Reuters certain where Islam was born; isn't telling about Judaism

In a story published last week noting a report by Human Rights Watch which took to task the Gulf Arab states for discrimination against women, particularly in sports, Reuters correspondent Mary Slosson writes:

The Human Rights Watch report outlined systematic discrimination against women in sports in Saudi Arabia, a conservative Islamic kingdom where gender segregation is strictly enforced. Women in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, are banned from driving and need permission of a close male relative to work or travel.

Reuters consistently whitewashes institutionalized misogyny and other medieval practices in Saudi Arabia by characterizing the kingdom, euphemistically, as "conservative".

But what we find most interesting, is the news agency's implied apologism for Saudi oppression with reference to Arabia as "the birthplace of Islam".

We have never seen, and a search on the Reuters websites does not produce, a single instance of Reuters reporting on the birthplace of Judaism: Judea, (the "West Bank"), including Jerusalem.

Indeed, a Reuters story published in 2007 about the Saudis condemning Israel for conducting an archeological excavation in Jerusalem, a story that also prominently cites Arabia as the "birthplace of Islam", fails to even mention that Jerusalem was founded by the Jews as their sovereign capital over three millennia ago.

The reason for this double-standard is obvious: Reuters is committed to erasing, as are the Arabs, the three-thousand-year-old Jewish connection to the city of Jerusalem and surrounding territory of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank").  This, to justify and facilitate hoped-for Arab sovereign control over the area.

A graphic illustration of Reuters long-standing propaganda campaign against the Jews.

Reuters censors, rationalizes Jordanian treatment of Palestinians

The Kingdom of Jordan was birthed from 78 percent of the original Palestine Mandate.  Well over half of its population is Palestinian.  Despite this, the country is ruled by a Hashemite Arab King and over 300,000 Palestinians are forced to live in squalid refugee camps.  Moreover, the Jordanian government has, in recent years, stripped about 3,000 Palestinians of their Jordanian residency.

One would never know any of this reading Reuters, whose correspondents carefully conceal the historical, demographic, and political realities of the situation in an effort to absolve the Jordanian King and his ruling class from any responsibility to provide equal or national rights for their Palestinian population.  These are the same correspondents who with shrillness and hypocrisy call for Israel, which has one-third the land mass, to surrender territory to a hostile Palestinian state.

Reuters correspondents Ali Sawafta and Douglas Hamilton continue in that vein today with a story about Jordanian King Abdullah meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah:

Abdullah, a critic of the deadlock in the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, flew the short distance from his capital, Amman, by helicopter and went directly into talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
It was his first visit to the West Bank since 2000, when Abbas's predecessor the late Yasser Arafat was the undisputed Palestinian leader. Abbas, by contrast, faces a challenge from the Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.
"The visit comes in the context of Jordan's support for the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people to achieve Palestinian national rights and an independent state," a Jordanian palace official told Reuters Sunday.

And for its maltreatment of the Palestinians, which is never mentioned in the story, here is Reuters generous pretext on behalf of the Jordanian monarchy: 

The Jordanian government fears further instability will lead to a new influx of Palestinians which could stretch already scant resources and raise tension with Jordanians.

Reuters: Arab apologists to the end.

Jerusalem is quiet

Yesterday, we noted how Reuters correspondents regularly coddle and serve as apologists for the Palestinians.  This is particularly the case with those Jerusalem Bureau staffers, whom we follow most closely.

Although the majority of Reuters correspondents writing on international affairs demonstrate suspiciously similar political stripes (extreme left-wing) and appear able to tightly coordinate their stories, occasionally we see interesting divergences.

For example, on Tuesday Tom Perry in Jerusalem was spinning madly on behalf of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, blaming U.S. President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for the failure of the peace process.  On Wednesday however, Perry's colleague in London, Matt Falloon, was quoting President Obama:

During the joint news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, Obama added: "For the Palestinians to take the United Nations route rather than the path of sitting down and talking with the Israelis is a mistake."

Normally, Reuters Jerusalem correspondents leap at any opportunity to cite Obama with his insights into the root causes of the Middle East conflict and how best to resolve that intractable struggle.  But with Obama putting the onus squarely on the Palestinians in their refusal to negotiate with the Israelis (a repudiation of the Reuters Jerusalem Bureau pro-Palestinian campaign), Perry and his office mates have been strangely silent.  There has been no quote, no citation, no reference whatsoever to Obama's critical comments on Wednesday.

