Palestinian lives don't matter to US media
Rania Khalek Media Watch 9 October 2015
A schoolgirl was arrested by Israeli soldiers this week as the US media
ignored abuses of Palestinian rights.
Muhesen Amren APA images
As Israel ramps up its deadly attacks on Palestinians, mainstream US media
outlets are actively concealing the alarming displays of genocidal racism
emanating from Israeli Jewish society.
Violence against Palestinians is nothing new. Israel's ongoing colonial
project requires enormous levels of brutality against Palestinians. But this
daily reality is only newsworthy when it blows back against Israeli Jews,
which has been the case during the last week with a number of violent
incidents against Israeli settlers.
Every unsavory act allegedly committed by a Palestinian since the drive-by
shooting of an Israeli settler couple last Thursday has garnered major
headlines. During the same time period, Israeli settlers and soldiers have
terrorized Palestinians across the occupied West Bank in attacks that have
injured nearly 1,000 Palestinians, including at least 66 people with live
rounds.
Yet these acts of systematic violence have barely registered as an
afterthought in establishment press reports, sending a very clear and
chilling message. Palestinian lives, it seems, have no value until Israeli
Jewish lives are affected.
Meanwhile, incitement to murder by Israeli leaders and Jewish lynch mobs
chanting "death to Arabs" were comprehensively omitted from US media
coverage, much like they were in the lead up to the burning alive of
16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khudair last year.
"Death to Arabs"
Following a stabbing attack in Jerusalem's Old City that killed two Israeli
settlers last Saturday, hundreds of Jewish extremists paraded through the
streets of Jerusalem demanding collective vengeance against Palestinians.
Chanting their hauntingly routine "death to the Arabs" rallying cry, they
broke into lynch mobs hunting for Palestinians to attack.
Anti-Palestinian race riots have erupted with increasing regularity in
Jerusalem since the lead up to the 51-day assault on Gaza in the summer of
2014 that killed 2,251 people, the majority of them civilians. According to
the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, "this time it seems that the Jewish mob which
took to the streets was accepted by Jerusalemites with understanding, if not
downright approval."
The crowd was made up of extremists from an assortment of far right groups,
including activists from Lehava, the anti-miscegenation group that equates
mixed Arab-Jewish relationships and assimilation with genocide of the Jewish
people. There were also more female participants than usual and they played
a key role in riling up the crowds.
"We have to kill them all, including the Arab Druze in the army," one woman
was quoted as saying.
"Where were you at seven in the evening?" another woman shouted at the
police. "Go beat up Arabs."
"Let the people of Israel enter the gates and kill Arabs," hollered a youth
at the police.
Despite their hostility towards the police, the mob attacked their
Palestinian targets with relative ease under Israeli police escort
throughout the weekend.
On Saturday night Israeli extremists targeted a Palestinian worker with tear
gas and attacked a Palestinian driver who struck a pedestrian in his frantic
attempt to flee.
At the Jerusalem light rail, extremists asked passengers if they were Arab
to determine whether or not to attack them. More disturbing than the mob
itself was the lack of concern from bystanders, who "responded apathetically
and tried to look the other way," reported Haaretz.
"There were many drivers who honked in solidarity and vocally supported
them. The cafes and restaurants along Jaffa Road were full of people
watching the march of hatred passing back and forth."
In stark contrast to the saturation of headlines about the Palestinian
attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers, just one major US media outlet
mentioned the hate fests but only after four Palestinians were stabbed by an
Israeli Jew in Dimona following a week of incitement and race riots that
went unreported.
How to whitewash a lynching
The race riots continued into early Sunday morning, with a mob of rightwing
Jews chasing 19-year-old Fadi Alloun, shouting to Israeli police, "Shoot
him! He's a terrorist! Shoot him!" and "Don't wait! Shoot him!"
The police obliged, firing several gunshots. Alloun, unarmed and visibly
terrified, was executed on the spot and the racist crowd rejoiced in
celebration, cheering, "Yes! Yes! Son of a bitch!" and "Wow!" and "He's an
Arab!" and "Death to the Arabs!"
Israeli officials quickly justified the killing by claiming without a shred
of proof that Alloun was shot after stabbing a 15-year-old Israeli boy.
Despite publicly available videos showing Alloun being shot in cold blood
while posing no threat and despite Israel offering no evidence to
corroborate the accusation that he stabbed an Israeli, US media outlets
accepted Israel's version of events as fact.
