The BBC web site’s Arts and Entertainment section has posted information to publicize its broadcasted appeal for funds for Gaza.

The web page includes an information box claiming that 1875 Gazans have been killed since July 8 and that “85%+” are civilians.

Not even the Hamas-controlled groups reporting casualties in Gaza claim that 85%+ are civilians. Furthermore, this claim is undermined by even a perfunctory analysis of the casualties. Incredibly, it is even repudiated by the BBC’s own head statistician on Aug. 8 who wrote,

The point is that it is hard to say with certainty at this stage how many of the dead in Gaza are civilians and how many were fighters.

BBC justifies the Gaza appeal on the grounds that the situation in Gaza meets three requirements

“The disaster must be on such a scale and of such urgency as to call for swift international humanitarian assistance; the DEC agencies must be in a position to provide effective and swift humanitarian assistance at a scale to justify a national appeal; and, there has to be reasonable grounds for concluding that a public appeal would be successful,” it said.

Curiously, there are several other humanitarian disasters of greater magnitude occurring in the Middle East region that meet these conditions far more comprehensively; the attempted genocide of Iraqi religious minorities by Islamists with an ideology that shares elements with Hamas and a grinding civil war in Syria. Both of these conflicts have claimed well over 100,000 lives and the perpetrators do not conceal their intent.

Yet, the BBC decided that the situation in Gaza most deserved an Emergency Appeal.

That despite the fact that the Palestinians and Gazans, in particular, will have an inside track on garnering world attention and on benefitting from the continued largesse of the United Nations and international donors as it has for well over 20 years.

No such luck for the Yezidis, the Kurds, the Assyrians or the Chaldeans. Among the donor base responsive to the BBC appeal these people just don’t matter much.

In a Washington Times commentary (“Hamas rules,” Aug. 6, 2014) Clifford D. May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, urges journalists to report more accurately from the Gaza Strip—or acknowledge the obstacles to doing so. He notes the limitations many reporters face in covering the region controlled by Hamas:

“Hamas restricts what journalists in Gaza may film, photograph and even write about. Hamas threatens and intimidates journalists who do not follow what might be called Hamas rules—rules designed to shape media coverage and influence perceptions around the world.

The problem, writes May—a former New York Times foreign correspondent—is that many in the news media fail to disclose to their audiences Hamas’ oppressive nature. This basic omission may leave readers, listeners and viewers to assume that coverage from the Gaza Strip is as reliable as that from countries that uphold press freedom, like the United States or Israel. May suggests journalists at least report on their personal experiences once they have left the Strip and returned home.

“Let me say this as clearly as I know how: The journalists covering Gaza are brave. I’m not saying they should be braver — much less reckless. I do think they should be honest with their readers and viewers about the conditions under which they are operating; namely, conditions of coercion, manipulation, restriction and censorship.”

He also notes that “on any day, any foreign reporter could be abducted, handcuffed and hooded, while their captors reviewed their dispatches. If not satisfied with what they see, that could be all she wrote — literally.”

If that’s the case then shouldn’t there be a discussion within the media about the overall accuracy of reporting from Gaza? Shouldn’t Hamas tactics of influence be something audiences are reminded of periodically? Reports from Gaza—or any society dominated by a single, anti-democratic party—may include not only the unintentional errors and distortions that can creep into news accounts anywhere but also propaganda presented as news, slanted or false information reporters are prohibited from checking adequately, let alone exposing.

May spotlights, among other examples of press intimidation in the Gaza Strip, the threat to John Reed of The Financial Times, “after he tweeted about rockets being fired” from near Shifa hospital and the warning to a television reporter who said he had seen rockets fired into Israel from near his hotel: “In WWII, spies got shot.”

On the other hand, May refers to NBC reporter Ayman Mohyeldi, first pulled out of the Strip after apparently one-sided, anti-Israel coverage, then sent back. Mohyeldi tweeted that he was “returning to #Gaza to report. Proud of NBC’s continued commitment to cover the #Palestinian side of the story.”

