#863 7/16/17 – Philly Inquirer Headline This Week: “5 Die in Shootout in Israel” [Not Exactly]

 

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG:  The Philly Inquirer Saturday ran a Washington Post news article on an Arab attack at the Lions’ Gate that murdered two Druze Israeli police officers.  The Inq headlined what the WP called a “bold attack” as a “Shootout.”  Both the WP and Inq called the Temple Mount “the Al Aqsa Mosque compound.”  This is not balanced reporting.

Philly Inquirer Headline This Week:  “5 Die In Shootout In Israel”  [Not Exactly]

The Philadelphia Inquirer (Inq) ran a Washington Post news article Saturday (Inq, 7/15/17, A4) that led:

   JERUSALEM – In a bold attack outside a site sacred to Muslims and Jews, three Israeli Arabs armed with a pistol and homemade machine guns shot and killed two Israeli police officers early Friday at the entrance to the Al Aqsa mosque compound.  [emphasis added]

The Inq headlined this article:

“5 Die in Shootout in Israel”

Relegated to a much smaller subheadline was:  “Three gunmen killed two police at a Jerusalem mosque and were shot down.”  Note that identification of the attackers as “Arab” (they were Israeli Arabs) and the victims as “Israeli” (the two murdered policemen were Israeli Druze) made neither the headline nor subhead.

One misleading headline standing alone, of course, does not establish a mindset.  But see the series of Philly Inquirer misleading “Israel Kills Palestinians” headlines cited in our recent weekly editions #857 and #859 (under “Media Watch” on our website www.factsonisrael.com).   In #857, we noted a sudden change toward balance in Inquirer headlining of Arab attacks on Israelis in February 2016, but expressed “nagging concern” whether that change toward balance will last.  Hopefully, yesterday’s revision of a “bold attack” (maybe not so “bold”; par. 11 of the Inq’s WP article cited a video that “showed one of the attackers rushing toward an Israeli Border Police officer and shooting him in the back”) into a non-blame-casting “Shootout” is not a harbinger of a return to Inq headlining of “Israel Kills Palestinians” [who were attacking Israelis].  We’ll see.

“Al Aqsa Mosque Compound”?

 A second (at least to us) troubling aspect of this Inq Washington Post article is both the Inq’s and WP’s adoption of the Muslim, in contradistinction to Christian and Jewish, name for this site that the Washington Post, in a slight to at least some Christians, called in its lede “sacred to Muslims and Jews.”

In its above-quoted lede, the WP referred to that site “sacred to Muslims and Jews” as “the Al Aqsa mosque compound.”  In paragraph 8 it called it “an ancient esplanade revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount.”

Saturday’s Inq accompanied its WP article with a wire service photo of two armed Israeli Border Police officers standing before a large green door, which the Inq captioned:

 “Israeli Border Police officers stand guard at the Al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem.  Mahmoud Illean/AP” [emphasis added]

The Times of Israel that same day carried that same photo, which it captioned:

“Israel Border Police officers stand guard at the entrance to the Temple Mount compound, Friday, July 15, 2017.  (AP/Mahmoud Illean)  [emphasis added]

I cite this to show, not what’s behind the green door, but that the very name of the holy site is contested.  Even liberal American newspapers should adhere to Western usage.

Indeed, as a kicker to all this, it appears that Saturday’s “bold attack” by three Israeli Arabs – oops, “Shootout” involving “three [unidentified] gunmen” – didn’t actually happen on the emotion-charged Temple Mount itself after all, but near it.

Inq’s WP article, par. 8:

   “Police said the assault began just after 7 a.m. close to the Lion’s Gate into the Old City near one of the entrances to the complex that holds the Al Aqsa mosque and the golden Dome of the Rock, an ancient esplanade revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount.”  [emphasis added]

Arlene Kushner, “Terror and the Temple Mount,” this morning:

“It’s being referred to as the ‘Temple Mount Attack.’  In fact, the attack itself, perpetrated by three Arabs, took place very near the Temple Mount outside the Lion’s Gate of the Old City.”

So what are we to make of all this?

Some things stick in your head.  A marked-up photo of the Temple Mount I saw awhile ago had an arrow pointing to it as the site of the First and Second Temples.  Another arrow pointed to the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque atop that site.  The caption asked: “And We’re the Occupiers?”

 That the liberal American media has, without referencing Christians, joined Muslims in rechristening this site that’s sacred “to Muslims and Jews,” known for millennia in the West as the Temple Mount, as “the Al Aqsa mosque compound” ought to concern all concerned with preserving the heritage of Western civilization.

That the Philadelphia Inquirer, in addition to calling the Temple Mount “the Al Aqsa mosque compound,” may be reverting to imbalanced headlining of Arab attacks on Israelis ought to be of particular concern to Philadelphia area supporters of Israel.  We ought not let the Inq revert to that without protest, by acquiescing through averting our eyes.