“We don’t have to apologise for Israelis not being killed.”–Â srael’s ambassador to the UK, Daniel Taub.
Journalists covering Palestinians often place themselves not as unbiased observers, or even those purporting to be unbiased, but rather as narrators for the “people” and the “reality.” (J’Post)
CNN correspondent Diana Magnay reporting on the IDF offensive in Gaza. Photo: YOUTUBE SCREENSHOT
On July 17 CNN’s Diana Magnay stood atop a hill in Sderot, and after having filmed Israelis cheering the bombing of Gaza, tweeted “Israelis on hill above Sderot cheer as bombs land on #gaza; threaten to ‘destroy our car if I say a word wrong.’ Scum.” Her castigation of the young people from Sderot who often gather to watch the war is part of a larger outrage by international media at the “Sderot cinema.”
There are excuses for this “slip-up” by the journalist.
She deleted the tweet quickly, realizing it was inappropriate or would call into question her coverage (she was subsequently transferred by the network to Russia).
Others noted that it is hard to deal with the negative behavior of people who sometimes insult journalists.
But the Magnay libel comes against a backdrop of how journalists and others view the Israel-Palestinian conflict. In January 2014 The Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood, wrapping up several years of reporting there, wrote a love letter to Gaza, recalling the “resilience, creativity and humor of its people,” detailing their “fortitude” and “spirit.”
The words “the people” of Gaza appear at least nine times in the 2,000-word piece. We must “understand the people”; “the people are reeling”; “I had been fascinated by this place, its people”; “Israel’s grinding oppression of the Palestinian people”; “acute impact on ordinary people”; “humor of ordinary people”; “overwhelmingly decent people”; “the people of Gaza need luck.”(continued below the fold)
Related:
For most reporters, there are no dead terrorists in Gaza
As we arrived, we came upon the funeral of nine men, all in their 20s or early 30s, killed about 2 a.m. Saturday morning by a single missile apparently fired by an Israeli drone. The deaths helped put the total number of Gazans killed in this war well above 300.
The oration was pretty standard fare for Hamas or Islamic Jihad funerals. But what surprised us as we turned into the courtyard of Nasser Hospital where the event was taking place was that this was a funeral mainly conducted by Fatah, the party led by Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas. Mr. Abbas, known popularly as Abu Mazen, opposes the rockets being fired against Israel and is trying to de-escalate this conflict not intensify it.
But it was definitely the yellow flag of Fatah that flew above the crowd of 300 or so – flying upside down, by the way, whether by design or accident, I couldn’t find out.
And it was the flag of Palestine that was bloodied and wrapped as a shroud around the bodies of seven of the nine men – the other two were wrapped in the green flag of Hamas.
Continue reading What kind of journalist calls Israelis ‘scum’ and genocidal Arabs "the people?"
Government to close mosques not under its control after fourteen soldiers were killed by fighters this week.
