Monday, July 31, 2006

Without Ethics, Too

If you go to the "Reporters Without Borders" website, the latest update item reports that its Secretary-General is in Beirut dealing with Israeli attacks on journalists and the media.

Funny, though, this story doesn't appear:


Haaretz reporter moderately hurt by rocket

Haaretz journalist Yuval Azoulay was injured at about 2 P.M. yesterday as he was reporting from the northern town of Kiryat Shmona. Azoulay suffered moderate injuries from shrapnel when a Katyusha rocket struck close to him.

Azoulay was hit as he was preparing an article with photographer Tomer Appelbaum on the plight of a Kiryat Shmona resident whose home was destroyed by a rocket.

"I was on the roof," Appelbaum said, "and was taking photographs of the woman through the hole in the roof. Suddenly I heard a loud bang, as it is now so common to say, and before I knew what was happening I heard Yuval shout that he was hurt. There had been no alarm, nothing, it just landed on a home next to us. The Katyusha fell 10 meters from him, but he was in an alley and I did not see him."



Now, I know that the Hizbees didn't purposefully aim at Azoulay, as the Reporters Without Borders claim that Israel is doing to Arab media (okay, that was just to be fair to the RWBees even though they don't deserve it). But at least I hope they'll admit that Azoulay got hit by sharpnel from a rocket that was purposefully intended to hit a civilian's home - a civilian's home for God's sake.

Reporters take chances and know what danger they sometimes can get into. But civilians are supposed to be living a quiet life, not being rocketed by a terrorist group.

Do you think the RWBees know the difference? Or are they without ethics, professional or private, too?


P.S. Here's their contact e mail address if you want to ask them: rsf@rsf.org

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