Melanie Phillips: Western Jewry - Paying the Price for Gaza

Time for 60 Minutes and Jeff Fager to Correct Bethlehem Falsehood

Jeff Fager, chairman of CBS News and executive producer of 60 Minutes, says all the right things about journalistic ethics. But when 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon broadcast a clear cut falsehood, Fager disregarded the central journalistic guideline requiring errors be forthrightly corrected. 60 Minutes claimed, wrongly, that Bethlehem is "completely surrounded" by a "wall." When presented with clear evidence that this is false, Fager stonewalled. See details at www.camera.org/60minutes

HONEST REPORTING: How to Lie about Israel -- and Get Away With It!

Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian official, is now being quoted in the media as "backing" the efforts of Secretary of State John Kerry to get peace talks back on track. Specifically, he tells the media that the Palestinians have no preconditions to resume talks with Israel.

None.

Except that Israel must first freeze all building in the disputed territories and release all Palestinian prisoners.

BUT -- he tells the reporters, those are not pre-conditions.

You and I understand that if you say -- "I will not talk to you unless you first do the following" that is a pre-condition.

Yet the journalists nod their heads and accept Erekat's lie.

Everyone who has followed news from the Middle East knows that Erekat is a serial lier. I'm not going to go through and rehash all the lies that he has peddled over the years. Read some of them in this article published on the HonestReporting website when he resigned two years ago:

http://honestreporting.com/erekat-med...

He resigned?

That was another lie.

Is it that easy to manipulate the media?

After the first lie, he then throws in that Israel is an Apetheid state -- far worse that South Africa ever was.

WORSE THAN SOUTH AFRICA????

And none of these reporters asked him how many black members of the South African parliament served during Apartheid. No one pointed out that Arabs serve in the Israeli judiciary, the military, hospitals, schools, --

Yet again - they print his lies!!!!!

If you are as fed up about anti-Israel bias in journalism, do me a favor.

Just click on the link and enter your e-mail address. 

http://honestreporting.com/a/signups/...

Thanks for watching and subscribing.

HONEST REPORTING: The New York Times and the Terrorist's Mom

The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/wor... ran an article about two events: The IDF attack on a wanted terrorist in Gaza and the murder of an Israeli waiting for a bus by the hands of another terrorist. In a puzzling move, the Times selected a picture of the weeping mother of the terrorist to run above the story.

Does this picture really help readers understand these events? Or is it another subtle (maybe not so subtle) attempt by the Times to convey sympathy for the Palestinians at the expense of the Israelis.

EoZNews Interview: Joe Hyams of Honest Reporting

Another of my stops in Israel was to visit Honest Reporting, the famous media watchdog group. They have a beautiful office space in the famed Hechal Shlomo building - and their CEO, Joe Hyams, showed me that their outdoor balcony space is actually where IDF officers would have their swearing-in ceremony before 1967, because from the rooftop it is possible to see the Temple Mount. I spoke with Joe not only about Honest Reporting but also about their unique Media Central initiative where they actually help journalists do their jobs in Israel.

Searching for the capital of Israel HonestReporting goes searching for the capital of Israel, and discovers that despite the insistence of the British media that Tel Aviv is the capital of Israel, ever Tel Avivi knows that the capital of Israel is Jerusalem.

"David & Goliath: The explosive inside story of media bias in the Mideast conflict "

David & Goliath: The explosive inside story of media bias in the Mideast conflict describes in great detail the daily media bias we see every day against Israel. 

Shraga Simmons, a former head of Honest Reporting, writes the book as part memoir and part research project, as he goes through the past decade of how newspapers, TV and wire services have been skewing the facts against Israel. We see through his eyes how he discovers the patterns of bias, documents them and holds reporters' feet to the fire when he exposes them. 

While any reader of this blog is aware of media bias against Israel, reading about it all at once is a mind-blowing - and often infuriating - experience. We tend to get numbed after a while because we are so used to the daily bias, but that is a mistake - every single example must be called out and the reporter or news service held responsible.

The good news is that complaining to the media actually works. Honest Reporting has been very effective in making reporters and writers more sensitive to the issue and to write things more carefully, and it is heartening to read about how Shraga, leading his mailing list in the early 2000s, managed to prove exactly how CNN was biased against Israel.

It is that personal touch that makes this book so readable. But make no mistake - Simmons goes through the incidents in detail and the cumulative effect is astonishing.

