Oh brother. Reuters asks Americans if they would support military action against Iran IF there were evidence of a nuclear weapons program

Reuters runs a poll:

(Reuters) - A majority of Americans would support military action against Iran if there were evidence that Tehran is building nuclear weapons, even if such action led to higher gasoline prices, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Tuesday.
The poll showed 56 percent of Americans would support U.S. military action against Iran if there were evidence of a nuclear weapon program. Thirty-nine percent of Americans opposed military strikes.

Because after all, according to Reuters there is currently no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.  Merely "suspicions".

We wonder how many more Americans would have polled in favor of military action if Reuters had asked the question without loading it.

Nidal al-Mughrabi, pathologically incapable of writing a straight story on the Middle East conflict

Reuters correspondent Nidal al-Mughrabi informs us that the leader of terror group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, is to "embark on a regional tour" of Muslim countries in the Middle East (makes him sound like Justin Bieber, no?).

In a piece of just 363 words, al-Mughrabi manages to insert several key propagandistic phrases intended to demonize Israel and lead readers to believe that territory which has only ever been sovereign to the Jews, is by rights, exclusively Arab:

A Haniyeh aide said he will meet leaders in Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Qatar, Bahrain and Turkey and discuss rebuilding the Gaza Strip which suffered damage during a month-long Israeli offensive in 2008-09.
About 1,400 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians, and 13 Israelis were killed in the war which Israel said it launched in order to curb cross-border rocket fire from Palestinian militants.

For al-Mughrabi, whose bio says he has worked and lived in Gaza for 15 years, the Israel-Hamas war in 2008-09 was an "Israeli offensive", which the veteran news correspondent is apparently completely unable to verify was precipitated by (thousands of) rockets fired by Palestinians into Israeli civilian communities.  The cause of the war remains mere hearsay.

Yet, if we are to believe the absurd notion that al-Mughrabi cannot ascertain any independent facts with which to confirm the casus belli and can only accept that which "Israel said", are we also to believe that Israeli officials characterized the firing of rockets into Israeli civilian communities as emanating from Palestinian "militants"?   In other words, if al-Mughrabi is citing Israeli officials, is he citing them accurately?

We challenge al-Mughrabi to produce evidence of an occurrence of Israeli officials referring to Hamas rocket crews as "militants".  He won't be able to of course, because Israelis refer to these groups as terrorists, not militants.

So the 15-year Reuters veteran is apparently not only unable to independently verify events leading to the 2008-09 war between Israel and Hamas, he is also unable to cite faithfully, those who can verify these events.

One thing al-Mughrabi is able to do, is advance an ahistorical, Arab-ethnocentric, and racist fiction intended to suggest that the city of Jerusalem rightfully belongs to the Arabs.

The more secular Fatah movement led by Abbas, holds sway in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Palestinians want both areas for a future state with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital.

There is no "Arab East Jerusalem".  It's a racist epithet formerly used to characterize the eastern portion of Jerusalem as it stood for a mere 19 years following the invasion, conquest, and ethnic cleansing of the Jews from the city by the Arab Legion in 1949.

But the term is used quite deliberately today, nearly a half-century after it became obsolete, by al-Mughrabi and his biased colleagues at Reuters in an effort to manipulate readers into believing that Jerusalem is by rights, by history, or by ethnicity, Arab.

This notion is false; it's propagandistic; and it's a violation of both Reuters Trust Principles and Handbook of Journalism for correspondents to peddle it.

But we know how seriously Reuters takes its ethical commitments to the public.

Allyn Fisher-Ilan: polemicist, propagandist, ventriloquist

Deeply dishonest Reuters correspondent Allyn Fisher-Ilan pens a blistering polemic on Jewish settlers who last week attacked an IDF outpost in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") and allegedly vandalized an abandoned mosque.

