Reuters selective reminiscence

In a story on Israel's decision to include two Jewish shrines on its list of heritage sites, Reuters correspondents Joseph Nasr, Tom Perry and Mustafa Abu Ganeyeh recall an incident of horrendous violence at one of the sites, the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, where: 

a Jewish settler shot and killed 29 Muslim worshippers in 1994 before being beaten to death at the scene. Some 400 Jewish settlers live in heavily guarded enclaves in the city, which is also home to some 150,000 Palestinians.

Reuters doesn't explain of course, why Jews residing in Hebron must live with an Israeli garrison to protect them, omitting mention of the massacre of 67 Jewish residents by Arabs in 1929.

For the moppets at Reuters, Middle East history only begins in 1967.

Photo of members of the Slonim family, murdered by Arabs in the 1929 Hebron massacre

UPDATE 2/22/10: In the spirit of peace and reconciliation between Arab and Jew, here is how Palestinians in Hebron reacted to the addition of the Tomb of the Patriarchs to Israel's heritage sites:

Earlier Monday in Hebron, a crowd of Palestinian youths pelted IDF soldiers with stones and empty bottles, drawing tear gas and stun grenades.  Hebron merchants shuttered their stores to protest of Sunday's heritage plan decision, and some 100 youths burned tires and threw stones and bottles at IDF troops in the city.

One can only imagine the editorial response from Reuters if Israeli Jews reacted similarly to Palestinian veneration of Muslim holy sites in Israel.

Reuters watches Kareem the bird, changes the channel on Farfur the mouse

Reuters' Joseph Nasr reports on the Palestinian version of Sesame Street airing in the West Bank:

The Shara'a Simsim version of the popular television programme teaches Palestinian children they can achieve their dream of an independent Palestinian state through tolerance, education and national pride -- and not anti-Israeli violence.

Although the television show ostensibly carries a message of personal responsibility for the Palestinians, Nasr can't resist taking a dig at Israel:

The show's Palestinian producers chose to make no reference to symbols of the Israeli occupation such as the West Bank barrier and the network of Israeli army checkpoints, which Palestinians say are sources of hardship.

And despite the message of "tolerance", no Israelis appear in the show. One would think that inclusion of characters who are Jewish and sympathetic would encourage Palestinian children to reconcile to the idea of peaceful coexistence with Israel but the Palestinian producers apparently feel otherwise.

Only in passing does Nasr mention children's television produced by Hamas:

In the Gaza Strip, Hamas has its own children's programme which has been criticized for urging kids to fight Israel.

Anyone who has watched the vile antisemitism and incitement to commit suicide and murder which is an integral part of Hamas programming for children in the Gaza strip will find Nasr's characterization a bit of an understatement.

Don't know much about history; don't know much about geography...

We're big fans of Sam Cooke and nobody covers him better than Reuters. In an effort to elicit sympathy for the Palestinian Arabs while demonizing Israel, Joseph Nasr, Mustafa Abu Ganiyeh, Douglas Hamilton, and Jon Boyle deploy the classic propaganda techniques of appeal to poverty and appeal to pity and in the process, manage to completely mangle history and geography.

The Reuters' team suggest that Jewish "settlement began after Israel seized the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war" and refer to "five Israeli settlements on the nearby ridges and hilltops south of Jerusalem".  We wonder if they're referring to the Jewish community known today as Gush Etzion which was originally founded in 1927 by a group of Yemenite Jews and where residents were repeatedly victimized by Arab violence culminating in 1948, with a massacre at the hands of the Arab Legion.

Or perhaps their reference to Jewish "settlements" refers to Hebron, a town Reuters decribes as "proud to be considered a stronghold of Palestinian nationalism", but where history has recorded a Jewish community for more than 3,000 years -- interrupted in 1929 by the massacre of scores of Jews in Arab riots and which, under threat of further Arab violence, was evacuated of its remaining Jews by British troops in 1936.

Reuters, acting as arbiter, has also it appears, unilaterally determined the fate of Jewish communities east of the 1949 armistice lines asserting that these towns would either, "have to be handed over to a new Palestinian state or bought in land swaps elsewhere on the borderline".

No, they don't know much about history or geography but how fortunate for the Palestinians that Reuters correspondents fancy themselves as experts in international law.