Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Middle East Israel media bias dishonest reporting

October 17, 2009

Bias in Press letters becomes unbelievable

On Oct. 17, The Press printed a letter that defended the Lincoln University ‘Nazi’ party on the grounds that when confronted with horror and inhumanity, humour can be a valuable tool. The writer then added, ‘in the interests of maintaining a level playing field, for next year might I suggest a burlesque-themed Gaza strip’. The Letters Editor left this sentence in, just three days after he had deleted a mild reference to Israel as ‘the much maligned, multicultural, democratic, single Jewish State’ (see October 10 post). For the editor, it is not OK to say that Israel is much maligned, multicultural, and democratic (an obvious fact), but it is OK to suggest that Israel's actions in the Gaza strip are comparable to the Nazis' (demonstrably false). [The letter writer later contacted KBRM to explain that this sentence was meant humorously and not to suggest that Israel's actions in Gaza were really comparable to those of the Nazis. KBRM accepts this, but believes that many readers might take it otherwise.] The KBRM chairman complained to the editor-in-chief as follows, citing a long list of untruthful charges in the letters column (see posts of April 24, April 25, May 21, Aug. 7, Sep 23, Sep. 29 and Oct 10):

This letter is about accuracy in your newspaper. Every week you publish corrections, sometimes even minor ones. Should not the same concern apply to the letters column? Yes, it's harder to achieve, as the letters are not written by your staff, nor can Mr Vance, your letters editor, be expected to check all statements. Nevertheless, when false statements appear, especially if they are attacks on an individual or a group, should not there be a mechanism for correcting them? If, for example, someone wrote that ‘John Smith killed his two children’, and this was a false statement, would you not see that a correction was printed?

Of course accuracy can be a shiftier matter in controversial topics like the Middle East conflict. Yet even in the Middle East there are facts and truths, even if some people don't know them, or have come to believe the lies of others. KBRM believes that false charges against a nation or a religious group are harmful and should be corrected as soon as possible.

Below you will find five recent cases where false charges against Israel went uncorrected. Please note in particular the last item (Oct 17), which was so egregious that it led us to bring this problem to your attention.

Note: I have done my best to keep up with letters in The Press, but I may have missed something. If so, I can only offer an apology in advance.

I expect to be in Christchurch the week of Nov 2, and would be most happy to meet with you and Mr Vance about this matter. Please let me know as soon as possible.

Rodney Brooks, Chairman
Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Mideast (www.kbrm.org.nz)

April 24, 2009

A letter by G A Van Meurs made false charges against KBRM and false statements about Israel that demanded correction. As chairman of KBRM, I submitted the following letter:

G A Van Meurs may condemn anti-Semitism, but his words are the very embodiment of it. He calls facts favourable to Israel (as presented in KBRM ads) ‘propaganda’ from the Israeli lobby. Facts are facts, it is lies that are propaganda. Or perhaps he feels that only criticism of Israel should be allowed. By the way, KBRM is not part of any ‘Zionist lobby’; we are simply a group of people who believe that the truth about Israel needs to be told. Some of our most ardent and active members are Christian.
___ says that ‘any justified criticism of recent Israeli war crime... is branded as anti-Semitic’. KBRM has never made such a claim.
The next charge really goes beyond the pale. ___ thinks that Israel should not attack Iran — a country sworn to Israel's destruction that is on the verge of having a nuclear bomb — because it would cause ‘soaring oil and food prices’ in New Zealand. In other words, let the Jews die, as long as we have our food and oil. But no, this is not anti-Semitic.
___ calls the occupation of the West Bank ‘one of the longest, most cruel, brutal oppressions the world has known’. In fact, the West Bank is largely self-governing and the only ‘oppressions’ are the security barrier and checkpoints, both of which would be gone if there were no suicide bombings and other attacks. Every day millions of travelers pass through airport checkpoints without complaint, but when Israel (whose terrorist threat is infinitely greater) installs them, ___ calls it ‘oppression’
The charge that ‘journalists are banned by the Israelis from the West bank’ is a real whopper.* Perhaps ___ doesn't read the newspapers.
After all that, ___ says that condemning Israel war crimes and violations of international law and human rights are different from anti-Semitism. To me, 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?

I even documented my statement about journalists in the West Bank with the following:

*This statement was checked with a journalist from the Washington Post, who responded as follows:
I haven't worked in Israel since Dec 2007 but I'm certain journalists can work in the West Bank (I was foreign editor until March 2009 so would have known if our correspondent couldn't work there.) And yes there is coverage of the Israeli occupation.
Regards, scott

My letter was not accepted, nor was any other letter published to refute Mr Van Meurs. To my knowledge, his false charges remain uncorrected.

