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“ISRAELI ARMY BEGINS DEPLOYING IN JERUSALEM AGAINST ATTACKS” – Deconstructing AP bias

By Alison Weir

Once again, the Associated Press provides a blatantly slanted news report on Israel-Palestine. The problem is, AP’s slant is only blatant to those who know the full facts. This is the article that hundreds of newspaper wire editors around the US, most of whom have never visited the region and whose information comes largely from AP, are seeing. Below I will discuss AP’s October 14 news report. I will quote the AP report in full, commenting below each section about what it contains and does not contain.

By Aron Heller

As is typical, AP’s story is written by an individual with strong connections to Israel. Aron Heller grew up in Israel, graduated from Tel Aviv University, and may be an Israeli citizen. It is likely that he or members of his family have served in the Israeli military. None of this is disclosed to AP readers. [We’ve noticed that, hours after this appeared, the byline for this same basic story is now given as “Tia Goldenberg,” who is probably updating it.]

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military began deploying hundreds of troops in cities across the country on Wednesday to assist police forces in countering a wave of deadly Palestinian shooting and stabbing attacks that have created panic across the country.

According to what seem to be the figures at the time of the article, Israelis have killed 30 Palestinians and injured somewhere between 1,100 and 1,400 since the beginning of the current violence, while Palestinians have killed 7 or 8 Israelis and injured about 30.  Yet, Heller’s focus is on Israelis.  Continue reading

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Burying the Story Along with the Body: Did the New York Times Lead Anthony Shadid to His Death?

The following article contains information about how AP buried explosive information about Anthony Shadid’s death:

By Alison Weir, CounterPunch, June 29, 2012

Anthony Shadid was an astounding journalist.

By 43 he was legendary for his courage and lyrical, powerful reporting. He had received the Pulitzer Prize twice for his moving reports from the middle of the Iraq war and had built, as the Washington Post noted, “one of the most storied careers in modern American journalism.”

He had reported from the chaos of war zones and had survived multiple crises. In Libya he had been kidnapped, beaten, and held for six days. In Palestine he had survived an Israeli bullet fired at him from 25 feet away. Continue reading

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Israel Lobby Dominates Congress, Media Covers it Up

You might think that 20 percent of the American Congress going on all-expenses-paid, week-long junkets to a foreign country — paid for by a lobby for that country — would be newsworthy, especially when the top congressional leaders of both parties are leading the trips.

You would be wrong.

Eighty-one congressional representatives from all over the country, led by Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, are traveling to Israel this month. Most are freshmen congressmen, and the group includes half of all the freshmen Republicans voted into office in 2010.

The week-long trips are being paid for by the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), which was created in 1990 as a supporting organization of AIPAC, America’s major pro-Israel lobbying organization, sharing the same building. AIEF, which is only one of numerous organizations pushing pro-Israel policies, has an annual budget of over $24 million, with an even larger endowment. Continue reading

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AP’s Matti Friedman: Israeli citizen and former Israeli soldier

In the previous post, “‘Israeli army strikes Gaza after school bus hit’ – Deconstructed,” I examined the Israeli-centric wording and pattern of omissions in AP’s report on the recent violence in Gaza. At the end of the piece I noted:

“…the story was written and edited in Israel by Matti Friedman, a journalist who may have family ties to the Israeli military.”

Tonight I was examining AP’s recent reports on Israel-Palestine and noted additional articles by Matti Friedman. Since they all seem to contain such distinctly pro-Israel bias I decided to look into Friedman more to see what I could learn about his/her background.

It turns out that Friedman is male, grew up in Canada, and at the age of 16 won a “Bronfman Youth Fellowship” for an all-expense-paid five-week summer trip to Israel for Jewish high school students from North America to “encounter the land and people of Israel [and] study Judaism and major issues in contemporary Jewish life.”

The next year he moved to Israel, where he settled and has lived since 1995. And yes, he served in the Israeli military. Continue reading

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“Israeli army strikes Gaza after school bus hit” – Deconstructed

First, let’s look at what has happened in Gaza in the past week:

Following is how AP reported on this. This story is on hundreds of newspaper websites around the country:

Israeli army strikes Gaza after school bus hit

By MATTI FRIEDMAN

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli aircraft and ground forces struck Gaza on Friday, killing two Hamas gunmen and three civilians

No mention in either the headline or the lead paragraph that Israeli forces killed a total of 14 people in the past 24 hours, including a mother, her  daughter (injured another of her children), and an elderly man, and that they injured dozens of others.

Continue reading

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Israel airstrike kills 1 Gaza militant – deconstructed

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip* [March 29, 2011] — An Israeli aircraft attacked a pair of Palestinian militants* riding on a motorcycle in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, killing one and wounding the other, the Islamic Jihad group said.

1. Although the dateline says that the story was filed from Gaza City, it is highly unlikely that it was actually written there. Most likely a reporter in Gaza phoned information to AP’s control bureau in Israel, where this story was written – probably by an Israeli journalist.

