Philosemitism: Norwegian newspaper believes NGO report on IDF transgressions during “Cast Lead”

Friday, 17 July 2009

Norwegian newspaper believes NGO report on IDF transgressions during “Cast Lead”

"So alas, no critical perspective on the NGO "Breaking the Silence", not a single critical comment on their report, nothing but same criticism of the IDF and the Israeli authorities which Aftenposten has treated her readers to since before the Gaza war."

Yesterday several newspapers, among them Norway’s largest daily Verdens Gang, published paper - and internet articles on a recently published report from the Israeli NGO "Breaking The Silence". Today Aftenposten, Norway’s second largest newspaper, follows up on the NGO report with an article by journalist John Harb, as well as an editorial (see below for unauthorized translation). Both VG and Aftenposten repeat the salient features of the NGO report, without confronting the shortcomings and inadequaties of the report. Neither newspaper makes much of an attempt at producing a balanced story.

If Norwegian newspapers had wanted to, they could have identified a number of aspects both of the NGO and the report, which are relevant to how much weight the NGO’s report can be estimated to carry. On methodological issues alone the following have been pointed out, among others by NGO monitor:

"Methodological Flaws:

* The report focuses narrowly on the testimonies of around thirty combatants(out of hundreds of thousands in the IDF) and even Breaking the Silence admits thereport does not claim to provide a broad, comprehensive review.
* All testimonies recorded in the report are anonymous and therefore entirely unverifiable. It is also impossible to know whether the soldiers who are quoted had thenecessary knowledge to distinguish between different types of weapons and the circumstances in which they were used.
* Testimonies are further compromised by the absence of any details of where and when alleged incidents occurred.
* The report frequently relies upon second hand evidence and hearsay. E.g. Testimony 44: "As for looting I can say I heard but didn’t actually see anything. I can’t really prove anything…again, I wasn’t witness to such cases but I heard peopletalking, that soldiers shot at people here and there." [...]

So alas, no critical perspective on the NGO "Breaking the Silence", not a single critical comment on their report, nothing but same criticism of the IDF and the Israeli authorities which Aftenposten has treated her readers to since before the Gaza war. All this while Norway finances Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah and a host of Israeli-critical NGOs, all this while Norwegian newspapers write more about Israel than they do about Afghanistan, where Norway does not count the dead.

If there is antyhing which will not stand, it is the state of Norwegian journalism.

Read the full piece here (Norway, Israel and the Jews)