Kiwis for balanced reporting on the Mideast
Who are we?
KBRM was started during the 2006 Lebanon-Israel war when much of the Mideast coverage and commentary appeared to be one-sided and sometimes untruthful. This misreporting has continued ever since, and was particularly bad during the 2009 Gaza war.
What do we do?
In an effort to present the missing side of the story, KBRM conducts the following activities:
- Letters. When news items or other articles appear that are biased, we encourage our members and others to write letters to the editor that present the missing facts.
- Corrections. In some cases we contact editors to suggest corrections or other remedial action, or to call their attention to articles that might balance the one-sided nature of a previous item.
- Articles. Several articles written by KBRM members have been published in NZ newspapers, and this continues to be one of our main activities.
- Advertisements. In 2009, we began an advertising campaign to present "The missing truth" to the NZ public in cases where editors refuse to publish our articles.
- Appeals. In egregious cases where the editor refuses to take remedial action, KBRM is prepared to appeal to the New Zealand Press Council.
What can you do?
KBRM is a voluntary organisation which receives no funding from any other source. If you would like to support our activities, either financially or through membership, please click on Feedback and then ‘Drop us an email’.
Related Organisations
Honest Reporting | Eye on the Post | CAMERA | The Israel Project | Palestinian Media Watch |
Recent Posts
Letter of the Month
April 27, 2009
...Kiwis are mostly tolerant by nature and prepared to give others a fair go but they can be misled by carefully crafted misinformation... KBRM is countering the blatantly biased reporting of Israel with calmly stated truthful information.
Definitely no firebrand posturing. I think you will be surprised at the depth of support there is out there for Israel (from people like me). Continue
Email to Radio New Zealand
A KBRM member writes to Radio NZ's Saturday morning show after its airing of yet another anti-Israel diatribe, this time from former US diplomat Edward Peck on the 13 June show:
‘Peck is just one of a long list of people who think that Hamas' win at the ballot box obligates Israel to join it at the table, whatever its actions. But Hamas' democratic credentials are neither here nor there. What Israelis really take issue with is the fact it has fired upwards of 7,000 rockets at civilian targets in Israel since winning office...’ (read moret)
Fairfax Cartoonists Attack Israel ... Again.
Following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's meeting with United Stated President Barak Obama, Fairfax newspapers ran cartoons by Mike Moreu and Tom Scott on Thursday 21 May, 2009. Both cartoons portrayed Israel in a negative light, but Moreu's cartoon presented a distorted misrepresentation of Israeli policy on settlements, and Scott's cartoon, depicting Israel as an aggressive dog wearing a kippar or yarmulke, was considered culturally offensive by some of KBRM's members. Although it is acceptable for individual opinion pieces published in newspapers to be unbalanced, it is important that newspapers take seriously their responsibility to endure that a balanced range of opinions are presented. In the case of these cartoons, some papers were less willing to provide that balance than others. (read moret)
KBRM member with a remarkable story to tell
A KBRM member has written about her experiences as a nurse in both Arab and Jewish hospitals in Israel and the West Bank while working with Shevet Achim (‘Brothers Together’) and Save A Child's Heart (SACH). Her on-the-scene account tells a remarkable story about a side of Israel that is seldom, if ever, presented in the NZ press. During her most recent stay, one of the patients treated was a close relative of a senior Hamas leader, even while Hamas was raining rockets on Israel. The article concludes:
...All in all, Save a Child's Heart has brought more than 1,700 children from 28 countries to Israel for life-saving heart surgery. More than half of the patients have been Palestinians, Jordanians and Iraqis. The families of these children understand full well the true situation in Israel. As the mother of an Iraqi child treated in 2007 said, ‘Israel is a good country. It's a country that has mercy on other people.’ Yet this mother would not give her last name for fear of retribution from Islamic militants who reject Israel's existence. (read moret)
KBRM submitted this article to all major NZ newspapers. It was not published.
May 7, 2009
KBRM deluged with feedback
Since KBRM began its advertising campaign in January, the volume of mail has been immense. Over 100 letters have been received. Most are extremely complimentary and sometimes contain contributions. It is most gratifying to know that there are so many Kiwis who have not been taken in by the one-sided reporting and who appreciate what we're doing. Some of it, however, is highly critical, including some blatantly obscene and bigoted letters that have to be seen to be believed. Selected letters can be seen on our new Feedback page, including a ‘Bigotry Box’ for the latter type. All mail can be seen on the Archived Letters page. In addition, an FAQ page is being prepared that will provide online answers for most of the complaints.
