Damn Israeli Bastards! If You Believe Reuters, That Is!

Yesterday, Reuters put out a press report that was copy-pasted by a number of other so-called news sites around the world. I was shown the report on Canadian Global News, but no reason to analyze the secondary source. Let us look at the original Reuters article, one commonly used source of fake journalism so rampant today.

First, the title that makes Israel seem evil:

Seven Palestinians killed in border protests: Gaza health officials.

We will return to the title at the end of this critique. In the meantime, as you read on, perhaps you will come up with alternatives that would have been more appropriate.

First paragraph:

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians on Friday in protests along Gaza’s border, Gaza health officials said. Israel said its troops had shot a group who broke through the fence with a bomb and attacked an army post.

Yes, Israeli forces killed seven Palestinian Arabs, but if you call bombing the border-fence and crossing into Israel a “protest” then you must have a different dictionary than the one I am using. In fact, three paragraphs down, Reuters does report on the nature of this protest:

The Israeli military said that the demonstrators, numbering around 15,000, had been “hurling rocks, explosive devices, firebombs and grenades” at Israeli troops and at the fence.

Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col Jonathan Conricus tweeted that one group had “detonated a bomb on the Israel-Gaza border fence”, allowing around 20 people to climb through the hole.

Some might say that hurling rocks, explosive devices, firebombs and grenades, and climbing through a breech in the border fence constitutes a declaration of war. That is, if the soldiers are not Israeli and the border is not one with Israel.

I can only imagine the kind of response that would have greeted any group that dared burn hectares of agricultural lands and nature reserves just across the border of any other country in the world. If you had to teach your children not to go near kites or colourful balloons landing in their school yards or playgrounds because these have been turned into weapons of war, what would you demand of your government and military?

Launching of incendiary balloons during demonstrations at the #Gaza border today. #Israel pic.twitter.com/td2Uusygp8

— Joe (@Jtruzmah) October 12, 2018

But does the Reuters article give that context so that you can truly understand what is happening? Does this statement count as “context”?

The Palestinian deaths bring to around 200 the number of Gazans killed since the border protests began on March 30, according to Palestinian Health Ministry figures.

Does that not make it seem as if Israel is heavy handed in its response to “border protests”? Global News added video footage to their copy-pasted Reuters account. This is the message they want to get across, that civilian protesters were tragically injured and killed and the demonstration consists of people casually walking around in the border area:

But this is much more what the Gaza border protest looks like:

https://twitter.com/OmarElQattaa/status/1050819083325886465

And here is what Reuters wrote near the end of the article:

One Israeli soldier has been killed by a Palestinian sniper during the weekly protests, and tracts of Israeli land have been scorched by incendiary kites and balloons.

Perhaps they wanted to write “only” one Israeli soldier killed, but that may have been too obvious and crude even for them. And “tracts” of Israeli land?

To date, 10,000 acres of land in Israel’s south has been burned by incendiary kites and balloons—the size of about 10,000 football fields. https://t.co/eYSeFtVrUp

— Algemeiner (@Algemeiner) October 12, 2018

What does Reuters report about Israel’s response to the “protest”?

The Israeli military has been criticised by Palestinians and international human rights groups for its lethal response to the protests. [Israel] says its troops have used “riot dispersal means” and have fired “in accordance with standard operating procedures”.

Now, please just remember what you might have demanded of your government if your communities were under daily attack by Molotov balloons and kites for over six months, with no end in sight if your government felt ham-stringed by international condemnation. After all, if Israel’s measly response to all of this is called “lethal,” what would the world say if our leaders actually did something to effectively protect the land and her citizens targeted by Hamas?

Was Reuters looking for balance when they gave motivations of both sides for what is going on?

Israel accuses the Islamist group Hamas, which controls Gaza, of orchestrating the protests along the border fence to provide cover for attacks and to distract from Gaza’s economic plight. Hamas denies the allegations.

The Palestinian protesters are demanding an end to an Israeli and Egyptian blockade on the narrow coastal strip, which is home to around 2 million Gazans. They also seek the right to return to lands that Palestinians fled or were driven from upon Israel’s founding in 1948.

First of all, this is a very funny kind of blockade when tons of food, medicine, and even building materials that find their way into the construction of terrorist tunnels rather than homes, schools and hospitals, cross the border every day.

Secondly, why are they not demonstrating on the Egyptian border with Gaza? Oh! Right! Hamas knows exactly how the Egyptians would respond and that the world would not count dead and wounded victims of Egypt or go to the UN to protest.

Thirdly, the right of return they are demanding means the end of Israel, ethnic cleansing of all Jews. All of those who accuse Israel of genocide, of ethnic cleasing of the Palestinian Arabs, have not noticed the continual increase in the Arab population on both sides of the Green Line — quite the opposite of what one would expect from a genocide. Believe me, Hamas knows how to commit genocide if given half the chance. And probably the world would yawn. Would you yawn too, dear reader of Reuters news reports and its clones on other sites?

Let me just conclude this article with a personal note on Facebook from an Israeli mother living near the Gaza border:

If you want to keep updated on what is really going on there — if you want to have context for the articles you read on news sites, consider following this group: Life on the border with Gaza – things people may not know (but should). If you can show me a Facebook page with similar personal stories from citizens living in Gaza, I will be happy to follow that one as well. Just let me know when you can find a public Facebook page on which Gazans feel free to write what they really think.

Now, what do you think would be a more appropriate title for the Reuters article? How about: “Seven Gazan terrorists killed while infiltrating into Israel and attacking soldiers”? I would even accept using militants instead of terrorists in this case.

Image Credit: screenshot from the Reuters article under discussion here.