Two 14 year old Israeli boys from Sderot – Adir Bas’ad and his friend Matan Cohen – lie seriously injured in an Ashkelon hospital following a Qassam barrage from Gaza on Tuesday night. Bas’ad was so badly injured by shrapnel that surgeons battled for over 10 hours to stabilize him. Cohen remains in a moderate condition.
The mainstream media continues to downplay or even ignore the continuous Qassam strikes against Sderot and surrounding communities by Palestinian terrorists, describing Qassam missiles as “harmless” or merely “home-made rockets”.
Commenting on the daily threat to Sderot, the Jerusalem Post points out: “It has become a curious game of Palestinian Roulette … The rocket that fell in a Sderot nursery school playground could have, with a little less luck, taken the lives of many toddlers.”
HR VISITS SDEROT – VIDEO MESSAGE FROM AN EMPTY PLAYGROUND
The HR team visited Sderot in the immediate aftermath of the latest Qassam strikes to see for ourselves the impact of Qassam terror on this besieged town. We ask why Israeli children never earn the iconic status and outpouring of sympathy that the media accredits to other child victims of war or terror in other parts of the world (including the Palestinian areas). Click on the image to view a short video message from our time in Sderot.
KNOW THE FACTS – REMIND THE MEDIA
– Since June 2004, seven Israelis, one foreign worker, and two Palestinian civilians, have been killed by Palestinian missile fire from Gaza, and over 100 have been wounded. Additionally, homes and property have been damaged and destroyed.
– Since the beginning of the ceasefire at the end of November, over 60 Qassams have been fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip.
– Despite the continuing Qassam terror, Israeli PM Ehud Olmert has met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, while easing restrictions on the Palestinian population that is not involved in terror activities.
No country in the world should be expected to tolerate missile strikes against its citizens on its undisputed sovereign territory.
Yet, the media has framed the story in such a way that Israel is expected to tolerate this. Israel has exercised maximum restraint despite her legitimate right to self-defense. In the event of an Israeli response to the Qassam fire, the media will have played into the terrorists’ hands by presenting Israel as the aggressor or bad guy.
The AP, for example, reports that “Israel threatens to renew attacks”, attributing Israeli reaction rather than Palestinian terrorism for “threatening to derail” the ceasefire. AFP, reporting on the continuous Qassam fire, even believes that “the truce has generally held”.
Write to your local media if you feel that they are inaccurately framing this story or failing to acknowledge the continuous Palestinian breaches of the ceasefire. Full contact details for many media outlets can be found on our website.
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