Associated Press immediately covered Booking.com's decision Friday to warn customers against Israeli settlements as being located in "occupied territory" and therefore posing "high risks to safety and human rights." Yet, two days after Booking.com's decision Saturday to apply warnings to all West Bank properties — Israeli and and Palestinian alike — AP's story on that critical reversal is still stuck at the gate.
AP highlights the fatal shooting of four Palestinian gunmen attacking Israeli troops as a "deadliest episode," even as the news agency downplays the fatalities' violence and terror affiliations. But the murder of three Israelis sitting in a Tel Aviv bar? Until CAMERA intervened, the only thing the wire service found deadly about that incident was the cops' killing of the Palestinian gunman "who attacked a bar."
While BBC Arabic and Al Hurra commendably corrected after inaccurately designating all of Israel's Karish gas field as disputed by Lebanon, Associated Press declines to clarify captions which uncritically parrot Hezbollah talking points falsely portraying the maritime resource as Lebanese.
By withholding the essential "detail" that Islamic Jihad claimed Salama Abed as one of its commanders, AP advances the false narrative of "war on Gaza," as opposed to war on a terror organization. UPDATE: In response to CAMERA's persistent communication, AP adds that Abed belonged to Islamic Jihad.
UPDATE: CAMERA prompts correction of an AP Week in Pictures feature which misidentified outgoing Islamic Jihad rockets launched from Gaza towards Israel as "Israeli airstrikes."
Islamic Jihad claimed Dherar al-Kafrini, killed during an Israeli arrest raid in Jenin, as "our heroic martyr." For Associated Press, that makes the young terrorist a prime candidate for a biographical touch up.
"Palestinians say Israeli fire kills teen in West Bank rally" cites today's AP headline regarding a violent clash. It's just one instance this week in which media whitewash Palestinian violence.
When a news picture fails to speak for itself, and the news caption fails to speak for it, news consumers lose out. AP captions ignore that Israeli airstrikes a) were in response to Palestinian rocket fire and b) targeted Hamas' rocket production facilities.
From Iraq to Kashmir, Syria to Sri Lanka, and Lebanon to Afghanistan, AFP and AP have proven to be very well acquainted with the Islamic State flag. When an IS flag emerged last week at a Palestinian funeral in Jenin, why did the photo services suddenly seem to suffer a bout of amnesia?
