Dear HonestReporting Subscriber,
On Monday, an Islamic Jihad homicide bomber killed a 65-year-old Israeli woman by detonating himself in the kitchen of her home in Moshav Kfar Yavetz.
The Associated Press report of the attack contained a curious definition of Kfar Yavetz’s location: Headlined “West Bank House Hit by Apparent Bomb,” the report then shifts the location to “an Israeli village near the West Bank.” 
Where exactly is Kfar Yavetz? As illustrated on this map, the village is a mile and a half from the Green Line, on the Israeli side:
Is this “near the West Bank”? Yes, but it’s also right near Kfar Saba and Netanya. The fact is, approximately 60% of the Israeli populace lives “near the West Bank” — within just 11 miles of the Green Line.
The New York Times article on the attack illustrates this precisely: “A powerful explosion tore apart an Israeli home near the West Bank,” the Times reports, adding “[t]he blast occurred in the village of Kfar Yavetz, in central Israel.” Note the Times refers to Kfar Yavetz as both “near the West Bank” and “in central Israel”! ABC even headlined their report “Two dead in blast outside Tel Aviv.”
By calling Kfar Yavetz only “near the West Bank,” the Associated Press situates the event within the region they have already deemed controversial, lessening the brutality of the terror attack against an Israeli citizen in her own home. Having accepted the terrorists’ twisted claim that the murder of West Bank Israelis is somehow “more justified,” the media now expand that supposed justification by referring to central Israeli towns as “near the West Bank.” Apparently, even the AP’s headline writer was misled by the article’s terminology, which led him to draft the erroneous headline “West Bank House Hit by Apparent Bomb.”
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Never was this problem clearer than on June 17, when ABC’s Peter Jennings reported the murder of 7-year old Noam Leibowitz on World News Tonight: “In the Middle East tonight, a young Israeli girl was killed after someone fired on the car she and her family were in near the border between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.”
Catch Jennings’ thinly-veiled justification for Noam’s murder: Since it occurred “near” the “Palestinian territories” that are “occupied,” the ABC viewer can almost understand why “someone” would lash out in frustration.
The close proximity of Palestinian terror hubs to Israeli cites lies at the heart of Israeli security concerns. One could jog from the West Bank to the Mediterranean Sea in little over an hour. Benjamin Netanyahu communicates this point to foreign diplomats by taking them on a helicopter ride from Tel Aviv, flying east toward the West Bank. After a few short minutes, Netanyahu turns to his guest and says: “I’ll let you know when we’ve crossed into the West Bank…We already did.”
By referring to Israeli towns victimized by terror as merely “near the West Bank,” Associated Press and ABC News not only fail to acknowledge this fundamental Israeli security issue, but also propose a justification for cold-blooded terrorist murder.
Comments to Associated Press: [email protected]
Comments to ABC News: click here for online form
HonestReporting encourages subscribers to monitor their local media for use of the term “near the West Bank” to describe the dwelling place of over half the Israeli populace.
Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media bias.
HonestReporting.com
