Much of the media has been either ignoring or minimizing the incendiary kites launched by Palestinians into Israeli territory.

The New York Times, for example, describes them as “flimsy-framed sails with tails meant to carry crude incendiary devices” — part of a “David vs. Goliath” “protest” against Israel….

Newsweek describes them as a non-lethal response by Palestinian protesters to those Palestinians who have been “shot dead by Israel Defense Forces” during “demonstrations”…

But an article by Gatestone Institute’s Bassam Tawil tells it like it is:

*There are two important factors that the international community needs to notice regarding the fire kites that the Palestinians are sending to Israel from the Gaza Strip. First: those who are launching the kites are making it clear that their ultimate goal is to kill as many Jews as possible and bring about the obliteration of Israel. Second: the Palestinians see all Jews living in Israel as “settlers.

*The Palestinians are now also telling us that the terror kites they are sending to Israel accord with what the Quran orders Muslims to do in the fight against the “infidels.” They apparently see the flaming kites as part of the jihad (holy war) against the enemies of Allah and Islam.

*The jihad of the Palestinians against Israel is the same jihad that ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic jihadi groups have also been waging on the “infidels” and “enemies of Islam” in the US, EU and other non-Muslim countries. We are witnessing a well-organized campaign of terror orchestrated by terrorists and activists belonging to Hamas and other Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli authorities uncovered and thwarted a terrorist cell that planned to murder top governmental officials, including the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat. However, many major U.S. news outlets have ignored the story.

On June 5, 2018, the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency that is akin to the FBI, announced that they had arrested three member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC), in connection with the case. The three men had been indicted two days prior.

Ynet reporter Yoav Zitun noted:

“One of the suspects is Muhammad Jamal Rashdeh, 30, from the Shuafat refugee camp in east Jerusalem, who holds an Israeli identity card and has served time in prison in the past for terrorist activity. The investigation revealed that he had planned the attacks with guidance from terrorist elements abroad, including a terror operative from Syria.”

The terror cell had also “planned terror attacks against buildings belonging to the American Consulate and against a delegation of Canadian representatives staying in Jerusalem in a bid to train the Palestinian Authority forces in the West Bank.” Rashdeh was arrested on April 24, 2018, according to a Times of Israel report (“Shin Bet says it thwarted plot to assassinate prime minister, Jerusalem mayor,” June 5, 2018).

The PFLP-GC is a U.S.-designated terrorist group that is based in Damascus, Syria and receives Iranian support. The group has carried out numerous attacks against Israelis and was active in the Syrian civil war, fighting on behalf of dictator Bashar al-Assad.

A foiled terror plot to murder Israel’s prime minister and other top Israeli officials, as well as Americans and Canadians, is certainly newsworthy. However, as of this writing, many major U.S. news outlets have failed to cover the story. The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, USA Today, The Baltimore Sun, Politico, and others have failed to cover the story. By contrast, The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel, the U.K.-based Express, and The New York Post, provided coverage.

This is not the first time that the Western media ignored a story about a thwarted Palestinian plot to murder Israeli government officials. As CAMERA noted at the time, U.S. press outlets also ignored a foiled Feb. 2018 plot by Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives to murder Israeli defense minister Avigdor Liberman (“The Media Ignores Foiled Plot to Assassinate Israel’s Defense Minister,” Feb. 20, 2018).

By failing to cover advanced terror plots targeting the country’s leadership, the media effectively minimizes the security challenges facing the Jewish state.

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s support for Hezbollah might be greater than previously thought. Tehran gives the Lebanese-based terrorist group $700 million a year, according to recent remarks by the U.S. Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Sigal Mandelker.

Mandelker’s comments were made on June 5, 2018 at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington D.C.-based think tank. The figure supplied by the treasury official is “three times” what was “previously estimated,” according to a report by The National, a daily newspaper published in the United Arab Emirates (“Iran pays Hezbollah 700 million a year, says U.S. official,” June 5, 2018).

As CAMERA noted in its 2016 backgrounder on the terror group, Hezbollah calls for the destruction of Israel and has carried out attacks against Jewish people throughout the world. The organization exerts de facto control over the Lebanese state and has launched wars against Israel, most recently in 2006. The group is also deeply anti-American; prior to the Sept. 11, 2001 al-Qaeda terrorist attacks, