It should not go unnoticed that a major U.S. news organization—in this case The Washington Post—used the term “human shields” in its own voice when describing the practice of an Islamic terrorist movement embedding itself among civilians and holding them hostage.

In an article headlined “Iraqi troops retake Fallujah; One of Last Havens of Islamic State; Humanitarian crisis grows as thousands flee” (June 18, 2016 in print, June 17 online), Post correspondents Loveday Morris and Mustafa Salim wrote, among other things:

“There have been concerns about the plight of civilians stuck inside Fallujah. When the operation began in late May, as many as 90,000 people were believed trapped in the city, with the Islamic State holding them to use as human shields [emphasis added].”

The Post does not say who believed as many as 90,000 people were trapped in Fallujah or that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria planned to use them as human shields. However, based on past actions by the group, the description no doubt seemed probable.

Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon long have used the populations they claim to represent but daily intimidate as human shields in their “resistance” to Israel. In reporting non-combatant casualties resulting from Israeli counter-attacks against Hamas and Hezbollah, news media sometimes note Israel’s charges that the two terrorist organizations were hiding behind human shields. They have been less likely to report, in their own words and accurately, that the two Islamic fundamentalist movements did just that.

It’s worth noting Washington Post usage in this case, and keeping it mind the next time the press deals with civilian casualties among populations ruled by Hamas and Hezbollah as a result of Israeli responses to the groups’ aggressions. What’s good for ISIS ought to be good for them too.

It’s also worth recalling that using human shields, and attacking other non-combatant population from among them, is a double violation of international law and ought to be reported as such.

In journalism schools—those in which accuracy and context are still prized—it would have been an introductory example of bias by editing. In an Associated Press dispatch-turned Washington Post news brief it was a textbook case of minimizing Palestinian Arab violence against Israelis.

The Post’s June 20, 2016 print edition included a news briefs from AP headed “West Bank: $18 million approved for settlement funding.” The seventh and last paragraph as printed says:

“In the past nine months, Palestinians have carried out several [emphasis added] attacks, which have killed 32 Israelis and two Americans. About 200 Palestinians have been killed in that time, most identified by Israel as attackers.”

Online, the first sentence of that paragraph, from AP’s June 19 report, still read—as of June 22—“dozens [emphasis added] of attacks.”

In fact, there had been nearly 300 assaults, according to a June 7 Israeli Foreign Ministry article and graphic, “Wave of Terror 2015/16.”

It was possible that The Post’s online AP item and its own in-print version were based on different AP reports, and the change to “several” from “dozens” of attacks was made by the wire service. But the printed brief in the newspaper’s World Digest of five short items reads like a version of the online report edited for space, but with AP’s “dozens” of attacks unwarrantedly replaced by, and minimized as “several.”

Time and space constraints often compel journalists to use a type of shorthand. But in this case, for the wire service to report “dozens” of attacks and The Post “several” reads less like economy in reporting and editing than revisionism downplaying Palestinian aggression. That was especially so since the actual figure of anti-Israeli, anti-Jewish attacks was “hundreds,” with 38 killed and 487 wounded.

CAMERA asked The Post’s foreign desk on June 20 why AP’s “dozens” of attacks became “several” in the newspaper and whether or not it thought a correction or clarification was in order. Two days later, no response had been received.

As we’ve noted, journalists have only their credibility to sell. Turning literally hundreds to virtually “dozens” to barely “several” obscures a nine-month wave of Palestinian terrorism and undercuts press credibility.

Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), called for Israel’s destruction in a May 23, 2016 speech at the U.N. World Humanitarian Summit held in Istanbul, Turkey. Major U.S. print news media failed to report Abbas’ remarks.

They also failed to cover the assertion at the same event by Dore Gold, director-general of Israel’s foreign ministry, that Hamas obstructs his country’s humanitarian aid by taking 95 percent of the cement Israel allows into the Gaza Strip for rebuilding structures damaged in the 2014 Israel-Hamas war (“Israel: Hamas stealing 95 percent of civilian cement transferred into Gaza,” Jerusalem Post, May 25). Gold said the confiscated cement goes to build additional infiltration tunnels into Israel and other terrorism-related projects. Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) is the U.S.-designated terrorist organization the rules the Strip.

