Here's the first sentence from an Associated Press dispatch relating to a breaking news story out of Israel: "OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israeli police say they have shot a man whose car slammed into a crowded train stop in east Jerusalem, in what they suspect was an intentional attack." ("OCCUPIED JERUSALEM"" Really? — Ed.) The story goes on to note that nine people were wounded.
From all of this, the wire service ran with the following initial headline: "Israeli police shoot man in east Jerusalem." That's right. Nothing about the man being the driver of a car which plowed into a crowd. Well guys, if you play with fire, you're sometimes going to get burned. In this case, more like scorched, as one of the nine wounded, a three-month-old baby, died. The initial headline, though ultimately changed, more than likely stayed with the story for a brief time at some outlets as additional developments unfolded. Excerpts from the latest report, as carried at Yahoo.
Readers will note that the still-present anti-Israel bias (bolds are mine):
Palestinian kills baby at Jerusalem station
A Palestinian motorist with a history of anti-Israel violence slammed his car into a crowded train station in Jerusalem on Wednesday, killing a three-month-old baby girl and wounding eight people in what police called a terror attack.
The girl and her parents, who were injured in the attack, were U.S. citizens, according to Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.
The violence came after months of tensions between Jews and Palestinians in east Jerusalem — the section of the city the Palestinians demand as their future capital. The area has experienced unrest and near-daily attacks on the city's light rail by Palestinian youths since a wave of violence over the summer, capped by a 50-day war between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza.
The car struck the train station near the national headquarters of Israel's police force. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the driver got out of the car and tried to flee before he was shot by a police officer.
He said footage captured by security cameras indicated the driver deliberately struck people waiting at the stop.
... The Israeli government informed the U.S. that Hamas was believed responsible for the attack, a U.S. official said.
... The unrest began with the kidnapping and killings of three teenage Israelis in the West Bank in June by a pair of Hamas operatives. Several weeks later, Jewish extremists kidnapped and burned to death a Palestinian teenager in east Jerusalem. Then, on July 8, Israel launched its war against Hamas in Gaza in response to heavy rocket fire.
Israel captured east Jerusalem, along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed the area as part of its capital — a step that has not been recognized internationally. The Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state that would also include the West Bank and Gaza.
The obvious bias here is that the AP — and virtually all of the rest of the world's press — will never tell readers that Hamas and the Palestinians have never budged from their deal-killing refusals to renounce terrorism and to recognize Israel's unconditional right to exist.
It appears that the wire service had to be deluged with complaints resulting from a social media campaign to change their headline to the one seen above to accurately reflect the circumstances. In between, the wire service ran a headline which was almost as bad: "Car slams into east Jerusalem train station." Yeah, it just drove itself.
If AP had started with an accurate headline when all facts weren't known — say, "Israeli police shoot man after he plows into crowd" — it would probably not have seen any blowback. The effort smacks of a wish to create an international incident over the man's death which backfired when one of those hit — a baby at that — died. As I stated earlier, if you play with fire, you often get burned. In this case, the AP got burned big time — and richly deserved it.
One more thing: Hamas is positively thrilled, but you have to go to a blog to learn that —
Hamas and Islamic Jihad hailed Wednesday’s terrorist act by an east Jerusalem resident who rammed his car into a crowd of commuters at a light rail station, killing a three-month old infant and injuring seven others. “The attack in Jerusalem is an act of heroism and a natural response to the crimes of the occupation against our people and our holy places,” said Mushir al-Masri, a senior Hamas spokesperson.
Of course, that's not in the AP's latest report.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
