The AP covered the Palestinian protests against the security barrier in an in-depth story. But there’s something pretty huge missing from this story. In fact, it’s missing from the lead, and from any real description of the protests, until way, way down in the article.

A Palestinian teen tracks Israeli troops with a video camera to document abuse of demonstrators.

A community organizer tours West Bank villages with a PowerPoint presentation teaching the art of creative protest.

These are just two examples of the increasingly savvy methods Palestinians are using to fight Israel’s West Bank separation barrier - a campaign whose danger was driven home this week by the death of a 10-year-old Palestinian boy.

Six years after Israel began building the barrier, Palestinian villagers march almost daily in an attempt to halt construction work that threatens to swallow up thousands more acres of West Bank land. Many protests turn into confrontations between youths hurling rocks and Israeli troops responding with tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and at times live fire.

The aim is to slow construction, draw media attention and ensure that Israeli high court judges hearing challenges to the barrier’s route “will think twice before deciding such a high-profile case,” said Michael Sfard, an Israeli lawyer representing Palestinian villages.

The art of creative protest—is that what they’re calling stoning these days? Oh, the stoning? You have to read down twenty paragraphs before you find any notice of it whatsoever, or any of the other violent tactics used every single day at the Naalin protests. The AP likes to pretend that the violence doesn’t exist, or is in response to the soldiers responding to the protesters.

“They taught us how to tie ourselves to a tree and blind soldiers with mirrors,” said Abdullah, adding he also learned to surprise soldiers by holding protests in different places to confuse them.

Abdullah Abu Rahmeh, a Bilin activist who worked with Bedouin tribesmen who complain of harassment by Jewish settlers, said he begins by discussing resistance.

“I then show them a documentary of Bilin and I pause at the different strategies we have, like stuffing ourselves in barrels and rolling in front of bulldozers,” Abu Rahmeh said.

At one Naalin protest, Palestinian youths rushed down sloping olive groves, whooping as they climbed onto a bulldozer clearing land for the barrier. The startled driver was quickly chased away while other Palestinians lobbed rocks to divert the soldiers, who hurled back sound bombs and tear gas, leaving plumes of acrid smoke.

The bulldozer’s work was held up for a couple of hours - a successful outcome, Palestinians said.

Although Bilin activists say they teach nonviolent forms of protest, they are reluctant to tell other Palestinians not to hurl rocks, saying it’s a matter left for individual villages to decide.

The rocks that they hurl are generally not pebbles. Soldiers are regularly injured by the rocks and protesters. And protesters regularly lie and fake injuries for the camera.

The AP once again presents an extremely biased article. Notice that there are no quotes from Israeli officials at all. There is no other side presented, something that you’d never see in any kind of article about Israel. And the de-emphasis on the fact that these protests turn violent every single time is a huge omission by the AP. These are not peaceful protests. They are calculated, violent protests, and they unfortunately turned deadly several days ago. The IDF is investigating the soldiers’ use of live fire. Who is investigating the protesters’ use of violence day after day after day?

Certainly not the AP. They end their story with some good advice for protesters:

In the meantime, Palestinians are honing their strategies.

“Now I tell the protesters, take a camera, take a camera,” Kanaan said, holding her own.

That’s a great idea. But I have a better one. Israel should impound the cameras and distribute video of the rock-throwing and violence by Palestinians and “internationals” (you just know the ISM creeps are in this up to their ears). Not that it would change the AP anti-Israel bias. But the facts would be out there for the rest of us.

The AP falsely reported that Israel is building a new settlement on the West Bank and linked this to a wrong-headed spin on an important national leader visiting Israel.

No, not Obama! He’s still just a candidate. I’m referring to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Curiously, Brown’s visit was highlighted for its criticism of Israel by the AP though his trip was seen in Israel as incredibly supportive.

While I realize that AP is a fairly loose association and is rather a gathering of all kinds, the frequency of anti-Israeli reports it produces is way above normal. And it’s not only loose, but allows its contributors to play loose with facts to score a cheap propaganda point.

More in this article by professor Barry Rubin of GLORIA Center.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

The AP never disappoints. Nine people have been killed and 42 wounded in Lebanon in the past two days, yet all you find is a brief story in the AP, whitewashed and vague. On the other hand, Israeli troops found and killed a wanted terrorist who was responsible for a suicide bombing. The story is in-depth, and covers several different Israel-related topics on top of the dead Hamasnik.

Let’s take a look at the news out of Lebanon, where we have sectarian fighting going on. The headline:

Clashes continue in northern Lebanon, 3 die

Now let’s take a look at Hebron, where the IDF found (and destroyed) a wanted terrorist:

Israeli troops kill Hamas militant

Hm. You’d think that the Lebanese died due to natural causes or something, judging from that headline. And yet, there is absolutely no doubt why the Hamas terrorist died. It was lead poisoning to the body delivered from the barrels of IDF weapons.

Now let us compare the leads.

Israeli troops killed a Hamas militant in the West Bank town of Hebron early Sunday, surrounding a house and exchanging gunfire with the man before bulldozing the structure.

A Hamas statement said the 25-year-old man was a group member who fought troops for 12 hours before he was killed. The statement threatened retaliation “at the time and place we choose.”

The Israeli military said during the gunfight, troops heard explosions from inside the house, presumably from bombs stored inside. The militant’s mangled body was seen being removed from the rubble.

Ooh, that’s exciting! A 12-hour gun battle, retaliation threats, and explosions! I wonder if the Lebanese civil war “clash” is half as exciting.

Lebanese security officials say three people have been killed in the second day of sectarian clashes in northern Lebanon.

The clashes in Tripoli are between Sunnis and Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

The officials say the three were killed and 27 were wounded on Saturday. A total of nine people have been killed and 42 wounded in two days of fighting. The officials spoke condition of anonymity because they weren’t allowed to talk to the media.

Nope. There’s not a word of description of the battle, other than the vague “clash.” There have been two full days of fighting in northern Lebanon, leading to what the media would call “scores” of casualties if Israel or America were doing the fighting—but you don’t get details here. Because the victims aren’t victims of Israel or the U.S.

Now, the AP explanations of the “violence”:

Israel and Hamas are observing a cease-fire in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. But the agreement does not apply in the West Bank, ruled by moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israeli troops continue to target militants in the territory, despite objections from Abbas that such actions embarrass him and undermine his control.

According to Israeli defense officials, the militant helped to plan a February suicide bombing in the Israeli town of Dimona that killed a 73-year-old woman and wounded 11.

Note that for every explanation, Israel must be slammed. What purpose does it serve to write the words in bold above, other than to prejudice the reader against Israel? I wonder if they’ll do that kind of explaining with the Lebanon story.

Tension has been high along Lebanon’s religious and political fault lines since the militant Shiite Hezbollah group overran parts of Beirut in May in response to government attempts to limit its power.

Since then, Hezbollah and its allies have joined a national unity government.

Nope. It’s a five-paragraph story. No real depth, just a brief “Oh, look, three more people died in the clash.” Looks like everything is hearts and flowers, except for the part where they’re killing each other—which is glossed over. Please note that the victims are not named, aged, nor are there mournful quotes from relatives. Because that only happens when the dead are Palestinian victims of Israel fire, whether deliberate or accidental.

And we close the book on another fine example of the AP anti-Israel media bias. This is one reason why the world hates Israel. The media narrative always pounds the Jewish State, and eases off the real thugs in the Middle East.

