It is common knowledge that a picture says more than 1,000 words - but does it always tell the truth? Not always.

This AP photograph was published by the New York Times and the Boston Globe, purportedly to illustrate the beating of a Palestinian by an Israeli policeman. The story that the picture seems to tell is that of a brutal policeman wielding a baton, standing above the cowering, bloodied Palestinian.

The truth is in fact very different. The "Palestinian" is really a Jewish student from Chicago, Tuvia Grossman, who, together with two of his friends, was pulled from a taxi by a Palestinian mob and brutally beaten and stabbed. The "brutal Israeli policeman" is in fact protecting them from the mob.

It is worthwhile keeping this lesson in mind.

See another picture that moved hearts...       _more