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Reuters Uses Gaza Journalist Who Praised Hamas’ Oct. 7 Massacre
Reuters — which won two Royal Television Society Awards last week — has been providing a respectable platform recently to a freelance Gazan journalist who had praised Hamas’ barbaric October 7 massacre in southern Israel.
Readers of Reuters articles also deserve to know that this has been going on for months, even though HonestReporting exposed in November some of Doaa Rouqa’s enthusiastic Facebook posts celebrating the Hamas attack that had triggered the Israel-Hamas war.
Why is @Reuters still using Doaa Rouqa to report from Gaza? She described Oct. 7 like this: “A morning and day like no other on the road to liberation and great victory, God willing.”
Is celebrating a massacre not in conflict with your Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, p11? pic.twitter.com/CVZ8OL616V
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) March 1, 2024
Rouqa is no rookie. According to her social media accounts, she’s an experienced photojournalist who knows how to use the power of the media, and has accumulated a significant following on Instagram and Facebook through her independent reporting from Gaza.
So she knew what she was doing when on October 7, as 1,200 people in Israel were brutalized, raped, and murdered — while others were taken hostage — she posted excited praise for Hamas’ attack on her Facebook page.
One post reads in Arabic: “October, Gaza, Glorious — history will record. Alaqsa flood.”
Another post, showing a picture of Hamas terrorists inside Israel, reads: “May God protect them. #alAqsa Flood … A morning and day like no other on the road to liberation and great victory, God willing.”
A third post, in which Rouqa celebrates rockets fired at Israel, carries an image showing trails of smoke over Gaza and a caption that reads in Arabic: “This is how Gaza has woken up. Good morning to our brave resistance. We wish everyone health.” The sentence above the picture reads: “This morning in Gaza has no parallel. #forever #Gaza #Palestine #a morning of pride.”
This overt support for terror, however, did not prevent Reuters from buying Rouqa’s photos, using her videos, and running her stories.
Nor did her exposure by HonestReporting last November lead to the removal of the posts or Reuters cutting ties with her.
On the contrary, as recently as February 27, Reuters continued giving story bylines and photo credits to a Hamas sympathizer, who apparently gets a kick out of the genocidal slaughter of innocent Jews.
Reuters owes its audience an explanation, not least because it’s a wire service. Reuters’ reports are circulated to hundreds of media clients worldwide, whose editors and audience rely on Reuters for objective, balanced, and impartial coverage of the conflict.
HonestReporting is a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Reuters Uses Gaza Journalist Who Praised Hamas’ Oct. 7 Massacre first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Renowned Figurative Painter Frank Auerbach, Jewish Refugee Who Fled Nazi Germany, Dies at Age 93
German-born British artist Frank Auerbach, who was sent to England as a child fleeing Nazi-occupied Germany and became a leading figurative painter, died on Monday at the age of 93.
The gallery Frankie Rossi Art Projects, which focuses on post-war artists like Auerbach, said the Jewish painter “died peacefully” early Monday at his home in London. “We have lost a dear friend and remarkable artist but take comfort knowing his voice will resonate for generations to come,” said Geoffrey Parton, the gallery’s director.
Auerbach was born in Berlin in April 1931 and came to England in 1939. He was an only child and arrived in London as a refugee from Nazi Germany as one of six children sponsored by the writer Iris Origo. Auerbach’s father, a patent lawyer, and mother, an artist, were both killed in a Nazi concentration camp in 1942.
“[I was] at no point shocked or overwhelmed [when] it was gradually leaked to me [that] they’d been killed, taken to a camp and killed,” Auerbach said years later about the murder of his parents, according to The Art Newspaper. “I don’t know which one, Auschwitz probably.”
Auerbach attended Bunce Court in Kent, a boarding school for Jewish refugee children, and then studied at London’s St Martin’s School of Art and the Royal College of Art from 1948-1955. He lived and worked in the same studio in North London from 1954 until his death. His career spanned seven decades, his work has been shown around the world, and he was awarded the prestigous Golden Lion prize at the 1986 Venice Biennale.
Auerbach’s signature style was having an excessive amount of paint on his works, which was created by him repeatedly scraping off paint from previous versions he was unhappy with, and then starting again until the finished work was loaded with layers of paint. He was known for his portraits and city scenes in North London. He once told The Guardian that he estimated that 95 percent of his paint ended up in the garbage. “I’m trying to find a new way to express something… So I rehearse all the other ways until I surprise myself with something I haven’t previously considered,” he explained.
Auerbach is survived by his son, filmmaker Jacob Auerbach.
The post Renowned Figurative Painter Frank Auerbach, Jewish Refugee Who Fled Nazi Germany, Dies at Age 93 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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J Street Calls for Partial US Arms Embargo Against Israel
J Street, a self-described pro-Israel, pro-peace organization, is urging the Biden administration to withhold offensive weapons from the Jewish state, arguing that the United States needs to hold Israel accountable for alleged human rights “violations” before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
On Monday, J Street posted a thread on X/Twitter arguing that the Biden administration has a legal obligation to “pause” arms transfers to Israel until the Jewish state abides by international “human rights standards.” The progressive organization suggested that, with “Trump’s presidency looming,” the White House should review Israel’s conduct over the course of its military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza and “make immediate, clear, fair determinations on violations of US and international law.”
