Palestinians have murdered several Israelis in recent weeks, but the sudden increase in terror, which appears to come at the behest of Arab religious and government leaders, is being portrayed in Western media as a complicated situation in which both sides have legitimate grievances.
The press has offered several explanations for the sudden spike in brutal attacks on Israelis, including that Palestinians are likely frustrated at failed peace efforts between the two countries. Palestinian assailants are also likely upset over rumors that Israelis are attempting to reclaim the Temple Mount, a 37-acre piece of land in Jerusalem that both Jews and Muslims revere as sacred territory, Western media explains.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu maintains that Israeli politicians are barred from visiting the site, keeping in line with an agreement that was struck long ago so as to keep the peace, even though the Jewish claim to that territory predates Islam by more than 600 years.
Citing these reasons as the cause of the Palestinian wave of terror, Western media has focused largely on Israeli retaliation, and not on the initial attacks.
“Palestinian Killed As Violence Continues,” read one Washington Post headline.
A New York Times report, titled “Israeli Retaliatory Strike in Gaza Kills Woman and Child, Palestinians Say,” followed with, “Violence and bloodshed radiating outward from flash points in Jerusalem and the West Bank appear to be shifting gears and expanding, with Gaza increasingly drawn in.”
“Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attack kills two,” the BBC initially reported, referring to the ongoing violence that started two weeks ago with the murder of an Israeli couple who were killed as they drove along the north West Bank.
Many of these reports downplay the brutal nature of Palestinian attack on Israelis. Civilians ranging from infants to adults have been targeted, and have been shot, clubbed and stabbed. Even Israeli police officers have been attacked. Western reports also leave out details of how Palestinian government and religious officials have been inciting the violence.
“Al Aqsa Mosque is ours. They [Jews] have no right to defile it with their filthy feet,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in response to reports that Israelis wished to approach the Temple Mount. “We bless every drop of blood spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah.”
Elsewhere, a Gaza Imam reportedly said last Friday in an address, “Brothers, this is why we recall today what Allah did to the Jews.”
“Today, we realize why the Jews build walls. They do not do this to stop missiles but to prevent the slitting of their throats,” he said, adding later as he allegedly brandished a knife, “My brother in the West Bank: Stab!”
Despite these and other apparent signs of incitement, media in the United States and the United Kingdom continue to focus on Israel’s responses to the seemingly unpredictable attacks. For at least one Jewish blogger, Elad Nehorai, the coverage is merely a continuation of Western media’s longstanding anti-Israel bias.
“Every year it’s the same thing: Israel gets this violence, Israel responds and only then it’s front page news and people think Israel is the aggressor,” he said in an interview with the Jerusalem Post.
“It’s become really like a meme on Facebook among people who are pro-Israel,” he added, “They talk about how the media is not reporting, or reporting badly and when I read this I sense hopelessness from them, like there is nothing we can do. That’s a very crippling feeling.”
After a Palestinian youth stabbed two Israeli civilians and attacked a police officer, for example, the U.K.’s Independent published a story this week titled, “Israel Unrest: Boy, 16, becomes seventh Palestinian killed by security forces after Jerusalem stabbing as wave of violence continues.”
The same publication ran another story with the headline, “Israel kills pregnant mother and her baby in revenge attacks.”
Following a Palestinian terrorist attack Tuesday that left two Jewish adults dead and a toddler injured, Metro UK reported, “Israelis shoot two dead after attacks.”
That same day, CNN reported on the ongoing violence by publishing a story titled, “Palestinian youth: ‘Now we’ll fight.'”
The Los Angeles Times meanwhile went with a simpler headline that read, “6 Palestinian teens die amid Mideast unrest.”
Euro News reported in one story that, “Four hurt in new Israel stabbing attack as Palestinians bury their dead.”
It’s not all spotty reporting, though, as a few newsrooms have been careful to note the causes of Israeli retaliation. But there have been enough questionable reports that a few observers in the United States have complained of the seemingly lopsided coverage.
Wall Street Journal deputy editor Bret Stephens is one such observer, and he blasted the press this week for its handling of the story.
“It’s time to stop furnishing Palestinians with the excuses they barely bother making for themselves,” he wrote. “Today in Israel, Palestinians are in the midst of a campaign to knife Jews to death, one at a time. This is psychotic. It is evil. To call it anything less is to serve as an apologist, and an accomplice.”
