Sunday 25 January 2009

Sky's hypocricy.

Israel was accused by Sky News of deliberately targeting civilians with the use of white phosphorous during the recent Gaza conflict.
This accusation was repeatedly inflicted on Sky viewers throughout the weekend.
This disproportionate act of false reporting took on a more serious tone as Sky openly accused Israel of war crimes.

Sky failed to report from inside Gaza of the proven war crimes, and crimes against humanity, of Hamas by using civilians, including children, as human shields. Their reporters, inside Gaza, failed to report in any details on the regular use by Hamas of buildings including schools, mosques, and UN facilities to fire rockets into Israel.
Neither did they report at all on Hamas fighters killing, torturing, and imprisoning other Palestinians suspected of belonging to the rival Fatah faction.

In fact, Sky News prefers to portray all Palestinians as civilians as if Israel's fight was not against a radical Islamic regime guilty of decades of crimes against humanity.

During the same weekend the BBC World Service put out a cursory report stating that British forces in Afghanistan had reportedly killed fifteen Taliban fighter linked to Al Qaida. Other reports claimed that all the dead were innocent civilians, including women and children.

Does this sound familiar?

Why doesn't Sky News send Dominic Waghorn from Gaza to Afghanistan to report from the Afghani side of the conflict?
He will surely discover that British forces regularly fire all sorts of munitions into civilian areas populated by tribal fighters who have been ambushing and killing British soldiers.

Perhaps instead of reporting on the fact that the Taliban, an Islamic terror group like Hamas, hide behind civilians he will report on the deliberate targeting by British forces into civilian areas. Perhaps he will show Sky viewers the ruins of towns and villages, of civilians without humanitarian aid or water, of Afghanis being air bombed by the RAF and British artillery that often miss their intended targets.

Based on these facts will Sky News accuse the British army of war crimes?

The censorship of the activities of British forces in Afghanistan is total. You do not hear complaints from the British media that they are prevented from reporting the other side of the conflict. Why don't they go into Afghanistan and tell their viewers what is happening to innocent civilians there?

Instead British viewers are treated to a jingoistic reporting, deliberately approved by the British Government, that turn their forces into white knights doing a sterling job on foreign soil.

They even glory in the fact that they send their royals there to kill Afghanis. Prince Harry has been seen performing his military duty there.

Viewers occasionally get to see British soldiers firing missiles long range into suspected targets some distance away. These suspected targets are always small towns and villages. One never gets to see the devastation inflicted by British soldiers on innocent Afghani civilians.

It is a fact that hundreds of women and children have been slaughtered in the years of the Afghan conflict. This conflict is not a three week job. It has been going on for many years. It will continue for many more years. Newly elected President Barack Obama has pledged to intensify the war effort here. This means that even more British soldiers will be involved. This means that even more innocent Afghani civilians will be killed.
Yet Sky does not find it news worthy.

They are prevented from reporting on the devastation and death resulting from British military action there due to military censorship. Yet this is acceptable to them. They do not accuse the British military of covering up war crimes by preventing reporters on to the battlefield, as they recently did against the IDF.

They won't, because this does not reflect the patriotic image they wish to portray to their viewers.

Instead they diagnose any conflict involving Israel from an anti-Israel perspective, always reporting the lies made by the other side as if they are facts, exaggerate their claims disproportionately, falsely accuse Israel of war crimes, then walk away leaving Israel with a damaged reputation caused by their irresponsible reporting.

What utter hypocrisy! What simplistic and damaging reporting! What lack of journalistic responsibility!

Barry Shaw
The View from Here
Israel

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