KBRM marks Israel Independence Day with advertisement: ‘Israel: The Missing truth’
The seventh KBRM ad appeared in the NZ Herald as a 1/2-page ad (1/4-page in other papers). The ad features a series of quotations through the years that show how Israel's hand of friendship to the Arabs was rejected over and over. The ad concludes:
...What followed was 61 years of terror, tribulation and tears for all concerned. Perhaps one day the hand of friendship offered by Israel will be grasped and a new era of peace, mutual respect and co-operation will be established for the benefit of all citizens in the region. (See whole ad at Advertisements)
KBRM attacked in Press letters
A letter was printed that attacked the KBRM chairman and our advertisements. The chairman responded:
What a shocking tirade against me by ____, full of inaccuracies and distortions. To set the record straight... (read more)
Not anti-Semitism — or is it?
A letter appeared in The Press under the heading ‘Not anti-Semitism’ that was filled with lies about Israel. Yet the writer wrote ‘Condemning Israel war crimesÉ is completely different from anti-Semitism, which I wholeheartedly condemn.’ A KBRM spokesperson responded:
... Blaming the only Jewish nation for ‘war crimes’ and violations of human rights, while ignoring evidence to the contrary and also ignoring deliberate war crimes and human rights violations by its enemies, is about as anti-Semitic as you can get. But isn't it nice that the writer ‘wholeheartedly condemns anti-Semitism’? (read moret)
April 17, 2009
Bias enters the Otago Daily Times letters column
Whatever bias may be present in the ODT World Focus section ‘see April 6 post’, the letters column has generally been even-handed. In fact, on March 18 the KBRM chairman was granted the ‘right of response’ to a letter criticising KBRM advertisements (see KBRM Letters, March 18). However on March 25 another letter by the same writer was published under an extra-large headline, with shading for emphasis and an accompanying photo of a destroyed Palestinian home. The KBRM response was printed on March 31 with no added emphasis or photo, despite requests for such. (We had suggested a photo of a bombed Israeli school.) Then on April 9 the ODT published a letter (by another writer) that personally attacked the KBRM chairman, using words like ‘ludicrous’ and ‘delusional’. A response was submitted but it was rejected (although a third party letter was printed on April 17). Publishing a letter with such a vicious personal attack and not allowing that person to defend himself is surely beyond the pale of acceptable journalism. Here is the letter that the ODT refused to publish:
Despite _______‘so insulting words (9.4.09), he did not attack or even question one statement in my letter (31.3.09). Strange.
As for his statements —yes, it is true that Hamas was democratically elected, but then so was Hitler. That doesn't mean they didn't evolve into a dictatorial regime, as did Hitler's. (Read the March 25 post for details.) Hamas' avowed goal is to destroy the state of Israel, not to regain land taken over the past 50 years. This fact is at the root of the conflict and should be understood by everyone.
April 13, 2009
KBRM expands its advertising program
Because of the recent onslaught of ‘war crimes’ charges against Israel, KBRM accordingly stepped up the size of its advertisements. Ad #6 continued the theme of ‘The missing truth’, showing that the charges were either completely false or greatly exaggerated. The ad concluded with:
...No country is perfect, nor is every soldier a saint. Nevertheless, Israel's war record is better than that of most countries, while Hamas flagrantly commits war crimes every day. The question is, why does the media give so much space to false accusations against Israel and so little to correcting them, or to the war crimes of its enemy? Why is it necessary for KBRM to pay for advertising in order for you to know ‘the missing truth’? (see ‘Advertisements’ for complete text)
April 11, 2009
KBRM gets ‘political’
Amidst concerns about the one-sided nature of the upcoming Durban 2 conference, KBRM wrote the following letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs:
Dear Mr McCully:
KBRM is an organisation devoted to fair and balanced reporting about the Mideast. As such, we support New Zealand's even-handed position.
We are writing to express our concern about the upcoming Durban 2 conference which, given its history and early draft documents, could turn out to be a one-sided effort to castigate Israel. Indeed, several countries have already decided to boycott the conference for that reason, and we understand that New Zealand is considering doing the same.
If New Zealand should decide to attend, we urge you or New Zealand's representatives to be alert to efforts to turn the conference into a one-sided attack on Israel. If that should happen, we hope that New Zealand would refuse to be associated with such an agenda and would walk out. Merely abstaining would not be an acceptable alternative.
