When the media doesn’t dare say “Jewish terrorism,” is it any wonder that it thrives?
The narratives in the Israeli media on this issue are no different from those representatives of Jewish terrorism in the Israeli government. For both of them, there is no such thing as Jewish terrorism, only pastoral depictions of “hilltop youths” caught up in “friction events” in which Palestinians sought and found their deaths. Not terrorists, murder and terror. These are things that Jews don’t do.
By Sebastian Ben-Daniel (John Brown) • [Translated by Sol Salbe]
In Israel, everything is viewed as terrorism: when LGBTI+ people demand equality it is “LGBTI+ terrorism”, when Palestinians demand international protection, it is “legal terrorism”, when they demand condemnation of Apartheid it is “diplomatic terrorism”, when demonstrators against the Judicial Coup remove money from Israel it is “economic terrorism” and if they block a road, it is “transport terrorism”. Actually, not everything. Almost everything. What is not defined as terrorism? When terrorists from an illegal outpost, armed with military weapons, invade a Palestinian village whose residents are forbidden to possess weapons, set cars on fire and shoot a 19-year-old youth to death. That is not terrorism.
Thus according to the Maariv newspaper, what happened was “an incident of friction between settlers and Palestinians.” It’s unclear whether this is a description of a terrorist attack or an intercultural sexual orgy. According to Reshet 13, there was “a shooting incident near Ramallah: two Israelis have been detained for interrogation”. Keshet 12 reported “A Palestinian death in clashes near Burqah: two Israelis detained for interrogation on suspicion of involvement.” The Walla website described “severe clashes” that “developed between settlers from the illegal outpost of Oz Zion and Palestinians.” They added that the Palestinian was “allegedly” shot by settlers, they did not want to make assumptions. When it comes to Israel Hayom, don’t hold your breath: “Tensions in Judea and Samaria: Palestinian shot dead during clashes with settlers,” and Ynet warned that “deadly confrontation near Ramallah: 2 Israelis arrested, the defence establishment is preparing for revenge attacks,” meaning that the confrontation, which is not an attack, may cause an attack, but what is the difference between the confrontation and the attack? Only the ethnic identity of those who carry it out. “Friction incident”, “confrontation”, “shooting incident”, “dead Palestinian”. Not a terrorist attack, not terrorism, we don’t know who fired the shot. Maybe God decided that on this Shabbat there is no rest from work and came down to murder a Palestinian, who knows?
In a country whose media outlets often complain about biased coverage of terrorism against its citizens in the international media, when in fact it is usually dry reporting, these headlines are strange. Perhaps the extreme caution in the initial reporting could have been attributed to a high journalistic standard aspiring to the Sokolov Prize [Isarael’s Walkley/Pulitzer], but it can be safely determined that this is not the case. The Israeli situation quickly provided a counter example. There was a case to compare it with: a shooting attack in the Nahalat Binyamin neighbourhood in Tel Aviv, which from the outset was regarded and reported as a terrorist attack. The reports became a caricature when the news flashes and bulletins reported on the terrorist attack in Tel Aviv (because a Palestinian did the shooting) and in the same breath spoke about the “confrontation in Burqah” (because a Jew did the shooting). They also managed to ignore the obvious link between the two in questions to their interviewees.
And yet another case for comparison: two weeks ago, two Palestinians, Fawzi Hani Makhalfa, 18, and Mohammad Mkhaimer, were driving their car near Sebastia and were sprayed with forty bullets by IDF soldiers. Israel Hayom reported, “Terrorists tried to run over soldiers near Sebastia and were neutralised.” Kan reported “attempted terrorist attack with a vehicle in Samaria: soldiers responded with gunfire — one terrorist was neutralised and the other was arrested.” All indications are that the soldiers who sprayed Hani to death actually killed an innocent man. None of the reports were attributed to the IDF, although they did not check the facts themselves, and did not report that the passenger, Mohammad, was released immediately, which would not have happened had it been a terrorist attack. In an interview, he said that the officer who spoke to him after he realised that it was not a terrorist attack told him, “Oops.”.
Two days earlier, a similar incident occurred near Jenin, when Suheib Kilani and his cousin Mohammed Kilani were traveling when they were ambushed by IDF soldiers. They were seriously injured and taken to hospital, but they were not arrested either. Anyone familiar with the West Bank knows that many times when “vehicular attacks” involving more than one person in a car are reported, it is a lie intended to whitewash the shooting of innocent people. Nevertheless, no media outlets hesitated to call those who were shot “terrorists” and parrot the IDF Spokesperson.
Thus, almost every time innocent people are killed by pinpoint fire by IDF soldiers, the media coverage of their version remains unequivocal. When an officer in the Kfir Brigade stood on a bridge and shot and killed a boy returning from a visit to the swimming pool, Ynet wrote: “IDF eliminated a .terrorist who threw Molotov cocktails on Route 443,” Channel 12 News wrote: “Route 443: 3 injured by stones, terrorist eliminated.” After it became clear that this was an execution of an innocent person, I then asked the spokesperson for Channel 12 News about the report, and he claimed that it was acceptable practice and that their reporter “reported verbatim what he was told.” Only he did not offer it as a verbatim quote, and that naturally the initial reports were erroneous. It should be noted that mistakes happen in one direction only.
Even convicted terrorists like Amiram Ben Uliel, who was convicted of burning the Dawabsheh family to death, are not referred to in the Israeli media as “terrorists.” An Internet search of the phrase “Ben Uliel” and “terrorist” returns only absurd headlines such as “Rabbi Eliyahu: Ben Uliel’s prison conditions are harsher than that of terrorists” without mentioning that he himself is one.
The narratives in the Israeli media on this issue are no different from those representatives of Jewish terrorism in the Israeli government. For both of them, there is no such thing as Jewish terrorism, only pastoral depictions of “hilltop youths” caught up in “friction events” in which Palestinians sought and found their deaths. Not terrorists, murder and terror. These are things that Jews don’t do.
When this is the prevailing discourse, it is no wonder that a Supreme Court Judge like Noam Solberg [ can issue a racist ruling such as the ruling that the homes of Arabs terrorist must be demolished but not those of Jewish terrorists. Because among Jews, according to Solberg, such incidents receive “wall-to-wall” condemnation, and they are not accorded public legitimacy. This is despite the fact that in the national-religious community, which is a relatively small community from which an absolute majority of the Jewish terrorists and Justice Solberg himself emerge, this is certainly not true, certainly not the wall-to-wall bit. The terrorists there are newspaper editors, they are the heads of the Amana movement, they are rabbis on rabbinical councils, they are Knesset members and ministers, and in the case the other day one of the two detainees is a former spokesperson for a Knesset member. The father of the terrorist Ben Uliel is the rabbi of the Carmei Tzur settlement. Being a family of terrorists did not earn him deportation, nor did he lose his position or public funding. Once again, the terrorists who carried out the attack in the village of Burqah and shot dead Qusai Matan receive wall to wall backing, not condemnation.
The deliberate disregard of the settlers action, more than 96 per cent of the files of Palestinian complaint against them closed without indictment, and the false narratives in cases in which innocent Palestinians are murdered by IDF fire or settlers or both, have left most of the Israeli public unaware of what is happening in the West Bank. It gets a pre-masticated version, with partial facts, and full of use of new speak in which the perpetrators are always the victim. This ignorance makes the community an involuntary accomplice to these crimes.
