By Barry Shaw
NETANYA, Israel — Associated Press (AP) CEO Gary Pruitt penned a complaint against Israel for destroying the office building in which the AP, and other foreign media outlets, were renting space.
The building was owned and being used as an operations center by Palestinian Hamas.
As a result of the complaint from the CEO of AP, I sent him a protest letter by email which I am turning into an open letter after receiving no response from him.
It is important for the readers to understand the content of what Mr Pruitt said, and what he failed to say.
This is the text of the email I sent him:
I was staggered to read your criticism of Israel for destroying a building which housed Hamas military intelligence offices, as well as their military intelligence development offices.
Your statement read, “We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy a building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza.”
The question is really why you and other news organizations are paying rent, and being hosted by, an internationally designated Islamic terror organization?
Your criticism came at a particularly hurtful time as our Defense Forces were defending us from an unprovoked onslaught of over three thousand rockets coordinated out of the building that your company occupied.
I am sure you are familiar with the laws of warfare. Accepting the fact that Hamas had initiated a prolonged, one-sided, missile war, a clear international war crime, the building you occupied had become a legitimate military target.
Nowhere in your anti-Israel protest did you mention this fact. Neither did you acknowledge that the IDF had given the occupants of the building, including our Hamas enemy by the way, sufficient warning and time to vacate the property prior to attack.
To be honest, we Israelis did not expect honesty from the foreign media. This virtue has been missing in action in past bloody encounters we have had with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. And we were not surprised by the bias of AP.
My advice to you, and to all foreign media, is not to rent office space from a terrorist organization in the future.
Pruitt failed to acknowledge my letter. He did, however, publicly doubt IDF’s explanation that Hamas used their building for their military intelligence development and coordination and demanded that the IDF show him proof.
The IDF is not in the business of leaking covert military intelligence to news organizations. The IDF has instead shown the evidence to individuals in the United States military intelligence who are satisfied with Israel’s explanation.
Editor’s Note: For the record, Hamas has denied that it used the AP building for such purposes.
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Barry Shaw is the International Public Diplomacy Director for the Netanya-based Israel Institute for Strategic Studies. He may be contacted via barry.shaw@sdjewishworld.com