2. The writer chose to call the victims “militants.” However, another, probably more historically accurate term for Palestinian fighters against Israel would be something like “members of the Palestinian resistance.” While such phraseology might seem odd to people used to US/AP news coverage, it is actually closer to the phraseology used in other conflicts.

The Israeli military said it had “targeted and hit a terrorist squad” that had launched rockets toward southern Israel the previous day. The military said the air force carried out an additional airstrike overnight that hit a smuggling tunnel in southern Gaza.*

1. Notice that the story gives the Israeli military’s claims without any additional context.

2. For example, it doesn’t explain that the “smuggling tunnels” are used to bring in diverse goods to Gaza’s 1.5 billion men, women, and children, who have suffered from immense deprivation of medicines, building supplies, food stuffs, etc. due to Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

3. It doesn’t tell that the Israeli military is the fourth strongest military in the region, supplied with the best tanks, weaponry, and fighter jets that American tax money can buy, while Palestinian resistance fighters usually have little more than home-made rockets.

4. It doesn’t report that the “aircraft” was an unmanned drone.

5. It doesn’t report that Israeli forces have killed thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children since 2000.

Islamic Jihad said the men were on their way to a nearby mosque to pray.* The Iranian-backed* group, which has killed scores of Israelis* in rocket attacks* and suicide bombings*, vowed revenge.*

1. In a less Israeli-centric report the statement that the men were on their way to pray would have been placed far higher in the story.

2. The group may or may not be backed by Iran. This speculation has yet to be confirmed. Yet, here AP reports it as fact.

3. Notice that AP, which ignored the thousands of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces, does report on the “scores” of Israelis killed by Islamic Jihad.

4. Rocket attacks have killed approximately 20 Israelis in total. Why is this fact never in AP stories?

5. The last suicide bombing by Islamic Jihad was four years ago, it killed three Israelis.

6. AP frequently reports Palestinians vowing “revenge.” It virtually never describes grieving Palestinian widows, wives, children, mothers, fathers of the fallen. Conversely, it describes all these for the far rarer Israeli victims; yet, it almost never reports their vows to kill more Palestinians.

Israel invaded Gaza, which is ruled by* the Hamas militants*, more than two years ago, in a fierce* offensive meant to end years of rocket fire*.

1. Hamas was elected in fair elections. Some Christians ran on the Hamas ticket.

2. Again, the use of the derogatory, Israeli-centric term “militant,” rather than a more normal desgination, such as “resistance movement.”

3. What AP calls a “fierce offensive,” much of the world called a massacre.

4. The rocket fire had largely stopped in the truce that began in June… Israel violated the truce three times, killing at least seven Palestinians; the rocket fire only began after that. Moreover, there is evidence that the invasion had been long planned and was merely awaiting a pretext. Finally, Israeli invasions preceded rocket attacks. The rocket launchings only began after Israeli forces had invaded and shelled Gaza, killing and maiming masses of people.

The operation inflicted heavy losses on Hamas* and brought about a period of relative quiet*, but Israel believes the group has recovered and restocked its arsenal with even more powerful weapons*.

1. Most of the victims were civilians, including hundreds of children.

2. For AP “relative quiet” means that Israelis have not died. In realilty, numerous Palestinians have been killed since that time.

3. AP says “ever more powerful weapons.” In reality, the weaponry of Palestinian resistance groups would never be called “powerful,” and largely consisted of home-made rockets launched out of the besieged, poverty stricken strip. Now some have acquired real rockets with longer range. They are still far from powerful, particularly when compared to the Israeli arsenal: nuclear weapons, F-16s, tanks, drones, etc.

Recently, there has been an escalation of violence* along the Gaza-Israel border. Both sides have indicated they do not want a repeat of the winter 2009 war* in Gaza.

1.The violence largely consists of almost daily Israeli invasions of Gazan territory and Israel declaring large swaths of farmland a “closed military zone,” creating extreme hardship for farmers whose subsistence comes from that land, and Israeli forces shooting farmers and nonviolent protesters who enter the area. Palestinian resistance fighters try to fight back, some using rockets.

There is no mention in the story that this was the the sixth member of Islamic Jihad to be killed by Israeli forces in the last ten days; no Israelis have been killed or even wounded.

2. The 2009 violence was hardly a “war.” Israeli forces killed 1400 Gazans; Gazans killed 9 Israelis (4 more were killed by Israeli “friendly fire.”)

3. There is no mention that the other victim of the Israeli strike is in critical condition.

4. There is no personal information about either victim; no mention that the one killed was 24 years old. If he had been an opponent of China or Libya, he would be reported as a hero.

5. There is no mention that a high proportion of Gaza’s residents are refugees ethnically cleansed by Israel in its 1948 war to create a Jewish-only state.

To see how this incident was reported elsewhere view Ma’an News, IMEMC, Al Jazeera, and AFP.

To see other newsworthy incidents that occurred during the same period see The Missing Headlines.

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If Americans Knew Blog

To read news and analysis about the Palestinian Territories, Israel, and the Middle East not being reported by mainstream U.S. media go to IsraelPalestineNews.org

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