People who follow media criticism are likely aware of the term “false balance,” used to describe coverage that presents “both sides” of an issue as if they are equivalent–when they are anything but. Does that label apply to coverage of the current Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip?
A gallery of photos in the Washington Post, showing dead and wounded Gazans and fearful Israelis, is captioned “civilians on both sides endure suffering.”
A November 15 Washington Post headline read, “Civilians in Gaza, Israel Suffer Amid Conflict.” The piece would appear to want to give readers the sense that comparable suffering is occurring on both sides. But reality tells a different story–one that is not so symmetrical.
The piece begins in a Gaza hospital, where an eight-month-old with a shrapnel wound to the head is being treated. She does not survive, and becomes at that point the 16th Palestinian to die in the current violence. But the Post nonetheless tries to stick to the formula:
As the Israeli military assault ramped up and militants retaliated with rockets, civilians on both sides faced painful but all-too-familiar scenes.
On the Israeli side, three have died from rockets fired from Gaza. And these deaths, Israeli officials argue, were preventable:
Israel’s minister for civil defense, Avi Dichter, told reporters that the three would not have died had they followed instructions and stayed in a shelter or in the rear of their apartment.
Few in Gaza can hide in bomb shelters or rely on air raid sirens to warn of incoming attacks. But the media desire to make the suffering seem proportional could be seen elsewhere. In the Los Angeles Times (11/17/12), Edmund Sanders reported:
Back-and-forth violence between Israel and Hamas left civilians on both sides digging out of rubble and broken glass Saturday as the conflict entered its fourth day.
At that point, 38 Palestinians had died. In Israel, meanwhile:
In Israel, three people were injured Saturday by rockets fired into southern Israel.
The military released a photo of one house in Ashdod, where window frames and glass shards blanketed one home’s living room.
No one should minimize the fear of living anywhere where bombs or rockets are falling. But give the one-sided death toll of the attacks on Gaza–three Israeli deaths and over 120 Palestinians–media accounts that try to paint a “balanced” picture do a great disservice to reality.
It is counterproductive as a species to remain at this level of human
evolution.To destroy art,history and the countless documents that the
areas held and are holding and subject these areas to systematic destruction is the act of madmen.Humanities very existence is at sake.We only need one bad decision to end humanity as we know it.Our collective aim should be to demonize war and criminalize it with
the entire world involved.
Casualty statistics are the wrong thing to look at. 1 million Israelis have lived with 12 years of an average of three rockets per day. The Hamas deliberately fires from within civilian areas AT civilians. A double war crime. The Israeli military targets only the terrorists. And because they use their own people as human sheilds, some are injured and some die. But counting Israeli deaths is not the way to view this. 1 million people being rocketed year in and year out is the yardstick.
Let’s be clear about one thing when we write that Hamas uses the Palestinian population as human shields. This is not a neat and tidy war, one in which the blue coats line up in a vacant field and square off with the red coats in some sort of organized exchange of volleys. The battle ground is the homeland itself. And if Hamas were using their own population as human shields, it doesn’t seem to have been much of a deterrent against the Israeli army.
What a ridiculous formula for “equality”! Would the author prefer to have equal deaths on each side?
I don’t know what your point is. Yes, many more people in Gaza died. It’s a crowded, urban area, and many of the rockets being launched came from within these areas. Israelis are more accustomed to rocket attacks and have prepared better for them. So it’s obvious which side is more likely to suffer. For over 30 years Israel has had a peace treaty with Egypt and Jordan, and neither of them have suffered through Israeli attacks. I’m confident that if Hamas stopped launching rockets, especially while hiding behind civilians, the Gaza deathtoll would end!
Hart’s offering here is absurd and offensive, as always. To begin with, he should spare his audience this pious rhetoric, “No one should minimize the fear of living anywhere where bombs or rockets are falling.” Yet it’s precisely Hart’s bread and butter to minimize the suffering Israel faces in being indiscriminately targeted by thousands of rocket attacks from Gaza.
Hart rejects the notion of “false balance” in a self-serving manner, as he appears to believe such rejection gives him license to ignore the Israeli perspective in every instance. Rather, Hart loves to cite to such reputable sources as Electronic Intifada to buttress his anti-Israel rantings.
Hart is right in one sense – “reality tells a different story – one that is not so symmetrical.” That is to say, if Hart were honest, he would acknowledge that Israel clearly has the moral high ground in this debate.