A reasonable response?
KBRM has received much mail during its advertising campaign (see Feedback). While most of it is complimentary, there is also critical mail. Some of this is blatantly anti-Semitic, but there are also reasonable letters, without apparent bigotry, and these are answered by a KBRM spokesperson. An excellent example of such a letter was received today. It is only by looking closely that one sees the errors in fact and logic that are caused by bias. (read more)
April 6, 2009
ODT continues bias against Israel
The Otago Daily Times lately has had a poor track record of balance. Five recent articles in ‘World Focus’ were all critical of Israel (‘The lying silence of those who know’, Jan. 19, ‘Tension between Israel, aid groups’, Jan. 19, ‘Israel has upper hand on Net’, Jan. 26, ‘Fearful of anti-Semitism after Gaza’, Feb. 2, ‘Hamas claims moral high ground’, Feb. 2), as were three recent news articles (‘Israel violates laws of war, reports say’, Mar. 21, ‘Gaza assault war crime: UN envoy’, Mar. 21, ‘Boy used as human shield: UN’, Mar. 25). When other papers carried reports of an attack by an axe-wielding Palestinian terrorist (‘Man with axe kills boy, 13’, The Press, ‘Palestinian axeman kills settler teenager’, Southland Times, etc.), the ODT chose to print, instead, a Reuters dispatch that criticised the ‘new rightist Government in Israel’ (‘Two-state solution tricky: US’, Apr. 4). On April 6, a World Focus article about the new prime minister, while apparently balanced, nevertheless focused on criticism (Back to establish ‘lasting’ ‘peace’’). ODT, there are two sides to every story.
Email to Radio Rhema
The theme of Radio Rhema's Sunday Night Live talkback programme on April 5 was "Israel, Palestine and the Peace Process". The talkback was well balanced, largely due to the efforts of Tim Sisarich to look at the Middle East conflict from both Israeli and Palestinian perspectives. KBRM member Kirsty Walker listened to the programme and emailed Radio Rhema during the talkback, and her email was read on air:
‘If you want to talk about the Arabs who left Israel when the Arab nations invaded it in 1948, don't forget the more than 800,000 Jews who were ethnically cleansed from ALL the Arab nations following the establishment of Israel. They were forced to leave their ancestral homes, leaving property and possessions, ending up as refugees in Israel.’ (read more)
KBRM loses appeal about cartoon
On Jan. 11, the Sunday Star Times published a cartoon by Bromhead that showed an Israeli soldier shooting at Palestinians, saying ‘Ten innocents, one Hamas.... Twenty innocents, Two Hamas...’ KBRM asked that the newspaper publish a correction with the true ratio (or at least a range). When the editor refused, we appealed to the Press Council, but the appeal was not upheld. The KBRM chairman then wrote to the cartoonist:
...I can understand how you would come to that view, given the press coverage in the NZ press. However, if you will read the articles cited below, you will learn that in all probability the ratio was in the other direction; that is, fewer than half of the deaths in Gaza were civilians. You will also learn that Israel made every effort to reduce civilian casualties, something which is not easy when your enemy has no uniforms and operates from civilian areas... (read more)
April 4, 2009
Southland Times continues to set the pace on balance
The Southland Times has a record of balanced reporting on the Mideast that other papers would do well to emulate. While giving adequate coverage (with photo) to reports of war crimes (‘Israelis tell of murder orders’, Mar. 21, ‘Israeli soldiers ‘shot children’’, Mar. 25), they also printed Israel's rebuttal (‘Troops’ killing of women and children ‘hearsay’ claim Israeli investigators’, Apr. 1). They were one of the few papers to publish Israel's analysis of civilian casualties (‘Gaza death toll disputed’, Mar. 21), and they reported Israel's attack on a convoy in Sudan with a balanced headline (‘Israeli jets foil delivery of arms’, March 28). While other papers were reporting speculative criticism of Israel's new Prime Minister, the ST reported the immediate obstacle to peace posed by Hamas (‘Progress difficult’ with Hamas in Gaza, Apr. 3). Their report on the axe attack (‘Palestinian axeman kills settler teenager’) was accompanied by a colour photo of the grieving Israeli family, something most newspapers reserve for Palestinians. Even the letters column is often filled with letters from people who do not swallow the anti-Israel propaganda. Maybe Southerners really do think independently.
