Decided by the Press Ombudsman

The Press Ombudsman has upheld a complaint by Ms Karen McHugh under Principle 5.3 (Privacy) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Magazines.   

On 11 September 2014 The Irish Times published an article under the headline “The Holocaust makes Israel think international law doesn’t apply to them”.  The article was based on an interview with Gideon Levy, a columnist with the Haaretz newspaper.  In the article Mr Levy was quoted as expressing some very critical views of the Israeli Government’s policies towards Palestinians.  The headline was a quote from Mr Levy who was reported in the article as having said “The Holocaust makes Israelis think international law doesn’t apply to them, because they are the ultimate victims of history; the only victims”.

The Bray People published an article on 20 August 2014 under the headline “TV3 rapped for ‘Death in Bray’ programme”.  The subject of the article was a decision by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) to partially uphold a complaint about a TV3 programme which had featured the deaths of Shane Clancy and Sebastian Creane in 2009.  Shane Clancy killed Sebastian Creane and injured others before taking his own life.  The complaint to the BAI had been made by Ms Leonie Fennell, the mother of Shane Clancy.

On Saturday 13 September 2014 The Irish Times,  in its Arts and Books section,  published an article which reviewed a number of books on the topic of the Middle East and in particular Israeli-Palestinian relations. The headline on the review read “Fear and loathing: Palestinians pay the price of history”.  This was followed by a sub-heading “Israel still claims it has no choice but to continue the policies of ethnic cleansing, dispossession and extermination that started with its foundation”.

On 17 December 2014 the Irish Examiner published an article under the heading “Domestic abuse increases at Christmas, warns charity”. The report was based on an interview with the director of Women’s Aid, an organisation that provides services to victims of domestic violence.

On Wednesday 7 January 2015 the Irish Examiner published a report under the heading “Women want Government to tackle abortion, violence and childcare”.  The article was a short report on the principal findings of a survey carried out by the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) into the top issues which women feel the government should address.

On 6 September 2014 The Irish Times published in its news section an article under the heading “Medical personnel claim Israel tested new weapons during attack on Gaza”.  The article carried allegations from Dr Sobhi Skaik, chief surgeon and medical director at Shifa hospital and Ibrahim Abu Kas, ambulance officer of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, that some of the injured and dead people they had seen had suffered injuries from forms of weaponry and munitions that they had not seen before. Ibrahim Abu Kas also made allegations that the Israeli army had attacked civilians and rescue workers who had rushed to the site of a bombing.  

On Tuesday 9 September The Irish Times published an article under the heading “Dream of Gaza seaport alive despite decades of delay and waves of negotiation”.  The article described how plans to build a deep-water sea port in Gaza proposed more than twenty years ago remained on the drawing board.  Delays were attributed to the slowness of negotiations between the Gaza authorities and the Israeli authorities and to the impact of the various military conflicts that have broken out over the two decades.

On 2 September 2014 the front page of The Irish Times carried a report under the heading “Gaza residents pick up the pieces after 50 days of bombing and destruction”.  The article included eye-witness accounts from Palestinians living in Gaza on the destruction brought about by the Israeli military forces.  The Israeli Ambassador to Ireland, His Excellency Boaz Modai, complained to the editor of The Irish Times  stating that he believed “… this article to represent a serious departure from the journalistic standards of fairness and objectivity to be expected in a news report”.  He claimed that the journalist reported the opinion of residents of Shejaia that “revenge motivated the extreme destruction” of their part of Gaza by the Israelis without challenging that opinion or even establishing a “personal critical distance from it”. 

On 2 September on an inside page The Irish Times carried a report under the heading “Vista of devastation: apartment buildings, a hospital and factories flattened”. The article opened on a description of the damage that an Israeli military attack had inflicted on a centre for autistic and Down syndrome children in Gaza.  The report stated that the centre had received a warning from the Israeli army that it was to be destroyed because a Hamas rocket launcher had been detected on its roof.  It was reported that the centre said it was not possible for there to be a Hamas rocket launcher on its roof as the building was secured and no one had entered it.  Despite the denial the building was attacked.  The reporter interviewed the founder of the centre, explained how it had been funded and how many children had been treated in the centre.  She went to the roof of the centre and reported that she could find no evidence of a Hamas rocket launcher.  She reported that the centre was 3 km from the Israeli border.  She reported that there was an Israeli imposed buffer zone on the Palestinian side of the border and that this buffer zone deprived Palestinians of 44% of their land. The article then went onto to report on various Palestinian factories which had been destroyed by the Israeli Defence Forces.