[sc:graybox ]Cherryl Smith, PhD is Professor Emerita of rhetoric and composition, California State University, Sacramento. She writes at Framing Israel.
A week into the ongoing wave of terror against Israeli Jews, it has become nearly impossible to learn from major news sources outside Israel, what is going on in Israel.
The terror wave itself is becoming invisible. Many reports minimize the hundreds of attacks against Israelis. Some suggest that attempting to stop a terrorist should be seen as the same thing as being a terrorist, or even present any Israeli defensive measures in such a way that these will be viewed as the cause of violence.
In a recent CNN report, terror against Israelis has disappeared. A video captioned “spiral of violence grips the Middle East” tells of Palestinians throwing “rocks and marbles” against “tanks and tear gas.” Israeli’s Prime Minister is described as “stern and contentious” in contrast to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who “doesn’t want the situation to escalate.”
Readers would never know that Abbas and Palestinian officials have been “waging an unprecedented campaign of incitement against Israel” in what Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh describes as “calls for murder.”
An Associated Press story purports to be a timeline of “the latest developments in ongoing tensions between Palestinians and Israelis” but these tensions usually turn out to be that a Palestinian was stopped during or after killing or trying to kill an Israeli. Like many other stories, this one leads with the “shooting and wounding” of a Palestinian and then mentions that the “motorist” was attempting run over people at checkpoint.
Similarly, BBC writes “Israeli-Palestinian Violence Spreads Over Gaza Border” which in itself is inaccurate since the Gaza government has taken credit for some of the attacks in Israel. These include what Hamas praised as “the heroic terror attack,” the murder of Eitam and Na’ama Henkin, a Tel Aviv doctoral student and his graphic designer wife shot to death in their car in front of their four children.
A separate BBC headline claiming that that “violence” is moving from Israel into Gaza has it backwards. Rockets have been fired in recent days from Gaza into Israel and violent rioters from Gaza attempted to cross into Israel. BBC’s “analysis” piece describes “a sudden and sharp escalation of violence” equating attacks on civilians with the attempt to prevent such attacks.
And as reporting on the terror wave against Israelis disappears, the terrorists are provided with a more sympathetic treatment than the Israeli victims of terror.
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The Disappearing Ongoing Terror Wave
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[sc:graybox ]Cherryl Smith, PhD is Professor Emerita of rhetoric and composition, California State University, Sacramento. She writes at Framing Israel.
A week into the ongoing wave of terror against Israeli Jews, it has become nearly impossible to learn from major news sources outside Israel, what is going on in Israel.
The terror wave itself is becoming invisible. Many reports minimize the hundreds of attacks against Israelis. Some suggest that attempting to stop a terrorist should be seen as the same thing as being a terrorist, or even present any Israeli defensive measures in such a way that these will be viewed as the cause of violence.
In a recent CNN report, terror against Israelis has disappeared. A video captioned “spiral of violence grips the Middle East” tells of Palestinians throwing “rocks and marbles” against “tanks and tear gas.” Israeli’s Prime Minister is described as “stern and contentious” in contrast to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who “doesn’t want the situation to escalate.”
Readers would never know that Abbas and Palestinian officials have been “waging an unprecedented campaign of incitement against Israel” in what Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh describes as “calls for murder.”
An Associated Press story purports to be a timeline of “the latest developments in ongoing tensions between Palestinians and Israelis” but these tensions usually turn out to be that a Palestinian was stopped during or after killing or trying to kill an Israeli. Like many other stories, this one leads with the “shooting and wounding” of a Palestinian and then mentions that the “motorist” was attempting run over people at checkpoint.
Similarly, BBC writes “Israeli-Palestinian Violence Spreads Over Gaza Border” which in itself is inaccurate since the Gaza government has taken credit for some of the attacks in Israel. These include what Hamas praised as “the heroic terror attack,” the murder of Eitam and Na’ama Henkin, a Tel Aviv doctoral student and his graphic designer wife shot to death in their car in front of their four children.
A separate BBC headline claiming that that “violence” is moving from Israel into Gaza has it backwards. Rockets have been fired in recent days from Gaza into Israel and violent rioters from Gaza attempted to cross into Israel. BBC’s “analysis” piece describes “a sudden and sharp escalation of violence” equating attacks on civilians with the attempt to prevent such attacks.
And as reporting on the terror wave against Israelis disappears, the terrorists are provided with a more sympathetic treatment than the Israeli victims of terror.
Before you comment on this article, please remind yourself of our Comments Policy. Any comments deemed to be in breach of the policy will be removed at the editor’s discretion.
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