AP Retracts Story Because of Hamas Lie
March 26, 2012 9:27 by Pesach Benson
When Palestinian lies and misinformation go unchecked, it’s inevitable that dishonest propaganda tactics used against Israel will be employed against others.
A Hamas lie meant to pressure Egypt was exposed; the Islamists’ credibility with the media has taken a big hit.
Yesterday, an AP dispatch reported the first Palestinian fatality attributed to the Gaza crisis. Mohammed Helou, a five-month old baby died when the generator running his respirator, ran out of fuel.
Who wouldn’t be moved by such a tragedy?
Turns out the story was based on a lie. AP issued this retraction (via our colleagues at CAMERA) explaining:
The timing and reason for the death were confirmed to the AP by a man identified as the baby’s father and a Gaza health official, but the report has been called into question after it was learned that a local newspaper carried news of the baby’s death on March 4.
In a subsequent followup, AP called Hamas onto the carpet:
The fuel crisis was relevant in early March as well, but Hamas apparently missed the report in Al-Quds — a publication considered loyal to its rival, Fatah — and Hamas was now trying to recycle the story to capitalize on the family’s tragedy.
Confronted by the AP with the newspaper story, the family and Hamas Gaza health official Bassem al-Qadri continued to insist the baby arrived dead at a Gaza City hospital on Friday night.
That timing would highlight the human cost Gaza’s 1.6 million residents are paying for 18-hour-a-day blackouts, triggered by a cutoff of Egyptian fuel.
Tuvia Fogel
1:10 pm
Mar 26, 2012
How do you know an Arab is lying? His mouth moves.
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zooropa
7:12 pm
Mar 31, 2012
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Jay Shayevitz
4:40 pm
Apr 01, 2012
So, what about the million or so Arabs that will die along with the Jews?
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Jayson Rex
11:02 pm
Apr 01, 2012
Well, “zooropa” (or is it “zoologic opa”?), I am not worried at all about the Israelis: Five times in a row they beat the hell out of Arabs troops and if necessary they will do it again and again and again. After all, Arabs have never been a fair match for the Jewish soldiers. The reason is simple: the “soldiers of Allah”, are too affraid to fight and usually dirty their underware at the mere sight of an Israeli – man, woman or even child.
But since ALL Arabs living temporarily in Cisjordan will be soon repatriated to Saudi Arabia, where they came from originally, there will be no problem in the near future involving the Greater State of Israel. and their demented neighbors.
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yanshuf
4:39 pm
Apr 15, 2012
This kind of mindless racist prejudice has killed millions of Jewish people. We have to stop it, not keep it alive by returning it.
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Steve from Raleigh
1:42 pm
Mar 26, 2012
So you mean they retracted the story when it was clear it besmirched the Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian government? Imagine my shock at AP over that.
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len
3:40 pm
Mar 26, 2012
Story is confusing. Where is the AP retraction?
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jeb stuart
3:43 pm
Mar 26, 2012
Associated Press, from the stories they regularly print I thought AP meant Arabist Press. Second only to Reuters in Shariah compliancy. Several stroies have been written about how a news desk in Tel-Aviv had cut Jewish journalists disproportionatgly to Arab reporters on staff it turned out it wasn’t true. but what was never made known, even though the policy of the paper was to have one Jewish and one Arab writer for each story, how does the editor pick which makes type and what are the rules when it may offend Islamic sensitivities? How corrupt is the base line for the news? Is anyone surprised AP went with this story?
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AP zieht Geschichte wegen Hamas-Lüge zurück « Medien BackSpin
3:54 pm
Mar 26, 2012
[...] HonestReporting Media BackSpin, 26. März 2012 [...]
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Roger Radford
4:19 pm
Mar 26, 2012
This reminds me of when I was working for Reuters on the world desk in 1975. We received a report from the Palestinian news agency WAFA claiming that a petrol (gas) station had been blown up in Tel Aviv. Going by the address of the “incident”, I knew it to be less than 100 yards from the Reuters bureau. I had to fight to get my news editor to agree to checking with our bureau for corroboration. Of course, when he eventually did so, the answer was that no such incident taken place. He then turned to me angrily and said, “okay, I’m going to spike the story, but you’re never going to work for us in Tel Aviv.” And he was Jewish!
plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
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m
4:31 pm
Mar 26, 2012
What else is new? Israel cannot be defeated by the islamic world, militarily, so it has resorted to flat out lies so preposterous that a sane person has a hard time believing they would even TRY. However, this works great on naive western leftists who immediately side with the palis.
