The media bias, part the next

Hey, kids. If it’s a day that ends with a “y,” it’s time for the AP anti-Israel media bias. Let’s start, as always, with the headline.

Israeli Troops Kill 10 Palestinians

No doubt there what happened. But please note that the word “militants” is nowhere to be found in the headline. Just for comparison’s sake, let’s check out this story from a few days ago, about the Lebanese army killing Palestinian “militants.”

10 die as clashes move to Tripoli

Isn’t that fascinating? When Israel isn’t killing the “militants,” they simply “die.” Or they “die in clashes.” Or sometimes, the passive “are killed” is used. But when it comes to Israel killing terrorists, the active voice is always, always used. Palesitinians—rarely “militants”—are killed by Israelis, or the army, or the IDF, in the headline. And the lede.

Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday killed 10 Palestinians, including a 12-year-old boy, Palestinians said, the bloodiest fighting in the area since the Hamas militant group violently seized control two weeks ago.

Wow. Strong stuff. Let’s check out that story on the Lebanese Army going after Palestinian terrorists.

TRIPOLI, Lebanon (AP) — Lebanese troops raided a house suspected of containing al-Qaeda-inspired militants in the northern port city of Tripoli early Sunday, sparking a gunbattle that left 10 people dead, including a soldier and six gunmen, security officials said.

Notice the passive “left 10 people dead.” You also have to travel down several paragraphs to have it spelled out for you that civilians were killed—note the lack of civilian casualties in the lede graf, except as an implied number subtracted from the “10 die” total. Here’s the graf where they are described:

An army soldier, a policeman and two family members were killed in Sunday’s confrontation, which began with troops laying siege to a building where the gunmen had taken refugee after nighttime clashes in the area, the security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The names and ages of the civilians are not in evidence. This graf was buried very deeply within the story, as opposed to in the first few paragraphs, where they’d be if it was a story about the IDF. But you can find them, surprisingly, in this Reuters article in Ha’aretz.

The militants killed a policeman, his two daughters, aged 4 and 8, and his father-in-law after using them as human shields in an apartment, sparking the siege.

A police statement said the policeman and his daughters were visiting the father-in-law who lived in the building when the militants stormed their flat and seized them, then later killed them.

However, that news is in paragraphs four and five of a story with this passive headline, and there is no civilian death count in the lede:

Twelve die in Lebanese army raid on militant hideout in apartment

Interestingly, Reuters doesn’t think the total number of civilians killed by the Lebanese Army and Fatah al-Islam in their “gunbattles” is worth mentioning. The deaths are all lumped together in a single total, something that has never, ever been done in stories about Israel versus, well, anyone.

A similar raid on a Tripoli flat on May 20 sparked the fighting in Nahr al-Bared, where 176 people have been killed in Lebanon’s worst internal violence since the 1975-90 civil war.

And there you have it. The wire service media bias against Israel. Only in evidence on days that end with a “y.”