Question for Reuters: where are the missing Egyptian Copts?

Reuters continues to ignore or sanitize the bitter reality of endemic discrimination, hostility, and lethal violence directed at Egypt's Coptic Christian community.  Whether out of fear for their correspondents' security or due to institutionalized bias, the news agency simply refuses to report on the magnitude of the intimidation and suffering Copts are experiencing at the hands of Egyptian Muslims.

Illustrative of this self-censorship, is Reuters failure, in any of its multitude of stories, to disclose to readers that since the fall of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, an estimated 100,000 Coptic Christians have fled Egypt in fear of what is inevitably to come with the rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist parties.

Rather, we see Reuters serving as apologists for the Islamists by citing anonymous "experts" to assure us that church burnings are due to... well, catch the non sequitur below:

Since Mubarak's ousting last year, Christians have become increasingly worried after an upsurge in attacks on churches, which they blame on hardline Islamists, although experts say more local disputes are often also behind them.

"More local disputes"?

Sometimes, the English language simply can't be stretched far enough to cover a multitude of sins. 

Non sequitur of the week

We nearly missed this classic non sequitur in a Reuters story about Mohamed Merah, the French-Algerian who murdered a rabbi and three school children in Toulouse last week:

Merah had been under intelligence surveillance and the MEMRI Middle East think tank said he appeared to belong to a French al Qaeda branch called Fursan Al-Izza, ideologically aligned with a movement to Islamise Western states by implementing sharia law.

But he had done nothing especially to arouse suspicion that he was planning an act of violence.

You really can't make this stuff up.

Another application of Reuters fauxtography

Reuters is notorious for its fauxtography scandals, where photos published by the agency have been doctored in an effort to conceal or distort the facts associated with the incident portrayed (see our right side panel).

Less well-recognized is that Reuters editors frequently select photos for publication that only tell one side of a story.  Even more egregious, are those times when editors select photos which are entirely unrelated to the associated story.

Consider this story by Reuters historical fabricators Nidal al-Mughrabi and Allyn Fisher-Ilan about the latest round of (92) (180) (200) Palestinian rockets and mortars launched at civilian communities in Israel and the targeted killing of Palestinian terrorists by the Israeli military.

Reuters runs two photo slides with the story; one, of a woman in distress being supported by a man with the caption:

A Palestinian woman reacts at a hospital after an Israeli targeted attack on a car in Gaza City March 9, 2012.

The second photo is captioned:

Palestinian demonstrators run away from tear gas fired by Israeli security officers during clashes at a weekly protest against a nearby Jewish settlement, in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah, March 9, 2012.

A glaring illustration of a non sequitur in the context of a story about the exchange of aerial missiles between Israeli forces and Palestinian terror groups in Gaza. 

No photos are provided depicting the psychological effects, property damage, or injuries sustained by  Israeli civilians as a result of the Palestinian attacks.

Reuters the recidivists.

UPDATE MARCH 11, 2012:

Reuters runs another unrelated photo in this update.

Moreover, note how al-Mughrabi (please tell us why this pathological liar is still employed at the agency) obfuscates on the number of Palestinian combatants killed versus civilians:

Israeli aircraft have continued to fly attacks over the Gaza strip, killing at least 16 people, including militants, since Friday.

Depending upon source, between 94 percent and 100 percent of Palestinians killed in this exchange of fire were combatants.

By comparison, the United Nations estimates that the average ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in similar conflicts worldwide is 3:1 -- three civilians for every combatant killed.

Reuters wants us to know that Iran will not seek the bomb in 2012

Reuters correspondents Tabassum Zakaria and Mark Hosenball trumpet:

Iran won't move toward nuclear weapon in 2012: ISIS report

In the proud Reuters tradition of manipulating reader perceptions by packaging propaganda as news, note the declarative assertion (stated as fact), trailed by the modifier that the assertion is drawn from a report by an NGO.

A report yet to be published, and therefore unavailable to be vetted for accuracy, validity, or conformity with what Reuters is reporting.

