The AP buried the lede of the Hamas 23rd anniversary celebration in Gaza. Paragraphs 16 and 17 in an 18-graph story:
In a message distributed to media Tuesday morning, Hamas said it remains committed to destroying Israel, bringing back Palestinian refugees and seizing control of Jerusalem’s holy sites.
“Anyone who gives up these rights is a traitor,” it said – an apparent dig at Hamas’ rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who favors a peace agreement with Israel.
These words will be utterly ignored in the next AP “analysis” that insists Hamas is ready to recognize Israel and live in peace. And every time the AP and other news services put out a story that some Hamasnik has said so, Hamas immediately follows up with “No we didn’t,” but that doesn’t get nearly the same play as the myth that Hamas is moderating and ready to make peace. And the fact that the AP can publish photo captions like this and still pretend that Hamas wants peace is a perfect example of the refusal to report the reality of the situation. (Click on the link above to see the photo.)
Palestinian Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar walks on an Israeli flag while taking part in a rally to mark the upcoming 23rd anniversary since the group’s foundation, in Gaza city, Thursday, Dec. 9, 2010. The arabic text reads: “For sure will be destroyed. Israel”.
That was it. However, other news outlets managed to find a lot more.
Hamas will never recognise Israel, the Islamist movement’s Gaza leader Ismail Haniya said Tuesday at a rally to mark the 23rd anniversary of the organisation’s founding.
‘We say it with confidence as we said it five years ago when we formed our government, and we say it today: We will never recognize Israel,’ Haniya told a crowd in Gaza City numbering tens of thousands.
Nothing from Reuters yet. Interesting, how there’s no coverage of this rally, but there is always coverage of anti-Israel rallies. Oh, and a bit more from those other media sources:
A Hamas communique distributed at the rally stressed that “armed resistance is a legal right for the Palestinian people and we will never abandon this legal right until all our land and all our holy sites are liberated. We will never recognize what is called Israel.”
This is my favorite skewing of the headline, in the L.A. Times:
Gaza’s Hamas seeks to boost popularity with mass rally for group’s 23rd anniversary
Got it? They’re trying to boost their popularity. That’s the angle, not the fact that Hamas will never cease being the murdering, terrorist, Islamist group that it’s been since its inception. As for never recognizing Israel and vowing its destruction? Ignore that. The non-Israeli media do.
Here’s a nice article from 1993 that shows how Hamas operates.