Reuters quotes Israel's PM and "far-right" FM on Iran's Suez crossing; censors Iran's response

Reuters Jerusalem Bureau Editor-in-Charge, Jeffrey Heller, reports on public remarks by Israel's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister with regard to Iran's plan to send ships through the Suez Canal:

(Reuters) - Iran's plan to send two naval ships through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean is an attempt to expand its regional influence, and Israel takes a grave view of the move, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.
"We can see what an unstable region we live in, an area in which Iran is trying to take advantage of the situation that has arisen and broaden its influence by transferring two warships via the Suez Canal," he said in public remarks to his cabinet.
"Israel takes a grave view of this Iranian step," Netanyahu said, adding the Jewish state would need to boost defense spending as a result of Tehran's move and recent regional upheaval. [...]

Last week, the prospect of the Suez crossing was described by Israel's far-right foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, as a provocation by Iran.

Heller is not as attentive however, to the official reply by Iran's "conservative" Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei:

"The fake Zionist government is a cancerous tumor and the cause of different diseases and political, economic calamity in the region," the commander-in-chief of Iran told officials while marking the anniversary of the birth of the Prophet Mohammed which in the Shiite calendar fell on Monday.

"The arrogance (Iran's standard term of abuse for the United States) is doing its best to preserve this warmongering tumor, but today the hatred of regional nations towards this cancerous tumor is more evident," state television quoted him as saying.

The above statement by Khamenei has gone completely unreported by Reuters.  Perhaps Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger will look into the reasons why.

Reuters misrepresents Obama

In our post just below, we noted the way Reuters correspondents regularly fabricate so as to advance their personal, and perhaps as well, corporate political agenda.  Central to the media giant's efforts to assign ownership of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") and Jerusalem to the Arabs has been to deliberately and regularly mischaracterize Jewish settlements there as "illegal".  Consistent with international law as resolved by both the League of Nations and United Nations, Jewish settlements anywhere west of the Jordan River are in fact, fully legal.

Reuters correspondents clearly believe however, that by repeatedly drumming into the minds of their readers, in story after story, and in various incantations, an utterly false message, i.e., Jewish settlements are "illegal", they will win the day in the forum of public opinion.

Mohammed Assadi, Louis Charbonneau, Crispian Balmer, Douglas Hamilton and editor Peter Graff have another go on the fabrication carousel with this false citation:

Obama, who has said Israeli settlements in territories it captured in a 1967 war are illegal and unhelpful to the peace process, is opposed to a U.N. move that in Washington's view could shatter hopes of reviving the stalled talks.

So, has President Obama ever publicly asserted that the settlements are "illegal"?  No.  And of course, this is deliberately the case because Obama, advised by scores of international lawyers and State Department officials, knows very well that the settlements are, as noted above, entirely legal.  To assert otherwise, in a speech or other public forum, would be to contravene international law.

If only Reuters correspondents had as much respect for their own code.

Louis Charbonneau continues to prevaricate

Last month, we caught Reuters correspondent Louis Charbonneau in a lie when he asserted that the Quartet -- the US, EU, Russia and the UN -- had characterized Israeli settlements as "illegal".  Now that the United Nations Security Council has also spoken on the matter, failing to carry a Palestinian-advanced draft resolution declaring the settlements illegal, Charbonneau resorts to Plan B: characterize the land on which Jewish settlements are built as "Palestinian":

(Reuters) - The United States on Friday vetoed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements on Palestinian land after the Palestinians refused a compromise offer from Washington.

In fact of course, the land in question is not Palestinian at all but a combination of private land legally purchased by Jews and public lands formerly illegally occupied by Jordan.  The national status of the territories remains officially unallocated.  But this is simply too much for those like Charbonneau who fancy themselves the final arbiters of international law and seek to use the bully pulpit of the largest media agency in the world to advance their personal politics.

Charbonneau then repeats the tired canard that:

U.N. diplomats say the Palestinian Authority, which has been trying to defend itself against critics who accuse it of caving in to the Americans and Israelis during peace talks, was eager to show that it can stand up to Washington.

