Sunday, May 15, 2011

HuffPost's anti-Semitic, pro-Islamist bias: 2011 Naqba riots edition

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"When the Jews get out of Israel, the­n there will be peace.
"
They have no right to that land. They never have!!

"Jews are responsibl­e for every single war since WWI.

"Christians are awakening to what, or who the real problem is."

--- One of the comments that HuffPost reviewed, approved and decided to publish by its Moderators and users, in response to its anti-Israel incitement on May 15, 2011.


AOL's acquisition of HuffPost
"has allowed us... to continue to change the culture here."
--- Tim Armstrong, Chairman, AOL, May 14, 2011





Summary:
This report documents how HuffPost looked at today's riots in the Middle East and --- just as it has done in dozens of prior instances --- turned the facts on their heads, and presented the story in a way that could only serve to incite anti-Israel hatred based on false/misleading grounds.

This wouldn't be so serious --- or so potentially deadly --- were HuffPost not
the #1 most-read blog on Earth, a top-ten U.S. “news” site and “a top-10 current events and global news site,” --- or have 700,000 unique monthly visitors who originate in Muslim-majority nations (250,000 in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan alone).

See Action Items at end if you'd like to make your voice known on this matter to HuffPost, its advertisers, and AOL.




May 15, 2011 HuffPost front page headline: "Israeli Troops Fire On Palestinian Protesters"


HuffPost published this story near the top of its front page (note position of scroll bar at right), which claimed "Israeli Troops Fire On Palestinian Protesters In Deadly Clashes":



Israeli troops fired on mere "Palestinian protesters," HuffPost? Really?

No, they didn't.

How do we know that? The first clue was that even HuffPost's own story page headline tells a very different story: "Israeli Troops Clash With Palestinian Protesters Along Borders With Syria, Lebanon, Gaza Strip":


Wait, do you mean Palestinians were in Syria and Lebanon, peacefully "protesting," and those brutal Israeli soldiers opened fire on them?

NO.
Let's read what HuffPost's own story (sourced from the AP) says:
"Israeli troops clashed with Arab protesters along three hostile borders on Sunday, leaving as many as 12 people dead and dozens wounded in an unprecedented wave of violence marking the anniversary of the mass displacement of Palestinians surrounding Israel's establishment in 1948.

"In the most serious incident,
the Israeli military said thousands of protesters approached Syria's border with the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. It said hundreds of people burst through the border, and soldiers opened fire to stop them. Dozens were wounded and six were reported killed."
Link

So what's the real story here?

  • The "protesters" were mostly Arabs
  • They attacked Israel on three of its borders
  • The only "protesters" that were "fired on" were Syrians, who burst through that nation's border, and began rampaging in Israel



But wait, isn't there just
a bit more to this story --- to the savagery and apparent coordination of militant Islamists' attacks on, and threats against Israel, today and in the last 48 hours?

Why yes, there is. Do these sound like the actions of peaceful "protesters" to you?
  • YNet reported that ten Israeli soldiers, including their unit commander, were wounded by the rocks the protesters were throwing.
    HuffPost completely ignored this story.
  • The Jerusalem Post reported that an Arab driving a dump truck through Tel Aviv began running down everything in sight, shouting "Death To Jews!!!" He killed one and injuring sixteen, including, according to YNet, a woman he beat on the head with a broken streetlight he found, after he jumped out of his truck.
    HuffPost completely ignored this story.
  • Israel National News reported that "Arab rioters attempted on Saturday to burst into several Jewish homes built in the Moscowitz housing project in eastern Jerusalem, hurling rocks and damaging Jewish property."
    HuffPost completely ignored this story.
  • YNet reported that the IDF claims the Lebanese military (which recently assassinated a beloved IDF officer, then lied about it) opened fire on "protesters" who had knocked down its fence with Israel.
    HuffPost completely ignored this story.
  • 48 hours ago, YNet News reported that tens of thousands of Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square to burn Israeli flags, shout "Death to Israel!!! Death to the Jews!!!," urge a new confrontation with the Jewish state, and display how they outfit their toddlers with play-suicide-bomb-vests (right).
    HuffPost completely ignored this story.


How could HuffPost's army of "hundreds of editors and reporters" have missed all this, and gotten the original story so terribly wrong? Especially when most of the correct information was right there in its source story, and readily available at the time from (credible) sources around the world (which we found with a few keystrokes)?

Perhaps some day, a journalist with influence will ask HuffPost to explain itself. As for HUFF-WATCH, we maintain our position that this is merely the latest example in HuffPost's long, long, long, history of deliberately, maliciously manipulating news from the Middle East in order to incite hatred of Israel, and shield militant Islamists from being held to public account for their murderous actions, threats and incitement.



