Bowing to the Muslims. Defecating on the Jews.

As a company, Reuters is deeply hostile to Jewish nationalism and Jewish claims to Jerusalem.  The agency hires, trains and retains reporters, writers, editors, and managing editors who uphold an agenda intended to undermine Jewish territorial claims, while advocating for Arab Muslim claims, and employing sophisticated propaganda techniques in their stories to advance this agenda with audiences. 

Proof of this can be seen in academic studies which have analyzed Reuters coverage of the Middle East conflict.

Take for example, this Reuters story by Noah Browning about prominent Arabs visiting the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.

Browning writes about the tension between Arabs from Jordan and other countries who wish to visit the mosque, and those Arabs who argue that doing so implicitly recognizes Israel's claim to sovereignty over the city.

In his lede, Browning writes:

Israel controls access to Islam's 3rd holiest site

While Browning trumpets a claim made by Muslims that the al-Aqsa mosque represents the "3rd holiest site" for their faith, he fails utterly to note that the site is the holiest to Jews and referred to as the Temple Mount.  Indeed, it is not until the 9th paragraph of his story that Browning tells readers, in typically propagandistic fashion:

Jews revere the al Aqsa compound as site of their Biblical Temple, destroyed by Roman troops in the 1st century.  

Actually of course, Jews do not revere the "al-Aqsa compound" -- any more than Muslims revere the Cathedral of Córdoba in Spain, which was converted from a mosque to a Catholic church in the thirteenth century following the Reconquista.  Religious Muslims refer to the latter by its original Islamic name, the Aljama Mosque, just as Jews refer to the al-Aqsa mosque compound as The Temple Mount.

(Of note, Muslims are officially banned from praying in the Cathedral of Córdoba by both the Roman Catholic Church of Spain and the Vatican.  Security guards enforce the ban.  Apparently, "Israeli occupation forces" in Jerusalem are extraordinarily more tolerant of Islamic worship than are "Spanish occupation forces" in al-Andalus).

Browning, who is apparently ignorant of both history and current events and completely unable to do any independent fact-checking as a reporter, then writes: 

Israel says that when Jordan controlled East Jerusalem, Jews were prevented from attending their holy places. Now, it says, followers of all the three monotheistic religions -- Judaism, Christianity and Islam -- are free to worship in Jerusalem.
Any restrictions placed on access by Palestinians to al-Aqsa are the result of security concerns, Israel says.

It's a well-documented fact that Jews were prevented from attending their holy places, or for that matter, setting foot in Jerusalem when Jordan controlled the city.  And that synagogues were burned to the ground.  And that landmark Jewish cemeteries were routinely desecrated by Arab Muslims.  Browning deliberately structures his report to relegate the 19-year ban on Jewish worship to a mere claim by Israel and predictably mentions none of the other historical detail, essential to an understanding of why Israel seeks to control the eastern portion of Jerusalem.

The Reuters correspondent then parrots the most risible Arab claims about Israeli visitors to the Temple Mount:

Jerusalem's Muslim community says the [Israeli] visits have coincided with a period of tension, as radical Jewish settlers grow increasingly assertive at the site. "Almost every day a group of settlers comes through the Mughrabi gate," said Faisal Mohammed, one of the sanctuary's guards, referring to an entrance under Israeli control through which non-Muslim tourists can access the leafy compound.
"These aren't just ordinary trips, they're invasions."

In reality, hundreds of Israeli Jews of all religious and political stripes, as well as tourists from around the world, visit the site every week.  No political demonstrations of any kind are permitted and Israeli security personnel quickly arrest or usher away any Jew seen as even remotely engaging in prayer.

But for the Palestinian Arabs, and apparently for Reuters' Browning:

"Visits which affirm the Arab and Islamic character of al-Aqsa, even before its liberation, are welcome. My own proclamations affirm this," the Grand Mufti told Reuters. "Those that are aggressive and meant to attack our shrine are not, and Israel must forbid them."

Attacking the shrine, uh-huh.

Macdonald, the Propagandist

Reuters Bureau Chief (Propagandist) Alastair Macdonald pens a piece on violence in Jerusalem yesterday which serves as a textbook study in media bias and distortion.  Following a brief lede describing the confrontation, Macdonald immediately offers space to broadcast Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' agitprop:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of trying to wreck peace efforts and of risking a "war of religion" across the Middle East by police "provocation" at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest spot in Islam, which stands on ground also revered by Jews as the site of their biblical Temple.

The Palestinians of course, regularly hurl this type of hyperbolic rhetoric and Reuters dutifully disseminates it as if it were news.  No balance is provided with say, a quote from an Israeli official noting that the incident was initiated by Palestinians stoning Jewish worshipers at the adjacent Western Wall, a Jewish shrine.