It truly is fascinating to watch the AP bias in reporting about Israel and the Palestinians. Let’s go to an old post of mine first to look at an old AP story about Israel:

Israeli Troops Kill 8 Palestinians
Israeli troops killed eight Palestinians, including a 17-year-old girl, in a two-day surge of fighting across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials said Sunday.

The dead also included three militants traveling together in a car in the northern West Bank, and a man in Gaza killed in an Israeli airstrike in response to a Palestinian rocket attack.

Now let’s look at the headline that’s been going around since last night about a large, deadly explosion in Gaza:

Unexplained explosions kill 5, wound 20 in Gaza

Isn’t it interesting how the AP is so tentative about assigning blame to this attack? Funny how they’re usually so quick to blame Israel, quoting Palestinian eyewitnesses and terrorist spokesmen, yet here they are, half a day later, and the best they can come up with is “Unexplained explosions” in this headline. Hm. Why is it they would suddenly become so leery of assigning blame?

A powerful explosion ripped through a car on a busy Gaza City beach Friday night, killing a Hamas field commander and three other people, security officials said.

It was the third unexplained blast of the day in this coastal territory after a relatively calm period since Israel and the Islamic militants of Hamas agreed on a cease-fire last month. A total of five people died from the explosions, and 23 suffered injuries.

Wow, it’s the third mystery blast of the day. The crack AP staff can’t figure out who’s behind them. I wonder why that is? (Hint: Because Israel didn’t do it?) And by this time in an AP lead, you generally learn if any children were killed. The “three other people” in this lead are civilians, of course, one of them a child.

No one in Gaza blamed Israel for the violence, indicating it was likely Palestinian infighting.

Oh, how nice of the AP to explain this to us. It’s “likely” that it was Palestinian “infighting.” That’s a cute name for civil war.

The late night blast killed Amar Musubah, a Hamas military field commander, and another Hamas militant, Eyad Al-Hia, medical officials said. A child and a fourth unknown individual also died.

Earlier, unknown assailants set off two bombs in Gaza City, killing one man.

Finally, the child is mentioned, and yet, there is no age given. If this were a story about Israel causing civilian casualties, by now you would know the names and ages of all the victims, soon to be followed by mournful quotes from their relatives, and calls for revenge from terrorists. Funny how the AP writer can’t find this information out when the dead aren’t killed by Israeli fire.

And now, waaaay down in the story, the AP tries to assign blame for the blasts. Guess who they blame first, backhandedly?

Gaza is the scene of regular bloodshed between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants, though the territory has been quiet over the past month because of the truce between Israel and the territory’s Hamas rulers.

Uh-huh. “Regular bloodshed”—what a quaint way of putting the fighting between soldiers and terrorists. Now that we’ve got the blame-Israel-first thing out of the way, we have the real suspect, and note the difference in phrasing:

Gaza is also a common site of internal Palestinian violence between Hamas and Fatah. Hamas fighters defeated Fatah forces during five days of combat in Gaza a year ago, and tensions remain high.

It’s “bloodshed” when Israelis are fighting, but only “violence” when Palestinians fight each other. Now, the AP might tell you that they’re simply trying not to repeat the same word in two paragraphs, but there are many, many words other than “violence” that you can use for the fighting between Hamas and Fatah that resulted in over 100 deaths, including many civilians. Like, “civil war.” But then, when you’re the AP, you have to keep the narrative, and exposing the murderous actions of Palestinian-on-Palestinian “violence” isn’t sticking to the narrative of the peaceful victims of Israeli agression that only want to be left alone to build their state in peace and happiness, forever and ever.

Yet another example of the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel media bias. But don’t worry. Like Israeli Double Standard Time, that only happens on days that end in a “y.”

Tony Blair called off his trip to Gaza, citing specific security threats. Of course Hamas denies they were threatening Tony Blair, but it’s significant to note that he was visiting Gaza, but refusing to meet with Hamas officials. Hm. Wonder who made the threats, and why? (I wonder how many prisoners they’d get for the release of a former British PM?)

Mideast envoy Tony Blair on Tuesday called off what would have been the first visit of a top Western diplomat to Hamas-ruled Gaza, citing a ‘’specific security threat.”

Blair’s visit Tuesday was to have included a tour of a Gaza waste water project and meetings with traders and UN officials, but not with leaders of Hamas, which seized Gaza by force more than a year ago.

Still, Hamas had made security arrangements for Blair, setting up checkpoints in areas he was expected to tour, banning cars from using roads, and lining streets with black-clad policemen carrying AK-47s.

And wouldn’t that have made a pretty picture. Oh, and here’s your “objective” AP analysis:

Although the once lawless Gaza has been mostly pacified under Hamas’ stern rule, there are still shadowy extremist Muslim groups in the territory. On an Islamist forum popular with Gaza residents, some users slammed Blair’s expected visit, but there were no direct threats of violence against him. Those comments were later removed from the Web site.

Got that? Hamas’ forbidding wedding parties from singing Fatah songs, blowing up video stores and forcing more Islamist behavior has “pacified” Gaza. Throwing Fatah members off buildings is “stern rule.” Way to go, our old pal Ibrahim Barazk.

Taher Nunu, a Hamas government spokesman denied there were any security threats against Blair. “Gaza is still open for all visitors, to break the siege and see the extent of suffering here,” he said.

Yes, the suffering. Hamas members have fuel for their vehicles. The average Gazan does not. Hamas members have the latest weapons and ammunition. The average Gazan has whatever Hamas lets trickle down after it’s delivered, if Hamas stops shooting mortars at the crossings long enough to let supply trucks through. Hamas fakes power blackouts and the press goes along with it, holding candlelight vigils in broad daylight behind curtained windows as AP photographers snap pictures—and the AP runs sympathetic stories that echo this one. Whitewashing the terrorists: that’s the AP’s job, apparently.

One last thought: If Hamas rule has “pacified” Gaza so well, why can’t they protect Tony Blair against terrorist threats? He can visit Iraq at the height of the insurgency, but he can’t manage to get enough protection to visit Gaza?

Blair visited Iraq six times. He’s never been to Gaza. That fact speaks volumes.

You know, I’m starting to see a pattern here.

In this unbylined article about the Palestinian Prime Minister’s reaction to Israel’s raid on Hamas in the West Bank, you get this headline:

Palestinian premier criticizes Israeli raids

It’s not a bad headline at all. It’s descriptive, gets the point across quickly, and uses the right words. But then we get the update, which now carries a byline:

Palestinian PM derides Israeli raids in West Bank

So what’s the difference between “criticize” and “deride”?

A lot. A whole lot.

Criticize:

1 : to consider the merits and demerits of and judge accordingly : evaluate
2 : to find fault with : point out the faults of

Deride:

1 : to laugh at contemptuously
2 : to subject to usually bitter or contemptuous ridicule

“Derides” isn’t nearly the correct word for this headline. It is so far off that it reeks of anti-Israel media bias. Not that I’m very surprised. Why is it that the spin always seems to go more negative when our Arab and Muslim pals have the rewrite duties?

And why is it that the AP editors in charge of okaying these headlines don’t think the word “derides” is the wrong word for this headline?

Sorry. Rhetorical question. I couldn’t help but deride the AP over this.

See if you can figure out what AP’s moral equivalency problem is.

An Israel-Hamas truce has boiled down to a simple tradeoff: For a day of calm, Israel adds five truckloads of cows and 200 tons of cement to its shipment of the barest basics to Gaza, but also punishes sporadic rocket fire by resealing the territory for a day.

