Are Reuters and its correspondents complicit in the murders of the Jewish children in France?

As our more than 700 posts since August 2009 demonstrate, Reuters, the largest multimedia news agency in the world, is heavily engaged in a systematic, mendacious, and malicious propaganda campaign intended to demonize and delegitimize the Jews of Israel for choosing to defend themselves in the face of 64 years of Muslim calls for annihilation of the Jewish state and its inhabitants.

That campaign involves the publication of hundreds of stories, disseminated to thousands of media outlets, each employing scores of propaganda techniques and fallacies, ethical and professional breaches, and outright lies designed to manipulate reader opinion and emotions so as to compel the audience to adopt Reuters' own anti-Israel institutional ideology and political view.

It also involves the hiring, training, and tight coordination of a team of propagandists, masquerading as independent journalists, who either subscribe to the same ideology or enthusiastically serve as foot soldiers in the propaganda campaign so as to advance their careers.

Take for example, Reuters correspondent Dan Williams who, in September of 2011 conveyed the blood libel that Israelis have a "shoot-on-sight" policy against Palestinians.

Or Nidal al-Mughrabi, who, in dozens of stories about the 2008-09 Gaza war, reports that some 1,400 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces, without revealing that most of these casualties were members of Hamas, sworn to genocide of the Jews, and their human shields.

Or Allyn Fisher-Ilan, who suggested, falsely, that Israel was to blame for the lack of basic medicines in Gaza.

Or Crispian Balmer, who duplicated, verbatim and absent criticism, a Twitter feed post by a former Egyptian foreign minister portraying Israel as a killer of children.

This afternoon, the French authorities arrested an Algerian-born Muslim man suspected of killing the Jewish children in Toulouse.  (See update below).

Haaretz reports the suspect said he wanted revenge for "Palestinian children".

We don't know if the suspect was a reader of any of the thousands of newspapers or news websites that publish Reuters stories on the Middle East conflict.

But given Reuters global reach and the frequency with which the agency's anti-Israel propaganda appears, it's entirely possible, indeed likely, the suspect had come across one or more of these stories at some point.

We also know that Reuters successfully influences readers to alter their behavior in a manner consistent with the agency's propaganda campaign and institutional ideology.

As the investigation proceeds, it will be very interesting to learn more about the suspect's motivations and mentors.

UPDATE: Earlier reports of the arrest of the suspect were incorrect and a stand-off continues.

UPDATE 2: Following a shoot-out with police, the murder suspect, Mohamed Merah, reportedly jumped from a window to his death.

Reuters quick to report, blame Jews for vandalism. No word on daily Arab vandalism

When anti-Arab or anti-Christian graffiti is spray-painted in Israel, Reuters correspondents leap to their keyboards to report it, alleging vandalism by Jewish settlers.  While no one has been arrested for the graffiti and there is evidence that in a previous incident reported by Reuters, it was actually an Arab villager that did the defacing (to incriminate settlers), the propagandists at Reuters continue to highlight these property crimes so as to demonize Jews in the eyes of the public.

After all, everyone knows that the words "price tag" can only be inscribed by Jews.

By contrast, Reuters fails miserably to report on the daily Arab vandalism and desecration of Jewish property, including that taking place at the oldest and most revered of Jewish cemeteries, the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.

Demonstrating, that for Reuters, there is no news value in stories of dogs biting men.

The Power of the Gatekeeper

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.

Reuters: Israel unpredictable belligerent

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 that 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.

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

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.

Maayan Lubell perpetuates lie about Mavi Marmara

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.

Dan Williams, propagandist

In a story on Israeli preparations for Palestinian Arab riots -- er, protests -- anticipated later this month accompanying the Palestinian Authority's bid for statehood at the United Nations, Dan Williams re-writes history and forgets a little something:

Israel is wary of large-scale protests by Palestinians as their leaders sidestep stalled peace talks by appealing for United Nations statehood recognition this month.
A similar deadlock in 2000 triggered a Palestinian revolt that Israel fueled with military crackdowns, resulting in a heavy death toll among unarmed protesters.

As we've noted many times, the Palestinian terror war ("revolt") commencing in 2000 was, according to Palestinian sources, planned months prior to Yasser Arafat's rejection of Ehud Barak's peace offer of a Palestinian state on approximately 94% of the disputed territories.  And while Williams notes the "heavy death toll amongst unarmed [Palestinian] protesters", he appears to have forgotten the heavy death toll amongst Israeli civilians blown-up by armed Palestinian suicide bombers in the same period.