In the handful of incidents where she reports, Fisher-Ilan typically refers to Israelis who stage violent demonstrations against the Israeli separation barrier and throw rocks at soldiers (often seriously injuring them) as merely "pro-Palestinian" or with the genteel sobriquet, "leftists".  But in the case of Israelis protesting against the demolition of their homes in the area, engaging in violence indistinguishable from that of Fisher-Ilan's beloved "leftists", the Reuters correspondent is just a bit more, shall we say, vitriolic:

(Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday approved steps to crack down on violent ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers after a rampage at a West Bank military base and torching of a mosque's facade stirred public outrage.
Radical settlers are bent on foiling government efforts to shut down unauthorized outposts they have set up in occupied West Bank territory where Palestinians seek a state, although Israel has continued to expand larger official settlements.  [...]

On Wednesday, radical Jews burnt the facade of a Jerusalem mosque not recently in use and scrawled "Death to the Arabs" on its walls, an assault blamed on a group that has vandalized other Muslim houses of worship over the past two years.

While we don't condone violence or property damage committed by belligerents on either side of this conflict, we just want to point out Fisher-Ilan's willful, skillful, and hypocritical use of propagandistic rhetoric in an effort to manipulate readers to adopt her own patent political ideology.

Note also, how the Reuters correspondent then falsely attributes her employer's propaganda mantra to the Israeli Prime Minister:

Netanyahu said further that he would increase funding for investigations of violence in occupied territory. But he rejected calls to treat Israelis suspected of violence there as "terrorist targets," as Palestinian militants are handled.

Netanyahu did not say, and would likely never refer to the territory as "occupied".  Fisher-Ilan has simply fabricated the citation out of whole cloth.

Reuters Tom Perry hearts the Palestinians

Reuters correspondent Tom Perry, who appears to be moving through Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' seven stages of grief over the impending death of the Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations, has graduated from anger and depression on to hope and acceptance:

(Reuters) - Palestinians expressed a mix of pride and wary anticipation on Friday as their president prepared to present an application for United Nations membership for the state of Palestine in the face of fierce opposition from the United States and Israel.  Flags and portraits of the late Yasser Arafat and President Mahmoud Abbas draped buildings in a central Ramallah square where Palestinians awaited the live broadcast of a speech by Abbas [...]

President Barack Obama has warned the United States would exercise its U.N. veto power to prevent a Palestinian state being declared by the 15-member Security Council.
Backing Israel's insistence the two sides must resume suspended negotiations, Obama this week said there can be "no shortcut" to a Middle East peace that attempts to circumvent a treaty between the Palestinians and Israel.

Perry has so completely lost his integrity (not to mention his mind) as an independent reporter, he adopts the loaded Palestinian term for the Israel Defense Forces:   

There was no sign of organised Palestinian violence in the West Bank as feared by some Israelis, worried Israel's opposition to the biggest Palestinian diplomatic initiative in years could trigger clashes with occupation security forces.

He then parrots Palestinian canards:

Palestinians say they have been patient during 20 years of peace talks that have yielded nothing, while Israel's occupation continues and Jewish settlements grow on West Bank land.

Yielded nothing but a concession by various Israeli governments, including the present one, to accept a second Palestinian state on land promised to the Jews if the Palestinian Arabs will only accept a Jewish state on the land that remains and agree to live in peace.  A condition apparently beyond Perry's "patient" Palestinians.

And there has been absolutely no lateral growth of Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") in years.  Israel continues to suppress Jewish building in the territories in the hope, perhaps futile, that the Palestinians will ultimately come to demonstrate the same fervor for co-existence they currently display for terror and lawfare.

Reuters certain of Israel's nuclear weapons program; not so sure of Syria

Reuters correspondents Fredrik Dahl and Sylvia Westall are never certain of Arab or Iranian nuclear weapons programs:

Western states are pressing ahead with a drive to report Syria to the U.N. Security Council over suspected nuclear activity, despite misgivings among some other countries and a last-ditch bid by Damascus to thwart the move.

But never in doubt of Israel's: 

Syria, an ally of Iran, denies harboring a nuclear weapons program and says the IAEA should focus on Israel instead because of its undeclared nuclear arsenal.

