As Israeli families started to bury hundreds of innocent men, women and children who were brutally slaughtered by Hamas terrorists on October 7th, a Reuters correspondent who had disputed whether there was any difference between Israeli civilians and combatants attempted to “contextualize” the horrendous attack.
Henriette Chacar’s recent biased articles that border on justification for terrorism are further proof that the news agency has made a horrible mistake by allowing her to keep her job despite past complaints and unparalleled editorial criticism.
Last year, according to emails obtained by the Jewish Chronicle, Chacar sent the now-retired Reuters Jerusalem Bureau Editor-in-Charge, Jeffrey Heller a message that said: “Can we conclusively say that Palestinians have mostly targeted civilians? Many Israelis are either in active or reserve duty, and with the prime minister encouraging citizens to carry their guns, the line between civilians and combatants is quite blurred, so I do think it’s a tricky thing to highlight. It also seems redundant, since we already outline the number of Israeli civilians and security forces killed.”
Heller replied: “Hi, This line of thinking is outrageous and I will be raising it with our superiors.”
But Reuters kept Chacar in her role — a decision now even more outrageous because her argument is far too similar to that made last week by a Hamas official after the most deadly carnage the Jewish state has ever witnessed:
“Are you really expecting us to believe that you have not killed civilians?!”
This is Hamas. Trying to argue with @markaustintv live on @skynews that civilians — whom Hamas terrorists brutally slaughtered — were legitimate targets, or that they weren’t even civilians in the… pic.twitter.com/2quEnFcnN1
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) October 9, 2023
“Contextualiztion” of Terrorism
In the same email exchange, Chacar pushed to be allowed to “contextualize” Palestinian terror attacks, writing: “If we are going to explain Israel’s raids to readers by presenting them as a response to something, I think it’s crucial that we also contextualize Palestinian attacks. Perhaps something along the lines of: Israel says it conducts raids in Palestinian towns and villages to thwart ‘terror’ attacks. Palestinians say their armed struggle is a legitimate form of resistance to decades of Israeli occupation.”
Related Reading: REVEALED: Reuters Journalist Rebuked by Editor After Sending ‘Outrageous’ Email About Israel
Indeed, while reporting on recent events in the region, Chacar consistently delivered on her mission and “contextualized” (or pretty much ignored) the horrendous Hamas attack.
In the following example, after a necessary description of the actual massacre, Chacar (the first in a triple byline) sneaked in her context under the guise of a so-called “balance.” She described the military funeral of a nameless Israeli soldier and then provided personal details on the burial of a Palestinian family:
Scores of Israelis gathered in Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl military cemetery on Thursday to bury their dead.
“When you didn’t take my call, I knew you were fighting with all your power. When I realised you were missing, I could not imagine this is how it would end,” one mourner said.
In Gaza’s main southern city Khan Younis, where cemeteries were already full, dead were being buried in empty lots, like the Samour family, killed on Wednesday night in a strike that hit their house.
Why didn’t Chacar report on Hamas terrorists’ funerals? Why didn’t she mention any of the Israeli soldiers’ names?
Was it too difficult for her to report on one out of over a thousand civilian funerals that started taking place in Israel?
Or was it her deeply ingrained bias that made it look like Hamas targeted soldiers while Israel harmed civilians?
The final paragraphs of the story are also telling. These are all dedicated to a completely redundant background which (as mentioned in her email) she shoehorned as “context” lumping Gaza and the West Bank together. It serves as a thin veil for her own opinions which border on justification for terrorism:
Gazans, mainly descendants of refugees who fled or were expelled from homes in Israel at its founding in 1948, have suffered economic collapse and repeated Israeli bombardment under a blockade since Hamas seized power there 16 years ago.
Palestinian anger has mounted in recent months, with Israel carrying out the deadliest crackdown for years in the West Bank and its right-wing government talking of seizing more land. A peace process meant to create a Palestinian state collapsed a decade ago, which Palestinian leaders say left the population with no hope, strengthening extremists.
Another example is from Chacar’s story on a recent rise in West Bank violence: The Hamas massacre is again not mentioned, nor a violent call by Fatah (the party of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas) for escalation in violence.
Instead, Chacar, together with other Reuters staff, wrote that “Palestinian factions” have “called on people in the Palestinian territory to join the fight against Israel’s occupation,” thus sanitizing the PA and implicitly blaming Israel.
In the same piece, she even subtly allowed herself to remove the word “fled” from Reuters’ decades-old accepted style of description of the ‘Nakba,’ thus demonizing Israel:
After hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced out of their homes in the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, Palestinians have sought an independent state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.
It should come as no surprise that this is the poison spread by someone who wrote a puff piece glorifying the Palestinian teenage terrorist who opened fire on a group of Israelis in Jerusalem.
It is equally expected that a person who was the deputy editor of the anti-Israeli +972 Magazine and sees Israel as implementing “racist, segregationist policies” would use her journalistic job as a platform for propaganda.
But what’s absolutely not understandable is why, despite all evidence against her and especially in this sensitive time of war, Reuters still believes Chacar can uphold the agency’s strict standards of impartiality.
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