Reuters-Middle East Watch* (R-MEW)

Allyn Fisher-Ilan, the accidental comedien

2012-01-31T11:00:00.002-06:00

In a story about imminent national primaries in Israel, Reuters correspondent Allyn Fisher-Ilan suggests Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu favors early elections to "strengthen his hand with Washington":

Many Israelis worry that Obama, in a second term, may exert greater pressure on Israel to yield land for peace with the Palestinians, which could upset Netanyahu's clout in his pro-settler party and its core conservative electorate.

Er, no Allyn. Many Israelis worry that Obama, in a second term, may exert greater pressure on Israel to yield land for no peace with the Palestinians.

What an unmitigated dingbat.

AEJ

2012-01-31T07:10:00.002-06:00

From a Reuters story about the Palestinian Arabs blaming (who else?) Israel for their own refusal to continue with peace talks:

Palestinians blame Israel for exploratory talks' [sic]

Previous peace negotiations collapsed in late 2010 with the Palestinians demanding that Israel suspend settlement building in the occupied West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem.

Uh-huh.

Reuters finally admits everyone hates the Jews

2012-01-29T08:14:00.002-06:00

After years of obfuscating and denying, Reuters is finally on-board the reality wagon that Iran has a long history of supporting Hamas with money and weapons:

Hamas, founded in 1987 and regarded by Israel and the West as a terrorist organization, has long been backed by Iran, a strong ally of Syria's Assad. But funding has apparently stalled in the past four months, the diplomat said.
"Iran used to give $250 million to $300 million to Hamas but there have been interruptions in the payments in past year. Our understanding is that there has been no payment since August 2011," he said.

The agency wasn't quite so forthcoming here, here, here, and here.

In the topsy-turvy world of Middle Eastern religio-politics, we have the Shi'ite regime (Mullahs) in Iran supporting the Alawite regime (Assad) in Syria and the Sunni regime (Hamas) in Gaza, the latter of which is also supported by the Sunni regime (Muslim Brotherhood) in Egypt, which is warming to the Shi'ite regime (Mullahs again) in Iran.

All of course, are united in their genocidal hatred of the Jews.

Well after all, "International Brotherhood Week" is coming in February.

Positioning propaganda

2012-01-28T08:08:00.000-06:00

Reuters correspondents Ali Sawaftah and Sami Aboudi inform us that Israeli-Palestinian talks ended with no progress this week. And the purported reason for that failure, according to the Palestinians, is positioned prominently in the third paragraph of the story:

"The Israelis brought nothing new in these meetings," said one Palestinian official familiar with the talks. "We are now going to assess our options and will consult our brothers in the Arab League on February 4."

As for the Israeli position on the stalemate... uh, well, readers have to wait until paragraphs 10 through 12 in the story to obtain that bit of information. And when it is finally dosed by Reuters, it's laced with propaganda:

Peace talks foundered in late 2010 with Palestinians demanding that Israel suspend settlement building in the occupied West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem.
Abbas also demanded that Israel agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state on all lands occupied in the 1967 Middle East war before resuming negotiations.
Israel has rejected both demands and said it was ready to resume negotiations immediately with no preconditions.

So you see, the Palestinian Arabs are merely demanding that Israel suspend settlement building on their land, which is obviously their land because after all, it's "occupied" and includes "Arab East Jerusalem", the racist fiction perpetuated by Reuters in over 500 stories since 2007 and beyond.

Dan Williams, ventriloquist

2012-01-27T11:00:00.005-06:00

Deeply dishonest Reuters correspondent Dan "Willful" Williams continues to employ a propaganda technique for which he and his colleagues in Jerusalem are notorious: conflating a quote by an Israeli official with the journalist's own biased message so as to deceive readers into thinking that the official had conveyed and/or agreed with the journalist's message.

In a story on Israel offering, and the Palestinians rejecting, proposals for international borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state, note Williams' sly ventriloquist act to deceive and manipulate readers:

Israel's approach to territorial compromise in the occupied West Bank includes the principal that "most Israelis will be under Israeli sovereignty and obviously most Palestinians will be under Palestinian sovereignty," the official said.

Williams precedes a truncated quote by the Israeli official with his own biased rhetoric characterizing the territory in contention as "the occupied West Bank", a propaganda mantra appearing in thousands of Reuters stories on the Middle East conflict intended to assign, in the minds of readers, rightful ownership of the land to the Palestinian Arabs. Of course, these are actually Williams' own words but a cursory read suggests the Israeli official had used the loaded term.

As we stated at the top, Williams is notorious for employing this propaganda technique.

Reuters: masters of Newspeak

2012-01-27T07:35:00.001-06:00

In a story about the first ever public display of contemporary art in Saudi Arabia, Reuters correspondent Asma Alsharif characterizes Saudi society as "conservative" four times:

"Evolution not revolution" reads the sign he plans to place over the conservative Islamic kingdom, where an exhibition organisers call Saudi Arabia's first public show of contemporary art has opened this month, entitled "We need to talk." [...]

Saudi Arabia, a country ruled over by the al-Saud royal family in alliance with powerful conservative clerics, has no elected parliament or political parties and applies a rigid variation of Sharia law. [...]

Other taboos include anything seen as blasphemous, criticism of the conservative nature of Saudi society, and sex or nudity. [...]

Angawi said he accepted that he might not be able to play some of the comments people recorded, and that finding the right balance between freedom of expression and the demands of a conservative society would be difficult.

Recall, this is a country where the most draconian suppression of human rights and freedoms is institutionalized in the country's Sharia-based legal system; Islamic dress-code is enforced by religious police; women must be accompanied by a male guardian at all times; homosexuality is outlawed and punishable by imprisonment, lashings and death; and non-Muslims are persecuted and tortured for practicing their faith.

This is what Reuters characterizes as "conservative".

By contrast, journalists in Reuters Jerusalem Bureau refer to a spitting incident by a Haredi Jew in Israel as "violence by zealots".

What do they teach these guys at Reuters school?

Reuters wants us to know that Iran will not seek the bomb in 2012

2012-01-26T04:49:00.001-06:00

Reuters correspondents Tabassum Zakaria and Mark Hosenball trumpet:

Iran won't move toward nuclear weapon in 2012: ISIS report

In the proud Reuters tradition of manipulating reader perceptions by packaging propaganda as news, note the declarative assertion (stated as fact), trailed by the modifier that the assertion is drawn from a report by an NGO.

A report yet to be published, and therefore unavailable to be vetted for accuracy, validity, or conformity with what Reuters is reporting.

A report produced by an organization funded in large part by the Ploughshares Fund, a left-wing lobbying group that advocates for U.S. nuclear disarmament.

A report which, as summarized by Reuters, is largely contradicted by another ISIS report appearing on the organization's website just a week ago.

A report where the conclusion asserted in the headline is premised entirely on the dubious notion that:

"Iran is unlikely to decide to dash toward making nuclear weapons as long as its uranium enrichment capability remains as limited as it is today."

Which in itself, is premised on this sterling piece of logic:

But according to the institute's report: "Although Iran is engaged in nuclear hedging, no evidence has emerged that the regime has decided to build nuclear weapons."
"Such a decision may be unlikely to occur until Iran is first able to augment its enrichment capability to a point where it would have the ability to make weapon-grade uranium quickly and secretly," the report obtained by Reuters said.

Did you catch that? There is no evidence that the Iranian regime has decided to build nuclear weapons, which is unlikely to occur until Iran has the ability to make weapon-grade uranium quickly and secretly.

And of course, ISIS and Reuters will know when Iran has obtained that secret enrichment capability.

Because undoubtedly, the Iranians will tell them.

The Palestinians and their acolytes at Reuters are, in a word, insane

2012-01-25T08:48:00.001-06:00

According to the Handbook of Self and Identity, edited by Mark Leary, a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University, compartmentalization is "a psychological defense mechanism used consciously or unconsciously to avoid cognitive dissonance, or the mental discomfort and anxiety caused by a person having conflicting values, cognitions, emotions, beliefs, etc within themselves. Compartmentalization allows these conflicting ideas to co-exist by inhibiting direct and/or explicit acknowledgement and interaction between separate compartmentalized self states."

We think compartmentalization is nothing less than a form of insanity.

Take for example, the reaction by Reuters to the recent arrest by Israel of several senior Hamas leaders, particularly Aziz Dweik. In a 369-word story about the detentions, Reuters correspondents Jihan Abdalla, Nidal al-Mughrabi, and Ori Lewis deferentially characterize the Hamasniks as "lawmakers" or "legislators" no fewer than six times.

Remember, members of Hamas are religious fanatics, driven by their totalitarian belief system to annihilate a country and murder every last Jew in the world.

In an interview with the Australian newspaper The Age in 2006, here's how Dweik responded to a question about the Palestinian terror war ("intifada") against the Jews of Israel during which over 1,000 people were savagely murdered:

"OK, yes, it happened, we did suicide attacks — but now there is a truce. We deplore any action where civilians are killed — yes, including Israeli civilians. We are a moderate Islamic movement. We are not terrorists. We are freedom seekers. Please, tell your readers, please help us secure this goal."

Even the sympathetic interviewer for the newspaper noted the compartmentalization:

In a conflict suffused with such great hatred, language can quickly lose meaning. There is a disconnect between the words and the deeds.
Dr Dweik is charming, articulate and passionate in a very non-threatening way. However, he can also countenance sending boys to their death in order to kill the innocent and can justify it with a cliched equation empty of any real meaning or insight.

As we stated at the top, the Palestinians and their acolytes at Reuters are, in a word, insane.

Dan Williams conceals Fatah's reason for the season

2012-01-23T06:59:00.006-06:00

Nearly two weeks after the event, Reuters finally got around to reporting on the call to kill Jews by the Palestinian Authority's most senior cleric, Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammed Hussein.

But note how Reuters correspondent, Dan "Willful" Williams, deliberately misrepresents the occasion on which the Mufti made his comments:

Preaching on January 9 at a rally marking the 47th anniversary of Fatah's founding, Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammed Hussein read out a Hadith, or traditional text attributed to the Prophet Mohammad.
"The hour of judgment will not come until you fight the Jews," he said. "The Jew will hide behind the stone and behind the tree. The stone and the tree will cry, 'Oh Muslim, Oh Servant of God, this is a Jew behind me, come and kill him'."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' political party, Fatah, was founded in 1959.

Actually, the Palestinian rally two weeks ago where the Mufti incited for Muslims to murder Jews marked the 47th anniversary of Fatah's first attempted bombing attack, the inaugurating event in the group's continuing terror campaign designed to destroy Israel.

A celebratory Arab raison d'etre Williams would clearly rather his audience not know.

Framing

2012-01-21T08:54:00.003-06:00

Framing is the process by which the factual record is packaged and presented in such a way so as to emphasize and focus audience attention on certain information while filtering and de-emphasizing or concealing other information. An audience subjected to framing is compelled to come away with an interpretation of events the framer wishes to see adopted.

When applied systematically, framing is a form of propaganda.

In this Reuters story, written by Arshad Mohammed, Ramin Mostafavi, and Alastair Macdonald, note how framing is used to direct and manipulate audience perception:

(Reuters) - Major powers signaled on Friday their willingness to reopen talks about curbing Iran's suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons but said Tehran must show it is serious about any negotiations.
The focus on diplomacy follows weeks of rising tensions between the West, which is seeking to cut Iran's oil sales, and Tehran, which has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz through which almost one-fifth of oil traded worldwide flows.
Alarmed Arab neighbors made a plea to avoid escalating the dispute over Iran's nuclear program, while an ally of Iran's supreme leader called for Israel to be "punished" for allegedly killing an Iranian nuclear scientist.
The West suspects Iran is using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to develop atomic weapons and has pursued a two-track approach of sanctions and diplomacy to try to rein it in. Iran says its nuclear program is solely to produce electricity.

Reuters asserts that "alarmed Arab neighbors" have "made a plea to avoid escalating the dispute over Iran's nuclear program", so as to suggest the Arab states are opposed to additional sanctions or military action intended to prevent Iran from consummating its nuclear weapons program.

With no relevant quotations within the story to support Reuters' assertion, it's impossible to know from where the agency is obtaining this hearsay. Perhaps Reuters is referring to a strikingly similar statement by Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal who, in response to Iranian threats to target the Gulf Arab states and close the Strait of Hormuz, said that "the increasing escalation and tension may lead to a misadventure or a military confrontation."

If this is the comment to which Reuters is referring, note how the agency takes a cold statement of fact directed primarily at Iran and distorts it into a "plea" not to escalate tensions, presumably directed to western powers. Further, Reuters fails to mention that al-Faisal also stated that to defend its interests, Saudi Arabia "will use all options against Iran". A very different message than that framed and suggested by Reuters.

Next, Reuters cites "an ally of Iran's supreme leader" who reportedly called for Israel to be punished for allegedly killing an Iranian scientist (note also the story photo of an Iranian stepping on an Israeli flag). Yet, there is no mention that the Iranian government has blamed primarily the United States and Britain for the killing, even going so far as to present alleged evidence supporting the claim.

Finally, there is use of the ubiquitous "the West suspects Iran" (of developing nuclear weapons) to frame the conflict as merely a contention between Iran and the amorphous "West", with presumably no evidence, no scientific analysis, and no one other than western nations holding the same view.

What a narrow, distorted, and short-sighted frame is that provided to its audience by Reuters.

"Military presence"

2012-01-18T16:00:00.001-06:00

In yet another example of a propaganda mantra demonstrating Reuters transparent bias, correspondent Alistair Lyon characterizes the relationship between Syria and Lebanon between 1976 and 2005:

The turmoil in Syria has fuelled tensions in neighboring Lebanon where Syria has many allies, including the powerful Shi'ite group Hezbollah, as well as foes who resent the nearly three decades of Syrian military presence which ended in 2005.

That "military presence" involved the illegal stationing of thousands of Syrian troops, tanks, and warplanes in Lebanon for the explicit purpose of suppressing anti-Syrian sentiment, securing geopolitical leverage against Israel, and providing economic gains for the Syrian population.

Yet, Lyon willfully downplays it as a mere "military presence".

Apparently, "occupation", the agency's favorite word to employ when describing Israel's quite legal presence in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") doesn't apply when referring to illegal Arab control of the sovereign territory of other states.

"The West suspects"

2012-01-18T09:38:00.000-06:00

A propaganda mantra is a false or deliberately misleading word or phrase published or broadcast repeatedly by the propagandist so as to drum the notion into the mind of the audience until they accept it as true, unquestioningly.

Reuters employs propaganda mantras in its Middle East coverage as a matter of policy.

Take this story, by Reuters correspondent William Maclean, about the alleged covert war being fought against Iran so as to purportedly impede its nuclear weapons program:

Analysis: Not-so-covert Iran war buys West time, raises tension

LONDON | Wed Jan 18, 2012 6:49am EST
(Reuters) - A backseat passenger on a motorcycle weaving through the crush of Tehran's morning traffic reaches out and places a small magnetic device on the door of a silver-grey Peugeot 405.
When the directional bomb explodes seconds later, blasting through the sedan's door and instantly killing nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, a 32-year-old father of one, the motorcycle has already vanished, accelerating into the ranks of the Iranian capital's rush hour.
The proficiency of the latest assassination to deplete Iran's community of atom specialists suggests that violent actions by one or more of Iran's adversaries form an increasingly active - and public - element in a multifaceted international drive to impede Iran's nuclear program.
Some old espionage hands voice respect for the expert landing of clandestine, deniable blows against a program the West suspects is aimed at acquiring a nuclear bomb capability and Iran says is for civilian purposes.

The propaganda mantra here is, "the West suspects", an allusion to the notion that Iran's nuclear weapons program, a program confirmed by scientists at the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is still a matter of hearsay and dispute between Iran and the amorphous "West".

In an op-ed of over 2,100 words, misleadingly labeled as "Analysis" so Reuters can successfully place the propaganda with hundreds of other news outlets, Maclean never once mentions the IAEA or its many reports on Iran's steady progress toward a deliverable nuclear weapon.

Further, the Reuters correspondent attempts, via a combination of cherry-picked quotes and unsupported assertions, to pin blame for the "not-so-covert war" primarily on Israel. Again, Maclean willfully withholds from readers essential information which would otherwise enable them to draw their own conclusions, untainted by Reuters propaganda, on the roles played by various parties to the conflict.

For example, Maclean fails to report that Iran itself has most recently accused the United States, not Israel, of the subject killing of an Iranian scientist. Moreover, there is no mention of the history of other countries, including several Arab states, who maintain their own espionage and assassination crews, coming out against Iran and urging the Obama administration to "cut off the head of the snake [Iran]".

As we frequently note, just another day at the office for Reuters stable of propagandists.

Israeli Arab argues Arabs responsible for "price tag" attack; his home then sprayed with gunfire

2012-01-15T09:44:00.000-06:00

Remember Reuters correspondent Maayan Lubell's story in October about an alleged Jewish "price tag" attack on a mosque in the Israeli Arab village of Tuba Zangaria?

Well, Israel's Channel 2 traveled to Tuba Zangaria to investigate recent allegations that someone from within the village may have actually committed the crime and the station interviewed an Arab resident, Bassan Saweid, who indicated he was certain this was indeed the case.

Hours after the interview was broadcast, Saweid's home was sprayed with automatic gunfire.

We're certain Lubell and Reuters will find someone to suggest that a Jewish settler did the shooting.

hat tip: EoZ

Iran says U.S. & U.K. responsible for assassination of scientist

2012-01-14T06:40:00.001-06:00

(Reuters) - Iranian state television said on Saturday Tehran had evidence Washington was behind the latest assassination of one of its nuclear scientists. [...]
"We have reliable documents and evidence that this terrorist act was planned, guided and supported by the CIA," the Iranian foreign ministry said in a letter handed to the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, state TV reported.
"The documents clearly show that this terrorist act was carried out with the direct involvement of CIA-linked agents." [...]
State TV said a "letter of condemnation" had also been sent to the British government, saying the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists had "started exactly after the British official John Sawers declared the beginning of intelligence operations against Iran."

Apparently, the Iranian regime didn't coordinate their investigation with Reuters correspondent Dan Williams, who would have set them straight on the real culprit.

Reporter who called for ethnic cleansing of Jews, still working for Reuters

2012-01-13T11:23:00.000-06:00

Reuters correspondent Maayan Lubell, whose name appears on a petition calling for Jews to be ethnically cleansed from the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"), is still working for Reuters and still reporting from the agency's Jerusalem Bureau.

In a story about Israel and the Palestinians meeting again on Saturday in an effort to move ahead on peace talks, Lubell, in violation of Reuters Trust Principles and Handbook of Journalism, cites only the Palestinian perspective:

The exploratory discussions began on January 3 and followed a long break in negotiations after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suspended talks 15 months ago over Israel's expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Abbas on Thursday played down prospects of any breakthrough, telling members of his Fatah party that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had not put forward any new proposals.
"The words that we heard in Netanyahu's residence (in 2010) are the same words he is repeating now, nothing new," Abbas said, adding that he had told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the apparent lack of progress.

Shabbat shalom, Maayan.

