Picking up on the Jerusalem mufti’s call of death to the Jews last week, the Christian Science Monitor examines “religious trash talk” by Palestinians and Jews, calling it a “trend” that is “going mainstream.”
Problem is, there’s no evidence indicating that incitement has entered the Israeli mainstream. You know reporter Ben Lynfield stretches his thesis when the only example of Jewish incitement he cites is a Rabbi Ovadia Yosef sermon from more than a year ago.
Otherwise, Lynfield’s left equating Israeli “historical motifs” (such as the Prime Minister’s Biblical reference to Jacob and his sons in a UN speech) with “kill the Jews” comments by official PA clergy. That is not news.
Israeli politics has certainly moved to the right. But what the Monitor’s sexed-up spin really does is mitigate Palestinian incitement. See, the Jews do it too.
If that’s the point Lynfield really wants to make, he should say so overtly — in the op-ed section.