Indeed, Macdonald has a long sorry history of dismissing Arab violence and showing deference for Muslim shrines ("the third holiest spot in Islam") while downplaying the significance of Jewish holy sites.  The ground under and around the mosque is called the Temple Mount and is not simply "revered" by Jews, it is Judaism's holiest shrine.

Macdonald then steers into a non sequitur:

Separately, six Palestinian family members were killed in a car collision with an Israeli military vehicle in the occupied West Bank on Friday, Palestinian police and the Israeli army said, in an incident likely to anger Palestinians [italics, ours].

The Palestinians are so predictable and have Macdonald so well-heeled that he no longer waits to report the news but conveniently divines for us, hostile Palestinian reaction to a traffic accident.

Returning to the headlined story, it is not until the 7th paragraph down that Macdonald finally gets around to reporting that a Reuters journalist at the scene of the confrontation in Jerusalem witnessed the incipient violence:

A Reuters journalist at the al-Aqsa mosque compound, which also houses the landmark, gilded Dome of the Rock and is known to Jews as the Temple Mount, said violence began after weekly prayers when youths holding a protest against Israel threw rocks at police who had entered the walled area.

Yet even this is a distortion, for Macdonald fails to disclose that police entered the area precisely because, as noted, Arab "youths" began throwing rocks at Jews worshiping at the Western Wall below.  The ensuing violence between Arabs and Israeli police -- which Reuters admits was initiated by the Arabs -- was secondary to the original Arab assault on Jewish congregants.

Macdonald then runs interference for Abbas:

In an unusually strongly worded statement, Abbas, who is mindful of local criticism of his decision to restart negotiations, said, "The occupation forces are crossing all red lines in an attempt to block the resumption of peace talks."

"Unusually strongly worded statement"?  As noted above, this type of inflammatory rhetoric is standard fare for Abbas.

Macdonald finishes with an ahistorical citation:

Palestinian negotiators say they want to use the four months to narrow gaps on core issues in the six-decade-old conflict, which has eluded resolution despite 20 years of talks.

Although Macdonald wishes readers to view the conflict as originating with creation of the state of Israel in 1948 (the Palestinian "nakba" narrative), he well understands that the roots of the fighting between Arab Muslims and Jews extend back centuries.  Even in the modern era, those Arabs living in the Palestine Mandate formally rejected a two-state solution and Jewish sovereignty as early as 1937.

Palestinians stone tourists at Temple Mount; Reuters blames Israel

Christian and Jewish visitors touring the Temple Mount in Jerusalem today were stoned by Palestinians.  While Reuters cites an Israeli police spokesman for clinical details of the confrontation, Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Tom Perry give full voice to the Palestinians to disseminate their agitprop:

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat accused Israel of exacerbating tensions on purpose to undermine U.S. efforts to broker a resumption of peace talks.  "The message is very, very clear: they are trying to sabotage all efforts to revive peace," he told Reuters... Mohammad Hussein, the mufti of Jerusalem, said in a statement Israeli authorities would bear responsibility for the consequences of what he described as the "storming" of the site by "extremist groups".

Got that?  Palestinians stone non-Muslim visitors to Judaism's holiest shrine and Palestinian officials, aided and abetted by Reuters, vilify Israel.

Fisher-Ilan and Perry then employ the logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore on account of this) to peddle a canard that has long since been debunked:

The second Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, erupted in 2000 after a visit by then-Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon to the compound, known by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif.

As we noted here, even the Palestinians admit that the bloody war they waged against Israeli civilians (also known as the "intifada") was planned months ahead of Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount.

For Reuters however, as the rooster triggers the sunrise, Israel is always to blame for Arab violence.

Dan Williams sanitizes Islamic fanatic

In a story on the jailing of Islamic Movement leader Sheik Raed Salah following Arab riots at the Temple Mount/al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, Reuters' Dan Williams characterizes Salah as "an outspoken cleric".  In defense of Salah, Williams gives full voice to Salah's lawyer:

"The Israeli state, which is occupying al-Aqsa, is trying to distract from its real crime and to satisfy the mood in Israel by convicting the honourable Sheikh Salah".

Readers are not similarly treated however, to examples of the outspoken cleric's oratory:

"They [the Jews] want to build their temple at a time when our blood is on their clothes, on their doorsteps, in their food and in their drinks. Our blood has passed from one general terrorist to another general terrorist... We are not those who ate bread dipped in children's blood."

That from a Salah sermon in 2007 at which time he also urged Palestinians to start a third intifada in order to "save al-Aksa Mosque, free Jerusalem and end the occupation".

Salah was subsequently indicted for incitement to violence and racism.

