“Using staff photographers, partner agencies and contributors throughout the world, Sipa USA delivers the day’s news in real time,” boasts the news agency which bills itself “a leading international media agency specializing in entertainment, news and sports photography.”

While the photo service may deliver images in real time, it also traffics in fake facts. An examination of Sipa images of Palestinians in recent days indicates that the editors in bureaus in New York and Los Angeles apply zero editing to the material flowing in from contributors in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

As a result, the product that the agency shares with its global clients is riddled with the most extreme anti-Israel fabrications, completely unprofessional language, and poor English.

A series of Aug. 21 captions, reproduced in Associated Press’ photo archive, adopt Arab anti-Israel fabrications charging Israel with digging under Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque.

There is zero truth to the charge. Nevertheless, the captions, which apparently were subject to not an iota of editing or fact-checking, incite, citing “the 52nd anniversary of the evil attempt to burn the blessed Al Aqsa Mosque at a time when new and dangerous Israeli violations threaten the buildings and sanctities [sic] through excavations carried out by the Israeli occupation authorities underneath the mosque’s walls.”

The baseless charge that Israel is excavating under the mosque serves Hamas efforts to draw Gazans to the dangerous border clashes. Indeed, it is nothing short of incitement, liable to inflame an already tense region. Given the libel’s vast distance from the actual truth, it has no place in any Western organization that fancies itself a news provider.

In addition, the reverential reference to the Islamic site, which happens also to be Judaism’s most sacred site, as the “blessed Al Aqsa Mosque,” in no way conforms to journalistic practice and standards. And though an arson attack against a religious site is a completely reprehensible act according to any moral reckoning, it is not the role of a news item to label it “evil.”

A second falsehood in the Aug. 23 captions was the misidentification of Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque “the most important mosque for Muslims in the Islamic world.” In fact, Al-Masjid Al-Ḥarām, the Sacred Mosque surrounding the Kaaba in Mecca, holds that distinction. Al Aqsa is the third most holy site in Islam.

Following communication with CAMERA, Sipa pulled the Aug. 23 images and their captions about the “Jewish” arsonist from its site, and the images likewise no longer appear on AP’s service. The Aug. 21 captions, however, falsely charging Israel with excavating under the “blessed Al Aqsa,” are still available via both news agencies, as of this writing.

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