In a January 15 news report focusing on Israel’s sinister ban on foreign media in Gaza, The Associated Press makes clear its political opinion of the regime — only, not the regime you’d expect.
In “Israel controls access, message in Gaza assault,” [1] we are treated to rare moments of journalistic integrity, like:
Israeli officials . . . say that many journalists would relay the views of Hamas without checking their facts, leading to a distorted picture of the conflict — admitting that banning reporters is a policy matter, not security.
That is huge because it defends readers from a fraud that perhaps they wouldn’t have picked up on otherwise. AP should do that more often.
And you have to read all the way to the end for this one; but it is the best part, and the focus of this writing. Witness how the lie is put to the IDF’s lame excuses for firing upon buildings housing journalists:
The Army in a statement said that it only targets buildings or locations “from which fire on (Israeli) troops or civilians emanates” . . . Both The Associated Press and Reuters had provided the military with the coordinates and address of the office. “The military knows what it is, and where it is, and have assured us it is not a target,” said Julian Rake, Reuters deputy bureau chief in Jerusalem. But Rake said his staffers and other journalists in the building were certain that “at no stage” did militants fire from inside the building.
Now that is really good: journalists exposing the Israeli explanation as a fraud.
But there’s one serious problem that throws all that integrity down the memory hole for the conscientious observer.
Behold the following section, which was replaced with the ellipses (…) in the above excerpt:
saying the Hamas terrorist organization that the 20-day old offensive is targeting “deliberately and cynically operates from within civilian areas.”
Is The Associated Press a sworn enemy of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement?
Think about it. Only a handful of governments — most namely, the Israeli and U.S. ones — have officially designated Hamas as a “terrorist organization.” So, when the AP editor uses the modifier “terrorist organization” without citing one of those governments as the source of the modifier, he is basically expressing his own opinion, and by extension, that of the news organization for which he purports to be a journalist. That opinion just happens to align with the fringe opinion of of that handful of governments who are Hamas’ sworn enemies. Simply put, AP is reporting from the Israeli point of view.
But just to be sure, consider this. The entire report practically condemns the Israeli military establishment as being a deceitful and tyrannical censor, calling the Gaza media black-out ”a policy matter, not security.” Moreover, combined with many other AP reports on Israeli aggression during the current massacre on Gaza, the report implies to readers that the IDF has been targeting civilian objects with terrorizing regularity. Yet, for all this reporting on Israel’s Stalinist lip-zipping and its constant targeting of civilian objects, AP ultimately carries the Israeli water bucket by stating, as fact, that Hamas is uniquely the terrorist organization.
For AP’s editorial management, it’s logistics over ethics. They’re not upset at the Israeli government because they can’t perform some noble duty as journalists, exposing the truth in Gaza; they’re pissed because they are not allowed to ‘cover’ Israel’s actions at the scale and pace to which they’re accustomed.