Oh yes, one can certainly see that the Palestinians caved in to the Israelis during peace talks by utterly refusing, as they have for nearly a century, to acknowledge a nation-state for the Jewish people.

Reuters Editor-in-Chief absolutely shocked public trust in media at historic low

We nearly missed this classic blog post by Reuters Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger last month:

My industry, media, had a Trust tumble in the US and UK to small levels of trust never seen before – “How much do you trust media to do what is right?” The US is down to 27% and the UK 22%. Maybe I should try my hand at fiction instead!

Reuters has been doing quite well in that category for years.

Failure to fact-check the derangement of Mohamed ElBaradei

Continuing with our analysis of Reuters public relations piece for Egyptian wannabe leader Mohamed ElBaradei, Reuters correspondent Louis Charbonneau uncritically quotes the former IAEA chief in his assessment of relations between Egypt and Israel:

He added that relations between Egypt and Israel constituted an imperfect peace and could be improved.
"It's a pseudo peace," he said. "You cannot even publish an Arab book in Israel. You cannot have an Israeli book published in Cairo. That is a very narrow definition of what you call peace."

The claim that Israel does not allow the publication or distribution of books by Arab authors or in the Arabic language is utterly false.  Up to 2009, it was illegal to import into Israel books printed in Syria or Lebanon (not Egypt) due to the official state of war with these countries.  A bill introduced by the Israeli Parliament that year ended this British Mandate-era law.

Egypt however, does appear to have an issue with Israeli books:

Over his career, [Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk] Hosni has accumulated a long record of opposing exchanges with Israel, repeatedly saying normalization must await resolution of the Palestinian issue and warning that opening up to Jewish culture would be dangerous for Egypt. But his most notorious sally came in May last year, when he told an Islamist member of the Egyptian parliament that he would personally burn any Israeli books found in Egyptian libraries.

An "imperfect peace" indeed.

Airbrushing Mohamed ElBaradei

In the same biographical piece on Mohamed ElBaradei discussed below, Reuters correspondent Louis Charbonneau explains why Western powers, particularly Israel, were frequently at odds with the former IAEA chief:

One of those disagreements concerned the Israeli bombing in September 2007 of what U.S. and Israeli officials said was a nascent nuclear reactor in Syria built with the help of North Korea. One former IAEA official said ElBaradei "went through the roof" when he found out about the Israeli strike against the facility, which Syria says was not a nuclear reactor.
Another diplomat said ElBaradei took the Israeli action as a "personal attack against him" and a "vote of no-confidence" because the Israelis decided to bomb the facility rather than ask the IAEA to confront Syria and inspect the site.
"The Israelis decided that ElBaradei could not be trusted to do anything about it so they chose to act pre-emptively and solve the problem," the diplomat said.
Two years later, in September 2009, Israel and France suggested that ElBaradei was sitting on IAEA findings that pointed more concretely to a covert Iranian nuclear weapons program. ElBaradei angrily denied any such cover-up. The Israeli ambassador to the IAEA made clear his disapproval of the outgoing IAEA chief and conspicuously left his seat empty during a closed-door gathering of agency member states who took turns heaping praise on ElBaradei for his 12 years at the nuclear watchdog.

Charbonneau assumes a disinterested stance on the contention between ElBaradei and Israel and fails to inform readers that Syria is still stonewalling the United Nations and new IAEA chief, Yukiya Amano, in their efforts to investigate the site bombed by Israel -- at which significant traces of man-made uranium had been detected.

Charbonneau also fails to disclose to his audience that just weeks after the accusation by Israel and France that ElBaradei had covered-up evidence of Iran's nuclear weapons program, it was revealed publicly that ElBaradei and the IAEA had indeed known for many months that Iran had the data to build a nuclear bomb and had tested an advanced nuclear warhead design:

While the analysis represents the judgment of the nuclear agency’s senior staff, a struggle has erupted in recent months over whether to make it public. The dispute pits the agency’s departing director, Mohamed ElBaradei, against his own staff and against foreign governments eager to intensify pressure on Iran.