[...] On Tuesday, each side blamed the other for lack of progress.

Hamas has not reined in all militants, particularly those from rival groups, and the Israeli army says 15 rockets and mortars have been fired since the truce took effect June 19, including a mortar shell Tuesday. Lt. Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, said Hamas’ failure is slowing a broader opening of the crossings.

Hamas says Israel closed border crossings for seven of 17 days of post-truce operations. “The calm is not shaky. The Israeli commitment to the calm is shaky,” said Said Siyam, a senior Hamas official, before heading to Cairo for more truce talks with Egyptian officials.

And despite some attempts to defuse tensions, both sides have stuck to pre-truce behavior.

In Gaza, an explosion went off Tuesday in a Hamas military training camp, an apparent “work accident” that killed two militants and appeared to confirm Israeli fears that the group is using a lull to rearm. In the West Bank city of Nablus, Israel ordered an entire shopping mall shut down by August as an alleged Hamas front.

Have you got the gist of it yet? Because I’ll put it in plain English. According to the AP, Israel is not fulfilling the truce by trying to shut down Hamas terror supporters in the West Bank, which is not part of the truce agreement. Meantime, Hamas is not fulfilling the truce by allowing “sporadic” rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. And notice the subtleties in this article (which is by our pal Ibrahim Barzak, with a joint byline from Karin Laub). Notice that several Palestinians are named and quoted directly. Israel is quoted as “the Israeli army says,” even when there is a named spokesman in the same paragraph. And in that paragraph, the named spokesman is not directly quoted. He is paraphrased, once again showing how the media dehumanize Israel at every turn. There are no quotes from, say, someone living in one of the Israeli areas that are still under rocket and mortar fire. But there is a quote from a Palestinian truck driver, a “senior Hamas official,” and the head of the Gaza Contractors Association. Because the narrative is always about the poor, poor, pitiful Pals. And the AP takes one of the more important quotes and buries it in the very last paragraph, usually the first one that newspapers cut when they need space:

Abu Shanab, the Gaza trucker who earns just $30 dollars for a day’s work at Sufa, said the militants need to start thinking about ordinary Gazans.

“We ask them to take into consideration that we live in a very bad situation,” said the father of eight. “If they fire one rocket, it means we go backwards.”

Funny how those quotes never make it into the lead.

And one more funny: Here’s a howler the AP editorial staff missed.

Later, an Israeli soldier captured by Gaza militants two years ago is to be freed in a prisoner swamp under the deal.

Actually, I like the idea of a prisoner swamp for terrorists. Filled with alligators, please.

Our old buddy Ali Daragmeh, one of those unbiased AP reporters, had this to say about the reason for the violations of the truce by terrorists from Gaza:

Three weeks ago, Israel and Palestinian militants in Hamas-ruled Gaza agreed to a truce. Although the cease-fire is limited to Gaza, confrontations between Israel and Hamas in the West Bank have already provoked Gaza militants to violate the agreement.

Do you understand? It’s Israel’s fault that the terrorists are firing rockets and mortars. Because Israel didn’t violate the truce by acting against Hamas in the West Bank, but by acting against Hamas in the West Bank, they provoked Hamas in Gaza to “retaliate” by violating the truce. Got that? It’s Alice in Wonderland logic.

This is what passes for objective reporting by the Associated Press. And oh yeah—check out the unbiased lead.

Israeli troops in jeeps swooped down on the West Bank town of Nablus early Monday, shutting down a girls’ school, a medical center and two other facilities of a Hamas-affiliated charity, witnesses said.

Just in case you hadn’t gotten the point. And yes, this is what constitutes Israeli “provocation” to break the truce. Israel arrests terrorists and siezes property. That means Hamas is “provoked” into responding by trying to murder Israelis.

Yep. That unbiased media. Gotta love it.

One of the things that is extremely puzzling about any AP report on Samir Kuntar is why the AP insists on presenting Kuntar’s side of the story as if the facts were disputed. In every story about the Lebanese prisoner exchange, you now read something like this:

One of the Lebanese convicts to be freed in the deal has been held in an Israeli prison nearly 30 years for his role in a 1979 attack that Israelis perceive as one of the cruelest in their history.

Samir Kantar dragged a man and his 4-year-old daughter from their apartment to the beach below, and according to witness testimony, shot the man to death in front of his child, then crushed her head against a rock with his rifle butt. He also was convicted of killing a policeman. The man’s wife accidentally smothered their 2-year-old daughter in an effort to keep her from crying out and disclosing their hiding place in a crawl space in the apartment.

Kantar has denied killing the older child or crushing her skull.

He was caught by Israeli soldiers. When he saw that he was about to be caught, he murdered his two captives. There is no dispute, which is why he’s serving life in prison. And yet, the AP sees fit to include Kuntar’s denial in every article in which they mention his crimes.

Why?

What purpose does it serve?

How does it show “objectivity” to include a murderer’s protestations of innocence? There were witnesses. He was tried and convicted in an Israeli court. And still, the AP includes Kuntar’s lies.

I think it speaks volumes about the AP’s utter lack of objectivity when it comes to Israel.

Yesterday, Boker Tov Boulder aptly observed that following a terror attack:

… there’s the attack by the media that inevitably follows. Then there’s the aftermath, in which we can see the results of the first two, usually along the lines of Israel being weakened and our enemies further emboldened.

The attack she referred to was by the BBC.

It didn’t take long elsewhere.

via memeorandum

The New York Time reported on yesterday’s terror attack. There’s nothing remarkable about the headline:

Palestinian Kills 3 With Construction Vehicle.

However that wasn’t the original headline, that read:

Construction Vehicle Kills 3 in Israel Attack

However as we all know construction vehicles don’t kill people, people kill people.

(h/t LGF’s link viewer)

Similarly Meryl observed that the AP headline used words as if:

… it was an accident, instead of a deliberate, murderous attack.

McClatchy’s Jerusalem correspondent showed his true colors with:

The video also shows a policeman shooting the lifeless man at point-blank range, a move that could spark questions from Israeli human rights groups about whether the officer’s shot was necessary and if he might have unnecessarily killed the man.

(Though, from the footage, it looks as if the first shots probably killed him.)

My first thoughts on observing this action would have been amazement at the heroism of the shooters; his first thought was of the possible human rights violation. The truth is that Israeli security forces follow a protocol of “confirming the kill.” This is especially important when terrorists may have explosives strapped to their bodies.

The Israelis intervening yesterday had no idea, of course, if the terrorist was indeed wearing explosives but it wasn’t a chance they could take. And given that he was at the controls of a construction vehicle, if he were still capable of controlling it he presented a danger.

Just for a reminder here’s what happened in Dimona a few months ago:

Shalom Bar Avi, a journalist speaking to Channel 10, said “I am here no longer as a journalist but as a simple citizen … I pray and hope my wife is okay.”

Bar Avi praised the police’s quick response to the attack, and said Mor, the officer who identified the second attacker shot “four or five times … he took no chances.”

Later Mor’s heroism was revealed in detail: He shot the terrorist in the head, and when the latter in his last breath still tried to press the detonator button, shot him four more times and killed him. Mor managed to kill the terrorist before he could explode and without hitting his explosive belt, thus preventing a much more devastating attack.

You don’t take chances. And while this isn’t the reason the terrorist was killed, Seraphic Secret notes:

Here’s the good news: this is one Muslim terrorist who will not be used in a disgraceful and damaging prisoner swap.