“How,” May asks, “to interpret that except as an admission that he covers only one side of the story? Can you imagine a reporter saying he was proud his media outlet was committed to covering ‘the Israeli side of the story’?”

May also spotlights what he calls hypocrisy and a double standard by some journalists:

“Finally, a few words on more subtle forms of journalistic bias: Early in the current round of fighting, reporters for The New York Times asked an Israeli military spokesman ‘about the repercussions of carrying out’ operations against Hamas ‘during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan’. If it occurred to these reporters to ask Hamas spokesmen about the ‘repercussions’ of firing missiles at Jerusalem during Ramadan, I missed it.”

Many journalists apparently believe that by their presence in the Gaza Strip they are providing—and audiences may assume they are getting—accurate coverage, balanced and in context. Reality is more complicated, the news picture more straightforward. The Gaza Strip is ruled by a terrorist organization; reporters are intimidated and comprehensive coverage is compromised. The press owes it to its audience to say so. — Ziv Kaufman

A New York Times reporter is apparently unhappy with with the Foreign Press Association’s criticism of Hamas.

In response to today’s FPA statement that slams “the blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods employed by the Hamas authorities and their representatives against visiting international journalists,” Jodi Rudoren, the New York Times bureau chief in Jerusalem, tweeted:

It is unclear which and how many reporters Rudoren has met. Presumably she didn’t have a chance to meet with Radjaa Abu Dagga, a French-Palestinian reporter who documented Hamas’s harassment in an article for Liberation.

Blogger Elder of Ziyon managed to translate an excerpt from the article before Abu Dagga, apparently unconvinced that his treatment at the hands of Hamas was “nonsense,” asked Liberation to pull his article.

Correspondent Radjaa Abu Dagga for years divided his time between Paris, where his wife and son live, and Gaza, where his parents live and where he works. On 18 June, when he wanted to cross the Rafah border, an officer banned his way and took his passport like all Palestinians trying to cross into Egypt that day.

After four blocked attempts to leave Gaza without explanation over weeks, the Palestinian journalist was summoned by the security services of Hamas on Sunday. “I received a call from a private number. They summoned me to Al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza City center,” explains Radjaa. He carried with him his two phones, his press card and a small camera.

A few meters from the emergency room where the injured from bombings are constantly flowing, in the outpatient department, he was received in “a small section of the hospital used as administration” by a band of young fighters. They were all well dressed, which surprised Radjaa, “in civilian clothing with a gun under one’s shirt and some had walkie-talkies.” He was ordered to empty his pockets, removing his shoes and his belt then was taken to a hospital room “which served that day as the command office of three people.”

A man begins his interrogation: “Who are you? Who do you call? What are you doing?” “I was very surprised by the procedure,” admits Radjaa, who showed him his press card in response. Questions came. They asked if he speaks Hebrew, he has relations with Ramallah. Young Hamas supporters insistently ask the question: “Are you a correspondent for Israel?” Radjaa repeated that only works for French media and a chain of Algerian radio.

It was then that the three men delivered this message: “This is yours to choose. We are an executive administration. We will carry the message of Qassams. You have to stay at home and give us your papers. ” Stunned to be covered by the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, Radjaa tried to defend himself and especially to understand why such a decision was taken against him. In vain. “It is impossible to communicate with these people,” laments the journalist.

He is not the first to undergo this kind of pressure and combatants in front of him did not hide. “They are enraged against the presidency and accused me of collaborating with Mahmoud Abbas,” he says. Reporters Without Borders confirms that this is not an isolated case. The organization has indeed been alerted by the threats of Hamas against Palestinian and foreign journalists for their professional activities.

