Editorial

Publisher: The Economist  
Date of publication: 10/05/2006  


'JERUSALEM, Nov. 4 — Israel continued its military offensive in Gaza on Saturday, destroying a minivan containing a Hamas rocket maker and two associates and demolishing at least five homes in Beit Hanun, on the Gaza-Israel border.

The rocket maker, identified by Hamas as Louay al-Burnu, was killed Saturday in Gaza City with two other members of the militant faction. Another Hamas fighter was killed in a gun battle with Israeli forces after firing an antitank rocket near Beit Hanun, and an Israeli noncommissioned officer was badly wounded. A Palestinian civilian, Marwan Abu Harbid, 46, died when an Israeli tank shell hit his home, burying him inside, a relative told The Associated Press.

In nearby Jabaliya, a Hamas member died from wounds from an artillery shell, which wounded four other members of Hamas’s military wing. Later Saturday, two brothers, both members of Hamas, were killed in a helicopter strike, as was a 16-year-old Palestinian, according to Agence France-Presse.

Since Israel began its new campaign to halt rocket fire into Israel four days ago, more than 40 Palestinians have been killed, most of them militants, and one Israeli soldier has died. More than 200 Palestinians have been wounded, some 30 of them seriously, Palestinian health officials and doctors at local hospitals said.

The rocket fire has continued, with 28 rockets landing in Israel since the operation began Wednesday, an army spokesman said. At least three Israelis have been wounded by shrapnel. Because Beit Hanun is so close to Israel, Palestinian militants often come there to fire their short-range Qassam rockets, made in Gazan workshops, toward nearby Israeli towns like Sderot and Ashkelon. 


JNI Deconstruction

Mr. Erlanger’s article presents a fact-fuelled synopsis piece in style but not substance on the recent events in the Gaza Strip. The article is published next to a picture which seems more to be a portrait of Palestinian suffering than an example of photo journalism. The emotion-evoking image introduces the reader to the events reported, setting a tone for the article.

The article doesn’t describe Hamas as a terrorist organization but instead as a legitimate governing body. Instead, it consistently strays into the human story with tales of the suffering of Palestinians, making this a one-sided human interest piece instead of a balanced report on a deep and complex conflict. This journalist’s sources are telling and must be investigated further: unknown relative of Marwan Abu Harbid; unknown Palestinian health officials and doctors at local hospitals; unnamed Palestinian officials; the photo provided by Mahmud Hams/Agence France-Presse; and then a quote from a so called legitimizing voice, the chief of the U.N., Kofi Annan, a rabid Arab sympathizer.

Lastly, take notice of the subtle method by which the writer interrupts sentences when describing Israel’s side by informing the reader where these facts come from; but when informing upon the Palestinian side, Erlanger tends to finish the statement before revealing the source. In this way when reading about Israel’s side the author is subtly implying that before he reports from an a Israeli perspective one must be suspicious of the source and thus inserts Israeli sources before the statement is finished, but not so when describing the Palestinian slant, the source is generally inserted at the end of the Palestinian points of view, thereby assigning these sentences a false sense of factual feeling to them.