The reaction to terror against Israel is telling of the mindset of those reporting the news. Though it was reported that the terrorist yelled “Allahu Akbar” most press accounts still try to raise doubts that this was a terrorist attack rather than an accident or criminal act.

(There are those who complained that Al Jazeera’s coverage of the attack was too pro-Israel!)

Ha’aretz reports on the Israelis who stopped the attack.

“I approached the bus on my bicycle, and then began to run to the site, looking for a weapon to use against the terrorist,” he told reporters yesterday. The military censor imposed a gag order on his identity.

Near the bulldozer the young soldier found a civilian, Oron Ben-Shimon, 28, a regional manager of a security firm in Jerusalem, who was armed. “Together we tried to neutralize the terrorist, at least to lift his feet off the pedals.

“He shouted ‘Allah Akbar.’ At that moment I pulled the pistol that Oron carried and shot the terrorist three times in the head. After I verified that he was dead, I raised the pistol to make sure that passersby were not hurt,” he recounted.

“I went out on Jaffa Road,” says Oron, “and as I was driving I saw a crowd of people shouting ‘terrorist’ and ‘mad man.’ I put on a police hat, and took my pistol and ran toward the bulldozer.”

“I saw a policeman on the bulldozer with a drawn gun. I holstered my weapon and the policeman told me there was no need to shoot him because he passed out and we need to pull him out of the bulldozer.

“And then the terrorist woke up and grabbed the wheel and tried to run over more people. I was already on the bulldozer and I hit him with my fists in the face in an effort to take over the wheel. I shouted to the young man near me to shoot him. He drew my pistol from the holster and shot him three times in the head.”

Oron confirms that the terrorist was dead when shot by the policeman. Still even here, the terrorist apparently out of commission started his attack again.

Then there’s the heroism of a mother who saved her baby:

Seconds before being crushed to death by a bulldozer, 33-year-old Batsheva Unterman succeeded in unbuckling her 5-month-old baby from the car-seat and passing her out through the window to safety.

“Just as I took the baby out, he reversed on top of the car. The baby is okay, but not the mother,” Jeremy Aronson, the man who helped save the baby, told The Jerusalem Post quietly as he sat alone in the waiting room of Hadassah-University Hospital in Mount Scopus.

I am amazed by those who can act quickly at times of crisis. Unfortunately Mrs. Unterman didn’t survive.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The original AP headline for the Palestinian terror attack in Jerusalem?

Driver rams vehicle into Jerusalem bus, killing 3

Like it was an accident, instead of a deliberate, murderous attack.

The current AP boilerplate for Gaza is as follows:

The Egyptian-brokered deal aims to end a year of violence that has killed more than 400 Palestinians, including dozens of civilians, and seven Israelis in a bloody cycle of Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli reprisals.

That’s actually an improvement from a few days ago:

The cease-fire, which Egypt labored for months to conclude, aims to bring an end to a year of fighting that has killed seven Israelis and more than 400 Palestinians, many of them civilians, since the Islamic militant group Hamas wrested control of Gaza a year ago.

The thing is, both of the boilerplates have completely ignored dozens of Israeli casualties in this terror war. The “seven Israelis” the AP mentions are the tip of the iceberg. The AP is only counting civilian deaths. But that’s wrong. Eleven Israeli soldiers have been killed by terrorists from Gaza in the past year. Here are the total number of deaths caused by terrorists from the Gaza Strip since Hamas took over:

July 12, 2007 - Staff Sgt. Arbel Reich, 21, of Yuvalim was killed when Hamas terrorists ambushed IDF troops engaged in anti-terror activity in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. The terrorists detonated previously planted explosive devices and then opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns.

Oct 17, 2007 - Sgt. Ben Kubani, 20, of Hadera, was killed in an exchange of fire with terrorists during IDF activity targeting the terror infrastructure near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Oct 29, 2007 - IDF reservist St.-Sgt. Maj. Ehud Efrati, 34, of Beit Yehoshua was killed in an exchange of fire with Palestinian terrorists in southern Gaza Strip, near the Sufa crossing.

Jan 15, 2008 - Carlos Andrés Mosquera Chávez, a 21-year-old volunteer from Quito, Ecuador, was killed by a Palestinian sniper from the Gaza Strip as he was working in the fields of Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha. The Hamas Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for the shooting.

Feb 27, 2008 - Roni Yihye, 47, of Moshav Bitcha in southern Israel, a student at Sapir College, was killed Wednesday afternoon when a Kassam rocket exploded in a parking lot near the Sderot campus. He died shortly after sustaining massive wounds to his chest. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

Mar 1, 2008 - St. Sgt. Doron Asulin, 20, of Beersheba and St. Sgt. Eran Dan-Gur, 20, of Jerusalem were killed in an exchange of fire with Hamas terrorists during an IDF anti-terror operation in northern Gaza targeting rocket launchings. The gunmen reportedly fired mortar shells, antitank and RPG missiles at the soldiers.

Mar 6, 2008 - An IDF soldier - a Bedouin tracker, 27 - was killed during a routine patrol along the security fence in the central Gaza Strip, near Kissufim, when Palestinian terrorists detonated an explosive device near the jeep in which he was driving. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.
St.-Sgt. Liran Banai, 20, of Ashkelon, the critically wounded jeep driver, succumbed to his injuries on Sunday, March 9.

Apr 9, 2008 - St.-Sgt. Sayef Bisan, 21, of the Druze village of Jat in the western Galilee was killed in an exchange of fire with Palestinian terrorists in an overnight IDF operation against terror infrastructure in the southern Gaza Strip. Two soldiers were wounded.

Apr 9, 2008 - Oleg Lipson, 37, and Lev Cherniak, 53, both of Beersheba, were killed when Palestinian terrorists, after firing a salvo of mortars at the Nahal Oz area, penetrated the fuel terminal and opened fire on the civilian employees.

Apr 16, 2008 - Three IDF soldiers - Sgt. Menhash al-Banyat, 20, of the Bedouin community of Kseife in the Negev; Sgt. Matan Ovdati, 19, of Moshav Patish in the western Negev; and Sgt. David Papian, 21, of Tel Aviv - were killed in a confrontation with armed Palestinian gunmen approaching the Gaza security fence south of the Nahal Oz fuel terminal. Three other soldiers were wounded.

May 9, 2008 - Jimmy Kadoshim, 48, of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, was killed by mortar fire from the Gaza Strip while tending his garden.

May 12, 2008 - Shuli Katz, 70, of Kibbutz Gevaram, was killed while visiting relatives at Moshav Yesha, some 15 kms (9 miles) from the Gaza Strip.

June 5, 2008 - Amnon Rosenberg, 51, of Kibbutz Nirim was killed and four other employees were wounded when a mortar bomb fired by Palestinian terrorists from the Gaza Strip exploded outside the Nirlat paint factory in Kibbutz Nir-Oz. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

That’s eighteen deaths due to Gaza terrorism—not seven. The AP wants to have it both ways: Keep Palestinian terrorists in the casualty count, but eliminate Israeli soldiers killed by terrorists. The end result ameliorates the effects of Hamas terror since the takeover of Gaza.

It’s an utter whitewashing of the real Israeli casualties, and very typical of the mainstream media. The double standard is reprehensible. Palestinian civilian deaths, and overall Palestinian death totals, are played up—while Israeli soldier death tolls are ignored utterly. Note that I didn’t even count the deaths by terrorists that occurred within Israel itself, even though some of them were perpetrated by Hamas terrorists. Those figures, too, are ignored by the AP. But just because the AP doesn’t report the deaths doesn’t mean they didn’t occur.

