In October 2006, notoriously anti-Israel journalist Robert Fisk was given the front page of the UK’s Independent to spread the libel that Israel had used uranium-based weapons in southern Lebanon during last summer’s war.
This was challenged at the time by HonestReporting UK, following a UN investigation clearing Israel of the allegations only a short time later. HR UK castigated the Independent for its shoddy journalism and its failure to issue a retraction.
Still, Independent readers are under the false impression that Israel employed “secret uranium bombs”. This, despite a second acquittal by the Lebanese themselves in the past fortnight, as described by Lebanon’s Daily Star:
“A panel of experts from the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other international agencies announced a unanimous determination Monday that no depleted-uranium weapons had been used in the summer 2006 war in Lebanon. “To date, there is no evidence of depleted-uranium-ammunitions use during the 2006 conflict in Lebanon,” Didier Louvat, IAEA head of radioactive waste issues, told a news conference hosted by the National Council for Scientific Research in Bir Hassan.”
Should anyone think that any “pro-Israeli’ interests were able to influence these findings:
“Conference attendees included representatives of the Engineering Regiment of the Lebanese Army; the head of the National Council for Scientific Research George Tohmeh; the Arab Atomic Agency; the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP); the Lebanese Atomic Energy Commission (LAEC); the IAEA and the World Health Organization.”
Unsurprisingly, the Independent failed to cover this story, preferring to pass up this second chance to correct its original and libelous story. While Fisk and the Independent may have conveniently forgotten, we haven’t. Please write to the Independent – [email protected] – drawing attention to this latest acquittal of Israel and asking why the newspaper has yet to issue a retraction.
The media’s failure to acknowledge previous mistakes has perpetuated many falsehoods against Israel, such as the Jenin “massacre”. We urge our subscribers to take action to correct this latest untruth.
DUGARD’S “APARTHEID” CHARGE DEBUNKED
No stranger to HonestReporting for his anti-Israel bias, the UN’s John Dugard recently produced another report accusing Israel of practising “apartheid”. While Eye on the UN’s Anne Bayefsky effectively rebuts Dugard, South Africa’s Business Day chose to quote Dugard verbatim in a decidedly one-sided report.
To its credit, Business Day has given op-ed space to Joel Pollak who explains that Dugard’s:
“Investigation is entirely one-sided. In his introduction he states: “I shall not consider the violation of human rights caused by Palestinian suicide bombers. Nor shall I consider the violation of human rights caused by the political conflict between Fatah and Hamas.”
That sort of bias taints every page of Dugard’s report and destroys the credibility of its conclusions….
Dugard also spins the facts to fit his conclusions. Palestinians and especially Israelis come in all colours, but Dugard describes them as different races to make the apartheid analogy work: “Can it seriously be denied that the purpose (of Israeli actions) is to establish and maintain domination by one racial group (Jews) over another racial group (Palestinians) and systematically oppressing them?” he asks.”
Well, yes, actually. The continued refusal by Palestinian leaders to stop terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians has created the need for Israel’s checkpoints. Security, not domination, is the reason.
