What we are not being shown

An excellent piece from Melanie Phillips - yes, really - in the Times (£):

Miliband has berated David Cameron for not condemning Israel’s attacks in Gaza. No 10 says it is shocked that Mr Miliband is making political capital out of the war. Meanwhile Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, says the suffering in Gaza is intolerable and has called for an unconditional humanitarian ceasefire.

The exchanges illustrate the widespread incomprehension of the nature of this conflict and the uniquely dreadful dilemma it poses.

The civilian suffering, particularly the dead and injured children, is indeed appalling and tragic. No one of any conscience could fail to be horrified. With these sickening images regularly broadcast on TV, and with interviewers all but accusing Israeli spokesmen of being cruel and reckless child-killers, it is no surprise that much of the public is being inflamed against Israel.

People don’t realise, however, how their emotions are being manipulated. They are not being shown how Hamas is using its own people as human shields and sacrifices, to enable it to continue firing rockets at Israeli civilians and to increase its own civilian casualties in order to turn western opinion against Israel.

It has built no shelters, forcing civilians to use UN schools, for instance, instead. It has ordered Gazans to ignore Israeli warnings to flee their houses and stay put under bombardment.

Declassified Israeli aerial pictures show rocket launchers situated in mosques, schools and playgrounds. Hamas rockets have been found stashed in three UN-run schools. A senior UN official, John Ging, has said Hamas “are firing their rockets into Israel from the vicinity of UN facilities and residential areas”.

Shifa hospital also acts as a Hamas command centre. Reporters know this, as they often conduct interviews there with Hamas spokesmen. Yet this detail is generally denied to the public. Nor are the public informed about rocket fire from that hospital. A Finnish journalist was a lone exception when she recently reported that a rocket was launched from the hospital’s parking lot.

Such war crimes aren’t usually publicised because reporters work under an implicit threat. One Spanish journalist admitted: “We did see Hamas people launching rockets close to our hotel, but if ever we dared point our camera on them they would simply shoot at us and kill us.”

Instead, news reports parrot the Hamas line. So the “overwhelming majority” of the casualties are reported to be civilian. In fact, an analysis by Al Jazeera shows that most of those killed have been young men of fighting age, not women, children or old people. Rules published by Hamas order anyone talking to the media to describe all Gaza casualties as “innocent civilians” and ensure “there is no evidence of rockets being fired from Gaza population centres”.

There is also virtually no reporting of Gazan casualties caused by Hamas’s own rockets falling short. Last Monday, there were explosions in a kindergarten and Shifa’s outpatient clinic. The media immediately blamed Israeli airstrikes. Yet both Israel and official Palestinian media blamed misfired Hamas rockets — a fact endorsed by a reporter who said he could only do so once he left Gaza and escaped Hamas intimidation.

The Israelis take more care than any other army to avoid harming civilians, warning them by leaflet, phone, text or warning shots to flee. Their rules of engagement restrict them from attacking where they know civilians are present, although when gunfire comes from a hospital or school the IDF are entitled to return fire. They have also aborted dozens of attacks when civilians are present. Yet it is the Israelis who are vilified as child-killers....

The thousands of rocket attacks from Gaza in recent years have forced the residents of southern Israel to race for the shelters. The tunnels into Israel pose an even graver threat of mass murder and kidnappings of Israelis.

All decent people want an end to the deaths of innocents. But Hamas refuses to stop trying to murder Israeli civilians. It stated aim is to destroy Israel and kill every Jew. Philip Hammond said: “We understand that Israel has concerns and that Hamas has concerns” — as if there were a moral equivalence between those bent on genocide and their victims.

The Arab world (except for Qatar) wants Hamas destroyed. The King of Saudi Arabia condemned the “collective massacre” in Gaza but conspicuously did not blame Israel.

It comes to something, does it not, when the Arab world seems to be better disposed towards Israel, the region’s sole democracy, than much of the British political class.

Update: Pallywood in action.

Comments

[AbandonShip!]

These are really important points that those of us who already look behind the usual media spin realise clearly. In truth though the media ignores all this and rushes on with the Israeli murderous agressor/Palestinian helpless victim storyline. And ironically the fact that Melanie P has written this incisive piece will actually not help ("it was written by Mad Mel so we know what we think about that..."). I listened to a programme on podcast on BBC radio Ulster called Everyday Ethics yesterday which consisted of the host William Crawley having a right go at an Israeli spokesperson for about 15 min, then agreeing with the person from Amnesty International for about 15 min, then allowing Eamonn McCann to rant on rather viciously for some time about evil racist Israel. It was dreadful stuff, truly awful, but par for the course for the BBC and other western media.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/ethics

[Mick H]

Yep. And, re your point about "Mad Mel", I note that some commenters were quick to say that yes, she would say that...she's Jewish, after all.