It all started when Israel fired back.
How many times have we witnessed the media falsely portray Israel as an aggressor when it responds to Palestinian violence and terror?
Yet again, some media failed to note the proper order of events that led up to a violent weekend in the region. To recall, Palestinians have been violently demonstrating at the Gaza border for many weeks, including efforts to sabotage or breach the security fence. Hundreds of incendiary terror kites and balloons have been launched from Gaza causing widespread destruction of Israeli farmland and nature reserves. In the space of 100 days, some 7,500 acres have been scorched – the equivalent of 5,000 soccer fields.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
When an IDF officer was moderately wounded by a grenade during a Gaza border riot and with kites and balloons continuing to cause havoc, it was hardly a surprise that Israel reacted to Palestinian violence by launching precise airstrikes at Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.
While Israel targeted terrorist infrastructure, the response of Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups was to indiscriminately launch over 200 mortars and rockets at Israeli towns and villages in the border region. Four residents of Sderot were injured and tens of thousands of Israeli civilians were forced to hunker down in bomb shelters and reinforced safe rooms over the weekend.
But for some media, it all started when Israel fired back.
UNITED KINGDOM
One of the standout headline fails goes to the Daily Telegraph.
I’m sorry, but are you serious @Telegraph @jriggers?
In 24 hrs, #Hamas rains down barrage of 200 rockets & mortars against #Israel from #Gaza and this – THIS – is what you choose to go with?@EladRatson @Udi_Avivi @EmmanuelNahshon @HonestReporting @SussexFriends @LTCPeterLerner pic.twitter.com/XxihIeJuKG
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) July 14, 2018
‘Pummeling’ Gaza gives the impression of an entirely one-sided assault. If the Telegraph sees fit to mention the considerable size of the Israeli response, why did it fail to acknowledge what was the largest Gaza rocket barrage since 2014?
The Times of London published a follow up story as the violence dissipated.
Ceasefire “follows Israeli bombardment”?! @thetimes what about the massive bombardment of 200 rockets and mortars from Gaza? Doesn’t that count?! How about acknowledging Palestinian responsibility for terror? #HeadlineFail https://t.co/eIgHvyDnKG pic.twitter.com/vw30YoHQ02
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) July 16, 2018
AUSTRALIA
ABC News’ coverage prompted enormous anger from Jewish communal organizations including the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the Australian Jewish Association, which captured the offending footage.
Writing in the Herald Sun, Andrew Bolt took ABC to task:
You’d assume from that report that Israel just decided out of the blue to bomb peaceful Palestinians.
And guess which angle -the Hamas aggression or Israel’s response – was given most attention in the ABC’s AM report today:
“Devastated family members have attended the funerals for two Palestinian boys killed in an Israeli air strike at the weekend.
The mother of one of the boys told reporters they were playing on the roof of an unfinished building, when it was hit by an Israeli missile.
A fragile truce is in place between Israel and Hamas militants, but the Israeli Prime Minister is warning his country’s army will respond to any more provocations.”
ABC’s slanted television coverage was also mirrored on its website.
IRELAND
That the traditionally hostile Irish media were true to form is unsurprising. Nonetheless the Journal.ie produced this appalling headline:
Note the focus on the deaths of two Palestinians and how the headline distorts events portraying Israel as a killer without reason.
But it wasn’t only the Journal’s headline. The story itself was taken from the AFP wire service. It’s opening paragraph (emphasis added):
TWO PALESTINIANS WERE killed today as Israel unleashed a wave of air strikes against the Gaza Strip, while scores of rockets were fired back from the Hamas-run territory.
So according to AFP, the Gazan rockets “were fired back,” indicating that Hamas was responding to Israeli aggression.
AFP also wrote:
The flare-up came after Israeli troops shot and killed two Palestinians, including a teenager, and wounded hundreds of others in border clashes yesterday, the latest in months of protests.
So this “flare-up” is a direct result of Israel killing and injuring Palestinians for no apparent reason according to AFP. Not the rockets, not the injury to the IDF officer and not the incendiary kites and balloons.
No, according to AFP, it all started with Israel’s aggression against Palestinians.
When the story does finally deal with the rockets, this is how it is presented:
In the other direction “more than 60 rockets” were fired at southern Israel from Gaza, the Israeli military said, of which “approximately 10 rockets were intercepted”.
That AFP felt the need to put quotations around the number of rockets fired and intercepted tells you all you need to know about that wire service’s attitude towards Israel and the IDF as if the size or significance of Gazan attacks is open to question.
USA & CANADA
In most cases, the North American press, such as CBS News below, took their coverage from the Associated Press which originally ran with this headline:
Maybe AP realized that the headline failed to acknowledge Palestinian terror as the cause of the Israeli airstrikes while portraying Israel as an aggressor because it later updated it to the more palatable “Israel exchanges intense fire with Hamas militants in Gaza.” (Obviously the word “militants” does not do justice the terrorists.)
CBS News, however, kept the original biased headline.
If you see biased and distorted reporting of Israel’s responses to Gazan terror, let us know by sending us a Red Alert by clicking here.
