Palestinian lives don't matter to US media

posted on: Oct 10, 2015

As Israel ramps up its deadly attacks on Palestinians, mainstream US media outlets are actively concealing the alarming displays of genocidal racism emanating from Israeli Jewish society.

Violence against Palestinians is nothing new. Israel’s ongoing colonial project requires enormous levels of brutality against Palestinians. But this daily reality is only newsworthy when it blows back against Israeli Jews, which has been the case during the last week with a number of violent incidents against Israeli settlers.

Every unsavory act allegedly committed by a Palestinian since the drive-by shooting of an Israeli settler couple last Thursday has garnered major headlines. During the same time period, Israeli settlers and soldiers have terrorized Palestinians across the occupied West Bank in attacks that have injured nearly 1,000 Palestinians, including at least 66 people with live rounds.

Yet these acts of systematic violence have barely registered as an afterthought in establishment press reports, sending a very clear and chilling message. Palestinian lives, it seems, have no value until Israeli Jewish lives are affected.

Meanwhile, incitement to murder by Israeli leaders and Jewish lynch mobs chanting “death to Arabs” were comprehensively omitted from US media coverage, much like they were in the lead up to the burning alive of 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khudair last year.

“Death to Arabs”
Following a stabbing attack in Jerusalem’s Old City that killed two Israeli settlers last Saturday, hundreds of Jewish extremists paraded through the streets of Jerusalem demanding collective vengeance against Palestinians.

Chanting their hauntingly routine “death to the Arabs” rallying cry, they broke into lynch mobs hunting for Palestinians to attack.

Anti-Palestinian race riots have erupted with increasing regularity in Jerusalem since the lead up to the 51-day assault on Gaza in the summer of 2014 that killed 2,251 people, the majority of them civilians. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “this time it seems that the Jewish mob which took to the streets was accepted by Jerusalemites with understanding, if not downright approval.”

The crowd was made up of extremists from an assortment of far right groups, including activists from Lehava, the anti-miscegenation group that equates mixed Arab-Jewish relationships and assimilation with genocide of the Jewish people. There were also more female participants than usual and they played a key role in riling up the crowds.

“We have to kill them all, including the Arab Druze in the army,” one woman was quoted as saying.

“Where were you at seven in the evening?” another woman shouted at the police. “Go beat up Arabs.”

“Let the people of Israel enter the gates and kill Arabs,” hollered a youth at the police.

Despite their hostility towards the police, the mob attacked their Palestinian targets with relative ease under Israeli police escort throughout the weekend.

On Saturday night Israeli extremists targeted a Palestinian worker with tear gas and attacked a Palestinian driver who struck a pedestrian in his frantic attempt to flee.

At the Jerusalem light rail, extremists asked passengers if they were Arab to determine whether or not to attack them. More disturbing than the mob itself was the lack of concern from bystanders, who “responded apathetically and tried to look the other way,” reported Haaretz.

“There were many drivers who honked in solidarity and vocally supported them. The cafes and restaurants along Jaffa Road were full of people watching the march of hatred passing back and forth.”

In stark contrast to the saturation of headlines about the Palestinian attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers, just one major US media outlet mentioned the hate fests but only after four Palestinians were stabbed by an Israeli Jew in Dimona following a week of incitement and race riots that went unreported.

How to whitewash a lynching
The race riots continued into early Sunday morning, with a mob of rightwing Jews chasing 19-year-old Fadi Alloun, shouting to Israeli police, “Shoot him! He’s a terrorist! Shoot him!” and “Don’t wait! Shoot him!”

The police obliged, firing several gunshots. Alloun, unarmed and visibly terrified, was executed on the spot and the racist crowd rejoiced in celebration, cheering, “Yes! Yes! Son of a bitch!” and “Wow!” and “He’s an Arab!” and “Death to the Arabs!”

Israeli officials quickly justified the killing by claiming without a shred of proof that Alloun was shot after stabbing a 15-year-old Israeli boy.

Despite publicly available videos showing Alloun being shot in cold blood while posing no threat and despite Israel offering no evidence to corroborate the accusation that he stabbed an Israeli, US media outlets accepted Israel’s version of events as fact.

The New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren and correspondent Isabel Kershner parroted Israeli police claims, reporting that Alloun “stabbed and wounded a 15-year-old Jewish boy on a road outside the Old City.” They went on to whitewash the video footage of Alloun’s killing, describing the lynch mob who hunted him as “Israeli civilians in pursuit,” as if they were good Samaritans tailing a dangerous criminal.

The New York Times published at least ten news stories about the recent spate of violence, yet it wasn’t until the tenth report on 9 October that it found space to report on a “death to Arabs” rally.

The Associated Press followed a similar rubric.

“A Palestinian teenager stabbed and moderately wounded a 15-year-old Israeli early Sunday morning in Jerusalem before being shot dead by an Israeli officer, police said,” was the extent of its coverage of Alloun’s killing.

The article went on to detail several instances of Palestinians allegedly behaving badly toward Israelis by hurling stones and Molotov cocktails at soldiers, though a vague recognition that Palestinians had been injured by Israeli forces was buried towards the end of its report.

In a follow-up report the AP whitewashed a massive gathering of “thousands of Israelis” outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence on Monday night who were “demanding tough action,” according to the AP.

Who were these “thousands of Israelis” and what “tough action” were they demanding? The AP doesn’t say.

According to Haaretz, the protest was organized by the Samaria Settlers’ Committee, a far right group that produced an animated video earlier this year, which employed classical anti-Semitic tropes to incite against left-wing Jews.

In attendance were Israeli cabinet ministers Haim Katz and Yariv Levin, who demanded Netanyahu respond to Palestinian attacks on settlers by building more illegal Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank. Settlement construction, said Levin, will allow Israel “to beat terrorism in the most Jewish way possible.”

“Freezing [settlement] construction encourages the villains,” he told the crowd.

Source: electronicintifada.net