The Guardian recently drew attention to the thorny issue of settler violence in the West Bank following the abhorrent attack on the Palestinian village of Turmus Ayya in which rampaging masked settlers torched cars and vandalized property.
The mob violence, which came less than 24 hours after four Israelis were murdered in a terror attack at a gas station and restaurant near Eli, was publicly condemned in an unprecedented joint statement from the heads of the IDF, Shin Bet and Israel Police, as well as Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
While The Guardian justifiably highlights the disturbing trend that is settler attacks, the feature about the events in Turmus Ayya last month contains factual inaccuracies and omissions that have no place in a piece of serious journalism.
The article notes the unusually high death toll this year, stating that “at least 137 Palestinians and 24 Israelis have been killed so far, mostly in IDF raids and Palestinian terrorist attacks,” but fails to go into any detail about what has prompted the surge in IDF incursions into Palestinian territories. Namely, the proliferation of new armed terror groups that have made Israeli counterterrorism activity a necessity.
In addition, the fact that the majority of dead Palestinians were claimed by terrorist groups while nearly all Israelis who were killed were civilians is absent from the piece.
Read More: The Guardian Features Gaza Journalist Who Wrote Pro-Terrorist, Antisemitic Social Media Posts
The Guardian goes on to refer to Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip as “two surprise Israeli operations” which is a clear misrepresentation of what occurred. The fact is, there is nothing “surprising” about defending Israeli citizens against the barrages of rockets fired by Islamic Jihad that preceded every single Israeli strike on the Strip.
In a piece in The @Guardian, the writers decided to leave out plenty of context.
The “raids” took place to arrest members of terror orgs.
They bury the number of Palestinians killed which were members of terror orgs/engaged in combative activities. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/1AHQzAIF84
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) July 2, 2023
However, the most egregious aspect of the piece is The Guardian’s failure to identify the sole casualty of the Turmus Ayya rampage, 27-year-old Omar Abu Qattin, as a Hamas terrorist.
Indeed, the Guardian actually quotes Qattin’s father Hisham disputing the so-called cycle of violence narrative and lamenting how Palestinians allegedly don’t have guns:
People always talk about ‘both sides’ violence, but that is not the case in Turmus Ayya. This is a quiet village,’ said Qattin’s father, Hisham, 60. ‘They have guns, but we are not allowed to have guns. We are not even allowed to throw rocks. We have nothing to protect ourselves with.'”
Apparently, Hisham was unaware of many images and videos circulating of his son toting machine guns that contradict his preposterous assertion.
The Guardian also failed to mention that Qattin was claimed by Hamas shortly after his death, with the proscribed terror group calling him its “hero martyr” — a detail one would think was too significant to omit.
So why does The Guardian frequently find it so challenging to report the full, undiluted facts?
*Update*
Omar Abu Al-Qatin was Hamas operative pic.twitter.com/0l1x9GRY7y
— Adin – עדין (@AdinHaykin1) June 25, 2023
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Photo credit: Majdi Fathi via TPS