All the major events since 2000 are analyzed - the Jenin "massacre" lie, Hezbollah's bullying of reporters in Lebanon, the "fauxtography" scandals, the Gaza war coverage, and countless smaller incidents, always written in an engaging, first person manner.

My only quibble was that all of the photos and illustrations were in the back of the book, not together with the appropriate text, which would have made it even better.

You can read a sample chapter here. The book webpage is here.

I highly recommend it. It is available in both paperback and Kindle editions.

Disclaimer: I am thanked in the acknowledgements of the book, and my blog is quoted in the footnotes about a dozen times.

How to Fake an Anti-Israel News Photo

Reuters: It All Started When Israel Fired Back

Reuters headline claims that Israel broke the cease-fire while in reality Israel was responding to rocket fire. Article at http://tinyurl.com/cq4aheb. Click on "Contact Reuters"to complain. Watch HR presentation 'Defending Israel Against Claims of Excessive Force" at http://honestreporting.com/hot-topics/defending-israel-against-claims-of-exce...

Quebec TV Host Gendron Shockingly Claims Israel Indiscriminately Murders Innocent Palestinians With Bulldozers (November 4, 2011) In claiming that Israel indiscriminately murders innocent Palestinians with bulldozers, Stephane Gendron, co-host of the French-language morning show Face à Face on the V television network, should be removed as host of V's Face à Face program.

On November 2's broadcast of Face à Face, a daily news and debate morning talk show on the Quebec French-language television channel V (formerly TQS), hosts Caroline Proulx and Stéphane Gendron gave their opinions on Canada’s decision to keep UNESCO funding at current levels, while ceasing further volunteer payments, after the organization admitted “Palestine” as a member.

Gendron, who is notorious for his vitriolic anti-Israel views, scandalously accused Israel of planning to steal Palestinian land by running over and murdering innocent Palestinian civilians with bulldozers, in retaliation for “Palestine’s” admission to UNESCO.  To watch this segment please click here or on theimage below. Here's also a partial transcript of Gendron's comments: (HRC translation)

“The Minister of Foreign affairs, John Baird, decided not to make further contributions to UNESCO, why? Because the U.S. decided to cut its funding, why? Because Palestine dared to be admitted to UNESCO. This is appalling! It is an affront to peace! Do you know what Israel did? In revenge for the admission of Palestine to UNESCO, they decided to build 2000homes in areas that do not belong to them, the occupied territories, so they are going to bulldoze people, kill people, they will give them 5 minutes to get out and then they’ll run people down with bulldozers. And Canada supports this.”

It is simply unacceptable for a television host of a mainstream morning talk show to give air to such calumnious libel. Neither is it acceptable for V television station to allow this sort of inflammatory rhetoric to be broadcast to its viewers. Not only is there no basis nor precedent for such Israeli actions, Gendron’s accusations have crossed the line from legitimate opinion to inflammatory discourse.

As we alluded to earlier, Stéphane Gendron, the Mayor of Huntington, Quebec, has a history of uttering hateful anti-Semitic rhetoric and disseminating egregious falsehoods against Israel. Previously, on theSeptember 23 edition of Face à Face, Gendron claimed: “Before 1948, ... the Jews stole the land from the Palestinians...” and  “it’s the Jews that invented terrorism.”
In the wake of Israel's interdiction of the Gaza-bound flotilla, an effort to enforce a legal maritime blockade to prevent the smuggling of deadly weapons to the Hamas terrorist regime, Gendron authored a column published in the Journal de Montreal on June 1 where he spuriously compared the Gaza Strip to the Warsaw Ghetto. Apart from this appalling comparison, Gendron's screed completely ignored Israel's legitimate security concerns. He failed to acknowledge past precedents which justify Israel’s blockade, such as Israel's interception of over 50 tonnes of Russian and Iranian-made weapons in 2002 on the Palestinian Authority freighter Karine-A, or its November 2009 interception of "hundreds of tonnes" of arms from Iran destined to Hezbollah, in a raid only several dozen miles off its coast. At the time, HonestReporting Canada successfully negotiated prominent opinion space in a subsequent edition of Le Journal de Montreal to rebut Gendron's outrageous assertions. HRC's rebuttal was published on June 10 and it can be read in full by clicking here.