Elder of Ziyon, an American blogger who writes about the Arab-Israeli conflict and antisemitism, noted that Abbas told the summit that “we emphasize our support and our commitment to the responsibilities set out in the agenda of the Secretary-General for this humanitarian summit. In Palestine, our people and leadership seek with all our will and determination to end the suffering of our people, through peaceful means, since the question of Palestine and its people have been here for nearly 70 years.

“More than half of our people have been wrongfully displaced from our homeland, and are still waiting for a solution. Our people will not accept to remain under occupation, nor consistently in the current situation, which humiliate our freedom and humanity and dignity and basic rights” (“Abbas tells humanitarian summit it’s time to erase Israel,” Elder of Ziyon, May 24).

Abbas called for international involvement—ignoring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recently reiterated invitation to direct negotiations—to implement a “just political solution to the Palestinian issue, as the basis for putting an end to the tragedy of the Palestinian people of all its aspects, which was implemented beginning in 1917, and has lasted until the present day.”

Elder of Ziyon pointed out, “If the Palestinian tragedy began in 1917 [a reference to the Nov. 2, 1917 Balfour Declaration which supported the reestablishment of a Jewish national home in what was then a portion of the Ottoman Empire], and it is time to end it ‘in all its aspects,’ then Abbas is calling for the modern state of Israel to be retroactively erased from history. This is not a call to end ‘occupation’—it is a call to end the entire concept of a Jewish state and for the world to apologize for even thinking that the Jewish people have any rights as a people.”

It also is a statement filled with falsehoods. As CAMERA has noted (see, for example “Reality Goes Missing in Anti-Israel Hill Op-Ed,” May 11, 2016), Abbas has not sought to “end the suffering of” the Palestinian people through “peaceful means.” Rather he has incited anti-Jewish violence, blessed “every drop of [Arab] blood” spilled in Israeli counter-terrorism strikes, and consistently rejected U.S. and Israeli proposals for a “two-state solution” in exchange for peace with and recognition of the Jewish state.

Similarly false was Abbas’ claim of “support” and “commitment to …the agenda…for this humanitarian summit.” According to its Web site, among the core commitments of the U.N. World Humanitarian Summit were those to “prevent and end conflict” and “respect rules of war.” That presumably would include not encouraging Palestinian children to murder as both the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza have done nor using civilians as human shields as the latter has.

The summit also urged participants to “work to end need and invest in humanity.” The PA’s use of international aid money to pay its imprisoned terrorists or their families and Hamas’ confiscation of construction material for aggressive purposes also would seem to contradict the gathering’s purposes.

Abbas’ proclaimed adherence to the summit’s core commitments was transparently false. His call for Israel’s elimination echoed Palestinian rejectionism and maximalism of the pre-1993 Oslo “peace process” era. It also violated Oslo-related Palestinian pledges to end anti-Israeli incitement and resolve all outstanding differences through negotiations with Israel.

But a Lexis-Nexis search of The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today and The Los Angeles Times, among others, showed not a single mention of Abbas’ remarks. Yet, all of these outlets provided other reporting about the Humanitarian Summit.

If Abbas has showed up wearing a headband, Hamas- and Hezbollah-style, with “Death to Israel!” stitched on it, would that have been considered newsworthy? The absence of coverage of his diplo-speak equivalent amounted to a widespread journalistic failure.–Sean Durns

The Tribune Newspapers—including The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun—asked, as a Times headline put it, “What’s behind the sharp decline in lone-wolf stabbing attacks in the West Bank?” (May 11, 2016). The same report appeared that day in The Tribune and a shorter version (“Palestinian stabbings decrease, officials say”) ran in the May 10 print Baltimore Sun.

Special correspondent Joshua Mitnick’s timely article included some useful background. It indirectly and anonymously quoted a Palestinian security commander saying, “Many of the attacks [against Israelis] seem to be carried out by youths who suffer from depression or economic hardship,” as well as those who “want revenge for relatives or friends injured in the violence.”

