An Irish Times story “Amnesty International report labels 2014 ‘devastating’ for human rights” includes the following:
The report outlines the human rights situations in all 160 countries it investigates.
It describes the July assault on Gaza by Israel, in which 2,000 Palestinians were killed and where war crimes were committed, as being marked by “callous indifference”.
HonestReporting Managing Editor Simon Plosker tweeted Kitty Holland, the journalist responsible.
@KittyHollandIT @IrishTimes Shouldn’t the word “alleged” go b4 “Israeli war crimes” or does objective journalism not apply to Israel?
— Simon Plosker (@SimonPlosker) February 25, 2015
Following a simple question mark in her response, we elaborated the point:
@KittyHollandIT@HonestReporting@IrishTimes No international court has convicted Israel of “war crimes” so why have you?
— Simon Plosker (@SimonPlosker) February 25, 2015
A further exchange then took place on the HonestReporting Twitter feed:
The conversation ended with what can only be described as a “Jim Clancy moment“:
HonestReporting raised a genuine issue with Kitty Holland’s article. Irrespective of the discussion, no journalist should be responding with a statement that she is “Not interacting with Zionists anymore.”
Like Jim Clancy’s recent Twitter meltdown, this exposes a particularly insidious attitude towards Israel and supporters of Israel whereby journalists dismiss any valid criticism as a illegitimate product of “Zionists.”
Does the Irish Times think that this is acceptable behavior from one of its journalists?
So Kitty Holland, why don’t you tell us what you really think?
Responding to Holland’s tweet, Simon Plosker adds:
Kitty Holland’s tweet is absolutely appalling and speaks volumes about her attitude not only towards Israel but also the majority of Jews who consider themselves to be Zionists.
Someone who purports to be an award-winning journalist should not be engaging in this disgusting behavior.
