Thursday, March 1, 2012

Reuters fudges the figures

Reuters correspondents are notorious for cherry-picking and massaging survey data to support their own political positions and editorial agendas.

Note how Jerusalem-based, Maayan Lubell, who apparently advocates for Jews to be ethnically cleansed from their homes and property, reports on a poll soliciting Israeli opinion on whether the country should or should not attack Iran's nuclear facilities:
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A wide majority of Israelis either oppose an Israeli strike on Iran or would favour an attack only if it was carried out with U.S. agreement, an opinion poll showed on Thursday.
The survey by the University of Maryland and the Israeli Dahaf Institute was released before talks next week between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama on Iran's nuclear programme.
The poll found that 34 percent of the 500 people surveyed believed that Israel should not strike Iran and 42 percent said it should attack only if the United States backed the decision.
Only 19 percent believed Israel should attack even without the support of Washington, which said on Wednesday that diplomacy and increased sanctions to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions have time to work.
Now, let's rewrite Lubell's lede to provide an accurate counter-representation of the facts:
A wide majority of Israelis (61%) either support an Israeli strike on Iran or would favour an attack if it was carried out with U.S. agreement, an opinion poll showed on Thursday.
And by the way, over half of Americans feel the same:
Respondents also were asked their opinion of Israel's taking pre-emptive military action to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Overall, 53 percent favor it, 21.4 percent oppose, and 25.6 have no opinion.

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