EU funded Ma'an: Moderate in English, incitement in Arabic

by Guest Wed Feb 03, 2016 10:56 pm

We have mentioned previously that the Palestinian Ma'an news network is heavily funded by Western sources. And it is not hard to understand why - among all the English-language Palestinian Arab media, it most closely adheres to journalistic standards.

But in Arabic, it is as biased and inaccurate as other Arab media. And that sometimes even spills over into incitement.

Today, in English, it says:

70 right-wing Israelis tour Aqsa compound, Palestinians denied entry

Dozens of right-wing Israelis toured the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Wednesday under Israeli police escort, while a number of Palestinian men and women were denied entry to the holy site.
Witnesses said that as many as 70 Israelis entered the compound through the Dung Gate, accompanied by nearly 20 Israeli Border Police and two Israeli intelligence officers.

(Even in English, Ma'an leaves much to be desired. Dung Gate is a gate to the old city of Jerusalem, not the Temple Mount; the Moroccan (Rambam) gate is the only one that non-Muslims are allowed to use to enter. And how do they know that the visitors are "right wing"? Some religious Zionists have leftist political positions.)

In Arabic, however, the story reads this way:

Dozens of settlers stormed Al-Aqsa

Dozens of settlers and members of the so-called "border guards" and occupation intelligence officers on Wednesday morning entered Al-Aqsa Mosque, through the Mughrabi Gate.
A Ma'an news reporter in Jerusalem quoted witnesses as saying that 70 settlers, and 19 members of the border guards with their guns and two intelligence officers, stormed through the Aqsa gate during the "morning raids", amid worshipers present in the squares, while preventing women and men access to the Haram for the sixth month in a row, after the inclusion of their names in the lists called "black lists" under the pretext that they stir up trouble in al Aqsa.

In turn, Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib told Ma'an that the occupation is escalating things in the Al Aqsa Mosque on the one hand and against the Islamic Waqf on the other hand in anunprecedented way.

Given that the current wave of stabbings and shootings against Jews are supposedly because of Jews peacefully visiting Judaism's holiest site, by falsely reporting that they are "settlers storming Al Aqsa" Ma'an is inciting its readers.

Ma'an used to routinely use the word "storming" in English as well, but criticism from places like this blog shamed them into being slightly more accurate in English. But in Arabic, they have no shame using the words that are being used to incite terror attacks.

And Western nations are supporting this incitement.

Here are the "storming settlers" - a group of school students:

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/eu-funded-maan-moderate-in-english.html#.VrKFetKLSM8