Why we continue the battle for truth and balance
The membership of KBRM is broad and includes people from diverse ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds who are united in their belief that Israel deserves to have the truth told about it. Here is a comment from a Christian member as to why she continues this battle against what sometimes seem to be overwhelming odds.
The reason I don't give up is my deeply-held concern that the world is sleepwalking (rather than goose stepping) towards another holocaust and I cannot look the other way and say nothing... If the worst comes to the worst and the world witnesses a second holocaust, how will I live with myself, how will I face my children, how will I answer before God, if I know I didn't even lift a pen in the defence of the Jewish people? That is why I write. It's not much, but it's the least I can do. (read more)
Who are today's Nazis?
As charges of Nazism aimed at Israel accumulate, KBRM submitted the following article to leading NZ newspapers. A condensed version will be used for KBRM's next advertisement.
In recent days it has not been uncommon to hear Israel compared with GermanyÕs Nazi regime of the 1930s and 1940s, to hear Arab Palestinians likened to European Jews of the Nazi era and the Gaza Strip equated with the Warsaw Ghetto. Although likening Israel with the Nazi regime is calculated to be the most offensive accusation that could be levelled against Israel, an honest comparison demonstrates that this charge against Israel is groundless... (read more)
New article on ‘apartheid’ submitted, accepted for GH website
Following repeat accusations of Israeli 'apartheid' by columnists John Minto and Matt McCarten, a KBRM article was prepared and submitted to major newspapers. The article was accepted by the Gisborne Herald for its website and was also used as the basis for KBRM ad #4. The article began:
Israel has often been accused of apartheid by people ranging from New Zealand columnists John Minto and Matt McCarten to US ex-President Jimmy Carter. Before you accept their conclusion, however, please consider the following facts that are missing from the usual accounts. (read more)
KBRM publishes third advert
The third in the ‘Missing truth’ series of ads was sent to five newspapers.
The ad reads in part:
Civilian casualties: The missing truth
123 Israeli children murdered by Palestinians
Headlines about civilian casualties in Gaza have created much anti-Israel feeling in New Zealand. No one likes to see innocent people, especially children, killed or injured in a war. Yet little attention was paid to the 123 Israeli children murdered during the last 8 years by Palestinian terrorists, and most Kiwis are probably unaware of it...
The Israeli Defence Force just completed a name-by-name analysis of 1200 Palestinian fatalities in which the identity numbers, circumstances of death, and affiliated terrorist group of each were examined. The report concluded that one-third of the fatalities were civilians, or a ratio of two militants for each civilian — the reverse of the impression created by Palestinian reports... (read more)
KBRM pursues appeal about SST cartoon
The Sunday Star-Times editor responded to KBRM's appeal about the cartoon that depicted a ‘10 innocent for every Hamas’ kill ratio in Gaza (see Jan. 11 post). He defended the right of columnists and cartoonists ‘to express their opinions, and this is exactly what happened in this case.’ KBRM responded:
KBRM is in full agreement with what Mr. Murphy has written in his response. Without a doubt columnists and cartoonists are employed to express their opinions. We also accept that the item in question appeared on a page labeled ‘Comment and Review’. What Mr Murphy has failed to do is address the basis for our appeal, which is that the item in question went beyond ‘opinion’ and presented a statement that was a factual error — indeed a statement that would be libelous if it were applied to a person... (read more)
Letter to Radio New Zealand
A KBRM member loses patience with RNZ's one-sided presentation of the conflict in Gaza across a number of its programmes, and pens a comment to the Sunday Programme.
I've asked myself how informed RNZ staff are of the constant violence and harassment Israel has has to put up with since virtually the day of its inception: from RNZ's coverage, you'd be little the wiser as to the background to Israel's actions in Gaza. Listening to Lynn Freeman the other day -- citing, among other things, alleged Israeli atrocities that had already been debunked -— I found myself wondering whether she was aware of even basic facts, including Hamas operatives firing upwards of 8,000 rockets into Israel over three years. Did RNZ ever report on this?... (read more)
Gisborne Herald prints KBRM article
The second in a series of articles to be used as the basis for KBRM advertisements was sent to eight newspapers and magazines. The Gisborne Herald, which had previously printed several highly-polarised articles, was the only one to use the article, printing an excerpt and posting the full article on their website. The printed excerpt reads, in part:
Defending Israel's right to exist
There have been recent accusations in New Zealand that Israel has no right to exist — that it's founding was either illegal or immoral or both. Here are some facts, missing or overlooked in such accounts, that may lead you to decide that Israel's existence has a sounder basis than that of most nations... (read more)
Gisborne Herald makes prompt correction
In the proof of the upcoming KBRM article in the Gisborne Herald (see Feb. 4 post), there was a sidebar claiming (incorrectly) that there was no Jewish presence in Palestine since Biblical times. KBRM responded immediately, and the correction was made in time.