A report produced by an organization funded in large part by the Ploughshares Fund, a left-wing lobbying group that advocates for U.S. nuclear disarmament.

A report which, as summarized by Reuters, is largely contradicted by another ISIS report appearing on the organization's website just a week ago.

A report where the conclusion asserted in the headline is premised entirely on the dubious notion that:

"Iran is unlikely to decide to dash toward making nuclear weapons as long as its uranium enrichment capability remains as limited as it is today."

Which in itself, is premised on this sterling piece of logic: 

But according to the institute's report: "Although Iran is engaged in nuclear hedging, no evidence has emerged that the regime has decided to build nuclear weapons."
"Such a decision may be unlikely to occur until Iran is first able to augment its enrichment capability to a point where it would have the ability to make weapon-grade uranium quickly and secretly," the report obtained by Reuters said.

Did you catch that?  There is no evidence that the Iranian regime has decided to build nuclear weapons, which is unlikely to occur until Iran has the ability to make weapon-grade uranium quickly and secretly.

And of course, ISIS and Reuters will know when Iran has obtained that secret enrichment capability.   

Because undoubtedly, the Iranians will tell them.

Reuters, unable to conceal its institutionalized antisemitism

Our focus here at RMEW is on Reuters endemic anti-Israel bias and the agency's use of propaganda to manipulate audience perception and mobilize public opinion against the Jewish state.

Occasionally however, Reuters correspondents let their masks slip, revealing that their animus for Israel goes much deeper than international politics.

In a story on Mitt Romney campaigning in Palm Beach Florida, Reuters correspondent Jane Sutton performs an interesting Freudian slip:

(Reuters) - Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney criticized President Barack Obama for his stance on Israel on Thursday, telling a Florida crowd that if elected he would "stand with our friends."
"This president has found it pretty sensible to be critical of our friends," Romney told a Palm Beach County crowd that included many Jewish voters.
"He went to the United Nations and criticized Israel for building settlements. He had nothing to say about Hamas' 20,000 rockets into Israel," Romney said. "We will stand with our friends."
Obama has insisted his administration has done more than any other to protect Israel and called his commitment "unshakeable."
The Democratic president won nearly eight of every 10 Jewish voters in 2008 but a slip would jeopardize his 2012 re-election drive in battleground states like Florida and Pennsylvania, where Jews are an important swing bloc.
Romney's message, delivered ahead of Florida's January 31 primary, resonated with Sholom Ciment, a rabbi from Boca Raton, another wealthy Florida enclave.

Huh?  Note that Sutton's story is about Romney making a bid for voters, it is suggested are mainly Jews, in an important swing state based on his support for Israel.  There is no mention of fund raising, average income levels, or anything related to economics for that matter, until Sutton lets slip a non sequitur about Boca Raton being, "another wealthy Florida enclave".

So what does Sutton's (irrelevant) observation have to do with her ostensible storyline, i.e., the 80 percent of the American Jewish electorate that voted for Obama in 2008 being courted by Romney?  Actually nothing.  Except that, like fellow Reuters correspondent Crispian Balmer, Sutton apparently has money on the mind when she's writing about Jews.

Incidentally, of a total population of over 1,300,000 people in Palm Beach County, there are about 250,000 Jews, 15 percent of whom live below the poverty line.

Not that facts matter to Reuters.

Facts just twist the truth around

Reuters runs one of its fatuous "factbox" series to educate us on the policies of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, and correspondent Shaimaa Fayed parrots the following absurd non sequitur with absolutely no criticism and no hint of irony:

FJP [Freedom and Justice Party] and Brotherhood officials say they want to build a modern, democratic state based on Islamic sharia law.

A "modern, democratic state" built on a political and legal system 1,400 years-old where religious minorities are subject to systematic discrimination and women are treated as chattel.

But it gets worse:

The Muslim Brotherhood is a vociferous critic of Israel. Although it long ago renounced violence as a means to bring change in Egypt, it says those facing occupation have the right to "resist by all means." The Palestinian militant group Hamas sees the Brotherhood as a spiritual leader.

