Vowing to destroy Israel, Hamas paraded some 2,000 of its armed fighters and truck-mounted rockets through Gaza on Sunday, marking its 27th anniversary with its biggest show of force since the end of the Gaza war this summer.

Reuters managed to make that the lede. And they found room to put this information pretty high up:

At the parade, a senior Hamas leader reaffirmed the Islamist movement’s founding charter’s pledge to destroy Israel.

“This illusion called Israel will be removed. It will be removed at the hands of the Qassam Brigades,” said Khalil al-Hayya, a top Hamas leader, referring to the movement’s armed wing.

The AP didn’t so much as mention the calls for Israel’s destruction. Its lede was quite different from Reuters.

The Islamic militant group Hamas displayed rockets and other heavy weapons Sunday during a rally marking the 27th anniversary of its founding.

This is the most they could muster, eight paragraphs down:

With Sunday’s weapons display, Hamas appeared to be sending a message to both Israel and the residents of Gaza that another round of fighting is an option.

And then, in the very last paragraph, the AP decided it might mention something about the calls to destroy Israel. Maybe.

The man in the recording identified as Deif said, “We will return to them (Israelis) with fighters that they cannot fight and will drive them out … God willing.”

The AP continues to deny that it whitewashes the news for the Palestinians. I think we can judge for ourselves whether or not that is true.

Egyptian rapper speaks for women’s rights
CAIRO (AP) — As soon as the beat started, the young woman bobbed her head to the rhythm, raised her hands to get the crowd clapping and then unleashed a flood of rap lyrics that tackled some of the biggest social challenges women face in the Arab world.

And in the revised story:

Veiled Egyptian rapper speaks for women’s rights
CAIRO (AP) — As soon as the beat started, the young veiled woman bobbed her head to the rhythm, raised her hands to get the crowd clapping and then unleashed a flood of rap lyrics that tackled some of the biggest social challenges women face in the Arab world.

Why the difference, AP? The article is accompanied with a photo, and then there’s this paragraph in both versions:

“I wanted to tell girls in Egypt and everywhere else that they are not alone, we all have the same problems, but we cannot stay silent, we have to speak up,” Mahmoud, who wears an Islamic headscarf but not a full-face veil, told The Associated Press.

Do you see the ways the AP plays to the narrative? For whatever reason, and editor decided that the story must carry the words “veiled” in front of “woman” in the headline and lead. Because apparently, God forbid a young Egyptian woman who is neither religious nor veiled should protest the horrible treatment of women in Egypt.

It seems that the Islamists are now running AP’s editorial decisions. Or the cowards.

Israel recently discovered a pair of smuggling tunnels leading from Gaza into Israel that it said were built by militant groups planning to stage attacks.

The tunnel they are talking about was built with hundreds of tons of cement, proving that Israel was right to refuse to allow building materials freely across the Gaza borders–one of the things the world slams Israel for. But note the words in bold. Israel “said” the tunnels were built by terrorists. Yes, they did. And then the wire services ran this story:

Hamas Islamists in the Gaza Strip claimed responsibility on Sunday for a tunnel that Israel said was found beneath the heavily fortified Israel-Gaza frontier.

A website for a Hamas radio station called Al-Aqsa said the group’s armed wing was responsible for what it called the “Khan Younis Tunnel,” named for a part of the coastal territory where the subterranean passage was found.

Hamas declared ownership of the tunnel. The AP seems to have ignored that, but Reuters didn’t. Note that the AP almost never runs negative articles on Palestinian terror groups. They’ve been whitewashing them for decades. Witness:

Israel and Hamas are bitter enemies, but both sides largely have observed a cease-fire that ended eight days of heavy fighting in November 2012. The cease-fire has been tested by periodic rocket and mortar attacks out of Gaza. Salafist extremists have been behind most of the violence, but Israel holds Hamas responsible for any attacks out of the territory.

