Hard Hearted

Listen to Eric Westervelt reporting from Gaza if you can bear it. Debbie Elliott introduces the piece describing the Gaza crisis as "the tense situation." There is a lot about "militant" Palestinians, divisions within Hamas, violent struggles between Palestinians, Israeli artillery barrages, tanks massing, etc. But there is nothing from the host of All Things Considered or from Westervelt to indicate the immense suffering that the Israeli military attacks are having on the lawful inhabitants Occupied Territories. Nothing about the illegal attacks on power stations, bridges, etc. In fact nothing about international law. We do learn that Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last summer "is not working [Elliott]" and caused Israelis to be "traumatized" by the Qassam rockets fired into nearby Israeli towns (Yes, these rocket attacks are wrong, wrong, wrong--but reporting them without reporting on the extreme violence and daily degradations that Israel wages against Palestinians civilians leaves listeners with no sense of what is happening in Gaza or the West Bank.) Westervelt tells us that less than a year after leaving Gaza, "it appears Israel could become entangled even more deeply in a military operation in Gaza" (there's that passive construction again as if the Israeli government just has no other alternatives.) This is the report I'd expect from the IDF not from a news source that claims to be professional and credible.