As a reminder, here's what that "vociferous critic" recently had to say about the Jewish citizens of Israel:

A Muslim Brotherhood rally in Cairo's most prominent mosque Friday turned into a venomous anti-Israel protest, with attendants vowing to "one day kill all Jews".

For Reuters correspondents, facts apparently just won't do what they want them to.

Alastair Macdonald, historical revisionist (part III)

Continuing with our analysis of Alastair Macdonald's propagandistic "timeline" of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and efforts to achieve peace:

November [2009] - Clinton hails [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu's partial, 10-month halt on building permits in West Bank settlements as "unprecedented." [Palestinian President] Abbas demands similar freeze in East Jerusalem. Israel refuses.

Sept 2010 - Direct peace talks finally resume but they end after just a couple of weeks when Israel refuses to extend its partial settlement freeze.

Palestinians waited nearly nine and a half months after Netanyahu's unprecedented concession to freeze building in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") before agreeing to return to peace talks.  The Palestinians unilaterally abandoned talks three weeks later.

May [2011] - Israeli troops kill at least 13 Palestinians who surged towards its frontiers with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza on May 15, the day Palestinians mourn the establishment of Israel in the deadliest confrontation in years of anniversary clashes.

Macdonald obfuscates both the nature and magnitude of this incident which involved the transportation of over a thousand Palestinian Arabs to the Syrian, Lebanese and Gaza borders with Israel, where they were encouraged by Arab governments to rush and breach Israeli border fences.  One wonders as well, what this incident has to do with a timeline entitled: "milestones in Middle East peace moves".  Why not provide an account for example, of the eight Israelis who were gunned-down at point-blank range by Palestinians dressed as Egyptian security personnel in August of this year?  An incident which, owing to its impact on Israeli-Egyptian relations, is at least as relevant to the question of peace in the region as Macdonald's historical marker.

-- Obama's call for Israel to give Palestinians territory it has occupied since 1967 stuns visiting Prime Minister Netanyahu and pushes their thawing relationship back into the freezer.

This is an historical fabrication.  What President Obama actually said was that "the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states" [italics ours].  This advice is consistent with the position of nearly every US administration over the last two decades and not inconsistent with Israeli policy and offers to the Palestinians over the same period.

And finally:

September 23 - Abbas to ask the U.N. to recognise a state for his people, even though Israel still occupies its territory and the United States has vowed to veto the move.

The territories of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") remain officially unallocated and disputed between Jews and Arabs.  Per international law, they do not belong to the Palestinians, although by virtue of international law, Jews are fully entitled to settle there.

As evidenced by our three-part critique, Macdonald's timeline is fundamentally flawed, deeply dishonest, and heavily propagandistic.  It distorts history beyond all recognition and omits essential context necessary to understand what the former Reuters bureau chief is purportedly attempting to provide: a faithful account of the Middle East conflict and efforts to resolve it.

Louis Charbonneau's latest propaganda mantra: US and Israel are "isolated"

Reuters correspondent Louis Charbonneau, who spins and slants the news when he is not outright fabricating it, wants readers to believe that in opposing the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations, the US is isolating itself from the family of nations:

Still, diplomats say Washington remains isolated on the council because of its staunch support for Israel, which the majority of U.N. member states believe has worked hard to sabotage peace talks with the Palestinians. [...]

Highlighting its isolation on the Security Council, Washington cast the sole vote against the settlements resolution. The other 14 members -- including Washington's European allies such as Britain and France -- opposed the United States and Israel and voted for the resolution.

The Europeans agree with Washington that the Palestinian U.N. bid is unwise and are inclined to oppose it. But the Europeans and Americans are far apart on the Middle East issue and diplomats say Washington remains as isolated as ever.

