Video of a Hamas Rocket Team firing beside a hotel

Hey, Jon! I remember your routine about the difference between journalists reporting from Gaza and reporting from Israel. You know, the one with the reporter in Gaza in a flak jacket and the reporter in Israel looking like he's on vacation?

How about a follow-up on this reporter from India, and his four-minute video of Hamas assembling and firing a rocket from beside his hotel?




Loads of comedy potential there, right?

WSJ: Palestine Makes You Dumb

I've been wondering about this point, too -

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, "Palestine Makes You Dumb"

Consider the media obsession with the body count. According to a daily tally in the New York Times, as of July 27 the war in Gaza had claimed 1,023 Palestinian lives as against 46 Israelis. How does the Times keep such an accurate count of Palestinian deaths? A footnote discloses "Palestinian death tallies are provided by the Palestinian Health Ministry and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs."

OK. So who runs the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza? Hamas does. As for the U.N., it gets its data mainly from two Palestinian agitprop NGOs, one of which, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, offers the remarkably precise statistic that, as of July 27, exactly 82% of deaths in Gaza have been civilians. Curiously, during the 2008-09 Gaza war, the center also reported an 82% civilian casualty rate.

When minutely exact statistics are provided in chaotic circumstances, it suggests the statistics are garbage. When a news organization relies—without clarification—on data provided by a bureaucratic organ of a terrorist organization, there's something wrong there, too.

Go to the article for more.

Reporters make good human shields, too

(h/t Jewish Press, via my friend from Chicago)

Journalists threatened by Hamas

Sometimes the news is uncomfortable, and we'd prefer not to hear about it - or not to have the world hear about it. Unfortunately, in a democracy (=Israel), there isn't much you can do about it. In Gaza, on the other hand, you have options...

So it is that Gabriele Barbati had to wait until he was out of Gaza to tweet:
Out of #Gaza far from #Hamas retaliation: misfired rocket killed children yday in Shati. Witness: militants rushed and cleared debris

10:46 AM - 29 Jul 2014

and

@IDFSpokesperson said truth in communique released yesterday about Shati camp massacre. It was not #Israel behind it

10:47 AM - 29 Jul 2014

And Wall Street Journal reporters Tamer El-Ghobashy and Nick Casey tweeted photos indicating that damage to a hospital was caused by Hamas rockets, and that Hamas was using said hospital as a base of operations - and then they deleted the tweets.

Want to know more? Look at the Jerusalem Post's article here.

Journalists in Gaza

Here's an interesting piece; I hope they will add more to it during the day:

ABC Goes Inside Gaza with an Israeli Armored Unit

“The Cruel Lady” rolled along.

That’s the nickname the Israeli soldiers use to describe their armored personnel carrier, or APC – it’s basically an oven on wheels. ABC News traveled into Gaza on an APC with troops from the Israeli Defense Forces’ 188 Armored Brigade today, witnessing a rarely-seen side of Israel’s conflict with Hamas, now in its third week.

The soldiers in “The Cruel Lady” were accompanied by two tanks, all under the command of Col. Tomer Ifrah...