Britain’s Independent headlines stabbing attack with ‘Israeli police kill boy,’ while Reuters chief makes wild claims.
The BBC recently drew considerable ire for its coverage of deadly Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israel, bizarrely opting to portray the attacks as victims in its headlines, though the corporation backtracked over the most egregious instance following an official complaint by the Israeli Government Press Office.
But it appears the BBC is far from alone in this regard. Apart from a similar stunt by Al Jazeera – who recently issued an apology for their biased coverage – British news editors appear grimly determined to portray Palestinians as victims in spite of the evidence.
One particularly galling headline appeared on Saturday in Britain’s Independent. Reporting on a stabbing attack by 16-year-old Arab terrorist, who wounded two Jewish civilians before being shot and killed by police.
The headline? “Israeli security forces kill boy, 16, after stabbing in Jerusalem as violence continues”.
The article begins: “A 16-year-old boy has become the seventh Palestinian shot dead by Israeli security forces in just 24 hours as a wave of violence continues.” Only in the next paragraph is the following, rather crucial context thrown in: “He had launched a stabbing attack near Damascus Gate, in Jerusalem’s Old City, and then tried to attack officers on Saturday morning, according to police.”
Another article published just one day after covered Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, following the firing of rockets at Israeli civilians by Palestinian terrorists, was headlined in a similar fashion.
IAF jets targeted Hamas sites, but two civilians were reported killed by Hamas medical sources as a result of collateral damage.
Again, the Independent‘s headline left a lot to be desired – ‘Israel kills pregnant mother and her baby in retaliatory attacks’ – perversely suggesting the woman was deliberately targeted.
Media watchdog Honest Reporting has highlighted several other instances ofmedia bias in reporting the recent wave of Arab violence across Israel.
Late last week, Reuter’s Jerusalem bureau chief Luke Baker claimed Israeli undercover forces “instigated” Palestinian youths to riot, based on an AFPvideo which merely shows agents joining rioters before dispersing them. Baker seemingly plucked the accusation out of thin air after even AFP‘s correspondent at the site made no such claims herself.
@ bernard ross:
BR, I don’t always agree with your comments. But this time I do.
Shooting to kill all terrorists is a good start. But it should be followed up by talking his or her family home and the land it is built upon, and selling it for use as a Jewish settlement garin.
Collectively, these are tactics that stop intafadas real quick.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
something unusual: I just went to al arabiya and it only had one story on the riots, etc. I think they are intentionally playing it down.
http://english.alarabiya.net/#slide=1
Jews should demand from BB and Yaalon the right to kill the anti semite terrorists. There should be no more rubber bullets, no talk about shooting at the legs, no taking of live terrorists to Israeli hospitals to be repaired…. a directive should be demanded to be issued that a terrorist is to be mandatory shot DEAD… no talk, no apology, just kill the anti semites whenever the opportunity presents… dont give them a chance to pull a knife, no investigations of terror shootings should be made…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=37&v=w-gFEf2kkWI
@ keelie:
The problem is not so called journalists like Baker but the Israeli government which allows scum like him to spread their filth from inside Israel. Any other self respecting government would either kick him out, or if it were an Arab country imprison or kill him.
@ babushka:
Then he should be immediately expelled from Israel, and Reuters told not to bother sending any further correspondents.
In fact it’s people like Baker et al, who by their support for all forms of murderous thugs, are essentially the instigators of the mayhem we see going on in Israel.
Combine this sage insight with the memories of how Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto provoked the Nazis to kill them and the infamous Anne Frank provocation of the Gestapo, and you soon begin to realize why the Euros hate these damned Jews so very much.
This putz Baker personifies why it is futile for Israel to mount an international public relations campaign. Anti-Semitism is a mental illness for which facts are no cure. He is right there on the scene to witness the depravity of the Palis, but it does not register because the lunatic is so demented with Jew hatred that he has inverted reality.
@ ArnoldHarris:
Granted what you say is perfectly correct, but some of us still get feelings of anger and disgust when we see and hear the words of smug, lying, condescending bastards such as the members of the BBC and their ilk.
Apologies for the emotional tone of this posting.
I am not interested in propaganda wars. And even if I wasted my time on such trivial concerns, I would never bother worrying about the news media of the slowly-dying United Kingdom.
My focus is solely the short-term steps needed to assure Israel’s survival, and the long-term steps need to grow Israel’s state power. Power, as related to independent states is the capability of enforcing the national will on minority inhabitants, by either frightening them into obedience, or if that proves unachievable, locking them up in concentration camps, expelling them across one or more of the state borders, or killing them.
There was a time, back in 1967, when massive numbers of Arabs of Shomron and Yehuda — some 250,000 — fled across the new Jordan River border into what had been the Kingdom of Jordan for 19 years, but was suddenly demoted to its original geography as the Emirate of Trans-Jordan. Those Arabs fled for their lives, because they thought the conquering Jews would massacre them. Instead, the Jews of Israel — stupid as usual and blinded with a form of liberalism which hates Jews irrespective of whatever they do to achieve indeendence — did everything possible to treat them almost as long-lost brethen.
Get this into all your heads and never let it leak out: Eretz-Yisrael — every last little dunam of that territory — either belongs to you, and the Arabs are interlopers who can, should, and must be removed from possession or driven out; or the entire territory belongs rightfully to the Arabs, in which case, all of you who live there are the land thieves who should be despoiled and driven out.
That, in the long run, is precisely the choice that you face today, that your future generations will continue to face for all the tomorrows. It is either you or them who shall be the victims. There never has been any achievable compromise, and there never shall be. All that counts, for every living organism and not just for states, is the territorial imperative.
Read Robert Ardrey, and you shall know precisely what I am writing about.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker