Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Middle East

January 15, 2009

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:

Land for peace

In 2005 Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in an attempt to exchange "land for peace" with the Palestinian Authority.
The withdrawing Israelis left behind the remains of their homes, the infrastructure they had built and their synagogues. Extensive glasshouses and irrigation facilities were also left to provide on-going employment for Palestinians.
What did the Palestinian leadership do with this land for peace? They desecrated and burned the synagogues, ransacked and shattered the glasshouses.
They allowed Hamas to govern them, a terrorist organisation that terrorises even Palestinians who dare to speak or act against them.
They squandered millions of dollars of Israeli and international aid, buying weapons to use against Israel, instead of food and medicine for their children.
They turned homes, schools and mosques into weapons stores and rocket launching sites, targeting Israeli civilians.
They were offered land and peace they chose hatred and conflict.
Israel gave peace a chance in Gaza in 2005.
The Palestinian leadership took and ravaged the land, but gave no peace to Israel in return.
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.

Kirsty Walker

The following letter in response was published eight days later:

One-sided claims

I am not a Hamas or Fatah supporter, but something needs to be said in response to the one-sided claims of Kirsty Walker.
The Gaza Strip was handed over to the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (unelected) and Hamas won a subsequent election...
The glasshouses of which Kirsty Walker speaks were rendered useless by water restrictions imposed by Israel and many of the houses were destroyed by departing Israeli settlers themselves.
The Gaza Strip has never been a ‘haven’ for anyone, witness the mass spillover into Egypt early in 2008 and many people would also dispute the claim that Israel was attempting to trade land for peace...
I hope your readers will be able to do some research of their own and come up with a more balanced view of the Middle East conflict. (Abridged)

Richard Jones

In fact, a little web research easily disclosed that Kirsty was right and Richard wrong, as was stated in the following KBRM reply:

Richard Jones’ letter (17.01.09) contains many factual errors — inversions of the truth. Hamas did not come to power in Gaza by winning an election; it seized power in a bloody civil war against Fatah (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-06-14-gaza_N.htm). The greenhouses were not destroyed by settlers and rendered useless by water restrictions. They were bought by American Jewish donors from Israeli settlers for $14 million and donated to the Palestinians, who proceed to scavenge and loot them (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-09-13-mideast_x.htm). Israel's security barrier is not ‘illegal’, every country is allowed to protect itself from suicide bombers and other attacks. If Mr Jones ‘disputes’ the claim that Israel's evacuation of Gaza was an attempt to trade land for peace, he might offer an alternative motive (there is none).
But the real problem is that he completely missed the point of Kirsty Walker's letter (9.1.09). Ms Walker was obviously trying to tell readers why Israel attacked Gaza — reasons usually not presented or given short shrift by NZ newspapers. It is the lack of these facts, coupled with the untruths spread by anti-Israel writers, that have caused many Kiwis to see Israel as acting out of sheer hatred, rather than self-defence. ‘A lie told often enough becomes the accepted truth.’

Rodney Brooks,
Chairman Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Mideast