Multiple Associated Press photo captions yesterday obscured Palestinian attacks in Hebron Friday by vaguely referring to “three incidents” or “three assaults” without any indication as to who perpetrated what against whom. For example, there were the two captions below:

The caption states:

Israeli soldiers stand guard after the military blocked the road with an earth berm at one of the exits of the West Bank city of Hebron, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2015. Three incidents took place Friday in Hebron, the West Bank’s largest city, which has been the main area of friction in recent weeks. Hundreds of combat troops guard about 850 Jewish settlers in the center of Hebron where they live amid tens of thousands of Palestinians.

This caption states:

Israeli soldiers stand outside a Palestinian house during a search near the Tel Rumeida settlement in the West Bank city of Hebron, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2015. Three assaults took place Friday in Hebron, the West Bank’s largest city, which has been the main area of friction in recent weeks. Hundreds of combat troops guard about 850 Jewish settlers in the center of Hebron where they live amid tens of thousands of Palestinians.

Who assaulted whom and how? Maybe Israeli soldiers, featured in these images, assaulted the Palestinian residents? Or the Jewish settlers, which the captions make a point to mention, assaulted Palestinians?

In fact, as reported by AP Friday, the “incidents” were as follows:

Back-to-back Palestinian shootings Friday wounded three Israelis, two of them seriously, the military said. The attacks signaled an escalation after a series of Palestinian stabbings and widespread stone-throwing that marked the current round of confrontations with Israel.

Israeli media said the wounded were teens between the ages of 16 and 19.

Earlier Friday, Israeli troops shot and killed a 73-year-old Palestinian woman in what the military said was an attempt to attack them with her car. Her son denied she tried to harm anyone, and that she was on her way to lunch with her sister when she was killed.

Later Friday, an Israeli was shot and seriously wounded by shots to the head fired from a passing car on the outskirts of Hebron, the military said. Israeli media said the victim was 19 years old and critically injured. (Emphases added.)

Space is always a concern, but the caption does include some two dozen words of background information regarding “Hundreds of combat troops guard about 850 Jewish settlers in the center of Hebron where they live amid tens of thousands of Palestinians.” Was there not space, on the other hand, to note that “Palestinians carried out multiple shooting attacks as well as an alleged ramming attack in Hebron Friday,” (16 words) Palestinian attacks which were, after all, the direct cause of the IDF searches and road blocks pictured and cited in these images and captions, respectively?

See also: “Wave of Palestinian Violence Accompanied by Spate of Bad Writing“

Nov. 11 Updated: Empty Promises of Additions To Add Context

Curiously, following CAMERA’s communication with AP editors on Nov. 8, the next day the photo agency republished the images with headings promising “Addition.” Many also note “Adds context in second sentence.” Yet the new captions do not include the missing critical information about the Palestinian shooting and ramming attacks which precipitated the searches and road blocks. In the new captions, the sentence about the “incidents” or “assaults” is entirely removed. See the following two examples.

Where exactly is the “addition” and the “added context” promised in the new versions of these captions? Will the AP amend the captions to make clear that the army actions shown here are in response to the Palestinian shooting and ramming attacks from the previous day?

As violent attacks are perpetrated upon Israelis daily, the Huffington Post thought the timing was right for yet another “apartheid” slam on Israel, posting blogger Zack Sabella’s piece, “The US Must Accept that Israeli Leadership Wants Apartheid Not Peace.”

Sabella makes inflammatory, broad and unsubstantiated statements, such as:

“Israeli politics and society have regressed to their lowest point in history, with racism flourishing at unprecedented levels.”

“The Israeli government of today is the most racist, most aggressive and most destructive government in Israel’s history.”

“Israel has chosen occupation over peace and has normalized the brutal domination of the Palestinian people rather than liberate itself from becoming a modern-day apartheid state.”

Sabella ignores the fact that Israeli Arabs enjoy more rights in Israel than Arabs living anywhere else in the Middle East. Apartheid? Hardly. As South African member of parliament Kenneth Rasalabe Joseph Meshoe has said, “Those who know what real apartheid is, as I know, know that there is nothing in Israel that looks like apartheid.” Meshoe continued, “There is a widespread allegation, really a slander, that Israel is an apartheid state. That notion is simply wrong. It is inaccurate and it is malicious.”

Sabella calls on Presidents Obama and Bill Clinton to follow Jimmy Carter’s lead in condemning Israel. As has been well-documented by CAMERA, Carter has been actively engaged in pro-Hamas, anti-Israel dialogue since finishing his last term in office (see here and here). Sabella demands that the US “wield a stick” in dealing with Israel, or “history will judge it for not forcing Israel to change its course of action.”

All this as old women and children are being stabbed in the streets of Israel, civilians are being rammed with cars and Palestinian leaders are encouraging this bloodbath.

