Is it anti-Jewish to take hostage worshippers at a synagogue with the goal of getting a notoriously antisemitic terrorist released from prison? For The New York Times and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the answer is less than an unequivocal ‘yes.’
Despite recent developments, the two outlets have not accurately detailed the nature of Saturday’s attack at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. As a result, millions of people around the world may doubt that holding Jews captive in a Jewish house of prayer is “not specifically related to the Jewish community.”
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FBI: Attack ‘Specifically Focused on One Issue’
Many news organizations cited in their coverage of the event a statement by Matthew Desarno, special agent in charge of FBI Dallas, who at a news conference suggested that the hostage-taker was “specifically focused on one issue.”
Desrano was referring to Malik Faisal Akram’s demand that Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani national sentenced to 86 years in prison for the attempted murder of American personnel in Afghanistan, be immediately released. Siddiqui, dubbed “Lady Al Qaeda“, wrote that Jews “have always back-stabbed everyone who has taken pity on them and made the ‘fatal’ error of giving them shelter.”
During her trial, she told the presiding judge that she did not want any Jewish people in the jury “if they have a Zionist or Israeli background,” adding that “everyone here is [Israeli], subject to genetic testing.” Shortly after her conviction, Siddiqui declared: “This is a verdict coming from Israel and not from America. That’s where the anger belongs.”
For his part, the perpetrator of Saturday’s attack, Malik Faisal Akram, forced the Texas synagogue’s rabbi to call Manhattan’s Central Synagogue, a law enforcement source told The New York Post. Akram demanded to speak to leading Reform Rabbi Angela Buchdahl so she could use her “influence” to help get Siddiqui freed. According to President Joe Biden, Akram furthermore made “antisemitic and anti-Israeli comments” throughout the standoff.
News sites ran with Desarno’s comments, prompting similar headlines in the Associated Press, the BBC, and other publications.
Desarno’s remarks ignited a social media firestorm:
Hey @AP… fix your headlines. Are you kidding me? In big bold writing, you declare “FBI: Hostage taker was not focused on Jewish community” Why do you *think* he chose a SYNAGOGUE as his target exactly?🙄🤬https://t.co/PC0nRLlOdE
— 🟣S.L. Frostishook ☃️ (@Stpolishook) January 16, 2022
I am sure the FBI will clean this up shortly, but until then, worth stating the obvious: The gunman did not travel thousands of miles to terrorize some Mormons. He sought out a synagogue and took it hostage over his grievances. That’s targeting Jews, and there’s a word for that. https://t.co/UaVVYR36It
— Yair Rosenberg (@Yair_Rosenberg) January 16, 2022
Additional facts? Were they waiting for dead Jews in a Synagogue to opine if antisemitism was a motivating factor in #Colleyville? https://t.co/U5vl462nN4
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) January 17, 2022
FBI Changes Course: ‘Jewish Community Was Targeted’
In a statement released on Sunday, the FBI walked back Desarno’s claim.
“This is a terrorism-related matter, in which the Jewish community was targeted, and is being investigated by the Joint Terrorism Task Force,” the bureau said, adding that “preventing acts of terrorism and violence is the number one priority of the FBI.”
In response, many news outlets that had included the earlier “not connected to Jewish community” assertion updated their reporting (for example, see NBC, ABC and the AP’s coverage).
Two notable exceptions to this praiseworthy example of journalistic due diligence have been the New York Times and the British Broadcasting Corporation.
As reported on by HonestReporting in 2021, the Times ignored the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) annual summary that found antisemitic incidents to have remained at historic high levels across the United States in 2020. This lack of interest from one of the world’s most widely read news organizations is especially curious since the ADL’s Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents was reported on by local news media.
Related Reading: New York Times Ignores Historic Rates of US Antisemitism While Pushing Israel ‘Apartheid’ Canard
And with regards to the BBC, this is the latest in a series of events that together raise serious questions about the BBC’s impartiality regarding Israel and the Jewish people. Last year, HonestReporting helped expose the antisemitic tweets of reporter Tala Halawa. After an HonestReporting tweet went viral, the issue received widespread media coverage, and the BBC eventually fired Halawa a few weeks later.
Another HonestReporting investigation thereafter uncovered numerous antisemitic social posts by a different BBC employee, Nasima Begum.
As part of HonestReporting’s mission to rebuild trust in media, we have reached out to the New York Times and the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Our request is simple: To make clear that the evidence underpinning the FBI’s investigation into a hostage incident that garnered global attention shows that it was indeed an antisemitic attack.
(Akiva Van Koningsveld contributed to this report)
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