Reuters Redefines Terrorist Attack
March 24, 2011 15:13 by Simon PloskerNothing captures the media’s attention like a bomb in the heart of Jerusalem. At this time, one person was killed and over 30 wounded as a bomb detonated next to a busy bus stop near the city’s central bus station and international conference center.
Incredibly, Reuters included the following in its report:
Police said it was a “terrorist attack” — Israel’s term for a Palestinian strike. It was the first time Jerusalem had been hit by such a bomb since 2004.
We’ve long criticized Reuters for its refusal to call terror by its name.
Now, Reuters appears to be attributing the term “terrorism” as something solely in the minds of Israelis. In February 2011, Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer announced the appointment of new Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler saying:
Our news organization is now poised to advance to new levels of excellence in an industry which is moving very fast.
Reuters certainly appears to be moving very fast and reaching new levels – just not in the area of excellence.
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg hits the nail on the head in response:
Those Israelis and their crazy terms! I mean, referring to a fatal bombing of civilians as a “terrorist attack”? Who are they kidding? Everyone knows that a fatal bombing of Israeli civilians should be referred to as a “teachable moment.” Or as a “venting of certain frustrations.” Or as “an understandable reaction to Jewish perfidy.” Or perhaps as “a very special episode of ‘Cheers.’” Anything but “a terrorist attack.” I suppose Reuters will mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11 by referring to the attacks as “an exercise in urban renewal.”
The mind reels.
BBC: Terrorism Targets Inanimate Objects
The initial headline of a story says a lot about the thought process of a news editor. While most other news organizations covered a bomb blast in Jerusalem by focusing on the number of casualties as well as the location, the BBC went with this:
According to the BBC, it wasn’t Israelis, Jews, innocent Jerusalem residents or anyone else that a terrorist usually targets. No – it was a bus stop, an inanimate object fixed on the sidewalk.
The BBC’s interest in victims of the bombing was seemingly only piqued by the announcement that the 59 year old woman killed by the bomb was a British tourist. Of course, one of the first rules of foreign reporting is to find a local angle. Yet it is noteworthy how the BBC is so usually disconnected from the human side of Israeli victims of terror and from the horror of those acts.
Evidence of this appeared in a related analysis penned by the BBC’s Jonathan Marcus. The brutal murders of the Fogel family warranted barely a few lines and were simply referred to as “an attack on an Israeli settler family“. Note also the choice of image to illustrate the incident. Once again the BBC could not bring itself to humanize the victims by publishing a photo of the murder victims or the associated mourning.
And what about Sky News, which has recently been on a downward spiral in its reporting from Israel?:
Its initial headline was not much better than the BBC but at least Sky later updated its story to read: “One Killed, 30 Hurt, In Israel Bus Stop Blast“.
Associated Press also produced something similar to the BBC:
Sadly, for some media outlets, it appears that it’s still too much to acknowledge the reality of terror or the reality of its victims. The bus stop in question may have been the location of the bomb but it certainly wasn’t the object of the terrorists’ hatred.
Meanwhile at the New York Times…
Could we find a more blatant example of promoting a moral equivalence between Palestinian terrorism and Israeli self-defense than that tweeted by the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof? Probably not.
Send your considered comment to Reuters through its online feedback form.
Send your considered comments to the BBC Complaints website. For more on how to navigate the complaints process, click here for our guide on how to make a complaint to the BBC.
Mark Feffer
12:34 am
Mar 25, 2011
Fred, Elie Wiesel noted a long time ago that the world loves dead Jews.
BTW the anti Jewish libels in John and othe NT books began so much Jew murder. I learned somewhere that the reviled Sanhedrin actually tried to save Jesus and warned him not to tell Pilate what he did. Let us learn more truth.
I recommend Wistrich’s new book on the history of Jew hatred very highly. A Lethal Obsession.
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Vaughan Weatherley
1:37 am
Mar 25, 2011
The NT is not anti-Jewish. Jesus was a Jew. All the first Christians were Jews, and the whole of the NT was written by Jews, except perhaps Luke. Where are the anti-Jewish libels in the book of John? Libels are falsehoods; have you some proof that statements made in John are false?
(I am one of many Christians who support Israel’s right to exist and defend itself, and hate the anti-Israel bias in much of the media). ).
