Opinion - News Analysis   

Children in the crosshairs

— Photo: AP

UNPEOPLE: Palestinian school children hold up slogans against Israel during a demonstration near the UNICEF headquarters in Gaza City. For the individuals in the crosshairs of western violence, their human aspirations, hopes, dreams, loves and lives are simply of no value.

On the afternoon of Thursday 28 February, 2008, a group of Palestinian boys were playing football on some open ground near their homes in the Gaza Strip. At around 3.20 p.m., an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at the boys, killing four of them instantly and seriously injuring another three. The youngest of the dead was just 8 years old.

Palestinian human rights fieldworkers investigated the tragedy. They concluded there was no Palestinian resistance in the area at the time and that the boys “must have been clearly visible to the [Israeli] aircraft that fired the missile.”

Similar cases abound. A new study, published last month by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, reports that 68 children died in Gaza between June 2007 - June 2008. The report highlights the “deliberate targeting of civilians, including children.”

Guy Gabriel, an adviser to the London-based Arab Media Watch, told me that the group “is a credible organisation with a lot to commend it, and is better placed than many — in terms of location, resources and support — to inform the wider world about the situation in Gaza.”

A credible human rights group, then, had produced compelling evidence of a persistent pattern of deliberate Israeli targeting of Palestinian civilians, including children. Surely this would have been headline news everywhere?

Sadly no. In the entire media there has been a giant, gaping hole in coverage, with even the BBC maintaining a stoic silence.

One minor exception was a short piece in the Guardian by the Jerusalem-based journalist Rory McCarthy. But, crucially, his report made no mention of the Israeli military policy of deliberately targeting civilians, including children.

McCarthy did not respond to Media Lens or members of the public who emailed him to ask why his article had omitted such a key finding.

At least he did better than the “balanced” and “impartial” BBC. The corporation once again performed its usual role of protecting the powerful. Judging by the absence of the Palestinian human rights report from headline BBC news coverage and the BBC’s website, the corporation buried the report. As far as I can determine, the same shameful silence has characterised ITN and Channel 4 News.

By contrast, Al Jazeera aired a three-minute segment that included a moving interview with a bereaved Palestinian mother. There was also disturbing footage of injured and traumatised children, one of whom had seen his father killed by an Israeli missile.

I emailed Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s Middle East editor, and asked him why the BBC had done so little to bring this shocking human rights report to the public’s attention. Why had the BBC failed to expose a deliberate Israeli practice of targeting children? Bowen did not respond. Nor has he replied to other challengers who are unhappy with the BBC’s latest failings. One, a doctor, asked Helen Boaden, the BBC’s head of news:

“I find it a travesty that this information gets hidden from public view. As a paediatrician I have a responsibility to try to save and improve the quality of children’s lives. As a news organisation you also have a responsibility to inform us of such important findings and conclusions.”

But such silences and omissions in coverage of the Middle East are routine. They are symptoms of a deep-rooted bias that suppresses public awareness of the true gravity of Israel’s human rights abuses.

Greg Philo, of the renowned Glasgow Media Group, recently commissioned YouGov to ask a sample of 2,086 U.K. adults whether they thought more news coverage should be given to the Israeli point of view, or more to the Palestinians, or equal for both. Nearly twice as many people thought that the Palestinians should have the most as compared with the Israelis, but the bulk of the replies (72%) were that both should have the same. A staggering 95% of the population were unhappy with the main news output of the broadcasters.

I am reminded of the term “Unpeople,” the term coined by British historian Mark Curtis to describe those on the receiving end of the West’s policies, actions and massive firepower. For those unfortunate individuals in the crosshairs of western violence, their human aspirations, hopes, dreams, loves and lives are simply of no value.

(David Cromwell is co-editor ofMedia Lens ( www.medialens.org< http://www.medialens.org/>), a U.K.-based media analysis website. Guardians of Power: The Myth of the Liberal Media by David Edwards and David Cromwell was published in 2006 (Pluto Books, London). Their latest book, Media Insurrection, will be published next year.)

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

For better health
Learning from the EU
Take on this intellectual challenge
Children in the crosshairs
Guantánamo Bay: at last, justice — of a sort
Killers call the shots in ‘justice’ system
From home and away, advice for a first lady
Corrections and clarifications
J&K elections
Meaningful
Fighting terror
On Jamia Millia
Wanted, alternative

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu