Exhibit A: An evolution of headlines.
Israel says it’s unlikely to co-operate in UN’s Gaza investigation
Fairly balanced, gets the point across, no evident bias.
Exhibit B: The updated story.
Suddenly, war crimes are in the headline, and Israel is no longer not cooperating in a reasonable manner—now Israel “balks” at the probe. From balance to bias in 3.0 hours. That’s the AP for you.
There is also a huge difference in leads. First article:
An Israeli government official says Israel is “very unlikely” to co-operate with a United Nations investigation into whether Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in the recent Gaza war.
The investigation is headed by Richard Goldstone, former chief prosecutor for war crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Goldstone was appointed by the UN’s Human Rights Council this month.
Updated article:
Israel is unlikely to cooperate with a Gaza war crimes probe because it distrusts the U.N. agency sponsoring the investigation, an Israeli government official said Wednesday.
Gaza’s Hamas rulers said they would work with investigators from the U.N. Human Rights Council which ordered the investigation in January, shortly after Israel’s three-week military offensive in Gaza.
The Israeli government official said Israel sent its response concerning cooperation to the U.N. agency a week ago. He said Israel is “very unlikely” to cooperate. He spoke on condition of anonymity and said he could not elaborate because it’s not clear whether the head of the investigation, Richard Goldstone has been briefed. Israel has long complained that the council is biased against Israel.
International and local human rights groups have said there is strong suspicion both sides violated the rules of war.
Gone is the line that states that Hamas war crimes will also be investigated. Instead, you have a statement by Hamas in the second paragraph that they will take part in the investigation, making it look like Hamas is the reasonable group in this investigation, while Israel is refusing to cooperate with the UN. Note the line in bold. The AP discredits Israel by making it seem like only Israel thinks the UN is biased against Israel, when a simple look at its record would, gee, show the bias. There were 115 actions against Israel in 2008, as opposed to all of 13 against Zimbabwe.
Way back when this blog was but a toddler, I totaled up the anti-Israel resolutions from 1946 to September of 2002 and came up with the astonishing fact that 15% of all UN resolutions were regarding Israel. Today, an astonishing 42% of all human rights resolutions in 2008 were regarding Israel. Nine percent referred to Sudan. Clearly, there is an anti-Israel bias in the UN.
Just as clearly, the AP has an anti-Israel bias. But then, so does most of the mainstream media. Which is why I make sure I read other sources—to get at the truth.
I don’t mean to be rude, but do you Jews put your most incompetent people in charge of the
media?
Seriously, you do pretty well running the rest of the world, but your media department just
stinks.
Veeshir,
After Iser Harel retired from the Mossad the Propaganda Department fell into the hands of Irving Greenwald of the Bronx. He was the nephew of an very influrntial Elder. His previous experience was in planning the advertizing campaigns for Paco Enterprises’ toothpaste (bubblegum and licorice flavors) “It whitens your teeth better because it has real grit in it!”. Due to the way promiotion works among the administration of the Elders we have to wait for him to die before he can be replaced. Unfortunately, he looks like having the lifespan of an Hasidic Rebbe.