Sabella also writes regularly on a personal blog. There, he has covered the last month of terror with a vehemently anti-Zionist, pro-terrorism perspective, rejecting that the Palestinians shot are being stopped mid-attack and embracing the false narrative that children are being killed in cold blood. In an October 2 blog post, “A day in the life of a Palestinian,” Sabella wrote, “The killing of Palestinians has become as routine as drinking water in Israeli society.” Yet, the Huffington Post gives this individual an international platform.

– Rachel Frommer, CAMERA Intern

The following letter was sent via email to the standards, world and military and the deputy world editors at USA Today on Nov. 3, 2015:

“Dear Editor:

This is to request a correction to ‘Preschool in Israel tries to teach peaceful coexistence’ by correspondent Shira Rubin. The article appears on page 6A in the October 30 print edition.

The report lists the dateline as “Jaffa, Israel,” which it later describes as being “just 3 miles south of Tel Aviv.” However, Jaffa is in fact part of Tel Aviv and has been since the two cities were unified in 1950.

Jaffa, which has a long history that predates by millennia that of Tel Aviv’s and was a separate municipality in the manner that Brooklyn was, for some time, separate from New York City prior to being consolidated in 1898. Yet, since Jaffa and Tel Aviv were unified, the former has been but a large neighborhood or subsection of the latter. Much as it would not be accurate to presently describe Brooklyn as being separate from New York City, your otherwise informative article does not reflect the contemporary reality of Tel Aviv.

Given this important distinction, we request a correction reflecting the above reality. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,
Sean Durns
Media Assistant
CAMERA-Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America”

Standards Editor Brent Jones replied the same day and said that USA Today would look into the matter. The following day, November 4, deputy world editor Katharine Lackey contacted CAMERA. She replied that:

“after careful review, we don’t believe a correction is needed and support our correspondent’s explanation that Jaffa did not merge into Tel Aviv. Rather, it merged to become Tel Aviv-Jaffa and remains 3 miles south of Tel Aviv. In addition, the Israeli tourism site lists Jaffa as a separate town, calling it ‘Tel Aviv’s older sister.’”

Jaffa is indeed Tel Aviv’s “older sister” but since 1950, has incorporated into it and has been for 55 years now, one of “the Big Orange’s” more note-worthy neighborhoods.

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas appeared to reject the legitimacy of Israel in any borders in an Oct. 28, 2015 speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva. Abbas, frequently described by some press and policymakers as a “moderate,” made clear that he views the Jewish state’s existence as illegitimate. But most media did not report this latest example of a Palestinian leader denying Israel’s right to existence.

The remarks of the PA President and head of the Fatah (the word can be translated as “conquest”) movement were transcribed by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), a non-profit organization that monitors Palestinian communication media.

Abbas told the U.N. HRC: “Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, haven’t you wondered: For how long will this protracted Israeli occupation of our land last? After 67 years, how long? Do you think it can last, and that it benefits the Palestinian people?”

By claiming that Israel’s “occupation” began 67 years ago, in 1948 with Israel’s declaration of statehood, the PA President was clearly stating that he considers the Jewish state itself to be an occupation and, by Palestinian interpretation, an illegal one.

The PA president went from denying Israel’s right to exist to inciting violence against it. Abbas falsely asserted to the UN body that Israel desecrates Islamic holy sites. “[The] holy sites which have been desecrated every other second again and again for seven decades now,” Abbas claimed, “under an occupation that does not quit killing, torturing, looting and imprisoning.”

This is another instance of Abbas employing the “al-Aqsa libel”; falsely charging that Jews hold secret designs on the al-Aqsa mosque which occupies the southwest part of Temple Mount, Judaism’s most holy site. The libel has long been used by Palestinian Arab leaders, beginning in 1929 and including 1996 and 2000, to incite anti-Jewish violence. As CAMERA has documented, on Sept. 16, 2015 Abbas exhorted, “The al-Aqsa is ours…they [Jews] have no right to defile it with their filthy feet” (“Incitement over Temple Mount Leads to Palestinian Violence, Again”).

Abbas’ false claims that Israel “does not quit” killing and torturing Palestinian Arabs echoes his other recent allegations that Israel had “executed” a 13-year old boy, Ahmed Manasra. In fact, Manasra was being treated in an Israeli hospital for injuries sustained from being hit by a car while fleeing after he and his cousin stabbed a 13-year old Jewish boy.

PMW says that Palestinian official media failed to accurately transcribe Abbas’ remarks in Geneva, noting that the “after 67 years, how long?” was removed from reports by state media outlets.

This is hardly the first time that Abbas and/or his Palestinian Authority have claimed that all of Israel is “Palestine.” PMW notes that the PA National Security Forces Facebook page “presents pictures of Israel” where, in the last week alone, Israeli cities Haifa, Acre and Ashkelon are portrayed as “occupied.” CAMERA has shown previously how Palestinian textbooks have depicted all of Israel as Palestine (“Palestinian Textbooks Teach Anti-Israel Hate,” June 1, 1999).

