Where’s the Coverage? Israel’s Enemies = America’s Enemies

Sadly, gruesome beheadings by Islamist terrorists are being posted on the internet. But only some of them receive the attention they deserve from American mainstream media. The Times of Israel reported:

A jihadist group operating in the Sinai Peninsula has taken responsibility for executing five more people for collaborating with Israel, after it announced Thursday that it had beheaded four people on the same charges.

Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis claimed responsibility for the execution for espionage of nine Bedouins in all, Israel Radio reported Tuesday.

[…]

In a video released Thursday, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis claimed responsibility for the executions and said the men had provided intelligence to Israel’s Mossad agency.

The video showed men in black masks beheading the accused collaborators as they knelt on the ground….

Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis ironically translates to “Supporters of the Holy Temple,” named after the Jewish Temple that Islamists deny ever existed. (Beit Ha-Mikdash is Hebrew for the Temple.) Regardless of whether these victims were in fact working with Israel, the mere suspicion brought about their execution, as the fact that Jim Foley and Steven Sotloff were American brought about theirs.

According to the U.S. State Department, which has designated Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM) a terrorist group, “In August 2012, ABM claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on the southern Israeli city of Eilat, and in September 2012, ABM militants attacked an Israeli border patrol, killing one soldier and injuring another.”

This enemy of Israel is remarkably similar to – even part of the same movement as – the enemies of the United States and all people of goodwill. So is Hamas. And Hezbollah. Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger highlighted this in an article published in The Sunday Times of London:

To a globalised, largely secular world judging itself to have transcended the ideological clashes of “history”, the views of [Muslim Brotherhood ideologist Sayyid Qutb] and his followers appeared so extreme as to merit no serious attention. Yet for Islamic fundamentalists these views represent truths overriding the rules and norms of international order.

They have been the rallying cry of radicals and jihadists in the Middle East and beyond for decades — echoed by al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, Iran’s clerical regime, Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation, active in the West and openly advocating the re-establishment of the caliphate in a world dominated by Islam), Nigeria’s Boko Haram, Syria’s extremist militia Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (Isis), which launched a big military assault this year.

Apparently, they also “merit no serious attention” from the American press. Even though Reuters covered the Sinai beheadings, as did the Israeli, some international and Arab media, few if any major U.S. news outlets picked up the story.

Could it be that the fact that Israel is fighting the same enemy murdering Americans and threatening American interests simply does not fit with the popular press narrative? How can the media continue to portray the Jewish state as the bad guy when Israel is fighting the really bad guys, the same bad guys arrayed against the U.S.? Best to ignore the truth, then.

But the facts are plain. When attacked by Jabhat al-Nusra forces in Syria several days ago, United Nations peacekeeping troops fled into Israel. Even Saudi Arabia, earlier this year, designated Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL), Jabhat al-Nusra, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood, parent organization of Hamas, as terrorist groups.

Yet, The New York Times at one time wrote that Hamas was “vague on whether [eliminating Israel] remains its ultimate goal.” (CAMERA Monograph, page 77) Though written to minimize the threat posed by Hamas in the minds of readers, perhaps The Times actually stumbled upon the truth. Eliminating Israel may not be Hamas’ “ultimate goal.” Perhaps Hamas, like its ideological brothers at ISIS/ISIL and other terrorist groups, seeks to be part of a global Islamist caliphate.

In that case, the public really must demand of the media… Where’s the coverage?