Quite apart from Charbonneau's unsupported and heavily biased assertion that the majority of UN member states believe Israel "has worked hard to sabotage peace talks with the Palestinians", the Reuters reporter seems oblivious to the non sequitur inherent in his claim on the one hand, that the US is isolated on the question of Palestinian statehood and on the other hand, the fact that the Palestinians are unlikely to be able to muster the minimum nine votes needed on the UN Security Council to force a US veto.

In other words, the US is not isolated at all in its stand that bilateral negotiations between the parties are the appropriate and indeed sole way to resolve the conflict.  The entire EU and scores of other countries in the General Assembly take the same view.

Charbonneau however, would much prefer that his readers buy into his fatuous anti-American and anti-Israel propaganda.

Today's Orwellian Prize

Today's Orwellian Prize for Journalism goes to Reuters kingpin propagandist and correspondent Tom Perry who pens a feature story on Algerian singer Souad Massi performing in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") on Tuesday.  Perry writes:

The songwriter and guitarist acclaimed for her extraordinary voice predicts no quick end to the popular uprisings that are reshaping the Middle East.
And she thinks it is only matter of time before the Arab Spring reaches Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, where she performed at a sell-out concert on Tuesday.
"What would have been a miracle in the past, can today happen," said Massi, whose latest album, released in October, includes three songs on the theme of revolution. They include "Let Me Be In Peace," a duet with British star Paul Weller.
The track, she says, is dedicated to the Palestinians, who have waged two major Intifadas, or uprisings, against Israel in the last three decades.

Apparently lost on both Massi and Perry is the irony of a songtrack entitled "Let Me Be in Peace", dedicated to a society which popularized aircraft hijackings and suicide bombings and murdered over 1,000 people, mostly civilians, earlier last decade.

Moving on however, we wonder whether Massi has considered whether she would be welcomed performing songs in the Flamenco style in a Palestinian state where Shari'a is the main source of legislation. 

Perhaps, but we're guessing she'd have to change her stage costume.

Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood tells West what it wants to hear, Reuters parrots

Reuters has been sanitizing the history, image and doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood since at least February when the group became a contender for power in Egypt following the downfall of Hosni Mubarak.  We noted that disturbing trend here, here, here, and here.

In its latest installment of Brotherhood-friendly propaganda, Reuters correspondent Yasmine Saleh admits that the Islamist group has become the dominant political player in Egypt but she uncritically parrots Brotherhood assurances that the group wants a "diverse" parliament after elections in September:

The Brotherhood, which has emerged as a powerful force after years of repression under ousted President Hosni Mubarak, has said it does not want a parliamentary majority, although rivals see it as well placed for a dominant position.

We cannot recall the last time a political party in any country did not wish to be the majority in the legislative body, but there you have it.

Even more troubling than Saleh's credulity with respect to the Brotherhood's modest electoral goals is this contradiction in terms.  Saleh writes:

The Muslim Brotherhood wants a diverse parliament after elections in September and is not seeking to impose Islamic law on Egypt, the head of the group's newly formed political party said in an interview.

Yet just eight paragraphs down, Saleh quotes the same Mohamed Mursi, head of the Brotherhood's Justice and Freedom Party:

But he said Islamic law could have a place in a civil state in Egypt, where about 10 percent of the 80 million population are Christians. "Islamic sharia guarantees the rights of all people, Muslims and non-Muslims," he said.

So Sharia law could have a "place" in Egypt but the Brotherhood is not seeking to "impose" it.  We see.  The most powerful political force in the country, a group committed by Charter to the strict implementation of Sharia law and one which very likely will hold a plurality if not a majority of seats in the legislative body, is not seeking to use that authority to legislate for Sharia.

Well after all, denial is a river in Egypt.

Reuters: Palestinian soccer team plays first match in Ramallah; ready for statehood

Sometimes Reuters efforts to advance Palestinian interests assume a theater of the absurd quality.  Reuters correspondent Ori Lewis writes of the Palestinian soccer team's first match "on home soil":

(Reuters) - Palestine celebrated their first official match on home soil on Wednesday during a bittersweet evening when their Under-21 side lost an Olympic Games qualifier to Thailand 6-5 on penalties. 

