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Jeffrey Goldberg

Jeffrey Goldberg - Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Reporting. Author of the book Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, Goldberg also writes the magazine's advice column.
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Before joining The Atlantic in 2007, Goldberg was a Middle East correspondent, and the Washington correspondent, for The New Yorker. Previously, he served as a correspondent for The New York Times Magazine and New York magazine. He has also written for the Jewish Daily Forward, and was a columnist for The Jerusalem Post.

His book Prisoners was hailed as one of the best books of 2006 by the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, The Progressive, Washingtonian magazine, and Playboy. Goldberg rthe recipient of the 2003 National Magazine Award for Reporting for his coverage of Islamic terrorism. He is also the winner of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists prize for best international investigative journalist; the Overseas Press Club award for best human-rights reporting; and the Abraham Cahan Prize in Journalism. He is also the recipient of 2005's Anti-Defamation League Daniel Pearl Prize.

In 2001, Goldberg was appointed the Syrkin Fellow in Letters of the Jerusalem Foundation, and in 2002 he became a public-policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

Fairly Definitive Proof of Media Bias

By Jeffrey Goldberg
Jan 20 2010, 7:52 AM ET Comment

Sometimes the bias just smacks you in the face. Take this story from Reuters, which concerns efforts by the U.N. and various NGOs to convince Israel to open its semi-sealed  border with Gaza. The story opens with a heartbreaking story:
Palestinian high-school student Fida Hejji died of cancer waiting for Israeli permission to go to an Israeli hospital for treatment.

Hejji, 18, was promised an entry permit three times. Three days after she died last November, her family got a call to say the hospital had set the date for her admission.

A terrible story, and one reason I support ending Israel's closure of the border. But wait: In the 11th paragraph of the story -- after we are told about Israel's various deprecations and crimes against Gaza, we read the following:

Hejji had hoped to get life-saving treatment in Israel as other Gazans have done. The Egyptian border is also closed.

Notice the sentence construction. The Egyptian border "is closed." By whom? Perhaps by... Egypt? As most people know, Egypt shares a border with Gaza, and it too seeks to punish Hamas, which rules Gaza, and protect its own citizens, by keeping its border sealed. I don't agree with this closure either. But why is Israel's closure worthy of worldwide condemnation, and why does Egypt's own closed border barely get mentioned?

A clue can be found in the following background paragraph, deeper in the story:

Israel captured Gaza from Egypt in a 1967 war. The ensuing occupation saw limited Palestinian scope for developing an autonomous health service. Israel left in 2005 but the result was far from the peaceful coexistence it might have hoped for.

Critics accuse Israel of applying collective punishment to Gaza's 1.5 million people, who are ruled by an elected Islamist government of the Hamas movement. Hamas refuses to recognize Israel and preaches armed struggle until its destruction.

Put aside the tremendous strides made in the development of an autonomous health service in Gaza during the Egyptian occupation from 1948 until 1967. What else is missing from this description? Israel "left" Gaza in 2005. Then what happened? Did Gaza take the billions in aid it received from donor nations and build itself into a new Abu Dhabi? Or did Hamas use the abandoned Jewish settlements of Gaza as launching pads for rocket attacks on civilians inside Israel? Who can know? Certainly not people who read Reuters.



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