That campaign involves the publication of hundreds of stories, disseminated to thousands of media outlets, each employing scores of propaganda techniques and fallacies, ethical and professional breaches, and outright lies designed to manipulate reader opinion and emotions so as to compel the audience to adopt Reuters' own anti-Israel institutional ideology and political view.
It also involves the hiring, training, and tight coordination of a team of propagandists, masquerading as independent journalists, who either subscribe to the same ideology or enthusiastically serve as foot soldiers in the propaganda campaign so as to advance their careers.
Take for example, Reuters correspondent Dan Williams who, in September of 2011 conveyed the blood libel that Israelis have a "shoot-on-sight" policy against Palestinians.
Or Nidal al-Mughrabi, who, in dozens of stories about the 2008-09 Gaza war, reports that some 1,400 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces, without revealing that most of these casualties were members of Hamas, sworn to genocide of the Jews, and their human shields.
Or Allyn Fisher-Ilan, who suggested, falsely, that Israel was to blame for the lack of basic medicines in Gaza.
Or Crispian Balmer, who duplicated, verbatim and absent criticism, a Twitter feed post by a former Egyptian foreign minister portraying Israel as a killer of children.
This afternoon, the French authorities arrested an Algerian-born Muslim man suspected of killing the Jewish children in Toulouse. (See update below).
Haaretz reports the suspect said he wanted revenge for "Palestinian children".
We don't know if the suspect was a reader of any of the thousands of newspapers or news websites that publish Reuters stories on the Middle East conflict.
But given Reuters global reach and the frequency with which the agency's anti-Israel propaganda appears, it's entirely possible, indeed likely, the suspect had come across one or more of these stories at some point.
We also know that Reuters successfully influences readers to alter their behavior in a manner consistent with the agency's propaganda campaign and institutional ideology.
As the investigation proceeds, it will be very interesting to learn more about the suspect's motivations and mentors.
UPDATE: Earlier reports of the arrest of the suspect were incorrect and a stand-off continues.
UPDATE 2: Following a shoot-out with police, the murder suspect, Mohamed Merah, reportedly jumped from a window to his death.
The answer should be a resounding YES, they should take responsibility. Every Western newspaper that plays the game of blaming Israel or painting Israel in a constant, negative light should be blamed for the murders of these children. They should be blamed for the Fogel family massacre. Heck, I'll even blame them for Operation Cast Lead in and of itself, as well as the deaths onboard the Mavi Marmara. Because hatred of Israel SELLS to a resounding number of Earth citizens. Islamists, Neo-nazis, Klansmen all together number well beyond the 10 million Jews on this planet. And every publisher knows that, in order to keep making money, and in order to stay in business, you've got to keep the majority happy.
ReplyDeleteThe LA Times ran an editorial penned by Hamas after the Fogel family massacre that explained WHY it happened. The LA Times becomes, at that point, complicit in allowing this hatred to fester. By legitimizing the delegitimization of Israel and Jews defending themselves.
It's a downright batshit crazy world we live in where evil is able to promote itself as peace. Those who do this promoting are not just insulting the decent people of this planet by explaining away the hatred as having cause but also place every single person on this planet in peril by promoting the hate as a newsworthy debate.
I am a believer in freedom of speech, but that freedom ends when the speech is full of lies, biasness, and, at best, half-truths that go so far as excuse vitriol and wanton, violent behavior.