To begin with, Hamas – a terrorist and fascist militia which took over Gaza in a bloody coup – began shelling Israel as soon as it withdrew from Gaza. So much for “land for peace.”
Second, even setting aside the origin of the conflict since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, the manner in which the conflict has been carried out should not be hard to misunderstand. As Richard Goldstone recognized when he repudiated his own report, Israel does not target civilians; on the other hand, Hamas’ “rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at [Israeli] civilian targets.”
Of course, a broader background to the conflict should also be acknowledged, one in which the Arabs since at least the 1920s have refused to accept the possibility of a Jewish state in the region and have instead launched war after war of extermination against the Jews. Hart would never mention any of this. Nor would he reference Hamas’ charter, which calls for Israel’s destruction, states that all Jews should be killed, and ridicules peace negotiations.
To sum up, if Hamas is to to blame for commencing a war with Israel, and if Hamas is to blame for the manner in which it engages in this war, then shouldn’t a rejection of “false balance” favor Israel in any reasonable report on the conflict?
Try telling that to Hart.
I was going to lead with, “Hart gets it all wrong again!’ But that would be like saying, “Dog bites man!
Hart simply fails to acknowledge the morbid tendency of the Palestinians to encourage martyrdom, even of their children. At least when it comes to the murdering of Jews.
Here’s just one of many examples, from Palestinian Television on December 23, 2007:
PA TV interview with father of suicide terrorist Ayat al-Akhras, who murdered two people and injured 22 in a suicide bombing in Jerusalem, March 2002:
Host: “Father of [suicide terrorist] Martyr Ayat al-Akhras – you and your cause deserve the greatest respect… Ayat was very young [17] when she was martyred… In our view, Ayat is a hero, and we want to hear more and remember this Martyr, since we hold her memory dear in our hearts.”
Father: “[Ayat’s] goal was to study journalism, to promote her Palestinian cause around the world…”
Host: “Through Ayat’s heroic act [suicide bombing] she succeeded in reaching the entire world.”
You see, Hart, there’s no use denying that unhealthy tendencies appear in every culture. In Jewish culture, for example, there’s an unhealthy tendency towards self-hatred, which can manifest itself in zealous anti-Zionism. In Arab culture, as set forth above, there’s an unhealthy tendency towards glorifying martyrdom in the service of murdering Jews.
Good point Peter Hart – – the imbalance in casualties is striking, albeit not for some of the hasbarat posters above (special recognition to ‘William’ — I hope he’s paid a lot by his handlers…)
Of course, there is no real balance because the Israeli government spends money to protect its citizens and the Palestinian leaders don’t care if they don’t have bomb shelters or iron domes or any other thing to protect them.
“False Equality” has reigned in Palestine ever since the Balfour Declaration in 1917 which promised a homeland for the Jews there so long as the civil and religious rights of the native Palestinians were recognized….Jews have never lived by the latter part of the deal.
I used to sympathize with Israel. I don’t anymore. Out media doesn’t tell us the truth. Israel are terrorists. They bluster, kill and maim. And they do it all on our dime. They don’t want peace. If they did they would lift the blockade. The people in gaza live in an open air prision. With no hope to escape.
Very good story; keep up the excellent work, and ignore the few negative comments — from people whom no amount of evidence could convince.
THIRTY-ONE Israelis and guest workers have been killed by rockets in the past ELEVEN YEARS. Where would you rather live: Sderot or Gaza? Get real.
I guess a balanced picture would be that at least as many Israelis would die as Gazans. Sounds pretty perverted to me. The one-sidedness seems to me, mainly from the anti-Israel “FAIR” (irony).
There is little that is fair or accurate about Peter Hart’s piece, which omits critical pieces of information. 2,500 rockets from Gaza have showered Israeli homes since the last incursion in 2009. When Israeli finally retaliated, they did so only after releasing flyers in Arabic and Hebrew warning civilians to get out of the targeted areas. They made telephone calls to civilians in Gaza, urging them to get to safety. They only sought to target those who have continued to shower their homes – homes in which their children are just as alive and innocent as those in Gaza…homes in which Israeli children are doing their homework, kissing their grandparents goodnight, playing with their dogs, reading bedtime stories to their younger siblings, and hoping that this won’t be the night that one of the rockets hits their homes. No, families in Gaza don’t have bomb shelters, but Israeli families don’t get flyers in Hebrew or phone calls urging them to get to safety. And while it is regrettable that so many Palestinians have died, what would Hart suggest – that Israel wait another 3 years until their death count is hire to retaliate?
when youre a people well aquainted over thousands of years with jenocide, having been pogromed and massachered to a fir the well over centuries, and now your puny nation state again faces the rabid spear point of 50 million arabs in the form of hamas, preemptively taking out first strike missile capacity, capacity purposely embedded among civilians, capacity of brutal thugs with a long history of mass murder and terrorist attacks, then why should your actions need to have ballanced casualties? thank “god” for the imballance. never again, from now on we fight.