Norwegian journalist Paul Jørgensen yesterday appeared to corroborate Abu Dagga’s account. According to Google’s translation from the original Norwegian, Jørgensen discusses “strict orders” from Hamas not to document the terror group’s violence, and points out that several reporters have been kicked out of Gaza for reporting in a way that displeases the group.

It is hard to believe Rudoren was unfamiliar with Abu Dagga’s (widely discussed) article. She certainly knows of it now, as several people brought it, and Jørgensen’s comments, to her attention on Twitter. Nonetheless, the Times reporter has yet to clarify for her Twitter followers that the FPA’s statement might not be “nonsense” after all.

The BBC is the world’s largest media organization. It devotes enormous resources to reporting news from the around the world. Now we know it even has an in-house statistics department. Yet, it is weeks late in reporting what CAMERA and numerous other organizations have documented about the disproportionate number of young adult males – in the age bands frequently encountered as combatants – among the so-called civilian fatalities in Gaza.

It is a sad commentary on the BBC, that organizations possessing just a tiny fraction of the BBC’s vast resources, organizations that in many cases aren’t even news organizations and often lack correspondents, figured out weeks ago that the casualty statistics presented by Gazan authorities and their affiliates are misleading and should not be relied upon.

The BBC on August 7, released a report by its head statistician acknowledging the excess representation of young males among the fatalities and underrepresentation of women and children. Even so the report still uses overly cautious language, for example, stating,

There has been some research suggesting that men in general are more likely to die in conflict than women, although no typical ratio is given…

And what organization does the BBC credit with raising questions about the demographics of the casualties? The New York Times, of course, which has been equally tardy in reporting on the question of the proportion of civilian casualties versus combatants.

CAMERA was first to point out the disproportionate number of fatalities among young males of prime combat age more than three weeks ago. Numerous media sources followed suit with their own coverage of this observation. Yet the BBC only seems to have noticed after the Times published its late-in-the-game article a day ago.

A question to ponder with respect to both the BBC’s and the Times’ sluggishness in discussing the implication of a disproportionate number of young combat-age fatalities: did these two media giants intentionally delay reporting on this topic during the period of heaviest coverage of the conflict in order to allow Hamas and its supporters plenty of time to implant the perception that Israel’s response was disproportionate and indiscriminate?

Note: An update was appended to this post at approximately 5 p.m. Friday, Aug. 8, 2014

First the good news.

And then the bad news.

The good news is that CNN is finally waking up to the extirpation of Christians by radical Islamists in Iraq. And moreover, Chris Cuomo, (shown above), is doing what he can to draw attention to this story.

The bad news is that CNN morning anchor Cuomo does not know what he’s talking about when it comes to Christians in Jerusalem.

The Media Research Center captured the evidence of Cuomo’s ignorance in a post it published yesterday.
(more…)

Weighing in on the uncertainty concerning Palestinian casualty figures, Paul Farhi of The Washington Post cites CAMERA’s Steven Stotsky (“Reporters grapple with politics, erratic sources in reporting Israeli/Gaza death toll“):

A pro-Israeli group, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), last month analyzed two weeks of casualty data released by the PCHR and found that 57 percent of the dead were males between the ages of 17 and 39. While it’s unclear whether these men were actually militants, the disproportionate number of young men of prime fighting age suggests that there may be more combatants among the dead than PCHR and other organizations have acknowledged, concluded Steven Stotsky, a senior analyst for CAMERA.

“Journalists have a responsibility to convey this uncertainty to their audiences and not present figures provided by Hamas and Hamas-affiliated sources as unqualified fact,” Stotsky wrote.

A New York Times infographic yesterday entitled “A History of Obama-Netanyahu Tensions” erroneously refers to Israeli announcements of “new settlements” in recent years.

The April 2014 item blatantly errs:

But Israel had not announced any “new settlements,” not in spring 2014, and not for many years.

