Fox guarding henhouse

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?

Is that a hammer or a power wrench?

As an application of truth in labeling, news organizations that publish opinion pieces by their staff writers invariably identify those pieces as op-eds.  Not Reuters.  The largest news agency in the world, one that promotes itself as committed to the highest standards of truth and accuracy, refuses to provide the simple disclaimer that writer opinion pieces are just that -- opinions.  Instead, we get the oblique "Analysis" discreetly attached to the story on Reuters' website.  This, in a deliberate effort to magically transform the material from personal conjecture to scientific study and enable syndication of an opinion piece that would otherwise be rejected by most news outlets.

In one of those "Analysis" pieces on U.N. indictments associated with the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, Reuters correspondent Mariam Karouny demonstrates why Reuters' refusal to identify an op-ed as such only invites public scrutiny of the company and allows watchdog groups like yours truly to expose the gap between Reuters proclaimed ethical standards and actual practice.

Karouny's basic premise is that:

Indictments by a U.N.-backed court seeking the killers of statesman Rafik al-Hariri, which Lebanese officials say accuse Hezbollah members, will widen the country's political rift and increase sectarian tension.

Only a few months ago, Karouny was parroting the absurd notion that Hezbollah, a Shiite terrorist group which has fought Sunnis and is committed to genocide of the Jews, might not be considered sectarian.  Acknowledging that the Hezbollah indictments will increase sectarian tension in Lebanon is a step in the right direction for the Reuters correspondent.

Unfortunately, Karouny is still a prisoner to her own prejudices and prominently displays these when she sanitizes Syrian oppression of Lebanon:

Tiny Lebanon, with around four million people, has always been a battleground for bigger regional powers. Syria, which had a military presence for 29 years until 2005, remains the most influential external player in Lebanon's sectarian politics.

As we've previously noted, Syria did not simply have a "presence" in Lebanon for nearly three decades; the Assad family controlled all aspects of political decision-making and sovereignty in Lebanon via a brutal military occupation responsible for the killing of approximately 100,000 Lebanese and the flight of about a half a million people (mainly Christians) from the country.  Hezbollah's grip on Lebanese politics today guarantees a continuation of that Syrian domination.  Karouny skates by these facts.

At the same time, Karouny conveys, uncritically, Hezbollah's view of Israel's role in the U.N. investigation:

But officials allied to Hezbollah, which say the tribunal is an Israeli tool, said they were alarmed by the timing of the indictments which were handed over as Mikati's cabinet, which was formed just two weeks ago after months of wrangling, met to agree its policy statement.

Is that a hammer or a power wrench?  Karouny is clearly betraying her own bias here (and violating the Reuters Handbook) by parroting, sans quotation marks, Hezbollah's flippant assertion.

Because Reuters refuses to identify pieces like Karouny's as an op-ed, the agency can be held fully responsible for her failure to uphold the Trust Principles.

Reuters sanitizes Syrian occupation, domination of Lebanon

In an op-ed masquerading as "Analysis" about Hezbollah preparing for war against Israel to divert attention away from Bashar al-Assad's murder of over 1,300 Syrian citizens, Reuters correspondent Mariam Karouny shows us again why Reuters cannot be trusted to report the news or recount history accurately:

"This is a battle for existence for the group [Hezbollah] and it is time to return the favor (of Syria's support). It will do that by fending off some of the international pressure," he [a Lebanese official] added.
The militant group, established nearly 30 years ago to confront Israel's occupation of south Lebanon, fought an inconclusive 34-day war with Israel in 2006.
Hezbollah and Syria have both denied that the group has sent fighters to support a military crackdown on the wave of protests against Assad's rule.

Karouny wants readers to believe that Hezbollah was created and exists today solely to "confront" Israel's "occupation" of South Lebanon -- an occupation that ended 11 years ago.  At the same time, she sanitizes Syria's brutal commandeering and three-decade occupation of Lebanon, which in many ways, continues today via Syria's sponsorship of Hezbollah:

Syria, which borders Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan, has regional influence because of its alliance with Iran and its continued role in Lebanon, despite ending a 29-year military presence there in 2005. It also has an influence in Iraq.

Note that, for Reuters, when an Arab country is occupying another sovereign, it is merely maintaining a "military presence".  When an Arab country is controlling the political affairs of another sovereign via the use of tanks, terror and assassinations, it is simply playing a "role" there.

So, here is what Karouny won't tell her readers about Syria's "military presence" and "continued role" in Lebanon:

On June 1, 1976, 12,000 regular Syrian troops crossed the border; by September the number reached approximately 25,000 men. Their presence in the northern Akkar region, in the eastern Bekka, at Sofar in the central mountain area and near Sidon on the coast, demonstrated that Syrian policing policy was assuming the form of a comprehensive military domination. By November, 6,000 Syrian troops had virtually taken over West Beirut.

