AP Article Paints Israel As Aggressors, Hamas As Victims
In yet another example of biased news media coverage of events in Israel last week, a widely circulated Associated Press article referred to Hamas’s orchestrated, violent assault on Israel’s borders as “this week’s mass killing of Palestinians by Israel in Gaza.”
The article – written by London-based Tamer Fakahany, who serves as AP’s “global news manager” – further smeared the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) by claiming that Israel used “disproportionate live fire against unarmed protesters, killing dozens.”
Hamas’s campaign openly sought to breach the Israeli border with the goal of murdering Jews. Yet, Fakahany chose to frame the events by not focusing on the reason Israel needed to defend its borders, but by instead describing the casualty count.
Hamas claims 60 Palestinians were killed in the riots. The news media widely cited the “Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza” as providing those numbers. Many outlets failed to report that the ministry is controlled by the Hamas terrorist group that organized the riots and has a vested interest in inflating such numbers. Hamas has a history of exaggerating these claims and using civilians, including children, as human shields.
The AP article did not get into specific numbers beyond generalizing with the “mass killing of Palestinians by Israel” description.
In an interview with a Palestinian media outlet, Hamas official Salah Bardawil stated that 50 of the alleged casualties were Hamas members. Three Gazans were shot while trying to plant explosive devices at the border fence with the goal of blowing up the barrier, while others were killed attempting to open fire on Israeli soldiers, the IDF said. Israel has identified a total of 24 casualties as members of Gaza terrorist groups.
The AP article further uses Hamas claims of “unarmed protesters” as fact, without regard for the IDF’s version that it used live fire only when necessary and that many rioters were armed and attacked Israeli troops along the border. The article did not even bother to mention the IDF’s response to the “unarmed protesters” claim.
Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahhar admitted in an interview that the labeling of Gaza riots as “peaceful resistance” is really a tactic to “deceive the public.”
McCabe’s Involvement In The Dossier
While he served as the FBI’s deputy director, Andrew McCabe penned emails in which he revealed his awareness of plans by CNN to break a major story regarding salacious claims made in the infamous anti-Trump dossier.
McCabe wrote the email two days before CNN on January 10, 2017 was first to report leaked information that the controversial contents of the dossier were presented during classified briefings one week earlier to President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump. Prior to CNN’s report leaking the briefings, which was picked up by news agencies worldwide, the contents of the dossier had been circulating among news media outlets, but the sensational claims were largely considered too risky to publish.
Perhaps tellingly, McCabe noted in his January 8, 2017 email that the “trigger” for CNN’s forthcoming dossier story of which he had insider knowledge was the official separate classified briefings to Obama and Trump on the unsubstantiated claims.
Besides showing insider knowledge of the CNN story released two days later, McCabe’s email adds fuel to the argument that the leak of the classified briefings themselves gave the news media the opening to report on the dossier’s existence as well as allude to some of the document’s most outrageous claims.
In its report, CNN itself noted that the dossier claims were circulating for months among the news media, and that the inclusion of the dossier claims in the briefings with Trump and Obama gave the charges some credibility.
Questions have been raised on the need to include the dossier charges in the classified briefings, which were reportedly conducted by Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers. Comey reportedly stayed in the room alone with Trump afterwards to orally brief the incoming president on the most salacious allegations.
Trump was not told at the briefing, which took place at Trump Tower in New York, that the dossier had been paid for by Trump’s primary political opponents, namely Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) via the Perkin Coie law firm.
The McCabe emails were obtained by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), chairman of the Senator’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and were disclosed in a letter on Monday to FBI Director Christopher Wray seeking more information from the agency.
McCabe is already in hot water after the Justice Department Inspector General (IG) last month referred McCabe to Washington’s top federal prosecutor after an IG report found that McCabe had lied to investigators or Comey four times, including on three occasions where McCabe was under oath.
There have long been questions about who leaked the information about the classified briefings on the dossier to CNN.