Is Middle East News Coverage Balanced?

Western readers should put their critical thinking hats on and be very careful when reading or viewing Middle East affairs — looks can be deceiving.
For example, take the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict that happened in the summer of 2006. Three different Hebrew editions of the same article on Haaretz’s website appeared over 48 hours, with each subsequent one including less definitive information.
This is exactly what happened with Joav Stern’s article published on Haaretz’s Hebrew online website on July 29, 2006.
In the original version Stern included Hassan Nasrallah’s speech made on the Lebanese Television station, Al-Manar as the lead-off paragraph. He cited Nasrallah’s conditions for a ceasefire, the return of prisoners, restoration of the geographical area of the Shebat Farms from Israel and more… This can’t be verified any longer because within 12 hours this statement was removed from Stern’s article.

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