Employing a propaganda technique in which he has become adept, Williams then slips in a fabricated citation:

Brigadier-General Michael Edelstein, the officer crafting Israel's counter-demonstration doctrines, said troops were now better equipped and trained to police the occupied West Bank and the boundaries with Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.

Outside of a few Arabists, Israeli Jews don't refer to the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria as "the occupied West Bank", an Arab-ethnocentric term invented by the government of TransJordan following the ethnic cleansing of Jews in the area in 1948-49.  An Israeli Brigadier-General would almost certainly not use the term, so Williams is fabricating here in an effort to drum into the minds of readers, the notion that the territory rightfully belongs to the Arabs.

Williams then conflates a quote from the same Israeli General with a blatant and reprehensible piece of atrocity propaganda in an effort to demonize Israel:

Asked if this meant that Israeli forces, accused in the past of shoot-on-sight policies against Palestinians, would now show more tolerance, he said: "Much more tolerance."

Accused by whom?  Williams doesn't say.  Note also how the sentence is constructed so as to suggest that the General had acknowledged Williams' atrocity propaganda asserting an Israeli policy of shooting Palestinians on-sight.

Perhaps for his next piece of investigative reporting, Williams can identify the Israeli military directive outlining that policy.

Reuters, the unscrupulous gatekeeper

Reuters devoted untold barrels of ink last year in a propaganda campaign designed to demonize Israel for its naval blockade of the Hamas-held Gaza Strip and boarding of the Islamist ships trying to run that blockade in May.

The United Nations has now released its report on the incident which found Israel's blockade to be entirely legal in international law.  The investigative panel also said the flotilla "acted recklessly" in trying to breach the blockade and that there were "serious questions about the conduct, true nature and objectives" of the Islamist İnsani Yardım Vakfı (IHH), which organized and manned the flotilla. 

Turkey has, in response to the report, expelled Israel's ambassador and terminated military cooperation with Israel.  Here's how Reuters reports on events:

(Reuters) - Turkey expelled Israel's ambassador and senior Israeli diplomats and suspended military agreements Friday, the day after it emerged a U.N. report said the Jewish state had used unreasonable force in a raid on a Gaza-bound ship that killed nine Turks.
Stung by Israel's refusal to meet demands for a formal apology, pay compensation for families of the dead, and end the blockade of Palestinians living in the Gaza enclave, Turkey announced it was downgrading ties with the Jewish state further.
"Turkey-Israel diplomatic relations have been reduced to a second secretary level. All personnel above the second secretary level will be sent home by Wednesday at the latest," Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told a news conference in Ankara.

While it is true that the UN report also found that the Israel Defense Forces had used unreasonable force following the attempted lynching of the boarding party by passengers, Reuters fails to disclose the relevant findings which exonerate Israel, from any claim of illegal behavior, until the fourth paragraph of the story:

Turkey's reaction to the long-awaited report, which also declared that Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip was legal, deepened Ankara's rift with Israel.

Thus, a key conclusion of the report, demonstrating Turkey's rank hypocrisy and contempt for international law in allowing the flotilla to sail, is mentioned only once in the story, buried four paragraphs down.

The power of an editor to decide what is published and where it is positioned is known as gatekeeping.  Reuters demonstrates here how to use that power to advance its own editorial agenda and violate its corporate governance charter.

UPDATE SEPT 3, 2011: The Reuters story cited above has been updated, with the first mention of the UN finding exonerating Israel buried deeper still, now in the 13th paragraph.

Glen Beck comes to Israel; Jeffrey Heller rubs his propagandistic palms together

Reuters Jerusalem Bureau correspondents are personally committed to doing what they can to encourage the demonization, isolation, and eradication of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.  So, a visit to the country by a pro-Israel media figure, a Christian with a popular following of tens of millions of people, is perceived by the Reuters crew as both a threat to their agenda as well as an irresistible opportunity for propaganda.

So it goes with Reuters Editor-in-Charge Jeffrey Heller who reports on Glen Beck's rally adjacent to the Western Wall, a remnant of the Herodian Jewish Temple in Old Jerusalem:

But Beck's visit to Israel, where he was accompanied by evangelical Christian preachers, has been followed with trepidation by American Jewish critics, Israeli left-wing activists and Arab legislators who cautioned that he could stoke tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.
"In Israel you can find people who will stand against incredible odds, against the entire tide of global opinion, just because it's right, just because it's good and just because it's true," Beck told an adoring audience of some 1,700 that included leaders of Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank as well as right-wing Israeli politicians.

