The bloodbath at a West Jerusalem synagogue yesterday, in which four rabbis were killed, was the big story on the network news last night and the cables too. And Palestinians didn’t fare well in the coverage.
On CNN, Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer equated Palestinian militants to Nazis; and Wolf Blitzer nodded but had no rejoinder. Dermer belittled the idea that Palestinians have any grievances under Israeli rule before noting, “The Nazis had a lot of grievances too.” But: “Nothing justifies Nazism. And nothing justifies terrorism.”
Blitzer knows the history of the conflict; Zionist forces used terror during the Mandate period to force the British to leave and later to ethnically cleanse tens of thousands of Palestinians from Jaffa and other towns and cities. Zionist militias blew up the King David Hotel in 1946, killing 91, and knocked off European diplomats Lord Moyne and Folke Bernadotte. Blitzer might have mentioned these facts, but he was playing Charlie McCarthy.
Dermer also implied that the Palestinians were targeting the United States. Hamas is the Palestinian version of ISIS, he said, and the US is in the same war that Israel is in. The theme was echoed by former Israeli ambassador Dore Gold, on Erin Burnett’s CNN show, when he stated that the murders were the same as the ISIS beheadings of Americans in the Syrian desert.
Senator Ted Cruz is on message. He issued a statement saying that the Palestinians are targeting the U.S.
All our friends in Israel have our sympathies in the aftermath of this atrocity, but they need more than that. They need an unequivocal statement of solidarity, a recognition that America is not a disinterested bystander in this battle. Our citizens are dying too, targeted by these same vicious murderers, and our good friend and ally should have not only our prayers but also our unequivocal support as the Israeli people continue the fight against the terrorists who have declared war on both our nations.
Jake Tapper put a stamp of approval on this argument when he stated that more American citizens have been killed by Palestinian terrorists in the last year than by ISIS. Dore Gold issued the same scary pronouncement on CNN.
Much was made on television news of the fact that folks in Gaza celebrated the murders. In a substantial editorial titled, “Horror in Israel,” The New York Times laments the fact that Palestinians are not jumping to condemn the murders:
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, had to be pushed by Secretary of State John Kerry into speaking out…. That was apparently the first time he had denounced Palestinian attacks in recent days…
As a political leader, Mr. Abbas has a duty to make the moral case that such brutality and inhumanity can only bring shame upon the Palestinian people.
I don’t think any of these news outlets have noted the fact that Israelis celebrated an Israeli border officer who is accused of shooting and killing an unarmed Palestinian teen earlier this year:
During the court proceedings friends of the accused officer gathered outside the court house, sang supportive songs and called out to him with declaration that he was a “hero.”
And speaking of double standards for Palestinians at the Times, FAIR has an excellent piece of media criticism focusing on a Times headline, “Palestinian Shot by Israeli Troops at Gaza Border.” The Palestinian in question was ten years old. FAIR wonders
why the Times would leave this key fact out. Space, maybe? But “Gazan Boy Shot by Israeli Troops at Border” would have fit just as easily.
Or “Child Shot by Israeli Troops at Gaza Border,” for that matter, since the shooting victim’s likely nationality would be clear from context; there aren’t too many Israeli children near the border with Gaza. In any case, the victim’s age is arguably a more important fact than his ethnicity.
So–did the editors leave out of the headline the fact that it was a child who had been shot because they didn’t want readers to get too upset about Israel doing the shooting?
Update. The hits keep coming. I am informed that Carol Costello said on CNN today that Americans can relate to Israel because we’re dealing with ISIS.
It’s JSIL that every American needs to be fearful of. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: our relationship with Israel puts our national security at risk.
As for the Palestinians “celebrating”, did anyone mention the Israelis having parties on hilltops as they watched and celebrated the bombs over Gaza???
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/20/israelis-cheer-gaza-bombing
Huge props for being able to endure the caca that was spewing forth from the MSM. I could not. It was an endless loop of Israelis and Isr supporters and their compliant slaves. No Palestinians, no East Jerusalemites, no mention of the provocations and incitement that that was engineered by the GoI.
Shameful, but entirely expected.
Here is a Facebook page supporting and celebrating the Border Policeman who was arrested on suspicion of killing a Palestinian youth in Beitunia last May. It has over 25K likes. Right clicking the page in a Google browser and choosing “Translate” will give a awkward but usable translation.
http://t.co/pvj8M8jswI
Hmmmm, I wonder if the Times, under any circumstance, would say Baruch Goldstein’s actions in that mosque “can only bring shame upon the Israeli people.” It seems collective responsibility only applies to Arabs. Really inappropriate language from the Times.
The Israeli right wing, the mainstream media, callow politicians, and various other operatives on both sides of the Atlantic are a mold into which events are poured, whether those events conform to that mold or not.
Everyone who posts here on Mondoweiss, given a pencil, an blank piece of paper, and the scenario of a bloodbath in a synagogue could have written today’s stories a month ago and pretty much nailed each one, the permissible omissions and reactions being that familiar, as well as notorious.
When policy is a hammer, every Palestinian starts looking more and more like a nail.
I’m trying to think of any other topic of comparable scope and duration that is so misrepresented and receives so much one-sided coverage as the I/P issues does. I’m having a tough time doing it. Global warming? Gay rights? Starvation in Africa? Sex abuse in the clergy? Fracking? Health care? The war on terror? Maybe that last one’s the only real contender, touching on the I/P issue as it does, or is at least is made to look that way by the same actors listed above.
There’s a quote, perhaps apocryphal, attributed to Franklin Roosevelt regarding Samoza, the long-enduring, American-supported brutal dictator of Nicaragua. To his Secretary of Sates’ remark that Somoza was a bastard, Roosevelt supposedly replied, “Yes, but he’s our bastard.”
Similarly, Israel is our bastard, and is supported in full knowledge of of all its gross atrocities and petty violations in the same way that America supported Samoza for all those years, in complete contradiction to our nation’s higher ideals. But there really isn’t the disconnect that there seems to be.
Elites, no matter where they reside, don’t do disconnect very well.
My apologies to the Palestinian people, who deserve being better served by their fellow man.
“On CNN, Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer equated Palestinian militants to Nazis; and Wolf Blitzer nodded but had no rejoinder – ”
The bots would never try that in Europe. It would be laughed off stage.
If the 2 cousins yesterday were Nazis so was Samson.