Five members of a family in the West Bank settlement of Itamar were killed in their home on Friday night. Nothing is known about the perpetrators or their motivation. But much of the media coverage assumes the killers were Palestinians, and the murders were apolitical act.
The New York Times on March 13:
It was close to midnight on Saturday when the bodies of five members of the Fogel family were removed from their home in this Jewish settlement in the hills of the northern West Bank, more than 24 hours after intruders, suspected to be Palestinians, stabbed them to death in their sleep.
The Times went on:
The killers appeared to have randomly picked the house, one of a neat row of identical one-story homes at the edge of the settlement, on a rocky incline overlooking the nearby Palestinian village of Awarta–the proximity underlining the visceral nature of the contest in this area between Jewish settlers and Palestinians over the land.
And for context, the paper pointed out that Palestinians support killing civilians:
Palestinians have often justified the killing of Israeli civilians, especially settlers, as a legitimate response to the Israeli occupation of territory conquered in the 1967 war, or in the case of radicals, as part of a broader struggle against Israel’s existence.
A March 15 report reminded Times readers that the”assailants, who are still at large, are widely suspected to be local Palestinians.”
Today the Times has a lengthy report (3/16/11) on life in this West Bank colony– the “precarious existence” of a “vulnerable” community. It includes a passing reference to the illegality of such colonies: “While most of the world considers the settlements a violation of international law, many in Itamar speak of this land as their God-given birthright.”
The Times goes on to argue that the “growth of the isolated West Bank settlements, like Itamar, put Israel in a bind”– a reference to the fact that such illegal settlements might someday have to be removed in order to return much of the West Bank to the Palestinian people.
It would seem obvious enough that reporters should refrain from assigning blame for the crime at this point.As Max Blumenthal wrote:
even if the motives of the killer seem obvious to everyone, journalists covering the incident must be reminded there is no hard evidence that a Palestinian terrorist committed the crime. No viable armed faction has taken credit, and Israeli police are even treating Thai workers as suspects. Itamar is heavily guarded, surrounded by an electrified fence, and monitored 24/7 by a sophisticated system of video surveillance. Yet there is no video of the killer. Like it or not, until the identity of the killer is confirmed, the murder can only be described by journalists as an ‘alleged terror attack…. Legitimate outrage is no excuse to flout the basics of journalism 101.
That said, Blumenthal points out that there has been considerable violence directed at nearby Palestinians– little of which has attracted the same type of coverage we’re seeing now:
Given the amount of violence visited upon local Palestinians by the residents of Itamar and nearby settlements, I will not be surprised if the killer turns out to be a rogue Palestinian bent on revenge. In one instance documented in 2007, settlers from Itamar stabbed a 52-year-old shepherd named Mohammad Hamdan Ibrahim Bani Jaber to death while he tended to his flock. Routine attacks from Itamar have prompted the near-total evacuation of the village Izbat Al Yanoon, while settlers from nearby Jewish colony of Yitzhar have staged homemade rocket attacks on local Palestinians and torched their mosques. As I have reported, Yitzhar is home to Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, author of the notorious ‘Torat Hamelech,’ which uses rabbinical sources to justify the killing of non-Jewish civilians, including children, in combat situations.
A year ago in nearby Palestinian farming villages Awarta and Iraq Burin, Israeli soldiers were accused of executing local youths during riots against settlement expansion. As Jesse Rosenfeld reported, despite the clear evidence of execution style killings, none of the soldiers who held the Palestinians in custody at the time they were shot were convicted of any crimes. And to my knowledge, no official American response followed. Thus the besieged villages near Itamar have been left without any recourse or legal means to redress their harassment and murder.
I would say the Times suffers from a guilt reflex, but they’re not the ones suffering from its effects, are they?
In a democratic society, the decision of a court is, of course, the final word. All the examples of “bias” above were worded quite circumspectfully and with caution. Of course, the only other possibility, that Jews committed the slaughter, is a bit far-fetched. In addition, not only have Arabs killed over a dozen residents of that community of Itamar but Arabs have enagaged in knifing and stabbing and slicing attacks, similar to Itamar. Just last December, a video captured on film a young Arab female terrorist stabbing a Jewish guard at one of the separation barrier checkpoints where critics claim Arabs are â┚¬Ã…“humiliatedâ┚¬Ã‚ by security checks. The security guard suffered light to moderate wounds, and the attacker was arrested.