As we suggested above, the anti-Israel echo chamber that is Reuters' Jerusalem Bureau, is directly threatened by any popular force which brings an alternative view to light so the latter must be scoffed at lest it gain traction upon Reuters' own political advocacy.  Heller's mocking characterization of Beck's audience as "adoring" (would Heller use the same term to describe those acolytes attending left-wing rallies led by, say, Bill Maher?) as well as his use of the propaganda mantra, "occupied West Bank", in violation of the Reuters Handbook of Journalism, well illustrates our point.

Heller then rummages through the Reuters rubbish bin of other tired and discredited propaganda devices:

A Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000 after then-Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the compound, which houses Islam's al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock shrine and where two biblical Jewish temples once stood [...]. 
Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its capital, a claim that is not recognized internationally. Palestinians want East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, as the capital of a state they aspire to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel withdrew settlers from Gaza in 2005.

Employing the fallacy of post hoc erg propter hoc, Heller slyly suggests that the Palestinian terror war ("uprising") commencing in 2000 was due to Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount, a canard we have debunked dozens of times.  He then sanctifies the location where Beck spoke as an Islamic holy place while downplaying its supreme religious and historical significance to Jews by referring to Solomon and Herod's Temples with the anonymous, "two biblical temples" (small "t").

The Reuters editor also artificially bifurcates the city of Jerusalem into two, with "East Jerusalem", the area of Jerusalem containing nearly all of Judaism's holy relics, cited as that demanded by Palestinian Arabs for their capital.  In fact, the Palestinians do not bother themselves with such sophistry, acknowledging that they seek, simply and completely, the city of Jerusalem (as well as all of Israel) as their sovereign territory.

Heller reports that President Barack Obama proposed that any peace deal with the Palestinians "be based on pre-1967 borders", something Obama actually did not say, nor would he have, given that Israel had no recognized borders with the Arab states at that time.  

And Heller refers to left-wing billionaire George Soros sympathetically as a "Holocaust survivor", when Soros has admitted publicly that he collaborated with the Nazis and had no problem, no guilt about it.

All in all, a rare show of solidarity for a beleaguered people by a media giant, but a typical day at the office for Jeffrey Heller.

A revealing admission and a revealing question

On Thursday, we linked to a video of the 2009 Reuters-hosted symposium on media in the Middle East, which excluded any Israeli participants.

At 28:15 of the video, Nakhle el Hage, Director of News and Current Affairs at Al Arabiya, notes that by and large, Arab media takes a short-term approach to winning 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 explain 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.  He 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 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, Caroline Drees, currently Reuters Managing Editor for the Middle East and Africa, 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.

Judging by the bias and cheerleading endemic to Reuters Middle East reporting, it's obvious Drees wasn't listening.

The "human rights" racketeers

One of the Reuters websites we follow is called AlertNet, trumpeted by Reuters as "the world's humanitarian news site".  Reuters publishes stories here written by its own correspondents, freelance journalists and the public relations departments of a myriad of international NGOs that specialize in everything from providing food assistance to "conflict resolution/monitoring" to "advocacy/lobbying/campaigning".  Publishing rights on AlertNet are free and unfettered for contributing members.

In a story published last month entitled "'Humanitarian vulnerability' of East Jerusalem Palestinians rising - UN", Reuters correspondent Megan Rowling constructs a carefully contrived propaganda piece featuring a report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) accusing Israel of policies and practices which put Arabs living in the eastern portion of Jerusalem at risk:

"Although Palestinians are remaining in the city [Jerusalem], in the long term, failure to address these 'push factors' risks undermining the Palestinian presence in East Jerusalem," the report says.

East Jerusalem has traditionally been the hub for Palestinian social, economic and religious activity, and access to the city from across the Palestinian territories is essential to maintain Palestinian life there, said Maxwell Gaylard, the U.N. humanitarian and resident coordinator for the Palestinian territories, in a statement.

"As the occupying power, Israel is responsible under international humanitarian and human rights law for ensuring that the humanitarian needs of people under its occupation are met, including in East Jerusalem, and that Palestinian residents are able to exercise their human rights, including the right to freedom of movement, work, housing, health, education, and to be free from discrimination, among others," the report concludes.

It's fascinating that notwithstanding these "push factors" allegedly "undermining the Palestinian presence in East Jerusalem", the Arab population in Jerusalem has more than quadrupled since Israel liberated the city from Jordanian occupation in 1967.  Apparently, the free health care, education, access, and housing policies established by successive Israeli governments since that time, have not prevented the Palestinian Arab community from growing and prospering.

