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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Guess who wrote these words?

Try to guess what organization wrote these words in their press releases during January:
Zionist killing machine aimed at medical staff and drug stores

The [Zionist] forces of Nazi oppression, which has taken upon itself to destroy crops and cattle, adding to its black record every minute a new shameful affront to civilization and humanity. A new Holocaust in Gaza, the indiscriminate targeting of elders, women and children.

Army of the Nazi occupation attacks children and women

Seems that there is no sanctity of anything in this war declared by the barbaric Zionist killing machine on the defenseless people of Gaza Strip...every hour there was a massacre.
Was it Hamas? Islamic Jihad? Iranian TV?

No, these press releases were from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, of the moderate PA, reporting to peacemaker Mahmoud Abbas, whose webpage is plastered with pictures of dead children.

Reading their words does not make one think that they would be the most reliable sources for objective information.

Yet it just so happens that the Palestinian Ministry of Health was the "official source" for most media outlets during the Gaza operation when they counted the number of casualties. They were the ones that insisted that one third of the dead were children. And they were also the source used by the UN's John Holmes when discussing how many casualties were civilians - even when the somewhat less biased PCHR reports were out that showed the MOH to be exaggerating.

Journalists can be forgiven for using MOH's figures as long as they identify the source and indicate the possible bias. But when they use them as fact, they are simply part of the problem.