-By Warner Todd Huston
Last week a handful of jihadi terrorists that worked with Hamas were killed in Gaza by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). These terrorists were hiding among western journalists and pretending to be one of them. Sadly a few actual journalists were also killed in these pinpoint strikes, but the bigger outrage is that western journalists don’t seem to mind at all that these terrorists are using them for human shields. One has to wonder why that is?
On November 18, The New York Times went apoplectic over those “attacks on journalists” when the IDF struck several buildings that housed the studios and offices of several western and mid eastern media outlets, offices that also housed the terrorist’s operations.
The Times article gave room for terror group Hamas to claim that the Israelis were “targeting journalists” and scolded the IDF for its actions. But what The Times didn’t bother to note is that the IDF wasn’t attacking “journalists,” it was targeting and eliminating known Hamas commanders who had been hiding their base of operations among the journalists.
This week the IDF reported its facts in this case.
IDF reports that these jihadis purposefully tried to hide among journalists.
When Operation Pillar of Defense began on Nov. 14, Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip knew that the IDF was trying to target them. That might explain why on Nov. 19, four senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives took over an office on the second floor of a civilian media building in Gaza — where major international news networks were located — and used it as a meeting place.
The terrorists thought that hiding in a civilian building and using international journalists as human shields would ensure their safety. Once IDF Intelligence learned of their location, the IDF surgically targeted their hiding place. A direct hit was confirmed.
The IDF blog page goes on to relay its facts and videos of the jihadis it successfully eliminated.
The post ends with these salient questions:
Should a senior Islamic Jihad commander who paints “TV” on his car be considered a journalist?
Should a cameraman for a Hamas-owned and operated television network be considered a journalist?
Should a radio show host who wears the uniform of a terrorist group be considered a journalist?
If “yes” is the answer to these three questions — if the clear line between terrorists and journalists is blurred and there is no standard for the definition of “journalist” — it is likely that Palestinian terrorists will continue using journalism as a cover for terrorism.
These questions are important and every western news outlet should be forced to answer to them. Why do western journalists feel it’s perfectly OK for terrorists to pretend they are journalists and endanger them all by hiding amongst them?
Disgustingly, these so-called “real” journalists are more upset at those “just a bloggers” than they are with real, murderous terrorists that use journalists as human shields to hide behind so that they can carry out campaigns to murder women and children.
But, I guess when the western media sees nothing wrong with using propaganda videos presenting them as real news, perhaps that answers our question. Western journalists apparently care less about their craft than they do about choosing sides and throwing in with terrorists.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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