AP's misleading headline

It seems that the wire services send out their articles with a default, suggested headline thatmost newspapers will copy verbatim. So it is interesting to see dozens of headlines in Google News that say:


The article slowly clarifies exactly who this "Palestinian"was:

Israeli troops on Wednesday fatally shot a West Bank leader of the Islamic Jihad militant group who was involved in an attempted bombing near Tel Aviv, the army said.

Mahmoud Abu Obeid, 24, was traveling in a car in the center of Jenin when undercover Israeli troops shot and killed him, Palestinian witnesses said. An Israeli combat helicopter was seen in the area at the time, they said.

Abu Obeid had fired in the air with an M-16 rifle and then pointed it at troops when they shot at him, said a commander in the Jenin area, Col. Hertzi Halevy.

Abu Obeid was wanted for recruiting a Palestinian from the Jenin area who was caught by Israeli security in Tel Aviv on Tuesday trying to carry out a suicide bombing, the army said. Abu Obeid also had supplied the bomber with the explosives, the army said.

Abu Obeid oversaw the preparation of bombs for the militant group, and the car he was driving was full of explosives, Halevy said. Troops tracked down Abu Obeid due in part with information given to security forces during the interrogation of the bomber caught on Tuesday, Halevy said.

But people glancing at the paper or website will only see that Israel has killed yet another innocent Palestinian Arab for no reason.