gpruitt@ap.org

Dear Mr Pruitt,

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.

Barry Shaw,

International Public Diplomacy Director,

Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.