Apparently Charbonneau didn't feel that information would assist readers in their assessment of whether "Mohamed ElBaradei's time has arrived".

How is this thing unlike the others?

In a lengthy and mostly flattering profile piece on Mohamed ElBaradei, who is keen to lead the next Egyptian government, Reuters correspondent and amnesiac Louis Charbonneau suggests that Western powers do not trust the former IAEA chief due to his attempts to undermine efforts to pressure Iraq and Iran to relinquish their nuclear programs:

But Washington and Tel Aviv are deeply suspicious of the 68-year-old. They along with other allies were frustrated by what they said were blatant attempts by ElBaradei -- who ran the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1997 to 2009 -- to undermine their efforts to ratchet up the pressure on Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion and later on Iran over its suspected nuclear arms program [...]

ElBaradei also has critics in Washington, Israel, London, Berlin and Paris who have not forgotten their frustration at what they describe as his attempts to undermine their drive to ratchet up the pressure on Iran over a nuclear program they fear is intended to develop weapons capability but Tehran says is for peaceful energy purposes only.

Note that whereas Charbonneau specifically refers to the capitals of the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Iran, he willfully errs in identifying, and subsequently omits, the capital of Israel: Jerusalem.  This is not the first time Reuters has taken it upon itself to decide the capital city of the Jewish state.

Reuters still fabricating geography; still concealing history; still covering for the Palestinians

Integral to Reuters efforts to assign ownership of Jerusalem to the Palestinian Arabs is the artificial bifurcation of the city into two fictitious cities: East Jerusalem, and presumably West Jerusalem (although the latter is rarely mentioned by the news agency).

What Reuters cunningly characterizes and capitalizes as "East Jerusalem" is actually the Old City of Jerusalem, complete with its ancient artifacts and religious sites including Judaism's holiest shrine, the Temple Mount, where the Temples of Solomon and Herod once stood.

Although Jews founded the city of Jerusalem as their capital over three thousand years ago and maintained a continuous presence there until they were ethnically cleansed from the area by the Arab Legion in 1949, Reuters seizes as its historical reference point, the 19 year sliver of time, between 1949 and 1967, when Jews were barred from living in or entering the city by the conquering Arabs.  The propaganda mantra, "East Jerusalem", is employed to conceal Jerusalem's Jewish history and the fact that the Arabs seek to once again control the Old City of Jerusalem.

Indeed, even the Palestinian Authority does not refer to "East Jerusalem" on its website or in its literature when it declares its intention to make Jerusalem the capital of its inchoate state.  As well, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian officials are quite clear when they assert that the city of "Jerusalem" must be declared the Palestinian capital (and that no Jews will be permitted there).  No modifying East is mentioned.

So, the next time you see a Reuters correspondent write something along the lines of:

East Jerusalem, which is controlled by the Israelis but which the Palestinians want as their future capital, poses another problem

you'll know Reuters is still fabricating geography, still concealing history, and still covering for the Palestinian Arabs.

Reuters shills for Gaddafi; omits a little something

Reuters reports that Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi has urged Palestinian Arabs to revolt against Israel:

(Reuters) - Palestinian refugees should capitalize on the wave of popular revolts in the Middle East by massing peacefully on the borders of Israel until it gives in to their demands, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Sunday.
Gaddafi is respected in many parts of the Arab world for his uncompromising criticism of Israel and Arab leaders who have dealings with the Jewish state, though some people in the region dismiss his initiatives as unrealistic.
He was giving his first major speech since a popular uprising in neighboring Egypt forced President Hosni Mubarak to resign, an event which electrified the Arab world and prompted speculation that other Arab governments could also be toppled.

Missing from Reuters report is any mention of Gaddafi's warning to his citizens not to participate in domestic "disturbances" similar to those in Egypt and admonishing against the use of Facebook.

Hat tip: EoZ

Reuters channels George Carlin

The sun will rise tomorrow.  Winter leads to spring.  And Reuters will continue to peddle deceitful propaganda in an effort to manipulate its audience to buy into the agency's world view.

