Letter to the Editor: Focusing on false equivalences distorts reality, distracts from real issues

By JAMES ANDERSON / In an August 1 editorial for the Gateway Journalism Review, William Freivogel denounced the “false equivalences” imposed upon Israel in its latest assault on the Gaza Strip. Freivogel’s selective focus on equivalences distracts from what is really at issue, exculpating the US from its role in enabling more than 1,800 deaths and the displacement of more than 300,000 in Gaza since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge on July 8. “Children continue to bear the brunt of the crisis,” too, the United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs explained in a report released August 3, “with 373 killed and at least 2,744 injured.” “Never mind that it was Hamas firing missiles into Israel that started the violence, or that Hamas places its weapons near civilians, schools and hospitals, or that Hamas vows to drive Israelis into the sea, or that Israel warns civilians when it is about to bomb,” Freivogel argued. Through omission, Freivogel ensured readers would pay little mind to the fact “Israel also conducted dozens of attacks in Gaza, killing five Hamas members on July 7,” prior to Hamas firing its first rockets in 19 months, as Jewish intellectual Noam Chomsky reminded those who attend to reality.