And when did you stop beating your husband, Sylvia?

Palestinian public relations, courtesy of Tom Perry

If Reuters were true to its lofty Trust Principles and Handbook of Journalism, it would have long ago canned correspondent Tom Perry for his perennial gross violations of the same.

In a story on the Palestine Liberation Organization demanding a "map" of the international borders Israel and the US would like the Palestinians to recognize, Perry employs the propaganda technique of innuendo all the while flouting the Reuters Handbook with unnamed sources, loaded language, a lack of fairness, and the use of euphemisms:

He [Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu] said it would be a "trust-building step," while some Palestinian and Israeli commentators questioned whether the proposal was only a ploy to try to shift blame onto the Palestinians should the peace process collapse. 

The Palestinians ruled out the idea -- something they see as a major concession that would be tantamount to political suicide for a leadership whose credibility has already been badly damaged by the failure of past peace talks.

Note how Perry slyly incorporates anonymous "Palestinian and Israeli commentators" to serve as a beard for what amounts to his own suggestion that Netanyahu is operating in bad faith.  Perry then speaks on behalf of the Palestinians by characterizing what would be their recognition of Israel as a Jewish state -- resolved by the United Nations over sixty years ago -- as a "major concession" while omitting any balanced reference to Israel's unilateral and unprecedented concession to freeze Jewish building in the disputed territories.

Perry recycles his previously-employed euphemistic language to obfuscate Palestinian President Abbas' conditions for negotiations:

Abed Rabbo's demand for a map echoed Abbas's call for clear terms of reference for the peace talks.

As we noted at the time, Abbas' "clear terms of reference" for peace talks consisted of the demand that Israel concede, in advance of those talks, a Palestinian state on all land beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines.

Finally, Perry reports that Israel had in fact, provided the Palestinians with a map delineating borders during negotiations with Netanyahu's predecessor, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert:

Netanyahu's predecessor as prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has said he showed Abbas a map offering him 93.5 to 93.7 percent of the West Bank, with the difference made up by a proposed land swap of 5.8 percent and a safe-passage corridor between the territory and the Gaza Strip.

But in an illustration of the propaganda technique of card stacking, Perry fails to mention that despite that map and an extraordinary settlement offer from Olmert, Abbas and the Palestinians walked away from peace with Israel.

Afforded this information, readers might come away with a greater understanding of why this conflict, and its resolution, are not about "maps".

Reuters, the anti-multiculturalists

Curious.  We thought Reuters was, as per its website, "the world's largest international multimedia news agency..." implying a company without borders and without provincial biases.  Every once in a while however, Reuters correspondents let the mask slip and we catch a glimpse of their cultural biases and the cultural biases of their audience.  Take for example, this soft news item from Khaled Yacoub Oweis about a provocative Syrian television series:

Anzour's work in recent years has focused on religious themes, including a defense of Islam in "The ceiling of the universe," following the outrage over a Danish newspaper cartoons depicting the Prophet. In "Passers by," he described how Arab emigrants in Western societies could turn to violence.

Now perhaps Oweis simply inadvertently omitted the name of "the Prophet" he had in mind.  Or perhaps he feels he need not identify "the Prophet" because in his view and in the view of his audience, it should be obvious to whom he is referring.  Or perhaps he doesn't want to use the "M"-word for fear of offending his audience.  Or perhaps Oweis wants us to know in a subtle way, that there is only one Prophet of importance.

We wonder: would Oweis (or any Reuters correspondent) have referred to Moses in a similar vein or to Jesus as "the Messiah"?

Stinky journalism 101

Oh dear.  It must be something in the water cooler at Reuters offices.  The agency's "special correspondent" in Lebanon, Alistair Lyon -- whose pieces serve as a case study in media bias -- is at it again.  In today's "analysis", Lyon describes for us the tense situation in the Middle East:

Israel, Hezbollah and its close allies Syria and Iran all say they espouse peace but are preparing for battle. Belligerent talk, even if intended to deter, is fuelling an ugly atmosphere.

