Blog of Sin

Israeli warplanes in ‘incident’ with German ship off Lebanon: military

This first thing is the report of absolute authority on something that is immediately contested by Israel:

Two Israeli warplanes were involved in an armed incident with a German ship patrolling Lebanon’s waters as part of the UN force in the Arab country, the German military told AFP.

The bold “were” is my emphasis.  This is the paper saying it did happen, no question.  But Israel is denying the incident, so how can the paper say with certainty this incident did happen?

In Israel, Defence Minister Amir Peretz denied his country’s planes had opened fire near a German ship, in a telephone call with German counterpart Franz Josep Jung.

I didn’t think anything of it until the end of the article, when I found a word that always seems to jump off the page at me, no matter what the story is about: alleged.

Peretz said at the weekend that the flights through Lebanese airspace would continue because of alleged arms smuggling to Hezbollah since the end of the war on August 14.

The bold “alleged” is my emphasis.  Nowhere in the story is Israel’s claim about Hezbollah arms smuggling disputed, but the Issraeli claim gets an “alleged” tacked on to it.

I find this article fishy; the subtle nuances of writing often give away the writer’s and editor’s bias.  Then again, they could just be idiots and didn’t see the error.