There is media bias, and then there is media bias.
First, a quick look at the Ynet version of the events on the Syrian border this morning:
According to reports, around noon, about 150 protesters made their way to the international border fence and began stoning IDF troops and attempting to cut through the fence.
IDF forces called on the demonstrators to cease their progress, before firing warning shots in mid-air. Once those were ignored as well, the troops fired at the lower extremities of several major dissidents inflaming the crowds.
Unconfirmed reports by Syrian media suggest four people were killed and about 30 others injured, allegedly from IDF sniper fire. Red Cross Ambulances evacuated the injured.
Now, the AP version. Note who they quote uncritically as a source in the headline:
Syrian TV says 4 dead in Israeli border gunfire
Israeli troops opened fire across the Syrian frontier on Sunday to disperse hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters who stormed the border of the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Syrian television reported four people, including a 12-year-old boy, were killed by Israeli gunfire.
What they do not do here, and what they do in every article in which Israelis are the victims, is quote the other side. Not until the thirteenth paragraph do they give the Israeli version of events.
The Israeli military said troops fired warning shots into the air after people started approaching the border fence, then issued verbal warnings to protesters to stay away. After some of the protesters reached the fence, soldiers opened fire at their legs, the military said.
Funny, but before this paragraph the AP managed to quote an Israeli spokesperson by name, but immediately afterward, they’re back to the faceless “the military said” standard.
Now, let’s look at the AP’s reasons behind why there were “protests” (they’re border invasions, AP editors, not protests) today:
Forty-four years ago to the day, the 1967 Mideast war erupted. Within six days, Israel conquered the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt; Syria lost the Golan Heights and Jordan lost the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
Israel has since returned the Sinai and evacuated Gaza – but the agony of defeat and the continued Israeli occupation of the Golan, West Bank and east Jerusalem still torments the Arab world.
Note that in the above narrative, the war simply erupted without cause. And when it was over, Israel was the conqueror and the winner. The Arab states were the losers. And look at that last statement by the writer. Aw. The Arabs lost a war and they’re still upset about it fourty-four freaking years later. Gee, if they’d decided to make peace with Israel, accept the existence of the Jewish state in its ancient homeland, and decided to live in peace with the Jews, perhaps they wouldn’t be suffering the “torment” of having lost a war 44 years ago.
Essentially, what you have here is a border invasion, not a protest. Hundreds of non-citizens stormed the border—disputed or not—of northern Israel. They were warned not to proceed further. They ignored the warnings. The IDF fired in the air. They ignored warning shots. The IDF fired in the lower extremities. Some of the would-be invaders still marched forward, trying to break through the border into Israel. The Israeli army defended itself from an invasion. It is not in any way, shape, or form the same actions as the Arabs fighting against the dictators that rule their nations&medash;like, for instance, Bashar al-Assad, the dictator of Syria who is using helicopter snipers to murder civilians protesting his brutal rule. But that doesn’t stop the AP and world media from trying to make it seem one and the same. It most assuredly is not.
This story should have garnered far more headlines, and interest, from the world media. It is a true protest, and people were shot unjustly and with lethal intent by a brutal dictator’s forces:
Syrian forces injure scores trying to topple statue
Syrian forces injured scores of people when they fired at 7,000 demonstrators who marched overnight in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor to topple a statue of late President Hafez al-Assad, residents said on Sunday.“The crowd reached President’s Square when it was met by … bullets from the security police and armored cars that had deployed there to prevent the ‘sanam’ (false deity) from being toppled,” a witness told Reuters, referring to the 6-meter stone statue.
I can’t find a single mention of this on the AP wires yet. And when I search on Syria in Google News, the first thing that comes up are the border invasion stories. They come up even before this story:
25 reported killed in crackdown in northern Syria
A Syrian rights group says the death toll from a military operation in a northern town has gone up to 25.Rami Abdul-Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the deaths occurred in the town of Jisr al-Shughour and included four policemen.
The operation is part of a crackdown that began Saturday and was continuing Sunday.
Details of the operations were sketchy and attempts to reach residents of the town were unsuccessful, possibly because communications have been cut.
How blind is the world when it comes to real atrocities against Arabs by Arabs? This blind. Look what Google News—and the world media—think are the most important stories about Syrians being killed. Because yes, the possible deaths of Syrian “protesters” trying to illegally infiltrate the Israeli border are far more important than the civilians being killed by Bashar al-Assad’s thugs (including Iranian National Guards and Hezbollah terrorists) for trying to make Syria a free nation.
Yes. It’s all Israel’s fault, this lack of Middle East peace. If only there were a Palestinian state, Assad wouldn’t be killing his people.
Riiiiight.