Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Middle East

September 21, 2007

Anti-Israel letter in the Listener breaks ‘rule of equality’

Having refused to publish any letters protesting Lloyd Geering's article (see August 31 post) , the NZ Listener broke its own announced policy of ‘equal space for each side ’ by publishing a long rebuttal letter to David Zwartz's article. KBRM protested as follows:

Dear Ms Stirling,
In the Sept. 8 issue of the Listener, you implied that the reason for not publishing any letters protesting Lloyd Geering's anti-Israel article was that you published David Zwartz's article in response. Apparently you felt that ‘equal space for each side ’ was the proper way to go. KBRM regretted the large number of errors and half-truths in Geering's article (we counted 17) that remained uncorrected, but then, who can argue with ‘equal space for each side ’?

Imagine our surprise, then, when we found an anti-Israel letter in this week's Listener rebutting Zwartz's article. And at 450 words it was more than a third the length of Zwartz's article!! So much for ‘equal space for each side ’.

KBRM believes in balanced coverage of the Middle East, and this is clearly not balance. We also believe in truth, and Graeme Ball's letter presented further errors and half-truths that should be corrected. Finally, we believe (or hope) that you, as editor of an outstanding magazine, must feel the same way.

Would you be so kind as to inform KBRM how you intend to rectify this matter? Can KBRM help? Will the Listener publish a 450-word letter from KBRM in response?

Sincerely,
Rodney Brooks, KBRM

When no reply was received, KBRM submitted the following letter for publication as a letter to the editor. The letter was held to the same length (450 words) as the Sept. 22 letter. It was not published.

Dear Editor,
Given an article (‘Sitting on a time bomb ’, Aug. 11) and a letter (‘Peace for Palestine ’, Sep. 22) that accuse Israel of oppression and immorality, while another article (‘Eyeless in Gaza ’, Sep. 8) defends Israel, how can the ordinary punter know who's right? One way is to ask who has the facts straight. According to an analysis at www.kbrm.org.nz (Aug. 25 post ), the first article contained 17 factual errors. Ignorance can often lead to wrong conclusions.

Here is the truth about the most common misconceptions:

Israel's founding Israel was created in 1948 by the UN partition of British-administered territory that previously belonged to the Ottoman Empire and that contained both Arab and Jewish communities. It is not unusual for a country to be created on land that contains other inhabitants (as New Zealand and Australia can testify). While sovereignty was passed to Israel, no Arab land was taken and today one million Arabs in Israel live on their land. Israel even created a commission to safeguard land vacated by Arabs who fled from the war started by the Arab invasion of Israel.

Settlements Israeli settlements in the West Bank have not harmed any Palestinians or (with few exceptions) taken any Arab land. They are mostly built on unoccupied land or land that was purchased. They do not represent a claim to sovereignty, nor do they establish borders; both issues remain negotiable until a final peace agreement is reached. (The concept of a Judenfrei nation was presumably buried with Nazi Germany.) It should be noted that no one protests the many Arab villages within Israel.

Checkpoints and walls The West Bank security barrier and checkpoints are there to provide security for Israelis, not to harass Palestinians, and have proven nearly 100% effective at preventing suicide bombings and other attacks. While they impose hardship on Arabs, so do airport security and border checkpoints on travellers. Anyway, these measures would disappear if the Arabs abandoned their attacks and accepted a Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel.

Military actions Since 1948 Israel has fought five defensive wars against Arab nations that wanted to destroy it, and suffered countless terrorist and rocket attacks made with the same goal. Israel has responded to these attacks with strikes aimed at the terrorists, but it is impossible to avoid civilian casualties when terrorists operate from and hide within civilian areas. New Zealand, a country that held an Algerian Arab with suspected terrorist ties in jail for years, can have no idea what this constant ‘rain ’ of terror is like.

These points should be borne in mind if and when Israel takes further action against Gaza militants who have bombarded schoolyards and killed and wounded hundreds of Israelis,

Rodney Brooks, Chairman KBRM