The fixture was viewed by Palestinians as another symbolic step towards confirming their credentials for the state they intend to establish in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

"This is another occasion on which we can show we are a state, every time I come here it makes me proud," Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told Reuters at the Faisal Husseini stadium.

Needless to say, if fielding a sports team or hosting a stadium or competing in international matches replaced the political institutions, legal framework, and economic viability necessary for independent sovereignty, Catalonia, New Caledonia, and the Faeroe Islands would also be "credentialed" for statehood.

We do however, like this tidbit:

Until October 2008, when they hosted Jordan in a friendly international at Al-Ram, Palestine played all their matches abroad because soccer's world governing body FIFA deemed the Palestinian territories unsafe to host visiting teams.

Fisher-Ilan caught card stacking again

Admitted radical leftist and Reuters correspondent Allyn Fisher-Ilan reports on efforts by Israeli lawmakers to launch an investigative probe into foreign funding of Israeli NGOs:

(Reuters) - Right-wing lawmakers have ignored the concerns of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and rescheduled a vote on a proposed parliamentary probe of foreign funding for Israeli groups critical of Israel's policies.
Amid public criticism of around a half-dozen proposed measures in parliament widely viewed as targeting left-wing groups, Netanyahu had taken action that effectively put off a vote last week on setting up the legislative inquiry panel [...]

Fisher-Ilan, known for her deeply dishonest reporting on the Middle East conflict and prolific use of propaganda devices to deceive readers into unwittingly accepting her personal political views, selectively highlights Israeli NGOs which are fighting the probe:

Among groups likely to come under scrutiny are Peace Now, which vocally opposes Jewish settlement on occupied land that Palestinians want for a state. Another is the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which campaigns for democratic values, freedom of speech, equal rights and "the end of occupation."

Fisher-Ilan doesn't mention that Peace Now "vocally opposes Jewish settlement" by liberally lying and libeling its targets.  Nor does she identify some of the other NGOs likely to come under scrutiny, like Adalah which is heavily funded by the European Union and advocates for the eradication of a Jewish nation-state.

The Reuters correspondent then attempts to draw an utterly absurd parallel between on the one hand, Saudi Arabia financing Arab land acquisitions in Israel, and on the other, individuals buying land in Jerusalem and the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"):

Danon asserted that investors in Saudi Arabia had been funding offers to buy land at above market value in northern Israel, where a majority of Israeli Arab citizens live.
In turn, Palestinians have been critical of funding that Israeli pro-settlement groups receive from private donors overseas to buy land for settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, territory captured in a 1967 Middle East war.

Apparently lost on Fisher-Ilan is the key distinction between the two projects: in the former case, a foreign government is engaged in a systematic effort to alter the demographic balance of another sovereign by funding land purchases (illegal in most countries); in the latter case, private individuals are financially supporting housing in a territory which remains formally unallocated and into which Jewish settlement was officially sanctioned by the international community nine decades ago.

Critical thinking however, has never been a strong suit of the radical left.

Reuters plays down the power of the Muslim Brotherhood

In addition to sanitizing the image of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood so as to make the group more palatable to Western audiences, Reuters is now engaged in a campaign to minimize the role and importance of the group in the upheaval taking place in Egypt and the wider Middle East.

In an "Analysis" of the situation, Reuters correspondent William Maclean proposes this whopper non sequitur:

The involvement of youths, secularists and the educated middle class gave the lie to any notion that Islamists were at the vanguard of opposition forces in the Arab world.

Notwithstanding the incoherent suggestion that youths and educated middle class cannot also be Islamists (Reuters has already noted that many Brotherhood members are indeed both educated and middle class), Maclean is simply wrong that the Muslim Brotherhood or Islamists generally, are not leading the opposition forces in Egypt or the Arab Middle East.  In a lengthy briefing from last November which in many ways foreshadowed and may largely account for the intensity of the insurrection, AlJazeera wrote:

Still, it is impossible to predict what would happen if, despite Egyptians' reputation for political lethargy, opposition groups managed to put tens of thousands of followers into the streets of Cairo to protest what many expect will be an attempted handover of power to Mubarak's son, Gamal. 

