From purveyors of hate to Mohamed Merah

I am preparing this post while the child murderer is still holed up in his flat in Toulouse, quite proud of himself:

He expressed no regret apart from not having had enough time to kill more victims and even boasted of having brought France to its knees...

The pride expressed by a murderer of children and regret about not being able to kill more is not new to us, unfortunately:

As for the two surviving children, the murderers said they hadn’t noticed them. Had they found the two, both said, they would not have hesitated to kill them, as well.

The post is not about the pride of monsters, however. It is about a possibly related stupidity, malice and hate abundantly supplied by the media.

1. Stupidity

During the latest conflagration between Israel and Gaza, Times of London publish a picture:

The text in the circle "Israeli troops launch a barrage of missiles towards Gaza", as explained in Honest Reporting article, is no more than a dumb mistake, as everyone agrees. Since the picture shows The Iron Dome system that intercepts Palestinian rockets launched at Israeli cities. And Times of London is not alone: a somewhat similar capture appeared on CNN site as well:

Indeed... I am not saying it is a totally bad idea - to let Gazans experience the feeling of a really indiscriminate rocket barrage on a densely populated civilian center... but CNN is not immune to dumb capture malady.

2. Malice*

Khulood Badawi, a UN employee, by the way, tweets the "story":

The real story is summarized here:

A Palestinian man carries the body of three year-old Raja Abu Shaban, in Gaza August 9, 2006. The three-year-old girl who had been reported killed by an Israeli air strike in Gaza on Wednesday actually died of an accident, Palestinian medical workers said on Thursday.

3. Hate

Here is an example of intentional spreading of hate provided by Aussie Dave:

IDF soldier standing on a Palestinian girl? The picture has become viral, spreading all over the net. However, here is a full uncropped version of the picture:

This is what is considered "street theater" in Bahrain... and some other places.

Now back to the child murderer Mohamed Merah (who is dead by now, by the way, being ready to be announced as the new martyr in the pantheon of murderers).

As far as Mohamed Merah's patchy bio is concerned, it shows a troubled youth, with multiple (15!) convictions for thievery and robbery, no stranger to violence and as such a grateful subject for Islamist recruitment. Which recruitment doubtlessly made him ready to become a murderer.

But: put your hand on your heart and tell me that the propaganda acts presented in this post - from dumb thoughtless misinformation to hateful faked pictures (which are surely stronger than a thousand words) - couldn't have served as a final catalyst for the murder spree...

More on the subject by Barry Rubin.

(*) The only reason I presented the Khulood Badawi's tweet in a separate "Malice" section is that I don't have proof that this act was an intentional disinformation attempt.