In the Palestinian-Israel conflict since 1948 and up to 2012, according to B'Tselem figures, (an Israeli Human Rights organization monitoring the conflict with a declared anti- government bias. It is internationally recognized as reliable), there have been 7978 deaths. Included in this number, there are 1593 casualties as a result of intra Palestinian rivalry. I think that is enough for you to draw your own conclusions – both about the accusations and about the credibility of Mr. Pilger.
I would now like to turn your attention to Mr. Pilger's sophistry and the way he manipulates his readers. He employs a very effective tactic of mixing vivid emotive detail alongside vagueness. He does this so that no one can call him out and refute what he writes as "facts". For, how can you refute what he writes if you do not know when, where or how these terrible "atrocities" he describes happened? In this way he exploits his position and preys upon the uninformed, coloring their opinion to his way of thinking. That is misrepresentation, euphemistically put. Here are a few examples:
"For years, reporters have watched Israeli soldiers bait Palestinian children by abusing them through loud-speakers. Then they shoot them dead". Could it perhaps be that the loudspeakers are actually calling on all the people to evacuate the area ahead of an impending attack? I can personally vouch that this is what the soldiers are doing, because I have personally been there, in a similar situation. Is that what he means by "baiting" and "abuse"? Why were the children shot? He would have you believe that they were shot in cold blood, for doing absolutely nothing at all, just hanging around. He does not bother to describe the fact that this happened, for instance, in the heat of a violent riot, where Molotov Cocktails were thrown at the soldiers, or that the soldiers were shot at from within a heaving crowd of rioters. (to be continued)

In the Palestinian-Israel conflict since 1948 and up to 2012, according to B'Tselem figures, (an Israeli Human Rights organization monitoring the conflict with a declared anti- government bias. It is internationally recognized as reliable), there have been 7978 deaths. Included in this number, there are 1593 casualties as a result of intra Palestinian rivalry. I think that is enough for you to draw your own conclusions – both about the accusations and about the credibility of Mr. Pilger.
I would now like to turn your attention to Mr. Pilger's sophistry and the way he manipulates his readers. He employs a very effective tactic of mixing vivid emotive detail alongside vagueness. He does this so that no one can call him out and refute what he writes as "facts". For, how can you refute what he writes if you do not know when, where or how these terrible "atrocities" he describes happened? In this way he exploits his position and preys upon the uninformed, coloring their opinion to his way of thinking. That is misrepresentation, euphemistically put. Here are a few examples:
"For years, reporters have watched Israeli soldiers bait Palestinian children by abusing them through loud-speakers. Then they shoot them dead". Could it perhaps be that the loudspeakers are actually calling on all the people to evacuate the area ahead of an impending attack? I can personally vouch that this is what the soldiers are doing, because I have personally been there, in a similar situation. Is that what he means by "baiting" and "abuse"? Why were the children shot? He would have you believe that they were shot in cold blood, for doing absolutely nothing at all, just hanging around. He does not bother to describe the fact that this happened, for instance, in the heat of a violent riot, where Molotov Cocktails were thrown at the soldiers, or that the soldiers were shot at from within a heaving crowd of rioters. Nor does he bother allow you to think anything else other than that these children were the intended targets, not unfortunate collateral damage. (to be continued)

Since he does not provide you with the circumstances, he allows no room for rebuttal. That is twisting the facts to suit one's agenda.
"For years, reporters have known about Palestinian women about to give birth and refused passage through a roadblock to a hospital; and the baby has died, and sometimes the mother". Does this sound at all logical? Pilger fails to mention that these ambulances have been used by the Palestinians in the past to smuggle suicide belts and terrorists into Israel. Here is just a taste of what I am talking about, in a link: http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFA-Archive/2003/Pages/The%20Palestinian%20use%20of%20ambulances%20and%20medical%20mate.aspx.
If this does not justify the necessity to use roadblocks to monitor who is entering Israel from the West Bank and Gaza, what is? Pilger's failure to enlighten his readers on the reasons behind the roadblocks and the inspections of ambulances (which unfortunately cause delays) is an intentional attempt at misleading his readers. In addition, pregnant women themselves, have been suicide bombers, exploiting their condition to infiltrate Israel. Here is proof: http://www.haaretz.com/news/two-women-would-be-suicide-bombers-caught-on-way-to-attack-1.223027.
"For years, reporters have known about stricken people prevented from getting life-saving treatment, or shot dead when they’ve tried to reach a clinic for chemotherapy treatment. One elderly lady with a walking stick was murdered in this way – a bullet in her back". Firstly, there are 54 hospitals in the West Bank, with room for 43,800 beds. This begs the question why the Palestinians need to enter Israel to go to a hospital? Is this, in itself - the fact that Israel allows Palestinians to enter Israel for medical care - not a contradiction of Pilger's claim that Israel wants to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians? If YOU wanted to ethnically cleanse a people, would you provide them with medical care and waste your precious resources on them? But let's get back to the quote; (to be continued)

