After more than 15 months of extensive news coverage frequently depicting Israel in the worst possible light, it seems that leveling accusations against the Jewish State are becoming increasingly second nature for many reporters and editors.
In late December, a number of news media outlets reported that Israel had set fire to a hospital in the Gaza Strip.
A CBC News headline blared originally on December 27: “Israel forcibly evacuates north Gaza hospital, leaving it on fire” and was later parred down to: “Israeli army forcibly evacuates north Gaza hospital, staff out of contact, Health Ministry says”. The next day, the Toronto Sun headlined a print edition story by reporting that “Israeli troops clear, torch Gaza Strip hospital.” The Toronto Star, for its part, shared a headline which read that “Israeli soldiers burn a hospital in Gaza,” and CTV News, not to be outdone, published a headline of its own: “Israeli troops burn north Gaza hospital after forcibly removing staff and patients, officials say.”
Click below for larger images of news headlines:
Even of these four headlines, only CTV News offered an attribution to “officials,” though readers would have to read the article to find out that those supposed authorities were none other than members of the Hamas-run “Gaza Health Ministry,” hardly a reputable outfit. As for the other three, they presented Hamas claims not as just that – claims – but as facts that were unassailable.
However, the assertion that Israel had set fire to a hospital in Gaza, while certainly consistent with much of the outlandish allegations made against Jerusalem by its detractors in recent months, is similarly unfounded.
The same day, Nadav Shoshani, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, stated that Israeli forces were operating “in the area of Kamal Adwan hospital” in Gaza, adding that “while IDF troops were not in the hospital, a small fire broke out in an empty building inside the hospital that is under control.”
The difference between Israeli soldiers setting fire to a hospital and then promptly leaving, versus a fire breaking out in an empty building where there were no Israeli soldiers present, is enormous. But rather than seek to find the truth, or even present both sides, a preponderance of news sources decided to treat Hamas’ claims as de facto truth.
Conversely, news outlets are certainly not obligated to treat Israeli assertions as true, but they are required to treat them with at least as much credibility as claims from a recognized terrorist organization Hamas.
But as has become the de rigeur practice in many corners of Canadian reporting on the Middle East, Hamas’ claims are treated as being de facto true, while Israel’s statements – if they are even mentioned at all – are typically presented under a cloud of suspicion.
The consequences of uncritically repeating allegations hostile to Israel – whether it is regurgitating unfounded statements that an Israeli airstrike killed two young women waiting to do their PhD at the University of Waterloo, or acting as stenographers for Hamas propaganda in claiming that Israel bombed a hospital in Gaza, killing 500 innocent people, more news media outlets must take far more responsibility for what they report.