Shortly after Israel's 2008 Operation Cast Lead, which was a response to over 10,000 rocket attacks into Israel from Gaza,  Gendron posted an odious letter to his blog addressed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper claiming that the "Zionist Government of Israel" was conducting a "genocide."
Finally, in an interview with Le Soleil in August 2006, Gendron referred to Israelis as modern-day Nazis ("Les Israéliens, ce sont les nazis des temps modernes"). He later claimed that he was referring to the current Government of Israel and that the analogy was fitting. Despite being condemned for his comments, he refused to issue a retraction or apology. At the time, B'nai Brith Canada described his statements as inherently racist, calling his comparisons "beyond the pale" and a "grotesque distortion of history."
HonestReporting Canada has previously called on Canadian media outlets to distance themselves from Gendron. We reiterate this call today with even greater fervour. Gendron should not be given a platform for his bigoted views. His attempts to incite and libel Israel are grounded in ignorance and hate. Gendron’s claim that Israel indiscriminately murders innocent Palestinians with bulldozers utterly discredits him as a suitable host of a daily talk show on Quebec’s V television channel.

Perhaps the media should stop speculating about Netanyahu’s intentions in regard to peace and start reporting on the Palestinians’ very real desire to destroy Israel. See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Publish No Evil

What is it about the Mideast that makes a journalist’s natural skepticism go completely awry? When Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu publicly advocates for peace and negotiations with the Palestinians, the default reaction of many media is to cast aspersions on Netanyahu’s intentions, effectively accusing him of being underhanded or even untruthful.

But what happens when Palestinians make public statements of intent that don’t fit with the accepted narrative of Israel as the obstacle to peace? The media ignore such statements and rarely publish the story.
But what if Palestinians are actually telling the truth?
Fatah Central Committee Member Abbas Zaki interviewed on Al-Jazeera on September 23, 2011 (translated byMEMRI):

According to Abbas Zaki, an agreement with Israel based on the 1967 borders is merely part of a phased plan to destroy Israel in its entirety and such a policy must not be spoken about publicly.

The settlement should be based upon the borders of June 4, 1967. When we say that the settlement should be based upon these borders, President [Abbas] understands, we understand, and everybody knows that the greater goal cannot be accomplished in one go.

If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers, and dismantles the wall – what will become of Israel? It will come to an end.

[...]

If we say that we want to wipe Israel out… C’mon, it’s too difficult. It’s not [acceptable] policy to say so.Don’t say these things to the world. Keep it to yourself.

And what about Hamas, the elephant in the room that nobody seems to take seriously? No Western media published the comments of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran on October 2:

The Hamas leader said negotiations were a “mirage,” and only through armed resistance could Jerusalem and “the land” be liberated. He urged Palestinian negotiators not to make any settlements given their failure to “restore the rights” of the Palestinian people, including the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

So if the “mainstream” Fatah are advocating the end of Israel rather than peace with Israel and Hamas are consistently restating their overt desire to destroy Israel by force, why are the media failing to report on these?
Perhaps the media should stop speculating about Netanyahu’s intentions in regard to peace and start reporting on the Palestinians’ very real desire to destroy Israel.

Don't Be Misled - Israel Wants Peace

OFFENSIVE CARTOON PUBLISHED IN WALRUS MAGAZINE

Why would Walrus Magazine’s editorial cartoonists impugn nefarious motives, without evidence, about Prime Minister Harper’s support for Israel and Jewish causes?
In a cartoon published in the October 2011 issue, Stephen Harper’s support for Israel and Jewish causes is portrayed as a means to an end, and by “end,” this cartoon is referring to the “end time.” A period when tribulation precedes the second coming of Jesus. According to this cartoon, the basis of Canada’s and Harper’s support for a democracy like Israel – which is constantly under siege by terrorism and worldwide attempts to challenge the legitimacy of the Jewish state – are not based on principle and shared values, but solely on Harper’s supposed Evangelical belief of the end of days. The cartoon, in essence, unfairly portrays Harper as using Canadian Jews for his own religious zealotry. It closes with an offensive image of observant Jews placing a “Free Palestine” banner on the front of a synagogue to symbolize their rejection of Harper’s supposed clandestine agenda. According to Walrus cartoonists David Parkins and Jason Sherman, these Jews would rather be Pro-Palestinian than have Harper at the helm.
In reality, Harper has been commendably unapologetic in his support for Israel. Under his administration, Canada has always backed Israel’s right to self-defense saying that "When it comes to dealing with a war between Israel and a terrorist organization, this country and this government cannot and will never be neutral." Harper has also taken forceful stands against anti-Israel rhetoric and actions at various world bodies including the United Nations and the Franophonie. His staunch support for Israel is one that he recognizes produces little political dividends. He has also consistently condemned increasing anti-Semitism in Canada and he and his staff have worked tirelessly with the Canadian Jewish community to address these threats on multiple levels.
Instead of casting false aspersions by caricature, a more accurate illustration would have shown Prime Minister Harper’s support for Israel and Jewish causes as being based on deeply-rooted moral convictions, principle, and shared interests between liberal democracies.