Arabs also entered homes and indiscriminately killed women and children:
At Kibbutz Metzer (inside the green line) on November 10, 2002 “Revital Ohayon was reading a bedtime story to her two young sons Matan and Noam, five and four years old. After she had finished and had put them to bed, a Palestinian gunman fired two shots into the front door, kicked it open, then broke into the children’s bedroom. The mother jumped in front of her two children in an effort to save them. He shot the three of them to death” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1QQT8bX5vA)
April 27, 2002 in Adora “At least two terrorists, wearing IDF uniforms and flak jackets, armed with Kalashnikov and M-16 assault rifles, infiltrated the community. They entered several homes, killing 5-year-old Danielle Shefi, who was playing in her parents’ bedroom, and Katrina Greenberg, asleep in her bedroom, and injuring seven others.”
One cannot dispute mutual bloodletting but to try to shift suspicion in this case is particularly troubling given the visciousness and heartlessness of the slicing of a 3-month old baby’s throat.
Yisrael Medad, you are one of those people who just lack a human empathy chip. If I believed in hell, I would want you to go there. You’re selfish, blind, privileged and ignorant.
@Karen I will assume you are actually female and not disguised. In any case, (a) I am amazed that this site permits such an ad personam calumny; (b) I am glad that left-wing progressive facism is willing to reveal its illiberal bias and willingness to demonize; (c) I also note your inability to counter or dispute what I wrote in any rational logical factual fashion; (d) for the record, to you approve, sympathize or advocate murdering Jewish babies?
God Bless Glenn Beck of Fox – he gave a straight forward honest heartwrenching
piece about the dreadful, coldblooded murders of innocent Israelis.
fair is using something that max blumenthal wrote on his blog?
max is not a journalist…he is a propagandist…he is in fact, the james o’keefe of the far left, editing man on the street videos to prove his myopic world view.
bloggers in israel followed up the claims by the ma’an news agency, regarding israeli police questioning foreign workers…i cannot reprint the response by the police….but let me say, it was in the negative….max, did not bother to do a followup…why would he…he accepts anything that makes the state of israel look bad.
he reprints stories that were never corroborated…including the mosque burnings…he prints them as fact….WHAT KIND OF JOURNALIST REPRINTS UNCORROBORATED STORIES?
why is max’s use of moral equivalency, given credence on this site? and im sorry, every one of those stories…including the uncoroborated ones, did find their way into the msm.
why doesnt max note that immediately after the attack, al aqsa martyrs brigade took responsibility (then recanted), gazans passed out candy…and fireworks and cheers could be seen and heard at nearby arab villiages in the west bank…..
by using max blumenthal, a pseudo journalist, in this analysis, you do your organization great harm.
and to karen, who attacks mr medad….it is you and max who have no empathy (at least for jews), for you are the first to jump on israel when she fights in defense of herself….and the first to defend the arab slaughter of an innocent family
the far left in this world has lost its way…i pray it finds it…and soon.
but till then….do not dare to call yourselves liberal, or progressives…i am a liberal…and you disgust me.
Yeah right with Walt. Max is not a credible journalist and certainly shouldn’t be used as a source to evaluate bias in the media.
Newspapers aren’t afraid to report negative things about the settlers, which is what Max is dubiously inferring by saying the massacre of infants is somehow comparable to the vandalizing houses and olive trees.
The crime rate between Jews and Arabs in the West Bank is extremely low. Far lower than ethnic conflicts in major urban, American cities where hundreds of murders go on every month.
There is nothing systematic between the settlers. They are normal people but people like Max don’t see them as people, they are not human.
And even when stuff like this happens, Max finds some way to let it slide. Apologize for it.
You can do better FAIR…I’ve seen better.
