Anti-Israeli bias occurs so frequently in the American media that it hardly bears remarking when it occurs. However, a short blurb in today's Scotsman demonstrates that same bias exists worldwide. In a three-paragraph article titled "Israeli air strike on Palestinian rocket positions," the Scotsman assigns blame to Israel for breaking the truce in the first paragraph:

VIOLENCE flared in Gaza with an Israeli air strike on Palestinian rocket launchers only hours after Israel's Cabinet approved the release of 400 prisoners as a gesture to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

It gets worse in the second paragraph. It uses an IDF statement on the operation to make it appear that the attack was pre-emptive and unprovoked:

The Israeli air strike last night was a rare attack since a February truce. The Israeli military said it targeted rocket launchers just before a planned attack from northern Gaza and two launchers were destroyed.

Those war-mongering Israelis! Why, those rocket launchers may have been there strictly for defensive purposes, in case the IDF invaded Gaza. Oh, wait:

The Islamic Jihad said one of its cells, which had just fired three rockets at an Israeli village, was the strike target.

Perhaps The Scotsman has hired Emily Litella as a copy editor or headline writer. Given the information that The Scotsman chose to bury at the end, shouldn't the headline read, "Palestinians Launch Rocket Attacks, Israelis Respond"? And in the lead paragraph, shouldn't the text note that the violence flared in Gaza when the Palestinians launched their rockets, not when the Israelis responded to the attack?

I normally like The Scotsman, but this betrays their anti-Israeli bias, as well as an obtuse intellectual dishonesty that damages their credibility.

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Tracked on June 1, 2005 9:20 PM