Let’s take another look at the AP news story on the Syrian border incursion from Sunday.
Israeli troops on Sunday battled hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters who tried to burst across Syria’s frontier with the Golan Heights, killing a reported 20 people and wounding scores more in the second outbreak of deadly violence in the border area in less than a month.
That’s the lead paragraph. Now to the background on where they got the information:
There was no Syrian comment on why the protesters were allowed to storm the border, apparently undisturbed by authorities. But Syria’s state-run media portrayed the event as a spontaneous uprising of Palestinian youths from a nearby refugee camp.
After nightfall Sunday, Syria’s state TV said there would be an open-ended sit-in at the border, and thousands more protesters were on their way.
Now let’s take a look at the current big news from Syria, the army heading to a northern town with the intent of putting down a mutiny by some members of the Syrian army.
Al-Watan, the pro-government newspaper, said the Syrian army was launching a “very delicate” operation designed to avoid casualties in Jisr al-Shughour. Al-Watan said some people were being held captive by armed groups that control some areas in Jisr al-Shughour and a large area of Idlib.
There was no way to independently confirm the reports from Syria, which severely restricts local media and has expelled foreign journalists from the country. The government routinely blames armed gangs and religious extremists for the recent violence.
Notice anything different? Isn’t it amazing how when it comes to Israel, the media uncritically report anything that the Syrian press says, including that IDF snipers killed “dozens” of people? And yet, when it comes to covering Syrian civilian deaths caused by Syrian armed forces, suddenly, the media remember that Syria does not have a free and unrestricted press. Here’s what the AP considered enough evidence to support Syrian media claims:
Throughout the day, ambulances raced to the hospital in the Syrian border town of Quneitra with the wounded and dead. State-run Syrian TV said 20 people were killed, including a woman and teenage boy, and 325 were wounded, 12 critically. Hospital officials confirmed the casualty count, providing names of all the dead.
That was enough for the AP to run with the casualty count. Look again at this sentence, used to describe Syrian reports in a story that is not about Israel:
There was no way to independently confirm the reports from Syria, which severely restricts local media and has expelled foreign journalists from the country.
You know, I created the phrase “Israeli Double Standard Time” specifically because of the double standards that are used for Israel and the rest of the world. But never have I seen such a clear case of the double standard used by the Associated Press. Never.
info@ap.org is the email address you may be looking for after reading this post. Not that it will do much good. I’ve been writing to them for years.