In Gaza, though, the AP is misrepresenting the facts. Eighteen Israeli deaths by terror occured between June 15, 2007 and June 15, 2008—in the “year of violence,” as the AP called it. The evidence is right there, in black and white. Seven civilians and eleven soldiers were killed. Perhaps the AP should change its count to reflect the facts accurately. After all, it has no such compunctions about including the American soldier casualty counts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But that’s a post for another day.

And here we go. Buried in the middle of an article about an Israeli guard who committed suicide while Sarkozy was boarding his plane to leave Israel, we have this description of the Palestinians violating the truce:

Earlier, Palestinian militants fired three homemade rockets into southern Israel, the first such attack since a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza militants took effect last week.

Israel condemned the attack as a “gross violation” of the truce, but did not say whether it would retaliate.

The barrage wounded two people and capped a day of violence that presented the truce with its first serious test.

Note how the AP won’t call it a violation of the truce, but insist on using an unnamed Israeli spokesman calling it a violation. The truce wasn’t violated, even though three rockets and mortars have been fired into Israel in the last few hours.

As for whether or not Olmert will declare the cease-fire to be over… still waiting.

Check out the headline:

Rockets hit Israel, which says truce broken

Gee. The truce says no launching of rockets. Rockets were launched. Is the truce broken? The AP doesn’t know. It has to say that Israel says the truce was broken. Yet another example of your anti-Israel media bias. And we also have the AP carrying the terrorists’ justification for launching the rockets.

Police say three Palestinian rockets have hit southern Israel and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office says the cease-fire that took effect last week has been broken.

Islamic Jihad militants in the Gaza Strip says they carried out the attack to avenge an Israeli military raid that killed one of their fighters in the West Bank early Tuesday.

Israel’s national rescue service says two people were lightly wounded in the rocket barrage.

The West Bank is not formally part of the truce. But Islamic Jihad says it “cannot keep its hands tied” when its “brothers” in the West Bank are being targeted.

However, the Gaza Strip’s ruling Hamas group says it remains committed to the truce.

Notice how it carries both the Hamas and PIJ excuses.

It. Doesn’t. Matter.

The truce was broken the second those rockets headed towards Israel. (Actually, it was broken the second Hamas refused to stop smuggling, but we’ll ignore that for now.) The AP can’t bring itself to say so? Why is that?

Gee. Wonder who wrote that piece. There’s no byline. But I’m betting it wasn’t an Israeli.

Soccer Dad points to a few bloggers who think the AP media bias against Israel may be easing. I’m not nearly as optimistic as they are, and here’s why. Watch the change in versions as the day progressed.

The first version I saw, out about 7:30 a.m.:

Blast flattens house of Hamas commander in Gaza, killing 3
A powerful blast flattened the two-story house of a militant commander in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing three people, including a baby girl and a boy, injuring 40 and burying an unknown number of others under the rubble, Gaza’s Hamas rulers and a Palestinian health official said.

Israel, which routinely accepts responsibility for attacks on military targets, denied involvement. But Hamas said the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike and responded with a heavy barrage of rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel, wounding an Israeli woman.

The spiraling violence threatened to undermine last-ditch efforts to wrest a truce between Israel and Hamas and stave off an Israeli invasion of Gaza.

Note how the AP plays down the Israeli denial and mentions the “spiraling violence” as if Israel did have a hand in destroying the house. Notice also how the AP emphasizes that children were killed (even though in later articles they retracted the baby boy victim and changed it to a teenaged boy). The overall narrative: Big, bad Israel is killing babies in Gaza by targeting Hamas leadership.

Next version, timestamped 9:07:

Blast flattens house of Hamas commander, killing 4
A blast flattened the house of a militant commander in the Gaza Strip Thursday, killing four people, wounding 40 and burying an unknown number of others, Palestinian officials said.

Israel, which routinely accepts responsibility for attacks on military targets, denied involvement. But Hamas said the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike and responded with a heavy barrage of rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel, wounding an Israeli woman.

The spiraling violence threatened to undermine last-ditch efforts to secure a truce between Israel and Hamas and stave off an Israeli invasion of Gaza.

Israel’s denial raised the possibility that the blast was caused by explosives meant for use against Israel that went off prematurely.

Now the AP raises the thought that maybe Hamas is lying. Absent is the sensationalism of the dead babies in the lead, remaining is the “spiraling violence” meme, even though the AP is now suggesting that maybe Israel didn’t blow up the house, after all.

Now, the 12:54 p.m. update:

A blast flattened the house of a militant commander in the Gaza Strip Thursday, killing seven people and wounding 40, Palestinian officials said.

Israel, which routinely accepts responsibility for attacks on military targets, denied involvement, and Hamas opened an investigation, an indication the militant Islamic rulers of Gaza believe the explosion might have been caused by accidental detonation of explosives in the house.

Earlier, Hamas blamed Israel and unleashed a barrage of rockets and mortars at Israel’s south.

The spiraling violence threatened to undermine last-ditch efforts to secure a truce between Israel and Hamas and stave off an Israeli invasion of Gaza.

Finally, we have the AP blaming Hamas for the “work accident,” but we still have the “spiraling violence” meme. Seems like the AP is heading down the right path, right?

Wrong. Three hours later:

Gaza house blast kills 7; Hamas hints at accident
An explosion flattened a house in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing seven people. After blaming Israel and unleashing a barrage of rockets and mortar shells, Hamas suggested the blast was accidental, not an Israeli attack.

By then Israel had carried out an airstrike aimed at a Gaza rocket squad, killing a Palestinian. Two other Israeli military operations in Gaza killed five more militants.

The violence threatened to scuttle Egyptian cease-fire efforts as they approached the finish line. A key Israeli envoy, Amos Gilad, was in Egypt trying to wrap up a deal, but there was no announcement of results.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said the military was not operating in the area of the house at the time of the blast.

Now the AP uses the cause-and-effect (or as they like to put it, “tit-for-tat”) violence meme. Because Hamas launched rockets at Israel, Israel fired against terrorists launching rockets. The AP treats terrorism and defense against terrorism as the same actions—all part of the “spiral of violence”—which is ruining the peace talks. Not Hamas terrorism. “Violence” by Hamas and Israel.

Those were all yesterday’s stories. Now let’s take a look at today’s article, time-stamped 8:52 a.m.

Israel OKs 1,300 east Jerusalem homes

Huh? What? Where’s the Hamas explosion story?

Oh. Five paragraphs down. You know, in the grafs that are most likely not to make it into the World News section of your local paper. Take careful note of what is omitted from these next four paragraphs.

Hamas, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for a house explosion in northern Gaza that killed seven Palestinians, one of them an infant girl.

An announcement Friday on the official Web site of Hamas’ military wing said the group’s “martyrs” died “while putting the final touches on a plan to carry out a special holy war mission.”

Five militants were among those who died in the explosion that flattened the house Thursday.

Immediately after the blast, Hamas blamed Israel. But Israel denied involvement.

What’s missing? The rocket barrage that Hamas launched immediately following the explosion. It’s gone down the AP memory hole, obviously yesterday’s news.

Funny, the BBC managed to put this news into a separate story. Reuters thought it was worth a mention of its own (though they buried the Hamas rocket barrage deep below the cutoff point). Even Monsters and Critics, a vehemently anti-Israel site, managed to run an article that focuses on Hamas’ responsibility for the blast. But not the AP.

