moderation:
October 7. There will only ever be before and after.
A line drawn in the sand, now hardened to stone.
It was a defining moment in our history, ingrained into our souls, changing us forever.
As a people: Jews in Israel – and in the Diaspora.
And as individuals too.
The sheer barbarity. The disbelief. The shattering of faith.
1,200 lives slaughtered – shot, stabbed, burned, beheaded, gang-raped.
240 hostages – a baby, children, women, men, elderly – kidnapped into Gaza.
How did this happen… again?
And then, still thick in the clamminess of our grief, came the series of sucker punches:
The denial. The justification. The gaslighting. The double standards. The ripping down of hostage posters. The chants. The loss of friendships. The vandalism of Jewish homes and businesses. The rallies. The boycotts. The doxxing. The bullying. The synagogues set alight. The bashings in the street. The rapes.
And the deafening silence.
The Jew-hatred.
Three days after October 7, Israeli documentary filmmaker and photojournalist Oren Rosenfeld was in the first press contingent to enter Kibbutz Kfar Aza. We were in contact as he was on the ground, and he offered to send all of his footage to me. I knew I had to accept. It still haunts me. Photo: Oren Rosenfeld.
Let me share my story –
On that Saturday afternoon, I had just driven into my driveway when a series of alerts took hold of my phone.
Israel. Hamas. Rockets. Ground invasion. Terror attack. Hostages.
I dashed inside my home, and went straight to my desk. It’s where I remained until the next dawn.
My phone pinged incessantly as grotesque footage continued to light up my screen.
I couldn’t feel now. Responsible for overseeing the editorial department at a long-standing Jewish media publication, it was my role to ensure the news was delivered timely, on site and on social media.
This became my guiding light and the air I drew with every breath in the months that followed.
My purpose was clear: To keep my traumatised community informed and connected with verified news.
… Until I couldn’t.
In December, my role was unexpectedly made redundant.
You’re an experienced journalist and editor. You’ll easily get another job.
But for me, writing has never just been ‘a job’.
Where is my journalism needed?
In what publication would I feel proud to have my byline?
In this new world, what is my ‘why’?
RIP Respectful Debate
Since October 7, I had immersed myself in the media coverage of the Israel-Hamas war – in Australia, and internationally.
And with it, I witnessed the rapid erosion of the values at the heart of quality journalism: Veracious reporting. Balance. Independence.
The truth got buried in the lede.
Rather, much of the mainstream ‘news’ was snapped through a distorted lens – and spat out with a pre-determined agenda.
It was shocking in its overt bias and omissions… but not surprising. The tone of coverage was just an extension of the increased tribalism into which Western society had descended in recent years.
In this new reality, the Left and Right scream at each other from their respective hilltops, arguments deduced to distorted bellows.
Meanwhile, the threat of cancel culture looms; the binary of what is deemed to be ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ wielded by a fickle zeitgeist.
RIP Respectful Debate.
Here lies the free exchange of ideas, robust conversation, and intelligent discussion – of all shades of opinion.
Activism, wokeism and identity politics have taken centre-stage. Objective journalism, demoted to backstage obscurity.
Pick a side, commit to an echo chamber, and consume only the suitably aligned media.
But where is the moderation of the middle-ground?
Where is the moderation in the breadth of the stories we are consuming – and how these stories are being told?
A modern blood libel
Do you remember al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City?
10 days into the war, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) launched a rocket, intended for Israel.
The launch failed, and instead hit the hospital’s car park and reportedly killed somewhere between 100-500 Gazans (there was much discrepancy in the numbers).
Yet, the blast was immediately blamed on Israel.
‘Trusted’ legacy media eagerly ran with the story – The New York Times, The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, CNN and BBC – to name a few. Outlets that were all too willing to take the words of terrorist organisations and their ‘ministries’ – without confirming the veracity of such ‘facts’.
The onus was on Israel to prove otherwise; which it did.
It’s just one example of the insidious falsehoods pedalled against Israel since the war began.
Photo: The New York Times/Tablet Magazine.
Over and over again in the past eight months, we have seen a recurring pattern:
Hamas dictate the narrative.
The media embraces it.
Social media devours it.
And by the time the ‘facts’ are corrected – if, indeed they are – the damage is already done.
The news has moved on. Opinions have been formed. Hate has been incited. Division is deepened.
These aren’t just ‘inaccuracies’ or ‘mistakes’.
It’s a campaign of dehumanisation against Israel and Jews worldwide.
A systematic devaluation of Jewish lives – and the world’s only Jewish state.
A modern blood libel.
(It’s no coincidence that cases of antisemitism around the world have sky-rocketed. In Australia alone, it’s increased by over 738 per cent since October 7).
