You would barely know that 41 kassam rockets were fired into Israel on Tuesday, and another 30 so far today. You would barely know that there’s been another civilian injured. You would barely know this because the media are suppressing the news and burying it when they do mention it.

CNN doesn’t think a rocket barrage on Israel merits a separate story from Yisrael Beitenu leaving Olmert’s coalition. But they do find it newsworthy to put the news of Palestinian civilian deaths, and the death of a senior PIJ terrorist, in their “Highlights” section.

• Right-wing political party withdraws from the Israeli government coalition
• Israel Beiteinu says it was concerned about peace talks with the Palestinians
• NEW: Palestinian sources: Stray missile hits car, kills three Palestinians
• Israeli army, Palestinian witnesses: Israeli troops kill senior Islamic Jihad leader

Funny how “30 kassam rockets hit Israel” isn’t up in that highlight box.

Buried about halfway down the story, we have this information:

But the Israeli military said it is responding to daily rocket and mortar fire from Gaza militants on civilian targets inside Israel.

Palestinian militants fired about 20 Qassam rockets Wednesday into and around the central Israeli town of Sderot, an Israeli army spokesman said. No injuries were immediately reported, according to paramedics.

Sderot has been a frequent target of such rocket attacks. Qassams are simple rockets manufactured by Palestinian militants. They rarely travel a significant distance but have occasionally injured and killed people.

On Tuesday, snipers stationed near the Gaza-Israel border shot and killed an Ecuadorean kibbutz farmer as he tended his field Tuesday morning. An IDF spokeswoman said such attacks are “the reason Israeli forces are operating in Gaza.”

Once again, see how the major media outlets disparage the risk of Sderot’s citizens. Just because the kassams haven’t killed more than a dozen people—yet—they are “simple rockets manufactured by Palestinian militants.”

The kassams are deadly weapons of war, whose purpose is to drive the residents of Sderot out of Sderot. And it’s working.

The New York Times, at least, mentioned yesterday’s kassam and mortar attacks high up in its story. The Times, however, buried this quote by Mahmoud al-Zahar, the foreign minister of the democratically-elected leaders of the Palestinians. The ones that the EU and Jimmy Carter say that Israel should negotiate with. Here’s what al-Zahar had to say:

As Mr. Zahar left a Gaza City mosque on Tuesday afternoon, where he had prayed before his son’s funeral, he said Mr. Bush’s “fate will be his end, his and his nation’s.”

Mr. Zahar said that “Israel will also be wiped out,” adding “all must remember this when the Palestinian flag is raised one day.”

Yep, sounds like a man Israel can deal with to me. Absolutely.

You would barely know from reading any of the AP articles that there is currently a rocket and mortar barrage on southern Israel.

The residents of Sderot and Ashkelon woke up Wednesday to a continuing rocket barrage, as at least 30 Qassam rockets were fired from northern Gaza towards the two cities. Several people suffered from shock.

Wednesday’s salvo followed the 41 rockets fired at the western Negev Tuesday. At least 12 Qassams were fired at Sderot, 11 more at Ashkelon and several at the Eshkol regional council, within an hour. Most of the rockets landed in open areas, but a loud explosion was heard coming form Ashkelon’s industrial area and security forces were trying to locate its origin.

However, the AP is eager to report that Palestinians in the West Bank are on strike over the “massacre” yesterday that killed 15 Hamas terrorists. They’re also reporting that Israel is dismantling outposts. And that Yisrael Beitenu is leaving Olmert’s coalition. But in none of those stories will you find that there is currently a rocket barrage keeping Sderot’s children out of school and near their bomb shelters.

Instead of a snow day, Sderot children stay home due to possible bombs falling on them. It’s surreal, and yet, the world does not think that the attacks on Sderot merit a response like the IDF killing the greatest number of terrorists in one shot this side of a Hamas rally.

Apparently, there’s a 100% chance of kassams in Sderot today, and a 99% chance of the same tomorrow. There is, however, a 100% chance of thousands of news articles on the missile strike that went astray and hit a car full of civilians instead of terrorists. Never fear. The unbiased media is on it.

In her inimitable manner, MoDo comments on President Bush’s recent trip to the Middle East, “Faith, Freedom and Bling in the Middle East.” This caught my eye.

Less than a week after the president arrived in the Middle East, three violent eruptions — an Israeli raid killing at least 18 Palestinians, 13 of whom were militants; an American Embassy car bombing in Beirut; and a luxury hotel suicide-bombing in Kabul — underscored how Sisyphean a task he has set for himself. “This is one of the results of the Bush visit,” said Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, as he went to a Gaza hospital to see the body of his son, a militant killed in the battle. “He encouraged the Israelis to kill our people.”

Granted she’s an opinion columnist, but Israel didn’t just decide to go shooting up “militants” (the dictionary definition for these people is “terrorists,” euphemism doesn’t change what they are) once President Bush arrived. As evidence by January’s Qassam calendar, Israel has been under attack quite a bit this month, prior to the 15th. My guess is that they just got some actionable intelligence.

But that’s more forgivable than the lapse of a news organization as Mere Rhetoric points out.

There is in fact no quote about the attack from any Israeli politician, and nothing linking the daily bombardment of Sderot to today’s raid. The only explanation for the raid is Hamas’s murder of a kibbutz worker - which the article goes out of its way beforehand to point out happened after the raid started.Maybe CNN just ran out of room after filling the article with paragraphs and paragraphs about Israeli “massacres,” “spies,” and “aggression against our people.” You’d think they could have taken out one of the four “aggression” or “massacre” quotes to see what the Israeli Defense Ministry or Foreign Ministry had to say about the raid.

