Topic: WorldNetDaily
With the Israeli military action against Hamas in Gaza, Aaron Klein has turned propagandist, bashing claims made by Hamas while uncritically promoting claims by the Israeli government.
A Dec. 27 WND article by Klein focuses on "Hamas' and the Palestinian Authority's long and sordid histories of greatly inflating casualty figures, complaining that news reports on casualties in Gaza failed to note that "the casualty numbers were provided by Hamas."
By contrast, Klein uncritically repeated claims by the Israeli Defense Forces about "some of the targets hit," that "the IDF maintains it tried to minimize casualties," and that the IDF strikes "were predicated on precise intelligence amassed in recent months to target specific Hamas facilities." Klein also quotes a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert saying that "Hamas has a major propaganda interest in highlighting civilian casualties while at the same time minimizing the number of Hamas combatants killed."
A real journalist might have noted that Israel, as the other combatant, has a propaganda interest in downplaying civilian casualties in its airstrikes. But that's not Klein's job here. His goal is to make Israel look good and Hamas look bad -- which makes him a propagandist, not a journalist.