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Nelson DaSilva
4:10 am
Mar 25, 2011
The Roman Catholic liturgy propagates anti-Semitism in that the New Testament Gospels seem to promote the fact that Jesus was killed at the behest of the Sanhedrin. The manner in which the stations of the cross is described clearly shows that the four gospels put a lot of emphasis on the cruelty being meted out to Jesus at the hands of the Romans because the Jews wanted it. There is no concrete proof that the four gospels were actually written by Jews. They were written decades after Jesus’ death and probably were only pen names of the people who actually wrote it. Another fact that needs mentioning here is that the Catholics still pray for the conversion of the Jew; why not people of other religions?
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Luke
2:12 am
Mar 25, 2011
Mark, maybe you should actually pick up the NT and try reading John before making such ridiculous comments
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Nathan Zafran
12:58 am
Mar 25, 2011
I came to England in 1946, as a survivor of the Holocaust, (yes it really happened), and within two years I became “Yid”, “Jew-boy” or simply “Fucking Jew”, although everyone knew that I was a refugee from war-torn Belgium. 12-13 year olds weren’t born antisemites and they must have learnt this from elders, probably their own parents. I was happy to leave at the age of 15. So why then all the excitement over antisemitic media and casual use of antisemitic talk which is so acceptable today? Britain has a notorious history of its’ treatment of Jews, until the exile by Edward the Confessor (what on earth did he confess to – the anti-Jewish pogroms and exile?). Don’t forget the massacres of York and Lincoln. After the return of the Jews during Cromwell’s rule things improved for a while but not for long. Imagine ! During the period of the terror of Jack the Ripper, in Whitechapel, (heavily populated by Jews) there were attempted pogroms due to accusations that the Jews were responsible for the butchering of London whores. Accept the facts that the Brits are historically and basically antisemitic, besides being perfidious (perfidious Albion) and the most sanctimonious hypocrites on this planet.
.
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JDP
1:07 am
Mar 25, 2011
This is just a disturbing twist of reality.
I encourage people to contact Crispian Balmer, the author of the Reuteurs article, directly to, politely but confidently, voice your concern about the watering down of terrorism against Jews. He has a Facebook account if you are unable to find his work email address.
Please let him know that Terrorism IS Terrorism! A bomb designed to kill innocent civilians is nothing else other than. To water down an idea as serious as this, because its victims are Jews is inherently dishonest reporting.
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LEON
2:14 am
Mar 25, 2011
IT SEEMS THE AGENCIES REPORTING THE NEWS IN ISREAL ARE ALL ANTI-SEMATIC. ISREAL SHOULD BAN THEM UNLESS THEY REPORT THE NEWS TRUTHFULLY.
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ab
2:17 am
Mar 25, 2011
I do believe that there have been terrorist attacks carried out throughout the world and not necessarily by Palestinians on Israelis. What does Reuter’s call Lockerbie, 9/11, the July 7, 2005 attacks on London or the almost daily IED attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan? They don’t involve Israelis or Palestinians.
As JDP said “Terrorism IS Terrorism”!
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chanah
2:44 am
Mar 25, 2011
Mark@
Shalom the N.T is not against Jews it’s against sin and turning your back on G-D, look what’s done in the O.T to the Jews by none other than G-D
Jeremiah 13:13-14
‘This is what the LORD says: I am going to fill with drunkenness all who live in this land, including the kings who sit on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets and all those living in Jerusalem.
14 I will smash them one against the other, parents and children alike, declares the LORD. I will allow no pity or mercy or compassion to keep me from destroying them.’”
Leviticus 26:27-35 “And if this—even this!—doesn’t work and you still won’t listen, still defy me, I’ll have had enough and in hot anger will defy you, punishing you for your sins seven times over: famine will be so severe that you’ll end up cooking and eating your sons in stews and your daughters in barbecues; I’ll smash your sex-and-religion shrines and all the paraphernalia that goes with them, and then stack your corpses and the idol-corpses in the same piles—I’ll abhor you; I’ll turn your cities into rubble; I’ll clean out your sanctuaries; I’ll hold my nose at the “pleasing aroma” of your sacrifices. I’ll turn your land into a lifeless moonscape—your enemies who come in to take over will be shocked at what they see. I’ll scatter you all over the world and keep after you with the point of my sword in your backs. There’ll be nothing left in your land, nothing going on in your cities. With you gone and dispersed in the countries of your enemies, the land, empty of you, will finally get a break and enjoy its Sabbath years. All the time it’s left there empty, the land will get rest, the Sabbaths it never got when you lived there.
