By Ruthie Blum
Sunday, June 26, 2022
Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh was killed—and
fellow reporter Ali al-Samoudi was wounded—during an Israel Defense Forces raid
in the West Bank on the morning of May 11. The aim of the incursion, which
followed weeks of deadly “lone-wolf” attacks on Israelis, was to apprehend a
terrorist operating in the city of Jenin, a hotbed of Hamas and Islamic Jihad activity.
It is home, for example, to the Palestinians who went on
shooting sprees in Bnei Brak and Tel Aviv in April and slaughtered three
innocents in Elad on May 5. These were among five massacres successfully
committed by Palestinians and Arab citizens of the Jewish state ahead of and
during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and in honor of the 74th anniversary
of the “Nakba,” Arabic for the “catastrophe” of Israel’s establishment in 1948.
The other two, in Beersheba and Hadera, were perpetrated in late March.
These were in addition to several additional terrorist
assaults that were thwarted by the IDF, Shin Bet internal security service, and
the Israel Police.
This context for the IDF entry into Jenin on the
Wednesday that Abu Akleh lost her life has been glossed over by left-wing media
outlets, if not altogether excluded from the coverage of those with an openly
anti-Israel slant. The best example of the latter, of course, is that of the
Palestinian Authority press, controlled by President Mahmoud Abbas and his men
in Ramallah. Naturally, the rest of the anti-Israel sites, such as those run by
Hamas and Hezbollah, also alter the facts in order to demonize the Jewish
state.
The fiction they concocted—that Israeli snipers targeted
Abu Akleh—suits Al Jazeera’s general narrative and the one that the Qatar-owned
broadcaster has been conveying about its veteran staffer in particular. To
pepper the propaganda and make it even more internationally palatable, most
reports of this nature highlight that Abu Akleh and her cohorts on the scene
were wearing signs clearly marked “PRESS” on their protective vests.
This is just about the only true detail in the bulk of
the stories. But the purpose of underscoring it is to illustrate that IDF
troops supposedly aimed to kill members of the media. As a result, no world
condemnation has been complete without loud lip service to the sanctity of
press freedom.
The piety on this score would be laughable if it weren’t
so mendacious, coming from corners of the earth where freedom of any kind,
certainly that relating to unbiased reportage, is minimal or nonexistent.
Unlike its detractors in the Middle East, Israel is a democracy with a press
that is not only free to criticize the government, but does so lustily, with
impunity, on a regular basis.
It is also a country with rules of engagement so
stringent that its men and women in uniform are often hesitant to shoot to
kill, for fear of court-martial or criminal prosecution. Indeed, Israel’s first
response to Abu Akleh’s death, along with sincere condolences to her family,
was to open an investigation.
The purpose of the ongoing probe is to determine whether
she had been hit by Palestinian gunmen shooting their weapons indiscriminately
or by IDF soldiers returning fire. Either way, the Israeli government and
military have been up-front about wishing to identify the origin of the ammo
that killed her, whatever it may be.
The Palestinian Authority has a different agenda. It
promptly rejected the offer to cooperate with Israel and refused to hand over
the bullet for a ballistics test. Instead, it went straight to the
International Criminal Court to demand that Israel be censured.
Meanwhile, CNN conducted an investigation of its own—in
the form of a dramatic news feature with a click-bait headline claiming “new
evidence” showing that Abu Akleh was killed by the IDF. The so-called proof
was, in its own words, a “shaky video, filmed by Al Jazeera cameraman Majdi
Banura.”
Even according to CNN, the footage doesn’t actually show
Abu Akleh being shot. But never mind that insignificant detail. Interviewees
were on hand to give eye-witness accounts.
These sources—among them Palestinian journalist Shatha
Hanaysha and Professor Jamal Huwail of the Arab American University in
Jenin—all said they “believed” that the IDF had “fired deliberately” on Abu
Akleh and the group of journalists with her at the scene. Conveniently, CNN
omitted the pedigree of these two figures.
Hanaysha is a champion of “martyrs” killed in the
process of attempting to and succeeding at slaughtering Jews. Referring to such
paragons as her “comrades-in-arms,” she lauds their deeds on social media
without apology.
Huwail, a member of Abbas’s Fatah faction, is a former
parliamentarian in the Palestinian Legislative Council. As the NGO
HonestReporting pointed out, Huwail “described the terrorist who murdered four
people in a vehicle-ramming and knife rampage in Beersheba on March 22 as a
‘lone lion’ who had ‘sounded the alarm of this criminal Zionist occupation.’”