I see no reason for hoping the anti-Israel media bias, or the narrative, is changing. I see only the reluctant admission of an anti-Israel writing and editing staff that yesterday’s explosion wasn’t Israel’s fault, and the continuance of the anti-Israel narrative and the whitewashing of Palestinian crimes against Israel. And keep in mind that I am a glass-half-full kind of person.

Update: And now (2:23 p.m. timestamp), all mention of the explosion is gone from AP updates. Move along, nothing to see here.

Astonishing. The AP managed to write an article that utterly contradicts its lead. Here’s the lead:

Israeli students slam American ‘Israel Lobby’ authors
Two prominent American professors, who have recently been causing an uproar with their best-selling book critical of the powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington, faced a raucous reception Thursday at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

About 200 students and faculty members crammed into a stuffy lecture hall and grilled John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt for more than two hours about the harsh findings in their book, “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy,” published last year.

Makes you think there are going to be some hard-hitting questions by Israeli students to the W-M team, doesn’t it? That opening makes you think you’re going to get some really nasty responses from the students at the lecture. Were W-M shouted down? Booed? Did anyone throw a pie in their faces?

I wouldn’t know. The AP didn’t inform me of anything other than that W-M spoke at Hebrew University, that they’re martyrs of the “Israel Lobby,” and that a lot of people disagree with them but some people don’t.

You won’t find a single question in the paragraphs that follow. Not one. You’ll get a statement by a student sympathetic to the W-M smear. You’ll get a very long explanation by the AP writer on how W-M have been attacked by people who disagree with their thesis. And you’ll get a quote at the very end of the article by someone from the ADL who, I think, is critical of them. It’s hard to tell in context. But most of the article is like this:

Since Mearsheimer, a University of Chicago professor, and Walt, of Harvard University, published their working paper of the same title in 2006, they have drawn the wrath of Jewish American groups and US Administration officials.

“If you bring up the Israel lobby, you are asking for trouble,” Walt said as he opened his lecture. He said he knew he was “playing with fire” when he wrote the book, but said he would not be deterred by personal attacks against him.

There is not a single quote of a question from the “raucous reception”. There is nothing but this description:

They said AIPAC wields disproportionate power because of deep financial resources and heavy-handed tactics. They were then showered with questions, as the classroom erupted in excited conversation. The exchange was mostly cordial, with the American professors eliciting some laughs from the crowd, but at times it got testy.

Gee. It got “testy.” But “the exchange was mostly cordial.” And yet, the scary lead talks about the “raucous reception” W-M got. You know, like this one:

Not all in the audience were hostile. Korina Kagan, a political science lecturer, said she essentially agreed with their thesis and was appalled by the attacks against them, especially from academic circles.

“The smear campaign against them is worse than anything they have ever written,” she said, adding that many of their positions are shared by commentators in the Israeli media. “We need to have a free academic exchange.”

Hm. That’s awfully raucous, Korina. You want to control yourself. You may suffer an aneurism if you’re not careful.

Here’s my question to the AP: Was this article written entirely from the Walt-Mearsheimer press release, or did you actually have someone in the audience for the student quote above?

The Chronicle of Higher Education managed to find a completely different angle for the same lecture:

‘Israel Lobby’ Professors Get Hospitable Greeting in Israel
Jerusalem — The first appearance in Israel by Stephen M. Walt and John J. Mearsheimer since the publication of their controversial book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, impressed a largely student audience at the Hebrew University, but left some faculty members wondering about their honesty.

A threatened boycott failed to have any effect, and the talk passed off with nothing more dramatic than some lively debate and repeated declarations from the pair that they are neither anti-Semitic nor Israel-haters.

So, gee, the AP is what, lying?

Yeah, I’m thinking.

The daily bombardment of southern Israel continued as more Israeli civilians were injured by randomly-fired mortars. That’s two dead and eleven wounded in the last week and a half. A fire also broke out in the factory that was hit.

Meantime, Hamas is taunting Israel.

The current Israeli government is the weakest in the country’s history,” Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri said Wednesday ahead of the national security cabinet’s crucial meeting regarding possible Israeli responses to the situation in Gaza.

“The Israelis are unable to deal with the Palestinian organizations and the rockets,” he said, “they know they cannot launch a wide-scale operation in Gaza because (if they do) the Strip will become a graveyard for Israeli soldiers.”

And in spite of the fact that Hamas is daily trying to kill Israelis, they’re ready for a cease-fire. No, really.

Despite the threats, al-Masri stressed that Hamas was willing to reach a ceasefire agreement with Israel “that would include the lifting of the blockade on Gaza”.

Even the AP has noticed that Hamas wants the truce only for logistic reasons. But you have to look at the very end of this article, which of course focuses on Palestinian civilian casualties (as a result of terrorists firing rockets from civilian areas, barely noted by AP), not on the daily barrage that brought the IDF fire on the area. These are the last three paragraphs of the AP’s latest article on the “truce” efforts:

Still, Israel is suspicious of Hamas’ motives in seeking a truce, especially since the militant group has declared it would take advantage of any lull in fighting to rearm.

Adding urgency to Israel’s decision are assessments by its military intelligence that Hamas is rapidly upgrading its arsenal with Iranian assistance.

Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz, a senior intelligence officer, told the Cabinet on Tuesday that Hamas now has rockets with a range of 12 miles, endangering a significant swath of southern Israel. Militants are also increasingly using deadlier 120mm mortar shells instead of smaller ones, Baidatz said, according to a participant in the meeting.

Don’t you just love the AP bias? And that’s actually the most balanced part of the article. Get a load of this:

The decision against a broad invasion came the same day an Israeli shell aimed at a group of militants in the southern Gaza Strip slammed into a nearby house, decapitating a 6-year-old girl in her back yard, Palestinian medical officials and a relative said.

And that’s an upgrade from this:

The decision came despite a new spike in fighting with Palestinian militants. Hours earlier, an Israeli shell aimed at a group of Gaza militants slammed into a nearby house and killed a 6-year-old Palestinian girl. A 55-year-old Palestinian civilian and a militant were also killed in clashes across the territory, while two Israeli civilians were lightly wounded by Palestinian mortar fire.

Funny how every time Ibrahim Barzak’s byline hits an article, the anti-Israel tone deepens while the Palestinian sympathy meter tops out.

And of course, the Palestinian casualty is identified, quotes are gotten from her relatives, and when Israeli deaths and injuries are mentioned, well, they just happen to unspecified people. Because that’s the narrative. Only the Palestinians can be victims.

Also Wednesday, an Israeli was lightly wounded when a mortar shell fired from Gaza hit a paint factory at Nir Oz, an Israeli collective village less than a mile from the Gaza border, the military said. An Israeli man was killed in a mortar attack there last week.

His name was Amnon Rosenberg. He was 51 years old, and he left behind three children and a wife to mourn him. Not that the AP noticed he had a name, even when his death was fresh news.

The bombardment is evidently going to continue. I suppose the Cabinet thinks they’re close to getting Gilad Shalit back. That’s the only reason I can think of for not authorizing an operation, and something I read yesterday that Ehud Barak said indicated as much to me.

I hope they’re right. In the meantime, there will be more rockets fired into Israel. Because there is currently no real deterrence. The jihadis are laughing at the IDF.

