Palestinians End Truce They Never Started. AP Blames Israel, Comes Frighteningly Close to Outright Lying
This AP headline and lede are just unreal:
Truce with Palestinians formally ends; Israel kills 2 in Gaza 'no-go' area
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Two Palestinians were killed in Israel's first deadly airstrike in a Gaza border area it recently put off limits, just as a truce that has drastically reduced violence formally ended. Israel said its air force attacked militants about to fire a rocket at Israel late Saturday. Israel declared the northern Gaza-Israel border area a "no-go" zone last week to stop extremists from launching rockets, warning that Palestinians entering the area could be shot.
Reading it, you wouldn't know that the Palestinians are the ones who actually ended the truce. Also, you wouldn't know that their so-called truce included 2,990 attacks.
And among the many, many reasons why you wouldn't know that from the article, the main one is that Sarah el Deeb from the AP (who wrote the article but is not credited on the Baltimore Sun page) gets startlingly close to being an outright liar:
A spokesman for the Islamic militant group Hamas, Mushir al-Masri, threatened revenge against Israel. However, he did not rule out extending a truce declared in February that formally expired at the end of 2005.
The exact opposite is true - Hamas and three other terrorist groups called off their own truce at the end of the year and immediately started launching attacks. It's not like they were subtle about it either - see: here and here and even the Palestinian government's own webpage here! Of course, she never comes out and says that Hamas didn't actually end the truce with a barrage of missiles - she just says that al-Marsri threatened revenge in a way that implies that those missiles were revenge for Israel ending the truce. Come to think of it, Israel never had a truce with the Palestinians the way the headline implies - it was the Palestinians who unilaterally declared a truce with Israel (a 2,990 attack truce) and Israel who - glad for the chance to live in peace for a little while - backed off so as not to disturb that truce. So if the headline is not an outright lie, it is at best sheer nonsense meant to imply a lie.
[Cross-posted at IsraPundit]
UPDATE: We tracked down the fuller version of this article: It's a treat on multiple levels:
Early Sunday, armed Palestinians also stormed a social club on the Gaza City beach, injuring a Palestinian guard and throwing two explosive devices, security officials said. Known as the U.N. club, the facility is the only place in Gaza City where alcohol is served... Islamic fundamentalists object to sale and consumption of liquor, but it was not immediately known who the attackers were.
Whether it's funny because "throwing two explosive devices" counts as legitimate Palestinian "objection" or because she holds out the possibility that the attack might have been by fundamentalist Quakers, it's definitely funny. Less funny is this part:
Hamas has largely kept the cease-fire... and hinted it could continue... Islamic Jihad, which carried out all six suicide bomb attacks since the truce went into effect, released an ambiguous statement noting that the cease-fire had expired. It was not clear whether the group would participate in talks to extend it.
The implication that Hamas called off their suicide bombers would be another lie - it's just that the IDF and the Shin Bet intercepted all 29 Hamas suicide bombers before they could Israel's cafes, nightclubs, and malls.
Truce with Palestinians formally ends; Israel kills 2 in Gaza 'no-go' area
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Two Palestinians were killed in Israel's first deadly airstrike in a Gaza border area it recently put off limits, just as a truce that has drastically reduced violence formally ended. Israel said its air force attacked militants about to fire a rocket at Israel late Saturday. Israel declared the northern Gaza-Israel border area a "no-go" zone last week to stop extremists from launching rockets, warning that Palestinians entering the area could be shot.
Reading it, you wouldn't know that the Palestinians are the ones who actually ended the truce. Also, you wouldn't know that their so-called truce included 2,990 attacks.
And among the many, many reasons why you wouldn't know that from the article, the main one is that Sarah el Deeb from the AP (who wrote the article but is not credited on the Baltimore Sun page) gets startlingly close to being an outright liar:
A spokesman for the Islamic militant group Hamas, Mushir al-Masri, threatened revenge against Israel. However, he did not rule out extending a truce declared in February that formally expired at the end of 2005.
The exact opposite is true - Hamas and three other terrorist groups called off their own truce at the end of the year and immediately started launching attacks. It's not like they were subtle about it either - see: here and here and even the Palestinian government's own webpage here! Of course, she never comes out and says that Hamas didn't actually end the truce with a barrage of missiles - she just says that al-Marsri threatened revenge in a way that implies that those missiles were revenge for Israel ending the truce. Come to think of it, Israel never had a truce with the Palestinians the way the headline implies - it was the Palestinians who unilaterally declared a truce with Israel (a 2,990 attack truce) and Israel who - glad for the chance to live in peace for a little while - backed off so as not to disturb that truce. So if the headline is not an outright lie, it is at best sheer nonsense meant to imply a lie.
[Cross-posted at IsraPundit]
UPDATE: We tracked down the fuller version of this article: It's a treat on multiple levels:
Early Sunday, armed Palestinians also stormed a social club on the Gaza City beach, injuring a Palestinian guard and throwing two explosive devices, security officials said. Known as the U.N. club, the facility is the only place in Gaza City where alcohol is served... Islamic fundamentalists object to sale and consumption of liquor, but it was not immediately known who the attackers were.
Whether it's funny because "throwing two explosive devices" counts as legitimate Palestinian "objection" or because she holds out the possibility that the attack might have been by fundamentalist Quakers, it's definitely funny. Less funny is this part:
Hamas has largely kept the cease-fire... and hinted it could continue... Islamic Jihad, which carried out all six suicide bomb attacks since the truce went into effect, released an ambiguous statement noting that the cease-fire had expired. It was not clear whether the group would participate in talks to extend it.
The implication that Hamas called off their suicide bombers would be another lie - it's just that the IDF and the Shin Bet intercepted all 29 Hamas suicide bombers before they could Israel's cafes, nightclubs, and malls.
