Yesterday, terrorists in Gaza fired rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot. By a tremendous stroke of luck there were no injuries, but at least one rocket landed in a residential area, exploding next to a house. The terror organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) took responsibility, as did a Salafist group with ties to Islamic State (ISIS).
Reuters then wrote an absurd story: misstating facts, covering up context, and even changing attributed statements from the Israeli military.
Reuters fabricated statements by the Israeli military to make it look like the IDF had shelled a town.
The Reuters story begins,
Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip launched a rocket that landed in the Israeli border town of Sderot on Sunday and Israeli aircraft and tanks responded by shelling the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, the army and police said.
(emphasis added)
The IDF said nothing of the kind.
HonestReporting has obtained the original text messages and the formal press release from the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit. The press release says (in relevant part):
Earlier today, August 21st, 2016, a rocket hit the city of Sderot. The rocket was fired at southern Israel from the Gaza Strip. No injuries have been reported. In response to the attack, IAF aircraft targeted Hamas positions in the northern Gaza Strip. Since the beginning of 2016, 14 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip have hit Israel.
(emphasis added)
The SMS text message sent to journalists at 3:20 PM said:
Moments ago, in response to the rocket attack from the Gaza Strip, the IAF and tanks targeted two Hamas posts in the Northern Gaza Strip.
Changing a source’s statement to fit a specific agenda is beyond bad journalism: it is actual fraud.
Reuters misstates facts, covers up context and perverts history.
Reuters misstates facts, claiming that, “More than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed during the 2014 Gaza conflict.” In fact, the New York Times and the BBC have previously admitted that these claims are unreliable due to significant evidence that most casualties were actually combatants. Yet Reuters states this suspect figure as if it were established fact.
Reuters also covers up critical context: that Hamas uses its civilian population as human shields to protect military infrastructure. This includes placing rocket launchers in homes, command centers in hospitals, and especially disturbing: forcing civilians to stay in dangerous areas in order to protect Hamas military assets.
Covering up Hamas’s attacks on civilians is not only a perversion of history, but it is disrespectful to the Israelis and Palestinians who both suffer from it.
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Reuters falsely accuses Israel of damaging a water tower.
Reuters quotes unnamed “local residents” as saying that the Israeli strike “damaged a Beit Hanoun water tower.” They even show a picture of the damage. But Israellycool noticed a report that this water tower was actually damaged over a year ago.
Upon further inspection, HonestReporting found that if you compare photographs of the water tower from this year and last year, the damage appears to be exactly the same. Is it possible the water tower was repaired and then damaged again in precisely the same spot? Yes it’s possible. But not very likely. Take a look yourself…
In an exclusive conversation with Times of Israel, HonestReporting learned that Palestinian officials in Gaza are claiming that the water tower was hit in the strike, and that higher quality photographs seem to show what may be some damage in addition to the damage from 2015. It is unclear, therefore, whether the claim by Palestinian officials is true, partially true, or entirely fabricated.
In either case, it is one thing for Reuters to report a dubious claim by local residents or officials. It is an entirely different thing for Reuters to cover up evidence that the claim may be partly or completely untrue.
Reuters covers up terrorism.
Reuters consistently uses the word “militant” to describe Hamas and other groups in Gaza, even though these groups are actually terrorists according to most Western governments. Hamas, for example, is listed as a terror organization by Australia, Canada, Egypt, the EU, Israel, the UK, and the United States. The PFLP (who claimed credit for this attack) is similarly designated, as are most of the “militant groups” in Gaza.
It is one thing for Reuters to refrain from making a judgment about who is and who is not a “terrorist,” it is quite another to cover up critical context: in this case, the consensus opinion of most governments in the Western world.
Why this matters.
ABC, Associated Press, AFP, local Israeli press and numerous other news agencies managed to report this story without most of the errors, omissions and bias perpetrated by Reuters. Yet Reuters is a highly influential news service, and its stories are picked up by thousands of publications all over the world: including (in this case) The New York Times, Newsweek Magazine, and many more.
Israel has been forced to fight defensive wars against terror groups in Gaza three times in the past seven years, and events like this are exactly the reason why. Unprovoked rocket-fire on Israeli towns necessitates an appropriate response, in order to keep Israelis safe.
Yet Reuters creates the false impression that the Israeli victims of this terror are somehow partly to blame, that the terrorism isn’t really terrorism, and that Israel’s highly restrained response was somehow heavy-handed or provocative. This kind of irresponsible journalism emboldens terrorists, giving them an impression that the world will not notice, or care, about their aggression.
The end result of this irresponsible journalism is a greater risk of even more human tragedy: for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
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