773

That's the number of Reuters stories published over just the last couple of years employing the propaganda mantra "the West suspects Iran" (of developing nuclear weapons), in a willful effort by the news agency to conceal and play down damning independent evidence of Iran's comprehensive program to acquire the bomb:

Both sides say they are ready at the meeting to work towards resolving the deepening dispute over the nuclear program which the West suspects is geared towards achieving a nuclear arms capability, but which Iran says has purely peaceful purposes.

In next to none of the 773 stories does Reuters make mention of that independent evidence, as produced for example, by the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency:

The information indicates that Iran has carried out the following activities that are relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device:
• Efforts, some successful, to procure nuclear related and dual use equipment and materials by military related individuals and entities (Annex, Sections C.1 and C.2);
• Efforts to develop undeclared pathways for the production of nuclear material (Annex, Section C.3);
• The acquisition of nuclear weapons development information and documentation from a clandestine nuclear supply network (Annex, Section C.4); and
• Work on the development of an indigenous design of a nuclear weapon including the testing of components (Annex, Sections C.5–C.12).

Reuters: systematically dumbing down the planet.

The Reuters virus

Reuters tightly coordinates and sustains its anti-Israel bias and propaganda campaign across its news bureaus by encouraging correspondents to employ identical boilerplate rhetoric when reporting on the Middle East conflict.  For example, at last count, there are over 1,700 instances of the propaganda mantra "occupied West Bank" appearing in Reuters stories over just the last couple of years.

Similarly, like a malignant virus spreading from tissue to tissue, the same pernicious fabrications infecting stories produced in Reuters Jerusalem Bureau are replicated by other bureaus and ultimately transmitted to the public via hundreds of media outlets like the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune. 

In a story for example, about the French government warning pro-Palestinian protesters not to travel to Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") due to potential friction with Israeli authorities, Reuters Paris correspondents Pauline Mevel and Alexandria Sage write:

Palestinians, who want to create their own state together with the Gaza Strip, object to illegal Jewish settlements, trade restrictions and scant water supply, and their limited autonomy.

Note the reference to "illegal Jewish settlements", an unsupported and flagrantly false assertion that nevertheless, gets repeated in story after story after story.

The canard of a "scant water supply" for Palestinians is similarly false and yet reproduced in a host of Reuters stories which clearly seek to demonize the Jews of Israel.

Those in editorial positions at Reuters spearheading and enabling the agency's long-standing propaganda campaign targeting Israel might wish to review their employer's corporate governance charter, as the ethical violations of those "Trust Principles" pile up and for which they will ultimately be held accountable.

A rose by any other name

On a number of occasions, we've noted Reuters use of the propagandistic lede "Analysis" to tag its op-eds with a pseudo-scientific-sounding term and enable the agency to peddle spin as dispassionate investigation for subsequent syndication to hundreds of other media outlets.

Reuters has adopted a new propaganda mantra to disguise these type of agenda-driven stories: Insight.  So, when you come across this banner attached to a Reuters story in the future, you'll know immediately you are about to read a piece of one-sided claptrap masquerading as cool, trenchant reporting.

The Insight format is a perfect vehicle for Reuters kingpin propagandist Tom Perry.

When we last visited Perry, he was busy lying about the Muslim Brotherhood, asserting that the group had only announced it was going to reconsider Egypt's peace treaty with Israel in response to suggestions that U.S. financial and military aid to the country might be reviewed (if Americans currently detained in Egypt are not released).  In fact, the Brotherhood has been issuing threats to reconsider the treaty since it first became clear the group was going to accede to power in Egypt.

Here's what the Brotherhood said in early January, weeks before U.S. aid became a contention:

According to Essam al-Erian, deputy head of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party, the accords "are under the responsibility of the people and state institutions, and it would not be right for anyone to speak on behalf of the Egyptian people."
Speaking to the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat, al-Erian said, "We are not in a position to give assurances."
Rashad al-Bayoumi, the Brotherhood's second in command, told Al-Hayat las week that "the Muslim Brotherhood will not recognize Israel under any circumstances and might put the peace treaty with the Jewish state up to a referendum."
The Brotherhood, he added, "did not sign the peace accords… We are allowed to ask the people or the elected parliament to express their opinion on the treaty, and (to find out) whether it compromised the people's freedom and sovereignty. We will take the proper legal steps in dealing with the peace deal. To me, it isn't binding at all. The people will express their opinion on the matter."

