Scotland on Sunday: “Israel Said…”
August 22, 2011 15:05 by Simon Plosker
The evidence of the terror attack, footage from the scene, dead and injured Israelis. Evidently it wasn’t enough for Scotland on Sunday, which couldn’t hide its apparent scepticism:
Israel said Gaza militants armed with guns, explosives, mortars and an anti-tank missile killed eight of its citizens in a roadside ambush on Thursday after entering through the Sinai desert. The Egyptian troops were killed as Israeli soldiers pursued suspected militants fleeing back to Egypt.
Was The Scotsman the only media outlet relying on unconfirmed sources? With domestic Israeli media broadcasting from the scene and foreign journalists given open access, it’s hard to imagine why The Scotsman chose to preface details of the terror attack with “Israel said”.
And what about those “suspected militants”? What are they suspected of? Particularly as they had already carried out the attack and engaged in a firefight with Israeli forces.
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aparatchik
6:10 pm
Aug 22, 2011
The “suspected militants” is typical mealy-mouthed BS however the “Israel said” may refer to the claim that the terrorists came from Gaza. Presumably SoS and other outlets had no way of independently verifying that.
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sav'ta shel Cohen
1:02 pm
Aug 23, 2011
SOS does appear to be casting doubt on the truthfulness of what Israel has stated. “Israel said” is much weaker in creating a sense of validity than, for example, “Israel has reported” or simply beginning the article with “Gaza militants …” I would guess that SOS regularly reports as fact various things that cannot or have not been independently verified so why try to be so careful with this? Maybe it is just a case of splitting semantic hairs but, there is an element of doubt as to the intention and it is open to interpretation and therefore SOS should be more careful in future if it has no intention of casting doubt on the truthfulness of reports issued by Israel. However, if its intention is to cast doubt on Israel’s credibility then I guess it will continue to use ambiguities as a contrived way to hide this.
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Tejano
8:26 am
Sep 04, 2011
Well, how about, “HonestReporting.com said Gaza militants armed with guns, explosives, mortars and an anti-tank missile killed eight of its citizens in a roadside ambush on Thursday after entering through the Sinai desert.”
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