The FAIR analysis is excellent, but I think that an additional point deserves further comment. Whoever committed these heartless murders cannot be assumed to represent the Palestinian people as a whole. It is possible that the killer was sent by a militant group, but it is equally possible that, if Palestinian, the killer was acting on his or her own. Even were the killer to have been associated with a terror group, there is no justification for collective assignment of guilt — nor even less for collective punishment. Yet this is precisely what the Israeli government did in responding by approving the construction of 500 new settlement homes. The obvious conclusion is that these heinous murders simply became a pretext for more illegal construction in the Territories by Israel. Sadly, such acts of “retaliation” further harm the prospects for future peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis.
Glad to see the Mossad-trained internet creepers are earning their pay. I’ll trust Max Blumenthal and FAIR over Zionist apologists (paid or volunteer) any day.
“…separation barrier checkpoints where critics claim Arabs are â┚¬Ã…“humiliatedâ┚¬Ã‚ by security checks…”
Are you kidding? No, really; are you kidding? This is the sort of characterization after which you expect to be taken seriously?
The settlement regime is corrupt on its face. There’s also a great deal of corruption in Israel proper. Who’s to say that this wasn’t a drug- or organized crime-related killing? If it was any of the usually blamed suspects, why haven’t they claimed responsibility? And even if the killer was Palestinian, can anyone honestly doubt that the killings of Palestinian children in the region have all gone unpunished? Savage impunity breeds savage violence. If Zionists really want justice and peace, and not just to exterminate and drive the Arabs out of ‘the promised land,’ then they’ll press for a hasty and complete withdrawal of all illegal settlements from occupied Palestinian land. Waving bloody shirts and diapers (without bothering to wait for the apprehending of a strong suspect, much less a tried and convicted one) while demonizing the Palestinians and further encroaching upon their human rights shows what reactionary Zionism is all about.
lincoln, fair made no analysis…they used a blog post by the rabid anti israel max blumenthal to do it for them…and max’s analysis uses moral equivalency arguments.
and sam, throwing out idiotic hypotheticals when al aqsa martyrs brigade initially claimed responsibility, arabs were seen passing out candy in gaza, and those in neighboring arab villages were heard rejoicing….just makes you look like an idiot.
and thanks for showing that you are in favor of ethnic cleansing…at least of jews
tell me…when you read about a rape in your local newspaper, do you immediately blame the victim for not wearing appropriate clothing?
the day after these murders occurred, the pa named a square after a suicide bomber….glorifying murderers is incitement
too bad your jew hate doesnt allow you to see that
So far,no one has claimed,or been charged with responsibility for this awful mess.Could it have been a conspiracy to excuse Israelis for living in illegal settlements? Maybe a private disagreement between them and the family? A couple of extremists that wanted to scare people from building there?Whoever and why ever makes no difference.It won’t help the Palestinian cause or scare people from settling there. It will cause a beef up in security and reason to put more pressure on Palestinians,in the area.I think someone was acting on emotion and not thinking first.
There is no justification for those horrific murders; they are the products of an unbalanced mind.
My condemnation goes to those who stand in the way of, or do not further, an Israeli-Palestinian peace.
That is the only solution. The alternative is mutual destruction.
This is nothing more then desperate people, back in a corner with no hope, on both sides.
Look, if any of you Rightists don’t like the “far left” “slant” here, seek enlightenment elsewhere, okay? And for the record, Max Blumenthal is a superb journalist, and a sensitive, nuanced writer. Just because your blood starts boiling when Blumenthal reports truthfully on Israel or the Right-wing doesn’t mean he’s “anti-Semitic.” Maybe he’s one of those “self-hating” Jews and he doesn’t even know it, eh?