Their testimony, a mixture of projection and knee-jerk
Israel-bashing, is as trustworthy as the conclusion reached by Palestinian
officialdom. Following the autopsy, which was performed at the Forensic
Medicine Institute of Al Najah University in Nablus, PA Attorney General Akram
Al-Khatib announced definitively that Abu Akleh had been killed by Israeli
forces.
Worse, he said that the victim had been fleeing from the
direction of the gunfire when she was struck in the head by a 5.56 mm
bullet—one typically used to penetrate armor. This would explain how the helmet
she was wearing was not effective.
Such claims might be more plausible were the PA not
hiding the bullet in question, and if other video clips out there didn’t show
Palestinian gunmen themselves firing M-16 rifles. This dubious situation didn’t
prevent 57 House Democrats from sending a letter to Secretary of State Antony
Blinken and FBI Director Christopher Wray demanding that they investigate. The
implication of the May 19 missive, initiated by Representatives Andre Carson of
Indiana, Lou Correa of California, and Bill Pascrell of New Jersey, was clear:
Israeli behavior required immediate attention.
Ironically, from the get-go, Israel sought both
Palestinian cooperation and American assistance in the matter. Neither agreed.
This is par for the PA. But it is peculiar from Washington’s point of view.
In the first place, Abu Akleh, a 51-year-old resident of
eastern Jerusalem venerated among Arabic speakers for her coverage of the
Middle East, was a dual American-Israeli citizen. It would be appropriate,
then, for the United States to oversee the findings of her autopsy, certainly
when urged to do so by Israel. That the PA would have no desire for such
intervention makes sense. The powers that be in Ramallah are not after the
truth, since it may, or already does, conflict with their version of events.
One biographical detail that Abbas and his echo chamber
are obfuscating, for instance, is that Abu Akleh was a Christian. The Islamic
shouts of “Allahu Akbar” for her “martyrdom” tend to glaze over her origins.
Indeed, the vociferous appropriation of her death by the PA has drowned out her
identity entirely.
Which brings us to her funeral.
***
Two days after her tragic and untimely demise, Abu
Akleh was set to be laid to rest in a respect-ful ceremony, as per her grieving
family’s wishes. The plan was for her body to be accompanied by
processions starting in Jenin and passing through Nablus and Ramallah to Saint
Joseph Hospital in Jerusalem. From there, her coffin was to be transported by hearse
to the Greek Orthodox cemetery on Mount Zion, where she would be buried next to
her late parents and grandfather.
It was when the hearse approached the hospital that Abu
Akleh’s final passage turned ugly. Mobs of Palestinians surrounded and pounded on
the vehicle, forcing it to back away. At this point, the throngs grabbed the
coffin at the entrance to the hospital, in an attempt to march it through the
streets of Jerusalem. Footage from the Palestinian Authority and Al Jazeera
examined by the research organization Palestinian Media Watch shows a
Palestinian Jerusalem official explaining that the crowd wanted Abu Akleh’s
body to be carried on their shoulders (as is customary treatment for Islamic
“martyrs”), rather than in the church’s hearse, so the occasion would not be
marked “as if a Christian woman died.”
Ahead of the funeral, Abu Akleh’s brother had coordinated
the schedule with the Israel Police precisely to avoid such mishaps. His effort
to preserve the dignity of his sister’s burial was in vain, as the “mourners”
outside the hospital were too busy exploiting her death to care about her
family’s feelings.
Faced with the chaos, police officers took action to
retrieve the coffin and bring it back to the hospital so that the hearse could
return and then go to the cemetery. Under attack from the angry horde, the
men-in-blue forcefully confronted the aggressors. The entire clash, according
to Palestinian Media Watch, lasted a total of three minutes. Nevertheless, a
tsunami of anti-Israel coverage ensued with glee-filled fervor. Initially, it
was the IDF under the anti-Semitic microscope. Afterwards, the Israel Police
took a literal and figurative beating.
PA chieftan Abu Abbas couldn’t be more pleased with the
way the entire story has unfolded. He warmly welcomes any additional impetus to
incite his people and the world against Israel. Extremely unpopular at home,
and with an increasing number of Palestinians supporting his rivals in Hamas
and Islamic Jihad, he takes any opportunity he can get to illustrate that he is
just as bent on destroying the “Zionist entity” as they are. Playing a double
game, he simultaneously whines to the West that his efforts at peace with
Israel are made impossible by its “evil occupation.”