HonestReporting Canada has communicated these concerns to Walrus Magazine editors. To send your considered comments, please send letters to: letters@walrusmagazine.com

VIDEO SATIRE: HonestReporting Looks at the Light Side of Life

HONEST REPORTING: New York Times: It Started When Israel Fired Back

Why is it that the New York Times still cannot distinguish the moral differences between Palestinian terror and Israeli measures to defend its citizens?

Take a look at this headline and accompanying photo from the NY Times’ August 20 story:

Why did the NY Times purposely choose an emotive image of a Palestinian child’s funeral? Particularly as Israel was also burying its dead as a result of a terror attack.

This sort of misplaced moral equivalence is typical of the NY Times which also states (emphasis added):

Israel blamed The Popular Resistance Committees for Thursday’s attack and killed its top commanders in an airstrike later that day, igniting cross-border exchanges after months of relative quiet under an informal cease-fire with Hamas.

So who exactly “ignited” the violence? According to the NY Times it wasn’t those who carried out Thursday’s terror attack but Israel for responding. In addition, the term “cross-border exchanges” implies, once again, some sort of moral equivalence between Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli civilian targets and Israeli responses.

HONEST REPORTING: Earth to CBC, Anti-Israel "Naqba Day" Rioters Used Violence

Less than 48 hours ago, CBC Radio promoted a patently false narrative about the "Naqba Day" (catastrophe) attacks that occurred along Israel's borders this past weekend. CBC Radio's "As It Happens" program egregiously insinuated that the anti-Israel activists who took part in the recent border skirmishes, all used "non-violent" civil disobedience of the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela and did not deploy real violence against Israeli soldiers.

To recall, in a reckless disregard for human life, Palestinian activists successfully breeched or attempted to invade Israel's militarized borders with Lebanon, along the Golan Heights, and near Gaza to invade the sovereign state of Israel. In the face of violent mobs, Israeli forces used maximum restraint and protest dispersal methods which actually saved Palestinian lives.

To listen to this report online click here or on the image below.

                                                         

CBC veteran host Carol Off interviewed Ramallah resident Fadi Quran, one of the social media organizers of the "Naqba protests" and in the introduction and course of this seven minute long interview, this CBC program falsely informed listeners that:

• There was an "absence of violence" in the altercations
• "Palestinian protesters abandon(ed) rock-throwing"
• The protest was "minus violence... Palestinian demonstrators breach the Israeli border, without firing a shot."
• "Non-violent protests" were utilized

If violence wasn't directed against Israeli forces, how can the CBC explain the fact that 3 IDF officers and 10 Israeli soldiers suffered injuries as a result of the attacks? Or, better yet, how can the CBC explain the following documented evidence clearly showing the violence and aggressive intentions of these protestors:

• A Palestinian fired flares at Israeli soldiers at the Qalandiya checkpoint
• Rioters in Qalandiya used an ambulance for cover while hurling rocks
• Rioters in Qalandia shot firecrackers at IDF soldiers
• Palestinian protestors threw "televisions, refrigerators, large stones, burn(ed) tires and more..."
• Slingshots were used with marbles, "because they are clear, you don't see till they reach you. So they do damage to your face - they take out your eyes and break teeth."
• An explosive device was planted in Gaza
• A pipe bomb was hurled at Israeli forces in Qalandia
• Fire bombs were thrown at IDF soldiers
• The violent mob from Syria attempted to kidnap Israeli soldiers

  

Interestingly, just as with the "Flotilla Fiasco," when there was clear and incontrovertible documented evidence showing the "activists" using weapons and violent means to maim, kidnap, and kill Israeli soldiers, the world media presented a false narrative that the activists were entirely "non violent." In these recent border attacks perpetrated by extremist forces, media outlets like the CBC also ignored the growing evidence showing that violence was utilized. The Israeli government made this information readily available to the world media in record time, yet, in a reckless disregard for the truth, the CBC ignored this evidence that was at their disposal.
As Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon said in a protest letter sent to the United Nations:

"Those from enemy countries who breach our borders while using violence and calling for Israel's destruction, cannot be considered innocent, but an immediate and present danger to the citizens of Israel. Every sovereign state has a moral obligation to defend itself, a right that is anchored in the UN charter."