And here's Perry serving as mouthpiece for the Brotherhood, conveying the false message (again) that the group's threats to renege on the treaty have only arisen as a result of the U.S. aid issue:  

While saying it will respect Egypt's international obligations, including the peace deal with Israel, the group has said Cairo could review the treaty if Washington were to hold back the aid that came with the agreement.
"We don't owe anyone any favors," said Hishmat, the lawmaker on the foreign relations committee. "Even with the threat to the U.S. aid, we are not intimidated in the way the previous regime used to be," he said.

Whether packaged as "news", "analysis", or "insight", a lie remains a lie.

And whether Reuters gives Tom Perry a beat in Ramallah, Cairo, or Timbuktu, a liar remains a liar.

Reuters carries the propaganda flag for the Palestinian team

In a story about four Arabs -- from Cairo, Jerusalem, and Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") -- preparing to compete in the London Olympics, Reuters correspondent Nidal al-Mughrabi, employs the agency's favorite racist propaganda mantra:

GAZA, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Gaza runner Bahaa al-Farra treads carefully, braving the elements and potholed roads ravaged by years of conflict between Palestinian militants and the Israeli army, as he prepares to race at the London Olympics.
The 19-year-old trains for three hours a day in Gaza's Yarmouk soccer stadium, along the dusty streets and on the beach in well worn trainers that were donated to the Palestine Olympic Committee by wealthy Gulf state, Qatar.
Palestinian athletes complain of a paucity of financial support at home and a lack of vital equipment and coaches that are crucial for success and to nurture talented youth, but by competing in London, a national dream will be realised.
The Gaza Strip is a narrow coastal enclave in the eastern Mediterranean that borders on Israel and Egypt and which Palestinians want as part of a future state along with the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem.

Al-Mughrabi, whom we recently caught lying again about Palestinian violence, seeks here to drum into the minds of his audience members, the notion that Jerusalem belongs to the Arabs.

Jerusalem, a city founded and built by the Jewish people over three thousand years ago; a city with a majority Jewish population in the modern era from 1840; and a city branded with the racist epithet, Arab East Jerusalem for a mere 19 years after the area was ethnically cleansed of its ancient Jewish community by the Arab Legion in 1948, is expediently daubed with the same racist brushstroke by al-Mughrabi so as to irrationally and unethically persuade readers that the city is by rights or title, Arab. 

This is one sick media company.

The West, yada, suspects, yada, Iran, yada

In a nearly 1,700-word magnum opus about Iran and the impact international sanctions are having on its economy, Reuters correspondents Niluksi Koswanage and Parisa Hafezi tell us:

The sanctions have been imposed to halt Iran's nuclear programme, which the West believes is being used to develop a nuclear bomb. Iran's leadership says the nuclear programme is peaceful, and it is willing to endure sanctions to maintain it as a national right.
Last month, Iran took the important step of beginning production of highly enriched uranium at a new facility hidden deep under a mountain, where it would be difficult for U.S. or Israeli warplanes to destroy it.
Israel and Western countries have accused Iran of working to develop a nuclear bomb, a charge dismissed by Tehran.

For the 700th+ time, Reuters attempts to obfuscate reality by stating that Israel and the amorphous "West" merely suspect Iran is developing a nuclear bomb and that of course, Iran denies this.  To Reuters, a perfectly symmetrical claim and rebuttal between two partisans.

Nearly 1,700 words of blather and nary a mention of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency and its many independent reports concluding that Iran has engaged in all aspects of developing nuclear weapons:

The information indicates that Iran has carried out the following activities that are relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device:
• Efforts, some successful, to procure nuclear related and dual use equipment and materials by military related individuals and entities (Annex, Sections C.1 and C.2);
• Efforts to develop undeclared pathways for the production of nuclear material (Annex, Section C.3);
• The acquisition of nuclear weapons development information and documentation from a clandestine nuclear supply network (Annex, Section C.4); and
• Work on the development of an indigenous design of a nuclear weapon including the testing of components (Annex, Sections C.5–C.12).

These are the facts Reuters correspondents are desperate to conceal from public view, even as they drum into the minds of their readers, a stale and meaningless propaganda mantra intended to misinform and confuse.

This is one sick media company.

Dan Williams, ventriloquist

Deeply dishonest Reuters correspondent Dan "Willful" Williams continues to employ a propaganda technique for which he and his colleagues in Jerusalem are notorious: conflating a quote by an Israeli official with the journalist's own biased message so as to deceive readers into thinking that the official had conveyed and/or agreed with the journalist's message.

