ABC Relays More Terrorist Spin: 'Gazans Simply Defending Themselves'
On Tuesday's World News, ABC correspondent Alex Marquardt again forwarded terrorist propaganda rationalizing the firing of rockets into Israel as he repeated claims -- which he attributed vaguely to "Gazans" -- that the rocket attacks represent Gazans "simply defending themselves." He then repeated without question their contention that "true peace" will not happen "until Israel stops targeting people here in the Gaza Strip, and that blockade of Gaza is lifted."
On Friday's World News, Marquardt had given an unidentified member of one of the Palestinian terrorist groups a forum to claim that "we wouldn't fire rockets if Israel wasn't killing us," without informing viewers that almost 700 rockets had already been fired from Gaza this year before Israel began its military campaign.
Israel notably imposed the blockade on the Gaza Strip after Hamas staged a violent coup against the relatively more moderate Fatah party, overthrowing the then-democratically elected president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.
Below is a complete transcript of the relevant segment from the Tuesday, November 20, World News on ABC:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Alex, there had been some hope that a ceasefire might already be taking hold, but that bombing has not stopped all day where you are.
ALEX MARQUARDT: No, it really hasn't, George. It's been very strange to hear about peace talks and ceasefires when really the explosions have not stopped. For much of the night, there has been incoming artillery from Israeli ships out at sea, the airstrikes from the sky have not stopped, and just a short while ago, we saw militants firing rockets from here just behind us, and that has been going on for much of the day.
Gazans say what they want, of course, is peace and quiet, but what's been happening for the last week, they say, is simply Gazans defending themselves, and they see the U.S. as completely siding with Israel. So while they would like to see a ceasefire, they say that true peace cannot come along until Israel stops targeting people here in the Gaza Strip, and that blockade of Gaza is lifted. George?
-- Brad Wilmouth is a news analyst at the Media Research Center
