One is liable after perusing the latest news coverage of ongoing Palestinian riots in Jerusalem to come away with the impression that a yearly event commemorating Israel’s reunification of the holy city in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War is somehow to blame for turmoil that began some two weeks ago.
Indeed, media are painting the annual Jerusalem Day parade — whose diverse participants make their way through the city’s downtown area and eventually to the Western Wall — as an affront to the Palestinians, who claim the eastern part of what Israel considers its undivided capital.
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Media’s Double Standard Amounts to Antisemitism
Granted, a sub-element of Jewish youth partaking in the part of the march known as the “Dance of the Flags” have in past years expressed anti-Arab sentiment and engaged in clashes with Palestinians, generally in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. The extremists who perpetrated such deplorable acts were held to account by Israeli security personnel.
Moreover, taking into account the current situation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the last moment reportedly ordered the “Dance of the Flags” redirected from flashpoint areas.
However, the prevailing media narrative ignores the fact that tens of thousands of Palestinians are currently setting Jerusalem ablaze, a situation that escalated significantly when the Palestinians on May 7 marked Quds [Arabic for ‘Jerusalem’] Day. Held yearly on the last Friday of Ramadan, it was initiated in 1979 by the Islamic Republic of Iran; that is, the country whose leaders regularly call for Israel’s destruction.
Instead, the media are perfectly comfortable labeling such wanton acts of violence and destruction as ‘protests.’
Few, if any, news outlets made the connection between Quds Day and the major uptick in violence that erupted on it. Nor was the fact that Palestinian violence almost always increases during Ramadan deemed newsworthy. The media have also been remiss when it comes to the fact that on May 15 Palestinians will commemorate Nakba Day, an annual occasion marking the “disaster” of Israel’s rebirth in 1948, and which almost always descends into violent protests in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem.
Media are thus holding Israelis to a double standard, a form of antisemitism according to the widely adopted — including by governments worldwide — IHRA definition of Jew-hatred.
Reporting Fake News: Jerusalem Day a ‘Nationalist March’
This is how the Associated Press, whose article was republished by, among other outlets, ABC News, described Jerusalem Day:
Israeli police faced off with Palestinian protesters Sunday in another night of clashes in east Jerusalem, a day before Israeli nationalists planned to parade through the Old City in an annual flag-waving display meant to cement Israeli claims to the contested area.
Now to the facts: Jerusalem Day (Yom Yerushalayim) is a national holiday in Israel defined by gatherings, state ceremonies and memorial services for those killed in a defensive war in which Israel acquired the West Bank from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. Yom Yerushalayim activities range from performances by Israel’s best-known artists to family hikes, standup comedy sets and poetry readings. One of the highlights is the large parade through Jerusalem.
Nevertheless, media are focusing almost exclusively on the contentious part of the holiday, with NPR, for example, intimating that Jerusalem Day is merely a cover for “Israeli ultra-nationalists” to incite violence.
Media Fail to Report: Quds Day, Nakba Day
There is no justification for any form of racism. However, there is a problem with portraying Israeli claims to Jerusalem as an “aggression,” as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas described it, while the Palestinians are given a pass for perpetrating acts of violence on “holidays” geared towards erasing the Jewish presence not only in the holy city but everywhere in Israel.
Indeed, Quds Day was inaugurated by Ayatollah Khomeini following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran as a means of protesting Israel’s very existence. Not surprisingly, the occasion provides an opportunity for peoples across the world to attack the legitimacy of the Jewish state. Case in point: this year, Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei called Israel “not a country, but a terrorist base,” adding that its downfall was imminent.
Thereafter, rockets started being fired from Gaza, which is ruled by the Hamas terrorist group that, along with Islamic Jihad, is backed by Tehran.
Again, news organizations could not bring themselves — or were simply too ignorant — to connect the dots.
Related Reading: The Iran Regime’s Incitement to Destroy Israel
HonestReporting used advanced software to compare and contrast the frequency between April 27 and May 10 of news coverage of Jerusalem Day and Quds Day. The latter was reported on a total of five times by the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CNN, ABC, NBC, MSNBC and CBS.
By contrast, Jerusalem Day was reported on 230 times… and counting.
Also off the media’s radar is Nakba Day, to be marked this year on May 15 by Palestinians and used as a platform to incite violence against Israel. In 2019, the Israel Defense Forces said that some 10,000 Palestinians gathered on Catastrophe Day at several locations along the Gaza border, burned tires, and threw explosive devices at troops. According to HonestReporting’s findings, Nakba Day appeared only 17 times.
Related Reading: Deal With It, Jerusalem Is Israel’s Capital
Media’s Distortion of Palestinian Incitement Has Dire Consequences for Israel
This weekend, thousands of Muslim worshippers chanted violent slogans while rioting on the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site and also the location of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest place. But major news organizations have seemed less interested in conducting basic research in order to provide readers with crucial context than they are in depicting Israeli security forces — and, by extension, Israeli society — as hate-filled “ultra-nationalists.”
While there will always be fringe Jews who harbor deplorable views, any racist speech or violent acts directed towards Palestinians have resulted in Israeli politicians of virtually every political stripe quickly issuing unambiguous statements of condemnation.
The same cannot be said of the comments emanating from Ramallah and Gaza City.
But media are failing to address this fundamental discrepancy. As a result, Israel is again being placed in the docket, a scenario exacerbated by an insidious international attempt to draw a non-existent moral equivalency between those rioting in the tens of thousands and those trying to contain them.
Featured Image: Photo by Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images.
