Online magazine Salon published an article ("74% of Gaza homes destroyed by Israel in summer 2014 war have not been rebuilt, as violent repression escalates," Feb. 9, 2016) that contained little news but instead rehashed many anti-Israel falsehoods. Author Ben Norton, who seems to have a penchant for anti-Israel rants as numerous Salon items indicate, uses a January U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) report as his news hook but cherry-picks details and quotations from it and then veers completely off into old and disproven claims about the 2014 Gaza war. Problems with the article include:
- Ignoring the fact that the slow pace of reconstruction in the Gaza Strip is due to poor Hamas governance and the failure of international donors to fulfill their commitments.
- Omitting mention of Hamas' use of construction materials and funds to rebuild and enlarge its network of terror tunnels.
- Inflating both the number of Gaza fatalities in the fighting and especially the proportion of civilians killed.
- Parroting bogus charges that Israel targeted civilians and disregarding the unprecedented efforts of the Israeli military to avoid civilian casualties.
- Falsely claiming Israel’s blockade of Gaza is illegal when even the U.N. has found it “complied with the requirements of international law.”
- Blaming Israel for the poor choices made by Palestinian leaders, their followers, supporters and funders.
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