In a story on Israel offering, and the Palestinians rejecting, proposals for international borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state, note Williams' sly ventriloquist act to deceive and manipulate readers:

Israel's approach to territorial compromise in the occupied West Bank includes the principal that "most Israelis will be under Israeli sovereignty and obviously most Palestinians will be under Palestinian sovereignty," the official said.

Williams precedes a truncated quote by the Israeli official with his own biased rhetoric characterizing the territory in contention as "the occupied West Bank", a propaganda mantra appearing in thousands of Reuters stories on the Middle East conflict intended to assign, in the minds of readers, rightful ownership of the land to the Palestinian Arabs.  Of course, these are actually Williams' own words but a cursory read suggests the Israeli official had used the loaded term.

As we stated at the top, Williams is notorious for employing this propaganda technique.

"Military presence"

In yet another example of a propaganda mantra demonstrating Reuters transparent bias, correspondent Alistair Lyon characterizes the relationship between Syria and Lebanon between 1976 and 2005:

The turmoil in Syria has fuelled tensions in neighboring Lebanon where Syria has many allies, including the powerful Shi'ite group Hezbollah, as well as foes who resent the nearly three decades of Syrian military presence which ended in 2005.

That "military presence" involved the illegal stationing of thousands of Syrian troops, tanks, and warplanes in Lebanon for the explicit purpose of suppressing anti-Syrian sentiment, securing geopolitical leverage against Israel, and providing economic gains for the Syrian population.

Yet, Lyon willfully downplays it as a mere "military presence".

Apparently, "occupation", the agency's favorite word to employ when describing Israel's quite legal presence in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") doesn't apply when referring to illegal Arab control of the sovereign territory of other states.

"The West suspects"

A propaganda mantra is a false or deliberately misleading word or phrase published or broadcast repeatedly by the propagandist so as to drum the notion into the mind of the audience until they accept it as true, unquestioningly.

Reuters employs propaganda mantras in its Middle East coverage as a matter of policy.

Take this story, by Reuters correspondent William Maclean, about the alleged covert war being fought against Iran so as to purportedly impede its nuclear weapons program:

Analysis: Not-so-covert Iran war buys West time, raises tension

LONDON | Wed Jan 18, 2012 6:49am EST
(Reuters) - A backseat passenger on a motorcycle weaving through the crush of Tehran's morning traffic reaches out and places a small magnetic device on the door of a silver-grey Peugeot 405.
When the directional bomb explodes seconds later, blasting through the sedan's door and instantly killing nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, a 32-year-old father of one, the motorcycle has already vanished, accelerating into the ranks of the Iranian capital's rush hour.
The proficiency of the latest assassination to deplete Iran's community of atom specialists suggests that violent actions by one or more of Iran's adversaries form an increasingly active - and public - element in a multifaceted international drive to impede Iran's nuclear program.
Some old espionage hands voice respect for the expert landing of clandestine, deniable blows against a program the West suspects is aimed at acquiring a nuclear bomb capability and Iran says is for civilian purposes.

The propaganda mantra here is, "the West suspects", an allusion to the notion that Iran's nuclear weapons program, a program confirmed by scientists at the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is still a matter of hearsay and dispute between Iran and the amorphous "West".

In an op-ed of over 2,100 words, misleadingly labeled as "Analysis" so Reuters can successfully place the propaganda with hundreds of other news outlets, Maclean never once mentions the IAEA or its many reports on Iran's steady progress toward a deliverable nuclear weapon.

Further, the Reuters correspondent attempts, via a combination of cherry-picked quotes and unsupported assertions, to pin blame for the "not-so-covert war" primarily on Israel.  Again, Maclean willfully withholds from readers essential information which would otherwise enable them to draw their own conclusions, untainted by Reuters propaganda, on the roles played by various parties to the conflict. 

For example, Maclean fails to report that Iran itself has most recently accused the United States, not Israel, of the subject killing of an Iranian scientist.  Moreover, there is no mention of the history of other countries, including several Arab states, who maintain their own espionage and assassination crews, coming out against Iran and urging the Obama administration to "cut off the head of the snake [Iran]".

As we frequently note, just another day at the office for Reuters stable of propagandists.

We couldn't have said it better

(Reuters) - Occupy this: the trash bin. At least, so say students at Michigan's Lake Superior State University who released an annual list of words they deem so misused, overused and cliched they should be banished in the year ahead.