Operating however transparently under the name and guise of the Arab Deterrent Force authorized by the Riyadh Summit in October 1976, Syrian troops acted to disarm some Lebanese militias at the same time that the national army of Lebanon disintegrated to the diminutive size of 3,000 troops. By 1977, the number of Syrian troops exceeded 30,000, with over 200 tanks. After fighting the Palestinian and other leftist forces, Druzes and Sunnis in particular, the Syrian army then confronted the Christian Lebanese Forces. Indeed, if Syria was to control and pacify Lebanon, it would of necessity need to reduce the core Christian community that gave Lebanon its special national distinction. For three months, during “the 100 Days War” in mid-1978, Syria bombarded Christian East Beirut, specifically Ashrafiyya, which led to the flight of 300,000 people; at this time Syrian forces were also capturing Batroun and Besharre areas in the heart of the mountain area. A flood of Christian refugees and the execution of many Lebanese civilians were the direct result at this stage of the intensification and extension of Syria’s ruthless conquest of Lebanon.

In the 1980s, Syria further expanded its military control in the areas of Zahle, Aley, Nabatiyeh, and Jezzine, prior to the ultimate military capture of the presidential palace at Ba’abda, southeast of Beirut on October 13, 1990. In that final confrontation Syrian forces defeated Lebanese Army units under the command of General Michel Aoun, who had failed in his self-declared “war of liberation”. Syrian military occupation of Lebanon, therefore, incorporated the entire country with the exception of the southern “security zone” under the control of the Israeli Army (IDF) and its Southern Lebanese Army (SLA) ally. One reliable source suggests that the Syrians were responsible for the deaths of approximately 100,000 Lebanese and the flight of about a half a million people from the country.

Syria continues to dominate all aspects of political life and decision-making in Lebanon via military coercion and sponsorship of its terror-proxy Hezbollah, but you would never know that reading Reuters.

When it comes to the Arabs, Reuters cannot muster the "O" word

When writing about the Middle East conflict, Reuters correspondents relish use of the word "occupation" to describe the control of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") by Israeli forces after the 1967 Six-Day War.  Although this territory is claimed by both Israel and the Palestinian Arabs and remains officially unallocated, Reuters liberally uses the term "occupied" as a form of innuendo to suggest that Israel is usurping Arab land.

On the other hand, when an Arab state has been occupying another sovereign's territory, sometimes for decades, Reuters is careful not to use the "o" word:

Tiny Lebanon, with around four million people, has always been a battleground for bigger regional powers. Syria, which had a military presence for 29 years until 2005, remains the most influential external player in Lebanon's sectarian politics.

It's just a "presence" you see; no trespass, foreign control, or violations of international law involved.

Non sectarian or non sequitur?

Writing about the political chaos in Lebanon following the resignation of all Hezbollah-affiliated government ministers, Reuters correspondent Mariam Karouny slips in this amusing whopper and non-sequitur:

Hezbollah portrays itself as spearheading Islamic resistance to Israel, not as a sectarian group.

Our desktop dictionary defines sectarian as:

1. of or pertaining to sectaries or sects.

2. narrowly confined or devoted to a particular sect.

3. narrowly confined or limited in interest, purpose, scope, etc. 

Hezbollah, a Shiite group, has previously done battle with the Sunni community in Lebanon and incites for genocide against the Jews.

But for Mariam Karouny, the group's image is one of simply "spearheading Islamic resistance to Israel" (note the Arab euphemism for murder) and not sectarian.

This is what happens when journalists learn their craft under the tutelage of Chris Patten.

The soft bigotry of low expectations

Reuters Beirut-based correspondent Mariam Karouny pens an ostensibly sympathetic tale of Palestinian Arab refugees living in Lebanon.  Long denied civil and human rights including the ability to work in many professions or even to own an apartment, the descendants of those Arabs who fled Israel in 1948 live in squalid camps and are only now being granted modest opportunities to integrate into Lebanese society:

Palestinians have long been marginalized in Lebanon, where the 1975-90 civil war was sparked by a conflict between Palestinian and Lebanese Christian factions

"The parliament has passed the Palestinian rights (law) which is related to work and (giving them) social security," said lawmaker Nawwaf al-Mussawi after the session. 

The law allows granting refugees work permits without fees and also calls for setting up a fund to cover expenses of work related accidents and end of service pay.

What's interesting about Karouny's story, is how she parrots and rationalizes the Lebanese line on why the children and grandchildren of Arabs who originally lived in what became Israel (most of whom have actually been born in Lebanon) are refused not only citizenship in Lebanon, but basic civil rights as well:

Some politicians in Lebanon argue that granting them [Palestinians] civil rights such as property ownership and work permits would promote naturalization -- an explosive issue which has raised fears of upsetting Lebanon's delicate sectarian balance. 