But the article omitted too much. For example:

*It portrayed the Palestinian “stabbing intifada” as “being carried by individuals without ties to militant groups.” But according to a detailed analysis by Adam Shay and Pinhas Inbari (“the Palestinian Authority-Fatah’s Incitement Strategy,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Feb. 29, 2016), “rather than plan and coordinate violent attacks, [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas uses the Palestinian public debate and the media as a mechanism for instigating waves of violence. The public debate also uses a dialogue based on cultural codes, which broadcast a specific, pre-defined meaning to the Palestinian listener.

“When President Abbas says that ‘they [the Jews] have no right to defile them [the al-Aqsa mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher]…we will not allow them, and we will do everything in our power to protect Jerusalem,’ he is in fact giving permission and legitimacy to intensify the struggle. Within the context of the struggle this is an authorization to move from stone-throwing to knifing and vehicular attacks, as was indeed the case.”

*The Tribune report misses what Shay and Inbari describe as Abbas’ strategy to circumvent Israel’s insistence on direct negotiations toward a “two-state solution” and Israeli-Palestinian peace. Abbas outlined this in January, 2015, eight months before the “stabbing intifada” erupted, declaring in reference to sporadic anti-Israel attacks already occurring: “The popular intifada will continue until the occupation is over and there will be no return to negotiations without full recognition of Palestinian rights. Movement towards a settlement will be achieved through international intervention.” Palestinian support of French efforts to convene an international conference in place of direct talks with Israel reflects that strategy.

*The Tribune Newspapers quote PA official and Fatah movement member Kadoura Fares as claiming of “the stabbing intifada” that “the Palestinian national movement didn’t lead this wave.” Perhaps not with a direct order, but by setting and maintaining the atmosphere, including repeated official praise of “martyrs, it helped spark and sustain that wave. See, for one example among many “USA Today Downplays Anti-Jewish Violence as Clashes,” CAMERA, March 7, 2016.

*“What’s behind the sharp decline in lone-wolf stabbing attacks” states, without attribution, “Palestinians want to form an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as their capital.” This formula tends to appear chronically in news media coverage, usually—as here—out of context. That Palestinian leaders rejected U.S.-Israeli proposals of a West Bank and Gaza “Palestine” with eastern Jerusalem as its capital in 2000 and 2001, replying with the bloodshed of the second intifada, and rebuffed a similar Israeli-only offer in 2008 virtually always goes unmentioned.

In fact, recent polling indicates that pluralities of Palestinian Arabs continue to oppose a “two-state solution,” still favor elimination of Israel as a Jewish state and support anti-Israeli violence over non-violence. See “Poll: Majority of Palestinians Favor a New Intifada,” CAMERA, Sept. 25, 2015

Yes, Israeli authorities have credited PA officials with trying recently to minimize support for “the stabbing intifada,” including among young people via social media. This Mitnick, formerly of The Wall Street Journal, now a Tribune Newspapers special correspondent, reports. But omitted is those same officials’ role in stimulating such attacks in the first place. Also missing is the persistence of Palestinian hostility to Israel and opposition to peace with it as a Jewish state, which fuels those crimes.

“France is home to the largest Jewish community in Europe, and its most troubled. A wave of anti-Semitic violence in recent years has shaken Jews to the point where growing numbers no longer see a future here.”

So begins “Jews anxious about future in France,” by Washington Post correspondent James McAuley (May 10, 2016 print edition, May 9 online). Who is responsible for the “wave of anti-Semitic violence” and “sense of anxiety” pervading “a [Jewish] community that accounts for just 1 percent of the total French population”? The Post does not exactly say.

The newspaper does tell readers that community accounts for “nearly half of all victims of what French authorities call ‘Xenophobic’ violence.” Which “xenophobes”? In the 10th paragraph The Post finally says “Jews are struggling to consolidate safety and security in a France where radical Islamist violence has been rising.”

So, radical Muslims threaten French Jews with violence? The newspaper implies that, but stops short of saying so explicitly. Instead, it recalls:

“In 2006, there was the abduction and murder of a Jewish cell phone salesman by a gang of anti-Semitic youths. In 2012, a shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse. In 2015, a shooting at a kosher supermarket the day after the Charlie Hebdo attack. And In January of this year, the machete attack on a Jewish teacher as he walked on the street in Marseille.”