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Flashback: "Arianna says"
"[At HuffPost] there are [journalistic] guidelines that have to be followed -- and they include a prohibition on... inflammatory claims."
-Arianna Huffington, Feb. 1, 2010

“[T]oo many reporters have forgotten that the highest calling of journalists is to ferret out the truth, consequences be damned.”
- Arianna Huffington, July 29, 2008

"If you're going to produce great journalism, you have to build a team of people who are working together and driving toward the same goals editorially.”
– Arianna Huffington, April 7, 2011 --- two months after being put in control of all of AOL's "news."



So what "news" stories did HuffPost decide were more important to put on its front page, than telling the full, contextual account of what happened on Israel's borders today?


Let's take a look. Note that one of these stories was positioned right next to the "Israel fires on Palestinian protesters" story (see frame at lower right):

So what types of comments do you think HuffPost reviewed, approved and decided to publish --- from its Moderators, and users?


As shown on the story page, HuffPost announced that not a single comment would appear unless it was approved by one of its Moderators. (In fact, as we document in this special report, it has been pre-moderating all user comments since March 2008.) Note that this screencap shows that at the time, HuffPost had 104 comments in "Pending," meaning it was deciding whether to publish or reject them:


Here's a sampling of the comments that HuffPost chose to publish --- by users who were clearly incited by HuffPost's inflammatory, biased depiction of this story. Also, note how many of these users have 200 or more "fans," meaning they are not hit and run "trolls" that Ms. Huffington falsely claims are the ones responsible for comments that violate her site's comment policy, in order to embarrass her.
"When the Jews get out of Israel,the­n there will be peace. They have no right to that land. They never have!!
"Jews are responsibl­e for every single war since WWI.

"Christians are awakening to what,or who the real problem is."
- daytonagary, 2 fans, Permalink





ACTION ITEMS

If you share our view that HuffPost's actions in regards to this story are outrageous, and are opposed to its long, long history of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement and bias, we urge you to do three things:
(1) Make your voice known to HuffPost's senior management here.

(2) Consider writing or calling one or more of HuffPost's top advertisers, to let them know your thoughts on what their ad dollars are enabling.
An easy way to approach this is to scan our easy-to-use directory and find one or two corporations that you are a customer of, or have stock in.
Your concerns will automatically be given considerably more weight. Also, request a follow-up after they've had a chance to review the evidence; don't let them off the hook, or sweep this under the rug.

(3) Forward the link to this story along to friends and journalists who you think might be interested in learning what HuffPost really is, and does --- and how long this has been going on:

Previously:
The Stimulus And The (Approved) Response: Anti-Semitism and Israel-Hatred on Huffington Post

(At right) HuffPost publishes anti-Semitic blood libel without any proof; users unleash anti-Semitic hate (HuffPost: "Approved!!!")

Is HuffPost even more anti-Israel than Al-Jazeera? Yes

HuffPost twists headline to incite hate against Israel, protect Hamas (again); predictable user hate-fest ensues; HuffPost: "Approved!!!"

HuffPost's anti-Semitic, pro-jihadist bias -- Christmas edition

HuffPost's pathological anti-Semitic bias: Children's edition



Flashback -- March 1, 2011: HuffPost claims Israeli settlers "rampage"...

... but on May 15, when thousands of Muslim rioters overrun Israel's borders and pelt its soldiers with rocks... HuffPost calls them "protesters"


Our friends at Huffington Post Watch documented the fact that HuffPost published a "news" story on this day that it entitled, "Israelis Settlers Rampage In West Bank":


Note that HuffPost's editors thoughtfully matched this inflammatory headline with a personalized picture of what we presume is a Palestinian boy, distraught over the damage to his family's home. As HPM noted at the time:
"What? The settlers are destroying Palestinian property again? For no reason at all?

"Oh wait..."

(Click here to discover the rest of the story --- which HuffPost conveniently neglected to mention.)

And as has become its standard operating procedure, in response to its own incitement, HuffPost reviewed, approved and decided to publish a plethora of anti-Semitic hate comments (which its comment policy claims it won't publish). A few examples, from veteran (100+ "fan") users:


"The Huffington Post approach [is] "covering the news in a 21st-century kind of way" [in addition to] new ideas about balance and fairness..."
- Conden Naste Portfolio interview with Betsy Morgan, then-CEO of Huffington Post, November 14, 2007

Indeed.


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