Moore Inverts Events - Israel Kills Palestinians not Terrorists.

comPost's Moore is once again less.

Our indispensable friend, Leo deconstructs her latest 'reporting' (slightly edited).


Here's the link to the story and the lead paragraph.

Israeli Forces Kill 10 In West Bank Attacks

By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 16, 2004; Page A22

JERUSALEM, Sept. 15 -- Israeli military forces killed 10 Palestinians on Wednesday in the West Bank, the highest single-day death toll there in 18 months, and Israeli officials warned that troops would continue attacks against Palestinians while Prime Minister Ariel Sharon moves ahead with proposals to remove Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.

Here's Leo analysis


Today's (Sept. 15) Wash. Post web site article by Molly Moore is about 9 Palestinian terrorists and a Palestinian girl killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank. Unfortunately, this is not the way Ms. Moore reports what happens. Since she's always ready to legitimize Palestinian terrorism and put the onus on Israel, she inverts the events to make it appear that Israel was the heavy. Let's see how exactly she goes about twisting facts to suit her (and the Post's) agenda:

1. Reading her lead paragraph (which according to basic journalistic standards is supposed to give the reader the essence of the story), you would never know that Israel targeted terrorists or, for that matter, "militants," as the Post usually likes to refer to these wonderful people. Instead, her lead states that Israel killed "10 Palestinians" on the West Bank and Israeli officials warned that troops will continue attacks against "Palestinians." This is an outrageously false depiction of Israel's actions and intentions. It tells readers that Israel is engaged in a military offensive against ANY AND ALL Palestinians. Moore does not qualify the dead as including 9 terrorists -- not just any Palestinians -- nor does she qualify Israel's intentions as aimed at terrorists.

2. In the second sentence in the second paragraph, Moore does provide a quote from an Israeli official that Israel plans to continue attacks against the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure and leadership. But this is offered as a general policy statement, with no reference to exactly how many terrorists were killed on this particular day.

3. In the third graf, Moore finally gets around, in very gingerly fashion, to half-way identifying the Palestinian casualties. First, she quotes Palestinians as saying that 6 were "militants" and 3 were "security officials." After this super-toned-down roster of Palestinian fatalities, she gets around to quoting an Israeli spokeswoman as saying that all 9 were "militants." That, of course, is a PATENT LIE. The spokeswoman accurately described them as terrorists belonging to Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Both these groups are recognized by the United States as terrorist organizations. Their record for the last several years amply makes clear that they're out to kill as many innocent Israeli civilians as possible -- an activity which makes them terrorists, not "militants." But even if an Israeli official uses the term "terrorist," Moore will expunge the actual -- and accurate -- description, and substitute her own verbiage in an attempt to sanitize the actions and intentions of these groups.

4. Now let's see how Moore defines Al Aqsa. You'd never even remotely guess that these folks are engaged in terrorism. No, according to Moore, Al Aqsa is merely the "armed wing of Arafat's Fatah movement." Since legitimate police forces also are "armed," how can we possibly guess the quite different mission of Al Aqsa? As for the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Moore describes its members as a "group active throughout the four-year-old Palestinian uprising." Active doing what? If Moore were to truthfully answer this question, her description would immediately self-destruct.

5. In the sixth paragraph, Moore gets back to the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel agenda of her lead by writing that the Israeli military have "escalated attacks against Palestinians in Gaza." Again, not escalated attacks against Palestinian terrorists, not even escalated attacks against Palestinian "militants," but just attacks against Palestinians in general. No wonder the Post refuses to publish actual breakdowns of intifada fatalities, which would show readers that most Palestinians killed in the last 4 years were combatants or died at the hands of Palestinians, while most Israelis killed were non-combatants. Better to perpetuate the fiction that Israel is making war on "the Palestinians" to help justify terrorist attacks against Israelis.

6. To round out her bias, Moore omits a key fact. In the Nablus incident, Israeli commandos -- to SPARE THE LIVES OF THE TERRORISTS -- first asked them to surrender. It was only after they refused and fired on the commandos that the commandos opened fire. To have mentioned this, however, would have presented Post readers with a totally different picture -- I.e. Israeli forces trying to apprehend, not kill, terrorists, instead of Moore's preferred fictional portrait of Israeli forces mowing down indiscriminately "Palestinians."

7. Finally, there was the headline. I know reporters don't write headlines, but in this instance it was perfectly justified by Moore's virulently biased article: "10 Palestinians Killed In West Bank." As you well know, whether on your web site or with your printed editions, many readers scan headlines and don't even read the lead paragraph (not that this would have enlightened them in this instance) So, since Post editors are not only supposed to properly edit Moore's writings, but also the work of headline writers, it's quite logical to conclude that Moore's bias infuses the entire newspaper.

LEO RENNERT

Now compare the tone and style of Moore's description of Israeli actions with the Posts article yesterday about genocide in the Sudan.

Guess who comes off far worse....

Israeli actions are in the active voice (implicitly 'deliberate killing').......while the Sudanese mass murder is in the passive voice (implicitly 'acts of nature').

Hey, mass murder happens.....