The New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren and correspondent
Isabel Kershner parroted Israeli police claims, reporting that Alloun
"stabbed and wounded a 15-year-old Jewish boy on a road outside the Old
City." They went on to whitewash the video footage of Alloun's killing,
describing the lynch mob who hunted him as "Israeli civilians in pursuit,"
as if they were good Samaritans tailing a dangerous criminal.
The New York Times published at least ten news stories about the recent
spate of violence, yet it wasn't until the tenth report on 9 October that it
found space to report on a "death to Arabs" rally.
The Associated Press followed a similar rubric.
"A Palestinian teenager stabbed and moderately wounded a 15-year-old Israeli
early Sunday morning in Jerusalem before being shot dead by an Israeli
officer, police said," was the extent of its coverage of Alloun's killing.
The article went on to detail several instances of Palestinians allegedly
behaving badly toward Israelis by hurling stones and Molotov cocktails at
soldiers, though a vague recognition that Palestinians had been injured by
Israeli forces was buried towards the end of its report.
In a follow-up report the AP whitewashed a massive gathering of "thousands
of Israelis" outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence
on Monday night who were "demanding tough action," according to the AP.
Who were these "thousands of Israelis" and what "tough action" were they
demanding? The AP doesn't say.
According to Haaretz, the protest was organized by the Samaria Settlers'
Committee, a far right group that produced an animated video earlier this
year, which employed classical anti-Semitic tropes to incite against
left-wing Jews.
In attendance were Israeli cabinet ministers Haim Katz and Yariv Levin, who
demanded Netanyahu respond to Palestinian attacks on settlers by building
more illegal Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank. Settlement
construction, said Levin, will allow Israel "to beat terrorism in the most
Jewish way possible."
"Freezing [settlement] construction encourages the villains," he told the
crowd.
"Burn them in their villages"
Despite the US media's refusal to report on them, the "death to Arabs"
rallies have continued unabated.
On Thursday evening, hundreds of Jewish extremists marched through Jerusalem
chanting "death to Arabs" and "burn them in their villages."
They were reportedly led by extremists affiliated with Lehava and the
notoriously fascist Beitar Jerusalem soccer fan club La Familia.
If not for social media and a handful of English-language Israeli media
outlets, the existence of these lynch mobs would be virtually unknown.
Palestinians were attacked in Netanya, a city in present-day Israel, the
same night by a hate mob chanting "death to Arabs" and "Netanya residents
are taking care of the Arabs."
Lighting the next match
The next lynching of a Palestinian isn't a matter of if, it's a matter of
when.
Even Israel's security cabinet expressed concerns, predicting that another
deadly attack by Jewish extremists similar to the burning of the Dawabsha
family over the summertime is likely to occur.
And once again Israeli leaders will have lit the match.
Slamming Netanyahu for being too soft on Palestinians, Israeli justice
minister and genocide advocate Ayelet Shaked openly agitated for collective
punishment. "We need to do things that will hurt [the Palestinians], so they
understand [terrorism] doesn't pay," said Shaked.
As "death to Arabs" riots erupt across Jerusalem, Mayor Nir Barkat is
imploring Israelis to carry their guns at all times to shoot potential
Palestinian "terrorists."
In the Israeli lexicon the word "terrorist" refers to any Palestinian who
resists Israel's matrix of oppression, including children who throw rocks.
Israel's security cabinet recently made it official by approving the use of
live fire against Palestinian rock-throwers.
Therefore urging Israeli civilians to shoot "terrorists" amounts to giving
vigilantes license to kill not only Palestinians who attack settlers but
also children who throw pebbles or any Palestinian perceived as threatening
to Israel's colonial system.
"Eliminate the enemy"
During a visit to the far right protest outside Netanyahu's home, Naftali
Bennett, Israeli education minister and leader of the ultra-nationalist
Habeyit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) party, applauded as heroes Israeli settlers
who shot alleged Palestinian assailants dead over the last week.
"Against the cowardly Arab terrorism, a wave of Jewish courage is rising to
defeat it," he told the protesters, encouraging them to "eliminate the
enemy."
"For the past 120 years, people are trying to kill the Jews here. The enemy
changes, but we remain here, growing and building our land," said Bennett.
"We are the eternal nation, and we are raising our heads. Jewish heroism
will defeat the enemy."