Observing a cease-fire by Hamas includes firing rockets and mortars. Blaming Salafis for the “violence”, but making Israel look like the bad guy for blaming Hamas instead of the Salafis. Whitewash, whitewash, whitewash–they should change their name to Associated Whitewashing Press. AWP would be the sound Israel makes every time it reads an AP report about Israel. Not me, though. I expect nothing less from the AP.

Here’s the headline:

German newspaper expresses regret over cartoon depicting Israel as ravenous monster

And here’s the lead:

A German newspaper has expressed regret after publishing a cartoon that appeared to depict the state of Israel as a ravenous monster.

Munich-based Sueddeutsche Zeitung says the picture appeared Tuesday alongside two reviews of books about Israel.

The caption suggested that the Jewish state was seen by its enemies as akin to Moloch — a monstrous deity from the Old Testament to whom followers sacrificed their children.

Let’s take a look at the Ynet article that included the translated words, shall we?

“Germany presents” the drawing’s subheading reads and then elaborates: “For decades Israel receives arms, sometimes for free. Israel’s detractors believe Israel to be a voracious Moloch. Peter Beinart condemns this situation.”

Note that the AP headline was clear: The article depicted Israel as a ravenous monster. An editor changed the text inside the story to make it seem that perhaps it didn’t really depict Israel that way, even though, well, it did. And the AP doubles down by explaining in the final paragraph:

The picture had been taken from a stock library and originally wasn’t intended as a depiction of Israel.

Note that nobody is quoted. the words “The paper said” or “an editor said” were not inserted in front of “orginally wasn’t intended as a depiction of Israel”. The AP makes it seem as though these are facts, not a statement made by someone working for the German paper after an outcry was raised.

The Jerusalem Post managed to contact both the artist who drew the picture (and was horrified at its use) and Peter Beinart.

The illustrator of the cartoon Ernst Kahl strongly objected to the use of his drawing by the Süddeutsche. The cartoon was originally designed for a gourmet cook magazine called “Der Feinschmecker.” He said if he were told in advance of the use of his illustration, he would not have green-lighted the publication of his cartoon for the Süddeutsche’s book page. The paper reviewed two books slamming Israel, including a book by the American Jewish author Peter Beinart.

Beinart objected to the cartoon on his twitter feed, writing “Dumbest part of nasty cartoon accompanying review of my book is that I strongly support military aid to Israel.”

But the AP? Well, they’re too busy covering for anyone who gets caught slamming Israel. Because in the AP narrative, Israel can never be right. Not ever. Covering for anti-Semitism? Well, that’s just part and parcel of the AP’s biased coverage of Israel.

Israel shows no signs of yielding to Palestinians

The story, such as it is:

Israel’s prime minister is showing no signs of bending as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry presses forward with efforts to restart Mideast peace talks.

Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday that he is ready to begin talks with the Palestinians immediately, but he made no mention of yielding to Palestinian demands to halt settlement construction or release Palestinian prisoners.

Netanyahu says he will not compromise on Israel’s security and if a deal is reached, he says he will seek approval in a national referendum. A referendum is not required, and critics have said it would add an additional obstacle to implanting a deal that relinquishes territory to the Palestinians.

Let’s break it down. The prime minister of Israel says he’s ready to sit down and talk with the Palestinians at any time, without preconditions. The headline should be “Israel ready to talk with Palestinians”. Or “Palestinians continue to demand conditions before peace talks with Israel”. And yet, look at the headline, and look at the language in bold. Could this short piece be any more pro-Palestinian?

Not by much.

Your objective media, at work. Way to go, AP!

Thailand: Iranians’ Targets Were Israeli Diplomats

The lead tries to fudge just a little bit by using the words “Israel has strongly accused Iran,” but this is a pretty solid, they-did-it story.

Three Iranians detained after accidentally setting off explosives in Bangkok were planning to attack Israeli diplomats, Thailand’s top policeman said Thursday in the first confirmation by local officials that the group was plotting attacks in Thailand.