Oh well, at least the Israeli victims suffered only “minor injuries” and “light wounds” - which the article emphasizes twice just to make sure the message sinks in. Israeli sources had a different view of the injuries. The girl, by the by, is 5…

BTW, the problem with Modo isn’t whether she’s liberal or conservative. (BTW, I think that she’s pretty clearly liberal, though I’m sure I’ll get some arguments on that.) It’s that she has one weapon in her arsenal: snark. And if that’s all you’re bringing to the fight it gets tired, really fast.

UPDATE: This was picked up by Buzztracker and Blogrunner.

via Blogrunner, I came to a post by Don Singleton that links to a Washington Post article that portrays Ms. Dowd as a bit of an ingrate.

Once she arrived in Jerusalem last Tuesday (the day of the New Hampshire primary), Dowd fell sick - and started second-guessing her decision to leave the campaign trail for the presidential bubble abroad. She was suffering some kind of stomach bug that left her nauseous, weak and feeling feverish.”I’m not sure it was a New Hampshire fever or Jerusalem food poisoning,” Dowd said.

Presidential aides, including press secretary Dana Perino, made clear early on that Dowd could see Dr. Richard J. Tubb, the Air Force brigadier general who oversees the White House medical office and takes care of the president at home and abroad.

But Dowd declined. With no medication, she tried to soldier on by grabbing whatever rest she could in her hotel room–not easy to do in a trip of constant movements. By the time the presidential entourage moved to Bahrain from Kuwait on Saturday, she felt even worse. She was so sick, in fact, that she could not write her regular Sunday column.

Dowd finally decided to take up the White House on its offer.

I know that a columnists job is not to be nice. But the article describes the President’s staff as being solicitous of the stricken journalist. Might she have criticized the President in a less mocking fashion?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Accompanying this headline:
Bush’s brief Egypt visit shows up cooler ties

was this picture:

In typical news organization fashion, AFP got a major element of the story wrong. President Mubarak’s tie is decidedly not cool. It appears to be brick red with some yellow and, perhaps, navy blue diamonds. Not cool at all.

There’s someone in my shul (synagogue) who has the coolest ties. You know where he gets them? He gets them from Nordstrom Rack. So two weeks ago, when I was in Nordstrom Rack, I got myself a cool tie too.

I guess the moral of the story, is that if they want to get cooler ties in the Middle East they really need a Nordstrom’s Rack. (Syms also has some pretty cool ties.) Maybe then cooler ties will prevail.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The “cycle of violence” yesterday:

Terrorists in Gaza murdered an Ecuadoran volunteer, firing at him while he worked in the field at a kibbutz.

The IDF attacked a group of Hamas terrorists, killing at least a dozen of them. Mahmoud al-Zahar’s son is among the dead terrorists.

Hamas responded with a volley of rockets into Sderot, harming at least one child. And how does the AP spin this?

19 Gazans, Kibbutz Worker Killed

Note the headline. “Gazans.” Not “terrorists,” or even its bogus substitute, “militants.” And note the order of importance in the lede.

Israeli troops killed a son of Gaza’s most powerful leader along with 18 other Palestinians on Tuesday in the bloodiest day of fighting in the coastal area since Hamas militants seized control last summer.

As fighting raged in Gaza, a Hamas sniper shot and killed an Ecuadorean volunteer working in the potato fields of an Israeli border farm. That killing, and Tuesday’s high death toll, stoked the flames of violence at a time when Israel and Palestinian moderates are making halting attempts to talk peace.

Tuesday’s bloodshed began before dawn when Israeli infantry, tanks and helicopters pushed into northern Gaza in what the military said was a routine operation aimed at Palestinian militants who launch rocket barrages at Israeli towns near Gaza almost every day.

Three Palestinian civilians were killed in the ensuing fighting, along with 14 armed militants - one of them Hussam Zahar, 24, the son of hard-line Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar. The Israelis pulled out Tuesday with no casualties. A later airstrike on militants firing rockets into Israel killed two more Hamas men.

As for the “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas, here’s what he had to say—moderately, of course:

“Israel continues every day and every hour practicing its aggression against our people in the West Bank and Gaza,” he said.

“Today, there is a massacre against our people. We are telling the world and Israel, our people cannot be silent with these crimes and it will never bring peace.”

This is from an article titled “Hamas mourns Israeli raid victims” (h/t, Omri). That’s right. Because the “victims” weren’t terrorists trying to kill Israelis. They were just, well, Gazans.

And just check out these totally unbiased story highlights from CNN, helpfully supplied so that you don’t have to read the entire article to discover its anti-Israel bias:

Story Highlights
• Hamas leaders in Gaza mourn after Israeli raid leaves 17 dead, 20 wounded
• Palestinian President Abbas calls raid a “massacre” and blasts Israel
• Hamas said it fired 15 rockets into Israel as initial response to Israel’s actions
• Israel cites ongoing battle against Gaza’s terrorists as reason for raid

Interesting, how CNN manages to leave out of the highlight that the dead are mostly terrorists, and makes sure that Israel’s reason for being in Gaza—to stop the near-daily rocket barrages on Sderot and the Negev—is last. Hamas fired more than 40 rockets, by the way. The democratically elected government of the Palestinians has admitted war crimes against Israel. Anyone out there think the UN is going to leap to condemn them? Jimmy Carter, maybe? The New York Times editorial board?

Yeah, me neither.

If I were Ehud Barak, I’d send a message to Mahmoud Zahar about his son’s death. It’d be two words long: You’re next.