USA Today Overplays Anti-Palestinian Attacks, Underplays Anti-Israeli Violence
USA Today correspondent Shira Rubin falsely equated anti-Israeli violence with anti-Palestinian violence in her article “Israel cracks down on Jewish extremists in West Bank.” (Aug. 6, 2015). Immediately, on Aug. 6 CAMERA requested a correction that would more accurately reflect the disparity in the amount of attacks by Palestinians in the West Bank and those of Israeli settlers. The unpublished letter to the editor listed below was sent following the newspaper’s refusal to issue a correction.
“Dear Editor:
Shira Rubin’s article ‘Israel cracks down on Jewish extremists in West Bank’ (Aug. 6) claims that ‘Jewish settlers and Palestinians have long engaged in tit-for-tat violence [emphasis added].’ However, suggesting that violence between the two groups is comparable is not borne out by figures from the pro-Palestinian advocacy group B’Tselem showing that from 2000-2011, Israeli civilians were murdered by Palestinians nine times more than the other way around. Twenty-three Palestinian Arabs were killed by Jewish settlers in circumstances that were not independently confirmed whereas in that same period 215 Jewish civilians were murdered by Arabs in the West Bank. If violent but not fatal attacks by Palestinian Arabs against Israeli Jews and planned or attempted strikes against Jews aborted by Israeli security forces were also included, the fallacy of the ‘tit-for-tat’ comparison would be even clearer.
Sean Durns
Media Assistant, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
Washington D.C.”
—Sean Durns
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