Can one imagine Reuters treating this type of overt religious discrimination if it occurred in say, Israel or the US, with the same kid gloves?  (Rhetorical question).

Karouny then seeks to make the Palestinians themselves complicit in Lebanon's economic, social and political oppression of its Palestinian Arab population with this utterly absurd generalization:

Palestinians themselves have repeatedly said they oppose plans to settle them in Lebanon, saying they want to go back to the villages their families fled or were forced to flee during fighting which created the state of Israel in 1948.

No scientific survey is offered in evidence for this assertion nor is there recourse to an interview with a single Palestinian living in Lebanon who favors the disenfranchised life of a refugee over the benefits of naturalization (we're certain Karouny could have found one).

Reuters does however, provide proof positive of the Totality of Palestinian aspirations with a photo taken in June of a Palestinian man holding a symbolic key to a house left behind in Israel.

 
Apparently, case closed.

More broken boilerplate

In a previous entry, we noted Reuters deliberately downplaying the casus belli and damage done to Israel by Hezbollah in the 2006 war.  In a story today about Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatening Israeli shipping, Reuters correspondent Mariam Karouny recycles the broken and biased boilerplate from Reuters earlier article:

Hezbollah fought against Israel in a 34-day war in 2006 after the group captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. Some 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, were killed and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers, died.

Israel pounded Beirut's southern suburbs as well as mainly Shi'ite southern Lebanon where Hezbollah maintains a stronghold and from which Israel withdrew in 2000.

Israeli bombing also hit bridges, roads, airport runways, ports, factories, power and water networks, and military installations, and the eastern Bekaa Valley.

We'll paraphrase what we wrote in our previous post:

Reuters report of the war is heavily biased, describing the Israeli attacks in Lebanon in vivid detail while entirely omitting details of the start of the war and havoc in Israel caused by Hezbollah.  For example, Reuters fails to tell readers that:

1) Eight Israeli soldiers were killed by Hezbollah when the other two soldiers were kidnapped;

2) Hezbollah fired Katyusha rockets into Israeli border communities at the time of the initial attack;

3) Thousands of Israeli homes took direct hits by more than 4,000 rockets launched by Hezbollah during the war;

4) 300,000 Israelis were displaced;

5) More than one million Israelis were forced to live in bomb shelters for weeks.

Additionally, note Reuters' asymmetrical use of weasel words when describing Israelis as having "died" in the conflict while Lebanese were "killed".

For a bit of balance, this is what Israelis lived through:

Hezbollah says: "Polly wanna cracker"; Reuters says: "Polly wanna cracker"

In its reporting on the Middle East conflict, Reuters frequently parrots Arab rhetoric, providing no criticism, no analysis, and no balance.  This is not only lousy journalism, it's also a violation of Reuters' own code spelled out in its Handbook:

We must be on alert for language that could imply support for one side of a conflict, sympathy for a point of view, or an ethnocentric vantage point. We should, for example, provide the dual names of disputed territories [uh-huh, how often does Reuters refer to the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria as such?]. We must not parrot any loaded expressions used by our sources, except in quotes and official titles.

In a story today about Hezbollah calling on Egypt to cease construction of the subterranean wall it is building along the Gaza border, Reuters correspondent Mariam Karouny parrots Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.  Here's the Nasrallah quote first:

We call on the government in Egypt and the leadership to stop the wall and flooding the tunnels and to end the siege otherwise it should be condemned by all Arabs and the Muslims [italics, ours].

And here's Karouny:

Tensions between Egypt, a predominantly Sunni country, and Hezbollah, a Shi'ite group backed by Iran, have been running high since last year when Nasrallah accused Cairo of complicity with Israel in its siege of the Gaza strip [italics, ours].

Note the reiteration (sans quotation marks) of the very loaded expression, "siege".  Our desktop dictionary defines "siege" as "the act or process of surrounding and attacking a fortified place in such a way as to isolate it from help and supplies".  Now, here's the latest report on the help and supplies -- food, fuel, desalination systems, and medical care -- provided by Israel to the Palestinians in Gaza:

Since the end of the IDF operation in Gaza (18 Jan 2009), 668,393 tons of aid and 100,645,680 liters of fuel have been delivered to the Gaza Strip.

On Dec. 21, 2009, six advanced water desalination systems were transferred to the Gaza Strip... The systems are planned to supply good quality drinking water to 40,000 citizens, and were installed as part of a sewage water treatment project in the northern Gaza Strip, which is coordinated by the Gaza CLA in collaboration with the international bodies working in the Gaza Strip and the relevant Palestinian authorities.

In 2009, ten thousand patients and their escorts were able to leave the Gaza Strip in order to receive medical treatment within Israel and the Judea and Samaria region.

 Ahem, quite a "siege".