"The Palestinian Independence Movement"

That's how Reuters propagandist and serial liar Mohammed Assadi describes Fatah and Hamas in this story about the impending political reconciliation between the Palestinian factions.  For those not familiar with the immutable tenets of the two terror groups, here are a few salient extracts from the Hamas Charter:

For our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave, so much so that it will need all the loyal efforts we can wield, to be followed by further steps and reinforced by successive battalions from the multifarious Arab and Islamic world, until the enemies are defeated and Allah’s victory prevails [...]

The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!

And the Fatah Constitution:

Goals

Article (12): Complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence [...]

Method

Article (19): Armed struggle is a strategy and not a tactic, and the Palestinian Arab People's armed revolution is a decisive factor in the liberation fight and in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated.

"The Palestinian independence movement".

As President Barack Obama might ask, "you think we're stupid?"

Landslide bias

Following its 1948-49 invasion, conquest, and illegal occupation of land sandwiched between the nascent state of Israel and the Jordan River, the Kingdom of Transjordan ethnically cleansed the entire Jewish population from the area.  The territory was subsequently dubbed by its new Arab rulers "the West Bank", a reference to its location on the west bank of the Jordan.  Israel's appellation for the land is "Judea and Samaria" a reference extending back some three millennia to the existence of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel.

The competing designations reflect competing claims to the land and thus, an unresolved dispute over sovereignty between the Jews and the Arabs.  Under such circumstances, Reuters is compelled by its commitment to be socially responsible to provide readers with both of these competing designations:

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. We must not parrot any loaded expressions used by our sources, except in quotes and official titles. Generic references to a specific country as “the homeland” for example, are unwelcome.

In practice however, Reuters fails miserably in this commitment, referring to the land as "the West Bank" versus "Judea and Samaria" by a ratio of over 150:1.

When quoting Arab politicians for example, Reuters almost never clarifies that "the West Bank" is synonymous with "Judea and Samaria".  Conversely, when an Israeli politician, in this case, the Prime Minister, identifies the territory using Israel's appellation, Reuters correspondents Mohammed Assadi, Ori Lewis and Jerusalem Bureau Chief Crispian Balmer are punctilious about including the Arab-ethnocentric name for the same:

He [Netanyahu] said the surprise announcement of a reconciliation deal "exposes the Palestinian Authority's weakness and raises questions whether Hamas will take hold of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) as it took hold of the Gaza Strip."

Reuters, meticulous in its bias.

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.

The symbolic fiction

When the facts belie Reuters partisan political views, you can be sure the agency's correspondents will offer readers one of their own invented notions supported or voiced by another party whom Reuters cites as an independent and usually expert source.

Indeed, 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 nearly 100 Reuters stories over the last couple of years that Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") are illegal -- because the World Court says so.

In a story on the Palestinian Arabs rejecting an interim peace plan rumored to be coming from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Reuters correspondent Mohammed Assadi and Jerusalem Bureau Editor-in-Charge Jeffrey Heller repeat the mantra:

Palestinians say the settlements, deemed illegal by the World Court, will deny them a viable state.

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.  Assadi and Heller may as well cite the Organization of Islamic Conference in its opinion on Jewish settlements (this may be Reuters 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.

Reuters misrepresents Obama

In our post just below, we noted the way Reuters correspondents regularly fabricate so as to advance their personal, and perhaps as well, corporate political agenda.  Central to the media giant's efforts to assign ownership of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") and Jerusalem to the Arabs has been to deliberately and regularly mischaracterize Jewish settlements there as "illegal".  Consistent with international law as resolved by both the League of Nations and United Nations, Jewish settlements anywhere west of the Jordan River are in fact, fully legal.

Reuters correspondents clearly believe however, that by repeatedly drumming into the minds of their readers, in story after story, and in various incantations, an utterly false message, i.e., Jewish settlements are "illegal", they will win the day in the forum of public opinion.

Mohammed Assadi, Louis Charbonneau, Crispian Balmer, Douglas Hamilton and editor Peter Graff have another go on the fabrication carousel with this false citation:

Obama, who has said Israeli settlements in territories it captured in a 1967 war are illegal and unhelpful to the peace process, is opposed to a U.N. move that in Washington's view could shatter hopes of reviving the stalled talks.