2 Kings 15
15 And the rest of the acts of Shallum, and his conspiracy which he made, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.
16 Then Menahem smote Tiphsah, and all that were therein, and the coasts thereof from Tirzah: because they opened not to him, therefore he smote it; and all the women therein that were with child he ripped up.
17 In the nine and thirtieth year of Azariah king of Judah began Menahem the son of Gadi to reign over Israel, and reigned ten years in Samaria.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Nelson DaSilva
4:52 am
Mar 25, 2011
Why have you not continued to the end of Leviticus Chapter 26? Once again it is the anti-Semitic attitude that tries to castigate the Jew by selectively referring to passages in the Old Testament. The Jews are the Chosen People of G-d. G-d has always spoken to them about them with unfailing reassurances that He is not going to give them up because of His Covenant with the Jewish People. Usurpers have come and gone but that does not cause G-d to either deny or dispossess the Jews as His children. G-d does not possess our characteristics where we deny and dispossess our children depending on our likes and dislikes. That is why He said his ways are not our ways. It is the Greeks and Romans that concocted the replacement theory that G-d has changed His mind on who should now be considered his Chosen people.
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Josh Basson
2:53 am
Mar 25, 2011
WHY ARE PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS WHO BOMB BUSES IN JERUSALEM AT A BUS STOP NOT PROPERLY DESCRIBED AS TERRORISTS AS THEY TARGET INNOCENT CIVILIANS? TERRORISTS TARGETS WERE NOT ON INANIMATE OBJECTS LIKE A BUS STOP.
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» Reuters Redefines Terrorist Attack Freedom Alert!: Defending American Freedom by exposing Radical Islam, Socialist, Liberals, and all the Enemies of Freedom, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness!
3:03 am
Mar 25, 2011
[...] article can be viewed at Reuters Redefines Terrorist Attack on [...]
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Mark Feffer
3:14 am
Mar 25, 2011
Regarding demonization of Jews and now Israel.
From Wistrich, A Letal Obsession pg 85. In the Gospel of John, the hostile resonance of the term “The Jews” embodying everything that resists the light, is more explicit still, as is the portrayal of the malevalent Jewish authorities who seek the demise of Jesus .
(There are sources in scholarship claiming they wished to save Jesus from Pilate and instructed him acordingly) MF
John insists that Jesus is crucified by the Jews under Jewish law (a totally improbable accusation|), and his account establishes the core of the deicide charge –that the Jews murdered Christ, God’s own essence and self expression. The Jews wilfully sought to kill Christ becase they are not of God but oft the Devil. Thus in the NT itself we already have a rheological form of diabolizing the Jews which would later be grearly expanded by church fathers.
Till here Wistrich, See his extensive footnotes for sources.
Today’s delitimagation of Israel and Jews and Zionism and Big Satan and Little Satan talk
all derive from a very questiionable Gospels account. Can’t help jeering the perfideous Jews as you read it it would seem. What religio-political agenda of the time engendered all this hate. today Especially in the BBC, Reuters, The Guardian, CNN and all the others?
Perhaps Robert S Wistrich himself could join this discussion. Lethal Obsession, indeed.
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Melba
3:53 am
Mar 25, 2011
Jesus said, “If they have hated me, they will also hate you.” He was talking to his Jewish diciples, for the term ‘christian’ did not appear until many years later. The world hates the seed of Abraham because it is through this seed that all the nations of the earth will be blessed. If that sounds strange to you, then consider that hate originates with a spiritual son of God who rebelled and turned against his father and creator. And, since the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, then where do people today get their hatred from? God said he would curse those who curse Israel and bless those who bless it.
This is the only logical way to view this hatred for Jews for there is no logical way that such a hatred can be explained. The world can repudiate the Bible and ignore it if they wish, but that will not deter the Master of the Universe in regards to his plans. Perhaps the BBC should reevaluate its stand against the Jews before God brings this curse down on them to their everlasting destruction and shame.
