2503 kids not going to school in Sderot and Gaza

Reader’s Letter to: JERUSALEM POST To the Letter Editor, September 7, 2007

Sir, - Re: "Sderot kids to stay away from schools..." (Shelly Paz, Y. Katz, Sep.3): It is commendable you remind Israel and the world that 2500 schoolchildren in Sderot are targeted daily by Hamas terrorist rockets from Gaza since it was evacuated by Israel two years ago.

I can not avoid integrating this article with the very different coverage of the same issue by BBC. They regularly downplay the Kassam rockets, emphasizing that these are ‘home-made' and ‘relatively harmless'. 12 Israeli civilians have been killed by Kassams in recent years. This means, proportionally, above 100 people killed in the UK by rockets. Would the BBC call this harmless?

But the worst even the shamelessly biased BBC did recently about Gaza was "Three Palestinian children not going to school today because they were killed by Israelis" by Jeremy Bowen, yesterday on BBC World Service. Bowen, BBC's Middle East editor, reports like a cunning Hamas spokesman; completely ignores the context; hundreds of Palestinian rockets shot indiscriminately, and insinuates that the children were killed by Israel, instead of stating the fact that they were caught in fire aimed at Palestinian rocket launchers operating among civilians, against civilians.

Had Bowen and the BBC been honest they should report about "2503 children not going to school today".

ENDRE MOZES, Chairman
Take-A-Pen
Haifa