G – Gaza 2014
The mainstream Western media’s pogrom against Israel through its miscoverage of the Israel-Hamas war in the summer of 2014 – the “Gaza” War, as though thousands of rockets weren’t launched at civilians in Israel, the “vast majority” of Arab victims being civilians, though hotly contested by Israel, etc. – remains crucially relevant as a foretaste of what the MSM will likely feed to Western readers in Israel’s next round with Hezbollah, likewise deeply embedded among the civilian population, armed to the teeth with Iranian rockets, and soon to be even more heavily armed from financial infusions to its patron Iran under its new deal with the West.
Media watcher HonestReporting.com on 6/15/15 issued a 3-point user’s guide to the looming UN Human Rights Council’s report on the summer 2014 Israel-Hamas war. HR’s three points were
1. The Halo Effect
2. Disproportionate Force
3. Moral Equivalence
Halo Effect
HR calls “the halo effect” the tendency to accept UNHRC statements as “apolitical and unbiased,” despite the UNHRC being is “made up of human rights abusers who are in no position to judge Israel.”
The AP, 6/23/15, reporting on the just issued UNHRC report wrote, and wrote only: “More than 2,200 Palestinians, including 1,462 civilians, were killed in the fighting, according to the U.N.”
The very preceding week, Israel had issued its own thorough analysis, 2,125 Arab casualties,
of which 936 have been identified as “militants” (Israel’s term, ycch), and 761 as civilians, leaving “428 males between 16-50” as so-far unclassified between civilian and combatant. A far cry from the UN’s “1,462 civilians,” and indeed surprisingly low given international norms.
Balanced reporting required reference to Israel’s analysis in the AP’s report of the UNHRC report. Ironically, the SAME AP reporter had written (6/15/15) the AP’s report on Israel’s report.
Disproportionate Force
The AP’s article on the UN report compares in successive sentences “more than 2,200 Palestinians” having been killed versus less than 100 Israelis. The impression left with lay readers is that this disparity (thanks to Iron Dome, not to Hamas) is evidence of Israel not using “proportionate force,” which, as the same AP reporter reported the previous week, is one of Palestinian Arabs’ accusations of Israel having “violated the rules of war.” But as Israel’s report the previous week pointed out, “proportionality” is not a matter of equal casualty counts but of armies weighing likely civilian casualties versus military accomplishments in forming attack plans. (By this standard, Arabs aiming rockets at Jewish towns and cities in which the Israeli army was not only not fighting but not present was hardly “proportional.”)
But here’s a proportionality count in Tuesday’s AP Inq article: the UN report says that “the Israeli military carried out more than 6,000 air strikes in Gaza during the war, including many that struck residential buildings” and that “Hamas fired 4,881 rockets and 1,753 mortars toward Israel.” The AP, and maybe the UN, didn’t say at what in Israel this total of 6,634 rockets and mortars was aimed at, but you can bet “residential buildings” were not avoided.
“Moral Equivalence”
“Moral equivalence” in the conflict between Arabs and Jews has to be fought on two planes – military tactics in battle, and ultimate aims. In this 2014 Israel-Hamas war that so absorbs the UN and the media, there was no moral equivalence between rocketing civilians and responding against the rocketers, however deeply they enmeshed themselves amongst their civilians. In ultimate goals, there is no moral equivalence between the Jewish people defending its homeland and enemies which, as the AP labeled Hamas in the next-to-last paragraph of Tuesday’s Inq’s AP article, are “sworn to Israel’s destruction.”
Blatant Israel-Hamas War Bias Examples
*** Compare the clarity-versus-vagueness of these two Inq headlines.
On 7/14/14, the Philadelphia Inquirer (Inq) ran a front-page Washington Post article it headlined: “Tens of Thousands Flee Homes in Gaza.” A4-continuation page Inq headline: “Thousands Flee Homes in Gaza.”
On 8/26/14, the Inq ran a page A6 AP article reporting that “tens of thousands of Israelis have fled the area [southern Israel near the Gaza Strip] in nearly two months of fighting.” The Inq headlined: “Israelis Leaving Gaza Border,” which ambiguously could have suggested to readers that the IDF was pulling back troops from the border, not that Israeli civilians were fleeing their homes that were as much within Israel, inside Israel, not on “the border,” as Gazans were fleeing their homes not “on the border” but within Gaza.
Inq’s photo selection for this page 6 (as opposed to page 1 for Gazans fleeing their homes) article on “Israelis Leaving Gaza Border”? “Firefighters inspect the rubble of a three-story residential building after an Israeli air strike in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip
*** Philadelphia Inquirer’s photo accompanying its 7/23/14 article on a lone Hamas rocket landing a mile from Israel’s international airport causing temporary international shunning of Israel’s airport was “Smoke and fire rises over Gaza City.”
*** Algemeiner had an article 10/2/14 titled “Leading American Journalist Slams AP Claim That ‘Vast Majority’ of Gazan Dead Were Civilians.” In an interview with Algemeiner, Forbes.com contributor Richard Behar, whom the article called “a leading American journalist and political commentator,” offered “trenchant criticisms of American media coverage” of this summer’s Israel-Hamas war, in particular expressing “grave concern about the AP’s reporting of the conflict.” Behar:
“AP has enormous power and influence in the media world …. As long as they keep shooting this stuff out, they are doing damage. They should not be saying in their stories that the vast majority of casualties are civilians. They could at least mention that there are other sources reaching different conclusions.” (emphasis added)
AP, that very day, 10/2/14:
More than 2,100 Palestinians – the vast majority of them civilians – and more than 70 Israelis were killed during the 50-day war in Gaza.
*** A 9/19/14 AP article stated 4, A7, AP) carried an AP news article stating that during the 50 days of fighting Israel launched thousands of air strikes at “what it said were Hamas-linked targets,” which had killed “more than 2,100 Palestinians, the vast majority civilians … according to U.N. officials.” Backed by documentation, Israel maintains that about half of those killed were conflict participants, a higher than typical non-civilian percentage in conflicts including urban areas. Balanced reporting demanded informing the Western public of the Israeli civilian casualty contention alongside the U.N.’s “the vast majority civilians.” And reporting this would have imbued some credibility into what the AP charmingly called Israel’s targeting of “what it said were Hamas-linked targets.”
*** AP lede, 7/13/14, beneath Philadelphia Inquirer front page headline “Call For Gaza Truce Unheeded”:
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Ignoring international appeals for a cease-fire, Israel on Saturday widened its range of Gaza bombing targets to civilian institutions with suspected Hamas ties and announced it would hit northern Gaza “with great force” ….
Paragraph 3 reiterated “So far, neither Israel nor Gaza’s Hamas rulers have signaled a willingness to stop,” but it was paragraph 9, buried on continuation page A14, that got around to telling readers the relationship between Hamas and “Call For Gaza Truce Unheeded”:
Meanwhile, Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, fired nearly 700 rockets and mortars at Israel during the week and said it wouldn’t be the first to cease fire.