The outbreak of hostilities in Gaza recently has brought with it something I’ve seen time and time again when Israel is involved and that is blatant false reporting by the media. There are numerous examples of this just from the current events in Gaza. The cooperation given to Hamas terrorists in fabricating stories in an attempt to make Israel look like an evil aggressor is nothing new, but it does underscore what Israel is up against. Worldwide opinion is already anti-Israel and the lies put forth by the terrorists with the help of their friends in the media just make it worse. But that is their goal, of course.CNN’s Sara Sidner reports on the death of a four year old boy, calling him “another victim of an [Israeli] airstrike.” The boy was actually killed by a Hamas rocket that fell short in Gaza instead of on it’s target – Israel. The Telegraph in the UK reported the truth of what actually happened.
MSNBC talking head Mara Schiavocampo told Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren that Hamas rockets “rarely do damage.” The three Israelis who have been killed by rockets so far might disagree.
A media building was allowed to be used by “senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives.” Israel targeted the second floor of the building, where the targets were, and left the rest of the building unharmed. The IDF Spokesperson said the four were using reporters as human shields. With their blessing, no doubt.
The New York Times has a story of an Israeli attack that flattened a house in Gaza City, killing nine people in three generations of a family. The Washington Times has a story of an Israeli missile attack that killed the Hamas commander in charge of missile operations. Both stories are talking about the same attack but the Times story does not tell you one of the dead was a Hamas commander.
CNN and the BBC were caught using footage of a man faking injuries from an Israeli airstrike. The man was being carried by others due to his ‘injuries’ but a few minutes later he is seen walking around and appearing completely healthy. CNN, to their credit, retracted the video and issued a statement saying the video would not be used again. The BBC, however, defended their broadcast and said they had run a shorter edit of the event, the event was not staged and that the man apparently recovered.
ABC correspondent Alex Marquardt reported without question a claim by an unidentified member of a terrorist group whom he had interviewed that, “We wouldn’t fire rockets if Israel wasn’t killing us.” No mention at all of the 700 rockets fired out of Gaza this year before Israel’s military response began.
Saying that Twitter bans “threats of violence”, the BBC asked Twitter to ban the Alqassam Brigade in Gaza and the Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson, drawing no distinction between terrorists and the Israeli military.
These are examples from just within the last few days. Each time there is an escalation of violence the media are there to report the lies without question or to be blatantly biased and hostile to Israel when ‘reporting.’
The type of reporting that should be happening is only happening online, mostly in the blogosphere. What follows below is from Melanie Phillips’ blog and is an excellent example of what you will never see on the news or read in mainstream publications such as the New York Times.
“Since the beginning of Israel’s operation Pillar of Defence last Wednesday against Hamas rocket attacks, there have been more than 1000 Israeli air strikes. At time of writing, the Palestinian death toll is 69. That is a staggeringly small number of fatalities for more than 1000 bombing raids.
It shows beyond doubt that the Israelis are not only doing everything they can to avoid civilian casualties, but have achieved a degree of precision in doing so which no other army can match. For sure, every civilian casualty is regrettable, and the deaths of children are always tragic — today’s apparently heavy toll particularly so, including at what appears to have been a mistaken target. Such mistakes inevitably happen in war.
But consider this: the very low casualty rate among Israelis from the thousands of rockets that have rained down on them from Gaza is largely due to the fact that Israel has provided its citizens with shelters to save their lives. In Gaza, by horrific contrast, the Hamas leadership has deliberately exposed its citizens to attack by siting its rocket arsenals among them in order to maximise the number of civilian men, women and children who will be killed.
Israel says that no fewer than 60 of the 703 rockets that Hamas fired at Israel between last Wednesday and Saturday fell inside Gaza on Palestinian civilians. The question therefore is how many of the 69 dead Palestinians were killed by their own rockets? “
The reason why large numbers of people in the media seem to dislike or even hate Israel is a topic too long to get into here. But it seems undeniable that there are those in the media who won’t hesitate to defend terrorists and lie about Israel if it will help turn public opinion against the very people who live in terror every day with Hamas rockets being fired at their homes.
The media bias against Israel is fairly obvious to anyone who cares to pay attention. Instead of reporting the news and what is really happening in the region, they are framing their own narrative. To what purpose, I do not know, unless it is just to make Israel look bad.
I have no doubt their purpose is to make Israel look bad. It’s why they would do that and come down on the side of terrorists that I don’t understand.