The Huffington Post's Biased Coverage of Joe Biden's Visit

If you have been following the news from the Middle East at all over the past couple of days, you would know that Vice President Joe Biden has visited Israel with the intention of restarting peace talks. It didn't work, though, because as soon as he arrived Israel announced the intention to build more settlements in East Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority immediately refused to come to the negotiating table, and Biden is to leave tomorrow.

So overall, a not very productive visit. And I think that Israel was to blame for the failure, though they weren't the only ones. The PA didn't have to refuse, they could have made a counteroffer. Biden could have done something to alleviate the problem. But at this point, I care about the way the Huffington Post covered the situation. As we have grown to expect, they showed a naked anti-Israel bias.



Here are the stories that the Huffington Post covered in their "World" section on the topic, not counting blog posts:
-Israel Okays Settlements
-Biden Urges Israel to Take Risks for Peace
-Israel Apologizes To Biden Over Settlement Construction
-Biden: Palestinians Deserve "Viable" State
-Biden Scolds Israel Again
-Netanyahu Apologizes, But Plans to Go Ahead with Settlements

Okay, so to the readers of the Huffington Post it sounds like the only thing that happened was Israel apologizing, Biden criticizing Israel, and Biden agreeing with the Palestinians. Though there was more to the stories buried in the articles, at this point I am going by headlines. Let's look at other news sources and see how they stack up.

During his visit, Biden also described Israel as, "a central bolt in the world's existence," and that, "the US has no better friend than Israel." These comments did not make headlines in the Huffington Post. Biden also said, "From my experience, the one precondition for progress is that the rest of the world knows this - there is no space between the US and Israel when it comes tosecurity - none. That's the only time that progress has been made,"

Even more interesting is that Netanyahu clarified the latest settlement expansion. The truth is that though the intention to build was announced, the planning stage would take another year at best, and actual construction would not happen for several years. It is not as if they were building tomorrow. In response, Biden said Netanyahu's explanation was "significant" and showed the construction plan need not hinder peace talks. This was contained within a Huffington Post story, but was buried inside a length article and (based on the comments) was missed by most readers.

So in conclusion, it appeared as if the Huffington Post was deliberately focusing on certain parts of the visit, those in which Biden criticized Israel or relations between Israel and the US looked shaky. They ignored those parts of the story in which Biden praised Israel or when the PA refused to negotiate. I may not be an objective observer, but the bias here is clear. It is not surprising that the Huffington Post readership responded with unmitigated anger toward the Jewish state. The news they are receiving has been filtered.