When Fatma Omar an-Najar (pictured), a grandmother from Gaza, blew herself up near some Israeli soldiers AP’s Diaa Hadid came up with a rather silly article about the status of women in Hamas.
Hadid used to work as the public relations officer for an NGO called Ittijah. In 2002, before she began working for AP, Hadid was interviewed by Reportage about her NGO work:
The intensity of Hadid’s involvement over the last nine months has had a strong impact on her views. When she first arrived in the Middle East, Hadid expressed a desire to make more Israeli friends. Now she has trouble separating the personal from the political.
“I can’t look at Israelis anymore. I can’t separate your average Israeli citizen from the occupation, I don’t want to be friends with them, I don’t want to talk to them,” says Hadid….
“To this day I’d never say that I am anti-anybody. But did my objectivity get thrown out the window? Yes. Because I had an Israeli gun pointing at me, not a Palestinian one,” says Hadid.
Read more about Ittijah here. At least Hadid acknowledges her own biases. That’s probably more honest than other reporters who sincerely believe they’re fair.
(Hat tip: LGF)
