Lies, damned lies, and Reuters reporting

In a story appearing today on the latest violent clashes between Palestinians and Israelis at the Temple Mount/al-Aqsa mosque compound, Reuters reverts to its traditional bias and selective reporting by omitting any mention of the incipient cause of the violence like Arab Muslim clerics inciting Muslims to "defend Jerusalem against Jewish conquest" (Haaretz) or Muslim youth "gathering rocks to throw and pouring oil onto the ground to hinder the access of security forces and the visitors" (Jerusalem Post).

Reuters correspondents and their editors do however, repeat one of their favorite canards about the cause of the last intifada:

A visit to the mosque compound nine years ago by Israeli right-wing leader Ariel Sharon was credited with sparking an Intifada, or uprising, by Palestinians. Five years of violence killed several thousand people and wrecked efforts toward peace.

Note the use of the weasel words "was credited" by Reuters' writers to evade responsibility for promulgating the slander themselves. As we have previously noted, Palestinian officials have acknowledged that the intifada was planned months in advance and not due to Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount. Here is what PA Communications Minister Imad Al-Faluji said in 2001:

"The Al-Aqsa Intifada emphasizes these principles and axioms. Whoever thinks that the Intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, is wrong, even if this visit was the straw that broke the back of the Palestinian people. This Intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David negotiations, where he turned the table upside down on President Clinton. [Arafat] remained steadfast and challenged [Clinton]. He rejected the American terms and he did it in the heart of the US."

Apparently, even a public Palestinian admission of culpability is not enough to shake Reuters off its anti-Israel agenda.

Reuters then goes on to deploy another of its favorite fallacies:

Palestinian officials have complained that Israel is tightening its grip on the Old City and Arab East Jerusalem.

As demonstrated, "Arab East Jerusalem" is both a fiction and racially-loaded term which rewards the Arab Legion for their efforts to kill and ethnically cleanse all Jews from the eastern portion of Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967. The Arabs of course, refer to the area this way because it asserts their territorial claims.

Reuters of course, accommodates them.