On October 29, a Jewish father, Ronen Hanania, was murdered in front of his son, gunned down by a Palestinian terrorist as they left an Arab-owned store just outside Hebron. Those who were wounded include the son, another Jewish customer exiting the store, and, a volunteer medic who was treating the wounded, who is now in critical condition. A Palestinian bystander was also among the injured.
Here is the full story: “Hebron Hatchet Job: Three Ways the Media Misreported Israel’s Latest Terror Atrocity,” by Akiva Van Koningsveld, Algemeiner, October 31, 2022:
On Saturday night, a Palestinian terrorist opened fire on innocent Jewish families exiting an Arab store on the outskirts of Hebron, killing an Israeli man and injuring several others, including a Palestinian bystander.
Ronen Hanania, a 50-year-old resident of Kiryat Arba, was reportedly shot dead in front of his teenage son.
Another Israeli victim remains in critical condition after undergoing surgery…
Following an exchange of fire, perpetrator Muhammad al-Jabari was killed by a security guard, and Hamas soon mourned the terrorist as “its son, the martyr.” Commenting on the incident, the US-designated terror organization called on its followers to further “transform the West Bank … into fire and flame.”…
Yet the Associated Press (AP), a global news institution with 1,300 clients such as the Washington Post, ABC News, and Fox News, framed the story in a most misleading way, and left out essential details. Here is how it reported the attack: “Palestinian gunman, Israeli man, dead in West Bank attack,” Associated Press, October 29, 2022:
JERUSALEM — A Palestinian militant fired at the entrance to an Israeli settlement [sic for Hebron] in the occupied West Bank Saturday evening, killing an Israeli man and wounding several civilians before a security guard shot him dead, the Israeli military said.
Akiva Van Koningsveld continues:
In its headline about the terrorist attack, the Reuters wire service similarly obfuscated the facts, by failing to mention that the victim was an Israeli civilian, while falsely claiming that the shooting took place in the “settlement” of Hebron.
Hebron is not a “settlement,” but one of the largest Palestinian cities. Since we have been schooled to believe that Israeli “settlements” and those who live in them are Very Bad, it makes sense for the AP to want to call the site of the killing a “settlement.” It’s as if to say “Ronen Hanania had it coming.” The commentator does not note, but we should, that the word “militant” does not adequately describe the Palestinian who murdered an Israeli civilian. He should have been properly identified as a “terrorist.”
Van Koningsveld states:
Here are three more ways journalists failed to properly inform their readers about Saturday’s terror attack.
1. Confusing Cause & Effect
In a shocking instance of baseless victim blaming, the Associated Press reported that “[IDF] raids have ratcheted up tensions in the [West Bank] area and have been met by a series of Palestinian shooting attacks that killed 19 people in Israel in the spring.” [Emphasis added]
In reality, Israel only launched Operation Break the Wave in the West Bank on March 31, in response to a series of terror attacks that had, at that point, taken the lives of 11 Israelis. HonestReporting has reached out to the AP directly to request a correction.
The AP has the timeline of the recent violence in the West Bank backwards. In its telling, the IDF raids have “ratcheted up tensions” and “have been met by a series of Palestinian shooting attacks.” Not true. The shooting attacks on Israelis came first; 11 Jews had already been murdered before the Israelis launched their first attack in response. Why can’t the mighty AP get the cause and effect right? The “cause” of the current violence in the West Bank was the series of murders of Israeli civilians by Palestinian terrorists; the “effect” was the response of the IDF, that launched strikes to arrest or kill those terrorists, and to prevent other such attacks from being launched.
The AP should have written: “A series of murderous attacks on Israeli civilians that began this March led the IDF, starting in April, to conduct raids into West Bank cities, especially Nablus and Jenin, to seize or kill wanted terrorists and to disrupt attacks still in the planning stage.
2. Erasing Pay-For-Slay
The family of Muhammad al-Jabari, who had reportedly received a terminal cancer diagnosis, will be richly rewarded under the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s “Pay-for-Slay” program. According to Palestinian Media Watch, Ramallah spends 33.34 times more per capita paying terror stipends than it spends on health services.
However, an analysis by HonestReporting shows that in the dozens of media reports about the attack, there was not a single mention of the PA’s practice of offering financial rewards for murdering Israeli civilians, depriving news consumers of vital context.
By murdering Ronen Hanania, Muhamad al-Jabari guaranteed that his family would receive lifetime support from the P.A.’s “Pay-for-Slay” program. But none of the many dozens of reports on this killing mention that “Pay-For-Slay” rewards terrorist murders, and that Mohammad al-Jabari, by murdering Hanania, had secured generous financial support for his family for many years to come. Had Al-Jabari simply let his cancer eventually kill him, his family would have been left with nothing.
3. Turning a Blind Eye to Incitement
As noted by some analysts, attacks like the murder of Ronen Hanania do not occur in a vacuum. Rather, they are the result of systematic and pervasive incitement that starts in the Palestinian Authority education system. It is, therefore, imperative to note that al-Jabari worked as a teacher at the PA-run Jawad Al-Hashlamoun boys school in Hebron, indoctrinating future generations with hate.
Furthermore, readers should be made aware that the Palestinian Education Ministry mourned al-Jabari as “the martyr, the hero.”…
Why did AP choose not to let its readers know that al-Jabari worked as a teacher, meaning he was immersed in the antisemitism of the PA’s schoolbooks, that not only infects Palestinian students , but their teachers as well? And wouldn’t the AP’s worldwide audience gain important insight into the attitude of Palestinians to terrorism if it had been informed that Mohammad al-Jabari was being mourned by the P.A. as a “martyr” and “hero”? Of course, such information would make the Palestinians look bad, and we can’t have that, can we, AP?
