June 29 Media Critique :”Tell the Truce”

HonestReporting is concerned that the coverage of Palestinian ceasefire violations since June 24 is insufficient.

In the past, the media has failed to properly report on Palestinian terror and provocations against Israel, instead waiting to report on Israeli responses and counter-terror measures, thus portraying Israel as the sole aggressor. Will the same thing happen this time?

The answer may very well be in the affirmative if the international media has failed to cover these serious violations of the ceasefire over the past few days:

The BBC,

led with alleged Israeli violations, waiting until the third paragraph to mention Palestinian rockets and mortars:

AP,

in a fit of chronological inversion, employed the headline: "Israel closes Gaza, Palestinians fire mortars"

And The Guardian,

failed to make it clear that Israeli operations in the West Bank are not in violation of the ceasefire.

What can possibly explain the BBCs and APs bizarre take on events? Maybe it is the fact that on June 23, the IDF shot a 67 yr old Palestinian farmer in the Gaza Strip. Yes, June 23 - that’s the day before June 24, when the Palestinians violated the ceasefire.

Isn’t it strange how HR has no interest in the June 23 event, preferring to ‘portray Palestinians as the sole aggressors’. Perhaps feeling the need defend against reality, HR make this pitiful defence of Israels initial violation of the ceasefire,

Irrespective of the veracity of an unnamed "UN source" (many Palestinians are employed by the UN in Gaza, including Hamas members), why will the BBC not recognize that there is no moral equivalence between rocket and mortar attacks on the western Negev and the firing of warning shots by an IDF wary of potential terrorist activities near the border fence?.

Yes, irrespective of the truth………sums up HR perfectly.

June 6 ‘Media Critique’: “BBC Reporter: Genuine Eyewitness or Palestinian Propagandist?”

Yet again, HonestReporting goes for the hard news, this time a story from the BBCs ‘From Our Own Correspondent’.

HR are deeply concerned that the facts of this story were reported differently in different media outlets.

Maqbool appears to be describing the death of Palestinian terrorist Omar Abdel-Halim CAMERA, however, investigated media coverage of this incident and discovered countless contradictions between the accounts of so-called Palestinian "eyewitnesses", Palestinian NGOs and media outlets, which could not even agree on the correct name of the terrorist.

But, true to form, HR then refer to an IDF press release on the incident. I think we’re meant to see this as an injection of objectivity and fact.

Let’s just get some perspective here. This is the same IDF that routinely lies and covers-up its actions in relation to the killing of Palestinians. Israeli human rights organisation, B’Tselem, had proof of IDF mendacity mailed to it in 2001 after it had requested an investigation into the IDF shooting of 3 children (1 was killed).

B'Tselem obtained internal documents from the office of the Military Advocate General which reveal how the military cleared the soldiers who caused the death of an eleven year-old Palestinian boy, covered up the incident, refrained from opening an investigation by the Military Police, and issued a false statement regarding the circumstances of the death.

The documents that the IDF mistakenly sent B’Tselem include a discussion of the various false explanations (after discovering the IDF soldiers had indeed deliberately shot the children with a tank-mounted machine gun) they could offer B’Tselem and which were most plausible.

Lawrence of Cyberia also offered a taste of the IDFs mendacity in its ‘investigations’.

So, this is the organization whose statement HR offer for objective comparison to media reports.

Propagandists? Indeed.