Friday, October 02, 2015

Media ignores or dehumanizes murdered Israelis


Naam and Eitam Henkin. Faces you will not see in a British newspaper
The brutal murder yesterday of Rabbi Eitam and Naama Henkin in front of their four young children by Palestinian terrorists was almost universally ignored by the British media*. Not a word on any of the 24-hours news channels or in any of the newspapers I saw today. This is despite the extremely important fact that the terrorist attack was carried out by the Fatah Group of the Palestinian Authority.

Where the murders were not completely ignored, the victims were dehumanised instead. For example (although I did not hear it myself) apparently the attack was mentioned on BBC Radio 4 this morning but only in the context of blaming the victims as 'settlers' who had no right to be living or driving in the 'West Bank'. I also found an online report in the Guardian which not only fails to mention the names of the victims (let alone provide a photo of them) but provides a photograph and headlines from which an uninformed reader might interpret  that the victims were killed by Israeli soldiers. Also note the Guardian does not even state that the attack was carried out by Palestinians but says  "...attack which Israeli military says was perpetrated by a Palestinian"; to its readers that will suggest the claim is false, since the Guardian routinely tells them that Israelis are racists who cannot be trusted.

Guardian article online: no mention of the victims' names; focus is on the 'Israeli military'
And, of course, there is no mention anywhere of the Palestinian celebrations that took place after the attack, although (surprisingly) the Guardian article does note that:
Hamas welcomed the attack. “We praise the heroic operation that fighters in the West Bank carried out and we consider it a true response to the occupier’s crime.”
*In particular, Nick Ferrari and James O'Brien of LBC curiously ignored the story completely even though they both routinely dedicate large chunks of their programmes to demonizing Israel whenever a Palestinian 'civilian' is killed, injured or even seen being arrested by an Israeli. Just last week - on a very heavy news day - Ferrari dedicated 30 minutes of his prime time slot to pure slander against Israeli soldiers for daring to protect themselves from being knifed by a Palestinian woman.

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