Must be jet lag.

Reuters infantilizes the Palestinians

Much of the blame for the protracted nature of the Israel-Palestinian conflict can be laid at the door of Western journalists and their irrational desire to infantilize the Palestinian Arabs.  By treating the Palestinians like small children who can never be held accountable for their own choices and must be constantly coddled, the media provide sanction and succor for the most appalling behavior.

Take for example, Reuters correspondent Tom Perry who, for the better part of a year, has been serving as apologist for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as the latter refuses to sit down with the Israelis to negotiate peace.

Perry continues along that vein with an Op-Ed (masquerading as "Analysis") which once again excuses and provides political cover for Abbas' rejectionism:

Observers in Ramallah say addresses by President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have left the peace process in a deeper hole than before, and see no alternative to going it alone for the Palestinian leadership.
For President Mahmoud Abbas to back out now, with prospects of a resumption of talks on terms he could accept faint at best, would amount to political suicide by a leader seeking to leave some kind of legacy.
Abbas, 76, has built his career on the idea of negotiating the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel on land it occupies -- the "two-state" solution -- backed by world powers but now seemingly further than ever from becoming reality.
With the peace process at a standstill, his plan to seek U.N. recognition of Palestine in September has been criticized in Washington by both Obama and Netanyahu over the last week.
Palestinian observers were more skeptical than before about the chance of any resumption of peace talks.
"The Palestinians must go to the United Nations," said Samir Awad, a lecturer at Birzeit University in the West Bank. "I am sure Abbas will face great pressure, but I hope he will not yield, and will go ahead despite Obama and Netanyahu."
Aiming to exploit support for the Palestinians among many U.N. member states, Abbas has said he will go to the General Assembly if there is no breakthrough in the peace process.

Of course there will be no breakthrough in the peace process because there is no peace process.  And there is no peace process because, as we've noted, Abbas refuses to engage in one.  Though he has had a standing offer from the Israeli government to negotiate a final settlement of the conflict for nearly two years, Abbas is clearly more keen to deploy political pressure (going to the U.N. General Assembly) and the implicit threat of terrorism (reconciling with Hamas) to coerce Israel to surrender land and sovereign rights to its capital, and acquiesce to an influx of millions of Palestinian "refugees".  This is what Perry really means when he writes:

For President Mahmoud Abbas to back out now, with prospects of a resumption of talks on terms he could accept faint at best, would amount to political suicide by a leader seeking to leave some kind of legacy.

Perry dare not tell readers the truth about Abbas' sought-after "legacy" of course, so he justifies Abbas' intransigence by blaming President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu and simply ignores the fact that peace talks could resume any time the Palestinians agree to resume them.

That's called holding the adults accountable for the child's tomfoolery.   

Every trick in the book

In a story on Israel's announcement of homes to be built in the community of Pisgat Zeev, Reuters correspondent Ori Lewis incorporates a variety of propaganda devices, deceptions, apologetics, racism -- oh, and a libelous information source -- to damn Israel in the minds of readers:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel on Wednesday revealed plans to build new homes on West Bank land it has annexed as part of its Jerusalem boundaries, a move likely to further hamper any resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians.

Lewis repeatedly violates the Reuters Handbook of Journalism in this piece by referring to the last unallocated portion of the original Palestine Mandate with its Arab-designated term, "West Bank" while failing to balance this with Israel's appellation for the disputed territory, Judea and Samaria.  He then goes a step further by employing the ahistorical and racist term, "Arab East Jerusalem", to describe the eastern portion of the city of Jerusalem abutting the community of Pisgat Zeev.

Lewis then scoffs:

Pisgat Zeev, founded 25 years ago, is one of its largest Jewish "neighbourhoods," as Israel refers to it, with some 50,000 inhabitants.

because Israel doesn't accept Reuters' utterly bizarre view that a community of 50,000 people living on land adjoining Jerusalem, an area the archeological record shows was a producer of wine and oil for use in the Jewish Temple in the city, is anything other than, (gracious!), a neighborhood.

Lewis continues:

Israel has insisted that building in the urban areas it annexed to Jerusalem following their capture in a 1967 Middle East war were never included in the freeze.

Why cast doubt with use of the heavily biased term "insisted"?  It's a matter of record that Israel's unilateral concession to halt residential building in Judea and Samaria was never going to include communities like Pisgat Zeev.

