The unvarnished truth

Let's be clear: Reuters is an advocacy group masquerading as a news agency.  The evidence for our assertion can be found in the almost 300 posts critiquing Reuters articles and published on our site since August of last year.  Particularly with respect to the Middle East conflict, Reuters correspondents have a very specific and very transparent agenda which manifests in thousands of stories appearing on its website.  That agenda is to discredit and delegitimize Israel while enabling Arab and leftist calls for the Jewish state to be weakened, disarmed, and ultimately, destroyed.

To that end, Reuters currently has three key strategic vectors driving its reporting on the conflict.  The first, which forms the core of its traditional anti-Israel platform, is to demonize Israel for its policy of accommodating and protecting Jews who choose to live in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria (also, the "West Bank").  The second vector is to apologize for Arab rejectionism and violent aggression against Jews living in the Middle East.  The third and most recent addition to the Reuters anti-Israel playbook has its origins in the "realist" school peddled by the likes of academics Mearsheimer and Walt who argue that American support for Israel, and by implication, Israel's existence, feed global Islamic terrorism.

This last vector can be seen in a story by Reuters "security correspondent" William Maclean who, armed with a handful of quotes -- one from an Islamic extremist and another from "a former associate of Osama bin Laden" -- argues that outrage at the Gaza flotilla incident could radicalize Muslim youth and:

translate into increased fund-raising for transnational militant groups like al Qaeda or like-minded allies, or foster tolerance or even sympathy for such groups among Muslims who are not otherwise ideological.

Maclean brushes aside the facts and moral legitimacy of the Israeli operation intended to prevent Hamas -- a genocidal movement sworn to the annihilation of the Jewish people -- from obtaining weapons and focuses solely on the death of the flotilla "activists" as a reason for Muslims to radicalize:

Whatever the detailed context and facts of the clash, it is the killing by Israeli forces of nine activists that dominates perceptions of the incident among Muslims.

In this respect, Maclean is pursuing the same line of logic as his colleague Alistair Lyon in a piece last November where the latter suggested that perceived injustice to the Palestinians fuels Islamic terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  We noted the absurdity of this notion at the time.

Neither Lyon nor Maclean broach, nor can they explain, how it is that violent Islamic Jihad has been a cornerstone of the faith preceding the creation of Israel by centuries.  Nor do they have an answer to Muslim "uncompromising opposition to Israel" short of the unstated solution: the eradication of a Jewish sovereign.

And that's what ultimately, Reuters is baying for.