Israel has strongly accused Iran of being behind the botched plot, a bombing in India and an attempted bombing in the former Soviet republic of Georgia this week, which Iran has denied.

Citing the similarity of bombs used in New Delhi and Tbilisi, national police chief Gen. Prewpan Dhamapong said that Thai authorities now “know for certain that (the target) was Israeli diplomats.”

“This issue was about individuals and the targets were specific,” he said. “This was something personal.”

They even state, farther down in the article, that one suspect has “partially confessed” to the plots. So what’s the story today? The AP doesn’t know who the “assailants” were.

Earlier this week, assailants planted a bomb on an Israeli embassy car in India, critically injuring a diplomat’s wife, and carried out two botched bombing attempts against Israeli diplomats in Georgia and Thailand.

Israel has blamed Iran for all three incidents and there has been speculation that Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, carried them out on behalf of its Iranian patron.

Iran and Hezbollah have denied involvement in all three attacks.

I swear, there are people at the AP whose sole job is to whitewash all attacks against Israel and magnify all Israeli defense actions against its enemies. I’ve detailed countless times the way headlines change to a more pro-Palestinian tilt as the day goes by–particularly after a terror attack in Israel–but it just stuns me that the AP keeps on doing it, day after day, month after month, year after year.

If only I hadn’t attended that workshop on anti-Israel media bias the first year I taught Hebrew school in Richmond. Maybe I’d still be blissfully unaware of the Israel-haters within the media.

Poof! There went that fantasy, ended as soon as I typed it.

And here’s your proof: In the time it took me to write this post, the AP updated its article. They’ve eliminated even that paragraph above and changed it to the following:

Israel already has accused Iran of being behind three attacks this week on Israeli targets — a botched bomb plot in Thailand, a bombing in India that wounded an Israeli diplomat’s wife, and an attempted bombing in the former Soviet republic of Georgia this week.

Once again, I’d like to point out that the AP itself ran an article stating that the Thailand investigation says unequivocally that Iranians are behind the plot. Not that it matters to the AP. Apparently, blaming Israel first is the standard boilerplate.

I guess it started in 1987, when I got my first letter to the editor published complaining how a cartoon used antisemitic imagery in its portrayal of then PM Yitzchak Shamir.

In the following years I had letters published in the Baltimore Sun and other publications.

Sometime after 9/11, I got a sense that highly paid columnists, PhD, government officials and other anointed could write the most absurd nonsense and started to e-mail articles that represented reality better than what I was used to seeing in the New York Times or Washington Post (with some exceptions).

I also became aware that you didn’t have to be a highly paid columnist, PhD or government official to get to make unsupported assertions. Regular folks could do that too.

The medium through which they did that was called a blog and I e-mailed one of the earliest practitioners of blogging if what I did could be considered e-mail blogging. She answered that she supposed it could. (I thought I preserved the exchange, but can’t find it right now, so that’s from memory.) As you probably can guess my source was none other than Meryl. And no, bloggers like Meryl, weren’t known for making unsupported assertions, they backed up their assertions with links to sources, not appeals to their own brilliance or supposed expertise.

And so I was drawn to the world of blogging. After some years Meryl invited me to post announcements of Haveil Havalim – the Jewish blogging carnival – at her blog, one of her efforts to promote pro-Israel blogging. Eventually I was invited to join as a regular blogger, a role I enjoyed – getting much wider exposure than I got at my own blog – until my retirement from blogging.

But for me and many others Meryl was a pioneer and inspiration, someone who showed us what pro-Israel blogging could be.

On April 15, 2002, there was a pro-Israel rally on the Mall in Washington DC. It was the height of the so-called “Aqsa intifada,” (or, if you prefer, the Oslo War.) I remember a sign at the rally to the effect of “Israel has 9/11 24/7.” That was the desperate feeling at the time. Every few days, it seemed, brought word of another horrific attack.