But frankly, we wouldn't expect the UN humanitarian and resident coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Maxwell Gaylard, to participate in the production of an accurate or candid report on the impact of Israeli policies on Palestinian living conditions.  After all, this is the same fellow who, in an effort to demonize Israel last year, overtly lied about the infant mortality rate in Gaza:

"The decline in infant mortality, which has occurred steadily over recent decades, has stalled in the last few years."

With its institutionalized anti-Israel agenda, and under the guise of advancing human rights, Reuters continues to uncritically parrot this reprehensible character and his wholly partisan committee at the UN.

Reuters draws moral equivalence between slaughter of Fogel family and Israeli attempts to identify murderers

A year ago, we would have perhaps begun this post with an expression of dismay in response to the zeal with which Reuters correspondents seek to demonize Israel and the deeply dishonest manner in which they go about it.  No longer.  After covering nearly 600 Reuters stories on the Middle East conflict and documenting the agency's compulsive contempt for truth and decency, nothing surprises us anymore.

So it is with a story written by Reuters correspondent Mohammed Assadi and edited by Jerusalem Bureau Chief Crispian Balmer on Israel's ongoing investigation into the murder of the Fogel family on March 11th.

Assadi, a proven liar and patent propagandist for the Palestinian Arabs, and Balmer, who could not bring himself to characterize the recent Jerusalem bus bombing as terrorism (though even the Palestinian Prime Minister described it as such), attempt to draw a moral equivalence between the unspeakable butchering of the Fogel family and attempts to discover the identity of the murderers.

(Reuters) - Israeli troops briefly detained about 100 women in the West Bank early on Thursday as part of an ongoing investigation into the murder last month of a young Jewish settler family, locals said.  The women, many of them seized with their husbands, were released after police took their fingerprints and DNA samples [...]

Israeli officials blamed Palestinians for the murders. No Palestinian group had claimed responsibility and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has described the killing as inhumane.
Israeli investigators have repeatedly descended on Awarta since the killing and the head of the village council, Qais Awwad, said troops entered houses overnight, taking away women aged between 20 to 80 in armored trucks to a detention center.

Actually, Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade was reported, by both the Washington Post and The Guardian, to have taken responsibility for the attack.

But the despicable journalistic chicanery in this story, which reflects Assadi and Balmer's lack of professional integrity as well as their irrationality, centers on the employ of a quote from one of the Palestinian women taken in for fingerprinting:

Sumayyah Shurrab, 30, said she had to take her 11-month old child with her. After fingerprint and DNA checks she was taken back to Awarta.
"They told me they wanted to compare them with finger prints they found in the settlement," she said.
"This was a very inhuman act," she added.

Got that? The fingerprinting and DNA check of a suspect in the mass murder of a family is an "inhuman act".  Whereas the mass murder itself is... er, according to Reuters citing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, merely "inhumane".

But it gets worse.  Abbas didn't say the murders were "inhumane".  He said they were "inhuman":

“This act was abominable, inhuman and immoral,” Mr. Abbas said in a rare interview with Israel Radio that was conducted in Arabic.

So Reuters has deliberately misquoted the Palestinian President in order to minimize the universally-recognized barbaric nature of the crime while featuring a quote from a suspect to suggest that it is the investigative practices that are actually barbaric.

A truly Orwellian inversion brought to you by the immoral media company more Palestinian than the Palestinians.

Independent news agency or dishonest political advocate?

Reuters' many stories disparaging the current Israeli government reflect nothing less than the agency's contempt for democracy as the Jewish people seek to protect their lives, land, traditions, and national rights in the face of a relentless effort to drive them from the Middle East.  Reuters is not merely engaged in political advocacy in this regard but in crafty chicanery as well. 