PMW has documented extensively how Abbas, his predecessor Yasser Arafat and other PA officials have used maps that show all of Israel as Palestine.

With his latest attempt to rewrite history and delegitimize Israel, Abbas may have felt he was speaking to a receptive audience in the form of the U.N. HRC, which passed more resolutions in 2014 condemning Israel than all other countries combined, including noted human rights abusers such as Iran, China, North Korea and Russia.

A Lexis-Nexis search reveals that most major media outlets failed completely to report Abbas’ October 28 remarks. The sole exception was The Boston Globe, which while noting Abbas’ appearance and the subsequent Israeli Foreign Ministry condemnation of the Palestinian leader’s statements, failed to detail just what he said (“Palestinian leader asks for UN’s help,” October 29).

Where was the coverage?

A Palestinian preacher, Ali Abu Ahmad, used Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque on Oct. 24, 2015 to call for the restoration of the Sunni Muslim caliphate and the destruction of “the Jews, the Americans, and the Russians.”

Ahmad’s comments were noted in a report by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Al-Aqsa mosque on Temple Mount, is a spot that has become increasingly venerated by Muslims—particularly since Israel re-united Jerusalem, including the Old City and Temple Mount, in the 1967 Six-Day War. The mosque often is referred to as Islam’s third holiest site. Many Muslims believe it to have been the “farthest mosque,” from which Islamic tradition holds that the Prophet Muhammed rode his horse, Barack, on a night journey to heaven. However, most scholars agree that al-Aqsa mosque was built in the eighth century, decades after Mohammed’s death in 632 C.E., five years before Muslim armies seized Jerusalem from Byzantine Christian control.

Ahmad exhorted his followers:

“Oh servants of Allah, the issue of the al-Aqsa mosque is not merely about Jews storming the place of the Prophet’s nocturnal journey, and defiling it. It is about an entity that is plundering the lands of the Muslims.”

Claiming that Jews planned to “storm” the al-Aqsa mosque, the Palestinian cleric echoed incitement by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, who is frequently described by the press and policy makers as a “moderate.” In an August 1 speech Abbas, making use of what CAMERA has noted to be a long-standing libel (“Incitement over Temple Mount Leads to Palestinian Violence Again,” September 16), said Jews planned “to get rid of al-Aqsa and establish their so-called ‘Temple.’” On September 16, he exhorted, “The al-Aqsa is ours…and they [Jews] have no right to defile it with their filthy feet…We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem.”

Ahmad offered a violent solution to his imagined Jewish designs on the mosque, which occupies the southwest Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site. “The issue,” he threatened, “will only be resolved through the return of the Caliphate, Allah willing….The Caliphate [rule of all Muslims by a religious and temporal leader, the caliph] will be the one to liberate Jerusalem very soon…and annihilate the Jewish entity.”

The MEMRI report on Ahmad’s remarks can be found here.

The crowd responded to Ahmad’s calls “let us kill them [Jews]” and “make the ground swallow them up, along with their homes,” with cheers of affirmation.

In reference to the Caliphate, Ahmad might have been alluding to the terror group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). CAMERA has noted recent ISIS threats against the Jewish state (“ISIS Echoes Palestinian Calls for Attacking Israelis,” October 22).

Ahmad is not the only Palestinian religious official to use historical falsehoods to deny Jewish connections to the Temple Mount, site of both the First and Second Temples, the former destroyed by Babylonia in 586 B.C.E., the latter by Rome in 70 C.E.

Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, told Israel’s Channel 2 on Oct. 25, 2015 that “al-Aqsa is an Islamic mosque since the creation of the world.” Hussein said the mosque was built somewhere between “3,000 years ago and 30,000 years ago.” Thus, according to the chief Islamic religious figure in Jerusalem—an Abbas appointee—the mosque manages the feat of predating by millennia the Islamic religion itself, which most scholars agree was founded in 622 C.E.

This is not the first time that Hussein has indulged in anti-Israel propaganda. Reuters previously, and uncritically, quoted his false allegations that Israeli’s had thrown grenades into al-Aqsa (“Top Palestinian Cleric Says Israel Threw Stun Grenades Into Al-Aqsa; Israel Denies,” April 20, 2014).

Like Ahmad, the current grand mufti has also previously incited violence against Jews, seeking to deny any Jewish connection to the land—and thus the very legitimacy of the Jewish state. According to Palestinian Media Watch, a non-profit organization that analyzes Palestinian media, Hussein once preached, “The Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent charge that a previous grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, gave Adolf Hitler the idea for the gassing and incinerating European Jewry, attracted considerable media coverage. Much of it, as CAMERA noted, focused on Netanyahu’s exaggeration while overlooking al-Husseini’s actual role in inciting anti-Jewish violence and collaborating with the Nazis. (“Bibi, the Mufti, and the Media,” October 23). Will the media again fail to report Palestinian Arab preacher’s incitement to murder Jews?