William and Rachel must acknowledge that Israel declared war on Gaza in 2006 when it preemptively blockaded and emabargoed Gaza only because Israel didn’t like the election results. Prior to the election outcome, Israel had stirred up and financed a civil war between Hamas and Fatah, and when the citizens overwhelmingly elected Hamas in internationally supervised elections, Israel immediately undertook these acts of war against Gaza, even before Hamas took the reins of power. These Israeli acts were the original war crimes that precipitated the weak military responses from a starving and blockaded region, whose fisherman are even attacked by Israeli destroyers, when not forbidden the same breadth of coastal area in which to fish that Israeli fishermen enjoy. Israel even seized the custom receipts when Hamas won, a further punishment of Gazans for their making the wrong electoral choice. The US should end its aid to the rogue state of Israel. Immediately!
Can we expect anything less from corporate media? But continue to point out the contradictions, maybe eventually things will change but i doubt it.
Nice work, FAIR–I ofen avoid the comments on these Gaza/israel stories because of the imbecile justifications for more Israeli violence in the giant, open-air prison known as Gaza. Say, Peter Hart, have you bitten any dogs lately?
P.S.: Hey, harold, try reading more carefully.
It’s interesting to read the comments of the defenders of Israel. Do they really believe their own words? Israel is an extension of European colonialism in the Arab middle-east where the original inhabitants were not wiped out and thus continue to resist the imposition as they have a right to. The solution to the problem is for Israel to allow the return of all those it drove out of their land. Yes it would mean the end of the zionist state but it would also mean justice instead of “just-us”.
Peter Hart is absolutely right. Great piece.
As anybody who has actually been to Gaza knows, it’s nothing more than an open air prison. The last thing Israel wants is a successful “peace process” which would put rules in place to prevent it from the continuing its slow genocide. What is the asymptotic result of continuing settlement expansion? Answer: no more Palestinian territory. Duh. As Jimmy Carter said: ‘Israeli Policy Is to Confiscate Palestinian Territory’.
And as for the current conflagration, it was started when the IDF killed a 13 year old child playing soccer in gaza, and a mentally ill man who did not obey their orders.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/11/20/gaza_ceasefire_to_be_decided_in
I completely agree. Jean Molénat.
Those here who decry the comparison of casualties kind of miss the point. If Israel has roughly five deaths, has its own military, controls its own borders and imports and exports, controls its airspace, controls the sea zone around it, but Gaza has 120-150 deaths, has no military, has no country, does not control its borders, does not control imports or exports, does not control its airspace, does not control the sea zone, is under blockade, and has not even repaired the infrastructure damage from Operation Cast Lead, it is problematic to speak in terms of Israel defending itself against Palestinian aggressors. Israel is clearly in effective control of Gaza, Israel clearly has the proponderance of military power. The inability of Israel to get security through targeted asassination, air strikes, walls, and ground invasions suggest they should try a new appproach. Hamas is getting militarily weaker, but politically stronger. Israeli officials and supporters often lament that they do not have a negotiating partner, but diplomats do not get to choose the other side-they have to negotiate with the other side as it exists.
