Allegations that the Burmese / Myanmar military is engaged in a brutal offensive against the Muslim Rohingya minority are, quite rightly, appearing in the international media.
But what does it say about The Independent and its reporter Bethan McKernan when Israel becomes the focus of the Myanmar story?
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According to The Independent:
Israel is under fire from human rights groups for the continued sale of weaponry to the Burmese junta after intensified violence against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority.
More than 100 tanks, as well as boats and light weapons, have been sold to the Burmese government by Israeli arms companies, investigations by several rights watchdogs have found.
Yet, The Independent fails to name any of these human rights groups or watchdogs. Instead, the story is sourced to Middle East Eye, a site that publishes among others, Richard Silverstein, an anti-Zionist blogger with a reputation for spreading anti-Israel stories and conspiracy theories with a complete disregard for fact-checking.
Supplying arms to any country that may misuse them is a significant moral and ethical issue. Israel is not immune from this legitimate debate as a weapons exporter to countries that include Myanmar. That the Israeli High Court is to rule later this month on whether to ban arms sales to Myanmar is an indicator that ethical concerns are part of Israeli decisions on weapons exports. It is also this transparency that brought the story to the attention of the press in the first instance.
Israel isn’t the only country to supply arms to Myanmar over the years but it is the only one that The Independent is bothered about. Other suppliers include or have included Russia, China, Ukraine, India and Singapore.
The Independent also includes the following quotes:
“Successive Israeli governments have been selling arms to the military dictatorship in Burma for years,” Ofer Neiman, an Israeli human rights activist, told Middle East Eye.
“This policy is strongly related to Israel’s oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian people. Weapons used against the Palestinians are being sold as ‘field-tested’ to some of the worst regimes on the planet.”
In a lack of transparency, what neither The Independent nor Middle East Eye mention is that “human rights activist” Ofer Neiman is a leader of the Boycott from Within organization, an Israeli group that supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
The choice of quote is simply meant to create a link between the Myanmar situation and Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians.
At least The Independent’s McKernan did not include another quote that appeared in Middle East Eye’s story from Penny Green, a one time candidate for a UN position monitoring human rights in the Palestinian territories.
As reported in 2016:
a look at the Twitter feed of the top candidate for the post shows her to be vehemently anti-Israel. Green, UN Watch said, “accuses Israel of ‘criminal state practices,’ ‘ethnic cleansing,’ and ‘apartheid.’” She has lamented that the US and UK haven’t yet started “bombing Israel for its massacres,” as they have the Islamic State.
She also supports the total boycott of Israel and has posted tweets in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
That Middle East Eye published a story critical of Israel and included prominent anti-Israel and BDS activists to back up its agenda speaks volumes about where it is coming from. That Bethan McKernan chose this as the source of her story and that The Independent chose to publish her article also speaks volumes about her and the newspaper’s anti-Israel bias.
By all means have a conversation about arms sales to Myanmar and its alleged human rights abuses. Singling out Israel for special treatment, however, is a sign of something far more sinister.
You can send your considered comments to The Independent – [email protected]