That Abu Akleh was killed in Jenin is particularly
relevant in this context. The 1993–5 Oslo Accords gave the PA control over the
city and refugee camp. Part of the autonomy meant that the Palestinian
leadership was in charge of acting against terrorism. It never worked out that
way, compelling Israel periodically to do the job. Hence, the raid that
inadvertently turned the Al Jazeera journalist into a household name.
Her death couldn’t have come at a better time for the
physically and politically ailing Abbas. It is the perfect prop for his latest
Pallywood drama. Pallywood, a portmanteau coined more than two decades ago by
the historian Richard Landes, refers to productions staged by the Palestinians
to manipulate the media by disguising anti-Israel propaganda as news. It was
first used to depict the global brouhaha surrounding the death in Gaza of
12-year-old Muhammed al-Dura.
On the day that became known as the start of the Second
Intifada—Hamas’s nearly four-and-a-half-year suicide-bombing war against
innocent Israelis—France 2 TV broadcast footage of a shootout between IDF
troops and terrorists in Gaza, zooming in on al-Dura and his father taking
cover behind a concrete drum. The heavily edited film of the boy slumping after
being shot was the work of a Palestinian stringer for the state-run French
network and its reporter, Charles Enderlin.
The dispute that followed never was completely resolved,
and it bears recalling in light of the current controversy over Abu Akleh.
Then, as now, the PA accused the IDF of “murder” and hailed the victim as a
“martyr.” At the time, as well, left-wing groups in Israel and abroad used the
story as evidence of Israeli “brutality” against the Palestinians. Amid the
din, Israel’s assurances that it was scrutinizing the source of the gunfire and
that the child was not assassinated by the IDF fell on many a deaf ear.
Something similar is happening today, with social media spreading the
inconclusive or doctored clips at a frightening pace.
The good news, along with the fake, is twofold. First,
not everyone is buying or selling the presumption of Zionist guilt. In contrast
to the reflexive hostility of their radical colleagues in Congress, a
bipartisan group of 25 representatives gave Israel the benefit of the doubt in
its own letter to Blinken.
“We urge you to ask the Palestinian Authority to provide
access to the forensic evidence in Abu Akleh’s death for an independent
investigation, so that all parties can reach a definitive conclusion about the
events leading to her death, and hold all parties accountable,” stated the
letter, spearheaded by New Jersey Democrat Josh Gottheimer and sent on May 4.
And second, the Internet platforms enabling the rapid
dissemination of demonization also allow for swift rebuttal. The scores of
talented tweeters sharing valuable information to counter the lies and offer
solace to like-minded, lonely followers deserve kudos for their labors.
Actress and author Noa Tishby, Israel’s first-ever
Special Envoy for Combating Anti-Semitism and Delegitimization, is a prime example.
In a TikTok video that went viral within minutes of its release, the brunette
bombshell gave an explosive exposé of enemy indoctrination relating to Abu
Akleh.
“Here are some facts you may not know,” she begins her
brief clip. “The International Federation of Journalists … conducted a report
about the number of death cases of journalists in war zones between 1990 and
2020. According to the report, 2,658 journalists have been killed in that
period of time. Three hundred forty were killed in Iraq, 178 in Mexico, 160 in
the Philippines, 138 in Pakistan, and 116 in India. Twelve of the cases
were Al Jazeera journalists. Seven of them were killed in Syria, two
in Iraq, one in Yemen, one in Libya, and one case from last week.”
She goes on: “Each one of these deaths is horrific, but
you can’t name the other 2,657 journalists. You can only name the one [who] was
killed in clashes between Palestinian terrorists and the Israeli army. In any
of the other deaths, we did not see such vitriol, hateful, horrific reactions
and rhetoric as we’ve seen by the international community, social media,
celebrities, and the United Nations towards Israel.”
This, she concludes, “is what we call a double standard…
and it’s purely rooted in sometimes subconscious anti-Semitism, anti-Jewish
racism. So, please, just think about that for a minute, as well.
Okay? And rest in peace, Shireen.”
In a sphere dominated by those who jump on any excuse to
delegitimize Israel, Tishby and her allies are engaged in a Sisyphean battle.
She realizes that even if the IDF is ultimately exonerated in the Abu Akleh
saga, the PA and its sophists won’t cease exploiting the episode until the next
one comes along.
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