Reuters, unable to conceal its institutionalized antisemitism

2012-01-13T10:35:00.006-06:00

Our focus here at RMEW is on Reuters endemic anti-Israel bias and the agency's use of propaganda to manipulate audience perception and mobilize public opinion against the Jewish state.

Occasionally however, Reuters correspondents let their masks slip, revealing that their animus for Israel goes much deeper than international politics.

In a story on Mitt Romney campaigning in Palm Beach Florida, Reuters correspondent Jane Sutton performs an interesting Freudian slip:

(Reuters) - Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney criticized President Barack Obama for his stance on Israel on Thursday, telling a Florida crowd that if elected he would "stand with our friends."
"This president has found it pretty sensible to be critical of our friends," Romney told a Palm Beach County crowd that included many Jewish voters.
"He went to the United Nations and criticized Israel for building settlements. He had nothing to say about Hamas' 20,000 rockets into Israel," Romney said. "We will stand with our friends."
Obama has insisted his administration has done more than any other to protect Israel and called his commitment "unshakeable."
The Democratic president won nearly eight of every 10 Jewish voters in 2008 but a slip would jeopardize his 2012 re-election drive in battleground states like Florida and Pennsylvania, where Jews are an important swing bloc.
Romney's message, delivered ahead of Florida's January 31 primary, resonated with Sholom Ciment, a rabbi from Boca Raton, another wealthy Florida enclave.

Huh? Note that Sutton's story is about Romney making a bid for voters, it is suggested are mainly Jews, in an important swing state based on his support for Israel. There is no mention of fund raising, average income levels, or anything related to economics for that matter, until Sutton lets slip a non sequitur about Boca Raton being, "another wealthy Florida enclave".

So what does Sutton's (irrelevant) observation have to do with her ostensible storyline, i.e., the 80 percent of the American Jewish electorate that voted for Obama in 2008 being courted by Romney? Actually nothing. Except that, like fellow Reuters correspondent Crispian Balmer, Sutton apparently has money on the mind when she's writing about Jews.

Incidentally, of a total population of over 1,300,000 people in Palm Beach County, there are about 250,000 Jews, 15 percent of whom live below the poverty line.

Not that facts matter to Reuters.

Reuters quotes former KGB-head: no proof Iran near nuclear weapons

2012-01-13T04:20:00.004-06:00

Filed under, "Well Then It Must Be True", Reuters uses an interview with former KGB-head and Putin buddy Nikolai Patrushev to peddle the fatuous notion that there is no independent evidence of Iran being close to acquiring nuclear weapons:

Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful while Western powers believe it has military aims. Israel, which sees an Iranian atom bomb as a threat to its existence, is willing to attack Iranian nuclear sites with or without U.S. backing.
However, Patrushev said there was still no proof that Iran was on the brink of creating nuclear weapons.
"Talk about Iran creating an atomic bomb by next week we have heard for many years," he said, adding that the United States was trying to topple the Iran's leadership using "all available means" to make the country into "a loyal partner".
Russia, the world's biggest energy producer, opposes further U.N. Security Council sanctions over Tehran's nuclear programme and has sharply criticised U.S. and European Union sanctions.

Again, note how Reuters disappears any trace of the United Nations IAEA reports on Iran's nuclear weapons program, framing the situation as merely a he said/she said between Iran and "Western powers" with Israel as the spoiler.

What do they teach these guys at Reuters School?

Reuters still covering for Iran

2012-01-12T11:03:00.008-06:00

What's wrong with this paragraph?

Iran has said it is only developing nuclear capabilities for energy and other peaceful purposes, but the United States and its allies accuse it of wanting to create a nuclear weapon.

Reuters correspondent Jeff Frank makes no mention here or anywhere in his story, of the independent report produced by scientists at the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, evidencing and concluding that Iran has been engaged in all phases of developing a deliverable nuclear bomb:

• Efforts, some successful, to procure nuclear related and dual use equipment and materials by military related individuals and entities (Annex, Sections C.1 and C.2);
• Efforts to develop undeclared pathways for the production of nuclear material (Annex, Section C.3);
• The acquisition of nuclear weapons development information and documentation from a clandestine nuclear supply network (Annex, Section C.4); and
• Work on the development of an indigenous design of a nuclear weapon including the testing of components (Annex, Sections C.5–C.12).

After all, that is merely hard evidence of international renegade behavior; Reuters only draws robust conclusions when its information is based solely on the personal animus of its reporters.

Dan Williams demonstrates Reuters brand of "investigative journalism"

2012-01-12T07:40:00.003-06:00

Reuters correspondent Dan Williams, who never lets the facts get in the way of a good anti-Israel story, also writes anti-Israel stories when he has no facts.

An Iranian chemical scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, was killed in a car bombing yesterday. Though no one was arrested, no group claimed responsibility for the bombing, and the Iranian regime has numerous enemies, both foreign and domestic, who would like to see the country's weapons program set back, Iran immediately blamed the United States and Israel. And that's good enough for Williams:

Israel uses risky "hits" in deadly shadow war

Without offering a shred of evidence, Williams employs a combination of innuendo, anonymous or decontextualized quotations from former Israeli officials, and wholly unrelated examples of past alleged assassinations by the Israeli espionage service to argue presumptively, that Israel was responsible for the killing. To wit:

Cold-eyed calculus guides what Israeli officials call "precision thwarting", a euphemism that strives to focus blame on those marked for death while conveying reluctance to escalate the shadow war.

Critics condemn all such attacks on moral grounds, and also question the long-term efficiency of targeted killings, but Israeli officials, drawing on years of experience in the murky practice, believe they play a vital role in defending the state. [...]

As always, Israeli officials declined any comment on the death of Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, who was blown up in his car, while Iran itself immediately pinned the blame on Israel. [...]

"They are not keeping to the schedules they would like to keep to," former Mossad spymaster Meir Dagan said in a recent television interview, smilingly crediting the apparent sabotage spree to "God, who controls everything". [...]

Happy to deflect the blame, Israeli officials say many people have an interest in sabotaging Iranian operations. [...]

another suspected Mossad team smothered Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in his Dubai hotel in 2010.

Williams' reference to the killing of al-Mabhouh as being the work of a "suspected Mossad team" is particularly amusing as no Israeli has been arrested or formally implicated in that incident either, despite nearly two years of investigations and a great deal of similar innuendo produced by Williams and his colleagues at Reuters at the time.

Regrettably, we don't know who killed Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan. But neither does Williams. The difference between us is that we don't pretend to know something we don't and try to manipulate our audience, with nothing but smoke and mirrors, into buying our "investigative journalism".

Racists@Reuters

2012-01-11T08:40:00.001-06:00

Following and notwithstanding the victory of the Union in the American Civil War and abolition of slavery, predominantly White cities in the United States sought to expel their African-American residents through the use of terror, i.e., physical threats and attacks, and legal and economic coercion, i.e., preventing Blacks from renting or buying homes in the area. The result was what was known as Sundown Towns, cities that were ethnically cleansed of their African-American communities. (The term refers to the openly expressed edict that no black people were allowed after dark).

For similar overtly racist reasons, Jews were expelled from the eastern part of Jerusalem by the Arabs following the invasion and occupation of the city by the Jordanian-led Arab Legion in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Thousands of Jewish families were driven out, their property confiscated, their homes and synagogues looted and torched.

A holy city, originally founded and built by the Jews and where a Jewish community had survived for centuries despite successive waves of conquest and colonization, Jerusalem had been ethnically cleansed of its Jewish population and culture within weeks.

It was at that point, that the Old City of Jerusalem and its surrounds first became known, cynically, as Arab East Jerusalem.

Jerusalem was liberated and reunified by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the 19 years of racial and religious exclusion at the hands of the Arabs came to an end. Jews, and those of all religio-ethnic backgrounds, were able to once again live, work, and pray in any part of the city. Today, Jews compose over 40 percent of the population of the eastern portion of Jerusalem.

For Reuters however, that cynical, ahistorical, and racist reference to Arab East Jerusalem persists:

(Reuters) - Israel's government broke all its settlement-building records in 2011, diminishing prospects for establishing a viable Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Israel's anti-settlement activist group "Peace Now" said Tuesday.
The group's annual report on building in Arab East Jerusalem and the West Bank - land the Palestinians want for a future state along with the Gaza Strip - showed that despite international calls to halt construction, thousands of new homes were being built.

The repeated use of the misnomer "Arab East Jerusalem" by Reuters correspondents is of course, quite deliberate, intended to dismiss over three-thousand years of Jewish life, history, religious connection and sovereignty over the city, and with the stroke of a pen (or the click of a keyboard), assign ownership of Jerusalem to the Arabs who have sworn to once again ethnically cleanse of Jews, any land they obtain through violence or negotiations.

This is not merely advocacy journalism, in and of itself a serious violation of the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles and Handbook of Journalism. It is reprehensible and racist propaganda that reflects a deeply sick and twisted worldview and an epic failure of corporate governance at one of the largest news agencies in the world, which, by not correcting the failure, implicitly endorses it.

Reuters' broken record -- broken record -- broken record

2012-01-09T07:35:00.002-06:00

For years, and across hundreds of stories, Reuters Middle East-based correspondents have been covering for Iran's drive to obtain the bomb, characterizing it innocuously as a "nuclear program" (no reference to weapons) and framing it merely as a he said/she said dispute between Iran and the amorphous "West".

That may have been a prudent and journalistically defensible approach to covering the story several years ago when much of the forensic evidence of Iran's covert nuclear enrichment, fission experiments, and weaponization efforts had yet to come to light.

With the November 2011 release of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency report documenting, in meticulous detail, Iran's advanced activities in these areas, Reuters obdurate editorial position on this issue is simply an embarrassment for the agency. Yet, it persists:

TEHRAN, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Iran announced on Monday it had sentenced a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen to death for spying for the CIA, creating fresh grounds for hostility with Washington at a time when Tehran has responded to new U.S. sanctions with military threats.

The sentence comes at a time when tension between Iran and the West over Tehran's nuclear programme has reached a new high, rattling global oil markets. The West fears the work is a secret atomic weapons programme, while Iran says it is purely peaceful.

No mention of the UN report, no mention of the mountains of forensic evidence of Iran's covert nuclear weapons program, and no mention that it is not just the "West" that fears Iran's directive, but dozens of other countries in the Middle East and around the world that share the same concern.

All part and parcel of Reuters obfuscation efforts to conceal and cover for the Iranian regime.

Reuters reporter who called for ethnic cleansing of Jews, still working for Reuters

2012-01-08T10:39:00.002-06:00

Reuters correspondent Maayan Lubell, whose name appears on a petition calling for Jews to be ethnically cleansed from the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"), is still working for Reuters and still reporting from the agency's Jerusalem Bureau.

In a story on the Israeli government filing charges against five persons for breaking into an army base and damaging property, Lubell assumes the role of arbiter in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on the final status of the territories and awards them to... the Palestinians:

(Reuters) - Israel charged five Jewish settlers on Sunday with orchestrating a riot in an army base in the West Bank in a bid to foil plans to dismantle illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Quelle surprise!

"Pure facts are not enough"

2012-01-08T05:50:00.000-06:00

The Baron is a website published and edited by former Reuters correspondent, editor and manager Barry May. It serves as a kind of virtual watering hole for Reuters employees and provides company news, event information, directories, a library, videos featuring Reuters executives, and company trivia.

In a video posted on the site, former Reuters Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger, who has an amusing habit of publicly revealing too much information, speaks to the Foreign Correspondents Club in Hong Kong about coverage of the global financial crisis and its lessons for journalists as reflected by Reuters' philosophical approach to news reporting:

"If we have learned anything from these past two years, it has been that pure facts are not enough. The arguments about whether the factual seeds of the financial crisis have been adequately reported are ultimately meaningless. The facts were there but they weren't put together in a way that was compelling enough or powerful enough to change the course of events. Today, it's context, connectedness, and community that matter. Context, connectedness, and community. [...] It's the context and analysis around the news that helps people make better decisions, helps them to do their jobs better, and gives them an edge in making sense out of the confusion around us. [...] The more you abandon the faceless and the characterless, the more you can actually set the agenda. The more you look beyond the story for connections, the more value you will have. And if you have value and no one else does, you will get paid."

Although Schlesinger highlights coverage of the financial crisis to illustrate his point, it's clear he is generalizing his advice to all areas of news reporting. And there, as they say, is the rub. Schlesinger, Editor-in-Chief at the time for the largest multimedia news company in the world, one purportedly committed to a corporate governance charter and handbook of journalism which expressly forbid its correspondents from embellishing the facts or engaging in advocacy journalism, is openly encouraging ... advocacy journalism.

You see, it's no longer sufficient to report the facts; they must be "put together" in a way that is "compelling" enough to "change the course of events". This, so the correspondent can "set the agenda", add value, and "get paid".

Hmm, we think we're finally beginning to understand the Reuters approach to journalism.

Reuters recognizes "Palestine"

2012-01-07T05:22:00.000-06:00

Having failed to win recognition as a state at the United Nations, the Palestinians can still rely on Reuters to so anoint them:

Still, Iran has many ways it could provoke a Western response, from missiles within range of U.S. targets in the region, to small boats that could attack a ship near shore, to allied militia in Palestine and Lebanon that can strike Israel.

Reuters forgets a little something

2012-01-06T07:40:00.000-06:00

Well, the Israelis and Palestinians met in Jordan on Tuesday for pre-negotiations on the particulars of a Palestinian state but neither side is especially optimistic about the talks evolving into actual negotiations and Reuters tells us that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is ~~threatening~~ suggesting the Palestinians might take unspecified "unilateral" steps if Israel doesn't ~~surrender~~ accept, in advance, certain conditions:

Abbas said before Tuesday's talks that Palestinians could take unilateral steps if Israel does not agree to halt settlement building in the occupied West Bank and recognize the borders of a future Palestinian state.

What Reuters doesn't tell us, is that the borders the Palestinians are demanding Israel recognize in advance of talks, are the 1967 "borders", also known as the 1949 Armistice Lines, i.e., the point where Israeli and Arab forces ceased fighting following Israel's War of Independence. Colloquially referred to by Israelis as the Auschwitz borders due to their incarcerating and indefensible dimensions, there isn't a prayer in hell of Israel accepting a Palestinian state on lines that would once again invite and facilitate an Arab invasion of the country.

Abbas of course, knows this, but is making the demand because he is intractable and has nothing to lose in making the demand, particularly after US President Barack Obama suggested, in May of last year, the 1949 armistice lines would be a good point upon which to begin negotiations between the belligerent parties.

Reuters too, knows that the lines are a non-starter for Israel -- after all, the agency reported as much -- but deliberately conceals the dictate issued by Abbas because, well because it is Reuters after all, and sound business practice demands the agency provide cover for Arab intransigence.

Reuters correspondents still peddling fiction to advance their ideology

2012-01-05T07:51:00.001-06:00

A symbolic fiction is a propaganda technique whereby a false claim, endorsed by some reputedly respectable and disinterested party, is advanced by the propagandist (Smith, 1989).

Take for example the propaganda mantra peddled in over 200 Reuters stories within the last couple of years that Jewish settlements in the territories of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") are illegal -- because the World Court says so.

In a story on the Israeli government issuing restraining orders against 12 Jews barring them from the territories, Reuters correspondent Allyn Fisher-Ilan (yes, that Fisher-Ilan) repeats the mantra:

Israel has built more than 100 settlements in the territory, which the World Court has ruled are illegal.

As we've noted here, here, here, and here, Reuters' reference and deference to the World Court, on the question of the legality of Jewish settlements, is irrelevant and deluded. The court's opinion, actually on the legality of the Israeli separation barrier rather than Jewish settlements, is entirely advisory and non-binding. Fisher-Ilan may as well cite the Organization of Islamic Conference in its opinion on Jewish settlements (this may be her next recourse).

The only binding decision on the legality of Jewish settlements in the original territories of Palestine -- including the West Bank -- resides in the Mandate for Palestine, confirmed by the League of Nations on July 24, 1922, grandfathered across to the United Nations in 1946, and still legally operative today. Article VI of the Mandate stipulates:

The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.

Reuters Jerusalem Bureau has, to our knowledge, never cited this exclusively authoritative resolution granting Jews the right to settle anywhere in historic Palestine west of the Jordan River.

For Reuters, symbolic fiction trumps tangible truth every time.

Zealots

2012-01-04T17:06:00.003-06:00

Israel is currently experiencing an ugly chasm between its strictly religious Orthodox Jews, Haredim, and its secular Jewish population. Amongst other draconian practices, the Haredim believe in gender segregation in public spaces, including city buses. This has led to a spate of clashes as well as dramatic demonstrations by partisans on both sides of the issue.

From a socio-political perspective, such a dispute, occurring in the national homeland of the Jewish people, involves complex issues of religion and governance and we will leave it to the citizenry and politicians in Israel to sort these out.

We will comment however, on the way Reuters Jerusalem Bureau has been covering this story. In the last two weeks or so, correspondent Allyn Fisher-Ilan, whose writing interests and style strongly suggest she fancies herself a secular feminist, has written several stories on the dispute where she refers to the Haredim as "zealots".

Our desktop dictionary defines zealot as a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideals. The term obviously carries a very powerful and for most readers, strongly negative, connotation.

However one may feel about Haredim, they are certainly no more extreme in their beliefs or religious practices than, for example, orthodox Muslims or Islamists. Indeed, unlike women living in Saudi Arabia, Haredi women in Israel are able to drive cars, frequently work to support the family, and enjoy equality in matters of civil law including inheritance.

Yet, we've never seen a Reuters story where the agency's correspondents characterize Islamists as "zealots". Rather, the adjectives employed in stories on Islamists in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, etc. run along polite lines like "strict", "conservative", and "austere".

Note for example, this story from 2010 (reported on by Fisher-Ilan), about the Pope calling on Islamic countries in the Middle East to guarantee freedom of worship to non-Muslims:

At least 3.5 million Christians of all denominations live in the Gulf Arab region, the birthplace of Islam and home to some of the most conservative Arab Muslim societies in the world.
The freedom to practise Christianity -- or any religion other than Islam -- is not always a given in the Gulf and varies from country to country. Saudi Arabia, which applies an austere form of Sunni Islam, has by far the tightest restrictions.

There are many ways we might describe a society that employs religious police to arrest and lash a woman who drives or is seen in the company of a man other than her husband, but austere is not one of them.

This asymmetric handling by Fisher-Ilan and her colleagues at Reuters clearly reflects bias as well as either the soft bigotry of low expectations (with respect to religious Muslims) or antisemitism (with respect to religious Jews), or both.

On the other hand, perhaps Fisher-Ilan is simply an anti-Israel zealot.

The death of Reuters

2012-01-03T23:49:00.004-06:00

One can always tell when a creature is in its death throes. It screams in agonizing rage, lashing out with its claws, snarling with its teeth bared; its body writhing up and down, left and right until... it collapses in exhaustion, its blood supply run dry, it's head a dead pulp.

That's where Reuters is today. One can easily see this as the monster media company surrenders any last vestige of rational thought, respectable journalism, or integrity.