That “gang of anti-Semitic youths” who tortured Ilan Halimi to death over a period of days while taunting his family in telephone calls was Muslims. The terrorist who murdered a teacher and three children in Toulouse in 2012 was a Muslim. The shooter who killed four Jews at Paris’ Hyper-Cacher market in 2015 was a Muslim who claimed to have coordinated with the Charlie Hebdo murderers.

But The Post quickly moves on to other matters in the last 22 of the article’s 34 paragraphs. These are the argument among French Jews over whether they should abandon France for Israel or elsewhere, or stay. And, if they stay, should they work with the anti-immigrant—essentially anti-Muslim and originally antisemitic but now ostensibly pro-Jewish National Front Party—or against it?

Early in the dispatch, a man identified as an Israeli “human rights lawyer living in Paris,” is quoted as saying “in terms of security, I don’t believe Israel is a safe place for Jews. Or for anyone else.” The Post transmits that stenographically, without context.

In context, in terms of individual security, a U.N. office reports that the murder rate per 100,000 population in Israel in 2012 was 1.8; in France (2013) 1.2; Tunisia—where some French vacation—3.1 (2012); and in the United States, where more than five million Jews live and many French visit, 3.8 (2013). (Data from most recent years posted.)

Another article by McAuley (“World Views: France plans to set up ‘anti-jihadist centers’ to curb youth radicalization,” May 10 online, not yet in print) crept a little closer to cause—Islamic extremism or Islamist supremacism—in addition to effect—rising violence against French Jews and others. The short dispatch used the words “anti-jihadist” and “jihadism” in direct quotes from the French prime minister. It also referred to “militant” and “militants” and once to the Islamic State. It also noted that “many Muslims” find state secularism “alienating.”

But those whose radicalization government officials hoped to prevent turned out to be “young men,” “young people” or “French youths.” Young Catholics? Secular youths? Young French Jews?
Unlikely.

When predominately Muslim suburbs of Paris and other French cities erupted in riots and arsons four years ago, reporting by the Tribune Newspapers (including The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun) suffered from descriptions of acts by “disaffected youths,” “rioting youths” and “gangs of youths.” Tribune Co. journalists, professionally expected to report who, what, when, where, why and how, erased the Muslim and/or North African-Arab identity of most of these “youths.” Washington Post coverage of violent threats to French Jews from radicalized Muslims suffers a similar erasure now.

“The fact is that the United States dodged a bullet in Syria—and, it’s worth stressing, all courtesy of the Israelis.” So writes John Hannah, former national security advisor to Vice President Richard Cheney and now a senior counselor at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington, D.C. think tank.

In “It’s the Proliferation, Stupid,” an April 25, 2016 article for Foreign Policy online, Hannah notes North Korea’s preparation for a possible fifth nuclear weapons test. His country cash, food and fuel-starved, Kim Jong Un might sell “part of his ever-expanding nuclear arsenal to other rogue actors that mean us harm.”

Given that “North Korea has for decades sold missiles and missile technology to any state willing to pay,” nuclear weapons proliferation could be next, according to Hannah. He notes that Pyongyang’s “military relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran, in particular, has been longstanding and deep.”

He adds that “Iran’s most deadly terrorist proxy, Lebanese Hezbollah, has also been an important recipient of North Korean military assistance. The North provided critical support to help Hezbollah build a massive network of underground military installations, tunnels, bunkers, depots and storage facilities in southern Lebanon,” while helping Hezbollah, via Iran, build its huge missile arsenal aimed at Israel.

So imagine if Israel had not destroyed Syria’s Al-Kibar reactor in 2007 and it now was producing nuclear material for either dictator Bashar al-Assad or one of his enemies in the Syrian civil wars, perhaps the Islamic State.

‘Chilling’ evidence

Hannah recalls the day in 2007 that the director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, the late Meir Dagan, briefed President George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney. Dagan revealed “chilling” evidence that in the desert east of Damascus, “North Korea was covertly building a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor” more or less a replica of its own “at Yongbyon, which formed the centerpiece of its weapons program.