...Please don't say that Jews ‘scattered throughout Europe during a series of persecutions’ without also saying that many stayed behind. Please don't say that Israel was formed ‘as the result of immigration on the part of European Jews‘ without adding that there were already 650,000 Jews there before the immigration. These are part of the current myths created by those who want to delegitimize Israel. ... (read more)
Tom Scott strikes again
The Dominion Post published a Tom Scott cartoon, ‘School Daze’, that showed three Palestinian children picking their way through a devastated classroom, saying: ‘Before we get on our high horse, remember this was an act of self-defence.’ ‘Yeah, our teachers must have been planning to shell one of their schools.’
‘Thank God they [the Israelis] never act out of rage or spite.’ It elicited three responses from KBRM members, none of which was published:
...Where is Scott''s cartoon portraying the Jewish Israeli children who have endured years of Palestinian suicide bombings and rocket and missile attacks on their families, their homes, their playgrounds and schools?... Where is his cartoon about Palestinian children draped in explosive belts, toting machine guns as their parents and teachers fill them with ‘rage and spite’ and train them to hate and kill their Jewish neighbours?... (read more)
Second KBRM article appears in Northern Advocate, draws support
On January 23, the Northern Advocate published a second article by KBRM member Michael Kuttner (see also Jan. 9 post). Instead of a deluge of oppositional mail, a supporting Guest Column appeared (see excerpt below). One wonders if the NZ public (or at least the Northland public) is perhaps not buying the vilification of Israel that is so common in the press.
...Did you read the guest column in last Friday's Northern Advocate? A totally truthful succinctly written explanation of why Israel is being misjudged about its response to Gaza terrorism... Michael Kuttner puts his finger with precision on the whole scene and it's all you need to know about it.... The world will realise, albeit slowly, the truth of the matter... (read more)
NZ Herald publishes uncorroborated charges
The New Zealand Herald published an article under the headline ‘Israel denies killing fleeing Gazans’ that was based on uncorroborated testimony of Palestinian civilians in Gaza who spoke to the BBC and the human rights group, B'tselem. ‘B'tselem said it had been unable to corroborate the testimony it had received, but felt it should be made public.’
This publication of unsubstantiated reports by the New Zealand Herald struck KBRM member Kirsty Walker as irresponsible journalistic practice. She wrote to the NZ Herald as follows:
In their reporting of the Mohammad al-Dura ‘affair’ and the Jenin ‘massacre’, the western media were fooled by Islamist groups, distributing reports and video footage that later proved to be exaggerations and misrepresentations of actual events. I would have hoped that the Herald would have learned from these embarrassing and damaging lapses in journalistic judgement. It would be responsible, ethical journalistic practice for the western media to wait, before reporting on events in the Middle East, until corroborated evidence emerges from Gaza, rather than distributing what may turn out to be deliberate misinformation. (read more)
First KBRM advert appears in Otago Daily Times
KBRM launched its advertising campaign, based on articles that were submitted for publication but rejected. The theme will be ‘The missing truth’, reflecting KBRM's goal of truth and balance in the media. The first in the series, based on the article published by The Press (see Jan. 7 post), was sent to four leading newspapers — Sunday Star-Times, NZ Herald, Dominion Post, and Otago Daily Times. The Otago Daily Times was the first to run the advert, under the caption:
Gaza: The Missing Truth
Israel's actions, founded on self-defence, are both legal and moral
On the same day, KBRM received two positive responses (and no negative ones) through the web site, including the following:
Hi to the balanced media folk,
Made my day/week/month etc. to come across your advert. in this morning's ( Jan. 22 ) ODT.
Then on to your computer site. Excellent, excellent, excellent.
Because of your going public like this, many people who are being ( often unknowingly ) brainwashed, will , hopefully, see the truth.
I'm absolutely sick of this anti-Israel bias. I angrily switch off the BBC when their constant bias is parroted.
