UPDATE
Following the publication of this communique, Sky News has added an Israeli government statement, in its entirety, to the end of its report.
* * *
An Amnesty International report has accused Israel of possible “war crimes” during this year’s Gaza conflict. A number of international media outlets have covered the story including Sky News.
Tom Rayner’s story is breathtakingly one-sided giving over the entire report to Amnesty’s claims. Why is this the case? Sky’s story states:
Sky News asked the Israeli military for a response to the Amnesty International report, but none has been offered at this time.
A simple Google News search reveals that Sky’s report was published at approximately the same time as other media outlets including the New York Times, which includes plenty of rebuttal from official Israeli sources:
An Israeli military spokesman said all eight cases were among more than 90 under after-action review by the military itself, which has moved more swiftly than in previous conflicts to conduct criminal investigations and other probes into soldiers’ and commanders’ conduct. Israel’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the report “accuses Israel of wrongdoing while producing no evidence” and “ignores documented war crimes perpetrated by Hamas,” the militant Islamist movement that dominates Gaza.
Israeli officials said during and since the bloody battle that Hamas endangered civilians and committed the war crime of human shielding by conducting military operations from homes as well as hospitals, mosques and schools, including several run by the United Nations where weapons were found.
“The report does not mention the word terror in relation to Hamas or other armed Palestinian groups, nor mention tunnels built by Hamas to infiltrate Israel and perpetrate terror attacks,” read the statement from Israel’s embassy in London, where the Amnesty report was released. “By ignoring the nature of the enemy Israel faced in Gaza — a terror group recognized as such by the European Union, the United States and others — Amnesty’s report fails to contribute to the important discussion needed to solve the conflict.
“Instead,” the statement adds, “Amnesty serves as a propaganda tool for Hamas and other terror groups.”
A story in The Independent also referred to the response from the Israeli Embassy in London, while The Guardian, Irish Times, Time, Associated Press and AFP all mentioned, albeit too briefly, comments from Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The New York Times’ Jodi Rudoren and The Independent’s Ben Lynfield both filed their stories from Jerusalem while The Guardian and Irish Times relied on news agencies. Clearly there was no shortage of Israeli official comment available to respond to the accusations contained in the Amnesty report.
Only Tom Rayner, also located in Jerusalem, was unable to seek out an Israeli voice to balance his article. While he claims that there was no response from the IDF, Rayner has been based in Israel long enough to know that there are multiple alternative official Israeli sources available to him such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Sky News is a 24/7 rolling news channel which means, unlike the print newspapers mentioned here, Rayner would not have been operating under a strict deadline.
There is no excuse for what appears to be lazy journalism. The MFA’s statement is available online so there is also no excuse for Sky News not to update its online report.
[sc:graybox ]You can ask Sky News why it has no balancing comments from any Israeli source by sending your considered comments to [email protected].
As for the Amnesty report itself, the organization states that it was unable to send its own investigators into the Gaza Strip due to Israeli and Egyptian restrictions. Therefore:
Amnesty International has consequently had to carry out research remotely, supported by two fieldworkers based in Gaza who were contracted to work with the organization for periods of several weeks.
Remote research, presumably carried out primarily through the internet, cannot be a substitute for on the scene analysis. Amnesty instead had to rely on two Palestinians on the ground as a primary means of collecting information. Amnesty does not identify these fieldworkers and we do not know whether they have any political or other affiliations.
This gross lack of transparency would be unacceptable in a media report. Why then is it acceptable for a report published by a non-governmental organization such as Amnesty?