The one-sided reporting of Reuters crop of radical left-wingers

2012-01-03T17:00:00.005-06:00

In a story on a bill passed by the Israeli Parliament yesterday which would give the legislative branch of government additional oversight associated with appointments to the Israeli Supreme Court, the radical leftist Editor-in-Charge of Reuters Jerusalem Bureau, Jeffrey Heller, offers an entirely one-sided view of the legislation and the stature of the Court:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conservative government came under attack on Tuesday for promoting legislation critics said would weaken the independence of Israel's judiciary.
Parliament on Monday passed a government-backed amendment that paves the way for an ally of conservative lawmakers to be appointed chief of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court is held in high public regard and, in a country that does not have a constitution, is seen as an independent-minded watchdog overseeing the legislature and guarantor of civil rights.
Separate legislation that would change the composition of a legal committee appointing Supreme Court judges also received preliminary approval on Monday. Critics say if the bill is finalised, the committee would be packed with more right wingers as a result.
Opposition leader Tzipi Livni, of the centrist Kadima party, accused Netanyahu of trying to "change the character of the nation" with the legislative moves.

Since Reuters fails, as always, to provide any balance in a story that might enlighten readers, in this case unfamiliar with the Israeli Supreme Court and its nearly unprecedented power to dictate and subvert laws passed by Parliament, we will apparently have to plug the gap. Here's the rest of the story, courtesy of one of Israel's most eloquent writers, deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick:

Since [Supreme Court President Dorit] Beinisch's professional godfather, retired Supreme Court president Aharon Barak, enacted his "judicial revolution" in the 1990s, Israel's judicial system has been without parallel in the Western world. Under Israel's judicial selection system, judges effectively appoint themselves. And since Barak's presidency of the Supreme Court, justices have used this power to ensure ideological uniformity among their ranks. Jurists opposed to judicial activism have been largely blocked from serving on the High Court, as have jurists with non-leftist politics.

Not only do Israel's judges appoint themselves, they have empowered themselves to cancel laws of the Knesset.

Under Barak's dictatorial assertion that "everything is justiciable," the Court has given standing to parties that have no direct - and often no indirect - connections to the subjects of their petitions. In so doing, the Court has managed to place itself above the government and the Knesset.

In recent years, the Court has canceled duly legislated laws of the Knesset and lawful policies of the government and the IDF. Its decisions have involved everything from denying Jews the right to build Jewish communities on Jewish land, to requiring the state to compensate Palestinians for damages they incur while fighting Israel, to changing the route of the security barrier, to barring radio broadcasts by the right-wing Arutz Sheva station.

The Knesset's efforts to pass laws that would curb the Court's now unlimited powers are simply attempts to place minimal legal checks on judicial power. One bill under discussion would require Supreme Court nominees to undergo hearings at the Knesset before their nominations are approved. Under the proposed law, the unelected Judicial Appointments Committee would remain responsible for nominating and approving justices. It's just that the public, through its representatives in the Knesset, would have the opportunity to find out a bit about who these people are before their appointments are voted on.

Another proposed law would seek to water down the legal fraternity's control over judicial appointments by making a slight change in the composition of the Judicial Appointments Committee.

If both of these laws passed tomorrow, Israel's Supreme Court would still be more powerful than any other Supreme Court in the Western world. The government would still have nearly no say in who gets appointed to the bench.

Read it all.

Reuters' big problem

2012-01-03T08:43:00.014-06:00

Over the last two and a half years and some 700 posts, we think we've done a reasonably convincing job of demonstrating Reuters' systematic (some might say axiomatic) pro-Arab and anti-Israel bias. This leads to the next logical question:

Why?

Why are Reuters correspondents biased in this way? How are their interests served by writing story after story which advocates for Arab national or religious interests and defecates on Jewish national and religious interests?

There are of course, many possible explanations, not all of which are mutually exclusive.

As a transnational corporation with a presence in over 200 cities globally (the largest multimedia news agency in the world according to its website), Thomson Reuters is always seeking to grow markets, profits, and shareholder returns. Indeed, this is the raison d'etre of all corporations operating under an Anglo business model.

Thus, the agency is obviously keen to deliver a media product which feeds this growth.

Much of the developed world -- North America, Europe, Australia, and parts of Latin America -- are mature and competitive markets, already saturated by a host of media companies, including of course, Reuters. There may be some opportunities for incremental growth here, but nothing that will support the kind of double-digit growth in audiences and profits corporations crave.

That type of growth can only be found in the emerging markets like, for example, the audience of 350 million Arabs in the Middle East.

Does such a market opportunity present any obvious conflicts with Thomson Reuters much ballyhooed Trust Principles?

Well, consider this video to which we linked last summer. It documents a symposium at the 2009 World Economic Forum entitled "Race for an Audience; Media in the Middle East" and is hosted by Caroline Drees, formerly Reuters Middle East Editor and now Managing Editor for the Middle East and Africa. (Yes, she was promoted).

The video is rather long so we'll draw your attention to 28:15 where Nakhle El Hage, Director of News and Current Affairs at Al Arabiya, admits that by and large, stories appearing in the Arab media are contrived so as to win audiences:

We tell people what they want to hear. If they want to see pictures of massacres, we show them. If they want us to tell them that any Arab or Muslim killed in any part of the world, even if he or she are terrorists, are martyrs, also we can win the people.

Later, at 40:53, El Hage goes on to acknowedge that Arab media has a "big problem" in that their audience is "very emotional" and has been "trained" since the time they were children to adopt a cause, to have an enemy and to believe that the media should be part of the political campaign against that enemy.

El Hage notes that Arab audiences watching conflicts like the 2006 war in Lebanon and the 2008 war in Gaza behave like spectators at a football match, cheering for the Arabs, who want to see more blood and more fighting and that media firms which offer this, like Al Arabiya, successfully increase the size of their audience. To this, Reuters' Drees asks:

Why is it a problem? Who are we to educate the audience of what they should want?

El Hage is compelled to explain to Drees that they are in the news industry and should give people the news, not football matches.

We think the mad scramble for audience share and profits in one of the fastest growing media markets in the world, along with the desire of that audience for a very specific type of news product, a fabricated news product where the media is part of the political campaign as described by El Hage, goes a long way in explaining Reuters' systematic bias in its reporting on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

And for a corporation committed to a policy of accurate and unbiased reporting, this represents a big problem.

Dementia is a terrible thing

2012-01-02T07:07:00.001-06:00

Reuters correspondent Dan Williams is losing his mind. But as in all cases of dementia, the disease proceeds selectively. Some memories are lost while others remain.

In a story about Israelis and Palestinians agreeing to meet tomorrow in an effort to resume negotiations, Williams recalls Israel's treaty commitments, but not those of the Palestinians:

[Palestinian lead negotiator Saeb] Erekat said the meeting would be "part of ongoing Jordanian efforts to compel Israel to comply with its international legal obligations ... specifically its obligation to freeze all settlement construction."
Most countries deem the settlements illegal. Israel disputes this, and says it would keep settlement blocs under any peace deal in accordance with understandings reached in 2004 with then-U.S. president George W. Bush.

Actually of course, whether or not "most countries" now consider Jewish settlements illegal is irrelevant to whether or not they are in fact, illegal (per League of Nations and United Nations Security Council resolutions, Jewish settlements anywhere west of the Jordan River are entirely legal). But we digress...

As above, Williams, with the able assistance of Erekat, recalls and reports the Israeli commitment, appearing in the 2003 Roadmap peace plan, to freeze settlement-building in the territories. Yet, when it comes to reporting on Palestinian commitments in the same document, Williams is at a loss:

For its part, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government criticizes Abbas for seeking a reconciliation with the Islamists of Hamas, who control Gaza and reject permanent coexistence with Israel. Abbas has also balked at Israel's demand that he recognize it as a Jewish state.

Other than the obvious fact that Hamas seeks the liquidation of Israel, Williams apparently cannot recall that, in its embrace and reconciliation with an internationally-recognized terrorist group, the Palestinian Authority is breaching its international legal obligations under the same Roadmap peace plan:

Palestinians declare an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism and undertake visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt, and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning violent attacks on Israelis anywhere.

Rebuilt and refocused Palestinian Authority security apparatus begins sustained, targeted, and effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure. This includes commencing confiscation of illegal weapons and consolidation of security authority, free of association with terror and corruption.

At RMEW, we're always willing to assist the disabled.

We couldn't have said it better

2011-12-31T20:41:00.001-06:00

(Reuters) - Occupy this: the trash bin. At least, so say students at Michigan's Lake Superior State University who released an annual list of words they deem so misused, overused and cliched they should be banished in the year ahead.

Happy New Year!

Reuters latest propaganda mantra

2011-12-31T09:08:00.001-06:00

We define a propaganda mantra as a false, fabricated, or misleading construct appearing repeatedly in a Reuters story so as to drum the notion into the mind of the reader until he or she simply surrenders his or her critical faculty and accepts the propaganda as truth.

Correspondents in Reuters Jerusalem Bureau regularly dream up new entrants in this category and then employ them consistently in and across all stories published by the bureau. Examples of the many Reuters propaganda mantras can be seen in our right sidebar with counts as to how many times these phrases have appeared in Reuters stories over the last couple of years.

The latest propaganda mantra to insinuate its way into Reuters Middle East coverage appears in a story by correspondent Dan Williams about a Salafi terrorist -- er sorry, "militant" -- killed by the Israeli air force as he was preparing to fire a rocket from Gaza:

Though Hamas echoes Salafi calls for Israel's ultimate destruction, its ambitions are framed within Palestinian nationalism, not al Qaeda-style global jihad, and include a possible ceasefire with the militarily superior Jewish state which, with Egyptian help, has tried to isolate Gaza.

Williams' (unsupported) assertion, i.e., that the goal of Hamas is one of merely achieving a Palestinian state rather than waging a broader war of jihad against non-Muslims so as to reconquer all land that has ever been under Islamic rule, is utterly false. It is intended to draw a spurious distinction between Hamas and al-Qaeda for naive western audiences so that Williams and his colleagues at Reuters can carry on with their Palestinian advocacy campaign, justifying Palestinian violence under the deliberately misleading banner of "nationalism".

To see that Williams is simply blowing smoke, all one need do is read the Hamas Charter which, in setting out the terror group's mission and strategy, employs the word "jihad" no fewer than 36 times, including this section describing the relationship between Hamas and other jihadists:

Article Twenty-Three: Our Position Vis-a-Vis the Islamic Movements

The Hamas views the other Islamic movements with respect and appreciation. Even when it differs from them in one aspect or another or on one concept or another, it agrees with them in other aspects and concepts. It reads those movements as included in the framework of striving [for the sake of Allah], as long as they hold sound intentions and abide by their devotion to Allah, and as along as their conduct remains within the perimeter of the Islamic circle. All the fighters of Jihad have their reward. The Hamas regards those movements as its stock holders and asks Allah for guidance and integrity of conduct for all. It shall not fail to continue to raise the banner of unity and to exert efforts in order to implement it, [based] upon the [Holy] Book and the [Prophet’s] Tradition. “And hold fast, all of you together, to the cable of Allah, do not separate. And remember Allah’s favor unto you how ye were enemies and He made friendship between your hearts so that ye became as brothers by His grace; and (how) ye were upon the brink of an abyss of fire, and He did save you from it. Thus Allah makes clear His revelations unto you, that happily ye may be guided.” Sura III (Al-’Imran), verse 102.

And this section acknowledging that Hamas is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood (which, like al-Qaeda, advocates for a global caliphate):

Article Two: The Link between Hamas and the Association of Muslim Brothers

The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of the Muslim Brothers in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a world organization, the largest Islamic Movement in the modern era. It is characterized by a profound understanding, by precise notions and by a complete comprehensiveness of all concepts of Islam in all domains of life: views and beliefs, politics and economics, education and society, jurisprudence and rule, indoctrination and teaching, the arts and publications, the hidden and the evident, and all the other domains of life.

Indeed, even the Brotherhood affiliate in Tunisia, the al-Nahda party, boasts of Jerusalem becoming the center of the new caliphate -- once of course, it is conquered by the Palestinians:

Fox guarding henhouse at Thomson Reuters

2011-12-30T08:45:00.002-06:00

Our focus here at RMEW is on the day-to-day propaganda appearing in Reuters stories on the Middle East conflict. As our post on gatekeeping below suggests however, propaganda in journalism doesn't just happen by happenstance. It's part and parcel of an organized and covert effort by journalists and editors, possibly managing editors, to manipulate audience opinion via systematically biased storytelling, i.e., lies, half-truths, deliberate distortions, omissions, and opinion masquerading as factual reporting.

Ultimately, responsibility for a propaganda campaign rests with senior managers and the Board of Directors for the corporation that employs the journalists who engage in the campaign. These corporate guardians are charged, by investors and other stakeholder groups, with the task of seeing to it that employees uphold the company's standards and ethical principles. When these guardians fail in that oversight mission, or worse, when they themselves are complicit in the propaganda campaign, it is left to the shareholders and the market to enforce ethical discipline on the company.

This leads us to an announcement by Thomson Reuters a couple of weeks ago, of the appointment of one Mark Malloch-Brown to the Board of the Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company, an entity purportedly created to safeguard the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. From the Reuters website:

Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company was established in 1984 when Reuters became a public company. The directors of Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company have a duty to ensure, to the extent possible, that the Trust Principles are complied with.

So who is Mark Malloch-Brown? He is a Trustee of the Shell [Oil] Foundation, former Vice President of George Soros' multibillion dollar investment vehicle, the Quantum Fund, former Vice Chairman and current Board member of the Soros-founded and funded Open Society Institute, Board member of the similarly Soros-funded International Crisis Group, and previously, Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations under Kofi Annan.

Malloch-Brown, who served as Annan's deputy during the UN Oil-for-Food scandal, also managed the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 requiring the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah following its war with Israel in 2006, something it has utterly failed to do. Malloch-Brown is an unabashed apologist for both Hezbollah and Iran, infamously suggesting in an interview with the Financial Times, that Hezbollah, which fired thousands of rockets targeting Israeli civilian communities during the war, not be considered a terrorist group and that, in its pursuit of nuclear weapons, Iran merely wants international "respect".

Finally, Malloch-Brown is an anti-American polemicist, a nation he sees as standing in the way of UN-led internationalism populated by a heartland that is ignorant of the greatness of the United Nations because the country is under the influence of "Rush Limbaugh and Fox News".

This is the man that Thomson Reuters has hand-selected to be a guardian of the corporation's much-vaunted Trust Principles:

[...] That the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Thomson Reuters shall at all times be fully preserved;
That Thomson Reuters shall supply unbiased and reliable news services to newspapers, news agencies, broadcasters and other media subscribers and to businesses governments, institutions, individuals and others with whom Thomson Reuters has or may have contracts [...]

We're sure.

The Power of the Gatekeeper

2011-12-29T07:26:00.000-06:00

Gatekeeping is the power of the managing or lead editor in a media company to determine which stories get published or aired, and which don't. It's one of the most dynamic, and insidious, tools for disseminating propaganda because by definition, it's a biased process, yet one that leaves little evidence of that bias. The editor gets to decide which stories, which perspectives, will make the news and have an opportunity to influence audiences. Other stories, other perspectives, simply never see the light of day.

British attorney Trevor Asserson, now living in Israel, conducted a study of the BBCs gatekeeping role in its production and airing of documentaries on the Middle East conflict:

Asserson checked various BBC TV programs on the Middle East against its commitments under the charter. He analyzed all documentaries on the Middle East shown on BBC 1 and 2 from late June 2002 to 2004. Afterwards, Asserson said that the BBC is conducting “what amounts to something equivalent to a campaign to vilify Israel, broadcasting a documentary critical of Israel every two to three months…88% of documentaries on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict paint either a negative impression of Israel or (in two cases) a positive image of Palestinians.” [...]

Asserson concluded: “BBC’s news reports concerning Israel are distorted by omission, by inclusion, by only giving partial facts, by who is interviewed, and by the background information provided, or lack of it.

Reuters similarly employs heavily ideological gatekeeping in its Middle East reporting in an effort to vilify Israel and lionize the Arabs. Check our right sidebar entitled, "Reuters Censoring", and you will see scores of important, factual stories vital to any contextualized understanding of the conflict. Yet, not one of them was covered by Reuters. Why?

Because they would interfere with Reuters anti-Israel propaganda campaign and concurrent pro-Arab advocacy campaign.

Incidentally, if confronted with this list, we have no doubt Reuters editors would feign indignation and protest their innocence with a claim that they were too busy covering more newsworthy stories.

Yes, we're certain of that.

Fox guarding henhouse

2011-12-27T04:36:00.004-06:00

The Arab League has sent a team of "observers" to Syria to monitor the frenzied bloodletting that has resulted in the deaths of over 5,000 people in the country. With not a hint of irony, Reuters correspondent Mariam Karouny reports:

Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi, who arrived in Damascus on Saturday, is leading a team of observers that will check whether Syria is implementing part of an Arab peace plan requiring it to pull out of civilian areas and put an end to bloodshed.

Is it just us, or does it seem a bit Orwellian that a mission to verify compliance with a peace plan, intended to protect Syrians from slaughter by their government, is being led by a military leader of a country responsible for the genocide of perhaps 400,000 of its own citizens?

Pot, meet kettle

2011-12-26T17:00:00.003-06:00

In a story about two suicide bombings in Syria last Friday and the government-run media's heavy focus on the bloodshed for propaganda purposes, Reuters correspondents Alistair Lyon and Erika Solomon demonstrate their practiced understanding of the way media companies employ heavily biased messaging to manipulate audiences:

State media, often selective in their approach to news, devoted blanket coverage to the bombings, showing graphic footage of the victims and featuring interviews that drove home a single message.

Now, if they could only apply that same insight to their own reporting.

Nidal al-Mughrabi, pathologically incapable of writing a straight story on the Middle East conflict

2011-12-26T06:10:00.001-06:00

Reuters correspondent Nidal al-Mughrabi informs us that the leader of terror group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, is to "embark on a regional tour" of Muslim countries in the Middle East (makes him sound like Justin Bieber, no?).

In a piece of just 363 words, al-Mughrabi manages to insert several key propagandistic phrases intended to demonize Israel and lead readers to believe that territory which has only ever been sovereign to the Jews, is by rights, exclusively Arab:

A Haniyeh aide said he will meet leaders in Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Qatar, Bahrain and Turkey and discuss rebuilding the Gaza Strip which suffered damage during a month-long Israeli offensive in 2008-09.
About 1,400 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians, and 13 Israelis were killed in the war which Israel said it launched in order to curb cross-border rocket fire from Palestinian militants.

For al-Mughrabi, whose bio says he has worked and lived in Gaza for 15 years, the Israel-Hamas war in 2008-09 was an "Israeli offensive", which the veteran news correspondent is apparently completely unable to verify was precipitated by (thousands of) rockets fired by Palestinians into Israeli civilian communities. The cause of the war remains mere hearsay.

