This morning I wrote a letter to my local newspaper in response to a biased AP item written by Ibrahim Barzak which began, “Gaza City was plunged into darkness Sunday after Israel blocked the shipment of fuel that powers its only electrical plant in retaliation for persistent rocket attacks by Hamas militants.”
The article made it sound as though Israel had shut off power to Gaza, and quoted Hamas as saying that five patients at the hospital had died as a result of the power outage (but admits that this can not be confirmed. So why include it?).
Several paragraphs down it is mentioned in passing that Israel directly supplies 70% of Gaza’s electricity (another 5% comes from Egypt), and that this was not interrupted. So why was there a massive blackout?
Arye Mekel, a spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, said, “What we are seeing now is a staged production by Hamas.â€
Given the amount of electricity provided by Israel and Egypt, there was no justification for the massive blackouts, Mr. Mekel said, even with a shortage of fuel.– NY Times
I suppose that Hamas needed to divert that 70% to its really critical functions, like running the lathes that make rocket motors or lighting the weapons-smuggling tunnels under the Egyptian border.
In fact, as Honest Reporting points out, Hamas officials made a big deal about shutting down the power plant themselves and invited the media to watch them do it!
To add insult to injury, the Fresno Bee shortened the already slanted AP dispatch by leaving off the very last sentence, which mentioned the fact that 200 rockets and mortars had hit southern Israel since last Tuesday.
Of course this kind of coverage has been as constant as the Qassam barrage on Sderot in past months. Just search Yahoo News for “Gaza Barzak” to see numerous AP releases from staffer Barzak about the suffering Gazans and the sadistic Zionists.
Now it seems that the propaganda barrage has hit its target as well. Israel has announced that it will be sending a week’s supply of diesel fuel plus 50 truckloads of food and other supplies to Gaza. Supposedly this is not a result of international pressure. But given that Israeli officials do not themselves believe that that there is a “humanitarian crisis”, there’s no other explanation.
Schoolchildren in Sderot try to hide from Hamas missiles (courtesy Sderot Media)