The Willfully Blind Washington Post

Last week the Washington Post's notoriously pro-Israel editorial board penned an editorial titled "The Hamas Murders" which began like this (emphasis mine):

"THE NEW round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks last week left Washington in a relatively upbeat mood about the chances for a two-state settlement. But the optimism has not spread to the region -- in part because the news in the West Bank has been far less encouraging. In two shooting attacks last week, four Israelis were killed and two others wounded, interrupting what had been nearly three years of peace in the territory. More remarkably, Hamas quickly claimed responsibility for the violence and promised it was only the beginning of a campaign to disrupt the new negotiations."

The Post commits a mistake that is all too often made. Because our media rarely pays attention when Palestinians are killed, the editorial board can get away with saying these last three years were "years of peace." Let's set aside the fact 1400 - mostly civilians - were killed in Israel's attack on Gaza in 2008-09's war. The editorial does say "in the territory" which suggests they are talking about the previously mentioned West Bank, excluding Gaza. Sure, they commit the error of thinking that attacks against the people of Gaza are not thought of by people in the West Bank to be attacks on the entirety of the Palestinian people. But let's simply take what they said and apply a basic fact check to it, regardless of their purposeful exclusion of Gaza in an attempt to promote Israeli victimhood. Were the last three years, for the Palestinians in the West Bank, peaceful?

My letter to the editor, which they chose not to publish, addresses this:

The Post’s editorial board either values Palestinian lives less than Israeli lives or is completely comfortable with their selective and clearly inadequate understanding of the Israeli occupation. Its editorial, “The Hamas Murders,” states that Hamas’ killing of Israeli settlers before peace talks interrupted “what had been nearly three years of peace” in the West Bank.

Those following the conflict know, as the Israeli Human Rights group B’Tselem reported, 24 unarmed Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank in the last year and a half alone. When you add this to near daily acts of settler violence (over 1000 events in the past year and a half) including beatings, arson and shootings, the Post’s assertion that Hamas shattered a period of “peace” is laughable and irresponsible.

Since Israel is responsible for the protection of civilians in the occupied West Bank, it is equally ridiculous for the Post to assert that only Palestinians failed in policing while ignoring the fact that Israel has killed numerous Palestinians and turned a blind eye toward settlers which regularly commit acts of violence against Palestinian civilians.

By perpetuating this misinformation, the Post’s editorial becomes part of the problem, and not the solution.

Instead, the Post chose to publish this letter, which instead of faulting the editorial for the clear pro-Israel bias and misrepresentation of facts, faults the editorial for not giving the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank enough credit for their politically repressive activity against Hamas affiliates. By publishing a letter they present as a "Palestinian" perspective, which does not reject the assertion made about "peace" in the West Bank prior to Hamas' attacks, the editorial board is able to reinforce and further their narrative when the so-called "Palestinian" perspective doesn't challenge a value system that puts Israeli lives above Palestinian ones.

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