With events in Israel and Gaza moving rapidly, many column inches have been dedicated to analysis of developments. While pieces frequently lean one way or another, few in the mainstream media have been as poorly written as this one, by The Independent’s Middle East correspondent Bel Trew, describing Benjamin Netanyahu as “a once-warmongering prime minister”.
From the very beginning, this confused jumble of an analysis piece misunderstands events in Israel, what Israelis think, and what their motivations are. That Trew is actually an experienced, knowledgeable former reporter for The Times of London, makes it all the more bewildering.
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The article opens with Trew accusing Israelis of not thinking straight about how to react to a massive onslaught of rockets from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ): “The logic doesn’t seem right: the very people fed up of living under a barrage of rockets from Gaza rejecting a ceasefire between their government in Israel and the fighters that are firing at them.”
Such a statement may be excusable coming from an opinionated college student, but is less in keeping with Trew’s credentials as a seasoned reporter.
Surely Trew knows that ceasefires between Israel and Hamas are frequently nothing more than momentary respites before even bigger salvoes, and typically serve to allow Hamas to escape being forced to its knees, and instead rebuild, restock its weapons supplies, and fight another day.
It may be alien to people living safely in the West, but those who live within range of a massive arsenal of rockets, thousands of which have been fired indiscriminately, tend to feel very strongly about eliminating such threats. Ceasefires are not a magic bullet against Hamas’ thousands of rockets, and dismissing Israelis’ concerns that the weapons must be destroyed simplistically portrays Israelis living near Gaza as war-hungry. In reality, Israelis living near Gaza simply want to put an end to Hamas’ rocket threat once and for all.
Trew backs up her sentiments by interviewing Israelis who say things like “While I feel very sorry for the Palestinian civilians who are innocent, I think we should go in and assassinate all the Hamas leaders – kill them all.”
Fighting words. But why did Trew not take the time to speak to a range of Israelis, including those who call for peace talks and ceasefires? A number of border communities near Gaza are left-wing strongholds. Why were their voices omitted?
This lack of professionalism is repeated by the fact that Trew failed to understand why some Israelis are so desperate to see the Hamas leadership dismantled. Why are they hated so? Is it because Israelis are irrational, driven by a diabolical hatred of Gaza, or is their motivation a reasonable desire to defend themselves? The very least Trew could have done was to remind readers that Hamas aims to strike at Israeli civilians, a war crime in the eyes of the rest of the world.
Hamas’ policy of attacking civilians provides crucial background information here. Deliberately targeting innocent people has been a long-held policy by Hamas, spanning over three decades of suicide bombings, shootings, rocket attacks and stabbings. Hamas doesn’t hide it, and neither should the report.
Beyond lack of context, the article also makes highly contentious claims, such as describing Benjamin Netanyahu as “Israel’s once-warmongering prime minister.”
This is how Simon Plosker, managing editor of HonestReporting responded:
If anything, Bibi has consistently gone out of his way to avoid a war with Hamas. It's his lack of aggression that's costing him his coalition. And how can you possibly say that his popularity is at an all-time low? He's still overwhelming favorite to win the next election.
— Simon Plosker (@SimonPlosker) November 18, 2018
While undoubtedly right-wing, Netanyahu has repeatedly been identified as having sought to keep Israel out of war, even to the detriment of his own political career.
Nevertheless, Trew persists, suggesting that Netanyahu has “has used wars to distract the Israeli electorate from domestic woes to win votes, only creating a battle-hardened Palestinian people who have nothing to lose.”
As far as political-fiction goes, this is almost believable. Almost. It’s certainly not reality, though – Netanyahu was elected in 2009, not long after a war for which he was not responsible. Since then, he’s presided over Israel during two wars, and neither was sparked by Israel. Both times, Palestinian attacks triggered a strong Israeli response.
The article is also problematic in that it minimizes the Palestinians’ role in their own problems. Trew believes Netanyahu’s tactic has been “setting the West Bank and the Gaza at each other’s throats… [thereby] creating a battle-hardened Palestinian people who have nothing to lose.” It’s odd that Trew sees the Palestinians as entirely passive, as if the Palestinian Authority and Hamas don’t engage in regular human rights abuses against one another, as if the Palestinian Authority has refused to make payments to Hamas, as if Israel created alone “a battle-hardened Palestinian people”, and that years of rockets, suicide bombs, stabbings and shootings have nothing to do with it.
If only the article ended there.
Bizarrely, Trew claims that “new elections had been called at the worst possible time, with his popularity at an all-time low. Although many were left thinking that the coalition was on the brink of collapse, had this already happened? And had new elections been called?
No and no.
This piece was published on Saturday. Today, two days later, elections remain as-yet uncalled, the coalition is just holding, and Netanyahu is still the favourite to be the next Israeli prime minister. Indeed, Trew seems to recognize this and swifty contradicts herself, admitting a few paragraphs later that “whether this will happen remains to be seen”.
From beginning to end, this analysis is riddled with mistakes, misunderstandings, contradictions and a paucity of context. One can only hope that Trew will properly research her articles in future.
