Reuters is consistent

One thing we can say about Reuters: the agency is consistent.

Consistent in its use of classic propaganda techniques to obfuscate history and reality when writing about the Middle East conflict.

Take for example, this story by correspondent Patrick Worsnip about a comment by UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Lynn Pascoe, before a monthly meeting of the Security Council.

Pascoe reportedly called for peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs to resume so as to advance the much ballyhooed "two-state solution" proposed by the Quartet.

Note first how Worsnip trumpets Pascoe's talking point as an official statement by the United Nations:

(Reuters) - The United Nations called on Thursday for "bold and decisive steps" to relaunch the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as the region awaits a possible new initiative by U.S. President Barack Obama.

As we've previously noted, Reuters clearly identifies and lauds the UN when representatives of the august body issue declarations consistent with Reuters own political agenda.  This, in an effort to give the declaration greater authority and an aura of universality.  On the other hand, when the United Nations issues an official finding or passes a resolution unpalatable to Reuters correspondents, agency stories regularly conceal or downplay the broad authoritative and consensual nature of the decree, alternatively characterizing it as a product of "the West".

Worsnip is consistent as well, in his use of card stacking to portray Israel as intransigent and culpable for failed negotiations with the Palestinians.

Peace talks opened last September with the aim of an accord in one year but quickly broke down after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to extend a partial freeze on Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank.

No mention of course, that the freeze on Jewish settlement building in Judea and Samaria represented a unilateral and unprecedented concession to the Palestinian Arabs by Israel nor that the concession went unrequited as the Palestinians refused to enter into negotiations until three weeks remained in the 10-month freeze.