Today’s Top Stories
1. The intifada went hot, escalating from knives to guns when two Palestinians on a bus in Jerusalem’s Armon HaNatziv neighborhood began shooting and stabbing passengers, killing two this morning.
In a simultaneous attack in Jerusalem’s Geula neighborhood, a Palestinian rammed his car into a bus stop, got out of his vehicle, and began stabbing people. Rabbi Yeshayahu Krishevski, 60, was killed in that attack and was laid to rest hours later. The security camera footage isn’t pleasant to watch, but it lays bare the vileness that’s glorified by Palestinians and whitewashed by Big Media.
Details on the two attacks at the Jerusalem Post and YNet. Security officials believe the two attacks were “a planned and timed assault.” See below for more on the today’s violence.
2. Yemenite Jews were reportedly told by the government to either convert to Islam or leave the country. Israeli Druze MK Ayoub Kara is taking the threats seriously. See the Jerusalem Post and surprisingly extensive background at the Washington Post.
Around 100 Jews are believed to remain in Yemen, which is in the grip of civil war. Pro-Iranian Houthi rebels hold the capital city, Sanaa. Jews have lived in Yemen since the time of King Solomon.
3. Iran’s parliament approved the nuclear deal with world powers.
4. Media Bias Wave Continues: the latest examples of botched reporting on the wave of Palestinian terror unleashed on Israel’s citizens.
5. Wall St. Journal Alleges Terror Took Place: The Wall Street Journal produces a one-sided story that refers to Palestinian terror attacks as “allegedly” occurring.
6. The Return of Casualties as a Moral Barometer?: The numbers fail to show what’s really important – that Israel is facing a relentless wave of Palestinian terror.
7. Video: Terror in Jerusalem and the Media: Why news services making the situation worse?
Israel and the Palestinians
• Around the same time as the two Jerusalem attacks, a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli in Raanana (the city’s second terror attack of the day). Earlier in the morning, a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli outside Raanana’s city hall. The Israeli was lightly injured. The terrorist was subdued by passersby.
• Last night at the entrance to Jerusalem, a Palestinian on a bus tried to kill a soldier and steal his weapon. The terrorist was shot dead by police after grabbing one cop’s gun.
• In another attack, a Jewish man in Kiryat Ata, near Haifa, stabbed another Jewish man, believing the victim was an Arab.
• Some 20 Palestinians who breached the Gaza border fence were turned back by Israeli soldiers today.
• Arab merchants in Haifa and Acre told Haaretz the intifada is dragging down their businesses.
“You could throw a soccer ball from one side of the market to the other and not hit anyone,” the fisherman added. “Over one small thing, they’ve destroyed everything.”
• I’m glad the Wall Street Journal (via Google News) changed a skewed headline that upset people on Twitter last night. But this report filed by reporters Tamer El-Ghobashy and Nuha Musleh has other flaws.
Palestinian attacks are alleged, while the Israeli police reactions to the attackers are stated as fact. The report also gives an imbalanced amount of ink to pro-Palestinian voices like an adviser to Mahmoud Abbas, an Al-Quds U. professor, and Human Rights Watch’s Ken Roth.
• Reuters, the wire service that believes one man’s terrorist is a another man’s freedom fighter, serves up your daily dose of moral equivalency:
Four Israelis and 26 Palestinians, including eight alleged attackers and eight children, have died in 12 days of bloodshed, the worst spell of street violence for years, stirred in part by Muslim anger over increasing Jewish visits to the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem.
• Memo to Sydney Morning Herald reporter Ruth Pollard and her talking heads (Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy and officials from Human Rights Watch and Al-Haq): Regardless of your insinuations about Israel’s so-called “excessive force,” I’m not apologizing for the fact that the majority of Palestinian attacks haven’t been fatal. How many more Israeli deaths would make you feel better?
• Arab states urge Abbas to restore calm
• For more on the latest developments, see live blogging at Haaretz, and the Times of Israel.
• After Palestinians in eastern Jerusalem pelted his car with stones, UN official Mounir Kleibo not only refused to condemn the attack, he wrote on Facebook that “Allah will forgive them.” The Times of Israel adds:
A report in the Hebrew-language NRG website noted that Kleibo’s Facebook profile was overtly pro-Palestinian, despite his being a UN official.
Kleibo’s cover picture shows the dome of the al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and his profile picture is the word “Shuhada” (“Martyrdom”) on a black background.
Looks like the unexpected attention on Kleibo’s Facebook page led him to ditch the Temple Mount and martyrdom imagery for a very pretty flower assortment I’ll assume was purchased from the Hadassah En Kerem Hospital gift shop.
• Social media had its share of other breaking news of terror attacks that turned out to be false alarms. Here are 5 Tips For Sorting Through the News and Sharing Responsibly on Social Media.
Commentary/Analysis
• Bret Stephens takes on media coverage of the intifada. The Wall St. Journal editor’s critique (click via Google News) is spot on.
Left out of most of these stories is some sense of what Palestinian leaders have to say. As in these nuggets from a speech Mr. Abbas gave last month: “Al Aqsa Mosque is ours. They [Jews] have no right to defile it with their filthy feet.” And: “We bless every drop of blood spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah.” . . .
Imagine if a white minister in, say, South Carolina preached this way about African-Americans, knife and all: Would the news media be supine in reporting it? Would we get “both sides” journalism of the kind that is pro forma when it comes to Israelis and Palestinians, with lengthy pieces explaining—and implicitly justifying—the minister’s sundry grievances, his sense that his country has been stolen from him?
And would this be supplemented by the usual fake math of moral opprobrium, which is the stock-in-trade of reporters covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? In the Middle East version, a higher Palestinian death toll suggests greater Israeli culpability.
• Tweet of the day from Margie in Tel Aviv:
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– David Brinn: Intifada deja vu
– Nahum Barnea: When a wave of terror becomes a tsunami
– Avi Temkin: Stabbings aren’t economy’s worst problem – for now
– Jacob Wirtschafter: Israel’s Arab allies – No more
– Ruthie Blum: Heroism and the upside of social media
– Jonathan Tobin: Clueless about a religious war
– Cnaan Lipshiz: Can Israel benefit from sheriff Putin policing the Middle East?
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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