May 21, 2009

The Press ran a Moreu cartoon on the letters page that showed Israel's PM deliberately misinterpreting US Pres. Obama's instructions as: ‘He said to evict all Palestinians so the land can't be considered occupied’. While there is some humour here, many people read statements in cartoons and believe them. The truth is that Israel has no intention of evicting Palestinians, but it is the aim of Hamas, as stated in its Covenant, to evict all Israelis. Two KBRM members wrote letters:

As usual, Mike Moreu (cartoon, May 21) doesn't understand the Middle East conflict; in fact, he has it upside-down. It is not Israel that wants a land free of Palestinians — there are 1.4 million Palestinians living peacefully within Israel. It is the Palestinians who want a land free of Jews and who have conniptions every time a house is built in a Jewish village (which they also don't want). Regardless of whether this house-building is a good or bad idea, houses don't kill people; rocket attacks kill people. Houses can be torn down, but people cannot be brought back to life. The Middle East conflict will end only when the Palestinian terrorist groups give up their attacks and their goal of destroying Israel.

Mike Moreu's cartoon (21 May) about the meeting between Barak Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu is a distortion of the truth.
‘Ethnically cleansing’ the West Bank of Palestinian Arabs is not Israeli government policy and Prime Minister Netanyahu has not given any statement promoting such an idea. For Mr Moreu to suggest that this is Mr Netanyahu's or the Israeli government's position is libellous.
When Jordan occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967, they ‘ethnically cleansed’ the area of Jewish communities, many of which had existed for centuries. Jordan denied Jews access to their holy sites, including the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem. Despite this, when Israel regained control of East Jerusalem in 1967 they allowed Arabs to maintain their control of the Jewish Temple Mount.
It is Israel's Arab neighbours, not the Jewish state, who have a long history of ‘ethnically cleansing’. It is the leaders of these same Arab states, not Benjamin Netanyahu, who have publicly declared their intention to repeat that history.

These letters were rejected by Mr Vance, who said The Press was ‘not debating Israel at the moment’. (The fact that Moreu's cartoon had re-opened the debate didn't seem to bother him). And so the false charge in Moreu's cartoon remains uncorrected.

August 7, 2009

However when Moreu drew a cartoon that showed the President of Iran holding a sign saying, ‘Death to Israel’, Mr Vance allowed two letters to be published one complimentary and one critical. The critical letter called Moreu's depiction ‘baseless’, although it is demonstrably true. I submitted a letter of correction as follows:

Andrew Nichols (Aug. 7) claims that Moreu's cartoon of Aug. 6 was ‘baseless caricaturing’. While caricaturing is usually a cartoonists stock-in-trade, Moreu's cartoon was spot on in its depiction of Pres. Ahmadinejad of Iran holding a sign saying ‘Death to Israel!’. At a 2005 conference titled ‘The World Without Zionism’, Ahmadinejad said ‘...I need to thank you for choosing this valuable title for the conference... They say it is not possible to have a world without the United States and Zionism. But you know that this is a possible goal and slogan.... Our dear Imam said that the occupying regime [referring to Israel] must be wiped off the map [removed from the pages of history may be a better translation] and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine... The issue of Palestine is not over at all. It will be over the day a Palestinian government, which belongs to the Palestinian people, comes to power.’ If this is not saying ‘Death to Israel!’, I don't know how much clearer he could be. New Zealanders should not close their eyes to this evil.

Mr. Vance replied that the two letters — one praising and the other criticising the cartoon — were enough. And so the false statement in Mr Nichols' letter remains uncorrected.

September 29, 2009

A letter by Stephen Meikle accused Israel of genocide while stating ‘if Israelis claim the Land of Israel they can do so only from the Bible’. (For ‘balance’ it was accompanied by a shorter letter from me that compared the US's and Israel's war against terrorism). Four KBRM members wrote letters correcting his outrageously false statements:

Stephen Meikle's criticism of Israel is misplaced. His assertion that the Jewish people's claim to Israel is based solely on the Bible demonstrates an ignorance of the continuous Jewish presence in the Holy Land, spanning three millennia, despite the efforts of successive historical empires to dispossess them of their sovereign territory. Even following the Roman expulsion, thriving Jewish communities continued to exist in their ancient homeland, renamed ‘Palestine’.
In more recent times, Arabs destroyed many ancient Jewish communities, such as those in Hebron and East Jerusalem. Despite this, Arab Israelis have full rights as Israeli citizens, making 20 % of the population and demonstrating the kindness to ‘aliens within the land’ commanded in the Bible.
The Jewish people have a Biblical, an historical, and even a 1947 United Nations mandate to possess the land of Israel. Not even Mr Meikle can claim such a strong mandate to dwell in his homeland.

I am sure that Stephen Meikle knows better and if he does not perhaps he should do some more research.
It is not necessary to be a Bible believer. There is ample evidence from other sources to prove that the Jews were sovereign in their own land well before the advent of Islam and Christianity & despite expulsions and pogroms they maintained a continual physical presence in Israel. Legal recognition of the Jewish People's right to their ancient homeland was given by the international community after the First World War and later by the United Nations. That is more than can be said for the British Colonial authorities when they claimed NZ for the Crown. All Israeli citizens regardless of their ethnic or religious origins have full protection of civil rights, which is more than exists in most Arab regimes.

