Coverage
of Palestinian "Stabbing Intifada" Sets New Lows
IPT News
October 22, 2015
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Israelis have a new cause for horror.
In addition to the fear and anger stemming from a wave of wanton
stabbing and vehicle attacks on Israelis during the past month – and there
were at least two more Thursday, including two Palestinians
armed with knives who tried to board a bus full of children – they now are
dealing with the horror and shame of realizing an innocent Eritrean migrant
fell victim Monday to panic and rage.
When an Arab killed a soldier at a Be'er Sheva bus station, grabbed
his victim's gun and opened fire, a security guard mistook 29-year-old
Haftum Zarhom for a second attacker and shot him. Some bystanders,
believing he was a terrorist, then beat the wounded Zarhom, who later died
from the gunshot.
Israeli leaders reacted swiftly, announcing Monday twin IDF and national
police investigations to identify the perpetrators and indict
them.
In an attack, people "should evacuate the area and let the
emergency services do their job," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. "No one will take the law into his own
hands. That's the first rule."
Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon called for the perpetrators to be
arrested.
"We must bring the attackers to justice," Yaalon said. "No one should behave this way, even when
there is great anger and sadness."
By late Wednesday, four suspects were in custody.
This does not reduce the tragedy of Zarhom's death, but it does
reinforce a message to Israeli society that mob violence is wrong and will
not be tolerated. But is a message with which most Israelis already
wholeheartedly agree, and they have expressed their deep revulsion and
anger at previous acts of lawless violence and terrorist acts by Jewish
terrorists against Arabs in years past—from Baruch Goldstein's massacre in a Hebron mosque to the
horrific killing of the 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh and subsequent death of
his mother in a firebombing of their home in the West bank three months
ago. Newspaper editorials and politicians from left to right uniformly
expressed outrage at such despicable actions. Watching the Israeli news one
can see the deep sense of shame that the Israeli public feels.
Just for a moment, imagine if Israeli leaders had reacted differently.
What if they tried to rationalize the death, saying the people who set on
Zarhom were striking a blow for their people and merely acting out of
understandable anger and frustration? They've been living under siege for a
long time, subjected to the prospect that they could be attacked at any
time, on virtually any street in their homeland.
 Imagine if social
media lit up with Israeli memes justifying or endorsing the vigilante
violence; "When in doubt, take them out." Imagine public rallies
featuring Israeli children brandishing symbols of this violence.
Would reporters write stories explaining the roots of this attitude?
Would they try to balance their reports by explaining the Israeli anger and
frustration? Would news outlets issue misleading headlines, minimizing the
attackers' responsibility for the violence? Would the State Department advise
"both sides" to tone down their rhetoric?
More likely, a chorus of global condemnation would rain down on Israel,
with demands that such reckless incitement halt immediately. And that would
be justified.
Yet journalists and government officials are engaging in all these
exercises in reacting to the wanton acts of slaughter Palestinians are
carrying out daily. Palestinian society – from the PA leadership to
U.S.-subsidized education ministries to nearly the entire Palestinian media
have engaged for decades in horrific incitement to terrorism and the
demonization of Jews similar to the way Nazis demonized Jews. But yet, a
review of Washington Post stories since 2013 finds none which
focused primarily or explored the depth of this incitement that drives this
latest outbreak of violence.
The State Department continues to walk back comments by Secretary of
State John Kerry and his chief spokesman, John Kirby, in which they falsely
connected the violence to Israeli settlements and also gave life to the lie that really sparked the attacks.
Palestinians, led by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas,
have stoked passions for weeks by claiming Israel was changing the "status quo"
at Muslim holy sites above Jerusalem's Temple Mount and diminishing Muslim
access.
In fact, the Israelis have not changed the status quo one iota on the
Temple Mount since they captured the Eastern part of Jerusalem in the
defensive Six Day War. From 1948-67, Jews and Christians were denied any
access to the Christians sites in Old Jerusalem and the Jews were denied
access to the most holy site in their religion, the Western Wall of the
Jewish Temple built by King Herod and destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.
When General Moshe Dayan captured the Old City in June 1967, he handed over
administration of the Temple Mount with the two great mosques, revered by
Muslims around the world, to the Waqf, a religious trust that included
Jordanian officials and Palestinians. Jews were not allowed to pray on the
Temple Mount but could visit as tourists. To this day, successive Israeli
administrations have scrupulously upheld this status quo.
But many Palestinian leaders began to fabricate incendiary allegations
that Israel was changing the status quo, even alleging plots to raze the
two mosques in order to build the Third Temple. While a crazy handful of
Jewish fanatics promote this idea, they are a fringe of a fringe enjoying
no credibility. Figures just released by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
show that nearly 4 million Muslims visited Haram Al Sharif in the past
year, compared to about 200,000 Christians and 12,000 Jews.
But the rhetoric from Abbas makes it sound like the area is
under assault, and that violence against Israelis is justified to protect holy sites.
"The Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is ours... and they have no right to defile
it with their filthy feet," Abbas said in a speech last month on PA TV, and translated by
Palestinian Media Watch. "We will not allow them to, and we will do
everything in our power to protect Jerusalem... We bless every drop of
blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood,
blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every martyr (Shahid) will reach
Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah."
He reinforced that message during his speech at the United Nations, accusing Israel of trying to seize control of the area
from an Islamic trust that has been in place since before Israel controlled
Jerusalem in 1967. "The Palestinian people will not allow the implementation
of this illegal scheme," Abbas said. Israel's actions are aggravating
"the sensitivities of Palestinians and Muslims everywhere."