The key to any roadblock on the path to such "republarchy" lies with the Muslim Brotherhood, the world's most influential Islamist movement and far and away the largest and best-organised counterweight to Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP).  Change in Egypt, for better or worse, does not materialise without the Brothers. 

When former International Atomic Energy Agency chief and Nobel Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei - the great hope of Egypt's secular leftists - returned home this year and launched a petition drive to demand the government lift its most onerous national security laws and reform electoral practices, his National Association for Change gathered 106,661 signatures in support by early September.  The Muslim Brotherhood came up with more than 650,000. 

The Brotherhood has 88 seats in parliament, compared to the 34 politicians representing all other non-NDP parties. 

Protest groups such as the Egyptian Movement for Change, or Kifaya, which became a Western media darling during the 2005 election, rely on the Brotherhood to put thousands of supporters into the streets.

Yet with Egypt's November 28 parliamentary elections approaching, the Brotherhood finds itself in flux.

Long repressed by authorities and still technically outlawed, the group is coming off a landmark five-year term in which it served as the largest-ever minority bloc in Egypt's short multi-party political history and the loudest critic of Mubarak's 30-year authoritarian rule.

And though Reuters would have us believe otherwise, the Brotherhood continues to well exercise its power.

Non sectarian or non sequitur?

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

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

Our desktop dictionary defines sectarian as:

1. of or pertaining to sectaries or sects.

2. narrowly confined or devoted to a particular sect.

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

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

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

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

Reuters cannot find Sanremo on the map

In addition to being a lovely holiday resort on the Italian Riviera, Sanremo is the spot where Allied Powers of World War I met in 1920 to disposition (not really a verb but apropos here) the territory of the vanquished Ottoman Empire.  The resolution arising from the San Remo conference called for the recognition of sovereign states of Syria and Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) and a Jewish national home in Palestine.  It mandated that:

The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.

The San Remo resolution became international law on July 24, 1922 when it was adopted by the League of Nations and subsequently grandfathered across to the League's successor, the United Nations. 

In 1947, the British abandoned their responsibility as Administrator of the Palestine Mandate and the UN recommended partition of the remaining land (78 percent had already been given away to the Hashemite Arabs) between Jews and Arabs living west of the Jordan River.  The Arabs violently rejected partition and the rest, as they say, is history.

For Tom Perry and the babes at Reuters however, history only begins in 1967:

Israel has settled the territory extensively since 1967, when it captured and occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The international community for the most part deems the [Jewish] settlements illegal. 

Settler leaders claim a biblical right to the West Bank.

It is undoubtedly true that many Jewish settlers in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") feel the 3,500 year history of Jewish civilization and culture in the territory, as documented in both the Bible and the archaeological record, well-qualifies them to live there.  At the end of the day however, it is contemporary international law, embodied in San Remo and still on the books at the United Nations, which guarantees that right.

Reuters still confused about Iranian support for Hamas

In a story on Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling on the Palestinians to continue warring against Israel until, "Jerusalem [is liberated] from the dirt of the Zionist occupation", Reuters correspondent Parisa Hafezi continues to get it wrong on the extent to which Iran has supported the terror group Hamas:

Washington accuses Iran of sponsoring terrorism by arming and financing those organizations. Iran says it provides moral support to the Islamist militant groups.

Note how the wily Hafezi follows an accusation by the US that Iran is arming and financing Hamas with the non sequitur, "Iran says it provides moral support to the Islamist militant groups".  Of course, that moral support does not preclude arming and financing but as written, it suggests a denial.

As we noted back in June, both Iran and Hamas have publicly admitted to the former bankrolling the latter.  And we know that Iranian missiles have ended up in the Hamas arsenal because they have also ended up exploded in Israeli communities.

