Many Reporters Steal Others' Anti-Israel Christmas Libel

How could two news stories reach opposite conclusions about the same event?

Bethlehem Hosts Huge Christmas Crowds

Tourists Lacking in Bethlehem at Christmas: Security Wall Blamed for Lack of Visitors

Although the articles' titles are diametrically opposed, what is important is the greater truth--both stories present Israel as ruining Bethlehem's Christmas, precisely the same story that is run every year at this time. The mainstream media simply substitute different facts into the template in order to draw the same conclusion. This, of course, despite the larger truth inversion: Israel has been the greatest of defenders of Christian religious rights and the Palestinian Authority has caused Bethlehem's Christians to flee.

This year, however, is funny. A large number of stories plagiarize the same idea--that Israel would have ruined the trip of Joseph and Mary. Here is a sampler, beginning with the two articles cited above:

The barrier put a damper on the Christmas spirit, preventing tourists from walking into town on the biblical-era route likely used by Joseph and Mary.

By some accounts, if Mary and Joseph were to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem today, they'd have to pass through more than a dozen military checkpoints.

Today's Joseph and Mary Would Face 15 Checkpoints

If Mary and Joseph had to get to Bethlehem this year, they would find themselves confronted with a 9-metre high concrete wall and a sophisticated, high-tech checkpoint

For the first time since, perhaps, Mary and Joseph walked there, you cannot walk the traditional path the young couple followed to the nondescript cave where Christ was born. You can't walk the route because the security wall cuts right across it.

The dusty road to the town of Jesus?s birth has been the gateway to Bethlehem since biblical times and would have been the likely path taken by Mary and Joseph. But today it leads to what the mayor of Bethlehem calls ?the world?s largest prison?.

Pilgrims taking the road from nearby Jerusalem -- the likely path taken by Mary and Joseph in the Christian narrative -- cannot miss the biggest change to Bethlehem this year: the completion of an eight metre (26 foot)-high concrete wall.

"If Mary and Joseph were here today, they would go through the checkpoint just like everybody else," Sister Erica, a nun, complained to a reporter last week after making the crossing.

It shows Mary and Joseph blocked from getting to Bethlehem by a graffiti wall ? mimicking the Israeli barrier round the Palestinian territories

For a similar, extraordinary example, see: IRIS Exposes Reporters Stealing Others' Errors.