We all know that journalists (including some at highly-regarded newspapers) often makes things up, but rarely have we witnessed such a mix of misinformation, disinformation and innuendo passed off as fact, as we have

in recent days in the reports dealing with the death of Hamas terrorist Mahmoud Mabhouh. (Some of this admittedly can be attributed to the complete failure of the Israeli government - whether or not Israel had anything to do with the matter - to provide an effective response to the media.)

For example, the story in yesterday's (London) Sunday Telegraph that British immigrants to Israel had their passports removed and copied at passport control at Tel Aviv airport, is highly implausible. Passports are not taken

from immigrants at Tel Aviv airport. This has never been the practice. I have checked with several recent immigrants and they have confirmed that this is not so.

The Telegraph story, written by a London-based correspondent, has all the signs of being planted by anti-Israel elements at the British Foreign Office. But other media lapped up the Telegraph story. For example, Sky News ran it all day yesterday on its ticker tape at the foot of the screen, probably doing great damage to future British tourism to Israel by falsely reporting that British passports would be removed and copied at Ben Gurion airport.

Among other nonsense published in The Sunday Telegraph yesterday was the claim that "Tzipi Livni, the head of the opposition Kadima Party in Israel, was another Mossad high-flier. She was posted to Paris as a kidon, carrying

out ruthless operations against Arab terrorists."

MAKING THINGS UP?

Even worse was the story in yesterday's London Sunday Times by its notoriously unreliable reporter Uzi Mahnaimi,

Ha'aretz...is so full of contempt for the elected government of Israel that it will publish almost anything to paint Netanyahu in a bad light.

claiming that the paper had evidence that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had personally

ordered the hit on Mabhouh, and even providing quotes attributed to Netanyahu when he supposedly gave such orders. The Sunday Times story was then splashed all day as the lead story on the websites of papers like

Ha'aretz, which is so full of contempt for the elected government of Israel that it will publish almost anything to paint Netanyahu in a bad light.

A comparable motive is true in Britain in the case of The Daily Mail, who were determined to attack Gordon Brown's government and thus on Friday published an anonymous story (without any author's byline, or quoted persons in it) claiming that the British government "knew in advance that Israel was going to use British passports". The Daily Mail claimed in its story that they had been told this by a serving member of the Mossad. Again, this is virtually inconceivable since serving members of the Mossad do not speak to

journalists but The Daily Mail's report was treated seriously and rebroadcast around the world as lead item by major TV stations.

Even The New York Times and International Herald Tribune got in on the acton Friday, telling readers that Israel has engaged in 40 Dubai-type assassinations in recent years - again claims made without a shred of

evidence, and highly unlikely to be true.

The French media have also regurgitated the stories of the British media, leading to French Prime Minister François Fillon, who was in Syria this weekend, to declare - in front of President Assad of all people! - "we are

against this form of assassination; whoever orders them should be punished. Like the British and the Germans we have asked Israeli authorities to explain themselves."

IGNORING THEIR OWN COUNTRIES' "MURDERS"

At the same time that they blamed Israel, these very same British and American media made very little of the fact

Every day last week their own governments killed terrorists in Afghanistan.

that every day last week their own governments killed terrorists in Afghanistan (and elsewhere).

Given the level of censorship they are imposing on their Afghan coverage (censorship that news broadcasters like the BBC fail to tell viewers about), they almost never mention the civilians their armies are killing. The

almost three dozen civilians - mainly women and children - killed by a NATO strike yesterday are being reported in some media, but similar strikes last week were largely ignored by the same media so eager to paint the death of a

leading Hamas terrorist as some kind of "master crime". Preliminary reports indicate that Dutch forces were in charge of the area where the civilians died yesterday, but instead EU foreign ministers are preparing today to

condemn Israel, not Holland.

Mabhouh had five different passports with him in Dubai: there seems to be no media coverage or interest in which countries' passports he was using.