So, has President Obama ever publicly asserted that the settlements are "illegal"?  No.  And of course, this is deliberately the case because Obama, advised by scores of international lawyers and State Department officials, knows very well that the settlements are, as noted above, entirely legal.  To assert otherwise, in a speech or other public forum, would be to contravene international law.

If only Reuters correspondents had as much respect for their own code.

Reuters still fabricating geography; still concealing history; still covering for the Palestinians

Integral to Reuters efforts to assign ownership of Jerusalem to the Palestinian Arabs is the artificial bifurcation of the city into two fictitious cities: East Jerusalem, and presumably West Jerusalem (although the latter is rarely mentioned by the news agency).

What Reuters cunningly characterizes and capitalizes as "East Jerusalem" is actually the Old City of Jerusalem, complete with its ancient artifacts and religious sites including Judaism's holiest shrine, the Temple Mount, where the Temples of Solomon and Herod once stood.

Although Jews founded the city of Jerusalem as their capital over three thousand years ago and maintained a continuous presence there until they were ethnically cleansed from the area by the Arab Legion in 1949, Reuters seizes as its historical reference point, the 19 year sliver of time, between 1949 and 1967, when Jews were barred from living in or entering the city by the conquering Arabs.  The propaganda mantra, "East Jerusalem", is employed to conceal Jerusalem's Jewish history and the fact that the Arabs seek to once again control the Old City of Jerusalem.

Indeed, even the Palestinian Authority does not refer to "East Jerusalem" on its website or in its literature when it declares its intention to make Jerusalem the capital of its inchoate state.  As well, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian officials are quite clear when they assert that the city of "Jerusalem" must be declared the Palestinian capital (and that no Jews will be permitted there).  No modifying East is mentioned.

So, the next time you see a Reuters correspondent write something along the lines of:

East Jerusalem, which is controlled by the Israelis but which the Palestinians want as their future capital, poses another problem

you'll know Reuters is still fabricating geography, still concealing history, and still covering for the Palestinian Arabs.

Reuters conceals true nature and history of Fatah

Reuters correspondents Ali Sawafta, Allyn Fisher-Ilan, and Mohammed Assadi begin the new year the same way they began the previous year -- by providing cover for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

In a story on Palestinian demands for the Quartet (the US, EU, Russia, and the UN) to draft a new "peace plan" which calls for a Palestinian state on all disputed land outside the 1949 Armistice Lines, the Reuters trio cite Abbas speaking on television yesterday:

Abbas, speaking on the anniversary of the foundation of Palestinians' mainstream Fatah movement, reiterated a demand for Israel to halt settlement building, the issue over which negotiations launched anew in September foundered just several weeks later.

In fact, the occasion was not the anniversary of the "foundation" of Fatah, but rather the 46th anniversary of the group's first attempted bombing attack.  Apparently, a minor detail missed by Reuters.

Note also, that this terror attack occurred on January 1st, 1965, two years prior to Israel gaining control of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") in the Six Day War and the commencement of modern settlement construction, the fictitious casus belli advanced by the Arabs and their media acolytes to rationalize Palestinian terrorism aimed at Jewish civilians.

Reuters does get one thing right: Fatah's raison d'etre and bloody methods are indeed "mainstream" in Palestinian society.

hat tip: EoZ

"Nearly 500,000 Jews live on land captured by Israel in the 1967 war"

The above quote is from a Reuters story written by Mohammed Assadi and Ori Lewis.  We cite it because it is typical of the many propaganda mantras Reuters correspondents embed in their stories to portray Jews in a negative light and advance Palestinian Arab interests.

While it is true that approximately 500,000 Jews live in the eastern portion of Jerusalem and the last unallocated portion of the Palestine Mandate, in its relentless effort to persuade its audience that Jews are interlopers and colonizers of Arab land, Reuters employs the language of conquest to "explain" how the Jews got to living there.  Per Reuters' vision you see, there happened to have been a war in 1967 fought by Israel -- against whom and for what reasons, we are never told -- that resulted in Israel capturing land purportedly the property of the Palestinian Arabs and the subsequent illegal influx of 500,000 Jewish settlers to the area.