Note how in the following story, correspondent Dan Williams slyly leads his audience from what would be a straightforward report on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu being interrupted by bereaved relatives during a memorial speech, to innuendo suggesting, falsely, that the Netanyahu government has been subject to regular public censure, to an entirely unrelated and specious reference asserting that major powers have rebuked Netanyahu for the collapse of peace talks with the Palestinians:

(Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's memorial speech for those killed in Israel's worst-ever wildfire was disrupted on Wednesday when bereaved relatives shouted for his interior minister's ouster.
Bodyguards briefly sheltered Netanyahu as a few dozen hecklers surged toward him and others stormed out of the event at Beit Oren, a kibbutz at the epicentre of last month's Carmel forest blaze in which 44 people, mostly rescue personnel, died.
Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who as the official responsible for Israel's fire services bore the brunt of public outrage at the disaster, left the hall after the first outbursts against him. Netanyahu then resumed his speech.
"My heart is with you," he said. "I understand the pain."
The upset was a fresh public rebuke for Netanyahu's rightist coalition government, in which Yishai's Shas, a party run by rabbis, is junior partner. Many secular Israelis have long opposed Shas policies on welfare and other core social issues.
But the broad-based government has weathered such domestic censure as well as criticism from world powers trying to break a deadlock in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that followed Netanyahu's refusal to renew a freeze on West Bank settlements.

Indeed, despite an approval rating of about 38 percent, the latest poll shows the Israeli public supporting the Netanyahu government by nearly two-to-one over opposition leader Tzipi Livni and her Kadima party.  And although Interior Minister Eli Yishai is not popular, the same poll found that if Aryeh Deri headed Shas, the party would win 15 seats in the Israeli parliament, compared to the current 11.

Williams goes on to provide not a shred of evidence for his assertion that "world powers" have criticized Netanyahu for his stance on the settlement freeze.  In fact, following numerous failed attempts to persuade the Palestinians to continue in direct peace talks, the US formally dropped its request for an extension of the freeze stating that "[we] have determined a moratorium extension at this time will not provide the best basis for direct negotiations".

Though Williams and Reuters work tirelessly, with deceit and malice, to demonize the Israeli government and its policies, the Israeli public apparently takes a somewhat different view.  And this includes a recognition of who, precisely, is to blame for the "deadlock" in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Reuters cites Saudi-funded HRW to demonize Israel

As we noted here, Reuters correspondent Ori Lewis follows the company line when it comes to systematic violations of the Reuters Handbook and the use of propaganda devices in an effort to delegitimize Israel.

In his latest project, Lewis trumpets his story with the headline:

Israel deprives Palestinians in West Bank 

Lewis has a nasty habit of asserting claims from NGOs, particularly discredited NGOs, as fact and only later in his stories explaining that these are merely disputed claims.  And the Reuters correspondent apparently never does his own fact-checking on these claims, nor does he provide readers with background material on the NGO making accusations which might otherwise cast doubt on the credibility of the organization behind the claims.

So, we'll do Lewis' job for him.

The NGO cited by Lewis in this story is Human Rights Watch (HRW) which, as we have documented, solicits and receives a portion of its funding from groups and nation-states which are openly hostile to Israel's very existence.  HRWs own founder, Robert L. Bernstein, has condemned the NGO for irrational anti-Israel bias.  HRW directors were last seen objecting to Israel's call for full transparency with respect to their funding sources.

Now let's have a look at the material aspect of HRWs claims against Israel:

"Israeli policies in the West Bank harshly discriminate against Palestinian residents, depriving them of basic necessities while providing lavish amenities for Jewish settlements," the New York-based organization said...

... Carroll Bogert, a spokeswoman for the group, said Israel was carrying out "systematic discrimination merely because of (Palestinians') race, ethnicity and national origin, depriving them of electricity, water, schools and access to roads."

These are serious charges which, as a purportedly objective reporter for the largest news agency in the world, Lewis should be investigating rather than simply parroting.  Had he done so, Lewis would have discovered (and presumably reported) that first, Israel is not responsible for providing "basic necessities" to Palestinians living in the "West Bank".  Those Palestinians classified as "refugees" are supported by the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) which is funded to the tune of over a billion dollars annually, coming mainly from US and European taxpayers.  Indeed, the Palestinians receive more aid money than any other refugees in the world.  As well, Palestinians not classified as refugees are the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas and work for their basic necessities, as do Israelis.  The government of Israel is not "depriving" anyone.

With respect to infrastructure like electricity and water, Israel has spent billions of dollars since 1967 building and supplying electrical power and clean drinking water to both Jewish and Arab communities in the territory.  That HRW cites a single Arab village with 150 denizens which cannot apparently get connected to the electrical grid (for security reasons) is hardly evidence of, "systematic discrimination... because of (Palestinians') race, ethnicity and national origin", which after all, is the same as that of millions of other Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank who are connected to the power grid.

Fisher-Ilan: Israel always to blame

Reuters correspondent Allyn Fisher-Ilan is always certain of two things: 1) astrology holds the key to her future, and 2) Israel is to blame for Palestinian intransigence.