“This is the same standard for all recipients of US aid. Nothing more, nothing less. No new laws or new conditions specific to Israel are required, and this would not affect the Iron Dome or other defensive systems. We urge the admin. to swiftly comply with current domestic law,” J-Street wrote.
The organization recommended the Biden administration pressure Israel into resuming hostage and ceasefire negotiations by making clear “certain offensive weapons will be withheld” if the Jewish state does not make “good-faith” efforts to end the ongoing war in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
J Street’s comments came after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week that Hamas, which launched the war with its invasion of and massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, rejected a proposal for a short-term ceasefire in exchange for the release of some Israeli hostages.
Israel has repeatedly underscored its efforts to accelerate humanitarian aid into Gaza, where Hamas has employed a military strategy of putting its command centers and weapons stockpiles in or underneath civilian sites such as schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings. According to experts and the Israeli military, the purpose of Hamas’s placement is to use civilians as human shields, forcing Israel to kill them in order to fight the terrorist group.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication. However, Hamas has in many cases prevented people from leaving, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Last month, Blinken and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent a letter to then-Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, urging them to implement several humanitarian policy changes in Gaza within 30 days or risk “implications” for US policy, including an arms embargo.
Following the message, Israel has boosted the amount of humanitarian aid trucks entering Gaza. This week, the Israeli government approved a series of measures that will vastly expand the entry of aid into the war-torn enclave, including by reopening another border crossing.
“This week is the deadline set by Secretaries Austin and Blinken in their October letter raising serious concerns about the Netanyahu gov’t blocking humanitarian aid and violating human rights. We urge the admin. to take fair, consequential action, as foreshadowed in the letter,” J Street posted on X/Twitter.
Experts have chided the Biden administration for providing “no evidence” that Israel is deliberately denying humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza. Nonetheless, the US is set to judge Israel’s progress on Gaza aid by the end of this week.
J-Street has attempted to balance maintaining a Zionist identity while calling for harsher treatment of the Jewish state. The group’s president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, issued a statement arguing that although the US should continue to support Israel, it should not give the Jewish state a “blank check.” The group has called for a “clear” and “consistent” approach to US military aid to Israel.
Many pro-Israel advocates have criticized J Street for being, in their view, insufficiently supportive of the Jewish state, noting the organization has previously defended Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), one of the most outspoken anti-Israel lawmakers in the US Congress, and often castigated the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying group in the US.
The post J Street Calls for Partial US Arms Embargo Against Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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How Gaza Casualty Figures Are Being Wildly Distorted
“Nearly 70% of those killed are women and children” screams the headline of a Nov. 8th article in the Guardian by Sarah Johnson. [emphasis added]
The dramatic claim is then walked back in the opening sentence, which notes that the 70% figure relates narrowly to “verified deaths.”
Nearly 70% of the people killed in the war in Gaza are women and children, according to a UN analysis of verified deaths that highlights the heavy civilian toll of the conflict. [emphasis added]
By the second and third paragraphs, we see more evidence that the shocking 70% figure in the headline is not accurate, as it turns out that only 8,119 deaths (out of what Hamas claims is 43,000) have been verified.
In a new report, the most detailed analysis of its kind yet, the UN human rights office said it had verified 8,119 of those killed during the first six months of the war in Gaza. Of the fatalities, 3,588 were children and 2,036 were women.
The number marks deaths verified so far and is therefore lower than the figure of 43,000 deaths provided by Palestinian health authorities for the 13-month conflict, but backs the assertion that women and children represent a large proportion of those killed. [emphasis added]
So, the UN report is narrowly alleging that 18% of the total number of those killed in Gaza in the war following Hamas’s Oct. 7th massacre have been verified — with 69 percent of those reportedly being women and children.
Further, not even the UN report claims that all those considered “children” are non-combatants, which the international body defines as those 18 and under.
Since 16, 17, and 18 year olds are used by Hamas and other Gaza terror groups as fighters, the percentage of the 3,588 (which the UN lists as children) who are truly non-combatants is unknown.
This is an important distinction, as the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry doesn’t distinguish between fighters and civilians when they release their periodically updated death counts. Therefore, the number of women and children killed is often used (incorrectly) by the media as a stand-in for “civilians.”
Finally, as an Associated Press study demonstrated, the death rate for women and children in Gaza declined dramatically beginning in April — that is, at the end point of the UN’s six month report on verified casualties. So, it’s extremely likely that a study of war deaths in the territory in the seven months after April would produce a vastly lower ratio of fatalities for women and children.
We’ve complained to the Guardian asking that the headline be amended to more accurately reflect the actual data from the UN report.
Adam Levick serves as co-editor of CAMERA UK – an affiliate of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), where a version of this article first appeared.
The post How Gaza Casualty Figures Are Being Wildly Distorted first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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