What the Guardian/AP left out in story on Iran honoring Rachel Corrie

Iran, seen here not exactly honoring their own political activists

The Guardian/AP story on Aug. 11th regarding Iran’s decision to name a street after Rachel Corrie is, as with many such wire service stories, brief and not explicitly polemical. 

However, what they said about both Corrie and the Islamic Republic of Iran speaks volumes about how even such a dry account can be terribly misleading.

First, the story (Iran names street after Rachel Corrie) characterized Corrie’s death, by a military bulldozer, as happening as the result of her efforts to help prevent the “Israeli military [from] demolishing nearby Palestinian homes.”

Missing from this narrative is the fact that Corrie was working for an extremely radical organization with a record of aiding and abetting Palestinian terrorists, and that that the home being demolished was part of Israeli efforts to uncover part of an underground tunnel network used to smuggle weapons.

These tunnels had been built under civilian Arab homes and structures in order to smuggle weapons and explosives into Israel – a fact her ISM handlers no doubt neglected to inform her.

Regarding Iran – whose leaders recently condemned the UK, while reportedly maintaining a straight face,  for their “brutal” crackdown of rioters, and whose decision to pay tribute to Corrie is the basis of the AP/Guardian story – we’re informed:

“Iran and the US have not had diplomatic ties since militant students occupied the US embassy in Tehran, holding American diplomats hostage for 444 days from 1979 to 1981.”

Yeah, that and the fact that Iran has been characterized by the U.S. State Department as the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism – one of only four countries designation as state sponsors of terror.  

In addition to providing arms, training, and financial support to a wide array of terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, they are also currently engaged in something of a proxy war against the U.S., by arming, and providing personnel, to its terrorist allies operating in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Finally, while the Iranian nuclear issue is alluded to in the last paragraph, the piece includes nothing on Iran’s wretched human rights record, and any supporting information which would put in proper context how horribly cynical the Islamic Republic’s decision to honor Rachel Corrie truly is: a nation which egregiously discriminates against women and religious minorities, and summarily executes gays and political dissidents, yet is moved beyond description by the story of one American pro-Palestinian activist?

Perhaps some mention of the pesky little fact that Iran, in addition to being a state sponsor of terror with one of the world’s worst human rights records, also openly calls for the Jewish state’s destruction would provide just a bit of context for the casual reader in determining Iran’s motivation.

An appalling lack of context? A paucity of relevant background information? And, ideologically inspired omissions of fact and history?

Or, as we like to say, just another day at the Guardian.  

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