Yet, if we are to believe the absurd notion that al-Mughrabi cannot ascertain any independent facts with which to confirm the casus belli and can only accept that which "Israel said", are we also to believe that Israeli officials characterized the firing of rockets into Israeli civilian communities as emanating from Palestinian "militants"? In other words, if al-Mughrabi is citing Israeli officials, is he citing them accurately?

We challenge al-Mughrabi to produce evidence of an occurrence of Israeli officials referring to Hamas rocket crews as "militants". He won't be able to of course, because Israelis refer to these groups as terrorists, not militants.

So the 15-year Reuters veteran is apparently not only unable to independently verify events leading to the 2008-09 war between Israel and Hamas, he is also unable to cite faithfully, those who can verify these events.

One thing al-Mughrabi is able to do, is advance an ahistorical, Arab-ethnocentric, and racist fiction intended to suggest that the city of Jerusalem rightfully belongs to the Arabs.

The more secular Fatah movement led by Abbas, holds sway in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Palestinians want both areas for a future state with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital.

There is no "Arab East Jerusalem". It's a racist epithet formerly used to characterize the eastern portion of Jerusalem as it stood for a mere 19 years following the invasion, conquest, and ethnic cleansing of the Jews from the city by the Arab Legion in 1949.

But the term is used quite deliberately today, nearly a half-century after it became obsolete, by al-Mughrabi and his biased colleagues at Reuters in an effort to manipulate readers into believing that Jerusalem is by rights, by history, or by ethnicity, Arab.

This notion is false; it's propagandistic; and it's a violation of both Reuters Trust Principles and Handbook of Journalism for correspondents to peddle it.

But we know how seriously Reuters takes its ethical commitments to the public.

Reuters interviews rabid Israel-hater in Bethlehem; identifies him reverentially as 'Christian pilgrim'

2011-12-25T00:28:00.003-06:00

In a piece of anti-Israel propaganda masquerading as a heartfelt Christmas tale of celebrations in Bethlehem, Reuters correspondents Mustafa Abu Ganeyeh and Allyn Fisher-Ilan set the stage for us:

"We ask the baby of Bethlehem to give us the peace we really need, peace in all the countries of the Middle East. We demand peace in the Holy Land," said Latin Patriarch Fuad al-Tuwal.
The church leader, whose entourage included a man dressed as Santa Claus riding in a jeep, had arrived from Jerusalem earlier after crossing into Bethlehem, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, via an Israeli checkpoint through a towering concrete wall.

No mention of course, of the reason for that checkpoint or "towering concrete wall"; talk of over a thousand people blown to pieces in Palestinian terror attacks would clearly spoil the Christmas cheer.

But it is when Reuters correspondents cherry-pick their interviewees, that the shiny wrap truly comes off the agency's gift for deception:

"Obviously it's very special to be at this place where Jesus was born, as part of a tradition of the Christian church," said Ted Settle, an American pilgrim.

"It's very meaningful to be here with the people of Palestine who have endured so much hardship, to be here where Jesus was raised and taught about justice and peace."

So, who is Ted Settle, an "American pilgrim" who finds it very special to be in Bethlehem with "the people of Palestine"?

Well, Reuters won't tell you this but Ted is a sanctimonious and rabid Israel-hating activist who supports the destruction of the country via terrorism, boycotts, sanctions and divestment:

During the days of Monday and Tuesday, conference attendees participated in excursions that gave a fuller exposure to the oppressive and illegal “facts on the ground” of the occupation: visits to areas of Bethlehem (one of the facts on the ground constantly imposing its stark presence on the people of Bethlehem and Beit Sahour is the illegal settlement of Har Homa, with its fortress-like high rise condominiums sitting on the top of and extending down the once forested hilltop the Palestinians call Jabal Abu Ghmein) and Hebron on Monday (where a population of less than 500 illegal settlers and close to 2,000 Israeli Occupation Forces control the lives of over 160,000 Palestinians living in and around Hebron); and on Tuesday, to Jerusalem, including East Jerusalem where the Palestinians and their homes in the Silwan valley are under siege by settlers and the Israeli government [...]

The next day, after a full description of the current Palestinian political scene by Hind Khoury, former Palestinian ambassador to France, we broke out into small groups to discuss and come up with recommendations on six topics:
1. Theological Justification for our encounter and its concerns.
2. Pilgrimages – Come, See and Be with the people of Palestine
3. Prophetic Anger/ God of Now
4. Church – more than words
5. Resistance and Solidarity
6. Creative Resistance – BDS

And lest you believe it a coincidence that Reuters features remarks from someone with this type of background under the guise of a random interview, it's not the first time we've caught them doing so.

The Ghost of Christmas Past

2011-12-24T08:41:00.001-06:00

In the run-up to Christmas each year, Reuters is notorious for penning stories that depict hardship and gloom amongst Palestinians living in and around Bethlehem. And blaming that despondency on -- you guessed it -- Israel. We commented on several of these stories in 2009, pointing out that Reuters employs its usual holiday bag of propaganda devices, deceit and omissions to maliciously smear the Jewish state.

In 2010 and in the run-up to Christmas this year however, we noticed a marked dearth of such stories written by the usual suspects and we think we have discovered the reason why: a group of Jerusalem-based reporters were so fed-up with the annual insipid ritual, they started a Facebook group called Reporters against whiny christmas stories in Bethlehem:

A rebel group of Jerusalem-based reporters has reacted to the decade-long tradition of Bethlehem holiday stories by refusing to accept any holiday cheer this season.
Refusing editors' requests for "Christmas in the holy land" tales of Palestinian woe and tourist shows, the group has announced it will refrain from filing any articles until an actual news event occurs.
"We are doing this for the good of our readers. Who, if they have any memory whatsoever, will recall that we have written the exact same Bethlehem story for the past four years," said a spokesman for the group. He continued that the decision was also financial, hoping to save the dying newspaper industry the cost of commissioning a new piece when they could just rewrite the previous versions.
One journalist, who asked to remain anonymous, said the rebel group was trying to quell more extreme elements who called for a torching of all olive-wood products made in Bethlehem, and the expelling of shopkeepers who whined excessively.

Merry Christmas to our Christian readers.

Cyveillance accessing, downloading all RMEW pages

2011-12-23T10:14:00.002-06:00

Since 7:01 am yesterday, Cyveillance has been systematically accessing and downloading all of our web pages via spiders. The company bills itself as the "world leader in cyber intelligence" monitoring the internet to provide "advanced warning of company-specific threats", and as this article suggests, engages in surveillance on behalf of many Fortune 50 companies.

Hi guys and welcome! Say hello to James and Alix for us.

Riddle me this

2011-12-23T09:02:00.001-06:00

In a story about Palestinian terror groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad joining the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Reuters correspondent Nidal al-Mughrabi is a bit befuddled:

Hamas has refused to recognize Israel's right to exist or renounce violence, while the PLO has signed interim peace accords with the Jewish state. It was unclear how Hamas would be included in the PLO, given the discrepancy.

Gee, we were wondering the same. Perhaps it's due to the fact that notwithstanding those "interim peace accords", the PLO maintains its charter to destroy Israel through armed violence.

Nah! That answer would be too easy.

Fearing the truth will out

2011-12-21T08:57:00.002-06:00

Reuters correspondents have a long history of censoring, obfuscating, or simply lying in their reporting so as to advance their personal advocacy agendas, or those of their employer. Denying, downplaying, distorting, or omitting factual content in their stories is de rigueur.

This can be seen clearly in the agency's coverage of the Iranian nuclear program.

In a Reuters story published yesterday, following US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's dire warning in an interview with CBS that Iran can likely produce a nuclear weapon in about a year, perhaps much less if the country has a hidden facility enriching nuclear fuel, Reuters correspondent Phil Stewart does his level best to undermine Panetta's informed advice:

(Reuters) - How long would Iran need to develop a nuclear weapon if its leaders decided to build one?
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta thinks it could take just under a year, an ever so slightly more narrow timeline than the one-year minimum his predecessor, Robert Gates, put forward.
But nuclear experts are skeptical Tehran could move that quickly and a Pentagon spokesman acknowledged on Tuesday he was not aware of any new intelligence driving Panetta's latest remarks, which aired on U.S. television on Monday evening.

Note how, following a cursory reporting of Panetta's statement, Stewart seeks to immediately discredit it. "Nuclear experts are skeptical", the agency reporter trumpets as he proceeds to cherry-pick an opinion from the director of a single NGO who characterizes Panetta's forecast as "unlikely". In a subsequent paragraph, Stewart acknowledges that, unlike the Secretary of Defense, this director has no access to any classified intelligence; yet his uninformed opinion is offered as countervailing evidence that Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon within a year.

Stewart not only fails to come up with a second "nuclear expert" taking the same line, he neglects to cite the views of many other scientists and military analysts who have corroborated the Defense Secretary's position. Nor does Stewart mention the recent findings of scientists at the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, concluding that Iran has:

... carried out the following activities that are relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device:
• Efforts, some successful, to procure nuclear related and dual use equipment and materials by military related individuals and entities (Annex, Sections C.1 and C.2);
• Efforts to develop undeclared pathways for the production of nuclear material (Annex, Section C.3);
• The acquisition of nuclear weapons development information and documentation from a clandestine nuclear supply network (Annex, Section C.4); and
• Work on the development of an indigenous design of a nuclear weapon including the testing of components (Annex, Sections C.5–C.12).

(Note particularly, the finding that Iran has engaged in clandestine efforts to produce nuclear fuel, precisely the caveat issued by Panetta in his explanation of why Iran may be even less than a year away from producing nuclear weapons).

Rather, Stewart seeks to incriminate another party for all the fuss:

Panetta's remarks come at a moment of intense speculation about whether Israel, which sees a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat, may be moving closer to military action to halt a program it says is aimed at building an atomic bomb.

Because according to Reuters, there is no independent evidence that Iran is on the cusp of producing the bomb; this is merely a he said/she said "dispute" between equally credible parties.

Reuters compares Islamists to Republicans

2011-12-19T15:06:00.004-06:00

Reuters stable of Middle East reporters has been out in force over the last year, each correspondent taking his respective turn at bat, sanitizing the ideology of the Islamists who have been voted into power in Tunisia and Morocco, and who are on the verge of power in Egypt and Algeria.

The various Islamist groups vying for control of these countries go by different party names and, for the purpose of distinguishing themselves in the eyes of the electorate, emphasize different aspects of the Islamist raison d'etre. But, like multiple brands of bug killer, while the directions for use may vary, the end result remains the same. Institutionalized discrimination against women and non-Muslims, capital punishment for open homosexuals, and a genocidal hatred for all things Jewish are what these groups are all about.

Notwithstanding the incontrovertible barbarism inherent in this program, Reuters correspondents continue with their efforts to whitewash the Islamists for gullible western audiences. Here's the latest irrational comparison from Reuters religion editor Tom Heneghan:

Still, in a Western country, Muslim Brothers [Brotherhood] would be among the staunch social conservatives, something like the evangelical wing of the Republican Party in the United States.

Simply mind-numbing.

Correction:

2011-12-19T12:21:00.000-06:00

On November 20, 2011, we posted that Crispian Balmer was no longer Reuters Jerusalem Bureau Chief and had transferred to France. We based our report on Reuters webpage for Balmer which identified him -- and still identifies him -- as "Chief Correspondent, France". The same webpage now also identifies Balmer as "bureau chief for Israel and the Palestinian Territories".

Perhaps he commutes.

Allyn Fisher-Ilan: polemicist, propagandist, ventriloquist

2011-12-17T11:13:00.002-06:00

Deeply dishonest Reuters correspondent Allyn Fisher-Ilan pens a blistering polemic on Jewish settlers who last week attacked an IDF outpost in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") and allegedly vandalized an abandoned mosque.

In the handful of incidents where she reports, Fisher-Ilan typically refers to Israelis who stage violent demonstrations against the Israeli separation barrier and throw rocks at soldiers (often seriously injuring them) as merely "pro-Palestinian" or with the genteel sobriquet, "leftists". But in the case of Israelis protesting against the demolition of their homes in the area, engaging in violence indistinguishable from that of Fisher-Ilan's beloved "leftists", the Reuters correspondent is just a bit more, shall we say, vitriolic:

(Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday approved steps to crack down on violent ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers after a rampage at a West Bank military base and torching of a mosque's facade stirred public outrage.
Radical settlers are bent on foiling government efforts to shut down unauthorized outposts they have set up in occupied West Bank territory where Palestinians seek a state, although Israel has continued to expand larger official settlements. [...]

On Wednesday, radical Jews burnt the facade of a Jerusalem mosque not recently in use and scrawled "Death to the Arabs" on its walls, an assault blamed on a group that has vandalized other Muslim houses of worship over the past two years.

While we don't condone violence or property damage committed by belligerents on either side of this conflict, we just want to point out Fisher-Ilan's willful, skillful, and hypocritical use of propagandistic rhetoric in an effort to manipulate readers to adopt her own patent political ideology.

Note also, how the Reuters correspondent then falsely attributes her employer's propaganda mantra to the Israeli Prime Minister:

Netanyahu said further that he would increase funding for investigations of violence in occupied territory. But he rejected calls to treat Israelis suspected of violence there as "terrorist targets," as Palestinian militants are handled.

Netanyahu did not say, and would likely never refer to the territory as "occupied". Fisher-Ilan has simply fabricated the citation out of whole cloth.

Tom Perry on the loose

2011-12-16T10:52:00.003-06:00

Serial liar and Reuters kingpin propagandist Tom Perry, who clearly has an irresistible fetish for the Palestinian Arabs, rushes in to defend them from the ravages of straight talk. And his first objective is to repudiate Newt Gingrich's proposition that the Palestinians are part and parcel of the Arab community in the Middle East, rather than a distinct people.

Thus, Perry characterizes or cites others characterizing the Palestinians as a "people" at least three times in his latest turgid piece of propaganda:

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Hamas and Fatah are Palestinian rivals facing the same dilemma: how to justify their role as leaders of the Palestinian people while making little headway in achieving their national goals. [...]

"What is required is popular action, resisting on the ground," he said. "They must take steps in this direction, or they will be left behind by the Palestinian people." [...]

And both know good governance will not be enough to satisfy a people seeking independence.

Okay we get it, Tom. They're a PEOPLE!

Perry then goes on to characterize the genocidal raison d'etre of that people as a "struggle", four times:

With elections overdue, questions over their legitimacy are only likely to increase unless they find a way to galvanise the Palestinians' struggle with Israel. [...]

But in a region of fast change driven by people power, some believe Fatah and Hamas, untested at the ballot box in six years, could be left behind if they do not come up with new ideas for directing the struggle against Israel. [...]

The groups struck a new tone at a November 24 meeting in Cairo, where both talked about "popular resistance," a term including protests, boycotts and other non-military means of struggle. [...]

Hamas and Fatah appear to be struggling to plot a path that doesn't depend on the tools they have long employed in the struggle with Israel. [...]

That is, when he's not defining their genocidal raison d'etre as "resistance":

While Hamas rockets still fly into Israel from Gaza, the group these days appears more interested in calm than conflict. It remains committed to armed "resistance," but has clamped down on other groups seeking to attack Israel to avoid reprisals. [...]

"The absence of the peace process and the absence of resistance means they (Hamas and Fatah) do not have political legitimacy," said Hany al-Masri, a political commentator involved in efforts to foster reconciliation between the two. [...]

These actions generated support for both. But the momentum is fading and having played those cards, the sides have turned to reconciliation, a phrase now heard more often from Palestinian leaders than "resistance" and "peace process."

Tom Perry: where would he be without an Arab teleprompter?

Jonathan Wright explains the fundamental difference between the fundamentalists

2011-12-15T15:46:00.002-06:00

Former Reuters Cairo Bureau Chief and long-time Arabist, Jonathan Wright, who has been busy whitewashing the Islamists in Egypt for gullible Western audiences since before the fall of Hosni Mubarak in February, parses for us the critical distinction between the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamists of the Nour party:

Nasser Khodeir, a civil engineer and Brotherhood supporter in the town of Tansa, said Brotherhood members were also Salafi in their beliefs but didn't share the importance Salafis attach to physical appearance, such as clothing and the cut of the beard. Salafis favour robes or trouser cut off above the angle and long beards, usually with the moustache short or shaved off.

Well, now that we know they will be using different barbers and tailors, please note that both the Brotherhood and al-Nour seek the imposition of strict sharia law (as outlined in Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law) and, ultimately, a global caliphate.

Both groups are deeply antisemitic, treat women like chattel, advocate death for homosexuals, despise Western democracy, seek the destruction of Israel, and believe in permanent underclass status for religious minorities in countries where they have power.

Wright won't tell you any of this of course; he's far too lost in translation:

"Reporters of course, they work very fast and they don't think too deeply about what they're doing."

Yes, we've noticed that.

For Reuters, history itself begins in 1967

2011-12-15T07:50:00.001-06:00

Scan through almost any Reuters story on the Middle East conflict, particularly one that mentions Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"), and you will likely find Reuters correspondents characterizing that settlement as beginning in 1967, when Israel liberated the territory from Jordanian occupation in a defensive war.

The success of Reuters' long-standing propaganda campaign against the Jews and in favor of the Palestinian Arabs depends critically on deceiving readers into believing, not only that Jewish settlement in the territories is illegal, but that Jews only began living in the area following the Six-Day War in 1967.

Of course, both of these notions are utterly false. As the Mandate for Palestine, resolved by the League of Nations in 1922, and Articles 79 and 80 of the Charter of the United Nations make clear, Jewish settlement in the territories is not only fully legal in international law, it was originally encouraged by the international community:

The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.

International law never gets cited in a Reuters story because to do so would undermine the agency's mendacious and malicious propaganda campaign targeting the Jews, which seeks nothing less than to facilitate ethnic cleansing of the Jewish community from the territories by swaying public opinion in that direction.

Just as Joseph Goebbels and his Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda sought to influence public opinion so as to facilitate ethnic cleansing of the Jews from Europe.

In addition to a careful censorship of relevant citations of international law, Reuters employs what in propaganda studies is known as historical reconstruction, i.e., fabrication, to falsely depict the Jews as interlopers and colonizers of their own land. To so portray a people that created and constituted a sovereign state in the area over three millennia ago, rich with culture, language, religious worship, and edifices still in evidence today -- a state that was repeatedly invaded, occupied, and colonized by others (including the Palestinian Arabs) over the last 2,500 years -- is no mean feat.

Reuters seeks to blot out indelible historical and legal Jewish ties to the land by systematically referring to 1967 as the year in which Jews began settling in the territories; hence we see this type of ahistorical and hysterical rhetoric from the keyboards of Reuters journalists like Dan Williams:

The first settlers were viewed by many compatriots as a patriotic vanguard on territory captured in the 1967 Middle East war. But some of their offspring, in the thrall of messianic and supremacist rabbis, combined an ecstatic skullcaps-and-sandals piety with the spurning of secular Israeli rule.

As we noted in a previous post, this handling is reminiscient of the scene in Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning film Schindler's List where the Nazi commandant Göth addresses the Jews at a concentration camp worksite:

"Today is history. The young will ask with wonder about this day. Today is history and you are a part of it... When, elsewhere, they were footing the blame for the Black Death, Kazimierz the Great, so called, told the Jews they could come to Cracow. They came... They trundled their belongings into this city, they settled, they took hold, they prospered... For six centuries, there has been a Jewish Cracow... By this weekend, those six centuries, they're a rumor. They never happened. Today is history."

