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May 18, 2005

Palestinian Incitement Ignored by Media Except...

On May 13, 2005, Palestinian Authority television broadcast a hate-filled, inflammatory sermon by Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris, a paid employee of the PA, in which he labelled Israel a "cancer," the Jewish people a "virus resembling AIDS," and called upon Muslims to "finish off every Jew."

With the exception of the National Post and Fox News which carried excerpts, none of the mainstream media saw fit to mention this Palestinian incitement.

All of a sudden—five days later—Reuters finally mentions the sermon. Why? Because Palestinian Minister of Information Nabil Shaath is in damage control mode and Reuters is helping.

Palestinian Minister of Information Nabil Shaath told Reuters he had asked the Muslim Waqf and Religious Affairs Ministry, who employ the cleric, "to suspend him, investigate him and prevent him from delivering further sermons on Fridays."

It was one of the strongest signs of action from President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority against incitement, following criticism from Israel that it is not doing enough on that front to ensure confidence and allow peacemaking.

Reuters did not touch the story until it could be spun as some positive development for the PA. And the article makes sure to end on a note of false moral equivalency.

Abbas has also accused Israel of unspecified incitement.

Similarly, the New York Times has failed to report on Palestinian incitement unless it could be spun as a fringe problem on the wane. And then, like Reuters, it imposes a false symmetry between Palestinian incitement and supposed Israeli incitement.

Most of the media is still mum about the sheik's sermon (including the New York Times.) For more on the media's failure to report on Palestinian incitement, click here.

Posted by RH at May 18, 2005 01:52 PM