After the recent cowardly act of murder conducted by yet ANOTHER islamic jihadist in France, many say that it was influenced by pictures it saw of pali children (all lies as well).
Ya know what I do not buy that one bit. Those bastards hate; pure and simple. They could care less about anybody including pali kids. This misogynistic death cult hates everything and everyone INCLUDING EACH OTHER.
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esther
4:40 pm
Mar 26, 2012
You mention in your article that “The Islamists’ credibility with the media has taken a big hit.” I really wish I could believe that, but what I believe, is that the egos of the media are what took the hit, and only because they were caught in yet another lie! Pardon me if I am a bit cynical, but I believe that the media (AP is only one of the culprits) truly knows that these are lies being cooked up for them. Furthermore, I would not be surprised if the media assists in cooking up these lies. To believe that they do not have an agenda, and want to portray Israel as the villan, is simply naive.
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mira375
4:42 pm
Mar 26, 2012
What I would like to know is, how many more times will the newswire services allow themselves to be duped this way, before they start working harder to check facts BEFORE they report them. Do they not realize that their own credibility is called into question when they report false stories?
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esther
4:47 pm
Mar 26, 2012
The point is that they do not care about their credibility as much as they care about their agenda of portraying Israel as the villian! Do you believe that they were “duped”? Because I certainly don’t! They know very well what they are doing! How many more times? As many as they feel they are able to get away with! Hopefully this web site and all of it’s readers help a little.
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m
6:19 pm
Mar 26, 2012
I agree. Nobody is duped. Perhaps some western leftists but not even all of them are. Jew haters and Israel deniers are not interested in truth. They put the blinkers on and ear plugs in, an sally forth. Lalalala
The left has destroyed our western culture and civilization with their pandering to the arab world, and in particular to islam for fear of being called bigots and racists. We have made our collective bed and now have to either sleep in it of tidy it up once and for all.
We keep blaming terrorists but in fact it is WE who have enabled them. Starting with Europe, then the USA and to some extend in my own country of Canada (although at least we have Harper who is one of the few politicians that has the balls to call a spade a spade; THANK GOD)
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Markus E Brajtman
11:16 am
Apr 04, 2012
Last year I was in Jerusalem.
When I returned, it was after the kangaroo court circus, known as the Russel Tribunal, which was so full of hate and lies about Israel, and of course, that evil man, Tutu, promoted himself to G-D. He said. “G-D favours the Palestinians”
The whole tribunal was ‘ISRAEL IS A RACIST STATE AND PRACTICES APARTHEID”
I wrote to the Argus newspaper, Comparing Israel with the Arabs.
I mentioned about the Arab doctors and nurses, heads of departments, Arab members of the knesset, everyone has full freedon of speach. How the Arab MK’s are treasonous, yet, nothing happens to them I asked “how many Jews are there in Arab countries, in their parliaments, heads of departments etc?”israel has Arab judges. Are there any Jewish judges in any Arab state?
I said there arent any, because the Arab Jews were expelled from every Arab country, some extremely rich, but could only take the shirts on their backs. Everything was confiscated.
They were all integrated into israeli society. They were never compensayed. Yet, the Arab countries told the Arab to get out, in 1947, so that they can drive the Jews into the sea, some stayed. Those who left,became “refugees” as a political tool.
The Argus refused to print my letter, but instead, the editor wrote to me “rather write something that Israel can do”
he even said that the “Arabs are angry with you guys and and Israel cannot expect peace”
he complained that we are always bad mouthing the Muslims. He has never said that the Muslims are always bad mouthimg the Jews. So, it is ok for them to call the jews, ‘SONS OF PIGS AND MONKEYS”
CAN WE EVER WIN THE MEDIA WAR?
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Gary Katz
4:44 pm
Mar 26, 2012
Hamas’ pants are once again… on fire.