Thanks again... (read more)
ODT fires double-barrelled blast at Israel
After several editorials in the Otago Daily Times that expressed a balanced point of view, an eruption of anti-Israel bias appeared in the World Focus section, including a diatribe by John Pilger and a Washington Post article that blamed Israel for the ‘humanitarian disaster in Gaza’. The KBRM chairman replied as follows:
...The first article by John Pilger is 2171 words long, accompanied by a photo shouting ‘CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.’ It states, among other things, ‘Palestine's right to exist was cancelled 61 years ago and the expulsion and, if necessary, extinction of the indigenous people was planned and executed by the founders of Israel.’ (The 1.4 million Palestinians living within Israel today surely give the lie to that.) The second article by Craig Whitlock has fewer words but more sympathy-evoking pictures. The first sentence sets the anti-Israel tone: ‘The humanitarian disaster in Gaza — hundreds of dead civilians, overflowing shelters, an acute shortage of anything to eat...’ Don't you think your readers are entitled to see both sides of the story?.. (read more)
The letter went on to suggest several articles that could be printed as a counterbalance, including two by KBRM members. Will the ODT do this? We'll see.
Southerners aren't buying the anti-Israel propaganda
The Southland Times of Invercargill, where the Turkish cafe incident occurred, published five letters that unanimously condemned the cafe owner for refusing to serve Israelis. Four out of five also expressed an understanding of Israel's actions, pointing out the role of Hamas in causing the conflict. As one of the letters stated:
...For the record: Hamas (the terrorist organisation governing Gaza) has been sending rockets into Israel for eight years to kill and terrorise men, women and children (not military targets) and they hide among their own civilians and use them for human shields, showing no respect for the lives of their own people. Their leader... urges them to keep killing Israelis. Only after eight years of provocation and long suffering has Israel decided now to deal with them. In short, if the Arabs lay down their weapons, there will be no fighting. If Israel lays down its weapons there will be no more Israel. (read more)
British army colonel defends Israel's actions in Gaza on BBC
The concern voiced by much of the media about casualties in Gaza has led to a spirited defence of Israel's actions, not only by KBRM members, but by a British Army Colonel on BBC (which has been among Israel's worst critics). Col. Richard Kemp, a former senior advisor to the British government on the Middle East, said,
...Israel doesn't have any choice other than to defend its own people.... I don't think there has ever been a time in the history of warfare when any army has made more efforts to reduce civilian casualties and deaths of innocent people than the IDF is doing today in Gaza... Hamas, the enemy that they are fighting, has been trained extensively by Iran and by Hizbollah to fight among the people, to use the civilian population in Gaza as a human shield, and they, Hamas, factor in the use of the civilian population as a major part of their defensive plan... (See YouTube video)
For KBRM letters, (read more)
Israelis ordered out of Turkish cafe in Invercargill
In Invercargill, the owner of the Mevlana Cafe ordered two women and their children out of his restaurant when he heard them speaking Hebrew and identified them as Israelis, saying ‘I have decided as a protest not to serve Israelis until the war stops.’ The owner of a neighbouring Turkish kebab shop sided with him, saying exactly the same thing. This provoked a storm of criticism, including a column by Michael Laws and a statement by the Human Rights Commissioner Joris de Bres. A cartoon in the Herald on Sunday perhaps expressed the point the best:
The cartoon showed a customer at the cafe saying, ‘Fine, I refuse to be served by a Muslim - as a silent protest against suicide bombers’. The owner responds, ‘That is blatant discrimination and a breach of human rights!! Joris de Bres will be hearing from me!!’. (read more)
Community newspaper in Dunedin interviews KBRM member
D-Scene, a weekly community newspaper in Dunedin owned by Fairfax published an interview with Simon Kuttner, a KBRM member:
...‘When your kindergartens and schools are being missiled and rocketed day after day, Israel has to do something. Israel is not indiscriminately shooting parents and children. They are going after terrorists who are using these people as human shields.’...