The Bush administration, which despite its mistakes, was fundamentally pro-Israel. But in an act of political deafness, sent Paul Wolfowitz to speak to the crowd. The problem wasn’t Wolfowitz but what he said. As the AP started its report:

A top administration official was interrupted and booed Monday when he told thousands of people gathered at the Capitol for a pro-Israel rally that Palestinians as well as Israelis have been victims of Mideast violence.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was drowned out by chants of “no more Arafat” and booed as he told a packed crowd of thousands that “innocent Palestinians are suffering and dying as well. It is critical that we recognize and acknowledge that fact.”

Forget about the blatant bias of the AP in that article. At a time when Israel was defending itself against the most brutal terror war in its history, for Wolfowitz to mention the Palestinians at a pro-Israel was really dense, and as noted, the crowd reacted. Nothing wrong with sympathizing with innocent victims, but to attribute them to Israel self-defense was outrageous.

Andrew Sullivan, about 6 and a half years before he was completely unhinged, thought that was rather ungrateful of the crowd. Meryl pointed out the obvious:

It isn’t just the way the “boos” were blown out of proportion, or the way they were taken so out of context, and made to look as if the crowd cared nothing for the death of innocents. What bothers me most is that the impression is wrong. American Jews care greatly that innocents–on both sides–are dying. But the rally was the Israel Solidarity Rally–not the Israeli and Innocent Palestinian Civilians Solidarity Rally. We went to Washington to make our points–not listen to theirs. We went to hear speakers talk of the innocent Israeli civilians who are dying–murdered by Palestinian “martyrs”–whose comrades hide in the midst of innocent Palestinian civilians.

That was my earliest clear memory of Meryl’s work, and she’s been doing the same for ten years now: showing us how to fight pervasive anti-Israel bias in the media and the chattering classes.

May she go from strength to strength over the next 10!

Television footage showed the activists attacking marines with clubs, iron bars and at least one knife.

The Deutsche-Press Agenter takes the time to expand upon the commission, its reliance on video evidence, but not until after the obligatory anti-Israel five-paragraph lead. The AFP, of course, slants anti-Israel, quoting liberally from the Turks.

The Irish Times presented a very fair and objective piece. NPR used the AP story to present a fair picture that showed the breakdown of the Turkel Committee. The Independent embedded a video in its story (which also detailed the makeup of the Committee and its investigation), although of course the article is slanted as anti-Israel as they could make it. Even the Hindustan Times managed to publish an article that pointed out the international observers on the investigation, placed there to blunt attacks on the committee’s credibility.

Now compare this to the AP report of the Turkish investigation into the Mavi Marmara incident. There is no information whatsoever on the makeup of the committee. There is no mention of the makeup of the Turkish investigation, except to note that the foreign minister—who is quoted throughout the article—was on the committee. Interestingly, none of the Turkel Committee members spoke to the press. The AP story repeates the Turkish accusations uncritically, even when they are known to be untrue and contradicted by video evidence. Just look at this lead paragraph:

A Turkish committee investigating Israel’s deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla has refuted Israeli claims that its soldiers acted in self-defense, saying at least two activists were killed before commandos boarded the ship and another died “execution-style” as he lay injured.

Note the language in bold. Israel’s contentions are “claims.” The word’s implied meaning is that they are not true. Of course, what Turkey “says” is taken at face value. There should be a refutation of the lie that Israel killed two “activists” before boarding the ship, but there is none.

On a side note, once again, there is a major PR fail by Israel.

In Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said he could not comment on the Turkish findings because he had not seen the report.

Palmor said Israel had submitted its own report to the U.N. and was waiting to hear “what lessons could be learned so this doesn’t happen again.”

Instead of the above, the Ministry should have been ready with its own talking points based on the Turkel Committe’s report. The tone of the AP article would be very different if it looked like, say, this (boldface is made up by me as an example of what could have been said):

In Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said he could not comment on the Turkish findings because he had not seen the report. But he reiterated that the Turkel Committee had exonerated the IDF commandoes, saying they had acted in self-defense after being attacked by activists onboard the ship.

