If CNN wishes to be treated as a serious journalistic outlet, it should engage in serious journalism.

Unfortunately for the network and its audience, this is not what CNN’s Mick Krever, Jeremy Diamond, and Abeer Salman did for their latest story, “The Israeli military has used Palestinians as human shields in Gaza, soldier and former detainees say.”

Once again, CNN journalists make — in their own words — a horrific allegation against Israeli soldiers. Predictably, the allegation — that Israeli soldiers are using Palestinians as human shields — is short on credible evidence.

Instead of acting like professional journalists, the authors act as partisan activists like the ones making the accusation.

Krever, Diamond, and Salman’s allegation relies largely on the testimony of a single, unnamed Israeli soldier and three pictures. The article also references “five former detainees” who were allegedly used as human shields, but the names and stories are provided for only three.

According to the soldier’s anonymous testimony, his unit was ordered by an intelligence officer to use two Palestinians as human shields. He also claims the practice of human shielding “was so common in the Israeli military that it had a name: ‘mosquito protocol.’”

Anyone curious as to the truth would immediately have several basic questions. Did CNN reach out to the rest of the soldier’s unit to verify his story? The soldier claims that “he and his comrades refused to carry on with the practice.” If he was not the only one uncomfortable with the practice, then surely other members of his unit might be willing to verify his claims.

On that note, why doesn’t CNN identify the soldier’s unit so other members can either verify or contradict his story?

Furthermore, if the practice is so common, did CNN reach out to any other soldiers who served in Gaza to ask about the “mosquito protocol”?

What about the mysterious intelligence officer mentioned? Who was he? What was his unit and rank? Why are no further details provided to assist the audience in determining the credibility of the story?

None of these basic questions are answered.

Instead, the journalists outsourced their job to a partisan activist organization known for advancing dubious and false claims against Israeli forces: “CNN was connected with the soldier by Breaking the Silence, an organization that provides a forum for Israeli soldiers to speak out and verifies their testimony.”

But Breaking the Silence is a notoriously unreliable source of information known for anti-Israel activism, such as promoting boycotts and sanctions against Israel. It has been funded, for example, to encourage “diaspora Jewish communities to voice their opposition to the occupation” and to “increase opposition in the international arena to Israel’s prolonged occupation…”

More importantly, Breaking the Silence is known for making outlandish accusations based on flimsy evidence and by using underhanded tactics. The testimonies of its witnesses have often been directly contradicted by the other members of the units in question.

Krever, Diamond, and Salman omit all of this about their key source of information, and instead misleadingly depict it as simply a whistleblower organization. Worse, they appear to have made no independent effort to verify anything about the conveniently vague but emotionally charged story given to them by activists.

Even more dubious than the testimony, however, is the photographic “evidence” provided by Breaking the Silence which, CNN claims, “[depicts] the Israeli military using Palestinians as human shields in Gaza.”

The images do nothing of the sort. They simply show IDF soldiers in proximity to what appear to be Palestinian detainees.

The first two images simply show detainees in seated positions while nearby Israeli soldiers are in similarly relaxed positions, clearly outside of any combat situation. Whereas the article claims the “human shields” were used to search for booby traps or terrorists, all three detainees in the two images are blindfolded and thus incapable of searching for anything.

The third image, which CNN calls “haunting,” simply shows two soldiers walking toward a third individual standing in some rubble. Though CNN’s caption claims it shows “two soldiers urging a Palestinian forward,” it is entirely unclear how CNN can infer such gesturing from the photograph.

Simply put, there’s nothing about the photographs that even hint at human shielding. How CNN arrived at the conclusion that they do is baffling.

Of all the questions raised by Krever, Diamond, and Salman’s article, the most important is, “how did this story get past the editors in its current state?”

Unfortunately, the article is just the latest example of slanted and dubious journalism. This certainly isn’t the first time the network, and these reporters, have made serious allegations against Israel on the basis of thin or questionable evidence.

That these same reporters also regularly downplay or outright ignore credible evidence of serious allegations against Palestinians, as Salman did earlier this week, points to the obvious problem: a lack of objectivity.

David M. Litman is a Research Analyst at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA).

The post CNN Breaks Its Credibility Over Breaking the Silence Accusations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.