People all over the world, join hands Start a love train, love train People all over the world, join hands Join a love train, love trainAll of your brothers over in Africa
Tell all the folks in Egypt and Israel too
Please don’t miss this train at the station
‘Cause if you miss it, I feel sorry, sorry for you

- Love Train, the O’Jays

via memeorandum the Associated Press reports (or maybe exults):

Excitement about Barack Obama emerged as a global phenomenon Wednesday as commentators and citizens around the world welcomed the news that he had sealed the Democratic presidential nomination.The excitement was less about Obama’s foreign policies — which remain vague on many fronts — than a sense that the candidacy of a black American with relatives in Africa and childhood friends in Asia marks a historic moment.

The article goes on to play up all the people around the world who herald Sen. Obama’s nomination as a sign of positive change.

One of the points that gets mentioned is that it’s nice to see a minority rise to such political prominence. Of course, to the best of my knowledge, none of the countries where people were interviewed has a member of a minority group ever risen to power. (The closest would be Germany, where the current chancellor, Angela Merkel comes from what used to be East Germany.)

Gina Cobb notes cynically:

Glad to see they’re keeping their perspective about the election.We wouldn’t want to see our media. Pushing. Voters. With. All. Their. Might. In. One. Particular. Direction!

The Washington Post ran a similar article.

Both articles cite the same response from Germany:

Obama also has strong support in Europe, the heartland of anti-Bush sentiment. “Germany is Obama country,” said Karsten Voight, the German government’s coordinator for German-North American cooperation. “He seems to strike a chord with average Germans,” who see him as a transformational figure like John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King Jr.

(The Post article doesn’t credit AP, though it’s the exact same statement.)

It’s interesting though that the places where there are doubts are places where his policies or expected policies could change from America’s current policies.

Which is why Abe Greenwald at Contentions cautions (regarding the AP story):

When it comes to peace-and-love, beautiful sentences, and vague comparisons to adored icons, a handful of friends and family are jazzed up. That would be fine–if we were actually “waiting on the threshold of history.” But in reality, the world’s dangers and complications don’t pause so that everyone can stand around and admire the handsome man with the eloquent speeches, and in the dangers and complications department the world’s candidate has already clumsily placed himself behind the eight-ball.

For example:

In Iraq, views on Obama’s victory were mixed. Salah al-Obaidi, chief spokesman for Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite Muslim cleric who opposes the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq, said the Sadr movement favors having a Democrat in the White House on grounds that McCain would largely continue Bush’s policies.But in Samarra, a Sunni stronghold north of Baghdad, Omar Shakir, 58, a political analyst, said he hoped McCain would win the election and combat the influence of Shiite-dominated Iran.

So a spokesman for al-Sadr favors Obama but someone fighting Iranian influence doesn’t.

In Iran, government officials have taken no official position on the race. But “the majority of Iranians feel that the Democrats support what they want: a major and drastic change in relations with the U.S. So for them the coming of Obama would be a good omen,” said Davoud Hermidas Bavand, professor of U.S.-Iranian relations at Allameh Tabatabai University.

Now how does this professor know this? Perhaps a majority of Iranians want its government to change (or be changed) in order to improve relations with the U.S. But if that were true he wouldn’t dare say it, would he?

The Washington Post also reports that in Israel some are concerned about Sen. Obama as President. And the Palestinians?

Obama’s candidacy has generated suspicion among Palestinians as well. Ali Jarbawi, a political scientist at the West Bank’s Bir Zeit University, said that even if Obama appears to be evenhanded in his approach to the Middle East, he would never take on the pro-Israel lobby in Washington. “The minute that Obama takes office, if he takes office, all his aides in the White House will start working on his reelection,” Jarbawi said. “Do you think Obama would risk his reelection because of us?”

And that suspicion that a President Obama would be in thrall to the Jewish lobby was only increased by the candidate’s appearance before AIPAC yesterday.

Now Hamas retracts its endorsement (via memeorandum)

“Obama’s comments have confirmed that there will be no change in the U.S. administration’s foreign policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict,” Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters in Gaza.

“The Democratic and Republican parties support totally the Israeli occupation at the expense of the interests and rights of Arabs and Palestinians,” he said.

“Hamas does not differentiate between the two presidential candidates, Obama and Mccain, because their policies regarding the Arab-Israel conflict are the same and are hostile to us, therefore we do have no preference and are not wishing for either of them to win,” Zuhri said.

Hot Air notes that Sen. Obama’s been pretty public in his support of Israel since he’s become a candidate for President.

That’s one mighty thorough unendorsement, which is curious given that they only “endorsed” him in the first place six weeks ago, after he’d spent the past year telling anyone who’d listen how much he loves Israel. Did they somehow miss the previous thousand pro-Zionist speeches? Or were they finally convinced that he’s saying this stuff because he means it and not for political advantage by his big speech today to … the most politically influential Israeli lobbyist group in America? Doesn’t add up; I guess we’ll just have to wonder what the motive could be. Let’s hope that the news doesn’t dissuade his Palestinian-American supporters, many of whom have it in their heads that his true beliefs on this subject are rather more nuanced than his rhetoric indicates.

(Daled Amos has more on that “nuance“)

And it’s not just the extremists of Hamas who are upset, so too is the “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas.

“The whole world knows that holy Jerusalem was occupied in 1967 and we will not accept a Palestinian state without having Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.” said Abbas.

Unfortunately, the world isn’t aware that in 1948 what is called the West Bank was occupied by Jordan. The Jews of the Old City of Jerusalem were expelled in violation of the cease fire agreement and the Jews of the Etzion Bloc who survived the battle were slaughtered after surrendering.

Still most of the world seems happy, not least the media.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Two versions of the same story went out about the Hizbullah/Israel trade of remains for a prisoner. In the earlier version, the background on the Samir Kuntar story went like this:

A larger swap is extremely emotional for Israelis because it would likely involve Samir Kantar, the longest-serving Lebanese prisoner.

Kantar is serving multiple life sentences for infiltrating northern Israel in 1979 and killing four Israelis, including a 28-year-old man, the man’s 4-year-old daughter and two Israeli policemen.

He was convicted of killing the girl by smashing her head against rocks and then with a rifle butt. During the incident, the girl’s mother smothered a 2-year-old daughter to death while hiding from Kantar.

There’s no context. Someone at the AP made it look like Smadar Haran just killed her baby. Two of the early versions went out with the above misinformation. But then, someone noticed. The updated story:

The release of Kantar would be particularly difficult for Israelis to accept.

He is serving multiple life sentences for infiltrating northern Israel in 1979 and killing four Israelis - a 28-year-old man, the man’s 4-year-old daughter and two Israeli policemen.

Kantar repeatedly smashed the young girl’s head against a rock and crushed her skull with a rifle butt. Her mother, while trying to silence the cries of her other daughter, accidentally smothered the 2-year-old.

There’s still not enough context—but let Smadar Haran tell you what happened.

They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. “This is just like what happened to my mother,” I thought.

The AP couldn’t get the details of the attack right. They implied that the mother was a murderer. And they felt it was not important enough to name the victims. Bad enough that Israeli victims of terror are almost never named, while the terrorists have their names plastered all over the news. But for the AP to misinform the world on the reason Yael Haran died—that’s inexcusable.

How many anti-Israel stories can one news service publish in a week?

Depends. How many stories on Israel or the Palestinians did the AP publish that week?

Here’s a new one: Mean, horrible Israel is causing eight Gazan students to lose their Fulbright scholarships because they can’t get vias from Israel to leave Gaza.

Hadeel Abu Kawik was supposed to spend next year in the United States on the prestigious Fulbright scholarship program, but now it appears she will remain trapped in the Gaza Strip by an Israeli blockade.

