The anti-Israel bias, exposed again

In this AP article on Congress lifting the holds on sending money to the Lebanese army (and gee, having Obama assure them that the money won’t be hijacked by Hezbollah in any way sure makes me feel better, how about you?), we see the constant anti-Israel bias of the mainstream media.

Let’s parse this paragraph:

Lowey and Berman were among several lawmakers to express concern about the aid and placed holds on it in August after Lebanese soldiers opened fire on Israeli troops. Two Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist and a senior Israeli officer were killed.

Reading this account, the reader is led to believe that there was an exchange of fire after the Lebanese started it, but Israel, as usual, killed more people and managed to get a journalist, too. What really happened?

Let us review. The IDF notified UNIFIL that they were going to do their regular tree-pruning of the Israeli side of the border. As they were pruning trees, a Lebanese sniper opened fire—but not at the soldiers doing the pruning. He directed his fire at the officers observing the pruning—who were even further inside Israel. The sniper killed Lieutenant-Colonel Dov Harari and wounded another officer. And the world media slammed Israel, of course.

Also unmentioned: For some reason, there were a ton of Lebanese journalists on the other side of the border where the IDF would be pruning the trees. UNIFIL asked the IDF not to do the work at the time the IDF first mentioned, but to delay until a time that UNIFIL wanted this to occur. And there were blue helmets on the Lebanese side of the border, waving and yelling at the Israelis. (Reuters and other news media managed to make this look like the Israelis were ignoring warnings to approach the border, but it turned out that the Blue Helmets were actually trying to prevent the shootings from occuring.) This was an ambush by the Lebanese, plainly seen, and even admitted to by the Lebanese. But none of these facts manage to make it into the description of the attack above. I have a simple rewrite that you’ll never see the AP, or any other mainstream media outlet, attempt:

Lowey and Berman were among several lawmakers to express concern about the aid and placed holds on it in August after Lebanese soldiers ambushed Israeli troops pruning the brush on the Israeli side of the border, killing Lieutenant-Colonel Dov Harari and wounding another officer. Two Lebanese soldiers, and a Lebanese journalist were killed when Israel returned fire.

No, you’ll never see anything like that outside of the Israeli press. And the Jblogosphere.