“Making matters worse, Al-Kibar was perilously close to completition.” Once the reactor became operational, attempting to destroy it “would run a high risk of dispersing deadly radioactive materials that could poison thousands of innocent civilians,” Hannah writes.

“The U.S. intelligence community had totally missed Al-Kibar. It was completely taken aback by Dagan’s stunning revelations,” he adds. Israel’s discovery and attack “was almost certainly the only means of ensuring the reactor never went hot.”

Now, “the North is seeking to perfect precisely those elements of its military nuclear arsenal that Iran has yet to develop: the testing of an actual bomb; warhead miniaturization; reentry technology; and a functional ICBM [intercontinental ballisitic missile],” Hannah says. “The potential for synergy between these two rogue states and longtime proliferation partners is more than obvious.”

Meanwhile, “no doubt less likely—but who’s to say impossible?—is the risk that North Korea, for the right price and perhaps in cahoots with the Russian mafia or another anti-Western power, might be tempted to share some of its nuclear know-how with the likes of the Islamic State or some other jihadist non-state actor that’s focused on staging a terrorist spectacular against the West.”

Given his country’s proliferation record and anti-American rhetoric from Kim Jong Un that parallels Islamic State declarations, “one hopes that the American intelligence community is focused like a laser on this element of the North Korean threat,” including the link to Iran, Hannah says.

Washington Post articles “France, not Brussels, was terrorists’ initial target, Belgian prosecutor says” (April 11, 2016) and “U.S. drone strike in Somalia targets senior member of militant group; Al-Shabab figure was said to be behind attacks” (April 2) covered episodes in what sometimes is still called the “global war on terrorism.” The former dispatch used the words “terrorist” or “terrorists” once in the headline and four times in the text in The Post’s own words, twice in direct quotes. It did not mention “militant” or “militants.”

But the latter defaulted to “militant” once in the headline and twice in the text in the newspaper’s own voice. This article did not mention terrorist or terrorists.

Reporting from Paris, Post correspondent James McAuley opened with “the terrorists who carried out the March 22 attacks on the Brussels airport and metro initially planned an attack on France instead, the Belgian federal prosecutor announced Sunday. A cell of terrorists affiliated with the Islamic State largely conceived and executed November’s attacks on Paris from the Belgian capital, where many of them were
reared.”

Reporter Dan Lamothe’s first paragraph read “the U.S. military carried out a drone strike in Somalia on Thursday against a senior member of the al-Shabab militant [emphases added] group who has overseen attacks resulting in the deaths of at least three U.S. citizens, Pentagon officials said Friday.”

McAuley filed for The Post’s foreign desk, Lamothe apparently for the national desk, but inconsistent “terrorist”/“militant” usage within as well as between departments is not uncommon.

Does it matter? As CAMERA has noted many times, words are journalists’ principle stock in trade. For journalists’ products to be credible, words must be accurately, precisely used.

According to U.S. law, people who threaten or use force against non-combatants to influence larger audiences, including governments, on behalf of ideological, religious, economic or other agendas are terrorists. In American history, militant traditionally has described aggressive activists on behalf of a cause: anti-slavery, anti-alcohol, pro-women’s suffrage, labor unions, and environmentalism. They rarely kill anyone, and virtually never civilians.

In his 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell warned that political—as opposed to journalistic—language “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

When it comes to terrorist-versus-militant, The Washington Post—and many if not most other news outlets—would improve credibility by allowing the pure wind of “militant” to die away.

What’s the difference between “contested” and “occupied” territories? Often apparently not the territories themselves but who’s contesting them.

From Kashmir to Crimea, Nagorno-Karabakh to Taiwan, countries and movements contest dozens of disputed territories, from tiny to large. Except for one involving Jews and their state. In that case, major news media coverage almost always defaults from “contested” to “occupied.” The latest example:

“Up to 1 million Moroccans marched through their capital on Sunday to protest the U.N. secretary-general’s remarks about the contested [emphasis added] territory of Western Sahara,” Associated Press reported (“U.N. chief’s remarks spur massive protest,” Washington Post news brief, online Mar. 13, 2016, in print March 14 [third item down, here]).

