UPDATE: After we contacted editors, the International Business Times removed the article.
This story has been unpublished because it did not meet International Business Times standards.
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It’s rare that a mainstream media outlet publishes something so utterly ridiculous that it defies all the known laws of professional journalism. The International Business Times, however, has managed it in spades.
Its story contains outrageous Palestinian lies and propaganda sourced from terrorist and hate sites that should never see the light of day in the mainstream media.
According to the IBT:
The Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, witnessed the highest number of Israeli raids in 2016 since East Jerusalem was occupied by Israel 50 years ago, according to a Palestinian news agency that cited Israeli statistics released Sunday.
The figures depict a steep increase in the number of raids by Jewish settlers and extremists — over 250 percent in the past seven years. While 5,658 Israelis reportedly raided the mosque in 2009, the number for 2016 is more than 14,000, according to the Days of Palestine, who cited Safa news agency. However, the statistics note the numbers don’t include raids conducted by Jewish students and Israeli security services.
It appears that any Jews and even tourists visiting the Temple Mount are classified as raiders intent on harming the Al-Aqsa mosque. And this doesn’t even include all those rampaging Jewish students!
Throughout the article, Palestinian organizations are quoted, referring to “incursions,” “raids” and “storming the Al-Aqsa mosque.”
The IBT even went to the trouble to produce a dedicated graphic like this to illustrate its bogus statistics:
The journalist gets his information from a range of sources and links to sites including:
- Terrorist organization Hezbollah’s Al-Manar website
- Iranian government propaganda outfit Press TV
- Anti-Israel hate site Middle East Monitor (MEMO)
The primary source is the “Days of Palestine” website, which, in case you were wondering whether it is a credible source, states in its About Us page:
Members of the board of this platform believe in the right of Palestinians to live freely and with full sovereignty in their own homeland –Palestine. They believe that Zionism is an occupying power that enabled Zionist Jews to occupy Palestine with the help of world powers, including the UK, UN, USA and other western and Arab regimes.
There is no way that this article can be corrected and it is demeaning to even treat its content with any ounce of credibility. It simply has to be removed in its entirety.
HR Managing Editor Simon Plosker adds:
It is an absolute disgrace to journalism that this piece of blatant Palestinian propaganda and outright lies has found its way into a supposedly mainstream media outlet. The IBT should be ashamed to publish such garbage lifted directly from terrorist and hate sites and should take it down immediately.
