The Tel Aviv stabbings: What the media left out
Jan 22 2015 / 6:45 pm
If Americans Knew, 1/22/15 – Yesterday in Tel Aviv, a 23-year-old Palestinian man stabbed and injured as many as 12 Israelis who were riding a public bus during morning rush hour. No deaths were reported, although three people were hospitalized with serious injuries.
U.S. mainstream media coverage of this attack painted a picture of Israeli citizens living in fear of deranged Palestinian terrorists. The media rarely mentioned that Israeli forces have maintained a 48-year military occupation that profoundly impacts and virtually imprisons 4 million Palestinian men, women, and children in the West Bank and Gaza. The media also omitted significant information on Palestinians killed and injured by Israel during the period reported on.
Below are some examples and charts:
CNN’s coverage of the incident reported details of the deaths of 10 Israelis who were killed by Palestinians last October and November. Yet CNN neglected to mention that just three days ago Israeli police killed a 47-year-old Palestinian man
The New York Times said that yesterday’s stabbings “broke a period of relative calm that followed a spate of attacks against Israelis” in recent months, perpetrated by “Palestinians armed with knives, cleavers and guns.” The Times seems to think a period is “calm” as long as no Israelis are harmed. Since October 1, 2014, at least 1,677 Palestinians (approximately
(The Times also fails to divulge that its reporters for the story, Isabel Kershner and Irit Pazner Garshowitz, are both Israeli citizens and that Kershner’s husband is a spin doctor for the Israeli military establishment.)
The Associated Press and NPR’s coverage similarly provided largely Israeli-centric context. The AP described yesterday’s attack in graphic detail, and both AP and NPR made sure to remind readers of last November’s attack on a Jerusalem synagogue that left 5 Israelis dead. They did not, however, mention recent Israeli attacks on Palestinians. Among the thousands of incidents since last October:
- Seven Israeli settlers attacked and injured two Palestinian children, ages eight and 16, while they were tending sheep near their house. The eight-year-old was injured with a knife and the teenager was beaten with a club.
- Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian boy on his way back home from a playground.
- An Israeli settler hit two Palestinian kindergarten girls with his vehicle, and one of the girls later died from her wounds. (Israelis committed 18 hit-and-runs against Palestinians in 2014.)
- Israeli forces shot a 5-year-old in the eye with a rubber-coated bullet.
- Israeli Naval forces fired live ammunition Palestinian fisherman in over two dozen incidents, requiring the hospitalization of several fisherman.
- Israeli police shot and killed a young Palestinian man during a raid on a refugee camp, and beat a man until he became unconscious.
- Israeli settlers threw a firebomb through a mosque window and sprayed graffiti on its walls.
- Israeli military forces attacked non-violent
demonstrations with tear gas and rubber bullets, and shot two demonstrators (one Palestinian, one Italian) in the chest with live bullets. - Israelis kidnapped hundreds of Palestinians each month and held them in Israeli prisons without charge.
Additionally, in the last four months, at least 260 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem were made homeless after Israel demolished their homes. Half of them were children. Approximately 110,000 homes in Gaza were destroyed during Israel’s deadly assault last summer, and 14,000 Gazans are still living in UNRWA schools. Lack of adequate shelter during winter storms and flooding has caused the deaths of three Palestinian infants, one toddler, and one adult.
Posted by Philip Giraldi on Jan 22 2015 .
Filed under Commentary & Analysis, Featured articles, Media distortion .
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