Coverage of the most recent flare-up of violence between Israel and terrorists in Gaza has been widespread, and for the most part fair, but an article by Bel Trew for British news site The Independent is guilty of both woefully misleading readers, and exposing serial bias against Israel in the news site’s pages.
The article appears with two titles on The Independent website. On the Middle East section of the Independent website, another text is visible: “Violence flares after Israeli bulldozer filmed dragging Gaza corpse.”
On the article page itself, a different headline is shown: “Gaza: Israeli army filmed dragging corpse of suspected militant with bulldozer, as cross-border violence surges.”
Both of these headlines commit one of the cardinal sins of reporting: Starting the story from the middle.
Both tell the story out of sequence, and without due context.
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For years, it has been the policy of terrorists in Gaza to leave bombs and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) along the border with Israel. Sometimes terrorists leave these explosives are laid on the Gazan side, and are detonated when Israeli soldiers patrol the land adjacent to the fence, some are left dressed up as innocuous objects such as flags and bolt cutters, and others are carried by terrorists into who aim to infiltrate into Israeli territory. Others still have been carried by drones.
It is on this backdrop that Israeli soldiers are stationed on the Gaza border perimeter, as a measure to prevent the infiltration of terrorists and attacks on Israelis.
All this is omitted from The Independent story of the event, which starts simply from the point that an Israeli bulldozer had been filmed “dragging the body of a “suspected Palestinian militant.”
To be fair, journalists have a right to focus on particular aspects of a story. The seizure of body of a terrorist by the IDF is a departure from previous policy and newsworthy. That said, the facts matter and the context is inarguable. Suggesting that violence flared after the incident, as the headline above says explicitly, is patently false.
The true order of events begins with the violence committed by Islamic Jihad terrorists in Gaza who tried planting bombs on Israel’s border. Israel defended its border, and Islamic Jihad rockets ensued.
Shamefully, it’s only in six paragraphs in that writer Bel Trew discloses the reason why the man was killed in the first place. By this point, the article has given a platform to rights groups who call the act “a likely war crime” in the first paragraph, referred to Israeli aircraft having “bombed targets in the besieged strip” in the third paragraph, and graphically describing the incident in the fifth paragraph.
Why is all of this mentioned before the simple fact that this was a man who had been planting explosives on the Israeli border? Why is this crucial context not mentioned in the headline, subheadline, or lead paragraph?
By neglecting to mention the act of violence perpetrated by the Islamic Jihad terrorists until deep into the article, many readers are left unaware of the context, and unable to comprehend why Israel acted the way it did.
When is a War Crime Not Called a War Crime?
The article repeatedly describes Israel as acting in contravention of international law and committing a war crime.
In the very first paragraph, Trew says that the incident was:
an action rights groups say is a likely war crime.
And then later she quotes Adalah, a consistently anti-Israel NGO, which describes the incident thus:
But Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, sent a letter to Israel’s chief military advocate demanding an immediate criminal investigation, calling the action a “war crime”.
So far, so typical for a news outlet with a record of hostility to Israel. But scratch the surface, and another form of skewed reporting comes to light.
Some way into the article, the following passage appears:
Hamas continues to hold the remains of Lt Hadar Goldin and Staff Sgt Oron Shaul, who were killed during the 2014 war between Israel and Gaza – an action that violates International law.
For an outlet so notably hostile to Israel, this sentence really sticks out. Is this the first time The Independent has acknowledged that the holding of Goldin and Shaul by Hamas is in contravention of International law?
HonestReporting staff couldn’t recall any other time that The Independent had referred to the holding of the bodies of two Israeli soldiers by Hamas as a war crime, so we investigated further.
A search through The Independent archives yields multiple mentions of the soldiers, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul.
Here’s one article not long after the kidnapping occurred. No mention of “international law” or “war crime” appears in the article text. Here’s another. No mention of “international law” or “war crime” or any similar variant appears here, either. And here’s another article to mention one of the soldiers. We’ve quoted the relevant part and italicized one word for emphasis:
“Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, 23, was with a unit searching for tunnels between Gaza and Israel when a fight started with militants and he disappeared on 1 August 2014.”
Disappeared. That’s all.
No war crime to see here, folks!
Here’s another mention, a passing reference: “Oren Shaul and Hadar Goldin, two Israeli soldiers killed in the 2014 Gaza war whose bodies have not been retrieved.” Their bodies have not been retrieved, dear Independent, because Hamas is committing an ongoing war crime.
There are numerous other passing references. In exactly none of the articles referring to the capture of the two soldiers is the holding of their bodies described as a war crime or in contravention of international humanitarian law.
Even in an otherwise sympathetic article like this one, it was beyond The Independent to mention simply that the holding of Hadar Goldin’s body by Hamas was in contravention of international law. Both that phrase, and “war crime,” are conspicuous by their absence.
Now let’s return to Bel Trew’s article. This is the first report filed by The Independent about the killing and capture of the Islamic Jihad terrorist. It includes multiple variations of “war crime” and “international law”.
All of the above leads to the conclusion that the only reason The Independent departed from its regular policy of not describing the capture of Israeli soldiers’ bodies as a war crime is for the sake of seeming ostensibly ‘balanced’ in this particular piece. In all the articles referring to the capture of Israeli soldiers before this week, no human rights organizations were cited, no reference to international law was made, quite simply no comment made regarding the illegality of holding onto dead soldiers’ bodies.
It’s a sign of a deep moral confusion that The Independent is so swift to quote and give a platform to claims that Israel acted illegally, while for years steadfastly refusing to pass judgment whatsoever on the same act when perpetrated by Palestinians.
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