As this CBC report falsely claimed that zero violence was used by the anti-Israel rioters, listeners were only able to deduce that Israeli forces had intentionally fired on and killed innocent Palestinian civilians.To put this into correct context and proper perspective, this CBC report has essentially accused Israel of carrying out war crimes and crimes against humanity.

HonestReporting: When Mideast Journalists are Forced to Keep the News to Themselves

When reporting in the closed societies of the broader Middle East, journalists are being vigilantly watched, harassed, and abused by authoritarian regimes, secret police, and media manipulators who work for terror proxies.

Their work and their safety are always at risk. Constantly intimidated and censored from reporting the truth, reporters languish in prisons or are murdered to silence a story and to remove a vital witness to important events.

On May 1 - 3, we mark World Press Freedom Day, an event that seeks to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and to remind governments, specifically in the broader Middle East, the Arab world, and North Africa, of their duty to respect and protect the journalists, and not to target and intimidate the media.

HONEST REPORTING: Neil MacDonald Strikes Again

He did it yet again.
This time reporting from Ajdabiya, Libya, CBC correspondent Neil MacDonald filed a report about Libyan rebels rejecting ceasefire proposals presented by the African Union. In the April 11 CBC National report, MacDonald interviewed a Libyan civilian whose uncle had allegedly been gunned down by pro-Gaddafi soldiers. Holding up a bloody robe, the man speaks in Arabic, and MacDonald translates, "Does this look like a military uniform?"

As the man continues speaking in Arabic, MacDonald says in a voiceover:

"'Gaddafi is like the Israelis,' says (the Libyan civilian), summoning the worst insult he can manage. 'He kills whomever he likes.'"

Please watch this report online by clicking here or on the image below.

And there you have it. In a report about "The Battle for Libya," MacDonald gratuitously introduced Israel into a story that it had nothing to do with. Adding insult to injury, he exposed viewers to the malicious implication that like Gaddafi, 'Israel kills whomever it likes" – in other words, like Gaddafi, it commits war crimes by targeting innocent civilians at will.

At this point viewers may ask why, of the thousands of people MacDonald could have interviewed and the many quotes he could have used in his report, he chose a source and a quote that tarred Israel as a nation that kills indiscriminately and commits war crimes. Viewers may also wonder why our public broadcaster inappropriately broadcast this wanton and one-sided anti-Israel sentiment.

CBC will likely argue that MacDonald adroitly "dismissed" the analogy to Israel by calling it an "insult." Yet MacDonald never negated the comparison to Israel, nor did he deny the veracity of the claim that like Gaddafi, Israel "kills whomever" it likes.

Viewers familiar with MacDonald's preoccupation with Israel will recognize a well-established pattern in his reporting. MacDonald's modus operandi has been to time and again drag Israel into stories where it doesn't belong, by selectively interviewing sources who offer controversial one-sided perspectives and gratuitously attack Israel. This is nothing short of journalistic malpractice.
A History of Biased ReportingMacDonald has a history of biased reporting. On The National's February 14, 2011 broadcast,MacDonald filed a report questioning whether the protest movements in the Middle East and North Africa were sustainable. MacDonald described how the governments or militaries of Iran, Yemen, Bahrain, the West Bank, Algeria, and Egypt were trying to thwart the protests by putting forward various measures, be it "pro-government thugs" who use violent tactics, bribery in the form of government payoffs, riot dispersal methods such as tear gas and rubber bullets, along with dissolving the cabinets of "repressive" governments.

MacDonald then reported that:

"Repressive emergency laws are used extensively throughout the Middle East.President Barak Obama repeatedly denounced Egypt's during the protests. The trouble is that most Arabs know that Israel has an emergency law too which it uses for such things as detention without trial, and confiscation, or demolition of Palestinian property. For that matter, the United States itself has been under a legal state of national emergency since the 911 attacks; that law was renewed again last year."

