Melanie Phillips has already given this work of journalistic bias in the extreme a decent Fisking in THE GUARDIAN GOES TO PALLYWOOD. Of the allegations of Israeli war crimes she writes:
It presents these allegations as facts. It does so even though they are only allegations, unsupported by any evidence whatever. It does so even though the allegations are made by people with a proven track record of systematic lying to journalists and fabrication of stories and images. It does so even though such people either support Hamas or are controlled and schooled by Hamas to tell lies under pain of torture or death.
It does so without providing any verifiable information – full names, dates, specifics. It does so without making any mention of the extraordinary lengths to which the Israel Defence Force went in trying to avoid civilian casualties, by leafleting targeted houses to warn the inhabitants to get out and even calling them on their mobile phones to urge them to do so. It does so without acknowledging the fact that it was Hamas which used Gazan civilians as human shields – indeed, it dismisses this in a sentence by stating that Amnesty and Human Rights Watch found ‘no evidence’ that it had done so.
And the damning conclusion:
In similar vein, no mention at all in the Guardian of the enormous bomb planted in a shopping mall in Haifa last Saturday evening – 100 kg of explosives packed with ball bearings -- which, had it not been defused, would most likely have killed hundreds of people.
Truly, the Guardian is an evil newspaper.
As is the Age for its continuing campaign against Israel.
2 comments:
Barry Rubin also had his say about the original article:
"Barry Rubin's Notes
The Blood Libel Continues but Isn't Very Well Done
The blood libel against Israel continues to expand. Yet there is something very curious about it. The project is being conducted with such vague and shoddiness it makes me more and more suspicious of how little they have.
In fact, this kind of work would flunk a journalism school course. Consider:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/series/gaza-war-crimes-investigation
This is an article on a report. Who is publishing the report, who wrote it, doesn't say. Examples? One of a teenage boy used as a human shield by Israeli troops allegedly. (You think they'd have some shame and not use precisely the thing Hamas did with thousands and then demonize Israel with one case.)
But while at least a date is given, no documentation is cited. The name of the boy isn't given. It never says whether there were witnesses or who they were.
In contradiction to the most basic journalistic practice, a woman is cited extensively but not identified--it is hinted she is a UN human rights expert but it doesn't say what agency she works for. Her sole qualification? A five-day visit to Israel and Gaza.
I suspect that if we were to see this report it would be the usual junk. In other words, Palestinians mostly Hamas sympathizers doing Pallywood. What strikes me though is if the Guardian wants to push this why it isn't more credible by giving several examples and making them sound firmly proven. (I guess they don't have to as they can make up anything.)
It sounds like the reporter didn't see the report. Who are these human rights experts mentioned? It doesn't even say who is publishing or compiled the report. .
As I've said before, it is amazing how much is being built on how little, how shoddy it is and how they are getting away with it. If this debate was at all fair they would be held up to ridicule but obviously the goal is to shock people into thinking Israel is monstrous by repeating all the adjectives.
But I really find this article shocking not because it shows anything against Israel but because it is just so flimsy.
As I mentioned earlier in a note but I will be more specific now, Canada's largest -circulation newspaper, the Toronto Star, turned down an op-ed from me because they said the story wasn't much covered there. In fact, their correspondent (who remember was in Jerusalem and not in Gaza) wrote a lurid piece of advocacy journalism even accusing Israel of using white phosphorus to burn people up (even the UN has ridiculed that notion).
There can be no doubt that we are facing the intellectual/media equivalent of a pogrom in which intoxicated people work themselves into a frenzy, pass wild rumors, and then attack the Jews confident that they will suffer no prosecution by the authorities."
The bias of the UN, Red Cross and Amnesty International in these matters is well-documented (witness Durban II - in process).
But the numbers don`t lie. After a year of over 5,000 missiles aimed indiscriminately at its civilian populations, and after many warnings, Israel made a limited incursion whose main casualty was Palestinian smuggling tunnels and weapons caches. Over 50% of the Palestinian dead are known, by name, as active gueerrilas. That is remarkable, given the fact that the Pals conducted their fighting (in violation of all `rules of war`) from behind schools, hospitals and mosques, using ambulances to transport fighters and ammo.
Israel used far more restraint than any party would - certainly than any of its Arab neighbors has ever used.
By all means, Israel, investigate every report. But don`t lose the big picture - that Israel as a whole used incredible restraint. In fact, so much restraint that it encouraged the resumption of rocket attacks against Israel.
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