Dan Williams fishes for a red herring and catches a non sequitur

In a story on Israeli actors and playwrights refusing to perform in Jewish communities beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines (the "Green Line"), Reuters correspondent Dan Williams explains what he views as the difference in position between those who believe Jews have no right to live outside of the Green Line and those who believe otherwise:

The settlements have been branded as illegal abroad. Many Jews say they have a biblical birthright to live there.

While it's true that many religious Jews living in settlements in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") feel that the first millennium of the 3,000 year Jewish presence in the area as documented in the Bible constitutes a legitimate ancestral claim to the land, Williams is deliberately omitting a much more contemporary and juridical claim: the Palestine Mandate:

The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.

Adopted by the League of Nations and grandfathered across by the United Nations, the Mandate has never been abrogated.  Thus, the relevant and appropriate contrasting view to, "the settlements have been branded as illegal abroad", is not a reference to a "biblical birthright", but rather, "the settlements are viewed as entirely legal in Israel".

Williams of course, will not frame the argument this way because to do so would require him to acknowledge that contemporary international law stands behind Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria -- something the Palestinian advocates at Reuters will never do.

Reuters reports on UN finding regarding border clash; expediently switches photos

In what must be quite distressing for the agency, Reuters has had to acknowledge that, per the UN, Israel was within its own borders when the Lebanese army opened fire killing an Israeli Lieutenant Colonel and critically wounding another officer.  After reporting on this definitive finding however, Reuters returns to its usual "he said/she said" account of the incident with an amusing non sequitur from the Lebanese Information Minister:

Tareq Mitri said the area where Israel's activity took place was south of the Blue Line "but is Lebanese territory".

Makes perfect sense.

On the same URL where Reuters had published a picture of the Israeli army crane with a caption indicating the agency was in the process of "clarifying" the border location, Reuters has now removed the picture and replaced it with a photo of the crying daughter of a Lebanese soldier killed in the clash.  The not-so subliminal message: The Israelis were technically justified in defending against an unprovoked attack by the Lebanese army BUT... look at the pain and suffering they've caused.

Upstanding journalism.

UPDATE 11:20 AM: In an effort to rationalize the non sequitur above, Reuters edits the original story, adding:

Israel and Lebanon dispute parts of the Blue Line.

To be clear, there is no formal dispute with respect to the UN-drawn border at the point where the violence took place.

If it's Sharia, it can't be abuse

Reuters picks up a report from the official Iranian news agency indicating that the government there has decided to temporarily suspend the stoning of a woman convicted of adultery.  Reuters correspondent Parisa Hafezi reminds readers:

Murder, adultery, rape, armed robbery, apostasy and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Iran's sharia law, enforced since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Hafezi's story ends with this mind-boggling non sequitur:

The Iranian authorities routinely dismiss charges of rights abuses, saying they are following Sharia.

Well yes, we suppose that if Sharia law calls for adultery to be punished by stoning, by that standard a stoning fulfilled wouldn't reflect an abuse of rights. Leave it to Reuters to straighten us out on that.

For Allyn Fisher-Ilan, facts just twist the truth around

Reuters astrology freak Allyn Fisher-Ilan reports on a decision by the Jerusalem municipal planning board to move ahead on the construction of 1,000 new homes in the neighborhood of Silwan.  First, note this amusing non sequitur:

The blueprint also calls for demolishing about 20 Palestinian homes built without permits, while licensing another 60 of the houses Israel says were built illegally. Palestinians say building permits are impossible to obtain from Israel.

Oh sure, building permits are "impossible" for Palestinians to obtain.  Just don't tell that to the 60 Palestinian families whose houses (built illegally) are being approved retroactively.

And nowhere in her story does Fisher-Ilan explain that where illegal houses are razed, the Palestinian owners will receive land and permits to build even larger homes.  Details, details.

Nor is there any mention of the more than 36,000 permits for new housing units in the Arab sector of Jerusalem --  enough to meet the needs of Arab residents through 2020.

Who needs facts when Venus the love planet is totally engaged in your sign today?