A lesson in propaganda

Reporting on a large-scale, five-day air raid drill in Israel to prepare for the eventuality of Iranian-backed rocket attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah, Reuters correspondent Allyn Fisher-Ilan wants her readers to know:

Iran denies its uranium enrichment programme is a quest for nuclear arms and says it is purely for power. Israel is widely believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal.

Note what has occurred here.  Employing the common propaganda technique of repetition, Fisher-Ilan parrots Iran's long-standing and risible claim that it is enriching uranium (to levels which far exceed the 3-4 percent needed to generate electricity) "purely for power".  She then juxtaposes Iran's denial with the strong suggestion -- employing the bandwagon fallacy -- that Israel has nuclear weapons.  The focus of suspicion is thus neatly shifted from Iran to Israel.

Fisher-Ilan writes:

Iran's nuclear ambitions, which the West and Israel believe are aimed at building atomic weapons...

thus singling out Israel and the amorphous "West" as credulous while making no mention that the United Nations nuclear watchdog IAEA has drawn the same conclusion.

All in a day's work for the propagandists at Reuters.