Absent a crystal ball, we cannot confirm or deny #1 above but it is child's play to demonstrate the fatuousness of #2.  Here's Fisher-Ilan in a transparent bid to make Israel the scapegoat for the breakdown in negotiations with the Palestinians:

The negotiations which President Barack Obama said at their launch were destined to reach a final peace deal within a year, faltered when a temporary Israeli settlement freeze expired late in September and Israel refused to renew it.

No.  Negotiations faltered when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas refused to continue with them after squandering nine and a half months of the ten-month settlement freeze originally conceded by Israel.

For Fisher-Ilan, the facts on Israel's side are always mere "accusations":

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under pressure from a pro-settler ruling coalition to reject another freeze, has accused the Palestinians of setting preconditions for peace talks, which they had not done in the past.

Hmmm... let's see:

Palestinians had, for years, negotiated with Israel while Jewish building was taking place in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") and its capital city Jerusalem.  Check.

Palestinians now refuse to negotiate with Israel unless Jewish building in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") and its capital city Jerusalem is quashed.  Check.

Notwithstanding Fisher-Ilan's incessant efforts to infantilize the Palestinians and demonize the Israelis, the facts speak for themselves.

Christmas comes early this year

One of Reuters favorite fallacious memes designed to demonize Israeli Jews is the notion that Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") is the leading cause of Arab Christian emigration from the territory.  Reuters typically runs these stories around the Christmas holidays as part of an effort to suggest that Israel's security measures are spoiling the Christmas cheer.

With 70+ journalists packing the Reuters Jerusalem Bureau, each desperate for a story on a daily basis, Christmas has come early this year as correspondent and serial liar Tom Perry blames -- who else? -- Israel for the declining Christian population in the territories:

Today, Christians make up just 1 percent of the mainly Muslim population of the Palestinian territories, said Hanna Eissa, who is in charge of Christian affairs in the Palestinian Authority's religious affairs ministry.

In 1920, they were a tenth of the population of Palestine -- land where today Israel exists alongside the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians remain stateless.

Decades of conflict, shifting borders and occupation are the root causes of the poor economic situation that is forcing Christians to seek better lives abroad, Eissa said.

Rising Muslim fundamentalism, a trend across the Middle East, concerns some. But most cite Israeli occupation as the prime cause of emigration and the decline of their community.

Perry of course, does not cite a single survey or study to support his assertion that "most" (presumably Arab Christians) blame Israel for the shrinking community, so readers are expected to accept this notion sans evidence save a single interview with one Abu al-Zulaf:

He holds Israel responsible for the departure of Christians. "The occupation is menacing everyone's existence," he said.

In reality however, al-Zulaf is an agnostic with respect to who is to blame for the status quo:

"I am not optimistic because I don't think things are going to change. I don't trust the leadership on either side."

And as we have previously noted, there is another side to this story which Perry dares not tell.

Proven liars at Reuters double-down with more mendacious propaganda

Reuters correspondent Stephanie Nebehay, whom we last caught misrepresenting both the Geneva Conventions and a statement from the International Committee of the Red Cross, now turns to "U.N. human rights expert" Richard Falk to demonize Israel for razing 20 Palestinian homes in the Silwan community of Jerusalem and the possible expulsion of 4 Hamasniks.

Let's follow the agit-prop:

Israel's plan to demolish some 20 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem is illegal and reflects its systematic bid to drive Palestinians out of the holy city, a U.N. human rights expert charged on Tuesday.

Here are the facts: Palestinian Arabs have built a number of homes in the area without permits.  As part of a plan to redevelop the community, the Jerusalem municipality has agreed to retroactively approve about 60 illegally built Palestinian dwellings and to provide land and permits to the 20 Palestinians whose homes will alternatively be razed.

And as we noted here, if Israel is engaged in a systematic effort to drive Palestinians out of Jerusalem, she's clearly doing a lousy job of it: the Palestinian Arab population has quadrupled since Israel liberated the city in 1967.

Continuing:

Richard Falk, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, said its separate intent to forcibly transfer four Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem to the West Bank could constitute a war crime.

We have to wade through 9 paragraphs of this muck before Nebehay finally gets around to disclosing that the four Palestinians are members of the terrorist group Hamas.  Uh-huh, a "war crime".  And by the way, Israel is considering waiving the expulsions if the Hamasniks sever their ties to the terror group.

But for Falk and Nebehay, this requirement also constitutes a war crime:

"Israel, as an occupying power, is prohibited from transferring civilian persons from East Jerusalem and is prohibited from forcing Palestinians to swear allegiance or otherwise affirm their loyalty to the State of Israel," he said.