If they told me the sky was blue, I would look up to verify.
However, they are just the leading edge of the massive anti-Israel propaganda machine: Arab political leaders, religious leaders, the U.N. General Assembly and Human Rights Cancel [sic], media, schools and internet sites.
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jm
5:10 pm
Mar 26, 2012
Bravo 4 CAMERA!
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Sylvie Schapira
6:05 pm
Mar 26, 2012
Gary Katz: You mention the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council. But don’t forget UNRWA who are responsible for perpetuating the refugee problem. They take billions of European and American dollars and hand out their ‘aid’ to anyone living in the camps; this includes Hamas terrorists. They also keep alive the refugee’s dream to Return to their Villages – even though most no longer exist. Instead of the UN settling the refugee problem, like any other country has done throughout history, by resettling the refugees, they refuse to do so. Thus, the misery of the Palestinian refugees continues; Hamas terrorists plot and manufacture weapons within the camps; billions of dollars is used to enable this madness, and the Arab world uses the Palestinians as a weapon with which to deligitimise Israel. This is the crux of the problem, not the settlements. But this Right of Return, which has young Palestinians taught to kill and die for. This Right of Return is the unique ideology, greenhousing terrorism.
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Gary Katz
11:33 pm
Mar 26, 2012
Sylvie, you are 100% correct! I would go even further and add that Arab countries intentionally prolong the “refugee” problem by keeping the “Palestinians” bottled up in restricted areas, denying them citizenship (except for Jordan), restricting their access to certain professions and otherwise treating them as second class people. Even Palestinians would admit to all the above. So,60 plus years later, the whining and hand wringing goes on, Palestinians still retain keys to houses that are now shopping malls, while most Arab Israelis privately pray that they never have to deal with a massive influx of “right of return refugees” into Israeli cities.
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Israel Daily News Stream 03/26/2012 | Presstitution™
6:40 pm
Mar 26, 2012
[...] • An AP retraction speaks volumes about Hamas’ media credibility. More on that at AP Retracts Story Because of Hamas Lie. [...]
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Abu Nudnik
7:03 pm
Mar 26, 2012
Using the deaths of your relatives. Hmm. Reminds me of Al Gore’s speeches.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Gary Katz
11:34 pm
Mar 26, 2012
Abu, “Al Gore?” That one sailed right over my head.
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Jeffrey Nakar
10:10 am
Mar 27, 2012
I am glad the story was retracted, but the only reason it was retracted was because it showed Egypt in a bad light. They never withdraw anything untruthful or misleading that smears Israel.
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Jayson Rex
2:58 pm
Mar 27, 2012
AS LONG AS THERE IS A SINGLE ARAB LEFT STANDING ON THE WEST SIDE OF THE RIVER JORDAN THERE WILL BE NO PEACE IN THE ENTIRE REGION. IF IT’S NOT EGYPT IS JORDAN, IF IT’S NOT JORDAN IS ARAB LEBANON, OR SYRIA OR WHATEVER.
THE ONLY SOLUTION IS TO REPATRIATE FORTHWITH ALL ARABS LIVING IN CISJORDAN TO THEIR HOMELAND IN SAUDI ARABIA WHERE THEY CAME FROM A FEW CENTURIES AGO – TRYING TO SPREAD ISLAM THROUGH THE CONVINCING ARGUMENT OF THE SWORD.
ANY ATTEMPT BY THE CIVILIZED WORLD TO ‘IMPOSE’ PEACE BETWEEN MUSLIMS AND JEWS WILL PROVE FUTILE, ONCE AGAIN. EXCEPT FOR THE 100 YEARS WAR, THE CONFLICT BETWEEN ISRAELIS AND ARABS IS THE LONGEST ONE IN THE ENTIRE HUMAN HISTORY. THEREFORE IT IS HIGH THE TIME IT SHOULD END WITHOUT ANY ‘RESERVATIONS’ OR ATTEMPTS TO APPEASE THE OIL PRODUCING ARAB STATES.
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AP se retracta por la mentira de Hamas | Lecturas
2:37 pm
Mar 28, 2012
[...] traducido por ReporteHonesto de HonestReporting, escrito por Pesach [...]
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