Tension over Iran's disputed nuclear ambitions and a sense of despair about prospects for peace between Israel and Syria or the Palestinians also feed war fears in a region where U.S. power to influence events looks increasingly challenged.

And who does Lyon turn to for supporting and impartial analysis on the prospects of war?  Well, the International Crisis Group (ICG), of course.  The ICG is led by former EU Commissioner for External Relations and current Oxford University Chancellor, Chris Patten, along with former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour.  Patten you may recall, rejected an inquiry in 2003 into the diversion of European taxpayer funds to finance Palestinian suicide bombers because he "needed an investigation like a hole in the head".  In recent years, Patten's Oxford has been the recipient of over $300 million in donations from the Saudis.  Arbour is famous for having originally endorsed the wildly antisemitic and oxymoronic Arab Charter of Human Rights while with the UN.  Oh, and did we neglect to mention ICG Executive Committee member George Soros?

In its report on the conflict, the ICG refers to Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hizbollah as "the so-called axis of resistance" (so-called by whom we wonder) and Reuters' Lyon, who frequently parrots Arab rhetoric, is happy to parrot this euphemism as it implies Israel is the aggressor in the conflict.  But while Lyon suggests that:

Hezbollah would almost certainly find itself fighting Israel again in the event of any Israeli strike on Iran.

implying a kind of hazy happenstance, the ICG report offers a little more clear and causal explanation for Hezbollah entering the war:

Meanwhile, as tensions have risen, the so-called “axis of resistance” – Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hizbollah – has been busy intensifying security ties. Involvement by one in the event of attack against another no longer can be dismissed as idle speculation.

For Lyon, Israel may attack Iran for purely strategic reasons:

... to stop it from breaking its own presumed nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. 

with no mention of Iran's pledge to create a Middle East "without Zionists" and many other calls for Israel's annihilation.

Lyon then regresses to the puerile "he said/she said" argument over whether Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons:

Even the United States has acknowledged that it is planning for a possible war on Iran, which denies Western assertions that its nuclear programme has military as well as civilian purposes.

omitting the finding of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran is indeed seeking the bomb.

In an effort to do a little PR work on behalf of Hezbollah, Lyon inanely suggests that the group can legitimately be viewed as:

... a group rooted in resistance to Israeli occupation of Lebanon

Er, that would be the occupation that ended a decade ago, yes?

And how's this for loaded language:

Hezbollah leader Saeed Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to hit back in kind for any Israeli attack on civilian targets.

Because both Nasrallah and Lyon know that Hezbollah's military assets are seeded deep within civilian communities and will become, under international law, legitimate targets when Hezbollah launches missiles from these areas.

Perhaps the most amusing part of the ICG report summarized by Lyon are the recommendations near the end.  Along with numerous admonishments to countries like Israel to "end implicit or explicit threats to harm civilians or damage civilian infrastructure in any future war", is this one solitary piece of advice for Hezbollah:

Make every effort to discourage and prevent hostile action by the civilian population against UN personnel and property.

Soros must have written that bit.

Nidal al-Mughrabi picks up the lie and runs with it

Yesterday, we wrote about Reuters mendacious coverage of the explosion of a Palestinian Grad rocket in Ashkelon, Israel.  Today, in a story on Israel's military response to the attack, correspondent Nidal al-Mughrabi picks up where Amir Cohen and Douglas Hamilton left off, parrots some of the same propaganda and injects some of his own:

The militant group [Hamas] has a rocket arsenal of crude, homemade projectiles and longer-range rockets smuggled in through tunnels under the border with Egypt.

For years and in scores of stories, Reuters has sought to minimize the danger and devastating effects of Palestinian rockets by referring to them as "crude, homemade".  As Hamas has been able to acquire and launch rockets with increasing range and lethality from countries like Iran, Reuters is less able to dismiss these attacks with loaded language but as seen above, that doesn't prevent propagandists like al-Mughrabi from trying.