Eli Ben-Dahan, the settler rabbi and deputy defense minister who decreed
that Palestinians are "beasts," called for faster demolitions of the family
homes of Palestinian attackers and for the expulsion of their families.
"Demolishing terrorists' houses and deporting their families is the best
deterrent and most efficient way to deal with terrorism by individuals,"
Ben-Dahan told an army radio station. He also urged Israelis armed with guns
to "be alert and prevent another terrorist attack."
Yinon Magal, an elected reperestive of Habeyit Hayehudi in Israel's
parliament, the Knesset, tweeted and then deleted, "it is important to make
an effort so that terrorists who carry out attacks are not left alive."
He later clarified, "I'm not saying we should take the law into our hands
and lynch people."
He added, "Whoever is trying to kill us should be taken out."
It remains unclear how this is different from his original tweet.
During a right-wing sit-in protest at the site of a stabbing attack in the
Old City, Moti Yogev, a member of the Knesset from Habeyit Hayehudi, was
captured on film shouting at an elderly Palestinian woman, "Go to the grave.
You will not pass here! Only Jews!"
While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears uninterested in
provoking a Palestinian uprising at the moment, he is being pushed further
to the right by the ultra-nationalist hardliners that dominate his governing
coalition.
Not to be outflanked by Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu has declared "a fight to
the death against Palestinian terror."
This incitement has deadly consequences. Israeli soldiers executed six
Palestinian protesters and injured another 60 in Gaza for allegedly throwing
rocks at the border fence. And on Friday, a Jewish Israeli in Dimona stabbed
four Palestinian workers.
The Associated Press, which has avoided covering incitement by Israeli
leaders, rushed to report Netanyahu's condemnation of the attack and then
blamed Palestinians for fueling the unrest.
As Israel's culture of hatred spirals out of control, the media outlets
concealing the incitement from top Israeli leaders and the "death to Arabs"
riots they help spawn are complicit, again.
Editors Note: At initial publication, none of the US media outlets discussed
in this article had addressed "death to the Arabs" rallies. The article has
been updated to reflect that after more than a week of ignoring the
phenomenon, The New York Times eventually mentioned it in a report.
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Palestinian lives don't matter to US media
Rania Khalek Media Watch 9 October 2015
A schoolgirl was arrested by Israeli soldiers this week as the US media
ignored abuses of Palestinian rights.
Muhesen Amren APA images
As Israel ramps up its deadly attacks on Palestinians, mainstream US media
outlets are actively concealing the alarming displays of genocidal racism
emanating from Israeli Jewish society.
Violence against Palestinians is nothing new. Israel's ongoing colonial
project requires enormous levels of brutality against Palestinians. But this
daily reality is only newsworthy when it blows back against Israeli Jews,
which has been the case during the last week with a number of violent
incidents against Israeli settlers.
Every unsavory act allegedly committed by a Palestinian since the drive-by
shooting of an Israeli settler couple last Thursday has garnered major
headlines. During the same time period, Israeli settlers and soldiers have
terrorized Palestinians across the occupied West Bank in attacks that have
injured nearly 1,000 Palestinians, including at least 66 people with live
rounds.
Yet these acts of systematic violence have barely registered as an
afterthought in establishment press reports, sending a very clear and
chilling message. Palestinian lives, it seems, have no value until Israeli
Jewish lives are affected.
Meanwhile, incitement to murder by Israeli leaders and Jewish lynch mobs
chanting "death to Arabs" were comprehensively omitted from US media
coverage, much like they were in the lead up to the burning alive of
16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khudair last year.
"Death to Arabs"
Following a stabbing attack in Jerusalem's Old City that killed two Israeli
settlers last Saturday, hundreds of Jewish extremists paraded through the
streets of Jerusalem demanding collective vengeance against Palestinians.
Chanting their hauntingly routine "death to the Arabs" rallying cry, they
broke into lynch mobs hunting for Palestinians to attack.
Anti-Palestinian race riots have erupted with increasing regularity in
Jerusalem since the lead up to the 51-day assault on Gaza in the summer of
2014 that killed 2,251 people, the majority of them civilians. According to
the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, "this time it seems that the Jewish mob which
took to the streets was accepted by Jerusalemites with understanding, if not
downright approval."