In none of its stories on the matter, does Reuters inform its readers that Jews had settled the same area over three-thousand five hundred years ago; that Jews built Jerusalem as a sovereign and sacred city; that the area was repeatedly invaded and conquered by other tribes and nation-states with many millions of Jews killed and ethnically cleansed; that despite this long and bloody history, Jews maintained a continuous presence on the land for over three millennium culminating in their constituting a majority of the Jerusalem population by 1840; that both the League of Nations and the United Nations granted Jews the right, under international law, to settle anywhere in Palestine west of the Jordan River; that local Arab mobs ruthlessly sought to prevent Jews from exercising this right by perpetrating regular pogroms and massacres against the Jewish community; that the Arab states invaded the nascent state of Israel in 1947 in a declared war of annihilation successfully conquering the remaining portion of Palestine and the Old City of Jerusalem from whence the Jews were once again ethnically cleansed; and that the Jews only once again, recovered their rights and land in the area following that "1967 war" instigated by the Arabs in yet another attempt to eradicate the state of Israel.

Provided with the historical facts rather than peremptory propaganda, Reuters readers would be much better served and able to understand and assess the Middle East conflict in an informed and non-coercive manner.

Reuters goes to Hollywood

On the occasion of the reopening of a cinema in Jenin, Reuters creates a few special effects for its audience.  Characterizing it as a former "outlaw city", correspondent Mohammed Assadi portrays Jenin along the lines of a locale one might visit in a spaghetti western:

The big screen is back in Jenin after a 23-year intermission, marking a fresh start for the West Bank city that was a bastion of armed militias at the peak of the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation...

Competing militia groups swaggered around Jenin in their bandoliers during the hardcore days of the second intifada (uprising) that began in 2000. The late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat used to call it "Jeningrad".

As Assadi's Hollywood production is rated PG (Palestinian Gratuity), the correspondent edits out any depiction of the bloody atrocities perpetrated by Palestinians who were based in the city alternatively known as the "Martyr's Capital" -- and the 124 Israeli victims of those atrocities:

[Wikipedia] By Israel's count, at least 28 suicide bombers were dispatched from the Jenin camp from 2000–2003 during the Second Intifada.^[11] One of the key planners for several of the attacks was Mahmoud Tawalbe, who worked in a record store while also heading the local PIJ cell.^[3] Israeli army weekly Bamahane attributes at least 31 militant attacks, totaling 124 victims, to Jenin during the same period, more than any other city in the West Bank.^[13]
Prior to the undertaking of the Israeli operation the IDF Spokesman attributed 23 suicide bombings and 6 attempted bombings to Palestinians from Jenin.^[14] Major attacks and suicide bombings linked by Israel to Palestinian militant groups in Jenin included the Matza restaurant suicide bombing.^[4] The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs attributed attacks to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Fatah.^[4]

Assadi does however, direct an appeal to pity on behalf of the Palestinians by focusing his camera lens on the subject of the movie that evening:

Mothballed in the grim atmosphere of 1987, Jenin Cinema was finally reopened on Thursday evening with a screening of "Heart of Jenin", a wrenching documentary that spurred its renovation.

The film tells the story of Ismail Khatib, whose son was shot dead in 2005 by Israeli troops who mistook his toy gun for a real one. The traumatised father, in an unusual gesture of forgiveness, donated the boy's organs to Israeli patients.

A tragedy yes, but one that perhaps could have been avoided if the Palestinians had not declared war on Israel in 2000 and media organizations like Reuters had not fueled that war with sympathetic and lighthearted portrayals of cold-blooded killers.

Reuters, the image-makers

Reuters is currently engaged in a heavy image-making effort to recast Hamas as something other than the jihadi terror group it clearly is.  There was another attack on a UNRWA summer camp in Gaza today by "masked Palestinian gunmen" and although reportedly, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, Reuters recycles its broken boilerplate from previous stories to suggest the perpetrators were other than Hamasniks:

Fundamentalist Muslims, or Salafis -- whose agenda of global or holy war against the West conflicts with Hamas's nationalist goals -- have stepped up attacks in the Gaza Strip over the past several months, targeting Hamas security men and offices.