Notice that no one has suggested anything about "forcing Palestinians to swear allegiance or otherwise affirm their loyalty to the State of Israel".  A red herring and a straw man in one sentence -- a record even for the UN.

In a bid to immunize herself and Falk from allegations of antisemitism due to consistently anti-Israel bias and coverage, Nebehay plays the race card:

Falk, who is Jewish, was detained and turned back from Israel while trying to carry out an official U.N. mission to Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem in Dec. 2008

Not to worry Stephanie, some of the Jewish state's most overwrought and mendacious critics are Jewish.

If it's Tuesday, it must be demonize the Jewsday

Former Reuters Jerusalem Bureau Chief Alastair Macdonald, who apparently has had a change in heart about leaving the Holy Land, never misses an opportunity in his stories to demonstrate his bottomless contempt for Jews -- Jews in the Israeli government, Jews who live outside the 1949 Armistice Lines, ultra-Orthodox Jews, Jewish police, etc.  In fact, the only Jews Macdonald appears to be sympathetic toward are dead Jews and Jewish converts to Islam -- oh, and his nominally Jewish anti-Israel colleagues at Reuters.

In his latest effort to demonize the Jews of Israel, Macdonald pens an 1,150 word magnum opus about the Armenian community in Jerusalem.  Loaded with rich historical narrative detailing the Armenian presence in the Holy Land -- which, by the way, Reuters never similarly provides for the 3,500 year Jewish presence in the Holy Land -- Macdonald's transparent agenda here is to portray Israel in a nefarious light, intent on ethnically cleansing non-Jews from Jerusalem:

Officials of the church, at the Armenian Patriarchate, share a view held by the mostly Muslim Palestinians -- that Israel's designation of the whole city as capital of the Jewish state means its control of residence and building permits is being used to press Arabs and other non-Jews to give up and leave.

"The withdrawing of ID cards is becoming very serious," said historian George Hintlian, a former Patriarchate secretary. Five local-born Armenians lost residence rights last month, he added.

Non-Jews, a third of today's 750,000 population in greater Jerusalem, have had residence rights but not citizenship since Israel seized the Arab east, including the Old City, from Jordan in 1967. Israel, which promotes Jewish immigration, says it is not obliged to grant re-entry to other residents who emigrate.

It says it respects the access of other faiths to Jerusalem and denies any policy to discriminate or to push non-Jews out. But the Armenians see double standards and fear for their land.

Macdonald suggests that Israel is using control over building permits to "press Arabs and other non-Jews to leave" Jerusalem but as we noted here, Israel has in recent years approved more than 36,000 permits for non-Jewish housing in the city -- enough to accommodate even the rosiest population growth forecasts through 2020.

Macdonald then quotes a former Armenian Patriarchate secretary to suggest that Israel is withdrawing resident ID cards in an effort to expel non-Jews.  But as we noted here, that only occurs if a resident spends more than seven consecutive years outside Israel, or adopts foreign residency or citizenship -- a policy not materially different from that maintained by European governments.  Indeed, in the UK and France, the government may terminate residency after an absence of only two years.

Both of Macdonald's assertions are actually red herrings for while the former Bureau Chief is sure to remind readers that non-Jews in Jerusalem "have had residence rights but not citizenship since Israel seized the Arab east", he conceals by omission, the fact that all Palestinians were offered Israeli citizenship at the time and the vast majority refused.  With concern that a future peace agreement may divide the city and leave them under Palestinian authority, thousands of non-Jews have recently rushed to apply for Israeli citizenship.

Ultimately however, on the question of demographics, the proof is in the pudding and as our right-column graphic clearly illustrates, the Arab population in Jerusalem has increased its share of the total from 26 percent to 34 percent, nearly quadrupling since Israel liberated the city in 1967.  The current Armenian population numbers anywhere from 2,500 to 3,000 depending on source, a figure that has historically fluctuated and only about five-hundred fewer than the estimated 3,500 residents living in Jerusalem just prior to 1967.  And while Macdonald alleges poor treatment of the Armenian Christians by Israeli authorities and Orthodox Jews, he is silent on their maltreatment at the hands of Palestinian Muslims -- a reality which has driven many Christians to emigrate from the region.