Following the departure of Hosni Mubarak last Friday, government leaders in the US and elsewhere have expressed concern that the Muslim Brotherhood may ascend to power in Egypt.  As a media organization that has consistently embraced all things hostile to Jewish nationalism, Reuters has been busy over the last couple of weeks cleaning up the image, history, membership, and doctrine of the Brotherhood so as to make the group more palatable to Western audiences.

Reuters correspondent Phil Stewart continues in that vein by offering us a risible oxymoron; selectively quoting the Obama administration's dubious director of national intelligence; and repeating a propaganda mantra which has become ubiquitous of late in Reuters stories on the Brotherhood:

Al Qaeda is widely seen as weak in Egypt thanks partly to Mubarak, and his departure is raising fears in the U.S. Congress that the rise of even moderate Islamists may give radical elements more room to operate.

Recalling comedian George Carlin, the phrase "moderate Islamist" evokes other classic oxymorons like holy war, mercy killing, and death benefit.  Only Reuters could suggest that those zealously committed to the universal adoption of medieval and misogynistic Sharia law could be considered "moderate".

In an effort to suggest that Western concerns over the Muslim Brotherhood are overblown, Stewart cites the Obama administration's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, in testimony before Congress:

James Clapper, the U.S. director of national intelligence, sought to play down fears about the Muslim Brotherhood this week, saying it "has eschewed violence and has decried al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam."
"They have pursued social ends, betterment of the political order in Egypt, et cetera," he told lawmakers on Thursday.
Clapper acknowledged that the Muslim Brotherhood was only an umbrella group, and FBI Director Robert Mueller noted that some elements have supported terrorism in the past.

Carefully edited out from this direct quote however, is Clapper's embarrassing assertion that the Brotherhood is largely secular.  Here is a more complete citation:

"The term 'Muslim Brotherhood'...is an umbrella term for a variety of movements, in the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam," Clapper said. "They have pursued social ends, a betterment of the political order in Egypt, et cetera.....In other countries, there are also chapters or franchises of the Muslim Brotherhood, but there is no overarching agenda, particularly in pursuit of violence, at least internationally."

Nor does Stewart mention that Clapper may not be the most reliable source for an accurate assessment of the Islamist threat to peace and security.

Then comes the propaganda mantra:

The movement [Muslim Brotherhood], which Mubarak's government banned and sought to demonize, is certainly hostile to Israel and the U.S. policy in the region.
It has historic links with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which Washington considers to be a terrorist organization, and shares its belief in armed struggle against Israel.
But unlike the militant groups that fought Mubarak's rule in the 1990s, the Brotherhood is led by professionals with modern educations -- engineers, doctors, lawyers and academics. The core membership is middle-class or lower middle-class.

As we noted last week when Reuters began embedding this deliberately deceptive rhetoric in its stories on the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas -- which is considered a terrorist organization by the European Union as well as by the United States -- does not simply believe in "armed struggle" against Israel.  In violation of the Reuters Handbook, Stewart is employing a misleading euphemism to conceal the Islamist commitment to eradicating Israel and carrying out a genocide of the Jewish people.

Stewart then repeats the incoherent suggestion that a "professional" and educated leadership on the one hand, and the adoption of violent, totalitarian aims on the other, are somehow mutually exclusive.  We beg to differ.

Irony is honesty with the volume cranked up

Historical fabricator and Reuters correspondent Douglas Hamilton informs us that the Palestinian Arabs are planning to apply to UNESCO for the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to be added to its list of World Heritage sites:

"This step is part and parcel of our plan to end the (Israeli) occupation and establish a state," said Palestinian Authority Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Khouloud Daibes, presenting a formal submission to the UNESCO heritage committee.
"This is a message of our determination," she told a news conference marking the first Palestinian bid for a place on UNESCO's list, which over the past 40 years has denoted more than 900 sites of "outstanding universal value to humanity."
The bid was discussed at UNESCO headquarters in Paris last week by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who since 2009 has driven a campaign to establish all the attributes and institutions of Palestinian statehood by September this year.