Happy New Year!

Reuters latest propaganda mantra

We define a propaganda mantra as a false, fabricated, or misleading construct appearing repeatedly in a Reuters story so as to drum the notion into the mind of the reader until he or she simply surrenders his or her critical faculty and accepts the propaganda as truth.

Correspondents in Reuters Jerusalem Bureau regularly dream up new entrants in this category and then employ them consistently in and across all stories published by the bureau.  Examples of the many Reuters propaganda mantras can be seen in our right sidebar with counts as to how many times these phrases have appeared in Reuters stories over the last couple of years.

The latest propaganda mantra to insinuate its way into Reuters Middle East coverage appears in a story by correspondent Dan Williams about a Salafi terrorist -- er sorry, "militant" -- killed by the Israeli air force as he was preparing to fire a rocket from Gaza:

Though Hamas echoes Salafi calls for Israel's ultimate destruction, its ambitions are framed within Palestinian nationalism, not al Qaeda-style global jihad, and include a possible ceasefire with the militarily superior Jewish state which, with Egyptian help, has tried to isolate Gaza.

Williams' (unsupported) assertion, i.e., that the goal of Hamas is one of merely achieving a Palestinian state rather than waging a broader war of jihad against non-Muslims so as to reconquer all land that has ever been under Islamic rule, is utterly false.  It is intended to draw a spurious distinction between Hamas and al-Qaeda for naive western audiences so that Williams and his colleagues at Reuters can carry on with their Palestinian advocacy campaign, justifying Palestinian violence under the deliberately misleading banner of "nationalism".

To see that Williams is simply blowing smoke, all one need do is read the Hamas Charter which, in setting out the terror group's mission and strategy, employs the word "jihad" no fewer than 36 times, including this section describing the relationship between Hamas and other jihadists:

Article Twenty-Three: Our Position Vis-a-Vis the Islamic Movements

The Hamas views the other Islamic movements with respect and appreciation. Even when it differs from them in one aspect or another or on one concept or another, it agrees with them in other aspects and concepts. It reads those movements as included in the framework of striving [for the sake of Allah], as long as they hold sound intentions and abide by their devotion to Allah, and as along as their conduct remains within the perimeter of the Islamic circle. All the fighters of Jihad have their reward. The Hamas regards those movements as its stock holders and asks Allah for guidance and integrity of conduct for all. It shall not fail to continue to raise the banner of unity and to exert efforts in order to implement it, [based] upon the [Holy] Book and the [Prophet’s] Tradition. “And hold fast, all of you together, to the cable of Allah, do not separate. And remember Allah’s favor unto you how ye were enemies and He made friendship between your hearts so that ye became as brothers by His grace; and (how) ye were upon the brink of an abyss of fire, and He did save you from it. Thus Allah makes clear His revelations unto you, that happily ye may be guided.” Sura III (Al-’Imran), verse 102.

And this section acknowledging that Hamas is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood (which, like al-Qaeda, advocates for a global caliphate):

Article Two: The Link between Hamas and the Association of Muslim Brothers

The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of the Muslim Brothers in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a world organization, the largest Islamic Movement in the modern era. It is characterized by a profound understanding, by precise notions and by a complete comprehensiveness of all concepts of Islam in all domains of life: views and beliefs, politics and economics, education and society, jurisprudence and rule, indoctrination and teaching, the arts and publications, the hidden and the evident, and all the other domains of life.

Indeed, even the Brotherhood affiliate in Tunisia, the al-Nahda party, boasts of Jerusalem becoming the center of the new caliphate -- once of course, it is conquered by the Palestinians:

How to write a straight story on the Middle East conflict, a lesson for Reuters

When it comes to reporting on the Middle East conflict, systematic bias can be seen in the stories of a great many publications and news agencies, including the Associated Press (AP).  In the race to advocate for the Palestinian Arabs and demonize Israelis however, Reuters proudly leads the pack.

Consider for example, this AP story, published on Wednesday, about Israel allowing building materials into Gaza for the reconstruction of privately-owned factories.  The story is basically balanced, straightforward, factual, and provides contextual detail necessary to understand how and why events have unfolded:

Until now only international projects have been allowed to import such materials, which Israel restricts because of concerns they could be used by Gaza militants who regularly launch rockets at Israeli towns.

