Anti-Israeli bias

I read three separate news accounts describing the current operation Israel has undertaken against the Gaza Strip. It's interesting to note the language used by AP News, Reuters and AFP.

In the AP article by Ibrahim Barzak and Matti Friedman, the opening line of the article states, "Israel's air force obliterated symbols of Hamas power on the third day of its overwhelming assault on Gaza on Monday..." Let's examine what the facts are in this statement. Israel's Air Force attacked targets in Gaza on the third day, Monday. However, the writers of this article chose to insert their own bias by describing the targets as "symbols of Hamas' power" and by describing the Israeli Operation as an "overwhelming assault." In the fourth paragraph of the article, the authors admit that, "The strikes appear to have gravely damaged Hamas' ability to launch rockets..." So is Israel attacking "symbols of Hamas power" or are they reducing the ability of Hamas to launch rockets? In the second paragraph of the article 315 people, "including seven children under the age of 15," were killed as a result of the Israeli operation but five paragraphs later the authors admit that 180 of those killed were "Hamas security forces." Nowhere in the entire article is it stated that Hamas is the leading political party. Nowhere in the entire article is it stated that Hamas is a Terrorist Organization. The article goes on to call out other incidents and use language to paint the Israelis in a bad light and make the Palestinians look like victims.

In the Reuters article by Nidal al-Mughrabi, the opening paragraph states, "Israeli aircraft destroyed a bastion of Hamas's rule over the Gaza Strip on Monday, the third day of an offensive that has killed more than 300 Palestinians in the deadliest violence in the territory in decades." Three paragraphs later it's stated, "Hamas, an Islamist movement that took over the Gaza Strip in 2007, defied the Israeli assaults..." It's quite a humorous contradiction, that they defied the assaults as if they willed the bombs to not explode and the targets to remain intact, but it's the first time an indication is given regarding what Hamas is, however what is an "Islamic movement?" When that "movement's" goal is the eradication of Israel, to launch terrorist attacks on Israel via mortar rounds that land wherever and kill whoever happens to be there, say civilians in their homes watching TV, it completely fails to state that Hamas is a Terrorist Organization whose goal is to incite the Palestinian population into attacking Israelis. Halfway through the article it's stated, "...an air strike killed a local commander of Islamic Jihad, three other members of the militant group and a child as they stood in the street..." Islamic Jihad is also a Terrorist Organization. They don't wear uniforms, they don't use battle formations against the Israeli army, they attack Israeli civilians with suicide bombings and other means. It's even more ridiculous at the end of the article when it's stated, "In what it called a "terrorist" attack, the Israeli army said a Palestinian stabbed three Israelis in the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba in the West Bank before he was shot by a passer-by and arrested." The word terrorist is actually used for once in this article, but only in quotes when the Israeli Army used the term to describe an attacker in the West Bank that stabbed three Israeli civilians. It's almost a laudable use of the word if it weren't so laughable that the author put it in quotes.

In the Agence France Press (AFP) article, no author given, the second paragraph states, "Anger over the mammoth bombing campaign spiralled in the Muslim world, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon again deplored the violence..." Why the use of the word mammoth if only to illicit the mental image of unnecessary use of force or to de-legitimize in some way the bombing campaign itself? For good measure, the author reminded the reader that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon deplored the violence. How about a noteworthy statement from the Secretary General, like condemnation of the stupidity of Terrorists for launching mortars and rockets into Israel, or a statement about something truly deplorable like the refuge camp conditions under which the "Palestinians" in surrounding countries live in. The author continues six paragraphs later with, "In all, the Israeli blitz, unleashed on Saturday in retaliation for ongoing rocket and mortar fire from Gaza, has killed at least 318 Palestinians and wounded more than 1,400 others, according to Gaza medics." Interesting to note that the Germans invented the term blitzkrieg which when transliterated means lightening war, but tactically was a ground invasion strategy like that employed against Poland during WW2. An aerial campaign is hardly a blitz, but again another attempt to conjure negative thoughts/images which de-legitimize the Israeli bombing campaign. Further food for thought would be that the author might have purposefully chosen the word blitz to describe the Israeli bombing campaign when the Germans carried out the Holocaust of the Jews during WW2. Even more so because the author quotes Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum as stating, "Israel is 'committing a holocaust as the whole world watches and doesn't lift a finger to stop it.'" Really? A Holocaust? Because 60-75% of European Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Does that compare to a few hundred Palestinian deaths, a people who voted into power the Terrorist Organization Hamas?

It's a frustrating fact of life that the world, save for now the US, is against Israel. The news reports we read are politicized to the point you think that Hamas is like the Republican and Democratic Parties of the US, that hundreds of innocents are killed and thousands wounded, that Israel is the aggressor and using disproportionate force as a response, but to what they're responding to isn't given or is left to the last sentence of the article. Does anyone question the sympathy given to the Palestinians when they're the ones that elected Hamas to power in the first place? That they're the ones that rally against the US and Israel and support Terrorist Organizations like Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Palestinian Liberation Front, etc. That they're the ones that carry out suicide bombings against Israeli Civilian targets likes buses, pizza parlors, wedding halls, checkpoints, etc. Anytime a Jew is killed in Israel no one blinks an eyelash, but if a Palestinian is killed then condemnation runs rampant up to and including the UN Secretary General himself. I'll only have sympathy for the Palestinians when they turn on the Terrorist Organizations that they support.