Last week, Abbas falsely claimed that Israel was executing "our
children in cold blood" after video emerged of a young Palestinian
lying wounded in the street. The boy isn't dead, he was released from an Israeli hospital Sunday, and Abbas
failed to mention that his injuries came after he stabbed a 13-year-old boy
moments earlier, critically wounding him.
Abbas' Fatah party, meanwhile, extols its "martyrs" on social media. "We
are a nation that dies a Martyrdom-death with a smile on its face," an
Oct. 14 on the Rafah Fatah party Facebook page said.
A children's program on Palestinian television last week hailed those attacking people on Israel's streets as
"the young heroes who have sacrificed their lives for Jerusalem, and
who carried out all those great heroic acts. We love them and kiss their
hands, because they are true heroes," a Middle East Media Research
Institute (MEMRI) report shows.
Any restrictions on Muslim access to the holy sites have come in
response to violence by Palestinians, or out of concern violence might erupt. The issue,
journalist Jeffrey Goldberg recently explained, is rooted in a Palestinian rejection of
Jews' rights to be at their most sacred site, or even to be in the land at
all.
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The New York Times
correction
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The New York Times fed into this incitement by publishing a story which erroneously called into
question the very foundation of Judaism's claim on Jerusalem. A correction followed after the article triggered
immediate criticism on social media and elsewhere.
On Monday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner finally gave a clear statement that this "status quo" has
not been altered. "Israel has made it clear that they do not intend to
and have not changed the status quo" at the Temple Mount, Toner said.
"And I think perhaps what we're talking about is just clarity on all
sides, and that includes the Palestinian side, that there is no change in
the status quo, that all sides need to recognize that, make every effort
possible to reduce tensions..."
Despite this statement, Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine
Liberation Organization's executive committee, repeated the canard. "We know that Israel is
changing the status quo in Haram al-Sharif," she said. "They say
no, they're not."
During the peak of the bloodshed, Ashrawi chose to stoke anger.
Some news stories may refer to isolated examples of the inflammatory
rhetoric coming from Palestinian leaders and media, but major U.S. news
outlets thus far have failed to devote a story to the depth and consistency
of Palestinian incitement.
Meanwhile, headlines and stories about Palestinian attacks repeatedly are
phrased in ways that minimize the fact that Palestinians are attacking
Israelis, often elderly Israelis, at will. When Palestinian casualty
figures are cited, often there is no distinction to show how many were
killed or injured carrying out an attack, said Gilead Ini, a senior
research analyst for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
(CAMERA).
He blames an entrenched media narrative that holds Israel responsible,
no matter what is taking place on the ground. "It's worse than ever,
or as bad as ever," he said.
New examples seem to emerge almost every day. Among them:
MSNBC reporter Ayman Mohyeldin was corrected on air after witnessing security forces shoot
a Palestinian as he raced toward the Damascus Gate intent on attacking.
Mohyeldin told viewers the man was unarmed, when even the anchor could see
the man's knife. MSNBC then had to apologize for airing maps purportedly showing
the loss of Palestinian land to Israel since 1946. The network acknowledged that the maps were "completely
wrong."
When a Palestinian mob torched Joseph's Tomb in Nablus, CNN's original
headline merely reported that the site "Catches Fire"
with no one responsible.
An example Ini believes epitomizes the news media's consistent
minimizing of Palestinian culpability in violence is this Sept. 14 New York Times story by Diaa
Hadid. Israeli citizen Alexander Levlovich, 64, was killed when his car was
struck by a hail of stones thrown by young Palestinians and crashed. The Times
story, however, says the youth were throwing stones at "the road he
was driving on," as if the road was the target and Levlovich's death
an unfortunate accident.
There's a tendency among some journalists to avoid directly ascribing
blame to Palestinians, even in clear acts of violence like this, Ini said.
"Journalists are supposed to scrutinize. In this case, I believe they
are doing the exact opposite of their jobs: they are protecting
Palestinians from scrutiny."
Commensurate acts of violence by Israelis against Palestinians are
relatively few and far between, Ini said. But when they do occur, such as
the recent arson attack against a Palestinian home that
killed a woman and her baby, they trigger a series of stories about Israeli
society and whether it is growing more intolerant.
"We are not seeing the same" stories about racist statements
and incitement by Palestinian leaders, he said, and that "warps the
world's view of the conflict." In addition, journalists go out of
their way to "understand roots of anger that drives violence against
Israelis." But in the few instances in which Israelis attack
Palestinians, a double standard applies and that same attempts at
perspective never materialize.
Besides journalists failing to hold Palestinians accountable for their
actions via a deliberate refusal to report on their incitement, there is
another byproduct of this one-sided affair. Palestinians end up being
rewarded for incitement, terrorism and rampant bloodshed.
France proposed sending an international force to quell
tensions on the Temple Mount. UNESCO proposed a resolution making the Western Wall, among
Judaism's most significant sites, to be part of the Al Aqsa
mosque. The Palestinian Authority is demanding full control over Jews who visit the Temple
Mount.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian narrative receives massive media coverage
despite this uprising's roots in a manifestly fabricated conspiracy. There
is no international penalty, no moral condemnation. This all but guarantees
that the current wave of stabbings, terrorism and vicious
anti-Semitic incitement against Israelis will continue.
Related Topics: Media,
Palestinian
incitement, Palestinian
Authority, Mahmoud
Abbas, Fatah,
stabbing
attacks, Haftum
Zarhom, Ali
Dawabsheh, John
Kerry, John
Kirby, Temple
Mount, MEMRI,
Benjamin
Netanyahu, Moshe
Yaalon, Hanan
Ashrawi, CAMERA,
Gilead
Ini, Media
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