Your daily does of AP whitewash

This is the caption of an AP photo:

Palestinian women sing while waving red flags at a rally marking the 43rd anniversary of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in Gaza City , Saturday, Dec. 11, 2010.

Really? The PFLP is a leftist group? That’s all they are?

No.

Let’s see. There was the Lod Massacre and dozens of other terror attacks before the year 2000. And there were many more attacks, including suicide bombings, after 2000.

This is another example of the minimizing of Palestinian terrorism against Israelis, while also maximizing the anti-Israel rhetoric in your average, daily AP (and other) news stories. The current narrative? Bad, bad Israel refuses to freeze settlements, thus causing direct talks to fail. Good, good Palestinians won’t talk without a freeze, in spite of the fact that there was a ten-month freeze and they did not come to the talks until two weeks before the freeze was to end.

Washington’s proposed return to indirect negotiations comes days after the U.S. announced that it has abandoned weekslong efforts to persuade Israel to extend a settlement construction slowdown in exchange for security and diplomatic incentives. The Palestinians have said they will not resume negotiations as long as expanding settlements grab more of the land they want for a future state.

Both the European Union and the U.N. rebuked Israel this week over its refusal to stop building settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, lands Israel occupied in the 1967 Mideast War.

Every Israeli point must be presented negatively:

Netanyahu has endorsed a Palestinian state in principle, but has attached a string of conditions, and has not revealed his proposal for a border between Israel and Palestine. Doing so might cost him the crucial support of pro-settlers parties in his right-wing coalition.

It’s all a zero-sum game to the AP, when in reality, Netanyahu said that he supports a Palestinian state as long as it recognizes Israel as the home of the Jewish people, is disarmed, and signs an agreement that this is it, they’re at peace, and they won’t ask for more in the future. The AP doesn’t name the conditions. That would enlighten people to the notion that they’re fairly reasonable conditions. But that doesn’t fit the anti-Israel narrative.

And the reason this is so important? That photo went around to hundreds, if not thousands, of AP outlets. Describing a despicable, terrorist organization that is dedicated to the destruction of Israel as “leftist.” Blaming Israel solely for the failure of peace talks. Never mentioning that Abbas followed in his master’s footsteps and said no to everything he wanted, including Jerusalem, when Ehud Olmert offered it to him. And the narrative is bought, hook, line, and sinker, by fools like Andrew Sullivan and by others who know better, but who have an anti-Israel agenda (Walt, Mearsheimer, etc.).

Which is why I’ll never run out of material for this blog.