The brief added that “Morocco considers the vast mineral-rich Western Sahara its ‘southern provinces’ and took offense when U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon used the word ‘occupation’ [emphasis added] after a visit this month to refugee camps for the region’s native Sahrawis in southern Algeria.”

Of course, virtually all major news media refer virtually always to the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) as occupied if not “Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory.” Rare—and correct—references to “contested” or “disputed” eastern Jerusalem do appear.

In fact, as the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 (1967), the cornerstone of all subsequent successful Arab-Israeli negotiations, made clear, the West Bank’s legal status was—and remains—disputed. This will be so until a final Arab-Israeli peace agreement that resolves, among other things, Jewish and Arab contested claims in the area. (See, for example, “Washington Post Corrects on West Bank ‘Palestinian Land,’” CAMERA, Sept. 7, 2014 here.)

U.N. Secretary General Ban obsessively and mistakenly lectures Israelis about “occupied Palestinian territory” on which it builds “illegal” Jewish settlements. CAMERA has spotlighted this, as in “Ban Ki-moon Wrong About Israeli Settlements,” CAMERA, Mar. 15, 2013, Washington Times, March 9.

AP and The Washington Post cover Western Sahara as “contested territory.” They—and other media—should do likewise regarding the West Bank. Considering Israel’s predominant position under the League of Nations Palestine Mandate, Article 6 and U.N. Charter, Chapter 12, Article 80 among other international provisions, not to mention the Jewish people’s more than 3,000-year-old ties to the territories, it’s indisputably the least they could do.

Ploughshares Fund is a grantmaking organization that bills itself as supporting “experts and advocates who implement smart strategies to secure a more peaceful world… free of nuclear weapons.” The organization’s president, Joe Cirincione, and other staff members are frequently quoted as experts by news outlets reporting on the deal between the United States, China, Russia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Islamic Republic of Iran over the latter’s purported nuclear program. However, many media have not highlighted the group’s considerable role in funding advocates of the agreement.

Describing lobbying efforts, The New York Times (“Fierce Lobbying, Even on Vacation, for Iran Accord,” Aug. 18, 2015) briefly mentions that Ploughshares “also finances many of the participants” in the pro-Iran deal effort, but fails to provide further details. Similarly, The Washington Post, while noting that those supporting the Iran deal have “received significant contributions from” Ploughshares, fails to identify the groups pocketing those funds. It does detail major Ploughshare donors (“Mega-donors opposing Iran deal have upper hand in fierce lobbying battle,” August 13).

Writing in Commentary magazine, American Enterprise Institute (AEI) scholar Michael Rubin provides a more detailed look at the vast Ploughshares extensive role in doling out money to pro-deal elements. The number of organizations listed by Rubin as receiving Ploughshare funds is extensive.

The Arms Control Association—which Rubin notes “attested to the thoroughness of the agreement before its details were even negotiated”—receives Ploughshare Fund dollars. Donations were also made to the Center for New American Security to—in Rubin’s words—“lobby” congressional staffers. He also says funds were dispersed to self-described “pro-Israel” group J Street, the anti-sanctions and pro-Iranian regime National Iranian American Council, the National Security Network and the anti-Israel Friends Committee on National Legislation, among others.

Rubin writes that “in addition, the Fund gave $75,000 to Gulf-2000” a group he says feeds “pro-Iran talking points to journalists.” Gulf-2000 is run by Gary Sick, a former U.S. National Security Council staffer whose anti-Israel animus and proclivity for conspiracy theories CAMERA has documented (“New York Times Indicts Israeli Leader For Speech Exposing Iran,” Oct. 4, 2013).

The AEI scholar says that Ploughshare’s lobbying for policies favorable to the Iranian mullahs is nothing new and previously involved other organizations that receive special tax considerations and public funds:

“In 2010, Ploughshares gave National Public Radio [NPR] $150,000 in what appeared to be a pay-to-play scheme to get Cirincione and his grantees on air.”

