LA Times’ Joshua Mitnick Casts Palestinian Attackers as Victims

In his report today on recent Palestinian violence, The Los Angeles Times’ Joshua Mitnick obscures the fact that all of the Palestinians killed in the last few days, along with the majority of those killed in the last year, were attackers (“Israeli military says teenager killed after trying to stab soldier“).

He writes:

Since Friday, Israeli security forces have reported at least nine knifing and car ramming attacks on targets in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Some six Palestinians and a Jordanian citizen have been killed in the violence, and several Israelis have been injured, including a 38-year-old border policewoman stabbed Monday morning outside Jerusalem’s Old City.

In this passage, Mitnick fails to make clear who were the perpetrators (Palestinians) of the knifing and ramming attacks and who were the targets (Israelis),

Further muddling the basic question of who were the attackers and who were the targets, the Times correspondent does not note that all six Palestinians killed, along with the Jordanian, were the perpetrators of the aforementioned knifing and ramming attacks. In at least a couple of the incidents (involving the Jordanian and an attack Saturday in Hebron) there is video evidence substantiating the Israeli information that the Palestinian fatalities were assailants. The Jordanian was responsible for the attack Monday in which the 38-year-old border policewoman was gravely injured, and her colleague was moderately injured. But Mitnick does not say so. Readers are left to their own to draw the conclusion that the six Palestinians and Jordanian carried out the stabbings and car rammings — or not.

Mitnick’s grossly misleading phrase “six Palestinians and a Jordanian citizen have been killed in the violence” is nearly as skewed as this egregiously distorted Los Angeles Times headline last year which editors corrected following CAMERA’s complaint:

Indeed, aside from two specific incidents — an attack Tuesday morning along with the murder of 13-year-old Hallel Ariel last June — nowhere does Mitnick specify that it is Palestinians who are responsible for the ramming and stabbing attacks of the last year.

Thus, he refers to “the string of stabbings, car attacks, and shootings that started during the same [holiday] period last year,” without specifying that Palestinians were the perpetrators. Again, readers may, or may not, deduce this information.

Mitnick again casts Palestinian perpetrators as victims, writing:

The wave of daily violence that started a year ago left more than 200 Palestinians and several dozen Israelis dead, though in the spring and summer the incidents subsided substantially.

In a gross omission, he ignores the fact that most of the more than 200 Palestinians killed were attackers, according to Israel. It is standard practice for media outlets across the board to include this information, and The Los Angeles has done so numerous times in the past.

CAMERA has raised these concerns with Times editors. Stay tuned for an update.