Although AP refers to Palestinians who deliberately fire rockets at civilian communities as "militants" when they would more accurately be identified as terrorists, there is at least an acknowledgement that Gazans are regularly launching rockets at Israeli towns.  Not so with Reuters, which in dozens of recent stories, either omits mention of these Palestinian attacks or overtly lies about the situation by asserting that Palestinian terror factions have been observing a "de facto truce" with Israel.

AP continues:

Hamas-ruled Gaza is subject to an Israeli and Egyptian blockade that includes restrictions on the movement of goods and people.

Reuters prefers to demonize Israel by almost always failing to mention that Egypt too, has been blockading the Gaza Strip.

More from the AP story:

The factories being rebuilt were destroyed or damaged in fighting in 2009, when Israel invaded to try to stop near-daily rocket salvos.

Yes, Israel invaded Gaza to try to stop near-daily rocket attacks.  Reuters correspondents on the other hand, systematically employ the propaganda mantra "Israeli offensive" to describe the Gaza war and only rarely associate Israel's defensive operation there with the thousands of precipitating Palestinian rocket and mortar blitzes.  Indeed, readers following Reuters would likely come to believe that Israel regularly launches unprovoked attacks against its neighbors.

And unlike Reuters, AP pulls no punches on the support for, or status of, Hamas:

Hamas, an Iran-backed militant group, is considered a terror organization by Israel, the U.S. and the European Union. It has ruled Gaza since 2007.

It's not difficult to write a straight story on the Arab-Israeli conflict -- unless of course, you're a twisted news agency.

Fisking Tom Perry (part I)

As one of the most deeply dishonest and propagandistic of Reuters many dishonest and propagandistic correspondents, Tom Perry's stories feature prominently in our site commentary.

In a nearly 1,800-word appeal to pity (Reuters stories typically average about 400 words) on the efforts of the Palestinian Arabs to eradicate Israel obtain their own state, Perry masterfully weaves propaganda, lies, half-truths, and distortions into every paragraph.  Indeed, there are so many journalistic and ethical failures in Perry's piece, our fisking of his story will absorb three posts here at RMEW.

"[Palestinians] squeezed by the rule of Israeli occupation" [in the territories]. 

 
Jews are in the territories by right in international law, as resolved by the League of Nations nearly a century ago and adopted by the United Nations 25 years later.  There is no “occupation”.

"[Israel has] demolished the [Palestinian] encampments since 1997, typically on the grounds they were put up without permission". 

Yes, just as Jewish settlements not approved by the Israeli government have been demolished, as in Migron just last week.

"Demolitions are just one of the problems that Palestinians living under Israeli control in the West Bank have to deal with”. 

Perry employs the propaganda mantra "West Bank" to identify the disputed territories, an Arab-ethnocentric term invented following expulsion of the entire Jewish population from the area in 1949.  The land is known as Judea and Samaria by the Jews, who lived there for thousands of years before being ethnically cleansed by the invading Arabs.

“The expansion of Jewish settlements has eaten up land”. 

And of the 78% of the original Mandate of Palestine, set aside for a Jewish national home yet "eaten up" by a Palestinian-majority state known as Jordan, Perry is curiously silent.

“Palestinians, along with their property, are increasingly the target of settler violence”.    

Shall we compare the violence of graffiti spray-painted onto a Palestinian mosque with the violence of a Jewish infant butchered in his sleep by Palestinians?

Racist Allyn Fisher-Ilan at it again

From a story by Reuters racist Allyn Fisher-Ilan:

The Palestinians want a state covering all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip with Arab East Jerusalem as their capital and a settlement of the refugee issue. They have declined comment on the initiative, saying they want to see its text first.

For the umpteenth time, there is no such place as "Arab East Jerusalem", and reference to it is ahistorical, biased, and racist.  The eastern part of the city of Jerusalem was designated such by the Jordanian-led Arab Legion in 1949 following its invasion, conquest and ethnic cleansing of the area of Jews.  This status lasted a mere 19 years of a municipal history spanning over three-thousand years during which time Jews founded the city, built its roads and Temples, and constituted its majority religio-ethnic community for centuries before the arrival of colonizing Arabs.

Fisher-Ilan is peddling a propaganda mantra here in an unethical attempt to influence her readers to accept the false notion that Jerusalem belongs to the Arabs.

In so doing, she's violating her firm's corporate governance charter, endorsing the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Jerusalem, and betraying her hardcore racism.

Jewish Jerusalem before and after ethnic cleansing by the Arab Legion.