Letter to The Washington Post

Dear Washington Post Staff,

Truths don't emanate from totalitarian regimes. Propaganda does. We know this from China. We know this from Cuba, and we know this from the Former Soviet Union. So why on earth does The Washington Post give such credence to what comes out of Hamas-controlled Gaza? Witnesses rarely speak out against Hamas for fear of reprisals. Those that dissent are labeled collaborators and often shot. Crucifixion is now legal in Gaza. And Hamas is well-known for exaggerating casualties and claiming massacres that are unfounded. In "100 Survivors Rescued in Gaza From Ruins Blocked by Israelis" (Jan. 10, 2009), The Washington Post had another front page story about civilian casualties in the war in Gaza accepting word for word the horrid accounts of Palestinians caught in a war zone between the Hamas militants who hide behind them and Israeli soldiers. The Washington Post has barely missed a day carrying such stories.

At least in this article, The Washington Post mentioned that one of the "accounts could not be independently corroborated," and in another account, that the witness "could not be reached to independently confirm her account". Yet another, the ambulance driver for the Red Cross Khaled Abuzaid said "rescue workers found 16 bodies" however other Red Cross officials had said that 12 bodies were found. Why publish these stories if there is so much doubt to their veracity?

100,000 Iraqi civilians died in America’s war in Iraq over the past six years but there was nothing comparable to this ‘play-by-play’ of personalized stories so continuously and unremittingly written about as Palestinian civilians whose casualties are a fraction of that number. With all the conflicts in the world, past and present, why is Israel singled out and damned time after time in The Washington Post?

Michael Berenhaus