The Journalist as Target: Propaganda, Combatancy, and the Collapse of Distinction

The Journalist as Target: Propaganda, Combatancy, and the Collapse of Distinction

The killing of Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif in Gaza by an Israeli airstrike has reignited one of the most fraught questions in modern conflict: under what conditions, if any, does a journalist transform into a legitimate military target?

Civilian Immunity and the Christian Tradition
The protection of civilians in war is not merely a modern innovation of the Geneva Conventions, but flows from the Christian just war tradition. St Augustine taught that war, though sometimes necessary, must always be ordered to peace and restrained by justice, forbidding cruelty against the innocent¹. St Thomas Aquinas likewise grounded the legitimacy of warfare in the principle of discrimination, insisting that acts of war must be directed only against combatants and not against those who take no part in the fight².

This principle was consistently upheld by the pre-conciliar papacy. Leo XIII, in Sapientiae Christianae (1890), insisted that the rights of nations are bounded by the moral law and that rulers are forbidden from transgressing natural justice, even under pretext of political necessity³. Benedict XV, writing amidst the horrors of the First World War, condemned modern warfare for “forgetting all the laws of humanity” and lamented the “massacre of countless innocent persons” as contrary to both divine and natural law⁴.

In continuity with this line, Pius XII declared in his 1944 Christmas Radio Message, delivered as the Second World War still raged, that “The right of nations to exist is not based on arms but on the moral law. Nothing can justify war directed against innocent populations or methods of destruction that make no distinction between the guilty and the innocent”⁵. These words reaffirm that even in the extremity of global war, the innocent retain immunity. Civilisation depends on such a principle, without which war descends into unrestrained barbarism.

The Empirical Case: Al-Sharif and the Al-Qassam Brigades
According to the Israel Defense Forces, al-Sharif was not simply a journalist but a commander within Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades, paid by Hamas and involved in rocket operations against Israel⁶. Under the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), membership in an organised armed group engaged in hostilities constitutes a “continuous combat function,” and such individuals are lawful targets irrespective of their civilian cover⁷. In this narrow sense, his journalistic role was incidental; if proven, his militant status alone sufficed to remove his protection.

The Contested Case: Al Jazeera as an Instrument of War
More controversial is the broader argument, advanced by commentators such as Andrew Fox, that Al Jazeera itself is no longer a neutral outlet but an operational instrument of Qatar and Hamas, thus meeting the International Committee of the Red Cross’s (ICRC) criteria for “direct participation in hostilities.” The ICRC stipulates that three conditions must be met⁸:

1. Threshold of harm — the act must negatively affect military operations.
2. Direct causation — there must be a proximate causal link between the act and the harm.
3. Belligerent nexus — the act must be designed to aid one belligerent and harm another.

Al Jazeera’s coverage has undeniably amplified Hamas narratives and generated political pressure on Israel, but whether this constitutes “direct causation” in the legal sense remains contested. Propaganda, however influential, does not usually meet the immediacy required under LOAC.

Historical Precedent: NATO’s Strike on RTS
The 1999 NATO bombing of Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) illustrates the dangers of stretching these categories. NATO claimed RTS was part of Serbia’s military command and propaganda apparatus, and thus a valid target. Yet the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia later cautioned that if the strike were justified solely on propaganda grounds, its legality would be widely questioned⁹.

Rights groups such as Amnesty International condemned the attack as unlawful¹⁰. But it must be remembered that Amnesty is not an impartial authority in such matters. Its record is deeply compromised by ideological commitments: it has openly campaigned for abortion rights worldwide, endorsed radical sexual agendas contrary to Christian moral teaching, and consistently adopted an adversarial stance toward Israel. These biases mean its denunciations, while influential in the press, cannot be taken as neutral judgments of law. Rather, they represent the political preferences of an organisation long aligned with the progressive zeitgeist, not the perennial norms of justice.

Biased Reporting: From WWII to Today
It is also important to observe that systematic bias in reporting is itself a modern phenomenon.