What was the rationale for MacDonald's drive-by reference to democratic Israel (and the U.S., for that matter) in a story about the movement to dislodge repressive Arab regimes? While only MacDonald can say for sure, it is one more episode in a long-standing pattern of drawing Israel into reports where it doesn't belong.

During his stint as CBC's Mideast correspondent, Macdonald never made a secret of his opinion about Israel. In 2000, he referred to "the ferocious appetite of Jewish settlers for Arab land." And in 2002, he asked rhetorically whether the terror group Hezbollah is "a national liberation movement or, as Israel and its supporters maintain, a murderous global menace?"

In May of 2004, when MacDonald was posted to the CBC's Washington bureau, he filed a report about the abuse of Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison facility. The report featured a quote by a pro-Palestinian propagandist, Eugene Bird (click here or on the image to  the right to watch), who falsely and maliciously suggested, without any evidence, that Israeli agents might have played a role in the torture scandal. This incident elicited a remarkable two on-airclarifications (watch here) from the CBC, and its ombudsman acknowledged that this report exposed CBC to "the appearance of bias." The CBC's editor-in-chief at the time promised that the situation would never be repeated again.

But just seven months later, in a December 2004 report on a deadly al-Qaeda terror attack on the American consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, MacDonald aired a source who blamed the U.S. relationship with Israel for the attack. The only person interviewed in MacDonald's report was Alan Keiswetter (click here or on the image to thee right to watch) of the Saudi-financed Middle East Institute, who stated that America was "in the pockets of (former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon."

Also in December of 2004 – in the midst of a Palestinian terror war that saw Israeli families blown up in buses and restaurants – MacDonald wrote an analysis on CBC's website stating that, "if Palestinians have committed terror, the Israelis have certainly committed war crimes." Macdonald then raised the question of whether Jewish settlers, "thousands of whom are well armed and overtly bellicose, constitute civilians or combatants." Macdonald appeared to have been suggesting that the murder of Israeli settlers may not in fact be "terrorism." The sentence was later amended online after complaints to the CBC.

And in 2005, MacDonald did a feature one-on-one interview (click here or on the image to the right to watch) with former CIA Chief Michael Sheuer who claimed that American support for Israel was costing American lives abroad in the Middle East and endangering the safety of U.S. citizens domestically.

Time For MacDonald to Go

It is clear and well-established by now that, wherever MacDonald is posted– be it Jerusalem, Washington, or Libya – he will continue to denigrate Israel using sources and handpicked "experts" who gratuitously involve Israel in stories it has nothing to do with. Macdonald is guilty not only of the appearance of bias, but of bias itself. As we have argued in the past, "If CBC news executives are interested in maintaining the national broadcaster's credibility, they will recognize that Macdonald's reporting is no longer consistent with their mandate of pursuing accuracy and fairness. It is time for him to go."
What You Can Do To Make A Difference
Tell the CBC that Neil Macdonald's reporting is biased against Israel and no longer deserves to be included in the newscasts of our public broadcaster. CiteMacDonald's April 11 report which implied that Israel commits war crimes by intentionally targeting innocent civilians and his history of biased reporting.

Please file your complaint on the CBC's online feedback form(http://www.cbc.ca/contact/)

HONEST REPORTING: How Moral Equivalence Erodes Accurate Reporting

When Judge Richard Goldstone published his famous op-edreconsidering the Goldstone Report, he – perhaps unintentionally – revealed one of the predominant biases of the Goldstone Committee that produced the report. The committee, it appears, was operating under a deep-set assumption of moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas.

The same bias of moral equivalence can be seen in the coverage of the recent violence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

While virtually all mainstream news outlets covered the story as an action-reaction, started by Hamas’s attack on an Israeli school bus and carried on by Israel’s retaliatory strikes on targets in Gaza, the coverage gives the misleading impression that Israel and Hamas are morally equal.

What’s left out of the coverage is the element of intentionality. More specifically, it glosses over the reality that Hamas’s intention was to kill Israeli school children and Israel’s intention, in firing back, was to defend its citizens.

The distinction between the two sides is most clearly evident when their intentions are examined. The original, flawed Goldstone Report, however, was so mired by the biases of its authors that no distinctions were made.

Even Goldstone now admits that there was no evidence pointing to any Israeli intention to target Palestinian civilians during the Gaza war. In the absence of evidence pointing clearly in either direction, his “reasonable conclusion” was to assume Israeli guilt:

That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.