And here is an excerpt from the UNESCO website explaining the importance of protecting significant cultural sites:

Considering that the existing international conventions, recommendations and resolutions concerning cultural and natural property demonstrate the importance, for all the peoples of the world, of safeguarding this unique and irreplaceable property, to whatever people it may belong,
Considering that parts of the cultural or natural heritage are of outstanding interest and therefore need to be preserved as part of the world heritage of mankind as a whole,
Considering that, in view of the magnitude and gravity of the new dangers threatening them, it is incumbent on the international community as a whole to participate in the protection of the cultural and natural heritage of outstanding universal value, by the granting of collective assistance which, although not taking the place of action by the State concerned, will serve as an efficient complement thereto,

Hamilton offers a cursory mention of the violent confrontation in 2002 between Israeli troops and armed Palestinian militants who had forcibly seized and occupied the Church for a month in an effort to escape arrest.  Yet, Hamilton's story fails to convey the irony reflected by the Palestinian Arabs applying for protection and preservation of the sacred and historically significant site in which 250 wanted Palestinian terrorists held 100 people hostage, stole food and gold from the monks, urinated and defected on the church floor, and used Bibles for toilet paper.

Somehow, we get the feeling that irony is lost on Hamilton.

UNCHR public relations, courtesy of Reuters

The last we visited with Reuters correspondent Stephanie Nebehay, she was busy misrepresenting the Geneva Conventions and a statement from the Red Cross, unable to distinguish between Gaza and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), and parroting agitprop from 911 "Truther" and Israel-hating lunatic Richard Falk.

Nebehay reappears today with a puff piece on the UN Human Rights Council and its chief Navi Pillay which appears to be a reply to recent op-eds critical of the UN body by Amnon Rubinstein in the Jerusalem Post and Alan Dershowitz in the Huffington Post. 

Nebehay attempts to portray Pillay as a proactive and principled human rights campaigner, successfully advocating for democratic and humanitarian changes around the globe:

Pillay sent experts to Tunisia to help shape democratic reforms and investigate past violations, and made it clear her office is ready to help elsewhere.
She denounced killings and abductions as they unfolded in Ivory Coast after a November 28 poll where U.N.-certified results show Alassane Ouattara beat incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo.
On New Year's Eve, she went a step further, publicly warning Gbagbo and top commanders they may be held accountable for human rights crimes. She flagged reports of two mass graves at the time and allegations of a third one since.
Pillay has blamed unprecedented protests in Egypt squarely on the government of President Hosni Mubarak, accusing it of serious abuses including widespread torture.
"People have a right to protest, and freedom of information is especially important at times like these," she said in an appeal for calm as one million people took to the streets.
The international criminal justice system now provides the tools to ensure that perpetrators are held to account, according to the former U.N. war crimes judge.
In a statement on Friday, ahead of visits this month to Israel, the occupied territories and Russia, she warned:
"We now see there is an intense hunger for human rights in the Middle East and North Africa -- and of course in other countries in other regions. Governments who ignore these extremely loud and clear warning signals are doing so at their own peril."

But as Rubinstein and Dershowitz point out, Tunisia and Egypt were in fact members of the UN Human Rights Council and under Pillay, the body repeatedly ignored and sustained human rights abuses in these countries:

In its reports, along with mild criticism, the commission complimented both regimes: Tunisia was praised for building “a legal and constitutional framework for the promotion and protection of human rights,” and Egypt was lauded for initiatives “taken in recent years as regards human rights, in particular the creation of human rights divisions within the ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs.” (Reading these excerpts, one may be forgiven for thinking that the true demonstration should take place in Geneva, seat of the Human Rights Commission.

Only in the 25th paragraph of her 26-paragraph story does Nebehay offer a hint of the endemic bias underlying the activities of the Council (which has devoted one-third of its resolutions to condemning the only democracy in the Middle East) and the ideology driving that bias:

The 47-member forum is dominated by developing countries often backed by China, Cuba and Russia. Critics say the council unfairly focuses on Israel and its alleged violations.

