As we noted over the course of 7 Guardian pieces on Sheikh Raed Salah, and as Israelinurse noted (here and here) in her pieces on the “flytilla” activists – and, indeed, as this blog has been observing since it’s founding – the Guardian’s capacity for airbrushing out their protagonists’ undeniable record of extremism and anti-Semitic bigotry is one of the defining characteristics of their ideologically driven anti-Israel agenda.
Harriet Sherwood is no stranger to this phenomenon – as her surreal characterization of the slain anti-Israel, pro-Hamas, activist, Vittorio Arrigoni as a “peace activist” testifies to – and her piece today (Rachel Corrie’s family claim Israeli military withheld vital video evidence) is another prime example of how selectively leaving out certain details, facts or context about an event or “activist” can effectively serve to vilify Israel to a degree as damaging as outright lies, distortions or invectives.
Sherwood’s piece, written after covering Cindy Corrie’s press conference at the American Colony Hotel yesterday, noted the Corrie family’s contention that Israeli authorities withheld key evidence pertaining to their civil trial against the state.
Sherwood then provided the following account of the events in March 2003 which led to Rachel Corrie’s death:
Rachel, from Olympia, Washington state, was killed while attempting to protect the home of a Palestinian family in the Rafah area of Gaza from being demolished by Israeli troops in March 2003.
As I noted in my post yesterday, the incident occurred while IDF forces were removing shrubbery along the security road near the border between Israel and Egypt at Rafah to uncover explosive devices, and destroying tunnels used by Palestinian terrorists to illegally smuggle weapons from Egypt to Gaza. Corrie and her fellow ISM “activists” were interfering with a military operation to legally demolish an empty house used to conceal one of these tunnels.
Whether Corrie actually believed, at the time, that she was merely protecting an Arab home which was going to be demolished, by the IDF, for no particular reason is besides the point.
As it’s eight years later, and nobody can possibly contest that the Israeli authorities were engaged in an anti-terror operation at the time of Corrie’s death – that is, the IDF was trying to uncover explosives which were intended to kill more Israeli civilians in the context of a violent Intifada which would ultimately claim over 1000 innocent Israeli lives – a responsible journalist not inspired by ideological driven antipathy towards the Jewish state would necessarily include such a pertinent fact about the events on that fateful day.
As with the Guardian’s refusal to conduct even a rudimentary investigation into Sheikh Raed Salah’s record of incitement, anti-Semitism, and extremism, even when not explicitly advancing anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist canards, the reporters’ (and CiF columnists’) continuing sins of omission regarding the malevolence of anti-Israel “activists” has an equally pernicious effect.
In contextualizing the Guardian’s narratives about Jews and Israel – and as our series of “What the Guardian won’t report” posts attempt to demonstrate -what they don’t report is often as important as what they do.
Related articles
- Harriet Sherwood, Egypt’s opening of its border with Gaza, and the photos not posted (cifwatch.com)
- Rachel Corrie’s family claim Israeli military withheld vital video evidence (guardian.co.uk)
- Mondoweiss or David Duke? Raed Salah’s defenders reach a new low. (cifwatch.com)
- Fool’s Prophecy: Harriet Sherwood’s latest compelling tale of Israeli oppression…that hasn’t yet happened (cifwatch.com)
- If Arnold Roth held a news conference at the American Colony Hotel, would the Guardian cover it? (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood erroneously places Knesset on Arab Farmland (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian smells blood: Harriet Sherwood sees a possible Third Intifada “as frustration mounts”. (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood’s talent for avoiding use of term “terrorist” when characterizing Palestinians who’ve murdered Israeli civilians (cifwatch.com)
- A brief note to Harriet Sherwood on her return to Jerusalem (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood feels Hamas’ pain (cifwatch.com)
- Resistance: The JNF, and Harriet Sherwood’s continuing delegitimization of the Jewish state (cifwatch.com)
- Vicious hate unleashed by Guardian readers inspired by Harriet Sherwood’s attack on Geoffrey Alderman (cifwatch.com)
- What Harriet Sherwood won’t scream about: 92 y/o Palestinian woman, on Hamas TV, wishes for the massacre of Jews (like in Hebron) (cifwatch.com)
- On Sherwood’s implosion (cifwatch.com)
- The Facebook Wall of a “Peace Activist” (cifwatch.com)
- L’Affair Sherwood just got more interesting (Guardian reporter engages in possibly illegal phone recording) (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood story in Guardian quotes Richard Falk in accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing (cifwatch.com)
