A Palestinian Associated Press (AP) photographer named Mahmoud Illean was injured on December 17 by Israeli border police officers as he was covering the latest weekly protests in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah/Shimon HaTzadik. Illean reportedly went home with bruises on his face and suffering from head and back pain. Israeli police stated that the incident would be investigated by the relevant authorities.
On the day the incident occurred, the AP, ABC News, and Newsweek directly called out the police for its alleged mistreatment of the photographer. The stories included condemnations from multiple organizations, details of Illean’s injuries, and his testimony as to what transpired.
However, it took the same outlets more than two days to publish even the most oblique reference to the killing of 25-year-old religious student Yehuda Dimentman and the injuries his two companions sustained in the West Bank on December 16. A Palestinian gunman stood on the side of the road and shot at the vehicle as Dimentman was driving near the northern West Bank outpost of Homesh. Dimentman, the father of a toddler, suffered a critical neck wound and was pronounced dead by medics shortly after CPR was attempted.
This deadly West Bank attack occurred before Illean’s encounter with Israeli police in Jerusalem.
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Despite the unequal nature of these incidents, the death of Yehuda Dimentman has received precious little attention relative to the coverage of Illean’s ordeal during a violent Palestinian demonstration.
Indeed, the AP’s initial acknowledgment of the fatal shooting came only as part of a broader piece titled, “Settlers attack Palestinian villages after West Bank killing.” The article opens by stating: “Jewish settlers burst into several villages in the occupied West Bank on Friday.” Only then does the Associated Press add that “the attacks came a day after Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli man in a shooting ambush in the territory.”
As such, the context offered by the AP for the Palestinian terrorist attack was part of a wider repudiation of Israeli policy — hence denying the centrality of a young father’s murder. Even more troubling, AP writer Jack Jeffery implied that Dimentman’s murder was somehow a logical conclusion of “unauthorized” settlement building:
Dimentman’s car came under fire after leaving a Jewish seminary in the outpost of Homesh, a former settlement evacuated as part of Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005. In recent years, settlers have re-established an unauthorized outpost at the site, one of dozens of outposts in the West Bank that are considered illegal but often tolerated by the Israeli government.”
Another report was subsequently published by the AP and used by ABC News two days after the shooting. Once again diminishing Dimentman’s death, the article was titled, “Israeli army arrests 4 suspects in deadly West Bank shooting.” The victim was mentioned only once, as part of a broader critique of the Jewish settlement enterprise in the West Bank: “Yehuda Dimentman, 25, was killed and two others were wounded,” the article reads, “near Homesh, which is considered illegal by the Israeli government.”
As of December 19, Newsweek, which had vociferously condemned the bruising of the photographer’s face, had not yet found it worthwhile to report on the cold-blooded killing and injury of Israeli citizens.
For the AP, ABC, and Newsweek, the death of Yehuda Dimentman was only newsworthy in so far as these prominent news organizations used the story as a foil to push the narrative of Jewish settler violence, and the Israeli government’s alleged support of this violence, as provoking a violent Palestinian response. These are all claims that HonestReporting has helped to debunk (see here, here, here, and here).
Indeed, an HonestReporting analysis of prominent Western English-language outlets shows that only a few news sites chose to directly address the terrorist attack against Dimentman and his companions instead of referring to it through coverage of subsequent events (see here, here, and here).
Mahmoud Illean’s clash with Israeli police that occurred after he had inserted himself into a highly volatile situation — in which people were rioting, making threats, and hurling chairs at police officers — is certainly worth investigating.
Yet Yehuda Dimentman did not intend to place himself in harm’s way. He was killed in cold blood on his way home by at least one Palestinian assailant in an act that can only be described as terrorism. His two companions were injured by breaking glass caused by live bullets fired with the intention to kill.
The targeting of innocent people is an unequivocal blight on humanity. In reporting on such stories, the media must be dilligent in clealry calling out such acts of terrorism wherever they occur.
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Featured Image: Shalev Shalom/TPS; Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images