The crowd was made up of extremists from an assortment of far right groups,
including activists from Lehava, the anti-miscegenation group that equates
mixed Arab-Jewish relationships and assimilation with genocide of the Jewish
people. There were also more female participants than usual and they played
a key role in riling up the crowds.
"We have to kill them all, including the Arab Druze in the army," one woman
was quoted as saying.
"Where were you at seven in the evening?" another woman shouted at the
police. "Go beat up Arabs."
"Let the people of Israel enter the gates and kill Arabs," hollered a youth
at the police.
Despite their hostility towards the police, the mob attacked their
Palestinian targets with relative ease under Israeli police escort
throughout the weekend.
On Saturday night Israeli extremists targeted a Palestinian worker with tear
gas and attacked a Palestinian driver who struck a pedestrian in his frantic
attempt to flee.
At the Jerusalem light rail, extremists asked passengers if they were Arab
to determine whether or not to attack them. More disturbing than the mob
itself was the lack of concern from bystanders, who "responded apathetically
and tried to look the other way," reported Haaretz.
"There were many drivers who honked in solidarity and vocally supported
them. The cafes and restaurants along Jaffa Road were full of people
watching the march of hatred passing back and forth."
In stark contrast to the saturation of headlines about the Palestinian
attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers, just one major US media outlet
mentioned the hate fests but only after four Palestinians were stabbed by an
Israeli Jew in Dimona following a week of incitement and race riots that
went unreported.
How to whitewash a lynching
The race riots continued into early Sunday morning, with a mob of rightwing
Jews chasing 19-year-old Fadi Alloun, shouting to Israeli police, "Shoot
him! He's a terrorist! Shoot him!" and "Don't wait! Shoot him!"
The police obliged, firing several gunshots. Alloun, unarmed and visibly
terrified, was executed on the spot and the racist crowd rejoiced in
celebration, cheering, "Yes! Yes! Son of a bitch!" and "Wow!" and "He's an
Arab!" and "Death to the Arabs!"
Israeli officials quickly justified the killing by claiming without a shred
of proof that Alloun was shot after stabbing a 15-year-old Israeli boy.
Despite publicly available videos showing Alloun being shot in cold blood
while posing no threat and despite Israel offering no evidence to
corroborate the accusation that he stabbed an Israeli, US media outlets
accepted Israel's version of events as fact.
The New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren and correspondent
Isabel Kershner parroted Israeli police claims, reporting that Alloun
"stabbed and wounded a 15-year-old Jewish boy on a road outside the Old
City." They went on to whitewash the video footage of Alloun's killing,
describing the lynch mob who hunted him as "Israeli civilians in pursuit,"
as if they were good Samaritans tailing a dangerous criminal.
The New York Times published at least ten news stories about the recent
spate of violence, yet it wasn't until the tenth report on 9 October that it
found space to report on a "death to Arabs" rally.
The Associated Press followed a similar rubric.
"A Palestinian teenager stabbed and moderately wounded a 15-year-old Israeli
early Sunday morning in Jerusalem before being shot dead by an Israeli
officer, police said," was the extent of its coverage of Alloun's killing.
The article went on to detail several instances of Palestinians allegedly
behaving badly toward Israelis by hurling stones and Molotov cocktails at
soldiers, though a vague recognition that Palestinians had been injured by
Israeli forces was buried towards the end of its report.
In a follow-up report the AP whitewashed a massive gathering of "thousands
of Israelis" outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence
on Monday night who were "demanding tough action," according to the AP.
Who were these "thousands of Israelis" and what "tough action" were they
demanding? The AP doesn't say.
According to Haaretz, the protest was organized by the Samaria Settlers'
Committee, a far right group that produced an animated video earlier this
year, which employed classical anti-Semitic tropes to incite against
left-wing Jews.
In attendance were Israeli cabinet ministers Haim Katz and Yariv Levin, who
demanded Netanyahu respond to Palestinian attacks on settlers by building
more illegal Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank. Settlement
construction, said Levin, will allow Israel "to beat terrorism in the most
Jewish way possible."
"Freezing [settlement] construction encourages the villains," he told the
crowd.
"Burn them in their villages"
Despite the US media's refusal to report on them, the "death to Arabs"
rallies have continued unabated.
On Thursday evening, hundreds of Jewish extremists marched through Jerusalem
chanting "death to Arabs" and "burn them in their villages."