Of course, Reuters is always happy to cite the ostensibly neutral but in reality, wickedly libelous "rights group" Peace Now to serve up an unsupported allegation:

A spokeswoman for the Israeli rights group Peace Now, which monitors Jewish settlement building, has estimated that settlers hold some 13,000 construction permits throughout the West Bank issued before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the 10-month freeze a year ago.

And as we noted in our post just below, somehow, someway, Israel is always to blame for the Palestinian failure to make peace:

Netanyahu announced the freeze to coax Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas into direct talks but these ground to a halt after Israel refused to extend it despite diplomatic pressure from its main U.S. ally.

No mention that it took nine and a half months of the ten-month freeze for Abbas to finally agree to come into the negotiating tent and only two weeks later for him to pack up the tent.

Fisher-Ilan: Israel always to blame

Reuters correspondent Allyn Fisher-Ilan is always certain of two things: 1) astrology holds the key to her future, and 2) Israel is to blame for Palestinian intransigence.

Absent a crystal ball, we cannot confirm or deny #1 above but it is child's play to demonstrate the fatuousness of #2.  Here's Fisher-Ilan in a transparent bid to make Israel the scapegoat for the breakdown in negotiations with the Palestinians:

The negotiations which President Barack Obama said at their launch were destined to reach a final peace deal within a year, faltered when a temporary Israeli settlement freeze expired late in September and Israel refused to renew it.

No.  Negotiations faltered when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas refused to continue with them after squandering nine and a half months of the ten-month settlement freeze originally conceded by Israel.

For Fisher-Ilan, the facts on Israel's side are always mere "accusations":

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under pressure from a pro-settler ruling coalition to reject another freeze, has accused the Palestinians of setting preconditions for peace talks, which they had not done in the past.

Hmmm... let's see:

Palestinians had, for years, negotiated with Israel while Jewish building was taking place in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") and its capital city Jerusalem.  Check.

Palestinians now refuse to negotiate with Israel unless Jewish building in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") and its capital city Jerusalem is quashed.  Check.

Notwithstanding Fisher-Ilan's incessant efforts to infantilize the Palestinians and demonize the Israelis, the facts speak for themselves.

Palestinians intransigent; Reuters cheerleading

The Palestinian Arabs are now reported to be refusing to return to peace talks even if Israel were to agree to extend its previous unilateral and unprecedented concession to freeze Jewish building in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank").  This, following months of stalling by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas during which time there were no negotiations and no progress on a possible settlement of the conflict.

Notwithstanding, Reuters correspondent Douglas Hamilton continues to apologize and cheer for his home team:

U.S. President Barack Obama invested substantial political capital in persuading the Palestinians to resume direct talks with Israel in early September, after months of mediation.  

The Obama administration has now offered Israel diplomatic and defense inducements to renew the freeze for 90 days and give talks a chance, hoping [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu will tell Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas what size and shape of state he can agree to. 

But, true to their warnings, they [the Palestinians] halted negotiations when Netanyahu refused to extend the 10-month partial construction moratorium on Jewish settlements in the West Bank after it expired at the end of that month.

The Palestinians suspect they may be presented with plans for a shrunken, fragmented territory studded with Israeli settlements and without East Jerusalem as its capital.

Much of what appears above, comes straight out of Hamilton's tired Palestinian public relations playbook.  Netanyahu has already made perfectly clear the "size and shape of state he can agree to".  As has been widely acknowledged on both sides, Jewish communities straddling the 1949 Armistice Lines like Betar Illit, Maale Adumim, and Modi'in Illit will remain a part of Israel in any peace deal; the current Israeli government will not surrender Jerusalem to the Palestinian Arabs; and Netanyahu has called for a multi-year Israeli security presence in the Jordan Valley.  90 days of further negotiations will not change these realities after nearly 20 years of Palestinian intransigence and terror.  Israel knows this; the Palestinians know it; and the Obama administration is quickly losing any illusions it may have had otherwise.

Only Douglas Hamilton and the other cheerleaders at Reuters continue to rattle their Palestinian pom-poms.

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.

Reuters running interference for Abbas yet again (updated)

Yes, Generalisimo Francisco Franco is still dead and Reuters is still apologizing for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.  Correspondent Douglas Hamilton, who should be condemned by Human Rights Watch for torturing the English language, tells us that the Quartet is preparing a written statement to usher in direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians.  However, according to Hamilton:

Abbas refuses to engage in direct talks unless [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu agrees to a clear agenda. Without one, say the Palestinians, Netanyahu may propose terms for a peace treaty that are completely unacceptable, and leave Abbas looking like a rejectionist when he turns them down.