Pillay, who succeeded Canadian Louise Arbour in September 2008, is the fifth High Commissioner since the post was set up in 1994. It is not yet clear whether the 69-year-old will seek a second four-year term or be nominated by U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon.

Navi and the Council thank you for your vote of confidence, Stephanie.

Reuters plays down the power of the Muslim Brotherhood

In addition to sanitizing the image of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood so as to make the group more palatable to Western audiences, Reuters is now engaged in a campaign to minimize the role and importance of the group in the upheaval taking place in Egypt and the wider Middle East.

In an "Analysis" of the situation, Reuters correspondent William Maclean proposes this whopper non sequitur:

The involvement of youths, secularists and the educated middle class gave the lie to any notion that Islamists were at the vanguard of opposition forces in the Arab world.

Notwithstanding the incoherent suggestion that youths and educated middle class cannot also be Islamists (Reuters has already noted that many Brotherhood members are indeed both educated and middle class), Maclean is simply wrong that the Muslim Brotherhood or Islamists generally, are not leading the opposition forces in Egypt or the Arab Middle East.  In a lengthy briefing from last November which in many ways foreshadowed and may largely account for the intensity of the insurrection, AlJazeera wrote:

Still, it is impossible to predict what would happen if, despite Egyptians' reputation for political lethargy, opposition groups managed to put tens of thousands of followers into the streets of Cairo to protest what many expect will be an attempted handover of power to Mubarak's son, Gamal. 

The key to any roadblock on the path to such "republarchy" lies with the Muslim Brotherhood, the world's most influential Islamist movement and far and away the largest and best-organised counterweight to Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP).  Change in Egypt, for better or worse, does not materialise without the Brothers. 

When former International Atomic Energy Agency chief and Nobel Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei - the great hope of Egypt's secular leftists - returned home this year and launched a petition drive to demand the government lift its most onerous national security laws and reform electoral practices, his National Association for Change gathered 106,661 signatures in support by early September.  The Muslim Brotherhood came up with more than 650,000. 

The Brotherhood has 88 seats in parliament, compared to the 34 politicians representing all other non-NDP parties. 

Protest groups such as the Egyptian Movement for Change, or Kifaya, which became a Western media darling during the 2005 election, rely on the Brotherhood to put thousands of supporters into the streets.

Yet with Egypt's November 28 parliamentary elections approaching, the Brotherhood finds itself in flux.

Long repressed by authorities and still technically outlawed, the group is coming off a landmark five-year term in which it served as the largest-ever minority bloc in Egypt's short multi-party political history and the loudest critic of Mubarak's 30-year authoritarian rule.

And though Reuters would have us believe otherwise, the Brotherhood continues to well exercise its power.

The whitewash continues

In our post yesterday, we noted the efforts of former Reuters Cairo Bureau Chief, Jonathan Wright, to sanitize the image, membership, and doctrine of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood in expectation of the group's rise to power in Egypt.

Wright continues in that vein today, suggesting that Lieutenant General Sami Enan, the Egyptian armed forces chief-of-staff, is seen as a possible successor to Mubarak due to respect for him in the West and praise from the "conservative" Muslim Brotherhood.

Wright quotes Brotherhood member and Islamist cleric Kamel el-Helbawy:

 "He can be the future man of Egypt," Helbawy told Reuters on Tuesday. "I think he will be acceptable ... because he has enjoyed some good reputation. He is not involved in corruption. The people do not know him (as corrupt)."

Wright doesn't disclose this but Helbawy was an official spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood and founded the Muslim Association of Britain in 1997.  In 2009, he was interviewed on the BBCs Arabic television channel where he justified the targeting of Israeli children in terrorist attacks:

Dr Kamal El-Helbawy, the founder of the Muslim Association of Britain, told a discussion program that, while he condemned the killing of civilians, he believed all Israeli children were "future soldiers".

He said: "A child born in Israel is raised on the belief that the Arabs are like contemptible sheep.

"In elementary school they pose the following math problem - 'In your village, there are 100 Arabs. If you killed 40, how many Arabs would be left for you to kill?'. This is taught in the Israeli curriculum."