• During World War II, war correspondents such as Richard Dimbleby of the BBC, Ernie Pyle for American papers, and Reuters field reporters were often patriotic and partial, but their work was tied to verifiable observation. Their task was to report the war, not to manufacture narratives. They were sometimes censored, but they still sought to convey reality to domestic audiences, reinforcing morale while documenting events.
• Today’s journalism, by contrast, is structurally ideological. Entire outlets are ordered not toward truth but toward shaping social and political outcomes.

Examples abound:

• The Guardian has shifted from left-liberal journalism into advocacy for progressive causes such as climate activism, gender ideology, and pro-Palestinian narratives, often criticised for selective framing¹¹.
• The Observer, under the Guardian Media Group, has faced scrutiny for editorial decisions aligned more with activist priorities than neutral reporting¹¹.
• The Independent, while claiming impartiality, has been widely noted for its consistently liberal editorial line, especially on immigration and cultural issues.
• The BBC, still the UK’s most influential outlet, is repeatedly accused of systemic liberal bias despite its charter commitment to impartiality. The recent cancellation of Gaza: Doctors Under Attack—denounced by more than 100 former staff as cowardice—showed how even flagship institutions capitulate to political pressure¹².

This structural bias is particularly acute in state-aligned or ideologically driven outlets, which function not as reporters of truth but as amplifiers of policy or activism. Al Jazeera, as the media arm of Qatar, is the most extreme case of this phenomenon: not simply biased in the incidental way of individual journalists, but institutionally ordered to serve as an instrument of geopolitical influence.

The modern degradation of journalism reflects the wider collapse of truth in modernity: when truth is reduced to perspective, reporting becomes propaganda. But this decline, grave though it is, does not of itself erase the distinction between civilian and combatant.

International Reaction: Journalism Under Fire
The killing of al-Sharif, together with other Palestinian journalists, has provoked global outrage. Funerals in Gaza were marked by international condemnation, with critics warning of a “dangerous precedent” in treating reporters as combatants¹³. Media commentary has described these deaths as part of a “chilling assault” on the press, raising fears that protection for journalists is eroding in modern warfare¹⁴.

The Philosophical Dilemma
The dilemma is therefore stark. On the one hand, if a journalist is a militant in disguise, he may rightly be treated as a combatant. On the other, to redefine journalism itself as “hostility” is to collapse the very principle of civilian immunity, inviting every regime to kill reporters whose coverage it dislikes.

Catholic just war teaching insists that the pen and the sword are not the same. To conflate propaganda with weaponry risks not only the erosion of international law but also the rejection of natural law itself. As Augustine warned, unjust violence corrupts the victor more deeply than the vanquished¹. The collapse of truth in modernity—seen in both the relativism of journalism and the totalising logic of modern war—reveals how modernism dissolves the very categories that protect civilisation. Once truth is reduced to perspective, both journalism and warfare lose their moral boundaries. 🔝

1. St Augustine, Contra Faustum, XXII, 74.
2. St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q.40, a.1.
3. Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae (1890), §§10–11.
4. Benedict XV, Ad beatissimi Apostolorum (1914).
5. Pius XII, Christmas Radio Message, 24 December 1944.
6. Times of Israel, “Amid global outcry, IDF says Al Jazeera reporter it killed was receiving Hamas salary” (Aug 2025).
7. International Committee of the Red Cross, Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities (May 2009).
8. Ibid., criteria for direct participation.
9. ICTY Committee, Review of the NATO Bombing Campaign (2000); see also Le Monde diplomatique, “Kosovo: NATO’s ‘humanitarian war’” (July 2000).
10. Amnesty International, RTS condemnation (1999).
11. The Guardian, “What does impartiality mean? BBC no-bias policy being pushed to limits” (Nov 2021).
12. The Guardian, “BBC Gaza film axed: more than 100 ex-staff condemn decision” (Jul 2025).
13. The Guardian, “Global outrage mounts as funeral held for five journalists killed by Israel” (Aug 2025).
14. The Week, “Journalists killed in Gaza: a chilling assault” (Aug 2025).