Haaretz Deposes Hamas in Gaza
A prominent pull quote in Haaretz‘s print edition last week (“The slow death sentence of cancer patients in Gaza,” March 7, page six) states, in quotation marks:
“Gaza is controlled by the Israelis, the Egyptians and the Palestinian Authority, none of whom seem to care or take our condition seriously.”
Hang on a minute. Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority control Gaza? What about Hamas, which has ruled since June 2007?
The quotation marks indicate these were the speaker’s direct words, and not a paraphrase. The purported speaker is Gaza cancer patient Hana (pseudonym), but the Haaretz editor who selected this pull quote did not accurately quote her. This is what Hana actually said, according to the article:
Cancer treatment is not available in Gaza and access to treatment outside of Gaza is controlled by the Israelis, Egyptians and the Palestinian Authority, none of whom seem to care, take our condition seriously or deal with us in urgency.
Hana’s statement — that access to the outside is controlled by Israel, Egypt and the PA — is more factually accurate than the erroneously rendered pull quote which ignores that it is Hamas which has primary control of the Gaza Strip.
Beyond the erroneous pull quote which overlooks Hamas’ control of the territory, the article itself also gives Hamas a pass. Writer Dr. Manal Massalha, who sets out to cover the difficult circumstances which Gaza cancer patients face, ignores the difficulty that Hamas creates for the highly vulnerable cancer patients: reportedly exploiting them, coercing them to smuggle funds or instructions to terrorists when they enter Israel for treatment.
Twice before, Haaretz‘s English edition had ignored Hamas’ exploitation of cancer patients, and only added the information (which had originally appeared in the paper’s Hebrew edition), after CAMERA objected.
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