The media anti-Israel narrative strikes again

There’s a new AP boilerplate on the Mavi Marmara incident. It used to be two-sided. At least, in some stories, the AP put the fact that Israeli commandos were attacked halfway down the story, like this:

Israel has sought to portray the nine activists killed as militants, saying they prepared for the fight before boarding the flotilla. The military Monday released the names of five of the activists it said have long ties to terror organizations.

And later, the AP managed to water that down a bit:

The decision reflected the intense pressure Israeli leaders felt after an international outcry over the May 31 raid on a blockade-busting flotilla. Israeli commandos killed nine pro-Palestinian activists and both sides claimed they acted in self-defense.

And then there was this:

Naval commandos clashed with activists on board one of the ships, killing nine Turks, and drawing widespread condemnations. Both sides have said they acted in self-defense.

And now, the new AP boilerplate doesn’t even pretend to be even-handed:

Israeli commandos killed nine pro-Palestinian activists on May 31 when they intercepted a blockade-busting flotilla bound for Gaza organized in part by a Turkish group.

This happens to be in direct violation of their own news values and priniciples :

It means we must be fair. Whenever we portray someone in a negative light, we must make a real effort to obtain a response from that person. When mistakes are made, they must be corrected – fully, quickly and ungrudgingly.

Time for another letter to the AP.

Don’t get me wrong. The rest of the media is just as biased. Even the Wall Street Journal.

Israel had also been quietly and gradually easing the restrictions on some civilian goods long before its naval commandoes killed nine passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara aid ship on May 31.

You know, publishing op-eds and editorials on Israel’s right to defend itself is utterly ruined when your news stories call the terrorists “passengers.” These were the ones wielding knives, clubs, slingshots, chains, metal pipes, and chanting anti-Jewish Islamic slogans and declaring their intent to become martyrs. Maybe they had to pay extra for the privilege of being in martyr class.

The New York Times uncritically passes along lies from the Turkish “activists” on board the ship.

The third soldier, however, suffered a cut in his stomach that reached his stomach membrane but not the organ itself. It was nothing fatal. As a doctor, I wouldn’t want to guess the nature of this injury but it could have been caused by either landing on a sharp pole from the helicopter or a blow from a pipe with a sharp edge. I couldn’t tell.

Right. He fell on a pipe. It couldn’t be that he was, oh, I don’t know, stabbed in the stomach?

And most world media are ignoring all of the video evidence proving they were militants. When the AP did mention it, they always added that they couldn’t verify the video. (Can’t find that link again, dammit.)

So of course the world cries out against Israel. The media feeds the beast by constantly refusing to present Israel’s side of the story in all but a brusque, get-it-over-with, lip-service kind of way. All Israeli evidence is challenged. No anti-Israeli claims are verified. And Israel’s image in the world continues to fall. Not that most people need a reason to hate Israel. If the press were completely even-handed, I suspect there would still be as negative an image of Israel in the world’s collective mind. The world, as I have said before, does not like the Jews.