#768 Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert

To:       Brith Sholom Media Watch Subscribers
From:   Jerry Verlin, Editor  (jverlin1234@verizon.net)
Subj:    Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #768, 9/20/15

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: Headlines about trauma to ordinary people emotionally impact headline readers.  This week the Inq headlined a Palestinian Arab hunger-striker across the whole page, but ignored a Jew murdered by Arabs on Rosh Hashanah in Jerusalem amid High Holiday Arab attacks on Israel’s Jews.  And our Inq incredibly ignored Abbas fueling the flames with incendiary remarks on Jews defiling the Temple Mount with their ‘filthy feet.’ 

This Week NOT In The Inq:  What’s Actually Going On There

#1 – Compare: Arab Hunger-striker headlined, Jew Murdered By Arabs On Rosh Hashanah in Jerusalem Not

A Jewish man driving home with his two daughters from a Rosh Hashanah dinner this past Sunday night was murdered, and his daughters injured, by people hurling rocks at his car.   This didn’t happen in some God-forsaken (so to speak) place where Jews are a preyed-upon persecuted tiny minority.  This happened in Jerusalem.

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations’ Daily Alert Wednesday (there were none on Monday or Tuesday because of the High Holidays) excerpted a Times of Israel-Jerusalem Post article it headlined accurately:

“Rock-Throwing Palestinians Murder Israeli in Jerusalem on Rosh Hashanah”

This was no anomaly.  This excerpt cited such rock throwing as “endemic” in some Jerusalem neighborhoods.  Columnist Jonathan Tobin, excerpted in Thursday’s Daily Alert, called it “routine.”

The Inq’s AP article Tuesday (9/15/15, A2) mentioned in paragraph 1 “an Israeli died after rocks were thrown at his car” and again in paragraph 3 that he “died and two passengers were hurt after attackers pelted their car with rocks in Jerusalem.”  And the Inq’s photo caption included “a 64-year-old man died after rocks were thrown at his car.”  But “died … died … died” doesn’t pack the impact of the accurate “murdered.”  But worse, the Inq’s headline focused, not on rock-throwing Arabs murdering a Jew on the High Holidays in Jerusalem, but on Israeli leaders consulting on the spate of Palestinian Arab violence:

“Israeli Leaders To Consult Over Spate of Palestinian Violence.”

And the Inq’s photo was not of the murder scene but a head shot of Bibi.

Where the Inq did choose to focus its headline this week on an individual affected by the conflict between Arabs and Jews was Thursday (9/17/15, A3), where it headlined across the page, 5-columns-wide:

“Palestinian Resumes Hunger Strike After His Rearrest”

Most people don’t read past most news articles’ headlines, and are impacted most viscerally by headlines of trauma to ordinary people like them.  What Inq headline readers got a taste of this week was a Palestinian Arab in Israeli custody deciding to go on a hunger strike ABSENT any sense of a murderous attack this week by Arabs on a Jerusalem Jew.

#2 – Incredibly, NOT This Week In the Inq:  His Moderateness Not Sounding So Moderate

Wednesday’s Jerusalem Post directly quoted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas speaking that day to Jerusalem Arabs:

“Al-Aksa is ours and so is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  They [Israelis] have no right to desecrate them with their filthy feet.  We won’t allow them to do so and we will do whatever we can to defend Jerusalem,” Abbas said in his Ramallah office during a meeting with east Jerusalem activists.

The Jerusalem Post’s article went on:

He praised Muslim male and female worshipers whose job it is to harass Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount.

Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N. cited this to the U.N. on Thursday:

This past Sunday, as Jews around the world prepared to celebrate the Jewish New Year, Palestinian terrorists once again used the holiday season to instigate riots on the Temple Mount and to launch terror attacks, which led to the murder of an Israeli citizen, Alexander Lebelovitch.  Instead of condemning these acts, Mahmoud Abbas has chosen, once again, to fuel the fire in the most shameful manner …. Only yesterday, he declared: ‘We cannot allow the filthy feet of the Jews to desecrate Al-Aqsa.’  This rhetoric is obscene and dangerous.”

No report of this appeared in our hometown Inq that habitually obsesses over reporting on Israel, and tells readers Netanyahu is “hard-line” and Abbas “moderate.”

What the Inq DID headline this week was

***  “Clash at Jerusalem Holy Site”  (Mon, 9/14/15, AP, A13, not saying who started  the “clash,” and calling the Palestinian Arab rioters “protestors”)  [emphasis added throughout]

***  “Israeli Leaders To Consult Over Spate of Palestinian Violence” (Tue, 9/15/15, AP, A2, saying “violence broke out at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site”)

***  “Israel: Protestors and Police Battle” (Wed, 9/16/15, A6, news-in-brief squib, “Israeli police clashed with Palestinian protestors….”)

***  “Palestinian Resumes Hunger Strike After His Arrest” (Thu, 9/17/15, A3, across-the-page headline spread over 5 columns)

***  “Israel: Police Reservists Called Up” (Sat, 9/19/15, A4, news-in-brief squib: “Violence between Palestinian protestors and Israeli security forces spread …. Two Palestinians were shot and wounded while throwing firebombs at Rachel’s tomb”)

What the Inq SHOULD HAVE headlined was

***  Rock-Throwing Palestinians Murder Israeli in Jerusalem on Rosh Hashanah

***  Abbas Claims Holy Sepulchre ‘Ours,’ Says of Temple Mount: ‘We Cannot Allow the Filthy Feet of the Jews to Desecrate Al-Aqsa”

Don’t you think?

Regards,
Jerry