Abbas' stated dictate, that Israel accept, ex ante, the 1949 Armistice Lines (1967 "borders") as the Israeli frontier, is laundered here to become a "clear agenda" for the talks.  And note how Hamilton speaks for the Palestinians while apologizing, in advance, for Abbas if he doesn't get all of his demands met.  A rejectionist?  Where would one ever get such an outrageous idea?

Hamilton then degenerates from euphemisms to out-and-out lies:

The Quartet says Israel should halt settlement building in the West Bank and reach a full peace agreement with the Palestinians within 24 months, creating a state on the basis of the borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East war.

The Quartet has absolutely not stated that a Palestinian state be created "on the basis of the borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East war".  Rather, the group has always left the contour of future borders to be negotiated between the parties.  But as we've demonstrated many times, Hamilton is not known for his veracity.

UPDATE AUGUST 13, 3:10 PM: In another story on US Secretary of State Clinton's efforts to coerce direct talks, Reuters correspondent Andrew Quinn repeats the lie that, per the the Quartet, a Palestinian state should be created, "on the basis of the borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East war".  Reuters apparently hopes that by repeating this canard often enough, its global audience will come to believe it -- and blame Israel for not capitulating to a demand which has been fabricated out of whole cloth by the news agency.

Update: terror suspect arrested

In an update to our post in December of last year, a joint operation of the IDF, Israeli border police, and  Israel Security Agency Shin Bet has resulted in the arrest of an Arab man suspected of stabbing a 22 year-old woman from Karnei Shomron near Bethlehem.

In our previous commentary, we noted how Reuters correspondent Allyn Fisher-Ilan sought to apologize for the attack by referring to the victim as a "settler woman" in the "occupied West Bank".  Fisher-Ilan also censored the official Israeli characterization of the perpetrator as a terrorist by substituting the word "militant" and described the attack as occurring "after a mosque was vandalised elsewhere in the West Bank".  We noted that the stabbing actually occurred three days following the act of vandalism.

MORE more apologies for Abbas

As we noted here, here, here, and here, Reuters has been on a tear apologizing for Palestinian intransigence in their refusal to enter into direct peace talks with Israel.  Correspondent Tom Perry continues in this vein with a story today on Fatah urging Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to sit tight:

The Palestinian president's Fatah party said on Thursday there should be no move to face-to-face Middle East peace talks sought by the United States without progress in the indirect talks it is mediating.

From the perspective of a partisan reporter who writes as if he were a spokesman for the Palestinians, here is the money line in the story:

But Abbas is wary of negotiating directly with an Israeli leader he believes unwilling to settle the Middle East conflict on terms acceptable to the Palestinians.

This notion hearkens back to Perry's previous story where he made what amounts to the same argument, i.e, Abbas will not enter into negotiations unless he is guaranteed to have all of his demands met in advance of those negotiations.  And if the Israelis have their own terms which conflict with Palestinian demands?  Well of course, those must be surrendered for Abbas to agree to talk.

In other words, the Palestinians are seeking not compromise, but capitulation.  And a guarantee of that in advance.

The Palestinian leader has been a central figure in years of fruitless diplomacy aimed at negotiating the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

No quibble there.  But of course, the more relevant question is why precisely, that diplomacy has proved fruitless.

Abbas says the indirect talks should make progress towards agreement on the borders of the state the Palestinians aim to establish alongside Israel on land it occupied in a 1967 war and security arrangements for the "two-state solution.

Actually, what the Palestinians are demanding is that negotiations begin where the last negotiations ended: an Israeli offer of a Palestinian state with all of Gaza, 97 percent of the West Bank, Arab neighborhoods in the eastern part of Jerusalem, and recognition of a "right of return" for Palestinian refugees.  That extraordinary offer, which represents essentially all of what the Palestinian Authority says it wants in a peace settlement, was summarily rejected by Mahmoud Abbas in 2008.

Perry completely omits mention of this history but does conjure up one of his favorite "go-to" Palestinian sources for an analysis of the situation which we think comes close to hitting the mark on why Abbas and the Palestinians will never make peace with Israel:

"The main issue is how to go back to direct negotations without completely losing face."

