{"id":86258,"date":"2021-05-21T17:05:37","date_gmt":"2021-05-21T15:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=86258"},"modified":"2021-05-20T09:33:07","modified_gmt":"2021-05-20T07:33:07","slug":"28-05-61","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=86258","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s Talk About Reporting in War Zones"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Let\u2019s Talk About Reporting in War Zones<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n


\nLEE SMITH<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The Associated Press claims it never knowingly shared a building with Hamas in Gaza. Its own correspondents\u2014and former Obama administration officials\u2014know better.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

MAHMUD HAMS\/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES \/ The Jala Tower destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, May 15, 2021.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Over the weekend, the Israel Defense Forces demolished a building in Gaza that the Associated Press had shared with intelligence services of the Palestinian terror group Hamas. All of the AP reporters had been advised by the IDF to evacuate the building well before the strike, but that didn\u2019t stop a flood of righteous indignation after the bombing. \u201cAP\u2019s bureau has been in this building for 15 years,\u201d the wire service\u2019s head, Gary Pruitt, said in a statement. \u201cWe have had no indication Hamas was in the building or active in the building. This is something we actively check to the best of our ability. We would never knowingly put our journalists at risk.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This is dishonest: The AP reporters certainly knew they had Hamas neighbors. In fact, Tommy Vietor, former spokesperson for the National Security Council under President Barack Obama, even said as much on Saturday. \u201cI talked to someone who *used* to work out of that building periodically who said he believed there may have been Hamas offices there,\u201d Vietor tweeted. In other words, anyone who worked in the building on a regular basis understood that they likely shared an address with the Islamic Resistance Movement. Vietor also acknowledged on Twitter that terror groups \u201cpurposefully co-locate operations with civilians. But that is not a new problem.\u201d Terror groups use human shields, and the press apparently volunteers to shield them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing: There\u2019s nothing surprising about Western press organizations making arrangements with terror regimes. It happens all the time in the Middle East. CNN refrained from reporting on Saddam Hussein\u2019s atrocities in Iraq in order to keep its office in Baghdad open. The New York Times<\/em> famously led a tour group to the Islamic Republic of Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

This situation is even more overt and obvious in Gaza. The only reason a press outfit like the AP has to open a bureau there is to cover Hamas, but it\u2019s never been interested in reporting on how the group stores missiles in homes, schools, and hospitals, or on how little of the money it receives from Tehran goes to building civilian infrastructure or responsible governance. That\u2019s because the only story Hamas wants coming out of Gaza is about the fundamental evil of the Zionist entity. Through direct threats as well as fixers and minders appointed to steer journalists in the right direction, Hamas lets every press outfit and journalist in Gaza know that if they do not understand this fundamental angle, they are not welcome in Gaza. A reporter\u2019s life may even depend on understanding those red lines.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tablet contributor and former AP Jerusalem bureau correspondent Matti Friedman explained<\/a> the situation in a 2014 Atlantic <\/em>essay: \u201cI was informed by the bureau\u2019s senior editors that our Palestinian reporter in Gaza couldn\u2019t possibly provide critical coverage of Hamas because doing so would put him in danger.\u201d In this context, sharing building space with Hamas is like a pledge of good faith: We understand your terms, we mean you no harm, and to show that we will continue to abide by your rules, we will cement our relationship by living together as neighbors to share your triumphs and endure your trials.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why would Western journalists agree to be shepherded by a terror organization so driven by Jew-hatred that it hides behind innocent people and sees Palestinian deaths caused by its own rocket misfires as acceptable collateral damage? For the story, of course. Since Israel\u2019s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and the kidnapping of IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit in 2006\u2014roughly when the AP started renting space in the building it shared with Hamas\u2014that story has been war with Israel, including several sizable operations that Jerusalem has labeled Cast Lead (2009), Pillar of Cloud (2012), Protective Edge (2014), and now the current engagement. Since Western journalists cannot write critically of Hamas for fear of expulsion or even harm, their war reporting is usually nothing other than an amplification of Hamas propaganda. They are in Gaza only to relay to the rest of the world an Iranian-backed terror organization\u2019s messaging about its ongoing war with the Jewish state.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, there\u2019s something noteworthy about the latest AP story: If a former Obama administration official without a Middle East portfolio knew the AP shared a building with Hamas intelligence services, then the Obama alumni who now staff the Biden administration also know it. That\u2019s embarrassing not only for Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who phoned the head of the AP over the weekend, but also for President Joe Biden, who called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to complain about civilian casualties after the building was leveled. It gives the impression that the Biden team is coordinating with media operatives to lay down cover for a terror regime, which is probably why the Israeli government leaked<\/a> to the press that it briefed Biden and his colleagues on the \u201csmoking gun\u201d evidence showing that the AP and Hamas worked out of the same building.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, when Pruitt says that \u201cthe world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today,\u201d he is being disingenuous. It only means that one of Hamas\u2019 useful idiots in the American press was exposed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

Zawarto\u015b\u0107 publikowanych artyku\u0142\u00f3w i materia\u0142\u00f3w nie reprezentuje pogl\u0105d\u00f3w ani opinii Reunion’68,<\/em>
\nani te\u017c webmastera Blogu Reunion’68, chyba ze jest to wyra\u017anie zaznaczone.
\nTwoje uwagi, linki, w\u0142asne artyku\u0142y lub wiadomo\u015bci prze\u015blij na adres:
\n<\/em>webmaster@reunion68.com<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s Talk About Reporting in War Zones LEE SMITH The Associated Press claims it never knowingly shared a building with Hamas in Gaza. Its own correspondents\u2014and former Obama administration officials\u2014know better. MAHMUD HAMS\/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES \/ The Jala Tower destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, May 15, 2021. Over the weekend, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86258"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86258"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86276,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86258\/revisions\/86276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}