Foreign Media Turns Palestinian Terror Into Bizarre Whodonit

The latest surge of terror attacks in Israel has again exposed the bias in media coverage, as a number of news organizations ran headlines obscuring the identity of victims and perpetrators.

The media watchdog Honest Reporting highlighted some of the more egregious cases:

The International Business Times informed its readers of the death of one and wounding of 16 others at the hands of Palestinians thusly: “Israel: Three Palestinians shot dead as U.S. vice president Joe Biden arrives for talks.”

Only later was it changed to “Israel: U.S. tourist killed and others wounded in series of attacks as Joe Biden arrives,” though who committed the violence and who besides the tourist were wounded was not clear.

NBC gave the bizarre impression that it was Israelis who carried out the attacks by writing “American tourist killed amid Israeli stabbing violence as Biden arrives for talks.”

The fact that it was a Palestinian who murdered Taylor Force is not mentioned until the second paragraph, and even then it is qualified as “police say a Palestinian man launched an attack.”

The BBC acknowledged that Israelis were the victims in attacks, but shrank from saying who could have been behind them. “One killed and several wounded in attacks on Israelis,” was the BBC headline. That has since been changed to “Palestinian kills U.S. tourist in Israel.”

The Irish Times also implied that the murderer was Israeli, as its article was titled: “American dies after 10 stabbed by lone Tel Aviv attacker.” This was also inaccurate, as the incident took place in Jaffa, not Tel Aviv, and the terrorist was from the Shomron.

The coverage continued, “Four Palestinians shot dead after attacks across Israel as U.S. vice-president Joe Biden visits,” seemingly oblivious to the fact that Palestinians were the attackers.

The coverage comes just two weeks after the Foreign Press Agency in Israel denied complaints of widespread bias lodged with the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

The FPA responded with a letter acknowledging that “in a few isolated incidents of reports about events only a few minutes after they took place, inaccurate reports were made. These reports were corrected as quickly as possible after various officials, including spokespeople for the State of Israel, brought them to the editors’ attention.”