Because for the Arabs, the fear of losing face, i.e., accepting a Jewish sovereign in the Middle East after years of failed wars, takes precedence over burying the hatchet and benevolently ending a century-old conflict that has cost both sides thousands of lives and untold suffering.

More apologies for Abbas

Good grief.  In the third Reuters story in as many days to apologize for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' intransigence in refusing to enter into direct peace talks with Israel, kingpin propagandist and serial liar Tom Perry digs up yet another excuse for Abbas:

But Abbas faces heavy domestic criticism over the failure of past negotiations and is wary of agreeing to more direct talks with Netanyahu's right-wing government.

Right, because the Palestinians will only enter into peace talks if they are guaranteed to get everything they demand prior to the start of negotiations.

Isn't that the way all negotiations work?

Does Reuters read the news?

Reuters continues to run interference for the Palestinians as the latter continue to reject direct peace talks with Israel.  In the same mold as the transparent PR piece we discuss just below, correspondent Matt Spetalnick apologizes for Palestinian rejectionism:

Palestinian leaders remain wary because of Israeli settlement activity on land they want for an independent state and what they see as a insufficient progress in slow-moving "proximity" talks.

Memo to Spetalnick: there is no Israeli "settlement activity" occurring anywhere outside of the 1949 Armistice Lines.

Try a subscription to Haaretz.

Palestinian public relations

If Reuters correspondents Douglas Hamilton and Ali Sawafta are not already being paid to handle PR for the Palestinian Arabs, PA President Mahmoud Abbas should seriously consider signing them up for the role.

In a pure public relations play laden with errors of commission, errors of omission, outright falsehoods, and the parroting of Palestinian positions and propaganda, Hamilton and Sawafta apologize for Palestinian rejectionism on peace talks -- a tactic employed by Reuters since Israel first offered direct negotiations shortly after Benjamin Netanyahu took power in 2009.  At the time, Reuters ran dozens of stories arguing that peace talks "could not proceed" (as if it were an immutable law of physics) until Israel was coerced to halt all construction in Judea and Samaria, aka the "West Bank".  The truth of course, was that the Palestinians simply refused to enter into talks.  But Reuters correspondents could not bring themselves to report that reality.

Now, following eight months during which time Israel has suspended building in all disputed areas including a de facto freeze on new residential construction for Jews in Jerusalem, the Palestinians continue to reject peace talks with Israel and Reuters continues to apologize for them:

U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu want direct talks soon on a Middle East peace treaty, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is wary of walking into a trap.

Note that the Palestinian President is not being quoted here, nor even paraphrased; Hamilton and Sawafta are actually representing and doing the talking for Abbas.  And keep in mind that this story isn't identified as an op-ed or "Analysis" (as Reuters opinion pieces are by policy, deceptively labeled); rather, the material is astonishingly presented as straight news.

Further details of Palestinian recalcitrance and further Reuters' apologies for that recalcitrance follow:

The Palestinians note they have had a "peace process" for the best part of 17 years, yet remain under Israeli occupation.

They say they have cooperated with three U.S. presidents with differing levels of commitment to the process, but with the same result. So they are wary of being pushed into a negotiation where they can be made to look like rejectionists.

No, they wouldn't want to look like rejectionists, particularly after they have rejected every offer of nationhood facilitated by those three US presidencies including the most recent package presented by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert consisting of a Palestinian state with all of Gaza, 97 percent of the West Bank, Arab neighborhoods in the eastern part of Jerusalem, and a nominal "right of return" for Palestinian refugees.  It was Abbas' rejection of this near capitulatory offer as well as unrequited Palestinian demands for further concessions from both Israel and the Quartet that led to the de facto end of negotiations in 2008 -- not the Gaza war as Reuters' correspondents now suggest.

Next, Hamilton and Sawafta blatantly misrepresent the data appearing in a report issued by B'Tselem:

A report this week by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem says more than 300,000 Israelis now live on 42 percent of the West Bank land where the Palestinians want to establish their future country in a "two-state solution" with Israel.

This is false.  The study acknowledges that Jewish communities reside upon only 1 percent of land in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank").  There is an allegation that due to the classification of territory in the West Bank as state land, 42 percent of it is controlled by Jewish councils.  But even this claim has been rejected by the Chairman of the Council of Jewish Communities who puts the figure at 9 percent.

Hamilton and Sawafta then quote? paraphrase? parrot? fabricate? an assertion by Abbas' aide Nabil Abu Rdainah:

In talks mediated by former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice the Israelis acknowledged that occupied land means the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Arab East Jerusalem, the Dead Sea and the Jordan Valley, Abu Rdainah said.