Rather, Kerry’s comment was in reference to tenders published for 708 new housing units in the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem. As Mark Landler reported in The New York Times at the time (April 8, 2014):

While Mr. Kerry said both sides bore responsibility for “unhelpful” actions, the precipitating event, he said, was Israel’s announcement of 700 new housing units for Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem.

It is worth noting that in previous rounds of negotiations, such as in Camp David, and again in the 2008 Olmert talks, it was never under consideration to transfer Gilo to the Palestinian Authority. (That the Palestinian leadership has conceded Gilo is clear, for instance, in the Palestine Papers.)

The International New York Times commendably published a correction Nov. 7, 2013 to a nearly identical error. The correction stated:

An article on Wednesday about American efforts to reinvigorate the Middle East peace negotiations stated incorrectly that Israel plans to build 3,500 additional settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Israel does not plan more settlements, but it has recently advanced projects for that number of new housing units within existing settlements.

Stay tuned for news of a correction.

For additional New York Times corrections prompted by CAMERA, please see here.

While most of the mainstream Western media hasn’t provided even one still photograph of a Hamas fighter, an Indian television station gets the goods. New Delhi Television broadcast and posted online intriguing video of Hamas assembling a launch site and firing a rocket from just outside a Gaza hotel in a crowded civilian neighborhood. The footage was only shared after the NDTV team was out of Gaza and safe from Hamas retaliation.

This report is being aired on NDTV and published on ndtv.com after our team left the Gaza strip – Hamas has not taken very kindly to any reporting of its rockets being fired. But just as we reported the devastating consequences of Israel’s offensive on Gaza’s civilians, it is equally important to report on how Hamas places those very civilians at risk by firing rockets deep from the heart of civilian zones.

True, it is equally important. Are you taking notes, Western journalists?

A Miami Herald editorial July 28 explained to its readers why Israel rejected U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry’s ceasefire proposal:

“When Hamas decided to initiate rocket attacks on Israel, it invited the furious reprisal that began earlier this month. Three times since 2006, Israel has responded to aerial assaults on its citizens with fierce counter-attacks, and each time the fighting has come to an inconclusive end that allows its enemies to replenish their arsenals and start planning for the next round.

“For that reason, Israel’s Security Cabinet unanimously rejected a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire on Friday, though Israel agreed to a 12-hour pause for Saturday. The images from the funerals of Israeli troops are heart-rending. The scenes of horror and destruction in Gaza, gut-wrenching. No one could wish for the people of Gaza to endure prolonged misery.

“But it was Hamas that wished for the fighting. First, by attacking Israel, and then by rejecting an Egyptian ceasefire proposal because it wanted its own narrow demands addressed first. That included lifting border restrictions and the release of dozens of former prisoners Israel rearrested in a crackdown on the West Bank after the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers” (“Israel’s Challenge”, Miami Herald, July 28, 2014).

The editorial directly blames Hamas for the bloodshed. Unlike other publications that sought a contradictory “even-handed” approach—balancing a democratic country and a terrorist organization with genocidal goals—The Herald weighed defense against aggression. (CAMERA has noted how a New York Times article, for example, made it seem “Hamas and Israel are equally bad—but Israel is worse.”

Instead of narrowly focusing on casualties in the Gaza Strip, The Herald’s editorial sketched the conflict, touching on its history and explaining Hamas’ tactics. Rather than get lost in mistaken interpretations of militarily proportional use of force, the newspaper’s editors tell readers the truth about Hamas and note that for any peace-loving sovereign nation, in this case Israel, “the right of self-defense is not negotiable.” — by Ziv Kaufman

Original Posting

In typical New York Times fashion, an online story today spun the events of the day to hide and whitewash Palestinian terrorism and highlight Israeli hostilities, presenting the Palestinian side of a disputed version of events as fact.

The article, by Steve Erlanger, was originally headlined “Israel Suspends (later changed to “Halts”) Attack in Parts of Gaza, but Strike Kills Girll.” The reporter began the article by stating as fact:

Minutes after Israel began a unilateral and partial cease-fire in Gaza on Monday, the air force struck a house in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, killing a girl, 8, and wounding at least 29 others.

