Yesterday Israeli-American civil-rights activist Yehuda Glick, who advocates for equal access for Jews and Muslims at the Temple Mount, was shot in an apparent assassination attempt by a Palestinian in Jerusalem. Glick’s opposition to religious apartheid in Jerusalem has always been controversial to the Palestinians, and PA President Mahmoud Abbas in recent weeks called on Palestinians to prevent Jews from even accessing their holy site, “in any way.” There is blood on Abbas’s hands, of course. But how the press reported the shooting says a lot about how Abbas’s incitement and dehumanization of Jews has seeped into a corrupt media.
The first news report that stood out was that of the Associated Press. Here was their lede: “A gunman on motorcycle shot a prominent hard-line Jewish activist on Wednesday, Israeli police and legislators said, seriously wounding the man and then fleeing in a suspected assassination attempt.” So that sets the tone: Jews who advocate for equal rights for Jews in the Jewish state are “hard-line.” But the media really started to lose it when the Palestinian suspect shot at Israeli police later in the evening and the police fired back, killing him. The Reuters report, by Luke Baker, was a model of crass mendacity.
We don’t get Yehuda Glick’s name in the Reuters piece until five paragraphs in, so until then he’s only known as “a far-right Jewish activist.” Not only is he painted as an extremist then, but Reuters doesn’t tell the reader just yet what kind of activism he was engaged in. But Reuters–famous for running photoshopped pictures of Israel at war–is just getting started. When we finally learn about Glick, we’re told the following:
Hejazi was suspected of shooting and wounding Yehuda Glick, a far-right religious activist who has led a campaign for Jews to be allowed to pray at the Al-Aqsa compound.
Could Baker be bothered to use the Jewish name–which obviously preceded any other name–of the Jewish holy place? Nope. It’s written that way merely to leave the impression that the Jews–again, who were there first, as everyone who isn’t an anti-Semitic propagandist knows–are interlopers and trespassers.
The next sentence tells us what happened: “Glick, a U.S.-born settler, was shot as he left a conference at the Menachem Begin Heritage Centre in Jerusalem late on Wednesday, his assailant escaping on the back of a motorcycle.” Glick was in Jerusalem, giving a speech about Jerusalem. But Reuters must tell you he’s a “settler” so they can further the storyline that hey–he probably had it coming.
Speaking of which, back in America, we have the story from CNN this morning. Here’s the headline: “Israeli police kill man suspected of shooting controversial rabbi.” CNN doesn’t want to waste any time; the reader must know the Jewish victim of an assassination attempt was up to no good. Here is CNN’s description of Glick:
Glick is an advocate of Jewish access to Muslim holy sites. After he gave a presentation in Jerusalem on Wednesday night, a man on a motorcycle shot him.
Amazing. CNN can’t even bring itself to legitimize the existence of Jewish history. The reader must be left wondering why Jews want to invade Muslim holy places. CNN does later in the story get around to mentioning Jewish claims to the site, but the damage is done.
Back to Reuters’ Luke Baker, who may not be a halakhic sage but he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night:
Glick and his supporters argue that Jews should have the right to pray at their holiest site, where two ancient Jewish temples once stood, even though the Israeli rabbinate says the Torah forbids it and many Jews consider it unacceptable.
Again, this is to delegitimize Glick’s actions. I would love to see this become a pattern, however. Will Reuters now defer to the Israeli rabbinate on all such issues? I wouldn’t advise holding your breath.
The question of whether the Temple Mount is forbidden by Jewish law is in dispute, because of complicated calculations based on historical references to the geography and architecture of the site. I wouldn’t expect Reuters to know that, because I wouldn’t expect Reuters to know anything about Judaism. But the throwaway line “and many Jews consider it unacceptable” might be the best part of that sentence. I’m sure the “many Jews” Luke Baker hangs out with feel that way, just as Pauline Kael knew precisely one person who voted for Nixon.
A common question people have about the media is whether the reporting on Israel is based in true ignorance or enforced ignorance. That is, do these reporters really not know the first thing about the country they cover, or is editorial rearrangement done to ensure the stories are biased? It’s often a combination, but yesterday we received a great example of the bias of editors and how it filters coverage.
After the New York Times published a completely inaccurate op-ed on supposed Israeli racism, CAMERA’s Tamar Sternthal asked Times opinion editor Matt Seaton if there would be any columns forthcoming on Palestinian bigotry against Jews, in the interest of balance. Seaton responded, in a pretty incredible admission: “Sure, soon as they have sovereign state to discriminate with.”
So the New York Times does indeed have a different standard for Israel and for the Palestinians, and apparently the policy is to withhold criticism of Palestinian bigotry until the Jews give them what they want. Seaton should be praised for his honesty, I suppose, but it’s a stunning policy nonetheless.
It’s all a window into how Israel is being covered in the mainstream media by activists, not journalists. The parade of fabrications and falsehoods that characterize these publications’ Israel coverage should also be a red flag to the reader: what else are they covering this way?