Continuing:

No one was injured by the blast [in Askelon], which police said was caused by a 122mm, Chinese-made Grad rocket. But the attack ended over a year of calm for the Israeli city closest to Gaza... The [2009 Israeli] offensive largely ended rocket fire into Israel from the Gaza Strip.

No one was injured by shrapnel, but several Israelis were treated for shock.  And as we documented in our previous post, the assertion of "over a year of calm" is a bald-faced lie.  As is the notion that the 2008-09 Gaza war "largely ended rocket fire into Israel".

Spin, slant, and sucker

Reuters publishes another one of its infamous "Factbox" series on the Middle East conflict, this time focusing on political risk for the region.  There are so many gross mischaracterizations in this slanted piece, so much misleading and loaded language, it would take a lengthy critical monograph to fully address all of its fatal flaws.  For the time being, we'll simply paste an excerpt with emphasis added followed by our own "clarifications":

ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN DEADLOCK

Peace prospects look bleak, with a rightwing Israeli government dominated by advocates of Jewish settlement on occupied land, the Palestinians weak and divided, and few signs of progress in U.S.-mediated, indirect talks that began in May. Israel deeply angered one-time Muslim ally Turkey when its naval commandos killed nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists on May 31 in a melee on board an aid ship running an Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip, territory run by Hamas Islamists. Turkey's robust rhetoric and downgrading of ties with Israel won it many friends in the Arab world, underlining Ankara's growing diplomatic and economic clout in the region.

- "a rightwing Israeli government dominated by advocates of Jewish settlement on occupied land"

Reuters consistently characterizes the current Israeli government this way as if it were extreme or unique in its view on the future of Israeli communities beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines.  But the fact is, by a large majority, Israelis of all political stripes support settlement construction and even the relatively left-wing Kadima party advocates for a united Jerusalem.  And of course, the current Israeli Defense Minister (and de facto Foreign Minister), Ehud Barak, is a member of the even more extreme left-wing Labour party which itself supports retaining major settlement blocs in the disputed territories.

- "the Palestinians weak and divided"

As an appeal to pity, this facile characterization forms the core of Reuters Palestinian advocacy agenda.  The Palestinians are perpetually portrayed and consequently perceived by the global community as weak, destitute, divided, and oppressed by the Israelis who are alternatively painted as mighty and rapacious, intent on stealing land and keeping the Palestinians disenfranchised.  This false narrative must be maintained at all costs or thousands of journalists, UN agency bureaucrats, and "human rights" jobbers would be plunged out of work.

- "pro-Palestinian activists on May 31 in a melee on board an aid ship"

As is now well-known, dozens of passengers on the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara were armed members of the jihadist group İnsani Yardım Vakfı (IHH).  They had planned violence, prepared weapons, and embraced martyrdom.  The ship itself, carried no humanitarian aid whatsoever.  It's time to end the charade about "activists" and "aid".

-  "Turkey's robust rhetoric"

Nice euphemism; the Turkish Prime Minister has referred to Israel as "a festering boil in the Middle East".  But the Turkish government, which, if it did not dispatch, certainly permitted the Mavi Marmara to sail despite Israel's many exhortations to interrupt it, is clearly complicit in the violence and deaths that resulted from the attacks on the Israeli boarding party.  Yet, in more than 500 stories on the incident appearing on its website, Reuters has yet to even broach this subject.  Perhaps the news agency doesn't wish to arouse Turkish ire.  One never knows what "robust rhetoric" Erdogan might dream up for Reuters correspondents.

Reuters' Macdonald pens his swan song; biased to the end

Psychologists who study cognition and learning tell us that the capacity to learn, to adapt, to change ones' view generally declines as we age.  By the time we're in our forties and fifties, many individuals unfortunately settle into a pattern of sclerotic thinking.  Perhaps this is what's afflicting recently dethroned Reuters Bureau Chief Alastair Macdonald.