Reuters Jerusalem Bureau Chief to step down

Alastair Macdonald, whose work we have followed closely since our website commenced last August, is "ending his assignment" as Reuters Bureau Chief for Israel and the Palestinian territories.  Although we don't know the details behind Macdonald's exit nor do we know yet who will be replacing him, we will be frank and say that for any observer wishing for accurate and unbiased reporting of the Middle East conflict, Macdonald's departure will not be viewed with a great deal of sympathy.

In the ten months that we have been analyzing Reuters coverage of the conflict, Macdonald has demonstrated, 1) a refusal to take responsibility for factual errors, 2) a tendency to cherry-pick survey data to support his own political views, 3) repeated efforts to downplay and whitewash Palestinian violence, 4) systematic bias in favor of the Arabs, 5) reference to racist epithets to support his pro-Arab bias, 6) reliance on libelous information sources, 7) the use of spurious "man bites dog" stories in an effort to demonize Jews, 8) willful omission of highly newsworthy stories that undermine Palestinian image-making, 9) the parroting of Palestinian propaganda, 10) selective amnesia on the historical facts along with a host of false assertions, and 11) the scandalous publication on his watch, of doctored photos in violation of the Reuters Handbook and all standards of professional and ethical journalism.

Let's see; did we forget anything?

Questions and appeals to pity

With assistance from Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters correspondent Douglas Hamilton presents a "Q&A" on the Gaza blockade.  Hamilton, who has previously demonstrated that he cares not a jot for the well-being of the Palestinian Arabs except when he can exploit them as a weapon of propaganda against Israel, employs the Question and Appeal to Pity Answer format to demonize Israel and sanitize Hamas:

WHY IS GAZA UNDER BLOCKADE?
Because it is under the control of the militant Islamist movement Hamas, which does not accept Israel's right to exist and remains committed to armed resistance. The blockade was conceived three years ago as a way of suffocating popular support for Hamas, but the strategy has not worked. Hamas remains firmly in power and the blockade is denounced by critics as a form of collective punishment.  [emphasis ours]

Hamilton and al-Mughrabi are violating the Reuters code of ethics here by attempting to cloak in the euphemism "armed resistance", Hamas' proclaimed mission to eradicate Israel and exterminate the Jews.  And the Reuters pair conveniently ignore the 8,000 rockets and mortars launched in support of that mission by Hamas which precipitated and necessitated the Israeli blockade.

Let's not forget too, that Hamas received their mandate to rule Gaza from the Palestinian people in elections, so the charge by anonymous "critics" of "collective punishment" is indistinguishable from a claim for example, that NATOs bombing of Serbia to halt the ethnic cleansing of Muslims by Slobodan Milošević represented "collective punishment".  In both cases, non-combatants suffered for their elected leaders' militancy and gross violations of international and humanitarian law.  Indeed, Israel's embargo has been far more humane.

Reuters again:

WHO DECIDES WHAT GETS IN AND OUT OF THE ENCLAVE?
Israel alone decides on what is openly allowed to cross the closed borders of the Gaza Strip. Most commercial goods are banned. Humanitarian aid is allowed in. Gaza smugglers have dug hundreds of underground tunnels to Egypt on the southern border where contraband of all sorts, including weapons, is smuggled in. Gaza residents say they particularly miss ice cream, Coca-Cola and instant coffee that used to be brought in from Israel.  [emphasis ours]

This is false.  Egypt also maintains a blockade on Gaza and decides what is allowed to go in and out -- which explains the smuggling tunnels on the Egyptian side of the border.  We do however, appreciate the previous reference to "collective punishment" when it comes to the Palestinians missing out on Israeli ice cream.

Hamilton and al-Mughrabi continue:

SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
The United Nations aid agency charged with supporting Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says people with power and money in Gaza can obtain "anything they want" via the tunnels. "There are lots of things to buy. But this stuff is out of reach of the abject poor," said spokesman Chris Gunness. The number of Gazans unable to afford sufficient food has risen threefold in the past year to 300,000.  [emphasis ours]

This is a very interesting figure.  300,000 Gazans represents about 20 percent of the total population.  With all attention focused by Reuters on Palestinian hardship, we never see reported, within the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict, the fact that 25 percent of the Israeli population lives in poverty with one in three children going to bed hungry.  Although the causes of poverty are numerous and complex, the fact that Israel has had to allocate immense national resources to defend against unremitting Arab military threats and terrorism over the last 62 years clearly plays a significant and adverse role in the nation's ability to feed its poor.  Absent the perennial presence of United Nations aid agencies and a sympathetic world media enjoyed by the Palestinians, Israel makes due without promoting its hardships.