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July 1, 2014

Anti-Semitism: Coming to a theater near you?

By Michael Berenhaus

The Washington Post front page article "Anti-Semitism erodes France's Fraternite" (6/21/14) reports on an escalation of anti-Semitism in France that some say is linked "to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." The article doesn't claim that the linkage is due to biased reporting about the conflict, but a second article inside the paper, with the headline "Palestinian teen, man killed in Israeli raids", suggests that this may be the case. By stating that Israelis killed these Palestinians in raids, without saying what the Palestinians did to provoke the attacks, the headline is libelous. Buried within the article we read that "both incidents occurred during riots in which IEDS were directly hurled at Israeli soldiers who felt their lives were threatened and returned live fire." There were no Palestinian accounts cited to refute this IDF account.
 
More evidence of this bias is seen in a Washington Post article (June 27, 2014)  entitled “Martin Indyk, U.S. envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, to step down."  The article states:
 
“As the latest round of talks fell apart, Indyk said that neither side had been prepared to make the compromises necessary to forge a deal. But he placed much of the blame for the failure on Israel, reportedly telling a Washington think tank last month that its settlements policy had had a 'dramatically damaging' effect on the negotiations.” 
 
Upon careful inspection of the quote, Indyk never “placed much of the blame for the failure on Israel," as DeYoung espoused. He never said such a thing at all - he just said that the settlements were damaging. It was Deyoung herself who placed the blame on Israel by interpreting his quote based on her biases. And she did it so insidiously, making it appear to come directly from Indyk.  Moreover, DeYoung never actually heard Indyk even say that the settlement policy was “dramatically damaging.”  She said it was “reportedly” said.  Why didn’t DeYoung say who “reportedly” made the quote on which she used to base her opinion?  Could it be shoddy reporting, perhaps rumor, or even worse, that she made it up?  
 

How ironic that the Washington Post, the same newspaper that reported a surge of anti-semitism in France, has given fuel to an increase in anti-Semitism in America.  The Post is not the only American newspaper to run untrue or misleading headlines and reports that evoke sympathy for the Palestinians and censure for the Israelis. If the Post and other newspapers want to know why there is an increase in this ancient hatred in other countries, they just need to look in the mirror and see how they foment it.  The big question is: Are we next?

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