This was followed the next week by two angry letters, but responses to them the following week were not published. (read more)
Waikato Times uses interview with professor to attack Israel
Waikato University's Professor Dov Bing was interviewed by the Waikato Times about events in Gaza and Israel. Despite Prof. Bing's reasoned defence of Israel's actions, the WT put more emphasis on its own accusations, accompanied by a large photograph of a bloodied Palestinian on a stretcher in Gaza. In response, KBRM member Kirsty Walker wrote in an (unpublished) letter to the editor:
Professor Dov Bing... has an excellent understanding of the intricacies and subtleties of Arab/Israeli history and politics. Evidently, The Waikato Times' Bruce Holloway does not. ... If the Waikato Times is serious about wanting to inform its readership about important international events, it would do better to let experts, such as Professor Bing, speak for themselves. (read more)
SST cartoon falsely shows Israel killing ten ‘innocents’ for every Hamas agent
A cartoon by Bromhead in the Sunday Star-Times showed an Israeli soldier firing a machine-gun, saying ‘Ten innocents, one Hamas... twenty innocents, two Hamas...’ KBRM requested a correction, saying:
This is not only wrong, it is an inversion of the truth. Israeli forces don't relish killing civilians; they try to hold civilian casualties to as low a level as possible, even to the point of alerting occupants of an upcoming attack so they can evacuate. But apart from motivation, there is the numerical error that cries for correction. The actual number of civilians killed is hard to determine, but estimates range from around 35% (by Israe!) to 50% (by Palestinian authority) — a far cry from Bromhead's 10-to-1 ratio...
The SST refused, and KBRM appealed to the Press Council. (read more)
Michael Laws says ‘Israel is guilty of nothing but weak backhand’
The Sunday Star Times columnist Michael Laws countered some of the blame being heaped upon Israel by such people as John Minto, Catholic priest Gerard Burns who daubed his blood over a peace monument, and MP Keith Locke who accused Israel of war crimes.
‘...Almost without exception, liberals accept that the Israelis are the baddies. ....
The truth is considerably different. The Gaza Strip is a territory controlled by an Islamic fundamentalist faction that has sworn to wipe Israel from the planet. It has been doing its best by launching rockets at Jewish settlements, arming and directing suicide bombers, and ending the uneasy ceasefire...’
A week later the SST published a letter from a KBRM member: (read more)
Northern Advocate publishes KBRM article
The Northern Advocate (Whangarei), one of the better-balanced newspapers in its Mideast coverage, printed an article entitled ‘Why is Israel bombing Gaza?’, written by a member of KBRM. The article concludes with:
Until a peace-oriented Palestinian statesman finally arises with the courage to commit their people to a peaceful future with their neighbours, Hamas is probably here to stay. We can only feel sorry for the Palestinians doomed to ignorance and poverty, through fanaticism and war — the inevitable result of fundamentalist Islamic rule. (read more)
Letter exchange in the Waikato Times
Following the usual news reports in the Waikato Times that put the blame on Israel, a KBRM member wrote the following letter:
In 2005 Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in an attempt to exchange ‘land for peace’... The withdrawing Israelis left behind the remains of their homes, the infrastructure they had built and their synagogues.... What did the Palestinian leadership do with this land for peace ? They desecrated and burned the synagogues, ransacked and shattered the glasshouses. They turned what could have been a haven for the Palestinian people into a wasteland. Now they and their people are reaping what they, not Israel, have sown. (read more)
Hamas pays the price
When Israel, after enduring a wave of rocket attacks from Gaza, launched an offensive, there were many headlines and photos in the NZ media that emphasised civilian casualties and even accusations of a massacre. KBRM sent the following article to five leading NZ newspapers. It was published by only one, The Press. It began as follows:
The recent coverage of Israel's attack on Gaza has raised the questions of who is to blame, and what can be done about it. Readers confronted with headlines like ‘Slaughter in Gaza’ and photos of dead Palestinian children will naturally tend to see Israel as a strong nation attacking and killing defenceless innocent people.Ê Before jumping to that conclusion, however, here are some often-unreported facts that Kiwis should be aware of. (read more)
McCarten pulls the ‘race card’
In the Herald on Sunday, columnist Matt McCarten charged that the Israeli government ‘ordered in war jets to slaughter and mutilate hundreds of citizens trapped on the Gaza Strip... The Nazis used a similar policy during World War II in their occupied territories’. He then pulled the race card, saying ‘More people around the world are coming to see the Israeli state as an apartheid state... [Israel treats] the Palestinians in the same way blacks were in South Africa.’ This led to KBRM letters and complaints, such as:
... according to the New Zealand Human Rights Commission neither [Mr McCarten] nor the Herald on Sunday are entitled ‘to publish an inaccurate or misleading report which uses statements out of context or which omits qualifying or balancing words.’ You are also not entitled to publish material which is ‘abusive or insulting’ and likely to bring a group of people ‘into contempt, because of their race, colour, nationality or ethnicity...’ (read more)
