Newsweek published an op-ed on Gaza by Daniel Levy that is not only detached from basic reality, but breaches multiple rules of journalistic ethics. The writer of an opinion piece or editorial is entitled to express personal opinions, but in the words of the famous Senator, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”
Gaza is brutally ruled by the genocidal terror organization, Hamas. Yet author Daniel Levy refers to Hamas as “a political movement with political goals and when it resorts to violence it is as it means not an end in itself.”
A professional journalist must support all claims with a legitimate source of information. Levy cites no source for his bizarre notion that Hamas is a “political movement with political goals,” while he entirely covers up that Hamas is designated as a terror organization by: Australia, Canada, Egypt, the European Union, Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States: in short, by most of the Western world.
Levy blames Gaza’s frequent wars entirely on Israel, despite Hamas’s publicly stated genocidal intentions toward the Jewish state: Hamas works not only for the destruction of Israel but also the murder of all Jews, a goal that Hamas espouses publicly and and is in fact a central component of its founding charter. Is wiping out Israel and murdering all Jews what Levy means by “political goals?”
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Israel’s actions in wars with Hamas have been entirely defensive in nature and Israeli civilians live under constant rocket barrages from Gaza, which is what made the wars necessary in the first place. Levy’s inaccurate writing on these topics constitutes a clear example of missing context as well as selective omission of critical facts.
Levy continues his parade of fantasy by claiming that, “Israel continues to prevent all access to Gaza by sea and air.” This is a distortion of fact: Israel restricts only the movement of weapons into Gaza but moves in millions of tons of food, supplies and water annually, as well as supplying electricity. The weapons that Israel restricts are used by Hamas and other terror organizations to attack Israeli civilians.
Missing context, distortion of facts and omission of facts, are all examples of media bias, as analyzed in HonestReporting’s “Red Lines: The Eight Categories of Media Bias.”
In fact, Daniel Levy has a history of distorting reality in order to promote an anti-Israel agenda. For years, Levy has unfairly accused Israel of all manner of horrendous violations such as:
- intentionally targeting schools and hospitals in Gaza (despite evidence to the contrary)
- mis-characterizing legitimate Israeli security measures as “collective punishment,” and
- through his organization, he has even pushed for international banking sanctions against Israel, though he has made no such efforts against Palestinian terrorism.
Newsweek has allowed Daniel Levy to mislead news audiences and to entirely misstate the nature of reality. In doing so Newsweek excuses and emboldens terrorists, and does a tremendous disservice to their past and future victims.
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