Can anyone in good faith still make the argument that most mainstream media are not biased against Israel?
On Tuesday morning, four men peacefully attending Shacharit services at their local synagogue in Har Nof, Jerusalem were murdered in cold blood by two Arab residents of East Jerusalem.
Somehow several major news outlets managed to misrepresent this story so that it wasn’t about innocent Jews being killed. Because in the accepted anti-Israel narrative prevalent in mainstream media, Israelis are not permitted to be victims. Palestinians have been granted the monopoly on martyrdom.
Here are a few examples – and then tell us if we’re wrong.
CNN ran a story early in the day with the headline “4 Israelis, 2 Palestinians dead in Jerusalem,” failing to mention that the Palestinians were the assailants and that they were shot in a firefight after they murdered four Israelis. (CNN has since apologized for the headline.)
Also on CNN, in a piece interviewing Jerusalem mayor, Nir Barkat, the ticker running across the bottom of the screen read: “Developing story: Deadly attack on a Jerusalem mosque.” More absurd: Barkat actually utters the word “synagogue” as mosque appears on the screen. (CNN has since removed the video; screenshot pictured above.)
France’s Le Monde’s headline read, “Six killed in Jerusalem,” making no distinction between the perpetrators and victims. (After complaints, they amended this headline to include the phrase “Two Palestinian attackers”.)
The UK’s Guardian picked up a Reuters story that mentioned the ethnicity of the two killers (“Two Palestinians”). The Guardian chose to amend Reuters wording to simply “Two men”. Why leave out that significant detail? It can’t be error, since they changed the original Reuters text. Apparently the Guardian cannot accept that sometimes the Palestinians are the perpetrators and the victims Israelis.
Who wants to bet that by this time tomorrow, some media outlets will have found a way to make the cold-blooded slaughter the fault of the four innocent men who had simply gone to shul to daven.
UPDATED:
More gaffes, errors and misrepresentations are coming to light the day following the terrorist attack, Nov. 19.
On the Nov. 18 edition of CBS This Morning, anchor Nora O’Donnell called the Har Nof synagogue a “contested religious site,” which is patently false. It is unlikely merely an anchor gaffe, as the script was probably written and researched by staff prior to the airing.
Canada’s CBC News first Tweet about the attack was that “Jerusalem police fatally shoot 2 after apparent synagogue attack.”
The BBC’s initial headline read, “Jerusalem synagogue attack kills 4 Israelis.” No mention of the perpetrators and extremely poor grammar, implying that the synagogue itself carried out the attack.
A larger, more nuanced issue at play is Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ statement condemning the attack, in which he also implied that Israeli behavior on Temple Mount caused it.
In his first statement, Abbas mentions “incursions and provocations by settlers against the Aqsa Mosque [Temple Mount].” In a later statement, Abbas said, “While we condemn this act, we also condemn the assault on the Noble Sanctuary [Temple Mount] and all holy sites and the torching of mosques and churches.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeated that Israel supports the status quo on Temple Mount and that the Jewish individuals seeking to pray there, such as the recent victim of an assassination attempt, Yehuda Glick, have not expressed their wish for dominance or control of the site.
Abbas’ “condemnation” feeds into the idea that the terror victims are responsible for their own demise, and his moral equivalence of visits to the Temple Mount and cold-blooded murder has been picked up by news outlets and commentators, including on a segment that aired Nov. 18 on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360°.
The host Jim Sciutto, before interviewing his guests, twice referred to the current situation in Jerusalem as a “religious powder keg” and “sectarian war,” adopting the Abbas narrative that these terrorist attacks are due to alleged Israeli activity on Temple Mount.
The “gaffe” on CBS This Morning calling the Har Nof synagogue a “contested religious site” is most likely also the result of mindlessly imbibing this narrative.
If this is evolving into a sectarian war, it’s because Palestinians want it so.
Details of examples courtesy of JPost, CIF Watch and Honest Reporting.