As we've noted in previous posts, Hamas "nationalist goals" are very much aligned with those of Islamic jihadists around the world.  An offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas makes its goals clear in Article Nine of its Charter:

Motives and Objectives
Hamas finds itself at a period of time when Islam has waned away from the reality of life. For this reason, the checks and balances have been upset, concepts have become confused, and values have been transformed; evil has prevailed, oppression and obscurity have reigned; cowards have turned tigers, homelands have been usurped, people have been uprooted and are wandering all over the globe. The state of truth has disappeared and was replaced by the state of evil. Nothing has remained in its right place, for when Islam is removed from the scene, everything changes. These are the motives. As to the objectives: discarding the evil, crushing it and defeating it, so that truth may prevail, homelands revert [to their owners], calls for prayer be heard from their mosques, announcing the reinstitution of the Muslim state. Thus, people and things will revert to their true place.

Thus, Hamas seeks not only the reconquest of the entire Mandate of Palestine (Israel), but also the return of all territories to their previous Muslim "owners", e.g., Moorish Spain.  Further, Hamas wants to see the reconstitution of a global Islamic state -- the Caliphate -- under Sharia law, precisely the mission of Osama bin Laden and the global jihadist movement:

Bin Laden himself spoke of ensuring that "the pious caliphate will start from Afghanistan." His chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, also dreamed of re-establishing the caliphate, for then, he wrote, "history would make a new turn, God willing, in the opposite direction against the empire of the United States and the world's Jewish government." Another Al-Qaeda leader, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, publishes a magazine that has declared "Due to the blessings of jihad, America's countdown has begun. It will declare defeat soon," to be followed by the creation of a caliphate.

It is simply hogwash to assert, as Reuters does, that Hamas has limited nationalist goals at odds with global holy war against the West.

Reuters continues to run interference for Mahmoud Abbas

Reuters continues to peddle the fiction that PA President Mahmoud Abbas:

... broke off negotiations with the previous Israeli government in December 2008 in protest at its offensive in the Gaza Strip

As we've noted several times, Reuters' own stories from the period reveal that the Palestinian Authority had effectively terminated negotiations with Israel in the Fall of 2008 (prior to the Gaza war) following 1) Abbas' refusal of Ehud Olmert's offer of 97% of Judea and Samaria (also, the "West Bank"), 2) an unrequited demand by the PA that the Quartet guarantee that negotiations result in a Palestinian state along the 1949 Armistice Lines including the eastern part of Jerusalem, and 3) imminent elections in Israel.

Far from "protesting" Israel's defensive operation in Gaza, Abbas almost certainly supported and cooperated with Israel in the effort to rid the region of Hamas.

Would you buy a used car from these people?

After six months and nearly 200 posts critiquing Reuters coverage of the Middle East conflict, it's clear to us and many of our readers that the media mammoth takes a distinctly anti-Israel line in its reporting in violation of the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles, the Reuters Handbook of Journalism, and professional standards and practices for an independent news agency.  One of Reuters most common and egregious techniques to portray Israel in a negative light is the use of biased and questionable information sources for its stories.

In a story appearing today on PA President Mahmoud Abbas' delay in agreeing to resume negotiations with Israel while he waits "for the United States to explain how it might help restart peace talks", Reuters suggests that Israel is in violation of its commitment made in November to freeze new settlement building:

The Israeli lobby group Peace Now, which campaigns against the expansion of settlements and for a two-state solution to the conflict, said on Monday it had evidence building has continued -- sometimes under cover of darkness -- since Netanyahu's declared freeze in 34 settlements, a quarter of the total.

We've not seen Peace Now's "evidence"; however, Reuters may wish to consider whether relying on the representations of a group that routinely errs, lies, and has been convicted of libel due to its false claims does much to enhance Reuters reputation.

First draft

Over the weekend, Reuters looked at the possibility of a third Palestinian Intifada and penned this analysis:

JERUSALEM -- Palestinians have refused to restart peace talks with Israel even as they riot and stone Jewish worshippers at Jerusalem’s holy sites, but for all the mounting fear in Israel, talk of a Third Intifada seems premature to most Palestinians.

