Writing in the Irish Times, Lara Marlowe continues her one-sided assault on Israel following a series of anti-Israel articles in September, including one accusing Israel of employing “secret weapons” against Gaza as well as a “review” of the most virulently anti-Israel books in publication today.
This time we are treated to a full-on attack over Israel’s treatment of Gaza. Marlowe’s main source for comment from the Israeli side is the revisionist historian Avi Shlaim a longtime critic of Israel. Hence statements such as “It [the Gaza conflict] was a one-sided massacre” and “All these wars were instigated by Israel… All were directed against civilians, and all involved war crimes. They are a direct product of Israeli colonialism, of the most prolonged and brutal military occupation of modern times.”
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The article is characterized by missing context and inaccuracies. Marlowe writes:
Amnesty International says that 2,192 Palestinians were killed, more than two-thirds of them civilians.
No mention of where Amnesty sourced its casualty figures – the Hamas controlled Gaza health ministry. These statistics are disputed by Israel, particularly the number of civilians.
The seven-year-old Israeli blockade prevents sufficient quantities of cement and building materials entering the enclave.
No mention that restrictions on cement and building materials are nothing to do with the amount but everything to do with preventing Hamas’s reconstruction of its tunnels and terrorist infrastructure. In addition, even The Guardian has recently reported that corruption and unfulfilled promises from the international community have prevented reconstruction materials entering Gaza as well as Palestinian infighting between Hamas and the PA as featured by Politico.
But why include information that might cast doubt on the ‘blame Israel for all’ framing of the story?
Israel is even blamed for turning “Gazans into boat people for the first time since 1948.”
Most of the 500 migrants who drowned on a boat that left Damietta in early September and sank near Malta are believed to have been Gazans.
Everything is geared towards presenting Israel in the worst possible light. Referring to the kidnap and murder of three Israeli teens in the summer, Marlowe claims that the perpetrators were “rogue Hamas militants” despite a Hamas official publicly taking responsibility for the kidnapping while Hamas leader Khaled Mashal praised the kidnappers. Marlowe also claims that the later Israeli decision to declare 400 hectares in the Gush Etzion area as “state land” to be “part of the collective punishment of Palestinians for the killing of the teenagers.”
Indeed, Marlowe’s aim is to present the 2014 Gaza conflict as entirely Israel’s responsibility driven by racism and blood-lust. And so we get to the crux of Marlowe’s insidious hypothesis:
Israeli forces attacked Gaza as part of the reprisals for the deaths of the teenagers. Hamas had observed a ceasefire for 19 months, but when six of its members were killed in the bombing of a tunnel on July 7th, the Islamist group retaliated with rocketfire. Israel launched Operation Protective Edge the following day.
Israeli forces did not attack Gaza as part of a reprisal operation but in order to put an end to incessant rocket attacks. Despite Marlowe’s attempts to portray a benign situation prior to July 7th, the reality was some 62 rockets fired at Israel during June and nearly 100 more in the first week of July.
As for the bombing of a tunnel, Marlowe doesn’t want anything to get in the way of presenting Hamas as the victims of Israeli aggression. In fact, the tunnel in question was believed to be intended for a significant terrorist attack, hence the need for the IDF to take appropriate action. Following this, Hamas unleashed a barrage of 80 rockets on July 7th alone.
This lack of context and factual inaccuracy continues as Marlowe refers to a “litany of atrocities,” with the inference that Israel was deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians. She continues:
About 10 Israelis and as many Palestinians were killed in and around Jerusalem this autumn, amid talk of a third intifada.
Marlowe, in a show of moral equivalence, makes no distinction between those Israelis killed in terror attacks and the Palestinian terrorists who died in the course of carrying out those acts. She then adds:
A Palestinian driver was found hanged in his bus on November 16th.
This incident was not an act of violence but a suicide. But why let this get in the way of presenting another Palestinian as a victim of Israel?
Ultimately Lara Marlowe’s screed is an appallingly one-sided assault on Israel that succeeds in completely whitewashing Hamas responsibility for the summer’s Gaza conflict. Marlowe’s story is a breathtaking example of opinions disguised as news, given that her piece appears in the news section of the Irish Times. As such it is an affront to decent journalism.
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