Word that the U.S. State Department was canceling her scholarship came after Abu Kawik, 23 and a computer engineering student, went through a lengthy process for the scholarship that included interviews, exams and an English test.

“I was building my hope on this scholarship,” she said Friday.

There you go, the three grafs that usually wind up in your local newspaper’s “world” section. In the next two paragraphs, you find out why Israel is refusing to grant visas to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Seven other Gaza students also lost their grants. The decision was made because they would not be able to get exit visas from Israel, according to State Department spokesman Tom Casey.

The teeming coastal territory and its 1.5 million inhabitants have been controlled by the Islamic militant group Hamas for nearly a year. Israel has kept its border crossings closed to everything but humanitarian aid in an attempt to weaken the group and end frequent rocket barrages aimed at Israeli towns.

Oh, yeah. Those crude, homemade rockets that rarely do any damage. The ones that killed two Israelis in the last few weeks. The ones that are still falling on Israel every day. The ones that Hamas refuses to stop firing, or allowing others to fire. Gee. Why is it that Israel refuses to give anyone visas out of Gaza? Could it be because when they do, Hamas takes advantage of it and tries to get terrorists into Israel using medical excuses and the like?

Meanwhile, a Hamas publicity stunt turned violent (I know, shocking to hear that). Hamas has been threatening to force the crossings into Israel for quite a while now. Also from the AP:

Seven Palestinian protesters were wounded Friday when they were shot by IDF troops during a demonstration at Sufa border crossing, Palestinian doctors reported.

More than 10,000 Palestinians waving Hamas flags approached the crossing calling for an end to the blockade imposed on Gaza. The demonstrators burned tires and chanted anti-Israeli slogans.

How much you want to bet those “anti-Israel slogans” included “Death to Israel”? The AP never seems to elaborate on those anti-Israel slogans the Hamas uses to get its crowds into a frenzy, but they all include calling for the end of the Jewish state. (Which is why, of course, the AP will never quote them directly. Can’t change the narrative and make the Palestinians out to be the villains.)

Hamas had called the protest march, which began following Friday prayers, and several protesters got within yards of the border fence.

The IDF confirmed troops were on the scene at the demo but did not immediately comment on whether they fired.

The army had issued a directive to soldiers to prevent Palestinian penetration of the Sufa terminal at any cost, even the cost of using live ammunition.

Of course there’s no confirmation. Most AP stories publish Palestinian eyewitness accounts, or quote Palestinian “medics,” while never truly confirming the accusations. And they have been caught more than once lying about what happened. For instance, when a kassam rocket falls in Gaza and hurts or kills Palestinians, the “medics” immediately blame Israeli shelling, and the AP dutifully reports it. Witness:

Meanwhile, a 65-year-old woman died of her wounds a day after she was shot along the Gaza-Israel border, a Palestinian health official said.

Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said the woman was near her home around 300 yards from the border fence when she was shot on Thursday evening.

Hassanain said the gunfire came from an IDF border position, but the army said it had no record of any shooting in the area at the time.

Uh-huh.

There’s something that’s missing from the latest AP stories on the negotiations with Syria about the Golan Heights.

Israel captured the strategic plateau in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed the area. Many Israelis are reluctant to relinquish the Golan, which overlooks northern Israel and borders the Sea of Galilee, a key source of drinking water.

No, that’s not it.

In the most recent talks, conducted by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Israel reportedly offered to withdraw from the Golan, but the talks broke down because Syria wanted Israel to pull back several hundred yards more to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.

No, that’s not it.

Israel and Syria have fought three wars, their forces have clashed in Lebanon, and more recently, Syria has given support to Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas and Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip. Israel is also concerned about Syria’s close ties to Iran.

No, that’s not it.

The Israeli public opposes giving up the Golan, home to a thriving tourism and wine industry. An opinion poll last week found that only 19 percent of Israelis are willing to cede the entire plateau - even in exchange for peace.

Nope. That’s not it, either. But hey, way to make Israelis look like warmongering, selfish scumbags, AP. No, Israelis don’t want to give back the Golan, even in exchange for peace. And by the way, how is that not an editorial statement? The “even” makes it seem that Israelis want war, no matter what. Nice little bit of yellow journalism there.

Perhaps we can find out why 81 percent of Israelis don’t want to give back the Golan. Maybe we can dig around a bit and see what the AP thinks is not important enough to mention about the Golan when describing why so many Israelis are reluctant to give the Heights back. In fact, we can find it in the AP factbox that was released on May 21st, so we know they had the ability to relay this information only five days ago:

Soldiers shelled northern Israel from the Golan Heights between 1948 and 1967. Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed it in 1981. No country recognized the annexation.

Ohhhhhh. Syria regularly bombarded Israeli communities from the Golan Heights for nineteen years. Say. I wonder if that has anything to do with why 81 percent of Israelis don’t want to give back the Golan.

The AP description above makes it seem like Israelis want to keep the Golan for their own personal pleasure and profit—not because it’s a strategically important plateau used to launch deadly attacks on civilian communities. (Gee, that sounds familiar. The Arab ways have not changed in sixty years.) The shelling stopped on June 10, 1967, when the IDF captured the Golan Heights.

After the 1948-49 War of Independence, the Syrians built extensive fortifications on the Heights, from where they systematically shelled civilian targets in Israel and launched terrorist attacks (in gross violation of Article III of the Israel-Syria Armistice Agreement of 20 July 1949). 140 Israelis were killed and many more were injured in these attacks between 1949 and 1967; heavy property damage was also inflicted. During the 1967 Six-Day War, the IDF captured the Golan Heights — in response to Syrian attacks — in just over 24 hours of intense fighting on 9-10 June. Nearly all of the Golan’s Arab inhabitants fled as a result of the war; four Druze villages remain, three on the slopes of Mt. Hermon and one in the northern Golan.

Funny how you never see mention of Syria being in violation of the Armistice Agreement—for nineteen years—by shelling northern Israel, and yet you always see drek like the AP boilerplate about how no one recognizes Israel’s annexation of the Golan.

Another sterling example of your objective media at work. Another example of why I’ll keep blogging, as long as the media keep on defaming Israel.

This picture and caption is infuriating:

Bassam Kantar, the brother of Samir Kantar, the longest-held Lebanese in Israel, imprisoned since 1979 for killing three Israelis, gestures as he holds a picture of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah during a rally to commemorate the prisoner’s day in the southern town of Khiam, Lebanon, Friday, May 23, 2008.

The caption tells us is that he’s the “longest held Lebanese in Israel” but gives no detail about his crime, other than he killed three Israelis.

Read the whole thing, but let me just quote the worst part of his crimes:

As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl’s skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.

Any normal country would place such a monster behind bars for the rest of his life. (Most countries that don’t reward such activities also don’t have the death penalty, which is what Kuntar so richly deserves.) To somehow make an issue of the length of the times he’s served mocks the severity and depravity of his crimes as well as his victims. AP is simply engaging in misplace mercy.

Shrinkwrapped adds perspective about Kuntar - from two years ago. I also looked at how Kuntar was whitewashed by the Washington Post two years ago.

I saw the following story at NRO’s media blog. Israelis discovered that the Barzilai medical center in Ashkelon was build on a site that was holy to Shi’ites. So how did the Israeli authorities deal with that discovery? Why they built a prayer area for pilgrims to pray.

In case you don’t remember, an Iranian made Grad missile landed near that hospital two months ago.

Think about