Wall Street Journal‘s ‘Purported’ Caption on Rocket

By Published On: July 31, 2014

Purported.jpg

A The Wall Street Journal photo caption today suggests that perhaps an Israeli woman has faked a rocket attack on her home in Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha. The page A5 caption reads:

A resident of Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha inspects the damage purportedly caused by rocket fire from Gaza

wsj purported rocket attack.jpg

Unlike several disputed incidents which have caused numerous casualties in Gaza, the fact that Palestinian rockets have targeted and hit Israeli homes is not disputed. As Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum warned earlier this month, Hamas is targeting every Israeli home: “This is not the time for quiet. We have a bank of various targets. An Iron Dome [missile battery] will be needed in every Israeli home.”

So why “purported?” If it wasn’t a rocket attack which damaged this woman’s home, what was it? A cooking experiment that went wrong? A “work accident” involving a home-made rocket? (No, that would be in Gaza.) Self-inflicted damage so as to deceive photographers into believing that her home was struck by a Palestinian rocket, when in fact it wasn’t? The Journal doesn’t say.

When it comes to an Israeli strike on Gaza, however, there’s nothing “purported” about that. A photograph of the aftermath of an Israeli air strike in Gaza appears on the top of the same page, across four columns. (The photograph of the “purported” rocket damage is three columns wide.) Here is the Gaza caption:

Palestinians carry injured men through the streets after an Israeli strike on the embattled Gaza City neighborhood on Shujaiyeh on Wednesday.

wsj airstrike.jpg

Perhaps, like their colleague Carolyn Cole, the photo editors at the Wall Street Journal, are careful to treat all claims about Israeli attacks as fact and all facts about Palestinian attacks as suspect.

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