Note the absence of quotation marks with the attribution only tacked on at the end, so as to give the assertion greater authority.  Hamilton frequently deploys these type of rhetorical tricks to empower Palestinian claims.  And the assertion is actually false.  Israel does not consider Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"), any part of Jerusalem or Gaza "occupied".  And only the racists at Reuters and the Arabs themselves refer to the eastern part of Jerusalem as "Arab East Jerusalem".

Hamilton and Sawafta really should consider giving up their day jobs at Reuters and joining Nabil Abu Rdainah as official spokesmen for the Palestinian Authority.  They would be infinitely more suited to the role.

Reuters pathologically unwilling to hold Palestinians accountable for their behavior

Read through hundreds of Reuters stories on the Middle East conflict and of the many constitutional biases demonstrated by its Bureau staff, one that features perhaps most prominently is the utter refusal to accord any responsibility to the Palestinians for their own decisions and actions.  As noted by Charles Krauthammer and Elliott Abrams, this infantilizing of the Palestinian Arabs by Western apologists in media and the government serves to reward Palestinian intransigence and perpetuate the conflict.

In a story about a speech by Secretary of State Clinton before the American Jewish Committee, Reuters correspondent Arshad Mohammed once again nursemaids the Palestinians:

President Barack Obama's efforts to revive peace talks have been stymied by a disagreement over Jewish settlement construction that has strained ties between Washington and its close ally Israel and by divisions among the Palestinians.

With his nebulous reference to "divisions among the Palestinians", Mohammed is presumably referring to the split between the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas in Gaza.  Yet, this split is completely irrelevant to Abbas' continuing rejection of negotiations with Israel.  Proof of this can be seen in Abbas' participation in the Annapolis conference in November of 2007 which led to nearly a year of peace talks with Israel under former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and resulted in an extraordinary -- but unrequited -- settlement offer from Olmert.  In the meantime, Hamas continued to howl and Israel continued to build in Jerusalem as well as in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") and there was nary a peep of protest by the Palestinians under Abbas' authority.

Thus, it's quite clear that the current effort to bring the Palestinians back to the table has been "stymied" not by Jewish settlements nor Palestinian "divisions" but rather by Palestinian obduracy in the face of what they perceive as an opportunity to gain further concessions from the Israelis before the talks begin.

More like the cunning of an old fox than the naivete of a newborn.

Once again, Reuters blames Israel for Palestinian intransigence

Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority effectively ended peace talks with Israel during the final months of the Olmert government and have refused to resume negotiations since the election bringing Binyamin Netanyahu to power.  Abbas (assisted by President Barack Obama) initially insisted that Netanyahu agree to the "two-state solution".  He did.  Then, it was a demand for further concessions in the form of a settlement freeze.  Netanyahu agreed for everywhere but Jerusalem.  Then it was a request from the US for Israel to release Fatah prisoners and a further easing of travel for Palestinians in Judea and Samaria (also, the "West Bank").  Again Netanyahu complied.  Still, the Palestinians refuse to come back to the negotiating table.

But for Reuters, it is only and always Israel which is responsible for "stalled peace talks":

U.S.-led peace moves have been stymied by a dispute over Jewish settlement construction on occupied land that has strained ties between Washington and its close ally Israel... The Obama administration has tried to get Israel and the Palestinians to launch indirect peace talks but has made scant headway. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave little ground in White House talks with Obama last month.

As for the Palestinians, Reuters correspondent Matt Spetalnick effectively apologizes for their intransigence when he cites "divisions" amongst them as the reason for their refusal to return to negotiations.  Is Spetalnick referring to the even more vociferous intransigence of Hamas?  He doesn't say.  Nor are we told precisely how those "divisions" (Hamas) are preventing Abbas from saying "yes" to negotiations now when he was able to say yes while building was proceeding in Jerusalem under the Olmert government 16 months ago.

So many logical inconsistencies, so few picas -- easier to simply blame Israel.

