To: Brith Sholom Media Watch Subscribers
From: Jerry Verlin, Editor (jverlin1234@verizon.net)
Subj: Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #781, 12/20/15
WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: Our Philly Inquirer (Inq) ran two articles this week on the now 3-month Palestinian Arab campaign of knifing and car-ramming Israelis. On Tuesday, the Inq ran only the first three sentences, as an ‘Around the World’ news-in-brief squib, of the AP’s 21-sentence article on Abbas calling the Palestinian Arab attack wave “justified.” On Thursday, the Inq ran a full article, 5-times Tuesday’s article’s length, on the Israeli group B’Tselem accusing Israel of using “excessive” force. PA leader Abbas’ position-changing statement was the more newsworthy by far.
The Inq adorned Thursday’s article with an Inq-captioned November photo of Israeli security forces examining the wrecked car “of a Palestinian woman, 73, whom they killed.” There was a lot more to the story than made the Inq’s photo caption.
This Week In The Inq: Which Got 5 Times as Much Space? Abbas Calling Stabbing Attacks On Israelis “Justified,” or “Rights” Group B’Tselem Calling Israeli Response “Excessive and Unwarranted” Force?
Our hometown Philadelphia Inquirer ran two articles this week in the Inq on Palestinian Arabs’ three-month campaign of stabbing and car-ramming attacks on Israelis.
One (AP in Inq, Tuesday, 12/15/15, A6, “West Bank: Abbas Calls Attacks on Israelis Justified”) was on the world-recognized leader of the Palestinian Arabs, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, calling the Palestinian Arabs’ stabbing and car-ramming campaign “justified.”
The other (AP in Inq, Thursday, 12/17/15, A11, “Rights Group Accuses Israel of Excessive Force”) was on the Israeli “rights” group B’Tselem accusing “Israeli security forces of using ‘excessive and unwarranted’ force in the killing of some Palestinians who attacked or were suspected of attacking Israelis during the current wave of violence.”
The Inq’s imbalanced reporting here reaches down to multiple levels.
[a] Comparative importance of speakers: Incontrovertibly, the statement of the world-recognized, elected leader of the Palestinian Arabs that Palestinian Arabs’ deadly knifing and car-ramming attacks on Israelis are “justified” is at least as newsworthy as that of an unofficial left-wing Israeli group that Israel’s response to some of those attacks used “excessive” force. Yet the headline and text of Tuesday’s Inq’s AP Abbas article got just 5 sq. inches of space in the Inq, just three sentences [all right, none of which called Abbas “moderate”], whereas that of Thursday’s Inq’s AP B’Tselem article got 27 sq. inches, 14 sentences, this week in the Inq.
[b] Neither of the Inq’s two articles’ headlines or one sub-head gave Inq readers the Israeli view: All right, the Inq’s headline to Tuesday’s 3-sentence ‘Around the World’ Abbas squib, “Abbas Calls Attacks on Israelis Justified,” said what was said on that point in the article. But Thursday’s Inq’s B’Tselem article included three paragraphs, albeit the last 3 of 11, quoting Israeli officials defending Israel. Instead of appending to its “Rights Group Accuses Israel of Excessive Force” headline the headline-thrust-reiterating sub-head “B’Tselem says Palestinian assailants were summarily killed instead of being arrested,” the Inq, to show readers both sides, should have sub-headlined Thursday “Israelis say American and European police would have used the same force.”
[c] There was more to Tuesday’s AP article than the Inq printed: On Monday, 12/14/15, the Miami Herald ran an AP article the first three sentences of which were verbatim the same as the Inq’s AP article Tuesday. But, in the Miami Herald, that AP article went on for a further 18 sentences. These included: “Israeli leaders have accused Abbas and other Palestinian leaders of inciting the violence with incendiary rhetoric.”
They also included an AP assessment that Abbas’ “justified” statement marked a substantive change in that leader’s stated position: “Abbas has previously refrained from either endorsing or condemning the attacks, often referring to the wave of violence as understandable but not in the best interests of the Palestinian people.”
And there was something else in Tuesday’s article’s first three sentences that the Inq printed that merited more than an ‘Around the World’ squib in the Inq. Sentence 2: “Abbas’s comments came as a new poll shows widespread Palestinian support for ongoing attacks on Israelis.”
Also This Week In The Inq: Inq Photo Caption: “In November, Israeli security forces examined the car of a Palestinian woman, 73, whom they killed” [once again, there’s more to the story]
Although our hometown Inq couldn’t find headline space Thursday for offering readers the Israeli response, quoted in its article’s text, for Israel’s response to B’Tselem’s accusations against it, the Inq did find space to embed in that article a photo of a damaged car with the Inq’s caption:
In November, Israeli security forces examined the car of a Palestinian woman, 73, whom they killed.
Like last week (see BSMW #780), when our Inq ran an October file photo that it captioned as picturing an “East” Jerusalem building that “was taken over by settlers” after “Palestinian families were evicted,” there’s more to the story. Last week, that “more to the story” was that the building had originally been a Yemenite Jewish synagogue from which Jews had been driven in the 1929 Arab riots in Jerusalem; that the Inq-captioned Arabs’ eviction had not been sudden and arbitrary, but had come at the end of 7-years’ litigation in which the Arabs participated; and that the Arabs had been offered substantial compensation, which some of them had accepted and left willingly.
Now, this week’s Inq’s photo caption of the 73-year-old-woman killed by Israeli security forces:
The internet at the time was peppered with stuff like “Israeli army guns down 73 year old Palestinian woman . . . Israel Murders Palestinian Granny On Her Way to Lunch,” but if you wade past all these you’ll come at length to Elder of Ziyon’s posting on November 17:
An Arabic website [link], however, leaves no doubt about Tharwat’s [the 73-year-old Arab woman’s] intentions.
The article says that two weeks before her death, Tharwat al-Sha’rawi wrote a will and spoke with her daughter Ihlam, saying “I think I am going to die soon… If I die, oh, Allah, let me die as a shaheeda and not in my bed.”
The Meir Amit Center adds that her daughter is married to a jailed Hamas member – and Hamas issued a “martyr” poster for her!
[poster in Arabic with photo pictured]
Hamas doesn’t do this for people who are not fighters.
So, yes, old Palestinian women are as susceptible to the same mass brainwashing that makes teens want to risk their lives for the chance to kill a Jew.
So chalk up another less than balanced Inq file photo caption this week in the inq.
Regards,
Jerry