The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion.

In other words, the committee decided that since Palestinian civilians suffered, Israel targeted them on purpose unless it proved otherwise – just as Hamas intentionally targeted Israeli civilians.

Amazingly, the committee could not recognize that Israel’s sole intention for going to war in Gaza was to stop Hamas rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians. Had there been no rocket fire, there would have been no war.

But in a world of moral equivalence between aggressor and victim, intentions are irrelevant. Both sides fired and both sides caused civilian casualties. Therefore, both sides are morally equal.

This bias of moral equivalence – the failure to distinguish between Hamas’s intentional aggression against Israeli civilians, which “goes without saying” and Israel’s intention to protect its citizens against this aggression, for which there is apparently “no evidence” – is often reinforced in media coverage of the region.

As the violence escalated over the weekend, article after article focused on Israel’s retaliation to the trigger event – Hamas’s intentional attack on an Israeli school bus with an advanced anti-tank rocket.

This Associated Press article was typical of the coverage of the violence in Gaza:

Israel pounded Hamas targets in Gaza with air strikes and tank shells Saturday, killing four militants, Palestinian officials said, as Palestinian missiles reached deeper into Israel in the most intense round of fighting since the Gaza war.

In all, 18 Gazans have been killed and more than 65 wounded since Israel unleashed the strikes following a Hamas attack on an Israeli school bus Thursday. An anti-tank rocket struck the bus, seriously wounding a 16-year-old boy and injuring the driver.

It might seem reasonable to report, first and foremost, on casualties, especially when recounting the latest events. But a dry retelling of the actions without noting the intentionality behind them fails to convey the spirit of what happened.

Instead of presenting the events as Hamas intentionally attacking children on a school bus and Israel trying to prevent such attacks by pursuing those responsible, we get a play-by-play of the violence that has the strange ring of tit-for-tat attacks in a moral vacuum.

Time magazine even used the term tit-for-tat in its “teaser” – the one-line summary of the article – for its coverage of the Gaza flare-up.

The term suggests that all of the violence is essentially equal, as though Hamas’s intentions were irrelevant. In the AP article, it is Israel that “unleashed” strikes, as though the bus attack wasn’t really a trigger after all.

It is no wonder that people see the issue as a “cycle of violence.” When the media fails to make a distinction between Hamas’s aggression and Israel’s defense, it leaves out the essential element of the story that allows people to make sense of what’s happening.

But accurate reporting would show things as they truly are – with one side shooting precision missiles at school kids and firing rockets from within its own civilian population (see video below). Then people may understand there is no more equivalence between Israel and Hamas. Maybe even Goldstone is starting to see it.

Canadian Media Show a Reckless Disregard for the Truth About Terror

In our most recent alert, we reported on the callous indifference Canadian media outlets showed by virtually ignoring the brutal massacre of an Israeli family of five, the Fogels of Itamar. In this alert, we look at the combined Canadian media coverage of the recent deadlyterror bombing in Jerusalem that saw one person killed, Mary Jean Gardner, a 59-year-old British national studying in Israel, along with close to 50 wounded. Our investigations reveal that certain Canadian media outlets showed a reckless disregard for the truth, had clouded news judgement, or allowed their news platforms to become vehicles for misinformation and profane commentary.
Toronto Sun's Tendentious Use of the "T-Word"
In the March 24 edition of the Toronto Sun, headline writers tendentiously questioned whether the terror bombing was in fact terrorism at all by cowardly inserting quotation marks around the words "terrorist attack" in the headline (Jerusalem blast 'terrorist attack') and by attributing this claim only to the Israelis, as if it could have been something else. Furthermore, the Reuters wire report said: "Police said it was a 'terrorist attack' — Israel's term for a Palestinian strike." In doing so, this report sanitized the nature and intentions of the attackers who seek to intentionally target innocent civilians for political purposes. This report, therefore, is attributing the term "terrorism" as something solely in the minds of Israelis.

We communicated these concerns to Sun editors asking that if a similar attack had happened near aToronto bus terminal killing and injuring scores of civilians, would the Sun dare question if it was a terror attack if Canadians were the victims? To date, the Toronto Sun has chosen silence as its only form of reply.
Hamilton Spectator Calls Terror by its Rightful Name

Canadian and international media often shy away from using the word "terrorism" and its variants when discussing Arab violence directed against innocent Israeli citizens, despite using this term to describe similar acts of violence in other countries.
It was therefore refreshing to see the Hamilton Spectator appropriate the headline "Jerusalem terror attack" in its news coverage (see right) also on March 24 which unequivocally described the bombing of a Jerusalem bus station as "terror."

