Reuters forgets the lyrics

With the classic propaganda technique of card stacking, the propagandist carefully reports or "cherry picks" only the information he/she wishes to disclose to the audience, omitting entirely, essential facts and details which provide a more complete and balanced understanding of events and therefore interfere with the propagandist's effort to compel the audience to adopt a particular view.  Reuters has elevated card stacking to a rarefied art form.

In a story about a statement issued by Hamas kingpin Khaled Meshaal at yesterday's Palestinian shindig celebrating the reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, Reuters correspondent Sami Aboudi wants his audience to believe that Hamas really, really wants Israel to (in the immortal words of John Lennon) "give peace a chance":

(Reuters) - Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal on Wednesday challenged Israel to peace, offering to work with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egypt on a new strategy to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict.
But Meshaal, addressing a meeting in Cairo to announce a reconciliation agreement between his Islamist group and its secular Fatah rival, said he did not believe Israel was ready for peace with any Palestinians.
"We have given peace since Madrid till now 20 years, and I say we are ready to agree among us Palestinians and with Arab support to give an additional chance," Meshaal said, referring to the 1991 international Middle East peace conference that launched Israeli-Arab peace talks.
"But, dear brothers, because Israel does not respect us, and because Israel has rejected all our initiatives and because Israel deliberately rejects Palestinian rights, rejects Fatah members as well as Hamas...it wants the land, security and claims to want peace," he said.

Aboudi doesn't report of course, that at the same time Meshaal was waxing rhapsodic about peace and reconciliation, the co-founder of Hamas, Mahmoud al-Zahar, was singing a slightly different tune:

Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar said on Wednesday that Palestine is "hallowed ground" and that his organization will never recognize Israel.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Zahar said that Palestinians will not give up on their right to Palestine, while recognizing the rule of Poles and Ethiopians in their land.

Ain't harmony grand?