Stephen Meikle (Sept 29) may claim not to be anti-Semitic, but he certainly spread a lot of falsehoods about Jews. His statement that Israel's claim to the land comes ‘only from the Bible’ ignores the documented, continuous presence of Jews well past Biblical times. It also ignores the international authorisation for Israel's creation. (Incidentally, New Zealand has neither of these justifications for its existence). The Palestinians who left in 1948 fled from a war started by the Arabs, while the Jews in Arab-controlled areas were driven out or killed. The 1.4 million Arabs (today) who didn't leave are indeed treated fairly and with ‘kindness’ — a lot better than NZ's ‘aliens’ were treated during the world wars. Finally, to say the German ‘crime against humanity’ was simply to drive Jews out of their homes is beyond ludicrous.
It's a shame that the letters column, which should be a forum for informed debate, is being used as a vehicle to spread insidious lies about the one Jewish nation.

Stephen Meikle's factually bereft and overblown attack on Israel (29 Sept) is astonishing. If he wants to talk ‘irony’ he should be mindful that the ‘Hebrew God’ he uses to chastise Israel is the very same invoked for centuries by Christians to justify their persecution, ghettoization and massacres of the Jewish people.
His attempts to delegitimize and demonise Israel, while toying with the semantics of genocide, reveal a distressingly naive evaluation of current Middle Eastern realities as well as a dearth of historical perspective.
Jews returned to Palestine, where a de facto Jewish homeland had continuously existed, following the vicious Russian and Eastern European pogroms of the 1880s and early 1900s and subsequently the Holocaust. It was a sanctuary, not a Biblical fantasy. Their right to live in Palestine was enshrined in International Law, first by the League of Nations and then by the UNO. Other massacres, e.g of the Armenians, convinced post WW1 leaders like Woodrow Wilson that all peoples must have a homeland. The Holocaust, which Palestinian Arabs condoned, supported this conviction.
The Palestinians who lost their homes did so within a context of war initiated by them and their Arab neighbours. At the same time almost a million Jews were expelled from their homes in neighbouring Arab states and Israel absorbed them all. None ever received compensation for the loss of their homes and livelihoods.
At least the Palestinians need have no moral qualms. Their holy book exhorts them to ‘kill Jews wherever they find them’.

None of these were printed, but Mr Vance wrote to me that a letter ‘attacking Mr Meckler's views’ would be published. I replied:

Thanks for letting me know, Michael. Is there any chance you could tell me what date it will appear?
But please understand that it is not Meikle's ‘views’ that concern me and KBRM; it is the falsehoods in his letter. As a journalist, I'm sure you recognise the difference. For example, one is free to say ‘I hate John Doe and I hope he dies an early an unpleasant death’, but if that person says ‘John Doe killed six children’ when he did not, that is a serious error that should be corrected as soon as possible.
Mr Vance did not respond, and no such letter has appeared, to my knowledge. And so Mr Meikle's false charges remain uncorrected.

October 17, 2009

Now we come to the most outrageous example of all -—the one that caused KBRM to bring this issue to your attention. On October 10 a news item and photo were published about a Palestinian zoo where donkeys were painted with stripes to look like zebras. The text contained inaccurate statements to make it appear that Hamas was "resisting" Israeli aggression. A KBRM member submitted the following letter:

It is disconcerting that Palestinian zoos show children donkeys disguised by paint to look like zebras. (Oct. 10) Donkeys lives are cheap in Palestine and they are fed to other zoo animals when not wanted and often beaten, abused and abandoned by their owners. Perhaps this is a result of fundamentalist Muslims justifying cruelty by a medieval religion which teaches that the devil got in Noah's ark on the tail of a donkey (Tabari I:360 ‘... When Noah brought the donkey in, Lucifer attached himself to its tail, ...’). A UK registered charity for donkeys (www.safehaven4donkeys.org) from both Palestine and Israel is located in Israel, the much maligned, multicultural, democratic, single Jewish State. Faking zebras is just a tiny reflection of the treachery practiced by Hamas and Iran to deceive and destroy Western values.

The letter was rejected because Mr Vance said that he didn't want to ‘reopen the Hamas debate at the moment’ (despite the fact that the news item had, so to speak, reopened it). The letter writer then deleted the last sentence that referred to Hamas and resubmitted the letter. This time it was accepted but, although it was well within the 150-word limit, Mr Vance deleted the reference to Israel (in red above) as ‘the much maligned, multicultural, democratic, single Jewish state’ — a completely true and, one would think, harmless statement! There was not even a statement that the letter had been abridged. But wait, this isn't all.

Three days later a letter by Wade Churton was printed that equated Israel's actions in Gaza with Nazism!

Thus a harmless truth — that Israel is much maligned, multicultural, and democratic — was not permitted, but it was OK to equate Israel with Nazi Germany — a harmful and factually incorrect attack that does damage not only to Israel, but by extension to the Jewish community.

In conclusion, Mr Holden, there is a disturbing pattern here that KBRM believes must be remedied. Opinions are opinions, but facts are facts. These false charges should not appear in your newspaper, and if they do, they should be corrected. I have some suggestions as to how this could be done, and would be happy to discuss them with you if a meeting can be arranged.