Rubin states that the grantmaking group—classified as a non-profit, tax deductible 501(c)(3) organization—gave an additional $100,000 to taxpayer-funded NPR in 2015.

Rubin’s Commentary article examining the role of the Ploughshares Fund, can be found here.—Sean Durns

Washington Post reporting on Gaza Strip’s small middle, or perhaps better, upper middle class by William Booth (“A parallel reality in Gaza,” Aug. 24, 2015) attempts to highlight an incongruity evidenced amid post-war recovery in the territory. The Strip is ruled by Hamas, a U.S.-listed terror group. But in one important regard Booth, the Post‘s Jerusalem bureau chief, highlights the newspaper’s too frequent failure to explore in depth important observations mentioned only in passing. This failure can lead readers’ to infer Israeli responsibility for problems more accurately the result of Palestinian actions.

The article begins by noting that “media images beamed from the Gaza Strip rightly focus on the territory’s abundant miseries,” which include “bombed-out neighborhoods.” But The Post then details what the report calls “the Gaza outside the war photographer’s frame.”

The paper asserts that Gaza City, while having “the highest unemployment rate in the world,” is also home to “personal trainers, medium-rare steaks, law school degrees and decent salaries.” The Post describes clubs, a struggling luxury car dealership, a “$100-a-month” newly opened and “air-conditioned sports club,” a soon-to-debut sushi bar—even a reopened five-star hotel.

In detail, the paper chronicles the prices, opportunities and travails of what it presents as the “small, tough, aspirational middle class” of Gaza City. The Post describes the economic “revival” as “jarring” when compared with areas that remain unreconstructed following last summer’s Hamas-initiated war.

Yet, one reason such inequality is “jarring” lies with the government that has ruled the Gaza Strip since its election in 2006—an election The Post ignores by asserting that Hamas simply “took control of the coastal strip.” It did oust its Fatah movement partner in the Palestinian Authority from Gaza in a “five-day war” in 2007, but won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council the year before.

The Post says “not a single one of the 18,000 homes destroyed in last summer’s war is habitable. Reconstruction moves at a glacial pace. Black market cement is the currency of the realm.” These sentences describing reconstruction efforts resemble the description given in an August 22 New York Times article (“One year after war, people of gaza still sit among ruins”).

However, unlike The Post, The New York Times reported that not only does 37,000 tons of cement sit unused in Gaza warehouses, cement and other reconstruction materials are being used by Hamas to construct tunnels to attack Israelis. The Times said “Mr. Hassaina [Mofeed M. Al Hassaina, Gaza-based minister of housing and public works], other Palestinian leaders and United Nations representative all said that Israel has done its part in reasonable time and had allowed cement into Gaza. The unmentioned 800-pound gorilla in The Post’s feature is Hamas’ priority, preparation for renewed aggression against Israel, not reconstruction and not the economy.

The newspaper fails to remind readers of this despite editorializing that an Israeli TV news report was “snarky” for asking if guests arrived at the Gaza resort hotel by tunnel. Similarly, while mentioning an “Israeli blockade, with…tight restrictions on travel and trade” that The Post claims has “squeezed” Gaza’s middle class, it omits mention of the more stringent Egyptian blockade of Gaza. By contrast, The New York Times observes that the Egyptian blockade—and delay of reconstruction material by the Palestinian Authority—reflect concerns over how Hamas will use those materials.

The New York Times also says that Arab countries have failed to meet their promised aid for Gaza reconstruction. Qatar has only “provided $6 million of a pledged $50 million to rebuild 1,0000 homes.” Kuwait, which “has promised $75 million,” has failed to deliver any funds. In its coverage, The Post omits these important facts that The Times reported.

The Post did give readers an interesting look at a relatively unexamined part of the Gaza Strip. But if failed to pursue questions it implicitly raised. Yes, Gaza’s middle class maybe small and struggling, but still seeking opportunities to enjoy itself and relieve the stress of life in the Strip. No, sluggish reconstruction—like the original destruction itself—is not primarily Israel’s responsibility. Those bucks stop on the desk of Hamas and its supporters.—Sean Durns