AP’s Damage Control on Palestinian Incitement

By Published On: January 11, 2010

Leila Ghannam, the acting governor of Ramallah, is in damage control mode on the issue of Palestinian incitement, and the AP has served as a willing accomplice. Amy Teibel’s AP article yesterday (“Israel: Palestinians to blame for impasse in talks”), notes Israeli objections to the naming of a square in Ramallah after bus hijacker Dalal Mugghrabi, who was responsible for the murder of 37 civilians in 1978. Teibel writes:

Leila Ghannam, the acting governor of Ramallah, confirmed the plan to name the square after Dalal Mughrabi, but said the national Palestinian leadership had nothing to do with the decision. (Emphasis added.)

Yet, according to a Dec. 31 report by Palestinian Media Watch:

The text on the giant banner carrying Mughrabi’s portrait at the birthday ceremony read:
“Under the auspices of President Mahmoud Abbas
The Political and National Education Authority
Ceremony on the anniversary of the birth of the bride of the cosmos
The Shahida (Martyr) Dalal Mughrabi.”

Two PA TV news broadcasts focused on the celebration:
“Under the auspices of President Mahmoud Abbas, the Political and National Education Authority held a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the Shahida (Martyr) Dalal Mughrabi, commander of the Coastal Operation (i.e. hijacking of bus and killing of 37 civilians).” [PA TV (Fatah), Dec. 29, 2009]

The AP has ignored a request to make clear that the publicity material surrounding the event overtly stated that the naming and celebration of Mughrabi were held “under the auspices” of President Abbas, Ghannam’s denial notwithstanding.

We expose the anti-Israel lies so you don't have to. But we can't do it without your help. Join the fight -- Donate now
CAMERA logo
Tell the World – Share Now!

More from SNAPSHOTS

  • In English, Haaretz Whitewashes Temple Mount Killings

    October 6, 2019

    Master Sgt. Kamil Shnaan, left, and Master Sgt. Haiel Sitawe, right, the police officers killed in the terror attack next to the Temple Mount complex in Jerusalem on July 14, 2017. (Israel Police) In an [...]

  • Media Confounds, Calling Israel’s Voting Arab Citizens ‘Palestinian’

    September 24, 2019

    Arab woman voting in Jaffa, 2013 (Photo by Noam Moskovich/The Israel Project (Flickr) The impressive turnout on the part of Arab citizens of Israel in last week's elections -- making the Joint List of Arab [...]

  • Mahmoud Abbas’ Diatribe Threatening Israel Included Bogus Canaanite Claim

    September 10, 2019

    Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ recent anti-Israel diatribe that aired on PA TV was monitored and translated by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Excerpt: "I say to [Israel]: Every stone you have built on our land [...]

  • A Skewed NY Times Story on BDS, Then a Skewed Letters Section

    August 7, 2019

    After the New York Times published a skewed story about the anti-Israel BDS campaign, we detailed how the newspaper's reporters "put their fingers on the scales in support of BDS." One of the many examples [...]

  • CNN Calls House’s Unifying Anti-BDS Vote ‘Divisive’

    July 24, 2019

    Yesterday, in an overwhelming vote of bipartisan support, the House of Representatives voted 398 to 17 to adopt a resolution opposing the anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divest, sanctions) campaign. Yet, CNN's headline casts the unifying vote [...]

  • NY Times Cites Poll, Hides Palestinian Support for Violence

    July 9, 2019

    The New York Times has struggled to accurately describe polls this year. In January, editor Jonathan Weisman misrepresented Pew polling data to describe a nonexistent surge in Israeli support for the United States under President [...]

  • Not a Scoop: 448 Days Later, NY Times Reports Slur by Palestinian Leader

    June 10, 2019

    In January 2016, on the day Israel buried a pregnant woman stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel publicly criticized what he viewed as a double standard in Israelis law [...]

  • CNN’s Zakaria Indulges Palestinian Propagandist Hanan Ashrawi

    June 9, 2019

    Fareed Zakaria’s weekly Cable News Network (CNN) program (grandiosely named “Global Public Square”) June 9 broadcast included a discussion of the current U.S. Middle East peace plan with guests Hanan Ashrawi (Palestinian Authority official) and [...]

  • After Broadcasting Holocaust Denial, AJ+ Feigns Innocence

    May 31, 2019

    After Al Jazeera created and posted a video questioning "the truth of the Holocaust," officials at the Qatari media giant took a page from the New York Times' book, blaming employees who were working "without [...]

  • In Robert Bernstein Obit, AFP Inappropriately References His Judaism

    May 29, 2019

    Robert Bernstein (Courtesy the New Press) In its obituary yesterday for American publisher Robert Bernstein, Agence France Presse inserted an inappropriate reference to the Human Rights Watch founder who later turned on the organization due [...]