HonestReporting Canada publically commended the Hamilton Spectator in a letter to the editor published on March 28 for calling terror by its rightful name.
CTV.ca Gives a Forum for Offensive Comments which Accused Israel of "Genocide"

In a March 23 CTV.ca report about the bombing attack, CTV editors allowed online users to post profane, false and misleading commentaries which accused Israel of committing "genocide against the Palestinians."
These comments went contrary to CTV.ca's own posting procedures which unequivocally state that:

“CTV reviews every comment submitted, and reserves the right to approve comments and edit for brevity and clarity"

"What not to do:

We will not publish comments that are profane, libellous, racist, or engage in personal attacks.

We screen for comments that seek to spread information that is false or misleading."

To allege that Israeli actions against Palestinians were akin to "genocide" is inflammatory and offensive commentary not fit for publication. The term genocide isdefined as: "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group," and we trusted that CTV.ca wouldn't condone these kinds of allegations on its news platform. While we understood that there are many comments for CTV moderators to inspect, notwithstanding, we hoped that this comment would have been declined and not posted in the first place by CTV.ca editors. As this didn't happen, we contacted senior editors at CTV asking that these comments be removed from the online forum and for CTV to re-evaluate its commenting guidelines to ensure that postings like these will not be published again.

We are happy to report that CTV editors immediately removed the comments and purged the online forum in its entirety.

Winnipeg Free Press Editorial Produces "Same-Sad-Old" Errors
Contrary to an editorial published in the Winnipeg Free Press ("Same-sad-old" March 25, 2011), theabhorrent terror bombing was sadly not "the first terrorist attack in Jerusalem in six years."
In fact, there have been scores of terror attacks in Jerusalem, some "successful" and others that were "successfully thwarted." In fact, just weeks ago, a small pipe bomb hidden in a garbage bag exploded and blew off the arm of a Jerusalem Arab garbage worker. According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this past December, a U.S. citizen living in England was stabbed to death while hiking in the hills west of Jerusalem. In July 2008, 3 Jerusalem-residents were killed and over 50 people were wounded when a terrorist drove a bulldozer into cars, pedestrians, and buses. In March 2008, a terrorist armed with a Kalashnikov rifle opened fire in the library of a Jewish school in Jerusalem, the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, killing eight students, wounding eleven. In September of 2005, Sasson Nuriel of Jerusalem was kidnapped and slain by Palestinian terrorists.

We could go on and on with more examples, but in the interests of brevity, indeed the "same-sad-old" story continues, that of Israelis facing unrelenting Palestinian terror directed at innocent civilians.

A False "Cycle of Violence" Perpetuated by the National Post and Montreal Gazette
The National Post and the Montreal Gazette were faulted for using headlines which perpetuated the myth that a "cycle of violence" exists between Israelis and Palestinians.

Credit the National Post for publishing letters by HRC members (see here and here) which challenged this flawed and misleading terminology.

Calgary Herald Publishes Disgraceful Letter that Justifies Terror
From one tragedy to another, we go back to the massacre of the Fogel family, where the Calgary Herald disgracefully published a letter to the editor recently that justified the brutal murder of this family of five as they were allegedly "trespassing" on Palestinian land.

Anti-Israel Vancouver letter writer Gary Keenan wrote a letter to the editor published by the Herald on March 26 which stated:

                                           

We strongly question the Calgary Herald's editorial judgement in selecting this letter as being fit for publication. There is simply no justification for publishing opinions that brazenly justify the murder of innocents. There is an important difference between legitimate opinion that enhances the public discourse, and dangerous rhetoric that interferes with constructive dialogue.

It's instructive to note that the Herald did subsequently publish these two letters (click here and here) that condemned Keenan's remarks and the Herald itself for publishing this egregious commentary:

                      

Notwithstanding, Calgary Herald editors should have determined that Keenan's letter was not fit for publication so long as it justified the bloody murder of an innocent Israeli family. It's time for the Herald to stick to constructive opinions that positively contribute to the marketplace of ideas.

Send your considered comments to the Calgary Herald's Editor-in-Chief, Lorne Motley at:lmotley@calgaryherald.com