Remember Peter Preston - and the Guardian as exemplar of the pursuit of unbiased understanding? Well, take a look at this letter to the paper. It's from a number of international lawyers and says that the government 'has a duty under international law to exert its influence to stop violations of international humanitarian law in the current conflict between Israel and Hamas'. It urges the government, in particular...
...to condemn publicly attacks by the parties to the conflict that target civilians directly, or fail to discriminate between civilians and combatants, or which are expected to cause disproportionate injury to the civilian population.
You may have noted: 'the parties to the conflict' and 'target[ing] civilians directly'. Now check out this report by Afua Hirsch from the same edition of the paper. Observe how the communication from those international lawyers is rendered by her:
The letter argues that Israel has violated principles of humanitarian law, including launching attacks directly aimed at civilians and failing to discriminate between civilians and combatants. [Emphasis added by me - NG.]
The 'parties to the conflict' have been reduced to the single party, Israel; and 'attacks directly aimed at civilians' from... ohhh, Gaza into Israel, have departed the scene. This is perhaps meant to illustrate the meaning of the idea that facts are sacred. But reporting sure the hell is free.
