I was surprised by the bias presented in the 2 recently published CMAJ articles on the conflict in Gaza and by their tendency to present unattributed and unsupported allegations as fact. 1,2 Publishing articles like this without providing context leaves an unsophisticated reader to think that the Israeli military operation was a one-sided attack by a powerful force against a poor and innocent citizenry. Hamas’ provocation was prolonged and relentless before Israel’s powerful response, which should also be understood as part of the wider conflict against Islamist terror.
Information should have been provided on the potential conflicts of interest of the authors, peer review should have been conducted and some sort of editorial contextualization should have been offered; these steps are standard for scientific articles published in the Journal. I am tempted to suggest that these 2 articles should not have been published at all because CMAJ is an unlikely forum for such material, but I should not insist on censoring a legitimate point of view. However, facts must be correct and the context must be presented fairly. In presenting such a limited snapshot of the terrible grief in Gaza, I believe that CMAJ failed in these areas and may have led astray readers without background regarding the conflict and its antecedents.
Footnotes
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Competing interests: None declared.