France 24 Arabic Headline Fail on Jerusalem Attack
France 24 Arabic has taken a page out of the book of the Jordanian government: blaming Israeli police for killing a Jordanian tourist, while ignoring the fact that the tourist repeatedly stabbed the Israeli officer in the head and neck. The wounded officer managed to fatally shoot his assailant.
France 24 Arabic’s grossly distorted headline about the May 13 attack in Jerusalem was: “Israeli police kill Jordanian tourist; Amman blames Israel.”
France 24’s article was drawn from AFP, whose solid headline in English was: “Jordanian stabs Israeli officer in Jerusalem, shot dead: police.” In addition, the accompanying Arabic article notes that, according to police, the Jordanian attacked the officer with a knife. (Video of the Jordanian’s attack on the officer substantiates the police’s information.)
France 24’s shoddy Arabic headline earned the media outlet an entry on CAMERA’s popular document “Wave of Palestinian attacks accompanied by spate of bad writing.” CAMERA has contacted Arabic France 24 editors to request a correction.
Meanwhile, France 24 in English has failed to correct its headline which erroneously identifies the Jordanian attacker as Palestinian. That error originated with an early AFP report, which was long ago corrected.
For the Arabic version of this post, please see CAMERA Arabic.
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