In his swan song piece for the news agency, Macdonald pens a poignant tale of walls and broken bridges (both physical and metaphorical) between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs:

From the minefields of Israel's frontlines with Syria and Lebanon to the fortified fences around the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- much in this month's headlines -- to the walls, old and new, of Jerusalem, physical barriers shape the lives of the 12 million people cut off here in what was once called Palestine.

Yes, it was once called "Palestine" -- actually "Provincia Syria Palaestina", assigned that title by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in 135 AD following the Bar Kochba revolt by the Jews.  This renaming, in a deliberate effort to blot out the Jewish connection to the land which had previously been known as "Provincia Judaea" -- and before that, simply "Judaea".  How ironic that two-thousand years later, another European employs his position as Regional Chief of the most powerful news agency in the world to attempt the same abrogation.

Characterizing the differences between Gaza and Israel, Macdonald writes:

Normally, these days, it's a peaceful place, teeming with wildlife, a brief buffer zone between Gaza, an Arab city going backwards on donkey carts and embargoed scarcities, and the neat farms, hi-tech factories and shopping malls of southern Israel.

Yes, we've noticed those "embargoed scarcities" in the shops.

Macdonald could of course, also compare the current state of Gaza, embargoed because it is under the rule of a totalitarian and openly genocidal regime, with that of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") where a more tolerant and ostensibly concordant regime (aided by Israeli and Western-trained Palestinian security forces) oversees some of those same neat farms and shopping malls.

Continuing:

Inside the Old City's gates, Ottoman-era Quarters -- Muslim, Jewish, Christian and Armenian -- map communal rivalries still alive today. Small battlefields marked by razor wire, flags and hurled garbage show where Israelis are settling in Arab areas.

Macdonald refers to Israelis [Jews] "settling" in "Arab areas" with the connotation that this is provocative or somehow inequitable.  Reuters never seems to be able to explain to readers why Arab-majority neighborhoods should be expunged of Jews while Arabs are free to live in any predominantly Jewish city in Israel.  Those progressive European sensibilities appear to vanish where Jewish human and civil rights are involved.

Then comes the loaded language:

The most visible wall is the new one that snakes around greater Jerusalem -- protecting it, Israel says, from suicide bombers while cutting them off from their families, according to Palestinians.

They [the Palestinians] complain, too, that the barrier penning them into the West Bank is a frontier in one direction only. Half a million Israelis live there, in an archipelago of hilltop settlements, their red, pitched roofs an image of contrast to Arab villages.

Please Alastair, tell us with which side you personally sympathize; we simply can't tell from your use of metaphor.

Finally, in what appears to be a reference to our work and that of other watchers:

Yet there are images that stay with me of those who reach over the walls. I've seen it in the Reuters journalists I worked with. Their professionalism is blind to being Palestinian or Israeli, even if partisan critics from all sides question that.

Note that in not one of our nearly 300 posts criticizing Reuters pro-Palestinian bias and easily recognizable propaganda have we ever suggested that their correspondents' partisanship or lack of professionalism is a reflection of whether they are Palestinian or Israeli.  Indeed, it is often the bureau's Israeli reporters that are the worst offenders.

Macdonald seeks to defend his colleagues in the face of overwhelming evidence of bias based on imagined claims of ethnic or national chauvinism but the truth is, Reuters bias transcends the race or religion of the writer.  At its core, the bias is rooted in personal ideology and then institutionalized.  It represents a fatal transgression of the Reuters Trust Principles and the agency's Handbook of Journalism and as such, should be addressed at the highest levels promptly.

Masquerade

In an op-ed deceptively labeled as "Analysis", Reuters kingpin propagandists Tom Perry and Alastair Macdonald discuss the political fallout for Israel due to the Gaza flotilla incident.  True to form, the dynamic duo jump in with inflammatory language:

Israel is unlikely to heed calls to lift the blockade of the Gaza Strip but its bloody seizure of a Turkish aid ship...

Perhaps this was a simple transpositional error and the Reuters team actually meant to write, "its seizure of a bloody Turkish ship...".  We'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Then comes the predictably loaded language:

Israel's leaders have been unrepentant.

