Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Middle East
August 31, 2009
‘Balance' in the ODT: Two anti-Israel pages; three sentence rebuttal’
The World Focus section of the Otago Daily Times featured a two page attack on Israel, calling it an ‘apartheid state’, with three colour photos. At least six letters of protest were written by KBRM members, but only one was published, after being abridged from 150 words (the suggested guideline) to 85 words:
I was dismayed to read your heavily biased ‘World Focus’ feature page about Israel (31/08/09). Rather than publishing two articles that balanced one another, allowing readers to gain an understanding of both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict, your paper presented only one side of the debate. The Otago Daily Times cannot pretend to be an objective or reliable source of news and information about the Middle East while it provides a soapbox for anti-Zionist apologists, rather than a forum for even handed debate and analysis.
The portion omitted read as follows:
Both Neve Gordon and Uri Davis are controversial figures in Israel and neither reflects the opinions of the majority of Israelis or the Israeli government. However, their views do support the anti-Zionist position of Fatah, Hamas and their international allies. Anti-Zionism, which vilifies the Jewish state, is a modern re-branding of traditional anti-Semitism. History is replete with the disastrous consequences of tolerating anti-Semitism, in any form.
KBRM letters not published include:
Those accusing Israel of being an Apartheid State (ODT 31 Aug) are either totally ignorant of the real situation or deliberately distorting the facts to suit their own extreme political agenda.
As a kiwi born resident of Israel for the last 18 years, I can attest that the allegation of "apartheid" is patently false. Having worked in one of the Capital's leading hospitals, I witnessed patients & staff from every sector of Israeli society being treated and providing treatment without the slightest hint of discrimination based on grounds of ethnicity, religion or skin colour. Arabs & Jews share wards and clinics on an equal basis, as is normal in any democratic society. Driving to work I share the roads with citizens of every background and on public transport I can vouch that nobody is denied access. Israel's Parliament contains members who are Moslems & Arabs and they are free to express their antipathy towards the Jewish State. That is the criteria of a democracy. Likewise freedom of worship which is a fundamental right in Israel.
I, as a Jewish Israeli, however, would be lynched if I dared to venture into Palestinian Arab territory. The civil rights enjoyed by all Israeli citizens certainly do not exist in Arab countries of the Middle East. So who are the real Apartheid States then?
Uri Davis is using the apartheid link to discredit Israel and hopefully gain support for a global uprising which was so successful in bringing about South Africa's downfall. The apartheid policy as operated by South Africa has no relevance to Israel and to keep calling for world sanctions against the Jewish state, because of this lie, is a sinister attempt to hide what is really going on in the Middle East. Israel stands alone against Islamic oppression, terrorism and expansionism. Uri Davis, himself a Jew who has defected to Islam for his own reasons, knows full well the history of the Jewish state and the aggression Israel has suffered and continues to suffer at the hands of militancy which is allowed to flourish in Palestine. Davis is himself an active member of Fatah having been elected to the Revolutionary Council so we can hardly expect an unbiased view of the Israeli-Palestinian problem from him.
I wish to protest your quite unbalanced World Focus section in last Monday's newspaper. Although you gave comprehensive coverage to the myth that Israel is an ‘Apartheid state,’ there was no counter-argument from a mainstream Israeli source. In the interests of fairness and free speech the ODT should give an equal amount of coverage to the Israeli point of view.
After publishing a two-page attack on Israel (World Focus, 31.8.09) as an ‘Apartheid state,’ (it is less apartheid than New Zealand), you found it necessary to abridge a single letter of rebuttal to only 85 words (‘Israeli conflict’, 11.9.09). Is that your idea of balance?
Uri Davis and Neve Gordon (World Affairs, 31/8) live in a country besieged by Islamic Jihadists whose sole purpose in life is to see Israel destroyed and her Jewish citizens driven out or annihilated. Yet Uri Davis and Neve Gordon and their families live in safety because their country has a strong security and defence system which is maintained with the sole purpose of keeping her citizens safe from harm from a people who are mired in a culture of hate and violence. These same people have had hundreds of millions of dollars in aid yet their leaders have chosen to squander it on weapons or to squirrel it away in private accounts, condemning them to a life of poverty and oppression by the Jihadists.
Uri and Neve also live in a democratic country where they enjoy total freedom of expression. I can't think of any single other country in the Middle East where such criticism of their country would be tolerated; indeed, these two people would very likely disappear, never to be seen again.