Quite an endorsement for the "future man of Egypt".

And continuing with the makeover of the Muslim Brotherhood

In preparation for a likely ascension to power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Reuters continues with its propaganda campaign to makeover the image of the Islamist group as something other than extremist.  Correspondent Jonathan Wright asserts:

Foreign governments could not even argue that the Brotherhood was a "terrorist" organization, because the movement renounced violence in the 1950s. Throughout Mubarak's presidency, it has struggled to take part in electoral politics.

"Renounced" violence but has felt no compunction actually facilitating assassinations or inciting for violent jihad.  In violation of the Reuters Handbook of Journalism, Wright then parrots the Arab euphemism for intended genocide of the Jews:

The Muslim Brotherhood is certainly confrontational toward Israel and hence toward the United States. It has historic institutional links with the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas and shares its belief in armed struggle against Israel.

And seeks to cloak the Brotherhood's extremism within an aura of "professional" respectability:

But unlike the Shi'ite clerics who rule Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood has an overwhelmingly lay leadership of professionals with modern educations -- engineers, doctors, lawyers, academics and so on. The core membership is middle-class or lower middle-class.

Of course, Hamas too has educated and professionally trained members -- though we're not sure the Hippocratic Oath is part of their creed.

But rights activists fault the Brotherhood for insisting that the head of state must be a Muslim man, not a woman or someone from Egypt's Coptic Christian minority.

We're shocked to the core.

In recent years it has focused on political demands shared by most opposition groups, playing down a conservative social agenda which some Egyptians would find irksome.

"A conservative social agenda which some Egyptians would find irksome":

Having said this, I should stress here that Muslim jurists have held differing opinions concerning the punishment for this abominable practice [homosexuality]. Should it be the same as the punishment for fornication, or should both the active and passive participants be put to death? While such punishments may seem cruel, they have been suggested to maintain the purity of the Islamic society and to keep it clean of perverted elements.

Sounds like the Amish, no?

Reuters fabricates history to protect the Muslim Brotherhood

Yesterday, we noted that Reuters has a tradition of publishing stories which fawn over former IAEA Chief Mohamed ElBaradei and seek to conceal the true nature and agenda of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.  We also wondered whether this pattern would continue should Elbaradei and the Brotherhood come to power in Egypt.

We won't have to wait that long for an answer.  In a story on Israeli concerns over the Obama administration's apparent willingness to sacrifice its 30-year relationship with President Hosni Mubarak due to the unrest in Egypt, Reuters correspondent Douglas Hamilton literally invents history to absolve the Muslim Brotherhood of its record of ultra-violence:

Egypt, Israel's most powerful neighbor, was the first Arab country to make peace with the Jewish state, in 1979. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who signed the treaty, was assassinated two years later by an Egyptian fanatic.

It took another 13 years before King Hussein of Jordan broke Arab ranks to made a second peace with the Israelis. That treaty was signed by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated one year later, in 1995, by an Israeli fanatic.

Anwar Sadat was assassinated not by a lone and nebulous "fanatic" but by a team of Egyptian military personnel associated with the Muslim Brotherhood:

The attackers included four enlisted men, an army major and a lieutenant. The major and two enlisted men were killed in the swarm around the reviewing stand, once other members of the military realized what was taking place. The rest were arrested. The attackers would eventually come to be identified as Islamist nationalists associated with the Muslim Brotherhood under the name of Islamic Jihad.

The group was subsequently found to have hatched the assassination plot with Al Gamaa al-Islamiyya, a Brotherhood offshoot that would, in the mid-1990s, develop ties with al-Qaeda and be chiefly responsible for the 1997 terrorist attack in Luxor on Nov. 17, 1997, when six men dressed in black attacked tourists visiting the famous site in Upper Egypt. Sixty-two men, women and children were killed.

So the Brotherhood group which organized the Sadat assassination was also linked to al-Qaeda and responsible for the subsequent terrorist attack in Luxor Egypt which killed sixty-two tourists.

A history Douglas Hamilton and Reuters would apparently much rather we forget.