The Guardian (as well as other media outlets) regularly portrays Israel as ‘collectively punishing’ Palestinians, failing to acknowledge legitimate Israeli security concerns. Rory McCarthy’s 6 November article focusing on the plight of some 670 Gazan students unable to return to universities abroad is certainly not the worst published in The Guardian. One cannot but sympathise with individual stories of Palestinian student hardship and McCarthy does, at least, allow an Israeli official the right of reply and points out that Israel has allowed limited numbers of Palestinians to exit Gaza.
So where lays the problem? Perhaps McCarthy could have mentioned the difficulties of facilitating freedom of movement at border crossings that have regularly come under Palestinian mortar fire. He could also have included the Qassam attacks, weapons smuggling tunnels, threats of terrorism and the continued captivity of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit as reasons why Israel would not be enthusiastic about allowing unfettered access from Gaza.
However, McCarthy’s undoing is perhaps down to simple laziness or an unwillingness to admit that Israeli concerns or fears of Palestinian subterfuge may be credible. Only days before The Guardian’s piece, the Associated Press, on 1 November, also covered the story of Gazan students. The AP, a wire service, is readily available to media outlets around the globe who republish AP’s content if they so wish.
Therefore, The Guardian could not have failed to notice that the AP had already done some more research into the Palestinian student story, reaching an altogether different conclusion:
A Palestinian included by a human rights group as one of hundreds of university students trapped in Gaza is apparently not a student and used what appeared to be a forged document to make his case to leave for Texas, The Associated Press learned on Thursday.
“Gisha,” a human rights group advocating freedom of movement for Palestinians, is pressing the Israeli Supreme Court to allow university students to leave Gaza to continue their studies abroad. The group included Yaser Betar in its suit, presenting the court with a one-page document from the University of North Texas affirming that he is enrolled in a doctorate program.
But after the AP sent the document to the university, its spokeswoman replied that the document was not authentic, and Betar “is not currently enrolled at the university. He studied Engineering Technology as an undergraduate student from spring 1992 to fall 1998 and did not earn a degree.”
University spokeswoman Kelley Reese wrote in an e-mail message, “The document The Associated Press shared with the University of North Texas is not a UNT document. The university repudiates the document.”
While there is no reason to suspect that the majority of those Palestinians named in Gisha’s suit are anything but genuine students, this case illustrates the security dilemmas faced by Israel. After all, it only takes one terrorist to slip through and cause carnage.
This example was readily available to Rory McCarthy and The Guardian. Yet, it was ignored despite its relevance in providing some context to the overall story. Is this another example of The Guardian ignoring certain information that does not fit with its preconceived worldview of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
Please send your considered comments to The Guardian – [email protected]
RECOMMENDED READING
Ian O’Doherty, in the Irish Independent, takes The Guardian and the BBC to task for their Israel coverage, echoing HonestReporting’s own critique of a recent Guardian op-ed:
It’s a newsroom where someone like Orla Guerin who has been exposed as lying about the total destruction of the Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil by the Israelis during the war last year, among other things, can still keep her job.
And now that other bastion of self-regarding liberalism, The Guardian, has been exposed as playing equally fast and loose with the facts when it comes to Israel.
In last Thursday’s edition, The Guardian’s Seumus Milne wrote about Gaza and the suffering of the people there.
That the citizens of Gaza are suffering is not under any doubt — the deprivations brought about by the civil war between Hamas and Fatah have wrought terrible consequences on the locals.
But according to Milne: “This week the collective punishment of the people of Gaza reached a new level, as Israel began to choke off essential fuel supplies to its one and a half million people in retaliation for rockets fired by Palestinian resistance groups.”
Milne then went on to incorrectly state that: “Israel continues to control all access to the Gaza Strip,” conveniently forgetting the Egyptian side of the border.
Read the full O’Doherty article here and see HonestReporting’s communique for a full debunking of the Seumus Milne article referred to above.
Meanwhile, Lauren Booth, in The Spectator, takes a tour of Beirut with Hezbollah’s PR division, finding the terrorist organisation to be less than competent in new media:
Dr Hussein Rahal is head of Hezbollah’s media centre… He talks furiously about a BBC film broadcast on 21 August, made by Darius Bazargan, Lebanon – Hunting for Hezbollah. In it the journalist talks of coming across a Hezbollah military base, then being detained and interrogated by a patrol. ‘Lies, lies, lies,’ says Dr Rahal. ‘He just wanted to pretend to be a hero.’ So, I ask, what has his media office done to counter the claims? Dr Rahal looks nonplussed. ‘Done?’ Had they contacted the BBC, prepared a dossier to prove operatives were not in the area, reported the so-called ‘lies’ to other Arab media for them to follow up? ‘No. No one ever believes us anyway,’ he says a little sulkily.
Why are we not surprised?
BAD NEWS FROM BRITAIN
HonestReporting highlighted “Bad News From the Netherlands”, which set out to demonstrate that media coverage can degrade a country’s image by using selective news without context. Following the Netherlands example, a “Bad News From Britain” blog has been created. Check out “Bad News From Britain” for more on this innovative project.
