Do British media favor Hamas over Fatah?

Just Journalism reports on these examples of double standards in dealing with violence in Israel and the Palestinian areas. What is most interesting is that the British journals seem to be favoring Hamas over Fatah. Consider these examples:

Car bombing prompts Hamas crackdown – The Guardian
Hamas hits back after blast kills top officials – The Times
Blast triggers new Palestinian clashes – Financial Times

 

They are all careful to show that the Hamas had justification for its brutal crackdown.

 

Extensive coverage of Palestinian boy killed by IDF in contrast with noticeably less coverage of death of Palestinian girl killed in Palestinian bomb attack.

Last week, on Tuesday 29 July, a 10 year-old Palestinian boy, Ahmed Moussa, was killed by IDF gunfire at a West Bank protest in the village of Nilin. The incident made the headlines in four out of five of the following day's broadsheets:

Israeli bullets kill Palestinian boy – Front page, The Guardian
Palestinian boy, 10, dies as Israeli troops fire on demonstration  – The Guardian
Palestinian boy, 10, killed by Israelis at separation wall – The Independent
Palestinian boy killed in protest – The Times
Israelis kill boy, 10 – The Daily Telegraph

The Guardian coverage was extensive, including an eye-witness account, comment from Ahmed Moussa's aunt and a response from an Israeli military source. The article was accompanied by a large photograph showing the boy receiving emergency treatment from Palestinian medics.

Four days earlier, on the night of the Friday 25 July 2008, a Gaza bomb attack against Hamas, thought to have been carried out by Fatah supporters, killed four Hamas men and a four year-old Palestinian girl, Serena Sefady. It took place too late on Friday to be covered in the following day's newspapers. However the girl's death did not make it into the Sunday newspapers either. On Monday 28 July, following a Hamas crackdown on Fatah activists in response to the bombing, there were three brief and passing mentions of the death of an unnamed girl in the following articles:

Car bombing prompts Hamas crackdown – The Guardian
Hamas hits back after blast kills top officials – The Times
Blast triggers new Palestinian clashes – Financial Times

The mentions were all strictly in the context of the fighting which the bomb attack triggered. In The Independent's tiny article – Bombs lead to tit-for-tat arrests – Serena Sefady's death was completely omitted.

The only outlet which focused any attention on what happened to the girl was the BBC News website (Hamas and Fatah battle for power), which named Serena, quoted her bereaved mother and provided information about the circumstances of her death.

(*Headlines which are not hyperlinked do not appear online)