Lies, damned lies, and Reuters reporting

In a story appearing today on the latest violent clashes between Palestinians and Israelis at the Temple Mount/al-Aqsa mosque compound, Reuters reverts to its traditional bias and selective reporting by omitting any mention of the incipient cause of the violence like Arab Muslim clerics inciting Muslims to "defend Jerusalem against Jewish conquest" (Haaretz) or Muslim youth "gathering rocks to throw and pouring oil onto the ground to hinder the access of security forces and the visitors" (Jerusalem Post).

Reuters correspondents and their editors do however, repeat one of their favorite canards about the cause of the last intifada:

A visit to the mosque compound nine years ago by Israeli right-wing leader Ariel Sharon was credited with sparking an Intifada, or uprising, by Palestinians. Five years of violence killed several thousand people and wrecked efforts toward peace.

Note the use of the weasel words "was credited" by Reuters' writers to evade responsibility for promulgating the slander themselves. As we have previously noted, Palestinian officials have acknowledged that the intifada was planned months in advance and not due to Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount. Here is what PA Communications Minister Imad Al-Faluji said in 2001:

"The Al-Aqsa Intifada emphasizes these principles and axioms. Whoever thinks that the Intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, is wrong, even if this visit was the straw that broke the back of the Palestinian people. This Intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David negotiations, where he turned the table upside down on President Clinton. [Arafat] remained steadfast and challenged [Clinton]. He rejected the American terms and he did it in the heart of the US."

Apparently, even a public Palestinian admission of culpability is not enough to shake Reuters off its anti-Israel agenda.

Reuters then goes on to deploy another of its favorite fallacies:

Palestinian officials have complained that Israel is tightening its grip on the Old City and Arab East Jerusalem.

As demonstrated, "Arab East Jerusalem" is both a fiction and racially-loaded term which rewards the Arab Legion for their efforts to kill and ethnically cleanse all Jews from the eastern portion of Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967. The Arabs of course, refer to the area this way because it asserts their territorial claims.

Reuters of course, accommodates them.

Reuters bakes a cake with a recipe for trouble

Reuters' Jeffrey Heller serves up a report today on a statement by Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu at the latter's weekly cabinet meeting. Netanyahu referred to recent violence at the Temple Mount/al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem and issued an appeal to Israeli Arabs to not be provoked by lies that Israel intends to dig under the Temple Mount.

In his story, Heller refers to the violence but exclusively within the context of Palestinians confronting Israeli police. There is for example, this line:

"Tensions in Jerusalem have risen over the past few weeks after Israeli police and Palestinian protesters clashed near al-Aqsa in the walled Old City on the eve of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur late last month."

And this line:

"In last month's violence, small groups of Palestinian stone-throwers confronted Israeli forces, and Israel banned the Israeli Arab head of a fundamentalist Islamist movement from Jerusalem, saying he was inciting violence."

Nowhere in his story, does Heller indicate that immediately antecedent to clashes with police, these same Palestinian Arabs had taken to stoning Jews who had come to tour the Temple Mount. One might think this tidbit essential to fully assimilating the cause and implications of the clashes but for Heller and Reuters, it is discardable scrap.

Heller does add to the mix, the spicy canard that the last Palestinian intifada (violent uprising) resulted from Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in 2000. A canard we debunked here.

And of course, it wouldn't be a "Heller" cake if for good measure, the correspondent neglected to toss in the stale and rancid filler "Arab East Jerusalem" which we have discussed here and here.

The dream-weavers at Reuters

In an effort to affix blame to Israel for the years of horrendous bloodshed otherwise known as the Palestinian "intifada", Reuters' writers frequently assert that Palestinian violence occurred as a spontaneous response to Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount/al-Aqsa mosque compound in September of 2000. Douglas Hamilton today writes:

"He [Mohammad Dahlan] compared the week's events to violence that erupted after Israeli right-winger Ariel Sharon visited the site in 2000, triggering a Palestinian uprising against Israel."

Quite apart from the puerile reference to Sharon as a "right-winger", Hamilton is again misrepresenting the historical facts behind the cause of the intifada. Here's what PA Communications Minister, Imad Al-Faluji said in March 2001:

"The Al-Aqsa Intifada emphasizes these principles and axioms. Whoever thinks that the Intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, is wrong, even if this visit was the straw that broke the back of the Palestinian people. This Intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David negotiations, where he turned the table upside down on President Clinton. [Arafat] remained steadfast and challenged [Clinton]. He rejected the American terms and he did it in the heart of the US."

A direct quote from an authoritative Palestinian source. Yet Reuters' writers persist in spinning a yarn at every opportunity. Irresponsible, unprofessional, and unethical journalism pure and simple. A clear violation of Reuters Trust Principles as well as the tenets of its Handbook of Journalism. Where is Dean Wright? Where is David Schlesinger?

For shame.

