It’s Israel’s fault. Again.

Jews can get shot, stabbed, stoned and run down in their own homeland, and what do you get for coverage? “Arab areas of Jerusalem blocked off in Israeli crackdown.”

The Associated Press may call this one of their Big Story entries; but in telling the story of the latest Israeli roadblocks solely from the Arab point of view, AP runs a very one-sided story. It also pays little attention to a couple of religious “ghosts.”

Several times, this article, has a sentence or two about the attacks on Jewish civilians that’s gone on for a month thus far. It follows with two or more paragraphs on Israeli government actions that allegedly sparked the actions.

And who gets quoted? An Arab who resents the Israeli treatment, a representative of the Netanyahu government, and two Jews who scold the government for its land policies. Hardly what you’d call balanced treatment.

I don’t usually quote five paragraphs at a time, but the top of this story is telling in its setup:

JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinians in Jerusalem, more than a third of the city’s population, have awoken to a new reality: Israeli troops are encircling Arab neighborhoods, blocking roads with concrete cubes the size of washing machines and ordering some of those leaving on foot to lift their shirts to show they are not carrying knives.

The unprecedented clampdown is meant to halt a rash of stabbings of Israelis. Many of the attacks were carried out by residents of east Jerusalem, the sector captured and annexed by Israel in 1967 and claimed by Palestinians as a future capital.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has portrayed the measures as temporary, in line with what his advisers say any police department in the U.S. or Europe would do to quell urban unrest. But some allege he is dividing Jerusalem, something Netanyahu has said he would never do.

Arab residents, who have long complained of discriminatory Israeli policies, say the latest closures are bringing them to a boiling point and lead to more violence.

“They want to humiliate us,” said Taher Obeid, a 26-year-old janitor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He spoke over the din of car horns, as drivers stuck at one of the new checkpoints vented their anger.

Let’s dissect this section. It starts with Israeli actions and Arab feelings, rather than the Arab actions that gave rise to the tough measures. The “rash of stabbings” is saved for the second paragraph, with the Arab viewpoint before and after that.

Read more at GetReligion.org…