Unquestionably the biggest story to emerge out of Israel over the past week has been that of the escape of six Palestinians from a maximum-security jail (four of whom have since been recaptured). All of them were either convicted of, or awaiting trial on, terror-related charges. Five of the six were members of Iranian-backed terror organization Islamic Jihad. The other was a member of another internationally recognized terrorist group, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade.
One of the five Islamic Jihad members, Eham Kamamji, was imprisoned for his role in the kidnapping and murder of an 18-year-old Israeli. Another fugitive, Zakaria Zubeidi, was a former commander in the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade. He was imprisoned for overseeing terror attacks against Israelis during the Second Intifada, including a suicide bombing that killed an Israeli woman, as well as multiple counts of attempting to intentionally cause death, preparing explosives, membership in a terrorist group, and the selling of weapons.
Unfortunately, rather than properly depict the six as terrorists, numerous news articles failed to clearly identify them as such. Worse still, a number of media reports actually portrayed the terrorists in flattering terms.
Excising Terrorism from the Story
Numerous media reports have failed to clearly identify the men as terrorists. For example, a September 6 report on Newshour, the BBC World Service radio show, spoke of six “men,” “prisoners,” and “Palestinians” who had broken out of Gilboa Prison earlier that day.
The same phenomenon is evident in an article published by the Associated Press on September 13 about rockets from Gaza drawing an Israeli response against Hamas. The piece mentions “last week’s escape from an Israeli prison by six Palestinian inmates” in the second paragraph, and refers to “prisoners” in the fifth.
At no point is it made clear that the escapees are, in fact, terrorists.
Some of the coverage at the very least mentioned that the prisoners were part of “armed groups.” But these pieces, too, did not make clear that the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade and Islamic Jihad are internationally recognized terrorist organizations. For example, a September 7 New York Times report referred to Zubeidi only as “a 45-year-old former commander in the Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades,” which, in turn, was described simply as “loosely linked to Fatah, the secular political party that dominates Palestinian institutions in the West Bank.”
Meanwhile, a video uploaded to the various social media channels of NowThis News portrayed four of the men as imprisoned for “alleged planned attacks.”
A similar faux pas was committed by Noga Tarnopolsky of the Daily Beast, who wrote that there had been a “jailbreak of half a dozen men accused of crimes of terror.” In reality, they were not merely accused. Most of the prisoners were convicted in a court of law.
Media Glorification of Terrorists
The Associated Press’s Joseph Krauss published a deeply problematic piece romanticizing the actions of terrorist Zubeidi titled, “Theater kid turned militant stars in Israeli prison break.”
The article was republished in full by the Washington Post.
A similar sentence in another Associated Press article, reproduced by ABC News, saw fit to describe the arch-terrorist as a “famed militant leader,” one “whose exploits over the years” had made him a “well-known figure in Israel.”
Equally problematic terminology was employed by NPR, which headlined a report by Daniel Estrin as follows: “Palestinians And Israelis Are Captivated By Militants’ Escape From Israeli Jail.”
It’s hard to imagine the escape of highly dangerous prisoners anywhere else in the world being described as such.
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Serious Journalistic Failure
The serial failure to clearly identify Zakaria Zubeidi, specifically, as a former senior commander in an armed group linked to the ruling Fatah faction, and fellow escapee Eham Kamamji as the self-confessed killer of teenager Eliyahu Asheri, constitutes a grave inability to accurately report on a story that requires context in order for its gravity to be fully understood.
So does the fact that the overwhelming majority of news reports did not make evident that four of the six were serving life sentences for their horrific crimes.
Readers deserve much, much better from news agencies that are meant to convey the facts.
Featured Image: Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images