Substitute Jerusalem for "Cracow" and thirty-five centuries for "six", and you have a sense of the atrocity Reuters correspondents are contemplating and in which they will be complicit if their propaganda campaign is successful.

Dan Williams does black humor

2011-12-14T17:00:00.005-06:00

A classic, from Reuters correspondent Dan Williams:

Israel, which is widely reputed to have the region's only atomic arsenal, sees the makings of a mortal threat in the Islamic republic's uranium enrichment and ballistic missile development, though Tehran denies having hostile designs.

What's a nuclear-tipped missile between friends?

CAUTION: Extremely loud noise can be hazardous to your mental health

2011-12-14T13:00:00.016-06:00

Reporting on remarks by Israeli President Shimon Peres published in the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Reuters correspondent Allyn Fisher-Ilan characterizes NGOs, funded by foreign governments and dedicated to the destruction of Israel, as -- wait for it.... "dovish".

By contrast, the Yisrael Beiteinu party, which has introduced legislation similar to that existing in Germany, France and Belgium to ban public loudspeakers from being used to broadcast pre-dawn religious chants at levels that can reach 120-130 decibels, is labeled by Fisher-Ilan as "far-right".

Proving once again, that electronic amplification at high enough levels does indeed kill brain cells.

Reuters reports on Palestinian flag raising at UNESCO, forgets a little something

2011-12-14T07:17:00.001-06:00

In a story on UNESCO raising the Palestinian flag at a Paris ceremony signifying entry of the ersatz state of "Palestine" into the cultural organization, Reuters correspondent John Irish describes the purported rationale for the Palestinian application:

Some 50 diplomatic guests watched as Abbas lifted the flag to the Palestinian national anthem and said he hoped UNESCO's move was the beginning of international recognition for Palestine. The Palestinian national anthem played as a morning of biting wind and rain gave way to a burst of sunshine.
"It is moving to see our flag raised and for it to be flying in this beautiful city of Paris among all the other states. This bodes well for Palestine becoming a member of other international institutions," Abbas said.
"We hope we will have one independent state in the future that will live side by side with Israel," he said.

Oops! Apparently, Abbas forgot to include the ever-present obligatory modifier, "side by side in peace with Israel". An oversight, we're sure.

And Irish fails to mention the genuine reason the Palestinians wish to be a part of UNESCO: so they can prevent Jews from praying at holy sites which they (the Palestinians) will likely control.

Irish does however, attempt to characterize and isolate Israel and the United States as the (only) two nations opposed to the Palestinian attempt to gain statehood without negotiating a peace treaty:

The UNESCO vote was a diplomatic victory for Abbas, who in the absence of peace talks with the Jewish state has pushed for recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations, a move opposed by Israel and the United States. [...]

Israel and its main ally the United States insist that only a peace treaty can establish a universally recognized Palestinian state. But the Palestinians say they have been patient through 20 years of futile talks. [...]

Abbas, who still wants a U.N. Security Council vote on a resolution for a Palestinian state even though it is destined to fail because of a U.S. veto, was to meet President Nicolas Sarkozy later Tuesday.

That the Palestinians haven't a hope in hell of winning the requisite nine votes in the UN Security Council due to opposition from other nations, like Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Bosnia and Colombia, fails to warrant a mention by Irish.

Nor does the fact that the entire European Union has come out against Palestinian unilateralism, appear to be in Irish's notebook.

As an anti-Israel propagandist, it's always most effective to frame the contest as one of: Israel and America versus The World.

Reconstructing the godfather of terrorism

2011-12-12T08:31:00.004-06:00

In what is without a doubt, the most mendacious, twisted, selective, ahistorical tripe from a Reuters correspondent ever to leap from the page, Andrew Hammond, whose bio indicates he was formerly in charge of Reuters Saudi operation (surprise!), reconstructs the image of Yasser Arafat for us based on a new documentary.

The public image of Arafat, the godfather of modern terrorism, inspired by his Nazi-collaborating uncle Husseini, an unrepentant Jew-hater, pathological liar, and committed to the destruction of Israel right through his dying days from sexually-transmitted disease, is miraculously rehabilitated by Hammond with his fatuous review of the film by British director Richard Symons, just screened in -- where else? Dubai.

We have to run to an appointment but let's take a quick look at Hammond's account of the life of Arafat as seen through his eyes and reportedly, that of director Symons:

DUBAI, Dec 12 Reuters) - Associates of Yasser Arafat offer personal recollections in a documentary screened in Dubai this week on his search for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal that descended into violence and failed to lead to a Palestinian state. [...]

Arafat was depicted by his Israeli and U.S. detractors as an obstacle to bringing the peace talks to a resolution and who sought to take advantage of the violence of the Palestinian uprising which followed the breakdown of critical talks in 2000.

There's that passive voice Reuters has mastered in its propaganda on the Middle East; the peace deal "descended into violence" -- no active agent required. And Arafat is merely "depicted" by his "detractors" as someone who "sought to take advantage" of Palestinian violence.

Apparently, Hammond, who has years of experience working in the Middle East and has purportedly written two books on the Arabs, is unaware of the admission by a Palestinian official that the terror war launched against Israeli civilians in 2000 was masterminded by Arafat and his cronies.

Rather, Hammond wants us to see the cuddly side of Arafat:

Nasser al-Kidwa, a nephew who is now Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, recounts Arafat's gloom after Rabin's death. Kidwa found a quiet, dejected figure when he visited Arafat in his office several days later.
"Before leaving I said something to the effect of 'why are you so upset? Okay Rabin was an important leader, but Peres is coming and Peres has an even better position than Rabin'," he remembers in one of the film's most poignant sections.
"He didn't answer me, but he gave me that look that obviously meant that I didn't understand anything. And I didn't, he was right, clearly."

And the Reuters correspondent is quite clear who he believes is responsible for there being no peace between Israel and the Palestinians:

Shimon Peres lost the subsequent 1996 election to Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu, signaling a shift to the right in Israeli politics and a stagnation in the peace process that has lasted to this day.

Right... Israel elects a strong leader to fight a relentless Palestinian terror war which has taken the lives of over 1,000 Israeli men, women, and children; a Palestinian state is conceded; the Palestinians refuse to even negotiate on the contours of this state; but Netanyahu and rightist politics in Israel are to blame for the stagnation of the peace process.

Finally, Hammond introduces a bit of levity into this tragedy:

Shunned by Washington and besieged by Israel in his Ramallah compound, Arafat died as the uprising was winding down. His widow is in tears as she recalls those final days.

Yeah, his widow, who would have liked to abscond with the billions of dollars in Western aid Arafat stole during his reign, is in tears.

Must have missed the Gucci sale in Paris.

Litotes of the day

2011-12-11T08:24:00.000-06:00

In a story about Israel replacing its ambassador to Egypt this week, following the near lynching of the last ambassador by an Egyptian mob in September, Reuters correspondents Edmund Blair and Ori Lewis demonstrate their genteel sensibilities:

Many Egyptians view Israel, which signed a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979 after four wars between the two countries, with hostility. Anti-Israeli sentiment, muted before President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February, has become more vocal.

Uh-huh:

Reuters Tom Perry weighs in over Gingrich remarks

2011-12-10T14:14:00.003-06:00

In a post earlier today, we noted the mendacity with which Reuters correspondent Steve Holland responded to Newt Gingrich's remarks about the Palestinians being one with the Arab community in the Middle East. Now it's the turn of Reuters kingpin propagandist Tom Perry, who ~~parrots~~ interviews Palestinian official Saeb Erekat:

Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, described his [Gingrich's] comments in an interview as "despicable." Hanan Ashrawi, another top official, said Gingrich's "very racist comments" showed he was "incapable of holding public office."
"This is the lowest point of thinking anyone can reach," Erekat, a close advisor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, told Reuters. Such comments served only to "increase the cycle of violence," he added.
"What is the cause of violence, war in this region? Denial, denying people their religion, their existence, and now he is denying our existence," said Erekat, for years a leading figure in peace talks aimed at the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

How ironic that a man proven to be a pathological liar, one who has served under two Palestinian regimes that have systematically denied Jewish historical and religious connections to the holy land, ancient culture and relics, and sovereign rights mandated by international law, is now pontificating about the conflict being due to a denial of religious rights and recognition of the Palestinian Arabs.

Along the way, Perry demonstrates why he is Reuters #1 propagandist and a serious liability to the company's (failing) reputation for truth and accuracy in its reporting:

The 1948 war erupted after Arab states rejected a U.N. plan that would have divided British mandate-ruled Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.

The 1948 war did not "erupt"; it was launched as a declared war of annihilation by five Arab states and contingents from two others against a nascent Israel.

Perry again:

While Hamas remains committed to armed "resistance" and will not recognize Israel, the Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah states that only peaceful means can deliver Palestinian statehood and its security forces cooperate with Israel.

Hamas is not committed to "armed resistance"; it is committed to the liquidation of Israel and the genocide of the Jewish people. And as we demonstrated earlier, the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas is merely tactically and temporarily refraining from violence in its effort to wrestle land away from Israel.

Perry is quite adept at giving voice to Palestinian Arab howls of "racism" and "ethnic cleansing" but apparently incapable of reporting the reality of Palestinian racism and ethnic cleansing aimed at the Jews.

Reuters marks Palestinian nationalism beginning in 1834; Jewish nationalism in 1947

2011-12-10T05:47:00.003-06:00

Reuters quotes Newt Gingrich, as interviewed by The Jewish Channel:

"I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it's tragic"

Gingrich's statement is of course, entirely accurate: the Palestinians are indeed part of the community of 350 million Arabs of the Middle East, identical to that population in terms of ethnic origin, religion, language, and culture. There aren't any genetic or ethnographic distinctions to be drawn between the Arabs of Ramallah and the Arabs of Damascus for example. And this is readily admitted by the Palestinians themselves.

For Reuters correspondents however, stating the obvious when it comes to their pet Palestinians is a bit like chumming red meat in shark-infested waters and Steve Holland predictably takes the bait:

(Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich thrust himself into controversy on Friday by declaring that the Palestinians are an "invented" people who want to destroy Israel. [...]

Most historians mark the start of Palestinian Arab nationalist sentiment in 1834, when Arab residents of the Palestinian region revolted against Ottoman rule.
Israel, founded amid the 1948 Arab-Israel war, took shape along the lines of a 1947 U.N. plan for ethnic partition of the then-British ruled territory of Palestine which Arabs rejected.

Holland offers no citations to support his claim on the origins of Palestinian nationalism and in fact, misrepresents the nature of the Arab revolt in 1834 which was inspired not by nationalist fervor, but by resistance to conscription in the Ottoman-Egyptian military.

What really makes the 1834 revolt significant in terms of motivating a people to seek sovereignty, is that it marked widespread Palestinian Arab pogroms against the Jewish communities in Jerusalem and the Eastern Galilee. Temporarily absent the protections afforded by Ottoman rule, Jewish property was looted and Jews were beaten to death in the streets.

Holland ignores this inconvenient history along with the realities of more than three thousand years of Jewish sovereignty in the land, the Balfour declaration in 1917 calling for a modern Jewish state in Palestine, and the Palestine Mandate resolved by the League of Nations in 1922 confirming Balfour. Rather, the Reuters correspondent leaps to the United Nations partition plan in 1947 and juxtaposes this historically recent event with the historically reconstructed Arab revolt in 1834 to suggest that Palestinian nationalism is actually older than Jewish nationalism. A very neat trick.

Holland then completes his dubious tale with this whopper:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has long forsworn violence against Israel as a means to secure an independent state, pinning his hopes first on negotiations and more recently on a unilateral bid for statehood via the United Nations.

As we've noted too many times to recount, Abbas has made clear (in Arabic) that his regime's partial suspension of terror against Israeli civilians is merely tactical and temporary and may resume anytime it once again becomes opportune.

Pure Reuters; pure propaganda

2011-12-09T09:01:00.001-06:00

Reuters is infamous for its fauxtography (fabricated, doctored, or staged photos) intended for propaganda purposes.

Yesterday, the Israeli air force killed a Hamas operative and a member of Palestinian President Abbas' al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Here are the pertinent details from a Reuters story:

(Reuters) - An Israeli air strike killed two Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip Thursday and Palestinians in the territory fired rockets deep into southern Israel in the latest round of cross-border violence.In Tel Aviv, an Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed an air strike had been carried out. She said the two men killed in the incident had been planning an attack on Israeli civilians and soldiers along Israel's border with Egypt's Sinai peninsula. [...]
"(They) were affiliated with a terrorist squad that intended to attack Israeli civilians and soldiers via the western border," an army statement said.
Hamas, an Islamist group sworn to Israel's destruction, has ruled the blockaded Gaza Strip since 2007, while President Mahmoud Abbas's Western-backed Palestinian Authority remains dominant in the occupied West Bank.
The army statement said that Essam had been involved in planning a suicide bombing in the southern Israeli resort of Eilat in 2007 in which three Israeli civilians were killed, and a number of other attacks, some of which had been stopped.
Essam was a member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Abbas's Fatah movement, group officials said. The Hamas said Sobhi was affiliated with its own armed wing.

Reuters runs a photograph with the story. Does the news agency show us the wrecked car from the scene? A file picture of the two Palestinian terrorists? A photo of damage caused by several of the hundreds of Palestinian rockets fired into Israel this year? No. Reuters employs the appeal to pity propaganda technique to suck its audience into sympathy with a mass murderer.

Check it out.

Reuters still lying about Palestinian terror attacks

2011-12-07T12:14:00.000-06:00

In a story about a military clash between the Islamic Jihad and Israel in the Gaza Strip, Reuters correspondents Nidal al-Mughrabi and Dan Williams continue to embarrass themselves with this false and utterly ridiculous assertion:

Islamic Jihad at times is allied with Gaza's Hamas rulers but the group has chafed at recent efforts by the more powerful faction to impose de facto truces across the coastal territory.

There have been over 700 rockets and mortars fired into Israeli civilian communities by Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups in Gaza in 2011. Hamas openly claims responsibility for many of these attacks.

Reuters, de facto liars.

Reuters: Israel unpredictable belligerent

2011-12-07T08:13:00.003-06:00

In yet another in its epic series of anti-Israel polemics, Reuters correspondents Mark Hosenball and Phil Stewart work the ropes in an attempt to portray Israel as an unpredictable belligerent, poised to stir up trouble for the United States, the region, and world economies by unilaterally attacking Iran without seeking permission from the Obama administration:

Bruce Riedel, a former senior CIA expert on the Middle East who has advised Obama, said, "Israel has a long history of conducting military operations from Baghdad to Tunis without giving Washington advance notice."
Riedel said the White House wants to send Israel a strong message that the United States does not expect to be blindsided by its ally. "Obama wants Bibi to understand unequivocally he does not want a repeat performance in Iran," he said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by his nickname.
The Obama administration suspects that Israeli leaders have marked out for themselves certain "red lines" related to Iranian nuclear progress which could trigger Israeli military action if they are crossed, one U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But Obama administration policymakers are plagued by a "sense of opacity" in their understanding of where the Israeli red lines are drawn, the official added.
Two other U.S. officials, also speaking on condition they not be named, said Washington is deeply concerned Israel, unconvinced sanctions and diplomatic pressure will halt Iran's nuclear program, could eventually decide to take action on its own.

While painting Israel as a kind of loose cannon, Hosenball and Stewart manage to evade mentioning even once, across almost 900 words of blather, Iran's many threats to see Israel annihilated or the United Nations IAEA report which has concluded Iran is on the threshold of obtaining the means to deliver on those threats.

It's as if the two Reuters correspondents had just woken up one morning to find a furtive and petulant Israel capriciously contemplating war.

To gather a sense of the debilitating effects of this type of propaganda campaign orchestrated by the world's largest news agency, have a look at the reader comments below the story.

Reuters, systematically dumbing down the planet.

The Muslim Brotherhood unmasked

2011-12-05T10:02:00.001-06:00

Contrary to the "free of bias" pleadings found in its mission statement and handbook of journalistic standards, Reuters is an ideologically-driven organization. The agency's correspondents and editors harbor deeply-held political views and objectives that manifest daily in their stories, published on the Reuters website and syndicated to hundreds of other news outlets worldwide.

As it has done for decades on behalf of the Palestinian Arabs, Reuters is now engaged in a public relations campaign, designed to promote the image and interests of the Islamists in Egypt while masking the true and, by any civilized standard, deplorable nature of these groups.

In recent days, we've highlighted a sample of Reuters stories that employ propaganda in the form of card stacking, euphemisms, and red herrings intended to conceal and sanitize the intrinsic barbarism and expansionist goals of the Salafists and Muslim Brotherhood. Thanks to a translation by Palestinian Media Watch of the book, Jihad Is the Way, written by Mustafa Mashhur, the official leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt between 1996-2002 (a period during which Reuters never fails to remind us the Brotherhood had renounced violence), we can glimpse the true face of these movements:

"...the Islamic Ummah [nation]... can regain its power and be liberated and assume its rightful position which was intended by Allah, as the most exalted nation among men, as the teachers of humanity..."
- "...know your status, and believe firmly that you are the masters of the world, even if your enemies desire your degradation..."
- "It should be known that Jihad and preparation towards Jihad are not only for the purpose of fending-off assaults and attacks of Allah's enemies from Muslims, but are also for the purpose of realizing the great task of establishing an Islamic state and strengthening the religion and spreading it around the world..."
- "...Jihad for Allah is not limited to the specific region of the Islamic countries, since the Muslim homeland is one and is not divided, and the banner of Jihad has already been raised in some of its parts, and it shall continue to be raised, with the help of Allah, until every inch of the land of Islam will be liberated, the State of Islam will be established,..."

"Then comes the power of arms and weapons,... and this is the role of Jihad."
- "Jihad is a religious public duty... incumbent upon the Islamic nation, and is a personal duty to fend off the infidels' attack on the nation..."
- "And the youth should know that the problems of the Islamic world, such as Palestine, Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea, or the Philippines, are not issues of territories and nations, but of faith and religion. They are problems of Islam and the Muslims, and they can be resolved neither by negotiation nor by recognizing the enemy's right to the Islamic land he stole. Rather, the only option is Jihad for Allah, and this is why Jihad is the way."
- "The symbol of the [Muslim] Brotherhood is the book of Allah [the Quran] between two swords. The swords symbolize Jihad and the force that protects the truth represented in Allah's book."
- "...that is, go out to battle, oh believers, young and old, by foot or with animal, under all circumstances and conditions..."

Read it all. Reuters obviously hasn't.

Reuters broken record -- broken record -- broken record

2011-12-05T08:42:00.000-06:00

Reuters frequently fails to reset the propaganda switch, even when the news passes it by. Take for example, this story by correspondent Jeremy Laurence about a news conference yesterday where a senior official with the US State Department noted that a failure of diplomatic sanctions against Iran will inevitably bring pressure for "a different kind of solution". Laurence writes:

The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action against Iran's nuclear facilities if diplomacy fails to resolve a dispute over a programme they suspect is aimed at developing atomic weapons.
Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons and says it would respond to any strike by attacking Israel and U.S. interests in the Gulf.

