Funny how the Washington Post tilts the scales against Israel by selectively reporting developments that put Israel in the dock, while ignoring Palestinian misdeeds.

Two examples of this unbalanced coverage pop up in an article by Jerusalem correspondent Karin Brulliard about how Israel blocked hundreds of anti-Israel troublemakers from flying en masse to Ben-Gurion Airport and thence head to Bethlehem to gin up pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests ("Israel denies entry to activists - Move Gets Plenty of Media Attention - Limited West Bank access was focus of protest" page A5, April 16).

Example No. 1-The Post and other foreign media cited comments about the fly-in by Ben-Dror Yemini, a columnist in the Maariv newspaper. Here's what he actually said:

"The Israeli government should exploit the arrival of the activists to expose the nature of the organizers that invited them, groups that oppose a two-state solution of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but support the establishment of a single state; to wit, the eradication of Israel.

"The organizers of the fly-in have one goal only:  to cast Israel as a country that bars access to 'peace activists.  The tragedy is that they are going to achieve that goal."

The New York Times reported both of his comments -- that the pro-Palestinian organizers of the fly-in, far from adhering to a two-state solution, seek to eliminate the Jewish state, but that Israel anyway would get a black eye for stifling their mission.

The Washington Post, however, skipped Yemeni's slap at the fly-in organizers for aiming to destroy Israel, and printed only his other comment that they still would manage to give Israel a black eye.

Brulliard erased a comment critical of the Palestinians, and instead of showing the radical nature of the fly-in orgnizers, told readers that, if the "activists" had been allowed to reach Bethlehem, "they would build a school and plant trees."   The pro-Palestinian side is referred to only in laudatory terms, never mind its intent to do away with Israel, while Israel is cast in a negative light.

To Brulliard, the only focus is Israel's denial of access to the West Bank, "where Palestinians want to build a future state."  Of course,  fly-in organizers had a quite different agenda -- not only creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, but one encompassing Tel Aviv and Haifa as well.  But the Post is not about to let readers in on this dirty little secret.

Example No. 2:

Again in her selective coverage, Brulliard writes that the fly-in campaign was dubbed a "flytilla," a reference to the "flotilla that attempted in  2010 to breach Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip.  Nine activists were killed by Israeli commandos who raided the ship."

There are two fair ways of reporting how and why "activists" have organized Gaza-bound flotillas:  that these flotillas have challenged Israel's counter-terrorism blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza, or to recall that, in one incident, nine "activists" were killed by Israeli commandos who used their firearms, but only after being brutally beaten, some within an inch of their lives, by pro-Hamas passengers who attacked them with steel pipes, hammers and knives as they tried to board a flotilla vessel.

Brulliard chose neither formula.  She simply injected an anti-Israel poison pill to leave a totally false impression that Israeli commandos, in an unprovoked attack, killed nine peaceful "activists."  Which of course is a lie.  But it fits the Post's predilection to sanitize and sympathize with the Palestinian side, while slandering Israel.

Leo Rennert is a former White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief of McClatchy Newspapers