In a stunning display of anti-Israel demonization, Reuters promotes the myth that restrictions on Gaza are somehow comparable to global quarantines defending against the COVID-19 coronavirus.

‘Dear world, how is the lockdown?’: A sly dig at the international community, this is just one among a torrent of social media posts that has emerged from the blockaded Gaza Strip in the wake of the #coronavirus pandemic https://t.co/lEpcFVYLMu via @NidalAl

— Reuters (@Reuters) March 18, 2020

In the article, Reuters shares a number of tweets from Gaza residents such as this one:

We in Gaza have been living this for 14 years.

Reuters did not commit an ethical breach by sharing tweets from Gaza residents: Gaza is a part of our world and is deemed newsworthy.

However, as a body of professional journalists, Reuters has a duty to also share context and balance. For example, Reuters —

• Makes no mention of the 11,560 rockets fired from Gaza into Israel that necessitated a blockade in the first place.
• Shares no balancing tweets from the Israelis who have lived (and died) under that rocket fire.
• Makes no mention of the massive arms shipments from Iran that the Gaza blockade has prevented, nor how many innocent Israeli lives were saved as a result.
• Fails to mention that Hamas (the group that rules Gaza) is officially designated as a terror organization by Australia, Canada, Egypt, the EU, Israel, the UK, and the United States.
• Fails to mention that the Hamas founding charter commits the terror group to the total destruction of all of Israel.
• Does not even mention the significant cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian health officials.

For a quick peek into some of Israel’s containment measures and general updates, below is a recording of a “livestream” we broadcast last week. Though the situation is continuing to change, this gives at least a bit of an insight into the evolving nature of daily life in Israel.

There are many international stories relevant to COVID-19: Italy’s desperate measures, South Korea’s massive testing, the UK and its backtracking from a unique “herd immunity” approach —  even Israel with its aggressive containment strategy and furious work toward a vaccine.

However, this Reuters article is not relevant to COVID-19 nor is it newsworthy in that context. Instead, this article reads like like a transparent excuse to say something negative about Israel at any cost: even at the cost of basic journalistic ethics.

Daniel Pomerantz is CEO of HonestReporting. A version of this article was originally published by HonestReporting.

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