Not a word about the most recent report from the United Nations IAEA, the independent atomic energy watchdog, that concluded Iran has carried out numerous activities relevant to the development of a nuclear bomb.

After all, that would confirm the "suspicions" of the United States and Israel and elevate the "dispute" to the status of something much more -- much more -- much more.

Facts just twist the truth around

2011-12-04T19:39:00.005-06:00

Reuters runs one of its fatuous "factbox" series to educate us on the policies of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, and correspondent Shaimaa Fayed parrots the following absurd non sequitur with absolutely no criticism and no hint of irony:

FJP [Freedom and Justice Party] and Brotherhood officials say they want to build a modern, democratic state based on Islamic sharia law.

A "modern, democratic state" built on a political and legal system 1,400 years-old where religious minorities are subject to systematic discrimination and women are treated as chattel.

But it gets worse:

The Muslim Brotherhood is a vociferous critic of Israel. Although it long ago renounced violence as a means to bring change in Egypt, it says those facing occupation have the right to "resist by all means." The Palestinian militant group Hamas sees the Brotherhood as a spiritual leader.

As a reminder, here's what that "vociferous critic" recently had to say about the Jewish citizens of Israel:

A Muslim Brotherhood rally in Cairo's most prominent mosque Friday turned into a venomous anti-Israel protest, with attendants vowing to "one day kill all Jews".

For Reuters correspondents, facts apparently just won't do what they want them to.

Islamists are "softly-spoken", "pragmatic", "conservative". So says Reuters

2011-12-04T08:25:00.002-06:00

The extent to which the Reuters Middle East crew will go to provide public relations for, and polish the image of, the most retrograde political movement this century, is truly astonishing. Bordering on unintended satire, Reuters correspondent Tom Perry writes about the Salafi movement, which has just won 20-30 percent of the vote in the first round of Egyptian elections:

The indications so far are heartening for Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, a Salafi planning to run for the presidency in a June election. He sees the results as "a map" of how young Egyptians going to the polls for the first time had voted.
"There's no doubt this is pleasing," said the softly-spoken lawyer-and-politician with a long, grey beard, wearing a suit and tie in an interview on Egyptian television on Thursday.

Voters had realised the Islamists' discourse was "logical and reasonable", he said, at the same time outlining a conservative view typical of the Salafis.

He said men and women should be segregated at work and displays of public affection must stop. There must also be a halt of the sale and production of alcohol.
As in Saudi Arabia, Salafis would want to bar women and Christians from executive posts. They might also ban "un-Islamic" art and literature, as well as mixed beach bathing. [...]

"I believe they can bring change," said Mohammed Hussein, 30, who works in commerce, explaining why he voted for the Nour Party in the city of Alexandria, where Salafi banners urge women to wear the Islamic veil. "It is a party that loves religion."
Hussein's enthusiasm for the group is the result of years of listening to Salafi clerics in the mosque. Across the Middle East, the mosque has provided Islamists with a platform for politics denied to secular parties now trying to regroup.

Political platforms like this:

Reuters whitewash of the Muslim Brotherhood continues

2011-12-01T11:43:00.002-06:00

It's only 267 miles as the crow flies between Ramallah and Cairo, and Reuters correspondent Tom Perry, whose beat has shifted from the former to the latter, proves that's just a stone's throw away when it comes to transmitting Arab propaganda.

And with the Muslim Brotherhood on the verge of power in Egypt, Perry is busy cleaning up the image of the group for western consumption:

Headed by doctors, engineers and teachers, the Brotherhood's slogan is "Islam is the solution." Yet it talks the same language as other reformists when it comes to the need for democracy, an independent judiciary and social justice in Egypt.

Actually, the Brotherhood's slogan is, “Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader, the Koran is our law, Jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope. Allahu-akbar!”.

That chilling manifesto has been carefully concealed in the run-up to elections in Egypt but remains the Islamist group's raison d'etre.

And note how Perry attempts to bring respectability to the Brotherhood by asserting it is headed by "doctors, engineers and teachers". This is of course, irrelevant to the group's extremist agenda nor can one forget that the Nazi Party in Germany was also led by many in upstanding professions.

Perry then parrots the Brotherhood's feigned rejection of violence:

Though the Brotherhood disavowed violence in Egypt in the 1970s, state suspicions lingered over its goals.

Perhaps the reason "state suspicions lingered over its goals" is because the Brotherhood was implicated in the assassination of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981 and the terrorist attack in 1997 which killed 62 tourists in Luxor.

To soothe western fears over what the Brotherhood has in mind for Egypt, Perry interviews one of its members:

Ali Khafagi, a 28-year-old Brotherhood activist, says fears about the group are overblown. A member since high school, he describes the Brotherhood as "very moderate and open minded."
"The Brotherhood's goal is to end corruption and start reform and economic development and that is what attracted many of its supporters to join it including myself," he said.
Khafagi dismissed talk about the Brotherhood banning alcohol or forcing women to wear headscarves if it came to power.
"That could only be done by a mad group and the Brotherhood is not a mad group, but a decent logical group with a good understanding of the Egyptian people and Islam," he added.

A good understanding of Islam. Indeed.

Reuters still downplaying IAEA report on Iran's nuclear weapons program

2011-11-30T08:41:00.004-06:00

In our post on November 8, 2011 following the release of the latest United Nations IAEA report on Iran's nuclear weapons program, we noted Reuters long-standing efforts to downplay overwhelming evidence of that program and asked whether the news agency would continue in that vein, notwithstanding the IAEAs damning findings. Robin Pomeroy, Reuters man in Iran, provides the answer to our question:

Britain last week banned all its financial institutions from any dealings with Iran, including its central bank, after a report by the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency suggested Iran may have worked on developing a nuclear arsenal.

The IAEA report "suggested" Iran "may have" worked on developing a nuclear arsenal??

Er, no. Here's a key section of the report:

The information indicates that Iran has carried out the following activities that are relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device:
• Efforts, some successful, to procure nuclear related and dual use equipment and materials by military related individuals and entities (Annex, Sections C.1 and C.2);
• Efforts to develop undeclared pathways for the production of nuclear material (Annex, Section C.3);
• The acquisition of nuclear weapons development information and documentation from a clandestine nuclear supply network (Annex, Section C.4); and
• Work on the development of an indigenous design of a nuclear weapon including the testing of components (Annex, Sections C.5–C.12).

Nice try though, Robin.

Former UNIFIL official refers to Israeli communities targeted by Lebanese rockets as "settlements"

2011-11-29T21:40:00.001-06:00

Reuters interviewed Timur Goksel, a former UNIFIL official and "security analyst", about the rockets fired into Israel today from Lebanon. Here's what Goksel had to say:

This looks more serious. The type of rocket and apparent targeting of settlements suggests they were not noisemakers, they actually hit something and didn't mind causing casualties. This one could have caused huge mayhem.

The area hit by the rockets is in the western Galilee of Israel.

But then, the Arabs and their acolytes consider all of Israel to be a "settlement".

The "Freedom & Justice" Party unmasked

2011-11-28T07:14:00.000-06:00

Elder of Ziyon calls our attention to the written election platform of the Muslim Brotherhood -- er, the "Freedom and Justice" party in Egypt which includes:

Affirming the right of the Palestinian people to liberate their land, and highlighting the duty of governments and peoples of Arab and Muslim countries, especially Egypt, to aid and support the Palestinian people and the Palestinian resistance against the Zionist usurpers of their homeland.

There's that dang euphemism for bus bombings again.

Reuters on the other hand, continues to assert that the Brotherhood has renounced violence.

Did a Reuters journalist sign petition calling on Israeli soldiers not to serve in the territories and to "evacuate" Jewish settlements?

2011-11-25T09:57:00.003-06:00

A few days ago, a visitor left a comment drawing our attention to an Israeli online petition calling on IDF soldiers not to serve in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") and for Israel to "evacuate" (a euphemism for ethnic cleansing) Jews living there. The name appearing as signature number 40016 on the petition is "Maayan Lubell". Coincidentally, Maayan Lubell is also the name of one of Reuters Jerusalem Bureau correspondents.

That Lubell has amply demonstrated her anti-Israel bona fides in story after story she has written for Reuters; focusing exclusively on a handful of incidents of alleged Jewish vandalism while entirely ignoring hundreds of Palestinian Arab terror attacks against Jews; attempting to conceal the fact that it was only in defense of his own life that a Jewish settler had shot two Palestinians; and lying about the nature of the Turkish flotilla last year where Israeli marines were nearly lynched.

In its Handbook of Journalism, Reuters asserts that it asks all staff to "park" their politics at the door. Many Reuters correspondents however, much prefer to parade their politics. The question is, given Reuters much ballyhooed commitment to freedom from bias, why do agency managers put up with it?

Reuters turkey stuffed with fatuous assertions

2011-11-24T08:57:00.000-06:00

In an op-ed dressed as "analysis" so Reuters can sell the turkey to other media outlets, correspondent Peter Graff stuffs the bird with one of Reuters most ludicrous assertions yet:

(Reuters) - Iran's nuclear standoff with the West has led to much harsher words and new economic sanctions, but Tehran has yet to cross the red lines that would prompt Israel or the United States to contemplate military action.

Does Graff actually want readers to believe that Israel and the United States are not preparing for military action against Iran? Does Graff think Israel will wait until Iran has tested a nuclear device before attacking Iran's nuclear facilities? Does he seriously believe the odds for such an attack haven't jumped with the release of the latest UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Iran's nuclear program?

We wonder if Graff has even read the IAEA report. Here are a few of its choice findings:

Since 2002, the Agency has become increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed nuclear related activities involving military related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile, about which the Agency has regularly received new information. [...]

The Agency [IAEA] is still awaiting a substantive response from Iran to Agency requests for further information in relation to announcements made by Iran concerning the construction of ten new uranium enrichment facilities, the sites for five of which, according to Iran, have been decided, and the construction of one of which was to have begun by the end of the last Iranian year (20 March 2011) or the start of this Iranian year. [...]

Contrary to the relevant resolutions of the Board of Governors and the Security Council, Iran has not suspended work on all heavy water related projects...

Since its visit to the Heavy Water Production Plant (HWPP) on 17 August 2011, the Agency, in a letter to Iran dated 20 October 2011, requested further access to HWPP. The Agency has yet to receive a reply to that letter, and is again relying on satellite imagery to monitor the status of HWPP. Based on recent images, the HWPP appears to be in operation. [...]

In resolution 1929 (2010), the Security Council reaffirmed Iran’s obligations to take the steps required by the Board of Governors in its resolutions GOV/2006/14 and GOV/2009/82, and to cooperate fully with the Agency on all outstanding issues, particularly those which give rise to concerns about the possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme, including by providing access without delay to all sites, equipment, persons and documents requested by the Agency. Since August 2008, Iran has not engaged with the Agency in any substantive way on this matter. [...]

The information indicates that Iran has carried out the following activities that are relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device:
• Efforts, some successful, to procure nuclear related and dual use equipment and materials by military related individuals and entities (Annex, Sections C.1 and C.2);
• Efforts to develop undeclared pathways for the production of nuclear material (Annex, Section C.3);
• The acquisition of nuclear weapons development information and documentation from a clandestine nuclear supply network (Annex, Section C.4); and
• Work on the development of an indigenous design of a nuclear weapon including the testing of components (Annex, Sections C.5–C.12).

So while Graff acknowledges that:

Some media coverage has suggested a new Middle East war could be coming, if the leadership of Israel decides that it cannot tolerate a nuclear bomb in the hands of a state committed to its destruction.

the Reuters correspondent nevertheless digs up a British "defense analyst" to patronize Israel:

"Up until now, President Bush and President Obama have said don't do it [take military action against Iran]. That's been documented," he said. "This is the multi-billion dollar question: are the Israelis misguided and impulsive enough not to ask the Americans for permission?

Are the Israelis "misguided" and "impulsive" enough to defend themselves in the face of a catastrophic risk to their existence if Obama fails to give them "permission"?

Gobble gobble.

Deeply dishonest -- or dingbat?

2011-11-23T10:13:00.003-06:00

Speaking of Reuters correspondent Allyn Fisher-Ilan, she is celebrating the American Thanksgiving holiday by penning one of her classic, I hate Israel polemics. This one, about Israeli plans to resettle 30,000 of the country's Bedouin population from squalid living conditions in the Negev to communities nearby with housing and utilities, is an amusing attempt to paint Israel as engaging in "ethnic cleansing".

As the Elder of Ziyon website noted last week, the story, which was covered in similarly melodramatic fashion by Haaretz in October, is pure anti-Israel propaganda. The fact is, the Bedouin being resettled do not own the land on which they are currently squatting and they are stealing both water and electricity. In exchange for their nomadic wanderings and impoverished lifestyle, the Israeli government is offering them free housing, utilities, health care, and welfare benefits in developed communities.

The obvious question is whether Fisher-Ilan is deliberately obfuscating the facts here, or is she simply stupid?

Reuters only concerned with copy changes when these are pro-Israel

2011-11-23T08:17:00.005-06:00

Reuters stories are syndicated to hundreds of other media publications worldwide. In 2004, CanWest Global Communications, publisher of 13 newspapers in Canada including The National Post, was asked by former Reuters global managing editor David Schlesinger to remove Reuters' bylines (the writer's name) from the agency's stories appearing in CanWest papers. What had CanWest done to draw Schlesinger's ire? It had substituted the word "terrorists" for Reuters word choice, "rebels". And after all, we know that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter".

Well apparently, Reuters has no similar problem with The Daily Star of Lebanon altering copy. Note the following lede in a story authored by Reuters correspondent Allyn Fisher-Ilan which appeared in the paper on November 14, 2011:

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: An Israeli ministerial committee gave initial approval Sunday to legislation intended to clamp limits on funding by foreign governments for Israeli organizations. Critics say the measure is aimed mainly at choking off European and other Western aid to left-wing groups. Supporters of the legislation say such monetary support from abroad is tantamount to foreign interference in internal Israeli politics. [emphasis ours]

Fisher-Ilan did not use the modifier "Occupied" in her original story as it appeared on the Reuters website the previous day; this was added by the Lebanese paper.

And that's not the first or only time The Daily Star has adulterated Reuters copy to slant the news against Israel. Yet, on every occasion, the Reuters writer's name appears in the story.

Apparently, Reuters only takes issue with changes to its copy when these changes are pro-Israel.

Reuters censors, rationalizes Jordanian treatment of Palestinians

2011-11-21T08:53:00.001-06:00

The Kingdom of Jordan was birthed from 78 percent of the original Palestine Mandate. Well over half of its population is Palestinian. Despite this, the country is ruled by a Hashemite Arab King and over 300,000 Palestinians are forced to live in squalid refugee camps. Moreover, the Jordanian government has, in recent years, stripped about 3,000 Palestinians of their Jordanian residency.

One would never know any of this reading Reuters, whose correspondents carefully conceal the historical, demographic, and political realities of the situation in an effort to absolve the Jordanian King and his ruling class from any responsibility to provide equal or national rights for their Palestinian population. These are the same correspondents who with shrillness and hypocrisy call for Israel, which has one-third the land mass, to surrender territory to a hostile Palestinian state.

Reuters correspondents Ali Sawafta and Douglas Hamilton continue in that vein today with a story about Jordanian King Abdullah meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah:

Abdullah, a critic of the deadlock in the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, flew the short distance from his capital, Amman, by helicopter and went directly into talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
It was his first visit to the West Bank since 2000, when Abbas's predecessor the late Yasser Arafat was the undisputed Palestinian leader. Abbas, by contrast, faces a challenge from the Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.
"The visit comes in the context of Jordan's support for the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people to achieve Palestinian national rights and an independent state," a Jordanian palace official told Reuters Sunday.

And for its maltreatment of the Palestinians, which is never mentioned in the story, here is Reuters generous pretext on behalf of the Jordanian monarchy:

The Jordanian government fears further instability will lead to a new influx of Palestinians which could stretch already scant resources and raise tension with Jordanians.

Reuters: Arab apologists to the end.

Reuters Jerusalem Bureau Chief transfers to France

2011-11-20T16:30:00.002-06:00

Less than 14 months after he assumed the mantle from Alastair Macdonald, Crispian Balmer is officially out as Reuters Jerusalem Bureau Chief. As with his predecessor, Balmer was vehemently anti-Israel in his reporting and editing and we noted this in many of our posts. Perhaps the most egregious example of Balmer's many appalling displays of journalistic malfeasance, was when, following a Palestinian bus bombing, the Bureau Chief wrote:

Police said it was a "terrorist attack" -- Israel's term for a Palestinian strike.

Especially ironic in view of the fact that even the Palestinian Prime Minister referred to the attack as terrorism.

We look forward to a new Reuters regime in Jerusalem, and genuinely hope this time, we will see change for the better.

Maayan Lubell and Reuters get perspiry about new Israeli bills to discourage foreign subversion, liberalize libel laws

2011-11-20T14:28:00.007-06:00

The Israeli government is considering several new legislative bills, one of which is intended to make it more difficult for foreign governments and other agents to subvert internal Israeli politics by funding anti-Israel NGOs. The other bill is written to liberalize Israel's libel laws, making it easier for plaintiffs to sue for damages and to collect larger awards when successful. The possibility of legislative changes like these makes Maayan Lubell and the other journallibelers at Reuters quite nervous:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put on hold on Sunday legislation to limit foreign funding of non-governmental organisations, a government source said, after critics denounced the bill as a bid to mute left-wing groups [...]

The measure, proposed by members of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, has touched off a public debate in Israel on whether his government is stifling democratic freedoms and trying to muzzle critics of its policies towards Palestinians [...]

In Tel Aviv, Israeli journalists convened what they called an emergency conference on Sunday in response to proposed amendments to the country's libel laws and what organisers said were assaults against freedom of the press.

Such legislation would be very bad news indeed for radical left-wing journalists who regularly employ every dirty trick in the book to push the Palestinian Arab agenda and tear down the Jews of Israel.

Yet while Lubell and her cronies are aghast at what they call "assaults against freedom of the press" in Israel, the nation where Reuters is based and where a large number of the agency's correspondents hail from, lived, worked or trained at one time or another -- the UK -- has the most draconian libel laws in the world.

A few years ago for example, Saudi billionaire, Khalid bin Mahfouz sued academic scholar Rachel Ehrenfeld for libel in the British courts following an evidentiary assertion in her book, Funding Evil, that Mahfouz had financed al Qaeda through his bank and charitable organizations. Despite the fact that Ehrenfeld's book was not even published in the UK (23 copies were purchased online by British customers), the English judge found, with Ehrenfeld in absentia, for Mahfouz and ordered Ehrenfeld to pay monetary damages, issue an apology, and destroy existing copies of her book.

We don't recall the civil libertarians at Reuters raising a fuss on behalf of Dr. Ehrenfeld at the time.