They were reportedly led by extremists affiliated with Lehava and the
notoriously fascist Beitar Jerusalem soccer fan club La Familia.
If not for social media and a handful of English-language Israeli media
outlets, the existence of these lynch mobs would be virtually unknown.
Palestinians were attacked in Netanya, a city in present-day Israel, the
same night by a hate mob chanting "death to Arabs" and "Netanya residents
are taking care of the Arabs."
Lighting the next match
The next lynching of a Palestinian isn't a matter of if, it's a matter of
when.
Even Israel's security cabinet expressed concerns, predicting that another
deadly attack by Jewish extremists similar to the burning of the Dawabsha
family over the summertime is likely to occur.
And once again Israeli leaders will have lit the match.
Slamming Netanyahu for being too soft on Palestinians, Israeli justice
minister and genocide advocate Ayelet Shaked openly agitated for collective
punishment. "We need to do things that will hurt [the Palestinians], so they
understand [terrorism] doesn't pay," said Shaked.
As "death to Arabs" riots erupt across Jerusalem, Mayor Nir Barkat is
imploring Israelis to carry their guns at all times to shoot potential
Palestinian "terrorists."
In the Israeli lexicon the word "terrorist" refers to any Palestinian who
resists Israel's matrix of oppression, including children who throw rocks.
Israel's security cabinet recently made it official by approving the use of
live fire against Palestinian rock-throwers.
Therefore urging Israeli civilians to shoot "terrorists" amounts to giving
vigilantes license to kill not only Palestinians who attack settlers but
also children who throw pebbles or any Palestinian perceived as threatening
to Israel's colonial system.
"Eliminate the enemy"
During a visit to the far right protest outside Netanyahu's home, Naftali
Bennett, Israeli education minister and leader of the ultra-nationalist
Habeyit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) party, applauded as heroes Israeli settlers
who shot alleged Palestinian assailants dead over the last week.
"Against the cowardly Arab terrorism, a wave of Jewish courage is rising to
defeat it," he told the protesters, encouraging them to "eliminate the
enemy."
"For the past 120 years, people are trying to kill the Jews here. The enemy
changes, but we remain here, growing and building our land," said Bennett.
"We are the eternal nation, and we are raising our heads. Jewish heroism
will defeat the enemy."
Eli Ben-Dahan, the settler rabbi and deputy defense minister who decreed
that Palestinians are "beasts," called for faster demolitions of the family
homes of Palestinian attackers and for the expulsion of their families.
"Demolishing terrorists' houses and deporting their families is the best
deterrent and most efficient way to deal with terrorism by individuals,"
Ben-Dahan told an army radio station. He also urged Israelis armed with guns
to "be alert and prevent another terrorist attack."
Yinon Magal, an elected reperestive of Habeyit Hayehudi in Israel's
parliament, the Knesset, tweeted and then deleted, "it is important to make
an effort so that terrorists who carry out attacks are not left alive."
He later clarified, "I'm not saying we should take the law into our hands
and lynch people."
He added, "Whoever is trying to kill us should be taken out."
It remains unclear how this is different from his original tweet.
During a right-wing sit-in protest at the site of a stabbing attack in the
Old City, Moti Yogev, a member of the Knesset from Habeyit Hayehudi, was
captured on film shouting at an elderly Palestinian woman, "Go to the grave.
You will not pass here! Only Jews!"
While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears uninterested in
provoking a Palestinian uprising at the moment, he is being pushed further
to the right by the ultra-nationalist hardliners that dominate his governing
coalition.
Not to be outflanked by Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu has declared "a fight to
the death against Palestinian terror."
This incitement has deadly consequences. Israeli soldiers executed six
Palestinian protesters and injured another 60 in Gaza for allegedly throwing
rocks at the border fence. And on Friday, a Jewish Israeli in Dimona stabbed
four Palestinian workers.
The Associated Press, which has avoided covering incitement by Israeli
leaders, rushed to report Netanyahu's condemnation of the attack and then
blamed Palestinians for fueling the unrest.
As Israel's culture of hatred spirals out of control, the media outlets
concealing the incitement from top Israeli leaders and the "death to Arabs"
riots they help spawn are complicit, again.
Editors Note: At initial publication, none of the US media outlets discussed
in this article had addressed "death to the Arabs" rallies. The article has
been updated to reflect that after more than a week of ignoring the
phenomenon, The New York Times eventually mentioned it in a report.