As an example, when the Turkel report came out, Turkey’s Islamist president made sure that he put on a big enough fuss to get picked up in his own article by the AP. The Islamists are running circles around Israel in the PR war. Let me put it this way: If words were weapons, Israel would have been defeated in the mid-70s, when the Palestinians ramped up the PR war and Israel continued to not understand how valuable the sound-bite is on television.

When the AP does finally quote the Turkel report, it does so in the last three paragraphs of the article, after repeating uncritically the ridiculous claims of the Turkish report. This one is my favorite made-up accusation:

Another activist, Cevdet Kiliclar, was killed with laser-guided weapons while taking photographs, the report said.

Always the innocent bystander excuse. None of the “activists” above decks that night were innocent. The IDF released a slew of video evidence showing the activists preparing to attack, and then attacking them. But for the AP, there’s no such thing as asking for evidence. And remember, they actually declined to accept the videos from the IDF, saying they had no way of knowing if the videos had been tampered with (which is absolutely false; videographers have excellent methods of determining the validity of a video).

This is, once again, not just media bias. This is also Israel’s problem. Israel needs to ramp up its PR department at the Foreign Ministry, at the IDF, at every office and institution so it can begin to change the anti-Israel bent of so many media stories. Or it can just stand by and watch the delegitimization of Israel, aided and abetted by the anti-Israel media.

Israeli air force strikes Gaza, 8 wounded

Note the headline has no context. Those evil Israelis are just randomly bombing Gaza and wounding people.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) – Officials in Israel and Gaza say Israeli aircraft have carried out retaliatory airstrikes in the territory after militants launched rockets into Israel.

The airstrikes are “retaliatory.” Not justified. They use a word that makes Israel look vengeful. There is also no context that the missiles have been launched at Israel on 20 of the first 40 days of the year. That’s right, on the average of every other day, Gazans are firing missiles into Israel. The AP does not note the missile attacks unless someone in Israel is hurt or killed. Or unless Israel launches “retaliatory” airstrikes.

Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Adham Abu Salmiya says the airstrikes overnight lightly wounded eight Palestinians. He says one strike set fire to a Health Ministry medicine warehouse in northern Gaza.

Yes, we have the “Israel didn’t hit a military target” line, which is what the Palestinian spokesliars always use, and which the media always repeate uncritically. Here we also have the named Palestinian spokesperson. There is no named spokesperson from Israel, which is apparently AP policy. Note the use, as usual, of quoting, “Israel’s military”:

Israel’s military said Wednesday that the strikes were in response to the firing of five rockets and mortars into Israel on Tuesday. The military said aircraft targeted a tunnel and two other sites used by militants.

Lastly, we have the boilerplate untruths that the AP accepts at face value.

The Hamas militants who rule Gaza have largely refrained from attacking Israel since Israel’s Gaza offensive two years ago. But smaller groups continue to fire rockets and mortars.

If Hamas doesn’t want rockets to fly into Israel, then rockets do not fly into Israel. I know this, the AP writers know this, Hamas knows this, and Israel knows this. But here’s the thing about our so-called objective media: If a group says it is not violent, therefore, it is not violent. (cf: Muslim Brotherhood)

The AP: Bringing you all the news that fits our narrative.

The left blames the right. The right blames the left. The sane blame insanity. What Loughner put on Youtube and what he said to friends about his conspiratorial beliefs is simple insanity. Many of us try to explain terrible events by trying to attribute order to them, giving them a cause and therefore and effect that we can comprehend. Some went after leaders on the political right including Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, but most strongly Governor Palin. They argued that her words and actions incited this man to this deed. Palin had evidently placed crosshairs on a map of congressional seats to target as especially important to win for those politically aligned with her. Rep. Giffords district was one of them. “Palin put crosshairs on Giffords! She must be responsible!”