Yet several paragraphs later, he suggested that this version of events was disputed:

Ashraf al-Qedra, a spokesman for the Health Ministry in Gaza, said that the strike on the house in Shati took place several minutes after the announced start of the cease-fire, but one Israeli official from the army agency that controls coordination with Gaza told Israel Radio that the strike took place just before the cease-fire began.

Given that the Gazan spokesman and the Israeli official differed on the timing of the strike, it is telling that Times reporter’s inclination was to present the Palestinian version of events in the lede as undisputed factt rather than noting that “around the time that a unilateral and partial cease-fire went into effect, the Shati refugee camp in Gaza city was struck….The timing of events is disputed.”

More disturbing, however,was the way the terror attack in Jerusalem that killed a Jewish pedestrian and injured three others was hidden in the very llast paragraph of the article, not to mention its complete absence from the headline.

Of course, this is typical for the New York Times, which tends to bury and whitewash accounts of Palestinian aggression and terrorism against Israeli victims. Indeed, the brief account of the Jerusalem attack whitewashes the terrorist’s actions and reverses the sequence of events by beginning with his shooting death. Erlanger wrote:

In East Jerusalem, the police shot and killed a local Palestinian who drove a construction vehicle over a pedestrian, killing him, and then knocked over a bus, which happened to be nearly empty, slightly injuring three people.

The aggressor in this version of events is the Israeli police who “shot and killed” the “local” Palestinian who happened to run over a pedestrian and knock over an empty bus. There is no indication that this was a deliberate act of terror rather than just a case of a local Palestinian being shot dead by trigger-happy Israeli police after losing control of a vehicle. When describing a terror attack like this, it would be obviously be more intuitive to start with the death of the innocent victim before the death of the perpetrator. A more objective, journalistic version of events came from the wire services:

AP: “An Israeli-declared temporary cease-fire and troop withdrawals slowed violence in the Gaza war Monday, though an attack on an Israeli bus that killed one person in Jerusalem underscored the tensions still simmering in the region…The lull was broken by the Jerusalem assault, which saw a man ram the front end of a construction excavator into an Israeli bus. Police described the incident as a “terrorist attack,” indicating Palestinian involvement.”

Reuters: “A Palestinian killed an Israeli and overturned a bus with a construction vehicle on Monday and a gunman wounded a soldier in attacks in Jerusalem that appeared to be a backlash against Israel’s Gaza war.”

AFP: ” One Israeli was killed and five others injured Monday when an excavator rammed into a Jerusalem bus, turning it over before the driver was shot dead by police, officials said. “

Let’s hope that the print edition of the newspaper tomorrow will present a more accurate and objective version of today’s news events.

Update:

The New York Times updated the online article. The originally problematic sections now more accurately reflect the day’s events. The disputed time of the strike on the al Shati refugee camp is now described as follows:

Israel’s desired outcome could unravel if Hamas continues to attack Israel — at least 53 rockets were fired on Monday, while Israel had decreed a seven-hour unilateral and partial cease-fire. And Palestinians accused Israel of violating its own cease-fire when the air force struck a house in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, killing a girl, 8, and wounding at least 29.

Palestinians said the attack came minutes after the cease-fire, while one Israeli official, Yoav Poli Mordechai from Cogat, the army agency that controls coordination with Gaza, told Israel Radio that the attack was several minutes before. The Israeli military, for its part, said the strike, aimed at “a senior Hamas operative,” was at “approximately 10 a.m.,” when the cease-fire began.

And the Jerusalem terror attack is now described in this way:

In an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Jerusalem on Monday, a Palestinian drove a heavy construction vehicle over a pedestrian, killing him, and overturned a nearly empty bus, injuring three people, before the police shot the driver to death.