The Reuters coverage of the Hamas rally is different from the AP coverage in several ways. Reuters uses the Hamas crowd estimate (insert eyeroll here), and puts in far more harsh quotes than the AP editors. The lede also more accurately describes the tone of the rally.
Hamas threatened to launch a new uprising against Israel on Saturday when hundreds of thousands of Islamist supporters rallied in Gaza City to mark the group’s 20th anniversary.
“Our people are capable of launching a third and a fourth intifada until the dawn of victory rises up,” said Khaled Meshaal, the group’s exiled leader, in a speech recorded on Friday at his base in Damascus.
The central square in Gaza City was awash with green flags and dozens of armed, masked men from the group’s military wing patrolled in a crowd estimated at between 300,000 and 500,000.
Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said the movement was growing more popular because of its stance against the United States and Israel.
“Today is the day of Jihad, resistance and uprising,” Haniyeh said.
Time to give Reuters points for passing along the true message of the Hamas gathering. And for using the language that should be used—Hamas did threaten Israel yesterday, and the quote on jihad should be front and center. It is a religious war for Hamas, and is stated as such in the Hamas charter, which Reuters actually acknowledges.
Founded in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was killed by Israel in a 2004 air strike, the group has a charter that calls for the elimination of the Jewish state.
Compare that to this description of Hamas from AP:
Hamas was founded in Gaza in December 1987, after the outbreak of the first Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation. It is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was founded in Egypt and is seen as the mother of all fundamentalist factions in the Arab Sunni world.
Reuters also includes the money quotes:
“We will never cede our land … The choice of resistance and Jihad is the shortest way to liberate Palestine and return Jerusalem,” Haniyeh said.
Of course, I’m sure they used “al-Quds” instead of Jerusalem. And it’s true what they say: A picture is worth a thousand words.
There is no talking to Hamas. You can only defeat this enemy, not talk to it.
While Reuters has been justifiably ripped for biased reporting (and undoubtedly will deserve it again in the future), they are a paragon of objectivity compared to AP.
“You can only defeat this enemy, not talk to it.”
Absolutely. People who continue to blather on about “negotiating” with these genocidal savages are either complete idiots, or are consciously aiding their unmistakable agenda of annihilation for Jews and Israel.
Hamas blames Jews for the French Revolution the world wars, and the Rotary Club. Huh? Anyone know what they’ve got against Rotary?
I do not understand why Israel doesn’t drop a fuel-air bomb on one of these Hamas rallies, especially as the rallies often present the latest graduates of terrorist training. Get them all at once, and before they have a chance to do any mayhem.
chsw
You know why, chsw. Number one, because those aren’t all combatants. Civilians don’t get hurt on purpose by the IDF. Number two, because Jews don’t do that sort of thing.
Alex,
The main thing that Islamists all over have against the Rotary Clubs is their sponsorship of charitable activities providing immunizations around the world, in places where the local kleptocratic governments do not concern themselves with such boring details of public health measures as vaccination. The Islamists see this as a Western (Jewish) plot to poison the Muslims. This is a fairly widespread attitude, and not limited to Hamas. It has cropped up in Nigeria for example.
Thanks, Mike. I’d always wondered what they had against Rotary–and the Lions Club, for that matter. Now I know.
It is a vicious approach, but at least now comprehensible. They’d rather condemn their own people to death, often a slow and agonizing death, rather than accept help from someone.
It would be thwarting Allah’s will. That’s what the imams tell the parents of children crippled or killed by polio because they did not get vaccinated: it’s Allah’s will that your son will be a cripple all his life.
Meryl, if Israel were to announce that it would stop fighting like a Western country and start fighting as a Middle Eastern country, Hamas and Fatah would not dare to lob a frisbee. When Assad Sr. sent his army into Hama, when the Saudis cleared up the insurrection in Mecca, when Turkey sends troops against its Kurd minority – they did not and do not care a gnat’s ass about civilians. When Hamas and Fatah send suicide bombers onto a bus, do they care about civilian casualties? Qassam rockets are nonspecific and with one exception all incidents have produced civilian casualties. Does Hamas care about civilian casualties? Neither Fatah nor Hamas see Israelis – even Israeli children – as civilians. It’s about time that the West allows the Israelis to view the Palestinians in the same way. It is not as if the British did not have a similar policy of “dehousing” German civilians during WW2. All know what the Germans did to Jews and to other “non-Aryans.” The Russians, Chinese and even the French spare no one who supports their enemies, even if those include noncombatants.
In short, let’s stop being so moral that it gets us killed.
chsw