Truth, honesty and the credibility gap of the age

Palestinian children among terrorists - from the gallery of pictures the Age won't show you and stories it won't write about.

Last week's confrontation between the IDF and Palestinian terrorists firing missiles at civilian targets has demonstrated a great deal about truth and honesty in the coverage of the conflict.

I have already mentioned the case of disgraced United Nations official Khulood Badawi who took a photograph of a bloodied girl from an accident that took place in 2006 and then dishonestly attempted to pass it off on Twitter as evidence that the IDF was targeting civilians in the then current round of fighting.

Apologists for Palestinian terror had been in damage control since early in the proceedings when the Associated Press confirmed that all 15 of those killed in Israeli strikes were "militants".

We knew that the "militant" groups have sympathetic friends in the media. So when the narrative was panning out in a manner not to their liking, something had to be done to deflect attention away from the war criminals on the Palestinian side who were targeting a civilian population of up to one million people in Israel's south.

Some sought to minimise the size and impact of the weapons being used including an increasing number of sophisticated Grad missiles which have come into Gaza now that a more friendly regime rules in neighbouring Egypt.

Others published claims from Palestinian "sources" that "several" victims were civilians, some children, without reporting that at least three young Palestinians died as a result of gunfire from their own people at funerals (one of these deaths was initially falsely attributed to Israel) or that children are often placed in harm's way by those operating nearby in heavily populated areas (see the above photograph as an example of what I mean).

What the apologists don't realise is how badly they are damaging their own credibility.

Take Jeff Halper, of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions who roams the world bad mouthing Israel with questionable campaigns against the state. This is what he says of moves to have Badawi dismissed from the UN because of her deceptive conduct:

"We firmly hold that Khulood has a manifested right to exercise her freedom of expression on her personal Facebook page. Calls to dismiss Khulood Badawi are nothing but a political witch hunt, and trust they will be summarily and authoritatively rejected."
(from Honest Reporting)

When "freedom of expression" amounts to freedom to conduct blood libels against the Jewish State and the Jewish people then it says a lot about the sick pathology of those who promote and accept such drivel.