The Associated Press (AP) has published a report on the Survivors of Israel’s pager attack on Hezbollah, raising questions about its editorial choices. The AP reported that Israel’s army and intelligence services carried out a complex operation last year targeting Hezbollah terrorists and their officers, booby-trapping and detonating the pager devices they rely on for supposedly secure and private communications. The pager operation was hugely successful, wounding 3,000 and killing a dozen, with very little collateral damage. It dispersed Hezbollah’s middle management and crippled its leadership.
The AP portrays Israel as having a reckless disregard for civilian life, portraying Israel as the villain and the terrorists who conduct guerrilla warfare from their living rooms as the sympathetic victims. Human rights and United Nations reports say the attack may have violated international law, calling it indiscriminate. The survivors are on a slow, painful path to recovery, easily identifiable with missing eyes, faces laced with scars, and hands with missing fingers.
Between this report and previous allegations of pro-terrorist sympathies, it seems the AP and its stringers in Gaza and Jerusalem may be actively influencing coverage to favor terrorism. The newswire long kept in its employ a photojournalist named Hassan Eslaiah after receiving credible reports that he was an active agent of Palestinian terrorism. The AP also worked with freelancer Yousef Masoud, likewise accused of collaborating with Hamas terrorists.
By examining the AP’s editorial choices and the alleged pro-terrorist stringers, it is possible that the AP and its staffers have a clear favorite in the conflict.