Well friends, Loughner published a lot online and with incredible and ludicrous details. No where does he mention anything about Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, or Rush Limbaugh. Here is where anti-Judaism creeps in to the picture.

No few people accused Palin of inciting Loughner to this action and Palin responded by accusing them of a “blood libel“. “Blood Libel!” Some Jewish leaders screamed:

Blood libel is a term that belongs to us! It can only refer to accusations that Jews use the blood of others for baking matzah, for sacrifices, for gefilte fish, for powering Dimona, as a secret ingredient in Coca Cola, for making Barbies and other actions of pure evil.

Well, I embellish a bit. The reality is that “blood libel” does indeed have painful connotations for Jews. Libels have resulted in pogroms against the Jews time and again with some entire communities being massacred. Yet the concept is a simple one, and here Governor Palin was correct. The concept is that one community, or even a person, is accused of a murder in which they were totally uninvolved because the accuser wishes to do that community, or the specific people accused, harm regardless of their culpability. Jews were accused of crimes because people hated the Jews, not because they were involved in the crimes. Meanwhile, the Jewish community officially objects to Gov. Palin’s use of the term. Okay. I think it was appropriate to an extent, but using another term would have been better, one option which I will share with you in a moment.

Where does the anti-Judaism come in? It comes into the picture with the selective outcry about incitement. All one need do is to look at the difference between the coverage of the Fort Hood shooting and the Tucson shooting. In the Fort Hood shooting, the perpetrator was a devout Muslim who had at one point attended the mosque in America led by Anwar Al-Awlaki, near the top of the Al-Qaeda chart. Al-Awlaki is the head of Al-Qaeda in Yemen. No one in the mainstream media, N-O O-N-E, would ever accuse Maj. Hasan of being incited by an Imam in an American Mosque, would they??? Hasan had direct contact and was in communication with Al-Awlaki in America!!! But the media blamed the army, the right wing in fact, for persecuting him, even though the military welcomed him and went out of its way to help him through his schooling and residency.

Let us compare that to the Tucson incident. In that, the media immediately looked for incitement by right wing leaders, going so far as to ignore the facts published by Loughner himself that negated their arguments. Who needs facts when you have a narrative that you like to use! Some of you have just noted that this is where Governor Palin is connected with anti-Judaism.

Jews and Israel specifically are often accused of crimes that they not only did not commit, but can provide evidence that they had nothing to do with. Yet there are those out there who accuse none-the-less. Is the argument that Israel trained sharks to attack tourists in Egypt not libelous? What about the argument that the Mossad is responsible for the attacks against Christians in Iraq rather than the Muslims who claimed responsibility? How about those who argue that Israel perpetrated 9/11? I could go on and on, but you get the point. The assertion that Governor Palin’s words somehow impelled this wacko (wacko is far nicer a term than is deserving) to bloodlust is not only totally unfounded, but is in fact controverted by the evidence offered by Loughner himself. Should Governor Palin and others similarly accused have called the media’s accusation a “blood libel” as opposed to a Media Libel, which is the term I would rather apply, or some other similar term? Perhaps she should have used another term. But fussing at her about her use of “Blood Libel” misses the real point. The real point is that the same narrative hugging, fact denying, that is going on against Israel and has been going on against the Jews for time immemorial is being applied in the mainstream American press to their perceived opponents on the political right.

Far from being guilty of anti-Judaism, Governor Palin and others on the political right including Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, who were also similarly accused of incitement, were in many ways the victims of anti-Judaism simply applied beyond the boundaries of the Jewish community and unto friends of Israel. Meanwhile, as I write this, Rep. Giffords, a strong supporter of Israel and a member of the all too persecuted tribe, is making a remarkable recovery in a Houston hospital. My thoughts are with her, with her family, with others making recoveries and with the families of those who lost loved ones to Sinat Hinam, blind hatred.