Although she predictably slams Israel at every possible opportunity, a couple of salient facts manage to sneak out during her tirade:
On entering Gaza Hass said she was accompanied by Hamas-appointed security personnel at all hours, and was prevented from entering any of the Strip’s refugee camps. She said she had been warned by the security men that there was a chance that she would be abducted by extremists during her time in Gaza. After three weeks, she said, the security officials told her they got wind of a plan by one of the factions to kidnap her, which she called a pretext, and forced her to leave the area.So this independent journalist happily filed reports that were effectively censored by Hamas, which only allowed her to enter certain parts of Gaza. Hass eagerly accepted the role of propagandist.
During her time in Gaza Hass visited the southern town of Rafah where the hundreds of tunnels to Egypt snake below the earth, and described the full markets and influx of people that the new industry had spurred in the area. Hass described seeing many goods, even weapons, available in the Rafah souq, and remarked at the change in what she called a ‘once very poor town.’From a quick Google search, I could not find a single Hass report for Ha'aretz where she mentioned seeing weapons in Rafah. In fact, out of the many reports that talk about the goods that get smuggled into Rafah through tunnels, the most obvious - weapons - is not mentioned anywhere. TVs, motorcycles, cattle, zoo animals, candy, shoes - we see them all from Western reports, but never a mention of weapons.
The only way to know that weapons are still being smuggled is because Egypt regularly intercepts weapons and explosives caches on their way to Rafah. Gaza reporters, however, cannot bring themselves to mention that fact.
Hass mentions it here - but to a Palestinian Arab audience, and not as a reporter but as an advocate.
Isn't the presence of weapons for sale in Rafah an important fact? Apparently, not to the Western reporters who love filing tunnel stories, and apparently not to Amira Hass herself.
The MSM meme of starving Gazans is too important. If reporters would mention that weapons are getting smuggled into Gaza and sold (as well as given to terror groups), some stupid readers might start thinking that perhaps food is not the most important thing to Gazans - and we can't have that, can we?