Palestinians stone tourists at Temple Mount; Reuters blames Israel

Christian and Jewish visitors touring the Temple Mount in Jerusalem today were stoned by Palestinians.  While Reuters cites an Israeli police spokesman for clinical details of the confrontation, Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Tom Perry give full voice to the Palestinians to disseminate their agitprop:

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat accused Israel of exacerbating tensions on purpose to undermine U.S. efforts to broker a resumption of peace talks.  "The message is very, very clear: they are trying to sabotage all efforts to revive peace," he told Reuters... Mohammad Hussein, the mufti of Jerusalem, said in a statement Israeli authorities would bear responsibility for the consequences of what he described as the "storming" of the site by "extremist groups".

Got that?  Palestinians stone non-Muslim visitors to Judaism's holiest shrine and Palestinian officials, aided and abetted by Reuters, vilify Israel.

Fisher-Ilan and Perry then employ the logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore on account of this) to peddle a canard that has long since been debunked:

The second Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, erupted in 2000 after a visit by then-Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon to the compound, known by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif.

As we noted here, even the Palestinians admit that the bloody war they waged against Israeli civilians (also known as the "intifada") was planned months ahead of Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount.

For Reuters however, as the rooster triggers the sunrise, Israel is always to blame for Arab violence.