Pilger does not provide the time or place, not the circumstances or the incident for the reader, intentionally making it difficult for one to rebut his accusation. I did manage to find this article: http://www.foxnews.com/story/2002/12/03/elderly-palestinian-woman-killed-in-israeli-attack/. What is described must be put in the context of the second intifada, between 2000 and 2004, in which over 1500 Israeli civilians were killed in hundreds of terrorist attacks, by suicide bombers, car bombs and drive by shootings. The road was closed to civilian use. It was dark (therefore, the soldiers were not able to see who was sitting in the car). There had been terrorist attacks on that very road before. The driver of the car was acting suspiciously and did not stop when called to do so. Warning shots were fired. When the car continued traveling at speed towards them, the soldiers probably felt that it was a terrorist attack, and fired. All this does not interest Pilger one jot – as long as he evokes emotions of outrage from his readers, that the cruel, bloodthirsty Israelis shot an elderly Palestinian woman in the back. The fact that she was in a car (therefore the walking stick thing is an emotive prop, nothing more), is not important to him. Just that she was shot in the back. More sophistry.
"In one of my films, a Palestinian cameraman, Imad Ghanem, lies helpless while soldiers from the “most moral army in the world” blew both his legs off." Again, where is the context? He would have you believe that this reporter was sitting in a coffee house, sipping coffee, when out of the blue, a big, black helicopter suddenly appeared and released a hellfire rocket into the coffee house. Then, seeing poor Ghanem lying helpless, the pilot, from a distance of hundreds of meters, took aim and blew his legs off. Is it not more conceivable that the reporter was in the middle of an extremely violent conflict and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? (to be continued)

We will never know, since the writer does not want you to know. He just wants you to feel the outrage.
"Hamas has repeatedly offered a 10-year truce with Israel and has long settled for a two-state solution". Then what is this? http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Hamas-Mashaal-did-not-accept-the-two-state-solution
"The unforgivable crime of Hamas is a distinction almost never reported: it is the only Arab government to have been freely and democratically elected by its people". These elections were held in 2006. Eight years have passed since then. There has not been another election. For how long can one hold onto the mantra of "democratically elected", if there has not been a subsequent election for such a long time? Add to that: the Hamas putsch of PLO personnel in the violent civil war in 2007. In that war, Hamas militants went into hospitals and killed PLO wounded lying in their beds, one by one, and making certain no one got out alive. True, democratic behavior, right? Add to that the public hangings and summary public executions without trial for crimes of "collaboration with Israel" to prostitution and being gay. Democratic? Nope. Misrepresentation? Yup.
"Resistance is humanity at its bravest and most noble". Let us examine this bravery. 14000 rockets fired deliberately at civilian targets from miles away, and from within civilian population centers, schools and mosques. Does that sound brave to you? Using one's own population as human shields, often by force, and then crying to the world in outrage when the human shields are killed in retaliation about "genocide". Is that noble? Methinks Mr. Pilger has a very warped sense of what is noble. Seems to me he has mixed the definition up with perfidy.
"The resistance in Gaza is rightly compared with the 1943 Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto – which also dug tunnels and deployed tactics of subterfuge and surprise against an overpowering military machine." One difference the writer fails to enlighten readers about: the Jews in the ghetto were fighting for their lives against an enemy that had already outlined a plan for a Final Solution for their annihilation. (see continuation)

The tunnels dug were in order to attack Nazi soldiers who were sending them off to the death camps. The Hamas tunnels were dug under civilian settlements, kibbutzim and moshavim with the express purpose of killing innocent, unarmed men, women and children – and those that were not killed, to be kidnapped and held for ransom, without access to the Red Cross or any other international aid organization. How does that compare? That is misleading the readers.
In conclusion, I will say this: Mr. Pilger may have started out as a journalist. He may have even won awards for journalism that he honestly earned. However, when a journalist trades on his reputation to further his own biased agenda, and flouts all the ethics which are supposed to make journalism reliable, so that the reader can rely on his reporting, then he crosses a line which cheapens all his previous accomplishments. This is what John Pilger has done. He exploits the fact that the majority of his readers are uninformed about the Israel-Palestine conflict (and the wider Arab-Israel conflict) to unscrupulously influence their opinions, using manipulations of facts and incidents, which he ensures cannot be verified. In this way he thinks that he can place himself above being called out for the charlatan of truth that he has become. I think it is fair to say that his mentor, from many years ago would have been so proud of him. Yes, I really do think that Goebbels could have taken a page out of his book.