Note also how, in an effort to suggest that the Israeli government is targeting the left-wing, Lubell calls attention to the closure of a radio station, operating without a permit and broadcasting Palestinian propaganda:

On Thursday, Israeli authorities shut down an Israeli-Palestinian radio station, "All For Peace", based in the occupied West Bank. A spokesman for Israel's Communications Office said it was a pirate station operating illegally.
But the station's Israeli director, Mossi Raz, said the order was aimed at silencing critics of Netanyahu's right-wing government.

Lubell doesn't mention that the government similarly shut down the politically conservative Arutz Sheva radio station for operating without a permit in 2003.

As is always the case with the Israel-hating left, and particularly with Reuters, what's sauce for the goose is apparently not sauce for the gander.

How to write a straight story on the Middle East conflict, a lesson for Reuters

2011-11-18T07:50:00.004-06:00

When it comes to reporting on the Middle East conflict, systematic bias can be seen in the stories of a great many publications and news agencies, including the Associated Press (AP). In the race to advocate for the Palestinian Arabs and demonize Israelis however, Reuters proudly leads the pack.

Consider for example, this AP story, published on Wednesday, about Israel allowing building materials into Gaza for the reconstruction of privately-owned factories. The story is basically balanced, straightforward, factual, and provides contextual detail necessary to understand how and why events have unfolded:

Until now only international projects have been allowed to import such materials, which Israel restricts because of concerns they could be used by Gaza militants who regularly launch rockets at Israeli towns.

Although AP refers to Palestinians who deliberately fire rockets at civilian communities as "militants" when they would more accurately be identified as terrorists, there is at least an acknowledgement that Gazans are regularly launching rockets at Israeli towns. Not so with Reuters, which in dozens of recent stories, either omits mention of these Palestinian attacks or overtly lies about the situation by asserting that Palestinian terror factions have been observing a "de facto truce" with Israel.

AP continues:

Hamas-ruled Gaza is subject to an Israeli and Egyptian blockade that includes restrictions on the movement of goods and people.

Reuters prefers to demonize Israel by almost always failing to mention that Egypt too, has been blockading the Gaza Strip.

More from the AP story:

The factories being rebuilt were destroyed or damaged in fighting in 2009, when Israel invaded to try to stop near-daily rocket salvos.

Yes, Israel invaded Gaza to try to stop near-daily rocket attacks. Reuters correspondents on the other hand, systematically employ the propaganda mantra "Israeli offensive" to describe the Gaza war and only rarely associate Israel's defensive operation there with the thousands of precipitating Palestinian rocket and mortar blitzes. Indeed, readers following Reuters would likely come to believe that Israel regularly launches unprovoked attacks against its neighbors.

And unlike Reuters, AP pulls no punches on the support for, or status of, Hamas:

Hamas, an Iran-backed militant group, is considered a terror organization by Israel, the U.S. and the European Union. It has ruled Gaza since 2007.

It's not difficult to write a straight story on the Arab-Israeli conflict -- unless of course, you're a twisted news agency.

Racists at Reuters still refer to "Arab East Jerusalem"; no mention of why the city was Arab between 1948 & 1967

2011-11-16T07:52:00.005-06:00

Palestinian Arabs who are not residents of Jerusalem are restricted from riding Israeli buses into the city. This policy, to protect passengers from the scourge of Arab bus-bombing that killed hundreds of Israelis, foreign tourists and workers during the last Palestinian terror war, was challenged yesterday by a handful of Palestinians referring to themselves with the Orwellian catachresis "freedom riders".

Reuters correspondent Jihan Abdalla, who barely mentions the reason for the travel restrictions, nevertheless gives full voice to the protesters:

"My message is that Israel conducts a racist regime," said protester Badi Dweik before he was dragged off the bus by police at Hizme checkpoint north of Jerusalem.
Dweik said he had been barred from nearby Jerusalem for 12 years while settlers could travel freely to and from the Holy City. Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and annexed it as its capital, a move not recognised abroad.

The supreme irony of course, is that Abdalla employs the racist epithet, "Arab East Jerusalem", to describe the city as it was sometimes referred to between 1948 and 1967, a period during which Jews were ethnically cleansed from Jerusalem by the Arabs, barred from living, working, praying in, or visiting the city.

Predictably, that irony is lost on Abdalla and Reuters.

Jews being driven from Jerusalem by the Arab Legion

Jeffrey Heller, Maayan Lubell have cappuccino together over the weekend, come up with new antisemitic campaign

2011-11-14T08:36:00.003-06:00

It never ceases to amaze us how correspondents in Reuters Jerusalem Bureau appear to spend all of their time planning, researching, and writing antisemitic stories. In what amounts to a carnival hall of distorted mirrors, the Reuters crew obsessively reflect only that which, in their view, is grotesque about Israel and its Jewish citizens.

Take for example, two stories published on the Reuters websites early this morning by Editor-in-Charge Jeffrey Heller and correspondent Maayan Lubell, respectively. Heller's story is about a letter written by Israeli generals to Defense Minister Ehud Barak asking him to refrain from imposing Orthodox religious norms on Israeli soldiers that would tend to result in the exclusion of women from some combat units.

Lubell's 1,100+ word magnum opus reports on an issue near and dear to the hearts of Reuters pseudo-feminists like Lubell and Allyn Fisher-Ilan: gender segregation on Israeli buses.

Now, why do we call these stories antisemitic and refer to Lubell and Fisher-Ilan as pseudo-feminists?

Because while one can certainly debate the legal and ethical merits of incorporating religious sensibilities into civil law which foster gender inequalities, Reuters correspondents never call similar attention to Muslim practices in Israel and the Arab countries which are as, or even more, draconian.

That's called the soft bigotry of low expectations. It's also antisemitism.

Patrick Worsnip explains how the West is "harassing" Syria

2011-11-11T08:28:00.000-06:00

3,500 people murdered by the Assad regime in Syria and the world is standing idly by.

Reuters has been tossed out of the country by Assad and has only one correspondent, Khaled Yacoub Oweis, reporting on the daily mass killings. With penetrating journalistic insight however, Patrick Worsnip, Reuters UN correspondent, has identified the West's secret weapon:

Western governments have called on Assad to leave power and have waged a campaign of diplomatic harassment, for example by keeping Syria off the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Yes, we're certain Assad is quivering in his jackboots under that intense pressure.

Ori Lewis portrays Israelis as scornful conquerors, refers to Gazan Arabs as "indigenous population"

2011-11-09T09:53:00.003-06:00

In a story about a stage performance by an Israeli troupe depicting the Hamas-Israeli war in 2008 (characterized by Reuters as "Israel's offensive") and the death of a Gazan Arab's daughters and niece from a tank shell directed at two Hamas operatives on the roof of their house, Reuters correspondent Ori Lewis describes the play's enactment of alleged events following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war:

The turning point in the 75-minute performance came about two-thirds through when Naomi described the 1967 Middle East war, when Israel defeated its Arab neighbors and captured large tracts of territory from them.
She enacted scenes of a bus tour to the Gaza Strip, typical of the day, by triumphant Israeli civilians who visited areas of the "newly acquired" lands, and their disdainful treatment of the indigenous population.

Note how Lewis portrays the Israelis, who had just survived a war against the combined armies and resources of 11 Arab states along with the Palestine Liberation Organization, as triumphalist and rapacious, having conquered the territory of the "indigenous population".

That Israel rejected annexation of those "newly acquired lands" and offered numerous times to return Gaza to the Egyptians, or that Jewish communities in Gaza predate Palestinian Arab settlement there by centuries, is willfully omitted by Lewis.

Those realities would, after all, distract from Reuters' carefully staged tale of Israel as brutish occupier and the Palestinian Arabs as innocent victims.

IAEA report: Iranian nuclear weapons program confirmed

2011-11-08T13:55:00.000-06:00

The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency has released its report on Iranian nuclear activities and confirmed that Iran has been plowing ahead in essentially all critical areas necessary to building and delivering a nuclear warhead.

Our question is whether Reuters will continue to spin the matter as a he said, she said between the amorphous "West" which merely "suspects" Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons and Iran which is always reported as only being interested in generating electricity.

Or will Reuters finally acknowledge the reality that intelligence gathered from around the world, assembled and analyzed by independent scientists, points in one direction only?

Knowing Reuters as we do, we're not betting on the latter.

Reuters careful not to offend its master

2011-11-07T08:35:00.000-06:00

In a profile piece on Saudi King Abdullah published in October, Reuters correspondent Angus McDowall illustrates Reuters' commitment to protect and promote the image of those who, in turn, protect its corporate and ideological interests. If you can stomach it, have a gander at McDowall's puff piece on Abdullah:

DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has pushed cautious social changes in the world's top oil-exporting country and guided it through a turbulent time that included an al Qaeda uprising, confrontation with Iran and the Arab Spring upheavals in neighbouring states.
Abdullah had an operation on his back on Monday, almost a year after undergoing two rounds of surgery to treat a herniated disc that led to a three-month absence from the kingdom.
The softly spoken Abdullah was born in the royal court of his father, King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, in the early 1920s, when the capital Riyadh was a small oasis town ringed by mud-brick walls at the centre of an impoverished but rapidly growing kingdom.
But after becoming de facto regent as crown prince when King Fahd had a stroke in 1995, and as king from 2005 onwards, he enacted reforms aimed at reconciling Saudi Arabia's conservative traditions with the needs of a modern economy.

Although later in the piece, McDowall cites, in fastidiously sanitized fashion, a handful of examples of political oppression and misogynistic practices in the Kingdom, the overall feel of the story is sickeningly sycophantic.

Entirely omitted from the piece is any mention of the cruelties and human rights abuses institutionalized in the country's Sharia-based legal system, a royal ban on religious practice by non-Muslims (and systematic persecution of those who violate that ban), and Saudi funding of terrorist and antisemitic elements around the world.

A "cautious reformer" indeed.

Chuckle of the day

2011-11-06T07:03:00.002-06:00

Alastair Macdonald is Reuters former Jerusalem Bureau Chief. His stint in that role (followed by transfer to a desk job in London) happened to come to an end a few weeks after it was discovered Reuters had doctored photos excising a passenger brandishing a knife and a pool of blood next to two injured Israeli marines during the Turkish flotilla incident last year.

Googling "Alastair Macdonald Reuters" today yielded an amusing result in position #3:

Hamas | Reuters Editors

blogs.reuters.com/reuters-editors/tag/hamas/

Jan 15, 2009 – Alastair Macdonald | bias | david schlesinger | Douglas ...

Sometimes those old romantic associations are hard to escape.

Maayan Lubell perpetuates lie about Mavi Marmara

2011-11-05T11:24:00.000-05:00

In a story on the latest attempt to run the Israeli maritime embargo of Hamas-run Gaza, Reuters correspondent Maayan Lubell once again lies about the nature and objective of the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, where Islamist passengers attempted to lynch Israeli marines boarding the boat:

In May 2010, Israeli commandos boarded a Turkish aid vessel to enforce the naval blockade of the Palestinian enclave, and killed nine Turks in clashes with activists, some of them armed with clubs and knives.

There was no "aid" on board the Mavi Marmara; this is a willful misrepresentation appearing in scores of Reuters stories on the incident, employed in a transparent bid to exculpate the Islamists of attempted murder and to demonize Israel.

The stink-balm peddler strikes again

2011-11-05T10:05:00.003-05:00

When we last visited Reuters Jerusalem Bureau Chief, Crispian (curly-haired) Balmer (seller of balms), he was peddling the fatuous notion that notwithstanding all evidence to the contrary, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wants a peace treaty with Israel, whereas Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants, presumably, eternal war with the Arabs.

This week, Balmer disseminates a piece of malicious anti-Israel propaganda in the form of a tendentious "report" from the political NGO, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).

First, note how Balmer deliberately structures his headline and lede to implant in the mind of the reader, the notion that claims and assertions, heavily propagandistic claims and assertions, are actually statements of fact:

Israel forcing Palestinians out of East Jerusalem - NGO

Israel is forcing Palestinians out of East Jerusalem as part of a deliberate policy that might constitute a war crime, a prominent Israeli non-governmental organisation said on Monday.

Only after the incendiary and unsupported claims are trumpeted as fact, does Balmer append them to clarify that they are merely claims from a political interest group. And he characterizes the interest group as "prominent" to lend further credibility to the claims.

What Balmer doesn't tell readers, is that the ICAHD rejects Jewish nationalism, encourages the destruction of Israel via boycotts, sanctions and divestment, and supports Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

We think readers might find that information of value in weighing the integrity of claims made by the group.

Even on the merits however, the ICAHD claims and Balmer's reporting of them are laden with fabrications. For example, Balmer reports:

There are some 300,000 Palestinians residents in East Jerusalem, representing about 35 percent of the city's total population, but ICAHD said that since Israel took control of largely Arab areas it had systematically prevented their development.

As our sidebar graphically illustrates, the Arab population in Jerusalem has risen by more than 300 percent since Israel liberated the city in 1967. The notion that this could have occurred under a government policy to deliberately prevent development is patently absurd.

Balmer then parrots, with no investigative research on his part, an oft-repeated canard, employed by the ICAHD:

ICAHD said it was virtually impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits to house their growing families.

The fact is, the Israeli government has authorized more than 36,000 permits for new housing units in the Arab sector of Jerusalem, more than enough to meet the needs of Arab residents until 2020. Balmer, were he an unbiased and credible journalist, could have discovered (and reported) this countervailing evidence with five minutes of internet browsing.

But then, other than perhaps Reuters, no one is suggesting the peddler of malodorous balms is an unbiased and credible journalist.

Tom Perry lifts his pen; count the lies

2011-10-28T20:17:00.002-05:00

It's another day and another deceit for Reuters propagandist Tom Perry who offers us his unique brand of "analysis" on the current state of Middle East peacemaking as orchestrated by the Quartet (Russia, the EU, the UN, and the US). So, let's see where Perry seeks to mislead his audience this time:

The immediate obstacle [in the way of negotiations] is the standoff over Israel's expansion of Jewish settlements on the land where the Palestinians aim to found an independent state. World powers view the settlement as illegal under international law.

Er, no. The immediate obstacle is the utter refusal of the Palestinians to engage in good faith peace talks without dictating the outcome of those talks by obtaining in advance of them, extraordinary unilateral concessions from Israel in the form of, 1) a termination of Jewish settlements on land promised to the Jews in resolutions adopted by the League of Nations and United Nations, and 2) a commitment by Israel to accept a Judenrein Palestinian Arab state on all land, including Jerusalem, liberated by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

And "world powers", like the United States, emphatically do not view Jewish settlements on this land as illegal in international law. Indeed, as noted above, Jewish settlements in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") are entirely legal in international law.

In Israel, there has been a swing to the political right, a shift helped by the last Palestinian uprising. Add to that the fact that half a million Israelis have now settled in the would-be Palestine, and hopes for a deal seem far fetched.

Ah yes, that euphemistic and nebulous Palestinian "uprising", aka the Palestinian terror war, that killed over 1,000 Israelis in suicide bombings and shootings. A bit more journalistic transparency in this respect might enable readers to better apprehend the reasons behind that "swing to the political right" in Israel.

Perry's reference to "would-be Palestine" includes the city of Jerusalem, a city built by the Jews over three-thousand years ago and only ever sovereign to the Jewish nation. Jerusalem, a city where Jews maintained a community despite successive waves of invasion, conquest and occupation until 1967 when it was finally liberated from Arab colonization that had sought to obliterate any Jewish connection to the land and its holy sites.

The deal [to exchange Israeli Gilad Shalit for over 1,000 Hamas terrorists] disheartened Palestinian leaders in the West Bank who, unlike Hamas, oppose armed conflict with Israel and believe peace talks are the way to end the conflict.

This is a double bald-faced lie from Perry. First, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas celebrated the release of the Hamas prisoners by paying them stipends. Secondly, as we've noted dozens of times, Abbas, his Fatah party, and the PLO remain committed in word and deed to the destruction of Israel via armed violence.

A [Jewish] settlement freeze was a requirement of a 2003 peace plan, drawn up by the Quartet and known as the road map for peace.
"If the Quartet is going to play any credible role, it must really be able to enforce the terms of reference, and the compliance with these terms of reference, particularly those that have led to an agreed text, like the road map," said Nabil Shaath, a veteran Palestinian official.

No mention by either Shaath or Perry of Palestinian obligations under the Road Map, like disarming and dismantling all terrorist infrastructure, something the Palestinians have completely failed to do.

Douglas Hamilton lies on behalf of Palestinians

2011-10-22T10:06:00.001-05:00

In a story on the release by Hamas of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and the anger of Israelis who have seen the killers of their loved ones go free in the swap, Reuters correspondent Douglas Hamilton attempts to justify Palestinian terrorism by blatantly lying about its raison d'etre:

But Gaza militants, claiming triumph over the Zionists, say their "victory" will spur them on to seize more Jewish hostages, in order to liberate all Palestinians imprisoned over the years in the cause of ending Israeli occupation in lands the Jewish state took in a 1967 war.

Did those Gaza "militants", aka Hamas terrorists and their operatives, actually say this?

No.

In fact, Hamas is not driven by a commitment to end Israeli "occupation in the lands the Jewish state took in a 1967 war", but by a clear commitment, conveyed consistently in word and deed, to liquidate the Jewish state and kill or ethnically cleanse the land of its Jewish inhabitants.

Since Hamilton has apparently missed this message, here are a few choice quotes from Hamas officials:

"We have liberated Gaza, but have we recognized Israel? Have we given up our lands occupied in 1948? We demand the liberation of the West Bank, and the establishment of a state in the West Bank and Gaza, with Jerusalem as its capital – but without recognizing [Israel]. This is the key – without recognizing the Israeli enemy on a single inch of land. ...
"Our plan for this stage is to liberate any inch of Palestinian land, and to establish a state on it. Our ultimate plan is [to have] Palestine in its entirety. I say this loud and clear so that nobody will accuse me of employing political tactics. We will not recognize the Israeli enemy. " -- Mahmoud Al-Zahhar

"Hamas "must lay the foundation for a tomorrow without Zionists." -- Mahmoud a-Zahar

"Israel is based only on blood and murder in order to exist, and it will disappear, with Allah's will, through blood and Shahids [martyrs]." -- Yussuf Al-Sharafi

"This is Islam, that was ahead of its time with regards to human rights in the treatment of prisoners, but our nation was tested by the cancerous lump, that is the Jews, in the heart of the Arab nation... Be certain that America is on its way to utter destruction, America is wallowing [in blood] today in Iraq and Afghanistan, America is defeated and Israel is defeated, and was defeated in Lebanon and Palestine... Make us victorious over the community of infidels... Allah, take the Jews and their allies, Allah, take the Americans and their allies... Allah, annihilate them completely and do not leave anyone of them." -- Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Bahar

"We will not betray promises we made to God to continue the path of Jihad and resistance until the liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine. . . So be assured doctor Ayman, and all those who love Palestine like yourself, that Hamas is still the group you knew when it was founded and it will never abandon its path." -- Official Hamas Statement

"[Hamas will] never recognize the legitimacy of the Zionist state that was founded on our land." -- Khaled Mashaal

There isn't a field mouse in Dubrovnik that doesn't recognize the Hamas Mission. Only liars and propagandists who work for the largest media company in the world have the arrogance and stupidity to believe they can deceive the public into believing that Palestinian terrorists are interested merely in "ending Israeli occupation in lands the Jewish state took in a 1967 war".

