Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Middle East
March 2, 2008
A twisted Headline
The Sunday Star-Times ran a Guardian article under the headline Israel warns of ‘holocaust’, implying a comparison of Israel's defensive actions against rocket attacks with the Jewish holocaust. KBRM sent the following letters to the editor:
Headlines are important; they often are the only thing read. Your headline Israeli warns of ‘holocaust’, March 2, 2008, gave a completely wrong impression. The Israeli defence official quoted used the word ‘shoah’ which, as the article itself makes clear, means ‘disaster’, as distinct from hashoah which refers to the holocaust... The actual quote was, ‘As the [Palestinian] rocket fire grows, and the range increases... they are bringing upon themselves a greater disaster because we will use all our strength in every way we deem appropriate.‘
The fact is (and it is a fact), Israeli troops are always under orders to direct fire only at military targets, and to avoid civilian damage if possible. This is hard to do when the terrorists embed themselves among civilians. The Hamas government of Gaza, on the other hand, is trying to kill as many Jewish civilians as possible by bombarding homes, schools and hospitals; their charter makes no bones about their goal. Yet when Israel bombs a rocket launching site that was deliberately placed in a civilian area, the Palestinians cynically cry ‘civilian casualties’ and the world screams ‘holocaust’.
Your headline had it backwards. It is Hamas that has threatened and is trying to perpetrate a holocaust.
Rodney Brooks, Chairman
Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Mideast
I refer to your headline, Israeli warns of ‘holocaust’ (2 March 2008). The media need to comprehend that the only people currently interested in a genocidal ‘Holocaust’ are Hamas and their terrorist associates. They have repeatedly declared, in the most lurid terms, their intention to murder all Jews and destroy the state of Israel.
Israel's Matan Vilnai spoke of a potential ‘shoah’ (catastrophe) that Hamas is deliberately provoking by continually firing on Israeli civilian targets. His words appear to have been cynically misconstrued and mistranslated to echo those of his Hamas enemies, yet Vilnai was not speaking about systematic genocide or mass murder. He was simply stating that if Israel retaliated with all its military strength against Hamas, the effect would be a catastrophe (shoah) for terrorist-ruled Gaza. The fact that Israel has not retaliated with anything like its full military capacity against a terrorist entity that has killed and maimed Israeli civilians for years, demonstrates that Israel is not interested in instigating a disaster, let alone a repetition of the Holocaust ((‘Ha Shoah’, ‘The Catastrophe’(.
Perhaps the media should analyse some of the overtly anti-Semitic hate speech that comes out of Gaza, before they misinterpret the words of Israel's representatives.
Yours faithfully
Kirsty Walker
The chairman's letter was printed, but with the important second half omitted. Three more letters were submitted in an attempt to remedy this omission, culminating in the following letter to the principal editor, Cate Brett:
March 29, 2008
Dear Ms Brett,
I thought the Sunday Star-Times Letters column was a forum where a variety of views could be expressed, as long as they are expressed reasonably.
On March 5, I submitted a letter in rebuttal of a March 2 article entitled Israeli warns of ‘holocaust’. In my letter I pointed out that Israeli forces direct fire only at military targets, unlike the Hamas terrorists who target civilians, and that it is Hamas, not Israeli that is threatening a ‘holocaust’.* These facts (and they are facts) are not often found in your newspaper — letters column or elsewhere.
However when you published the letter (March 9) you omitted the part described, leaving only the first paragraph which, by itself, amounted to nothing more than a semantic quibble. This was not because of length; at 200 words my letter would still have been among the shorter ones on the page. I then submitted three more letters (110, 95, and 140 words, respectively) containing the same points and each was rejected.
Yet when I suggested to Donna Chisholm, your letters editor, that the SST doesn't want its readers to learn these facts, she denied it. I claim that actions speak louder than words; you have prevented your readers from seeing these facts. And remember, we're not talking about a trivial issue; we're talking about one of the major world crisis areas.
Now I understand that your newspaper has no obligation to print any letter, and that you have the right to edit them. However I point out that NZ newspapers, including yours, are quick to publish feature articles accusing Israel of every possible 'sin' and highlighting the 'suffering' of Palestinians, while Israel's side of the picture gets precious little ink.
I appeal to you to reconsider this decision. I also would be happy to discuss the matter with you over a cup of coffee at some later date.
Sincerely,
Rodney Brooks
Chairman,
Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Mideast
* Here is the portion of the original letter that was omitted:
The fact is((and it is a fact), Israeli troops are always under orders to direct fire only at military targets, and to avoid civilian damage if possible. This is hard to do when the terrorists embed themselves among civilians. The Hamas government of Gaza, on the other hand, is trying to kill as many Jewish civilians as possible by bombarding homes, schools and hospitals; their charter makes no bones about their goal. Yet when Israel bombs a rocket launching site that was deliberately placed in a civilian area, the Palestinians cynically cry ‘civilian casualties’ and the world screams ‘holocaust’.
Your headline had it backwards. It is Hamas that has threatened and is trying to perpetrate a holocaust.