Two paragraphs in two different stories in the media demonstrate the worst aspects of the continuing coverage of the wave of terror attacks against Israelis over the past few months.
The Guardian, in a story on the Israeli seizure of 4,000 Palestinian stone-thrower dolls includes this:
During a recent upsurge in violence between Israelis and Palestinians, both sides have accused each other of inciting violence. Since mid-September, Palestinians have killed 21 Israelis in stabbings, shootings and deliberate car crashes, while Israelis have killed 117 Palestinians, 76 of them said by Israel to be assailants.
There is an appalling moral equivalence at work here. While The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont writes that “both sides have accused each other of inciting violence,” is this really the case? Is there anything remotely equivalent or comparable on the Israeli side to the Palestinian incitement that has manifested itself in public encouragement to violence from the Palestinian leadership and social media campaigns actively promoting the murder of Jews?
As for the rest of the paragraph, for Beaumont, Palestinians are killing Israelis and Israelis are killing Palestinians. Period. Why does he not recognize the difference between Palestinian terrorism, which intends to injure and murder Israelis, and Israeli self-defense? Instead, both sides are equally morally culpable for the bloodshed.
A similar moral equivalence and ambiguity can be found in this paragraph in the International Business Times:
Tensions have continued to mount between Palestinians and Israelis as frustrations continue to grow over Israel’s occupation which is illegal under international law, with near-daily assaults taking place since 1 October 2015. The attacks have killed 117 Palestinians, 17 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean.
In the eyes of the IBT, both Palestinian terrorism against Israel and Israeli counter-measures are all simply “attacks.” This also has the added implication of categorizing Israeli actions as aggressive. This, despite the fact that only one side – the Palestinians – are actively initiating the violence.
According to the IBT’s logic, if a Palestinian assailant is shot dead in the course of what is clearly a terrorist attack, this also means that the act of Israeli self-defense is also classified as an “attack.”
In addition, the IBT blames the entire situation solely on growing frustrations “over Israel’s occupation which is illegal under international law.” Even if we put aside the inaccurate statement on the illegality of Israel’s presence in the disputed territories (there are other legal opinions that say otherwise), choosing to ignore the Palestinian incitement, hatred and religious extremism fueling the violence while blaming it on “occupation” shows a one-sided and ideological agenda behind the reporting.
Yet more evidence of the faulty framing through which some of the media is viewing the Palestinian wave of violence.
