In an article about Israel’s partial closure of Gaza, Jeffrey Goldberg observes that there’s a lack of background provided by Reuters.
What else is missing from this description? Israel “left” Gaza in 2005. Then what happened? Did Gaza take the billions in aid it received from donor nations and build itself into a new Abu Dhabi? Or did Hamas use the abandoned Jewish settlements of Gaza as launching pads for rocket attacks on civilians inside Israel? Who can know? Certainly not people who read Reuters.
Goldberg refers to the omissions as a sign of bias. Instapundit disagrees:
The term “bias†suggests that they report things based on their prejudices. But while that’s often true, I think it’s become clear that they report things based on political calculation, and an effort to deceive.
There’s another point worth mentioning: How much of a blockade is really in effect? After observing that Israel does allow a lot of “basic goods” into Gaza, Israel Matzav notes:
Some ‘blockade.’ The only things they keep out are the things Hamas could turn into weapons.
This is consistent with a quote I found last year.
One man interviewed by Mr. Eranger claims that the Israeli military seems to know the difference between the two kinds of tunnels:
Muhammad al-Zarb said that the Israelis somehow seemed to know which tunnels were commercial and which were run by Hamas, and that they seemed to be selective in their bombing. “If someone has a tunnel for Chipsy, it seems O.K.,†he said. “When a Hamas guy has a tunnel for weapons, they bomb it.â€
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
