The AP dutifully releases another report of “violence” between Israelis and Palestinians. The headline says that both sides suffered injuries.
Israeli, Palestinian hurt amid rise in violence
The lead concentrates on the effect, then cause, which is how the media usually treats Palestinian attacks on Israelis—they report the response by Israel to being attacked.
A Palestinian was shot and wounded by Israeli police Friday after he injured a soldier in the West Bank, police said, the latest incident amid a spike in violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the Palestinian attacked an Israeli soldier with a stone at a bus stop early Friday, inflicting a serious head wound. Police who arrived at the scene shot and wounded the Palestinian.
Is that truly what Rosenfeld said? That the Palestinian attacked a soldier with a stone? Because here’s the first-person report of the police officer who shot the terrorist.
I stopped the vehicle and saw two people fighting. At first I didn’t understand it was a terror attack. I stepped out of the squad car and ran towards them. That’s when I saw the soldier, who was in uniform, and the terrorist leaning over him with a rock in his hand, repeatedly beating the soldier’s head with it.
“There was a lot of blood. Only then did I understand it was a terror attack. I kicked the terrorist. He got up and began attacking me with the rock. I fired a shot in the air, and when that didn’t help, I shot him in the leg. He continued advancing towards me so I fired a few more shots at his leg – that’s when the incident ended.
He shot in the air first, then shot the terrorist in the leg. Oh, those evil, evil Israelis, giving a terrorist a chance to hurt two Israelis with one rock.
Of course, the AP probably could have interviewed the police officer just as easily as the Ynet reporter did. We know AP has scads of people in Israel and the territories, because they’re constantly filing articles about the area. They never seem to be able to find all the facts of the story, though. Or if they have them, they don’t report them. Take this boilerplate which now appears in every AP story about the “cycle of violence:”
Also this week, Israeli shelling killed three children and their uncle in Gaza as militants in the Hamas-ruled territory ratcheted up their rocket fire into Israel. The army said it was targeting militants.
It was targeting “militants.” The Israeli army never targets civilians. That’s the Palestinians. But the AP always puts in those weasel words, a way that subtly adds doubt to the credibility of the Israeli story. Why not something like, “The army was targeting militants, according to Joe Spokesman”? Or “Joe Spokesman said the army was targeting militants.” That would work. But no, this way, they get to make readers think Israel deliberately fired at civilians.
Not that the anti-Israel side cares that it was an accident. Every time I descend into the fever swamp that is the comments on an article about Israel, I see the utter hatred by the “anti-Zionists” for all things Israel. Even on the stories about the butchering of the Fogel family.
But I expect better of our so-called objective media. And I am—almost without fail—disappointed on a daily basis.