A tale of two tales

Compare this line:

"Israeli police shut a compound housing Islam's third holiest site..."

with this line:

"Israeli security forces had beefed up security as Jews attended prayers for the seven-day Feast of Tabernacles holiday at the Western Wall, a remnant of an ancient temple seen as Judaism's holiest site..."

and you get an idea of the lengths to which Reuters' writers will go to to avoid being even-handed in their reporting on the Middle East conflict.

Both lines are drawn from a story today on new violence at the Temple Mount/al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem. Note how Reuters' writers simply, declaratively, characterize the mosque as "Islam's third holiest site" while tying themselves into knots to avoid the same straightforward reporting when referring to the Temple Mount.

Judaism's holiest site is the Temple Mount itself -- not the Western Wall -- where Jewish worshipers must now be escorted by police to protect them from Arab stonethrowers, and "an ancient temple" (in Reuters' parlance) actually refers to the Jewish Temple built on the Mount and destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.

As we pointed out in our previous post on the matter, these distinctions are not simply semantic; they are at the core of the conflict between the Jews of Israel and the Muslim Arabs. And Reuters writers and editors well understand this. Yet, they repeatedly revert to form by employing language clearly intended to assign ownership ("Arab East Jerusalem") and unquestioned religious significance ("Islam's third holiest site") where Arab/Muslim claims are involved while undermining the claims of Jews to ownership ("annexed as part of its capital in a move not recognized internationally") and religious significance ("seen as Judaism's holiest site").

Reuters in need of Jerusalem points-of-interest guide, remedial grammar lesson

In a follow-up story to its report yesterday on violence at the Temple Mount/al-Aqsa mosque compound, Reuters' Alastair Macdonald quotes the Palestinian Authority and a variety of other Palestinian sources warning of a third intifada (violent uprising) and accusing Israel of using the incident as a pretext to foil peace talks.

In describing the location where the violence occurred, Macdonald adopts an exclusively Arab Muslim narrative and refers only to the Muslim sites at the compound:

"Muslim holy site"
"al-Aqsa mosque"
"Islam's third holiest site"
"Dome of the Rock"
"the mosque compound"
"al-Aqsa mosque" (again)

Macdonald also employs the factually incorrect, historically misleading, and racially-loaded phrase "Arab East Jerusalem" which we have discussed at length here.

Nowhere in his story does Macdonald refer to the religious site with the term denoted by Jews, "Temple Mount", nor does he mention that it is the Jewish people's holiest shrine. This is not a trivial point nor is it an issue peripheral to the story as Macdonald, Reuters' Bureau Chief for Israel, in all probability understands. For while Israel has granted administrative management of the site to the Waqf (Islamic Religious Authority), Israel maintains sovereignty and the governing parties have agreed to accommodate Jewish visitors who wish to ascend the Mount.

Thus, the stone-throwing and rioting by Muslims yesterday represents both a violent attack on innocent Jewish congregants (and police) as well as a violation of agreed principles. One would never know this reading Macdonald's heavily biased piece.

In describing yesterday's violence, Macdonald reports:

"In Sunday's incident police fired tear gas and stun grenades at hundreds of Palestinians who had gathered in anticipation of such a move by groups associated with Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Stones, chairs and other objects hit police."

Macdonald may wish to consider enrolling in a remedial grammar class as his paragraph implies that Israeli police initially assaulted Palestinians followed by inanimate objects acting violently, and apparently unaided, against police. What Macdonald meant to write of course, is that Palestinian Arabs hit police with stones, chairs and other objects; police responded by firing tear gas and stun grenades.

Reuters correspondents do appear to have difficulty holding Palestinians responsible for their actions, while chairs seem to take on a life of their own.

Reuters referees clash at Temple Mount... Final score: Palestinians 234, Israel 15

Those figures represent the number of copy words Reuters apportions to the Palestinian and Israeli sides respectively, to present each perspective on the violent clash today in Jerusalem.

After devoting two paragraphs to unsubstantiated claims and implicit threats of violence by Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat, Reuters then editorializes:

"Sharon's presence at al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, triggered the second Palestinian uprising and dealt the biggest setback to peace efforts in years."

Although frequently parroted by Reuters, this notion has been demonstrated false; Yasir Arafat had been planning the intifada for months prior to Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount.

In the 5th paragraph of the story, Reuters' writers finally get around to admitting:

"The reasons behind Sunday's clash were disputed,"

and then proceed to quote the views of more Palestinian sources!

It's not until the 11th paragraph that Reuters graciously grants Israel its 15 words:

"Israeli police said it began when religious Palestinians angered by immodestly dressed tourists grew violent,"

which is then summarily dismissed by Palestinian sources in the next paragraph.

We then read:

"There was no further comment from Israeli authorities, who were observing the Yom Kippur silence."

Truly a dream come true for Reuters' correspondents. If they hurry, they might be able to run several more one-sided hit pieces before the end of the Jewish holiday.