No bias here!  Our desktop dictionary defines unrepentant as "showing no regret for one's wrongdoing".  When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Perry and Macdonald frequently assume the role of judge, jury and executioner (and you know which side gets accused, condemned, and disemboweled).

On the possibility of Israel agreeing to ease the Gaza embargo, comes an anonymous quote:

"Some form of relaxation is a possibility," a diplomat said. "But for political reasons there may be a delay. The Israeli government doesn't want to be seen to cave in immediately."

a violation of the Reuters Handbook of Journalism which states:

This is not to say that other people’s opinions have no place in our stories. They are very often relevant to the story and are essential for the reader or viewer to understand its meaning and consequences. For that to hold true, quoted opinion must be authoritative and be attributed to a named source. We risk biased reporting if we allow an unnamed source...

So much for authoritative opinion.  Then there are the ubiquitous scare quotes:

A key issue for Israel in any "international" inquiry will be to ensure its case for blockading Hamas and for opening fire on the Turks "in self-defence" are taken into account.

One can almost see the sneers on Perry and Macdonald's smug mugs as they refer to Israeli self-defense.

Reuters then turns to the most radical left-wing writer in Israel to criticize the Israeli government:

Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy wrote of Netanyahu's policies: "We'll become an even more despised country and won't have a single friend left in the world, not even the United States."

This coming from a man whose views are so out of the mainstream, he nearly drove uber-liberal Haaretz to financial ruin.

Finally, in a feigned gesture of journalistic balance, Perry and Macdonald cite author and Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Robert Makovsky:

But bans on, for example, steel and concrete on the grounds Hamas could use them for defences, should be re-examined, he said. "To ease tensions with the international community without sacrificing Israeli security, there might be an advantage for Israel to agree to a streamlined dual-use list."

Yet, even here Reuters cannot be trusted to report faithfully.  Makovsky did not say bans on steel and concrete "should be re-examined".  What he actually wrote was this:

The better question is whether it is possible to recalibrate the blockade in a way that would bar the importation of rockets and protect Israeli security, while easing conditions on the ground. This leads to the issue of dual-use items. The past has demonstrated that Hamas has no scruples about diverting select construction materials as well as other aid meant for the public good in Gaza and utilizing it to build weapons.

To ease tensions with the international community without sacrificing Israeli security, there might be an advantage for Israel to agree to a streamlined dual-use list. Instead of saying all is forbidden unless it is explicitly approved, it might be easier to say all is permitted but that which is prohibited explicitly by the dual-use list. As such, there would instantly be a rationale for everything that is disallowed.

Yet, the first approach of Hamas agreeing to live peacefully with its Israeli neighbor would be preferable and profoundly transformative.

In other words, Makovsky recognizes that construction materials have been routinely stolen by Hamas for use as war materiel.  He is suggesting here that as a way to reduce friction with the international community, the current Israeli policy of all goods "forbidden unless explicitly approved" be replaced with a policy permitting everything EXCEPT dual-use items, i.e., steel and concrete, that can be used to build weapons.

See the difference Tom and Alastair?

When did Jeffrey Heller, Adam Entous and Tom Perry stop beating their wives?

In a "Q+A" about Israel's announcement to build additional homes in the religious community of Ramat Shlomo, Reuters correspondents Jeffrey Heller, Adam Entous and Tom Perry do their level best to cast suspicions and aspersions on Israel with loaded questions like:

WHAT'S ISRAEL REALLY UP TO?

And:

ARE THE AMERICANS BUYING ISRAEL'S EXPLANATION?

Of course, what Israel is "really up to" is what its Prime Minister has stated plainly all along:

The Palestinians expect a complete halt to building; it is now clear that this will not happen," Netanyahu said, "Jerusalem is not a settlement and the building [there] will continue as normal.  (September, 2009)

So in fact, Israel has been true to her word and consistent in its application.  Though one would never know this reading reports of Palestinian feigned indignation or Reuters' scoffing "questions".

We do hope however, that the three correspondents mentioned above provide an answer to the question in our headline.