A week after Israeli forces clashed with hundreds of Arabs who were incited to violence by Muslim leaders who commanded them to “defend the al-Aqsa mosque”, there were riots again on Sunday and tension will remain high this week during holidays that draw Jewish worshippers to the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site.

After the violence the previous Sunday, Israeli leaders accused Palestinians of trying to sink U.S. President Barack Obama's efforts to relaunch peace talks and compared the riots to those that followed a visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000 by soon-to-be Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Those riots quickly evolved into the Intifada, a violent uprising which Yassir Arafat and senior Palestinian officials had been planning for months.

However, analysts and officials in the disputed territories and Jerusalem cited a number of factors likely to curb renewed violence in the near term, despite Palestinian hostility directed at new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jews who have the gall choose to live in the disputed territories.

"There is a state of disengagement between the people and its political leadership so the Palestinians are not ready to commit suicide as they did before," said Zakaria al-Qaq of al-Quds University.

"At the same time there is a build-up of anger that is waiting for the spark. No one can predict when the spark will come. But it could take years yet." Factors mentioned include disillusionment that due to the Israeli security barrier, Palestinians have been unable to improve on the over 7,000 Israelis murdered and maimed during the years of the uprising while Israel’s need to protect its citizens has meant a reduction in access to the Israeli job market for Palestinians.

The schism that has seen Islamist Hamas seize the Gaza Strip and being suppressed in the disputed territories by new, Western-trained security forces loyal to Holocaust-denier and Munich massacre mastermind Mahmoud Abbas is also likely to limit organized violence from the disputed territories against Israel. Shucks!

While Netanyahu has limited options in pressing Abbas for a peace deal, few see him turning to an acceptance of the kind of suicide bombings and other attacks seen under Abbas’ late predecessor Yasser Arafat.

Well-planned riots among mobs incited by Muslim leaders may be more likely. Mohammad Dahlan, a senior figure in the “young terrorists” block of Abbas's Fatah party and former terrorism facilitator, said he was wary that a new uprising would only harm Palestinians: "If Netanyahu believes he wants to maintain a Jewish sovereign in the Middle East, to allow Jews to live in the disputed territories and then expect peace from us, then this will not be acceptable," Dahlan told Reuters.

"We may resort to popular action or civil action. We have an open mind on all legitimate methods permitted by international law, Human Rights Watch, and Richard Goldstone. But we won't push the Palestinian people into a disaster."

Political analyst George Giacaman of Birzeit University in the disputed territories said: "If there is no meaningful political track on a specific timeline, a political vacuum will be created. "This will be filled by deadly violence of some kind."

Israeli police hauled away terrorists-in-training, some only in their early teens, after they threw stones and bottles at Jewish worshippers in Jerusalem's Old City on Sunday. But the new generation, successors to the young men who spearheaded the Molotov cocktail-throwing of the First Intifada of the late 1980s and to the gunmen of nearly a decade ago, seem divided.

"Israel is fueling tensions that will explode later," said Raed Abed, a 17-year-old student in the second holiest city for Jews, Hebron. "No one can predict what will happen."

But his schoolmate Husam Sameh forecast no explosions for now: "Enough of fighting. We need to live in peace for awhile. We cannot fight Israel now. We are so weak," he said. "Still, the question is whether the Palestinians are ready for peace."

Analyst Hani Masri said well-planned and incited demonstrations that turn into riots like those this past week in Jerusalem may become more common. But he said: "The wariness among the people about deploying deadly force is greater than before, following the huge losses they suffered in the Second Intifada. "Israel has responded to the Second Intifada by building the security barrier and to avoid making suicidal concessions. Palestinians should not give them this excuse again."

Samir Awad, a political science professor at Birzeit University, said: "It would be a mistake to expect a popular wave of protest. I cannot see it happening. "But if Jews insist on living in homes they own in Jerusalem, we may expect clashes arising from religious and patriotic emotion."
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Yup, that was just parody -- albeit nearer to reality than Reuters actual "analysis" here.