Neighbours (should be there for one another)

This little headline in our sidebar caught my eye:

“Sharri Markson: journalist at The Australian in run-in with Israeli security” 

I thought I’d pop over to have a look and do a quick Google to see what sort of journalist we’re dealing with; so I turned up the collar of my trench-coat, adjusted my trilby and put out my pipe. 

It seems that as well as being a journalist, Sharri is a part glamour-girl and opportunist. She has a track record of sneaking into hospital wards pretending to be a visitor in order to get exclusive stories from victims of terrorism. (Well, she did that once, it is said.) Oh, and rifling through a rival publication’s bins.

What interested me was that the Guardian headline gave off a strong whiff of Israel-bashery.

Were the Israelis heavy-handed, or was Ms Markson doing something extremely self-serving and out of order, and was the fact that so many Syrians were being treated in Israeli hospitals, and that their identities were being kept quite for their own safety more of a story than the grievances of a badly behaved journalist who it seems, had blatantly abused her privilege?

Anyway, the other paper that has reported this incident was a bit more forthcoming.

The Sydney Morning Herald, and I assume they should know, had a somewhat more critical take on Sharri’s antics. 

Has the BBC run many stories about Israelis treating certain people in their hospitals? I understand Mahmoud Abbas’s brother-in-law was treated in one recently, and it seems that Abbas’s own health isn’t too good at the moment. I wonder whether he’ll avail himself of Israel’s expertise or whether he’ll be BDSing it?