Thus, like the shipwrecked clinging desperately to its life raft, the AP holds tight to its enduring double standard in which only Israeli information “cannot be independently verified.” All that laborious effort, and still AP’s journalism sinks ever deeper.
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The Associated Press Doubts Israel, But Believes the Houthis and Hamas
Like ships passing in the night, the Associated Press’ recent account of Houthi attacks on international commercial vessels skirts around the reality of the far-reaching, destructive, and sometimes deadly nautical attacks.
Thus, in her Aug. 7 article, rookie AP reporter Fatma Khaled reports (“Egypt’s currency edges higher against the US dollar after price hikes“) — “Houthis have been attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea in retaliation against Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.”
Yet, most of the commercial ships that the Houthis have targeted lack any connection to Israel. As the AP itself has written on numerous occasions, including just two days earlier following an attack on a Liberian-flagged ship (“Missile attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels hits container ship in first attack in 2 weeks“):
The Houthis maintain that their attacks target ships linked to Israel, the United States or Britain as part of the rebels’ campaign they say seeks to force an end to the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the war — including some bound for Iran.
Therefore, Khaled’s spin that the Houthi’s nautical attacks are “retaliation” for Israel’s war against Hamas is hardly above board.
The AP’s journalism is also adrift in its Gaza coverage in recent days, unmoored from immutable facts. Thus, in his Aug. 7 article, “Hamas names Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks, as its new leader in show of defiance,” Bassem Mroue refers to the slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as a “relative moderate.”
This “relative moderate” is the same man whose record includes the following “relatively reasonable” sentiments, compiled by Palestinian Media Watch:
“We love death like our enemies love life!”
“We need the blood of the children, women, and elderly” to “ignite within us the spirit of revolution”
“Armed resistance is path, Palestine is from the sea to the river”
“Hamas won’t recognize Israel … armed struggle is a strategic choice”
“We will liberate West Bank and rest of Palestine just as we liberated Gaza — with Intifada”
Consistent standards likewise fail to provide a much needed anchor for the AP’s untethered reporting. Thus, Mroue accepts Hamas’ highly questionable fatality figures at face value, without even supplying any attribution.
“The death toll among Palestinians is now nearing 40,000,” he writes, despite AP’s own earlier analysis indicating serious credibility problems with casualty figures provided by the terror organization.
And, then, despite last October’s Al-Ahli hospital fiasco in which Hamas falsely grossly inflated the number of fatalities and blamed them on an Israeli airstrike when in fact a failed Palestinian rocket was the culprit, the AP again hurried to report Hamas’ contested fatality figures in a high profile deadly incident.
In “Israeli airstrike on a Gaza school used as a shelter kills at least 80, Palestinian officials say,” Wafaa Shurafa and Samy Magdy (last updated Aug. 11, 1:13 am GMT) provide this skewed report:
An Israeli airstrike hit a school-turned-shelter in Gaza early Saturday, killing at least 80 people and wounding nearly 50 others, Palestinian health authorities said.
Only three paragraphs later, does the AP inform readers:
The Israeli military acknowledged it targeted the Tabeen school in central Gaza City, saying it hit a Hamas command center in a mosque in its compound and killed 19 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters. Izzat al-Rishq, a top Hamas official, denied there were militants in the school.
While it took the AP three paragraphs before reaching Israel’s refutation of Hamas’ claims accusing Israel of at least 80 civilian deaths, it took exactly one sentence to loop back to Hamas, with its denial of Israel’s information that the army had targeted Hamas combatants using the educational facility as a terror command center.
Moreover, the AP writers devote multiple paragraphs to claims that the victims were uninvolved civilians. Yet, at no point did they recount that the Israeli military provided the names and titles of the 19 Hamas fighters it said were killed in the school — a list that later grew to 38. These details directly call into question the credibility of al-Rishq’s denial that there were militants in the school.
Today, the IDF and ISA struck terrorists operating in a Hamas command and control center, which was embedded inside a mosque in the Al-Taba’een school compound. Following an intelligence investigation, it can be confirmed at this time that at least 19 Hamas and Islamic Jihad… pic.twitter.com/97fw1Q9cHy
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) August 10, 2024
Tamar Sternthal is the director of CAMERA’s Israel Office. A version of this article previously appeared on the CAMERA website.
The post The Associated Press Doubts Israel, But Believes the Houthis and Hamas first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
The post Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
The post Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
The post Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.