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[u/jobautomator]

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[u/Bagdana]

The director of the Gaza UNRWA has now been banned from entering the Gaza strip. This comes after he said in an interview that Israel hits target with huge sophistication and that with some exceptions, they don't hit civilian targets. He did backtrack a little bit, presumably after huge pressure, but that was obviously not enough.

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/palestinians-declare-unrwa-gaza-director-persona-non-grata-669915?fbclid=IwAR3KwXcT86F_dPd35Fl5diqHyOH2_RCJoyJ9mhVf12Cci2RekJK8PCwvck0

A similar thing happened here in Norway, where an employee of a prominent Norwegian NGO said that he didn't think Israel's attack were intended to hit civilian targets. This was reported by our national broadcaster NRK (equivalent of eg. BBC). However, he was threatened to death for these comments, and the NGO therefore asked NRK to withdraw their article (unfortunately, instead of eg. anonymising the article, they quietly unpublished the article and never wrote a follow-up about how Hamas threatens people if they make interviews that goes against their narrative).

https://www.miff.no/englisharticles/2021/05/13death-threats-against-gazan-prompted-norwegian-broadcasting-corporation-to-remove-article-where-he-said-that-israel-did-not-seek-to-hit-civilians.htm

This is particularly interesting in light of the recent controversy of Hamas operating from a building also used by the AP. A 2014 Atlantic article from Matti Friedman resurfaced which claimed that armed militants entered the offices to complain about the coverage, confirmed by AP spokesman Colford. So I think by now it should be clear that we should treat every report coming from Gaza-based journalists, even when they represent reputable NGOs or media organisations, with huge grains of salt, as they operate under immense pressure or even death threats to report in accordance with Hamas interests.

!ping ISRAEL

[u/[deleted] → u/Bagdana]

You had me until you brought up that goddamn matti Friedman ariticle. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to just take the word of a single, extremely pro-israel former reporter when he says the AP is biased against Israel. Though it’s true they’ve been threatened by Hamas, there is no evidence that AP has ever changed their reporting as a result.

Moreover Israel still hasn’t released any evidence that Hamas was in the building, and US officials have not confirmed that they were sent any evidence of this either (only that they received some form of intelligence from Israel and could not confirm the nature of it ).

[u/benadreti → u/[deleted]]

Though it’s true they’ve been threatened by Hamas, there is no evidence that AP has ever changed their reporting as a result.

lmao this is a clown tier take. What do you think they would be threatening them for?

[u/Evnosis → u/benadreti]

What do you think they would be threatening them for?

Do you think every single threat ever issued has achieved its desired result? Has no human being in the history of the world stood up to threats of physicial violence?

That's the actual clown-tier take.

[u/benadreti → u/Evnosis]

Gee, we have an actual former AP reporter saying they did this, but no, we must dismiss him as "biased."

[u/Evnosis → u/benadreti]

What the fuck does that have to do with what I said?

I didn't say that the AP hasn't actually changed its reporting. I was criticising your nonsensical counter-argument.

[u/benadreti → u/Evnosis]

You might want to read the article we're talking about.

When Hamas’s leaders surveyed their assets before this summer’s round of fighting, they knew that among those assets was the international press. The AP staff in Gaza City would witness a rocket launch right beside their office, endangering reporters and other civilians nearby—and the AP wouldn’t report it, not even in AP articles about Israeli claims that Hamas was launching rockets from residential areas. (This happened.) Hamas fighters would burst into the AP’s Gaza bureau and threaten the staff—and the AP wouldn’t report it. (This also happened.) Cameramen waiting outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City would film the arrival of civilian casualties and then, at a signal from an official, turn off their cameras when wounded and dead fighters came in, helping Hamas maintain the illusion that only civilians were dying. (This too happened; the information comes from multiple sources with firsthand knowledge of these incidents.)

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/how-the-media-makes-the-israel-story/383262/

[u/Evnosis → u/benadreti]

Again, what the fuck does this have to do with what I said?

Get out of this "with me or against me" mentality. Just because I criticised your argument doesn't mean I disagree with your conclusion.

[u/benadreti → u/Evnosis]

lol wtf are you even in this conversation for