Peter Hart has it right. I am appalled at the lack of compassion in the latest comments for the victims of this struggle who are the Palestinians (with some laudable exceptions in the earlier comments). Why do Gazans lob (mostly ineffective) missiles into Israel, which is the foremost military power in the region? Because for over 5 years they have been under total blockade by Israel, unable to enter and leave, unable to import necessities such as medicines, food, building materials, etc. except when “allowed” by the Occupying Power in rare instances after a lot of pressure is applied; in short, Gazans are unable to LIVE. Over 50% of Palestinian children are malnourished, many people also die because of lack of medicines, or inability to leave the area to get medical treatment, etc. Israel enters Gaza at will daily and almost daily Palestinian civilians are being killed by Israeli soldiers, from land or from the air. Children as well as adults are traumatized by constant drone overflights. The list of suffering goes on. Many Gazans are refugees from their homes in other parts of historic Palestine, because Israel has stolen their land and continues to do so, building more and more settlements. Moreover, Israel is trying hard to appropriate even Palestinian culture and pretending it is its own. It is trying to obliterate the Palestinian people, otherwise called ethnic cleansing. People under occupation have a right to defend themselves by any means at their disposal. For this to change, the Israeli Occupation has to be dismantled everywhere, not just in Gaza. But the Israeli lobby in the US has an iron grip on American politics (on almost all of Congress and on successive Administrations) and media discourse on this subject in America (as well as elsewhere). This tragic situation will continue until this grip is broken by more Americans learning about the truth and what’s really happening, and pressuring their representatives in Congress and the President to stop enabling Israeli atrocities and aggression against the indigenous population, by withholding US taxpayer dollars and armaments.
I got the sequence wrong. The six comments immediately above mine make a lot of sense and have done a better job of explaining the true situation.
To “Snooder” who talks about the tragic history of the Jews, I would like to refer him to the 100 Golden Years of Moslem rule in Andalucia, where Jews fully participated in society. Moslems/Arabs historically have not mistreated Jews, either in ancient history or in more recent history, so why are Palestinians paying the price for the atrocities that others have committed?
I suggested a day ago that we pursue the path of decriminalizing war,and
not one person commented on it,s possibility.I am wondering if we have
become so desensitize to killing,murder and destruction that to even
consider war peace is out of our realm of thought.This is nit criticism,
but an observation i am praying we all give it some serious consideration.Are we as a species so void of human emotions that we
are content to take the planet and humanity to extinction.
The entire population of Gaza could be massacred and the fascist-Zionists on this blog (and elsewhere) would always find some justification for Israel’s actions; they don’t care about human rights violations (recorded by Israeli human rights groups); they’re perfectly content to steal more and more land from the Palestinians with their illegal settlements, and they don’t even care about democracy in Israel itself, where they call anyone with an appropriately critical attitude a “self-hating Jew (an entirely incoherent label). American taxpayers give EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS EVERY DAY to Israel and this needs to stop.
It’s obvious that Israeli lives are more important than Palestinians, end of story. Apparently the genocidal blockade that’s turned the strip into the IDFs shooting range has nothing to do with Palestinian anger towards Israel.
Gosh Fair you forgot to note the millions of leaflets dropped by Israel over the areas warning the population to flee any area connected to combatants.Ya know like if you see a rocket truck next to your house lobbing hundreds of missiles into Israel, run for the hills……Just an oversight Im sure.Along opposite lines I loved that joke about it was the Jews fault they got themselves killed.So by the by… how many civilian targets have been confirmed hit by Israel ,that have been confirmed as their target? 1%……..6%?On the other side 100% were aiming at civilian targets.Seems the only thing fair cares about is that Israel is more lethal.In a numerical sense.
michael e: Where do you think they should run to? Gaza is the most populated area, cramming one and a half million human beings into one small strip, yes “strip”. (By the way, many of these Palestinians are double refugees from other areas taken from them by Israel). Anyone with a conscience and with knowledge of the reality could not condone such continued actions by Israel, as you seem to do.
all major newspapers, most major tv networks, book and
magazine publishing and distribution, i.e. almost all the media
in this country is controlled by israeli partisans. there is no
‘fair’. it’s orwell’s vision come to pass.
laila what you just said can be said for Israel.You can fly over Israel in 3 minutes.Israel drops the leaflets not to say move out of town…..it means if you see a terrorist rocket truck in your “yard”, run dont walk away.
Israel is like a big fat bully sitting on top of a smaller weaker person. Every time that person pinches the bully cause that is all he can do to get him off, the bully retaliates by punching him in the face. This is going to happen over and over again until the person finally breaks or the bully decides to get up off of him. I think that if Israel just declared war on Palestine the death toll would be easier to swallow. Something about the fact that they claim to be acting in self defense and the death toll being so lopsided seems unfair and doesn’t sit right with me. It really doesn’t seem like Israel is thinking introspectively about trying to do the right thing morally but more like they are trying to completely crush and cripple their enemy with brute force while maintaining the public opinion that they are in the right. The coverage of the conflict in the U.S. tries to remedy this by helping out Israel by portraying the suffering as being equal to those who are uninformed.