Count Douglas Hamilton in that group.

Crispian Balmer defines the word "bias"

2011-10-20T05:18:00.003-05:00

Thomson Reuters maintains a corporate governance charter called the Trust Principles. Amongst other commitments to high ideals and lofty ethical values, the Trust Principles affirm:

That the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Thomson Reuters shall at all times be fully preserved.

It's Reuters systematic failure to uphold its commitment to freedom from bias that we often focus on at RMEW. And here's a prime illustration...

In an op-ed on the Shalit deal, misleadingly labeled as "Analysis" so Reuters can syndicate the de facto opinion piece to hundreds of other media outlets, Jerusalem Bureau Chief Crispian Balmer asserts:

The Palestinian Territories are split geographically and ideologically, with Gaza run by Hamas and the occupied West Bank run by President Mahmoud Abbas, who wants peace with Israel.

On what does Balmer base his claim that Abbas wants peace with Israel? On the specious argument that, "Abbas has led Palestinian negotiating efforts for years".

To that we say, so what?

Abbas has frequently boasted that in his "negotiating efforts", he has made no concessions to the Israelis, and never will.

Is that evidence of someone who "wants peace with Israel"?

No.

On the other hand, Balmer relies on anonymous "critics" (a violation of the Reuters Handbook of Journalism) to claim:

His [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] many critics allege he has no intention of ever concluding a broad treaty, despite his often-repeated calls for talks.

So notwithstanding the fact that Abbas has refused to compromise in peace talks with Israel and is currently refusing even to negotiate, Balmer endorses him, unequivocally, as a man who wants peace. At the same time, Netanyahu, who has already made unprecedented concessions to the Palestinians and repeatedly calls for peace talks, is cynically cast by Balmer as someone who does not want peace.

A perfectly logical argument -- coming from a partisan masquerading as an independent journalist.

Pigs fly: Reuters quotes Abbas claiming "Jerusalem" as Palestinian capital

2011-10-19T10:03:00.004-05:00

We've devoted a great deal of ink here at RMEW noting Reuters persistent propaganda campaign to play down the Palestinians' demand that Jerusalem be wrestled away from Israel, via violence or political pressure, and made their own sovereign capital. Reuters correspondents perennially conceal this Arab objective by referring to Jerusalem with the ahistorical misnomer "East Jerusalem", or worse, with the racist epithet, "Arab East Jerusalem", so as to suggest that there are actually two cities or that the Arabs really only want their fair share of the one city.

This charade on the part of Reuters is difficult to sustain when the Palestinians themselves, are so upfront about their strategic goals, frequently admitting they will not end hostilities until they control Jerusalem and its holy sites -- including Jewish holy sites.

In a story written or contributed to by practically the entire Jerusalem Bureau staff, Reuters finally comes clean:

Abbas is shunned by Hamas as pawn of Israel and its Western allies but has angered Israel and the United States by shunning long-stalled negotiations and seeking direct United Nations recognition of Palestinian statehood. He used the occasion to assure supporters: "You will see the results of your struggle in the independent state, with its capital Jerusalem."

The truth will out, but we're betting inclusion of that quote by Abbas was an oversight that will not soon be seen again in a Reuters story.

Reuters suggests Shalit may find liberty "tough"

2011-10-19T09:05:00.001-05:00

In a story about Israeli Gilad Shalit, just released by his Hamas kidnappers after five years in captivity, Reuters correspondents Ori Lewis and Maayan Lubell suggest Shalit may find it difficult coping with liberty again:

Psychologist Rivka Tuval-Mashiach told Israel's Channel 2 television that Shalit would need time to absorb the fact he has become such a huge public figure during his prolonged absence.
"Initially, Gilad is not aware that he is the property of the entire country and he does not know that the entire country knows who he is. But he will need a bit of time and mostly a lot of quiet and warmth from his close family," she said.
"He will need to be given time even to the physiological changes of light and darkness, not to be afraid to speak. We don't know if he suffered violence or was tortured, but even in the first instances after he was back in Israel we saw that his frozen state thawed a little, with a first smile."

Though Lewis and Lubell mention that Shalit was held "incommunicado" (nicely sanitized), they don't explain that the reason we don't know if he suffered violence or was tortured is because, in violation of all human rights norms, Hamas refused to allow Shalit visits by the Red Cross (or any other humanitarian organization). Lewis and Lubell do however, want us to know:

The Islamist group Hamas has said it treated Shalit well during his captivity.

Well, that's a relief.

Tom Perry still peddling lie that Mahmoud Abbas committed to peace

2011-10-18T09:57:00.003-05:00

Serial liar and Reuters propagandist Tom Perry still wants his readers to believe that, unlike Hamas, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is committed to peace with Israel:

Abbas strongly opposes any form of violence by the Palestinians and his security forces in the West Bank cooperate with Israeli security forces.

This is a running propaganda mantra appearing in scores of Perry's stories, one that is completely uncoupled from reality. Here's Mahmoud Abbas, speaking to the Jordanian paper, al-Dustur, three years ago:

“At this present juncture, I am opposed to armed struggle because we cannot succeed in it, but maybe in the future things will be different.”

And here's Abbas offering Palestinian support for an Arab declaration of war against Israel just a few months ago:

"I have said more than once that if the Arabs want war - we are with them."

Having lied about Palestinian tactical goals, Perry then lies about Palestinian strategic goals:

But peace talks with Israel have, by his [Abbas] own admission, hit a dead end while Jewish settlements continue to expand in the West Bank, consuming territory seen by Palestinians as central to their goal of a viable state.

First, Jewish settlements have definitively not continued to expand in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"), "consuming territory". Other than a handful of tiny outposts disclaimed and frequently destroyed by the Israeli government, settlements have not expanded laterally in many years.

Secondly, the Palestinian goal, often admitted in Arabic and occasionally in English, is not a "viable state" but a Judenrein one (ethnically cleansed of Jews), as a stepping stone to the demographic conquest (destruction) of Israel.

Perry further misleads readers with the notion that Abbas' attempt to wrestle away Israeli-won land, including the city of Jerusalem, by breaching the Oslo Peace Accords and applying for statehood to the UN reflects a "peaceful" approach to settling the conflict:

"Abbas made the most peaceful move you can imagine: going to the United Nations. And yet he got this brutal political response by Israel and the United States," the Palestinian official said. "That's also a negative message to the public about the productivity of this peaceful approach."

Then, there's the obligatory propaganda on the 2008-09 Gaza War between Hamas and Israel:

That war had a lopsided outcome in favor of Israel. Some 1,400 Palestinians were killed while 13 Israelis lost their lives.

So, approximately 1,400 Palestinians (over 700 of which were Hamas terrorists) were "killed", while 13 Israelis "lost their lives" -- undoubtedly due to tripping over their shoelaces while running toward shelters to escape the thousands of Hamas rockets raining down on them.

Perry finishes up by citing, uncritically, an official employing the Palestinian euphemism for the eradication of Israel:

"I think the prisoner swap comes at a good time. It reaffirms the power of resistance at a time when all Palestinian groups are adopting non-violent resistance," he said.

Sure, all Palestinian groups are adopting non-violent resistance.

Perry really ought to cut down on the Arab Kool-Aid.

And now, for something not-so-different

2011-10-15T10:58:00.004-05:00

We devote most of our line space here at RMEW to an analysis of Reuters use of propaganda in its Middle East reporting. But it doesn't end there. Indeed, dubious journalistic practices crop up anywhere Reuters correspondents seek to inject their ideological leanings into their work.

Take for example, this story published on Thursday of this week following reports that billionaire financier George Soros may have funded, in part, the current "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations. Reuters correspondents Mark Egan and Michelle Nichols lead with the headline:

Soros: not a funder of Wall Street protests

Technically, the colon indicates that Soros is disclaiming responsibility for funding the protests, i.e., Soros is the one doing the talking. But read with a less careful eye, the headline appears to be an objective and definitive finding (which as we will see, it is not).

Indeed, the first story paragraph reasserts the notion that Soros is (absolutely, positively) not responsible for funding the protests:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - George Soros isn't a financial backer of the Wall Street protests, despite speculation by critics including radio host Rush Limbaugh that the billionaire investor has helped fuel the anti-capitalist movement.

It's not until the third paragraph that Egan and Nichols tell us from whence they derive this conclusive truth:

Soros spokesman Michael Vachon said that Soros has not "funded the protests directly or indirectly." He added: "Assertions to the contrary are an attempt by those who oppose the protesters to cast doubt on the authenticity of the movement."

Ah, so it's simply a spokesman for Soros doing the disclaiming. Thank you for that clarification.

Egan and Nichols then go on to map the much-reported relationship between Soros and the Tides Foundation (Soros has given $3.5 million to Tides) which has, in turn, donated $185,000 to the anti-capitalist group Adbusters, that has acknowledged inciting the Wall Street demonstrations. But the Reuters correspondents seek to support their thesis that Soros has had no hand in the funding of the protests by again parroting Soros' own spokesman:

Vachon said Open Society specified what its donations could be used for. He said they were not general purpose funds to be used at the discretion of Tides -- for example for grants to Adbusters. "Our grants to Tides were for other purposes."

Of course, the reality is that money is fungible; for every dollar donated to Tides by Soros for "other purposes", a dollar donated to Tides by other sources is freed-up to be given to Adbusters.

Egan and Nichols fail to point out the obvious, but then that would distract from their propaganda campaign on behalf of George Soros.

Tom Perry gloats with his brothers in arms

2011-10-12T08:34:00.001-05:00

Reuters propagandist Tom Perry writes about Hamas "stealing the thunder" from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for successfully ~~blackmailing~~ negotiating the release of over 1,000 prisoners in exchange for Israeli Gilad Shalit. Here's how Perry describes these Palestinian prisoners:

Though lacking Saadat and Barghouti, the swap will resonate with Palestinians, who regard the 6,000 or more prisoners held by Israel as national heroes and freedom fighters.
From a domestic perspective, the timing comes at a good moment for Hamas. A hunger strike among Palestinian prisoners whose demands include an end to solitary confinement is making daily headlines in the Palestinian media.

Not once in his 700+ word piece does Perry balance his parroting of Palestinian rhetoric with a mention of the crimes committed by these prisoners, including the 400 serving life sentences for murder. This is a blatant violation of both the Reuters Trust Principles and the agency's Handbook of Journalism:

As Reuters journalists, we never identify with any side in an issue, a conflict or a dispute. Our text and visual stories need to reflect all sides, not just one [...] Similarly in a political dispute or military conflict, there are always at least two sides to consider and we risk being perceived as biased if we fail to give adequate space to the various parties.

Perry suggests Palestinian prisoners have been on hunger strike to demand an end to solitary confinement but in fact, there are only about 20 Palestinians in solitary -- those convicted of the most heinous crimes. The rest are demanding they be able to take university courses and receive Arab TV channels.

Perry then rehashes his insipid lies about

1) Mahmoud Abbas:

But credibility matters to both. Abbas, 76, a believer in peace negotiations despite a deadlock that has lasted over a year, has enhanced his standing in recent months, showing a more defiant approach toward Israel and the United States.

Sure, the man who refuses to negotiate is a "believer in peace negotiations".

2) The raison d'etre of Hamas:

Hamas' critics, meanwhile, say the movement has been facing a credibility crisis, struggling to reconcile its commitment to armed struggle against Israel with the responsibilities of governing Gaza, where it seized power from Abbas in 2007.

Hamas stated commitment is to genocide of the Jews. Can't allow that unattractive reality out of the bag, eh Tom?

3) The risible notion that Hamas has been trying to prevent violent attacks on Israelis:

They [Hamas critics] have pointed to a contradiction between Hamas' words and deeds as it has sought to rein in militants whose rocket attacks into Israel have drawn punishing reprisals.

Several hundred Palestinian rocket and mortar attacks have originated from the Gaza Strip in 2011 alone. There is absolutely no "contradiction between Hamas' words and deeds".

But then, you knew that; didn't ya' Tom?

Palestinans seek "National Heritage" status for Jewish, Christian Holy sites; Tom Perry fails to see irony

2011-10-10T09:48:00.002-05:00

Reuters correspondent Tom Perry, who took a much-deserved holiday after penning a series of arduous Palestinian love fests and anti-Israel polemics in the run-up to the Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN, returns to tell us:

The Palestinians will seek World Heritage status for the birthplace of Jesus once the U.N. cultural agency admits them as a full member, and will then nominate other sites on Israeli-occupied land for the same standing, an official said.

Perry is apparently oblivious to the supreme irony associated with present-day Palestinian Arabs nominating as their own historical treasure, the birthplace of Jesus, a Jewish rabbi who lived in Roman-occupied Judea two-thousand years ago, a time when there were no Palestinian Arabs.

A reader reply to Reuters

2011-10-06T12:07:00.004-05:00

When we were kids, network television stations would occasionally broadcast an editorial on some current and controversial issue. The editorial was clearly identified as such and the station would subsequently broadcast a responsible reply from someone in the community who disagreed with the position of the station editors.

As Reuters regularly demonstrates, those days are over. Not only is there no line space provided for formal replies to Reuters many editorials and opinion pieces on the Middle East conflict, Reuters is not even transparent enough to acknowledge that the vast majority of stories published on its websites and syndicated to hundreds of newspapers and media outlets around the world are, in fact, opinion pieces. Indeed, they reflect the deeply-held ideological views of the Reuters correspondents, editors, and likely, managing editors, responsible for those stories.

The Elder of Ziyon website posted today, a video produced by British polemicist Pat Condell entitled "The Great Palestinian Lie". Condell's views are controversial, and this video is no exception, but then again, at least with Condell, the audience knows it is getting opinion -- not opinion masquerading as news. That marks a refreshing difference with Reuters.

Money (that's what they want)

2011-10-04T19:48:00.002-05:00

In a transparent appeal to pity, Reuters correspondent Ali Sawafta cries us a river for the Palestinian Arabs who are facing a deep-freeze in US taxpayer funds totaling $200 million due to their decision to thumb their collective noses at a negotiated peace deal with Israel.

Sawafta's piece winds its way through all of the humanitarian projects that will allegedly suffer as a result of the cash shortfall including water infrastructure, medical training, and hospital equipment. Nowhere in his story of course, does Sawafta mention that hundreds of millions of dollars in American aid has been funneled to paying the salaries of Hamas terrorists in Gaza or Palestinians doing time in Israeli prisons for murder.

And the Palestinians are clearly annoyed:

"Some parties in the Congress stood not only against the interests of the Palestinian people but also against any possibility of achieving growth for a people under occupation," Economy Minister Hassan Abu Libda said.

"It was strange, and I expect the decision will be viewed negatively by Palestinian public opinion and it will influence the entire credibility of the United States," he added.

So, we've taken a special request for the Palestinians, courtesy of Barrett Strong. Enjoy.

Maayan Lubell counts Jewish attacks on Palestinians; mute on Palestinian attacks on Jews

2011-10-03T14:16:00.004-05:00

Reuters correspondent Maayan Lubell, who wouldn't know honest journalism if it knocked her flying, scrupulously counts the number of alleged Jewish "price tag" attacks against Palestinian property involving graffiti and the legendary uprooting of olive trees. Without telling us exactly how many such incidents occurred in 2010, Lubell reports that attacks have "risen by 57 percent in the first seven months of 2011 compared with the same period last year" (from 14 to 22?). She also solemnly informs us that Israel's security service, the Shin Beit, has said these incidents have “terrorist aspects”.

Though vandalism and arson are serious crimes and should be punished accordingly, we are frankly fascinated with Reuters fastidious attention to detail when it comes to reporting on alleged Jewish property crimes but near silence on the matter of the 178 Palestinian terror attacks involving rockets, mortars, knifings, and other sundry methods aimed at murdering Jews, in August alone.

Apparently, Lubell cannot count higher than the number of her fingers and toes.

101 Dalmatians

2011-10-03T09:41:00.000-05:00

One of Reuters' popular propaganda mantras -- a false, fabricated, or misleading construct appearing repeatedly in the agency's stories -- has made its 101st appearance:

U.S.-brokered peace talks collapsed a year ago after Netanyahu refused to extend a 10-month limited moratorium on construction in Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinian Arabs did not passively "collapse"; they were unilaterally terminated by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Reuters correspondent Dan Williams and Editor-in-Charge Jeffrey Heller are prevaricating here, and in an effort to suggest that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was responsible for the failed negotiations, employ a logical fallacy known as post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore, because of this).

Those pups reproduce like mad, don't they?

Reuters: Muslim Brotherhood is "spiritual guide" for Hamas

2011-10-02T08:14:00.001-05:00

Reuters reports that officials of the Obama administration have met with members of the Egyptian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood. If true, this would be a break with long-standing US policy to shun contacts with the Brotherhood, although there was an announcement in June that such contacts would now be permitted. With no hint of irony, Bureau Chief Edmund Blair writes:

The contacts may unsettle Israel and its U.S. backers. The Brotherhood renounced violence as a means to achieve political change in Egypt years ago. But groups like Hamas, which have not disavowed violence, look to the Brotherhood as a spiritual guide.

Blair is prevaricating here. Per its own founding doctrine, the Brotherhood is an Islamic jihad group, committed to waging warfare to liberate what it considers Islamic lands and to rid the world of secular laws and governance.

And Hamas does not see the Brotherhood simply as a "spiritual guide'; Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood.

Nice try though, Edmund.

Orwellian inversion

2011-10-01T07:35:00.002-05:00

In a story about the Iranian government hosting an anti-Israel "conference" in Tehran, Reuters correspondents Ramin Mostafavi, Hashem Kalantari, Robin Pomeroy, and Alistair Lyon turn the world on its head:

As leader of a country under a long-standing threat of military action from Israel and the United States, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned the Jewish state and its allies to expect "paralyzing blows" that a NATO missile shield could not prevent.

Note how the Reuters crew frame the potential for conflict as one where the US and Israel are threatening Iran and Iran is simply defending against that threat. There is no mention whatsoever of the Iranian government's many precipitating threats, veiled and explicit, to see Israel annihilated.

Even a brief mention of Iran's nuclear program is deliberately misleading:

Iran is pursuing a nuclear program that the United States and Israel say aims to produce atomic bombs, a charge it denies.

This is a propaganda mantra appearing repeatedly in Reuters stories on the matter. Of course, it is not merely the US and Israel that "say" Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons; it is the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency that has compiled extensive evidence of the same.

Photojournalism in the Middle East

2011-09-28T12:00:00.000-05:00

Deputy Managing Editor of The Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick, posts a video produced by a young Italian photographer which demonstrates the very active role taken by photojournalists in the Middle East conflict:

This reminded us of the story of the Reuters cameraman who was remanded in 2006, for encouraging and directing Palestinians to throw rocks at Israeli vehicles. It appears little has changed over the last five years.

hat tip: EoZ