And this is exactly Hamas’ aim – or rather, Iran’s aim. After all, Hamas are just one of seven proxy armies of the regime, which include Hezbollah.
Since October 8, the Lebanese-based terror organisation has threatened and snarled, sending thousands of rockets, anti-tank missiles and explosive UAVs into Israel, causing destruction and fires across over 15,000 acres of agricultural land, and displacing 60,000 Israelis.
But this war is not just being fought at the northern and southern fronts; it’s been battled globally in minds.
Iran has waged an information war, using elements of the traditional media and social media to widely disseminate propaganda that seeks to delegitimise, demonise and alienate Israel – the only democracy in the Middle East.
So, when Israel dares to defend its borders or people, it is met with large-scale global condemnation.
Once again, the Jews are the canary in the coal mine.
And we know, it never just ends with us…
The crisis gets personal.
My faith in the function of the ‘Fourth Estate’ began to corrode along with its standards, and I was left grappling the fallout: my own professional existential crisis.
Is this an industry to which I want to continue to dedicate myself?
Because if the media is not a vestige of truth, who can we look to?
The United Nations, who took 150 days to “verify” Hamas’ mass rape against civilians – and two months to even issue a statement that directly referred to Israeli women, Hamas’ depraved sexual violence, or deem it necessary to establish an enquiry?
The same UN who just last month was forced to revise the number of Gazan civilian deaths as 50 per cent lower than the figure provided by Hamas and already parroted by the media?
UNWRA – the UN’s special relief and human development agency for Palestinian ‘refugees’ – who laundered $1 billion for Hamas and stores Hamas weapons under their schools? Whose own employees participated in the October 7 massacre and hide Israeli hostages in their homes.
The international ‘aid’ organisations – The Red Cross, UNICEF, Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders (with one staffer confirmed as a PIJ terror operative just yesterday)? Not one representative from these organisations have visited the hostages, nor delivered them vital medicine, nor advocated for their wellbeing or demanded their release.
On the streets of Jerusalem. Photo: Rebecca Davis.
The social activists? The feminists who purport to #BelieveAllWomen. But #MeToo… unless you’re a Jew.
Oh, the hashtags! And that reminds me… The ‘influencers’! Those lofty beacons of moral clarity whose most recent raison d’être is to enlighten with their bite-size commentaries – and intellect to match – because #trending and gotta get those followers?
I couldn’t accept it.
I was hungry for the real stories; the ones that surprise and challenge and open minds.
I wanted honest conversations with the people affected on the ground: Jewish, Arab, religious, secular, soldiers, young, old, on the left, right, from the north and south of the country, and everything in between.
I wanted truth.
So, I bought a ticket to Israel
With my own money, as an independent journalist.
And I flew out of Australia three days later.
Armed with my laptop, an over-stuffed suitcase, and a curious mind, I had no plan.
But magic happened: I met the right people, at the right time.
I had conversations that moved me. Experiences that changed me.
And I had stories bestowed upon me that urgently beckoned to be told.
I found my new ‘why’.
Within the closed military zone on the Gaza border. More on this to come. Photo: Supplied.
The bottom line?
As a writer of over 10 years, one universal truth I know is this:
Nothing is more powerful than our stories.
It’s in our DNA. Civilisations have risen and fallen, but our stories endure; embers that glow from the ash of campfires, around which they were shared.
Our stories give us identity. They represent us – and are a bridge to reach others.
They humanise through commonality.
Nothing has a greater ability to move, inspire, connect.
Yet, in this increasingly polarised world, we’ve seen a politicisation of storytelling. Words harnessed to divide and destroy.
Shying away from soundbites and sensationalism, I wanted to return to the tenets of old-school journalism.
The Altneuland of honest, bold, balanced storytelling.
I believe in the moderation of the centre.
I believe that’s still where the majority of people reside, open to meaningfully engage, yet either apathetic or swallowed by the loudest voices.
And I believe storytelling is still the best vehicle towards a more accepting, civilised and peaceful future.
At Magen David Adom’s Jerusalem Region Dispatch Centre. Photo: Supplied.
Moderation serves the untold stories
I look forward to sharing with you here, beginning with the Israel at War series.
Upcoming articles may take the form of a poignant personal reflection, a spicy opinion piece hooked off the news, or an in-depth feature; an intimate conversation with a person of searing interest, or a thoughtful look at a crucial issue.
Or it may just be a hit of good news: a light and bright injection of something inspiring or uplifting… God knows we need that too.
You may not agree with all perspectives that are expressed; but that’s precisely the point.
This is an invitation to venture beyond the finite of black and white, and dance in the nuance.
To meet on the middle-ground. To share, converse, and listen too.
Because, everything in Moderation.
Looking forward to reading more Rebecca.