P.S.: Well, Yisrael Medad, karen’s remarks were intemperate, but you wrote this: “One cannot dispute mutual bloodletting but to try to shift suspicion in this case is particularly troubling given the visciousness and heartlessness of the slicing of a 3-month old baby’s throat.” So why, then, are you disputing mutual blood-letting? Is the baby any more dead if it has a cut throat or if it’s been disemboweled and decapitated by a bomb? You’re using words to incite an emotional response that is then being used to cloud the over-arching issue. There’s no doubt that murder and mayhem occur in the West Bank and the Settlements–is there? Are you suggesting that the brutal treatment of the Palestinians is justified by their predations (both alleged and real) against settlers in particular and Israelis (in undisputed areas) in general? Do Israelis never commit acts that are “vicious” and “heartless?” And, please spare me the bullshit about “calumny,” okay? You’re remarks that you’re “amazed that this site permits such an ad personam calumny” strongly suggests that you have an authoritarian bent. “This site” prints all the comments from all the people here, as far as I know. It’s mostly good, but sometimes not. If you want outright censorship, check out Right-wing sites, or try calling Rush Limbaugh to offer up a position from the Left. Oh, and one more thing: There’s no such thing as “left-wing progressive fascism.” One of the great proselytizers of this imbecile contradiction in terms is Glenn Beck, a man who routinely praises the works and thoughts of anti-Semitic ravers and nincompoop liars. Also, a tenth-rate hack bloviator by the name of Jonah Goldberg wrote a “book” about this very subject (you may be acquainted with it) called “Liberal Fascism.” Goldberg managed to both screw up basic history (Hitler was a liberal? Who knew!?) and make a fool of himself in one blathering and embarassing instant of fleeting fame in the book-writing trade. Sorry about the calumnies, Sir, but what do you expect?
No one said Max was antisemitic, but anti-Israel. And he is. This isn’t necessarily a negative, but it is a fact.
“So far,no one has claimed,or been charged with responsibility for this awful mess.Could it have been a conspiracy to excuse Israelis for living in illegal settlements?”
Could the Israeli government massacre their own civilians to justify a greater presence in the West Bank? Seriously?
Israel doesn’t need to fabricate Palestinian terrorism. Terror threats are daily and the absence of attacks is not because of peaceful Palestinians but rather a result of a strong and capable military force and intelligence gathering.
Max disgustingly tries to compare rare settler violence on Palestinians to continual threats on Israeli civilians in the West Bank.
There are over 500,000 “settlers.” The crime rate between settlers and Palestinians is basically zero. Palestinian on Palestinian violence is however far more common but newspapers never report the honor killings (majority of Palestinian deaths) because they are controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
The brutality of this event is undeniable and Max’ analysis wreaks of moral deficiency.
“Are you suggesting that the brutal treatment of the Palestinians is justified by their predations ”
Please tell me about this brutal treatment. Palestinians have an incredible high standard of living. Any “brutal treatment” is the result of their leadership decisions.
If you want brutality, go to Libya or Egypt. Or talk to the Palestinians in Lebanon.
Oh wait…can’t blame Israel…so…doesn’t matter.
The Left can only paint one villain at a time. Right now it is Israel. What will it be tomorrow?
“The left can only paint one villain at a time. Right now it is Israel. What will it be tomorrow?”
Israel.
The right wing Israelis continue to hide their nefarious activities behind “civilian Jewish victims”, and justify their agressive secret police terrorism around the middle east as “defensive”, ignoring the victims of other nations.
All in the name of their “God-given right”.
We moderates, that you like to call left-wing Liberals, pray that one day the God you think favors the Jew, will one day decide to enlighten the Jew.
What are you talking about Donr? A family of peaceful Jews were recently massacred in their own home.
I know the left likes to throw buzzwords like massacre, ethnic cleansing, genocide, etc…around to elicit an emotional response. Situations that might embarass their target.
But in this case, this family was murdered. And they were murdered in the most inhumane way possible.
And all you can whine about is “right wing” Israelis? Last I checked, all three Israeli wars started under LEFT WING GOVERNMENTS. Since the “right wing” has taken over, a peace has been achieved between the Palestinian leadership at a level know other former Israeli government has managed.
But I’m sure this drives the liberals mad. Imagine their darlings, the Palestinians…living in peace.
It’s like a fetish. The lack of conflict and violence angers people. And it gives credibility to militant groups.
Isn’t it really almost impossible to know what relly happened is this and other cases like this?
BUT
I keep putting myself in the position of the Pallestinians and have to say there is a limit of outrage that most humans can take.
There has to be a humane regard for the natives of the region and their lifestyle.
This has been going on too long.