More broken boilerplate

Another day, another unarmed African migrant killed by Egyptian police while trying to cross the Sinai border with Israel.  And you know what that means... boilerplate apologetics from Reuters on behalf of Egypt and the insinuation that Israel is to blame for trigger-happy border police:

The man was shot in the stomach and leg on Saturday night by guards stationed on the border. He had refused orders to stop while attempting to cross barbed wire marking the sensitive frontier, the source said... The Sinai border is a major transit route for African migrants and refugees seeking work or asylum in Israel. Egypt has come under pressure from Israel to staunch the flow, while rights groups complain about the methods of the border police... Security forces say they only fire at migrants after repeated orders to stop are disregarded and that smugglers who ferry migrants to the border sometimes fire on security forces.

One can only imagine Reuters offering the same journalistic cover to Israeli security forces operating on the border with Gaza when armed Palestinian terrorists attempt to infiltrate.  Actually, we can't even imagine it.

More migrants killed by Egypt; more apologetics from Reuters

In an update to our post on Sunday about Egyptian police killing unarmed African migrants attempting to cross the Sinai border with Israel, Reuters reports today that another migrant was shot (in the back) and killed with two others wounded.  Continuing in its apologetic vein on behalf of Egypt:

Security forces say they only fire at migrants after repeated orders to stop are disregarded and that smugglers who ferry migrants to the border sometimes fire on security forces

Reuters once again seeks to guilefully shift blame for the Egyptian policy of "shoot to kill" to -- who else? -- Israel:

The Sinai border is a main transit route for African migrants and refugees seeking work or asylum in Israel. Egypt has come under pressure from Israel to staunch the flow, while rights groups complain about the methods of the border police.

Why is Reuters not referring to Egypt's "disproportionate force" on the border?

Egyptian police kill African migrants trying to cross border; let us count the ways Reuters apologizes

When Israeli security forces shoot armed Palestinians who have attacked Israeli border positions or attempted to infiltrate the country from Gaza to conduct military operations, Reuters typically reports on the incident in superficial fashion, focusing on the shooting details with little or no background provided on the long history of attempted infiltrations or acts of terror conducted in this way.  In this story for example, Reuters correspondents Nidal al-Mughrabi and Allyn Fisher-Ilan do not even report on the incident which precipitated the shootings, describing only a "confrontation" between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli troops.

In a story appearing on its website today, Reuters reports on the killing by Egyptian police of two African migrants attempting to cross the border between the Sinai Peninsula and Israel.  Following the lede, note the background detail and extraordinary effort on the part of Reuters correspondents to apologize for the killings:

The source said a police patrol ordered them to stop and opened fire when they did not.

Egyptian police have stepped up efforts in recent months to control the border with Israel, after an increase in human trafficking through Egypt.

Egyptian police say the smugglers who ferry migrants to the border region sometimes fire on security forces.

Egypt, which for years tolerated tens of thousands of African migrants on its territory, fears the unfettered flow of migrants at its Sinai border could pose a security threat in an area where Islamist militants sometimes find refuge.

And of course, what would a Reuters story be without an attempt to blame Israel:

Egypt has faced Israeli pressure to halt the flow.

All very good reasons apparently, for Egyptian police to shoot and kill unarmed migrants.

Reuters ever the apologists for Palestinian violence

Reuters correspondent Dan Williams reports on a Palestinian Arab shot and killed by Israeli security forces when he (the Palestinian) tried to stab them:

Such incidents have abated as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pursues a U.S.-backed law-and-order and economic revival drive in the West Bank... Many Palestinians remain bitter, however, about the absence of peace talks with Israel that might halt settlement expansion and lead to the creation of a Palestinian state.

If the Palestinians want peace talks, all they have to do is say "yes".

There's always a justification for Arab violence, isn't there?

UPDATE: Arutz Sheva provides further details on the incident:

On Friday evening, IDF soldiers in Hevron saw Faraj brandishing a knife, screaming anti-Israel epithets, and running in the direction of the troops. The soldiers called on him to stop, but Faraj refused to do so – and soldiers opened fire on him before he was able to carry out his attack, seriously injuring him. Local medics took the terrorist to a hospital in the city, where he died from his wounds. After the incident, Arabs began rioting, throwing stones at soldiers and Jewish residents of the city. Troops broke up the riot. 

And in the spirit of reconciliation, here's how the "moderate" Palestinian leadership responded:

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has sent his condolences to the family of Fa'iz Faraj, the terrorist who was killed when he attempted to stab IDF soldiers in Hevron Friday evening. Fayyad called Faraj a "shaheed," a martyr to the cause of Islam. "I feel pain for all those killed by the occupying forces, especially those killed by the occupiers and settler terrorists," Fayyad wrote in his condolence note.