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Clive
8:10 am
Mar 25, 2011
This is what I sent to Reuters:
Your report – http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/03/23/uk-israel-explosion-idUKTRE72M3S520110323 – states ‘Police said it was a “terrorist attack” — Israel’s term for a Palestinian strike.
Am I to understand that if an Arab (terrorist) in Israel detonates a bomb in a busy Israeli civilian area that Reuters believes this is not a terrorist act?
Picture this….
May I ask what you would label a bomb detonated by dissenter(s) at or near Reuters buildings?
How does this sound: ‘Reuters said it was a terrorist attack’ – Reuters term for Reuters dissenters.
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Vaughan Weatherley
9:33 am
Mar 25, 2011
Sorry to labour this point, but here is some proof that the NT is not anti-Jewish. Paul, the Jewish Rabbi who wrote the largest portion of the NT states in the book of Romans:
(Rom 9:4) The people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises.
(Rom 9:5) Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.
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Henry Tobias
9:52 am
Mar 25, 2011
As far as the BBC goes, the fact that they have until now refused to release their own internal inquiry into whether their reporting on Israel has been biased or not, is proof of their bias. We must keep on complaining, but I admit sometimes I feel I’m tilting at windmills.
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Zvi Fink
10:06 am
Mar 25, 2011
The Arab states threaten correspondents who do not report the news in their favor.
Honest Reporting should lobby the Knesset to disqualify journalists and news outlets who report with bias and distortion.
If Israel was not in the news it would be better off than allowing the presemt situation
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Mark Feffer
11:10 am
Mar 25, 2011
Re. Hatred and demonization of the Jews yesterday and today.
Much Gospels literature and modern media accounts of Jews share the demonization aspect . A kind of anti Jew driven agenda.
Note. God promises us to be an Eternal people in its land.He castigates us and loves us like Our Father – Our King (High Holiday liturgy) Many here see the establshment of Jewish sovereignty after 2000 years of very cruel exile as a Divine act. Religious Zionists here at the forefront.
Jew Hatred. The Torah was given at Mt Sinai. The word SINAI comes from the root
SiNaH. To Hate. God knew we would be hated for being His people chosen to promulgate the Name of the One God throughout history. Ethical Monotheism. And so it goes on. This is all a biblical scale war of Good against Evil, Light and Darkness in many ways. Arab jihadis revel in biased anti Jew-Israel support. It all leads to more murder of innocents .
A law group should sue the BBC in court it would seem..
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Brent Pudsey
1:19 pm
Mar 25, 2011
This was a blantant act of anger and harrashment that is not justifable. Whomever is responsible for it is a terrorist. Israel does not deserve to be treated like this.
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TL
1:40 pm
Mar 25, 2011
To the editor (Reuters),
I was dismayed to read that in the report of the bombing in Jerusalem, Reuters did not call it a terror attack, but the said that, Israel calls Palestinian strikes like this terror attacks. An innocent women was murdered, and over 50 others were injured after planting a bomb laced with shrapnel in a crowded civilian area, in the hopes of killing and maiming as many Israeli men, women, and children as possible. If that is not a terror attack, then what is?
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Rami Arav
4:11 pm
Mar 25, 2011
Undoubtedly these reports reflect more on the reporters and their biases than on the events themselves.
Do not rebuke them for being bias. It is easier to confront naked biases then hypocrites. As the old Judaic- Christian saying goes: Fear only the hypocrites.
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genomega
5:37 pm
Mar 25, 2011
The nyt has devoted gallons of ink about the no good Jews and their Gaza wall that is starving people to death, but not one drop about Egypt’s identical wall. That is the reason why they are drowning in red ink.
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Peter Reynolds excuses terrorism. Louise Bagshawe MP does not « Tony Blair
12:50 am
Mar 26, 2011
[...] I am particularly grateful to a website called Honest Reporting. It pointed me to an article by this MP – Louise Bagshawe – who actually noticed that the publicly funded BBC failed to mention this slaughter of an Israeli baby, two of her brothers and their parents. From Honest Reporting – Reuters redefines terrorist attack [...]
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