#761 Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert

To:       Brith Sholom Media Watch Subscribers
From:   Jerry Verlin, Editor  (jverlin1234@verizon.net)
Subj:    Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #761, 8/2/15

This Week In The Inq:  “Arson Protester Dies; Israeli Military Shot Him ….”

The Philadelphia Inquirer (Inq) ran an AP article this morning (Sunday, 8/2/15, A3) on Palestinian Arabs protesting arson committed on an Arab home, apparently by “price tag” exacting Israeli extremists, in which a young Arab child died and his family severely wounded.  The Inq headlined this article

Arson protester dies

Israeli military shot him at a rally against a toddler’s death

Is this balanced Inq headlining of what went on there?  No.  The Inq’s seemingly peaceful “arson protester” – if he was doing something aggressive relevant to his being shot, it belonged in the Inq’s headline –  was himself engaging in arson.  Paragraph 2 of the AP’s article:  “The Israeli military says it shot Khaldi near Ramallah after he hurled a fire bomb at them.”  A balanced headline would have told Inquirer readers what this person was himself doing when the “Israeli military shot him.”

But the Western media’s imbalance here runs deeper than headlines.

The AP is entitled to some credit here for stating that “price tag” attacks “rarely” cause “any deaths,” making what happened in this attack “all the more startling.”  And for reporting that the attack drew “widespread Israeli condemnation.”

But these acknowledgements left that article screaming for contrast between Israeli and Arab responses to terror perpetrated by their respective extremists upon the other’s civilians.  This omission is even more vividly seen in the Inq’s initial Washington Post article yesterday (Inq, Sat, 8/1/15, A4, WP), which reported that “the Palestinians blamed Israeli leaders for creating an atmosphere of hate and incitement.”  The hypocrisy cried out for the article to point it out to the public.

One Israeli who did point it out, per Times of Israel this morning, was Bibi, in addressing his cabinet meeting:

“We deplore and condemn these murderers.  We will pursue them to the end,” he said.  “They [emphasis original] name public squares after the murderers of children.  This distinction cannot be blurred or covered up,” he said.

Except by the Western media.

I thought you might find enlightening, if not amusing, the line that the AP and our beloved hometown Inq took one time when they did report on Israeli claims of Palestinian Arabs engaging in hate and incitement.

On November 4, 2010, A2, the Inq ran an AP article that the Inq headlined “Israel To Monitor Palestinian ‘Incitement’,” with “Incitement” in quotes.  Paragraph 2 cited Israel’s “announcement” that it was going to monitor Palestinian Arab incitement, not the incitement itself, as having “further strained” the “increasingly tense” atmosphere following the breakdown in peace talks.  The Inq’s sub-headline: “Palestinians accused Netanyahu of trying to divert attention from the impasse in talks.”

(The Inq, of course, headlined the same thing in regard to Israel’s demand for Palestinian Arab ‘Jewish State’ recognition.  Inq headline 10/24/10:  “A New Stumbling Block to Mideast Peace Talks; Israel presses Palestinians to recognize ‘Jewish State.’”  “Palestinians” exist as a no-quotes fact; just “Jewish State” goes in quotes.)

Regards,
Jerry