Keeping them honest
Israel-based Honest Reporting recently expanded their monitoring of the media to include Australia and New Zealand and have already highlighted their first case.
Honest Reporting’s Simon Plosker
Their new “down under” operation is designed to monitor and correct media distortions and unbalanced reporting about Israel.
The New Zealand Herald, the country’s largest circulation newspaper, published an opinion piece a few days ago by NZ journalist, Rachel Smalley. Annoyed that criticism of Israel is often described as anti Semitism she launched off into an extended justification of why her loathing for the Jewish State is in fact devoid of any racist taints.
Some of her assertions.
“Why is it that a criticism of Israel is so often viewed as a criticism of the Jewish faith? You can criticise any government in the world, any regime, and state, and it goes unnoticed – except Israel. You cannot criticise Israel without being attacked for it.”
In 2014 when reporting on the Gaza conflict she wrote:
“I can’t report the situation in Gaza with balance anymore because there simply is none. Israel’s actions are abhorrent. The killing, the targeting of civilians, the toddlers and the babies who are dying every day. It reveals the Israeli regime for what it is – a callus anti-Palestinian killing machine.
Israel’s conflict should be with Hamas, but it’s not. It’s with the Palestinians. Almost two million people who live in the Gaza Strip, entrapped and caged in an area that is 40 kilometres long by ten kilometres wide. The bombardment of Gaza is akin to caged lion hunting in South Africa. There is no escape – only terror as bombs and bullets rain down.
The Israelis say they ‘regret’ when a civilian is killed. Rubbish! They regret nothing. They put no value on a Palestinian life.”
“Is there a more arrogant and antagonistic administration in the world today?”
As Honest Reporting points out it seems that Ms. Smalley has no qualms about Hamas having stored and fired missiles against Israel from schools, Mosques and hospitals. It seems that Israel is the one and only arrogant and antagonistic country in the world.
Is this fair and balanced reporting or does it signify some other malady? Honest Reporting has exposed the worms in the can.