I beleive our foreign policy has been so wrong over the pst years and the effects are coming home. If we can’t act morally we shouldn’t act at all.
My nose is in the air…..do I smell Jewish hatred there?……..Why do I care ?Because im a conservative blogger on FAIR.(Im a poet and didn’t even know it)
Yisrael…Well said
Welcome to all those on the right joining in today to show a different view.Fantastic to see
First of all a Palestinian militant group has claimed “credit” for the murders so Blumenthal is wrong about this. Then the claim that there is an investigation of Thai workers is false–the settlers don’t employ foreign workers and the source of the claim that there is such an investigation is Palestinian, not Israeli. Finally, say what you want about the settlers’ illegal and immoral occupation of West Bank lands, nothing justifies slitting a baby’s throat and the posters here who claim this is Palestinian self defense are covering up for baby murderers. Anyone who thinks this is leftism is out of their minds or an enemy of the left.
One major problem in the USA is the favoritism of coverage for Israel over the Palestinians. Over all the bloodletting on both sides, with most of it by the Israelis on the Palestinians. If we had neutral open coverage it would be different. Israel shouldn’t be immune from criticism because they are the only Jewish state in the world. No one should be above the law and complete coverage on all counts. No one.
For Christ’s sake, did you bother to even read the article above, stan nadel and CillianCapa? Really! I’ll say one more thing on this, and then it’s time to let it go. You wrote this, stan nadel– “Finally, say what you want about the settlers’ illegal and immoral occupation of West Bank lands, nothing justifies slitting a baby’s throat and the posters here who claim this is Palestinian self defense are covering up for baby murderers.” That entire first clause is pure, unadulterated bullshit, a mindless defense of criminality (we’re breaking the law and treading on the rights of the Other, but at least we’re good!”) and the second is a revolting lie, a false conclusion drawn from the first stunningly immoral, obtuse, and lying observation.
One immediately notices the equivalency doctrine at work here: Defending the latest lies and ridiculous defenses of the outrageous and the criminal (and criminally stupid) is simply “a differerent view,” kind of like me saying the Earth really is round, and the defenders of the indefensible coming in to set me straight about the Earth’s well-known flatness. Carry on, trolls–there’s no stopping your relentless drive to make normal the outrageous, and it’s ultimately pointless to suggest you stop using your paranoid fever dreams as a basis for rational discussion and thought. Anything even remotely connected to Israel here alway brings out the worst in trolldom, but fortunately, like a bout of the flu or a particularly bad hangover, these maladies go away in time.
“Anything even remotely connected to Israel here alway brings out the worst in trolldom”
Yes. It seems anything remotely connected to Israel makes those on the Left froth at the mouth with visceral hatred and irrational moaning.
Tim N calls me a troll but he’s the one who seems unable to understand what I wrote. I didn’t in any way defend Israeli policy so his calling my posting “…pure, unadulterated bullshit, a mindless defense of criminality” is simply libelous. What I did do is condemn the people who implicitly or explicitly defend the act of slitting the throat of a baby as a politically defensible act. If TimN finds that offensive maybe he should reconsider his uncritical promotion of a cause whose proponents (at least in Hamas) find such acts praiseworthy–as he himself wrote, “there’s no stopping your relentless drive to make normal the outrageous”
Israel is looking better everyday…… as I watch our president attacking Libia for HUMANITARIAN reasons..WHAT!!!!!!!!The right is blasting a tape day and night by Obama during his run against Bush(sic)saying that this type of action is against the constitution(which it is).We are being run by amateurs.
Israel knows the score.They are very stubborn about giving land and freedoms to a people that have attacked them over and over again.Go figure
The Troll Patrol paid for with US tax dollars by the Israeli Ministry of Propaganda…errrr…Israel Foreign Ministry is high on this topic, as expected. Looking at the apologies, the whines, the attacks, the counter-attacks, the defenses, the offenses, the lies, the propaganda, one cannot help but see how much easier it would be for Israel if they just…hmmm…did the right thing.
And, yeah, I know. Easier said than done. And that would deprive them of (a) their victimhood status; (b) the perceived right to wage war on anything or anyone that moves in the ME; and (c) blackmail the West for billions.