In "In Israel, extremist's hands wield great power" (02/23/23), Washington Post reporter Shira Rubin applies double-standards to Israel, a common tactic at the Post.  Never is Palestinian leader-dictator Mahmoud Abbas called an extremist — not even a hardliner.  Neither are leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian terrorist organizations named as such by the United States, U.N., and European Union.  Palestinians rarely, if ever, get the "extremist" label.

In addition, when Palestinians commit acts of terrorism, paragraphs are written about "cycles of violence."  Rubin's article on Israeli Knesset member Ben Gvir portraying him as violent hasn't a single mention of "cycle of violence." 

Rubin has the audacity to blame Gvir for provocations "which have inflamed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" — a conflict that has gone on for over 75 years.  Palestinians for decades have taught their children to murder Jews and that Palestine is all of Israel, yet Gvir is the provocateur?

Last month, the Post asked Gvir "about his plans to address settler violence," according to the article.  Gvir responded, "You all need to stop getting things in the wrong order."  He continued, "There are individual cases of violence from Jewish residents against Arabs and I am aware of them, but there are thousands of cases of Arabs engaging in violence against Jews."  The Post felt the need to add that Gvir was laughing and smiling when he made these comments.  But the Post let his words be put in print only because it was going to refute them with highly unreliable Palestinian official reports in the next paragraph.

The Post starts the next paragraph by downplaying the murder of seven Jews outside a Jerusalem synagogue, writing "a day after the synagogue shooting last month."  It was more than a shooting.  It was one of the worst terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians in years.  The article follows with a claim that there were "nearly 150 settler attacks" after the shooting.  Absent from the accusation were any Israeli official comments.  Further, there were no reports made of any injuries or deaths to Palestinians.

Yes, individual Israelis occasionally commit violent acts against Palestinians, but these incidents pale in comparison to the constant, far bloodier, government-incited acts of terrorism by Palestinians.

Israel is a thriving democracy.  Citizens of the Jewish State are free to elect whomever they want.  Readers of the Post have lost count of the number of articles on the controversial new member of Knesset Ben Gvir.  There has been article after article about Israel's "new far right government," despite the fact that Israel's ruling coalition has been dominated by the same moderate Likud party, and the same moderate Likud prime minister, for most of the last two decades.

Unlike the Palestinian authorities, the supposedly far-right Israeli government has never advocated violence.  But you'd never know it by reading the Washington Post.

Dr. Michael Berenhaus is a freelance watchdog activist who works tirelessly to combat anti-Israel bias in the media.  He has been widely published in news sources such as The Economist, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

Image: Ron Cogswell via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 (cropped).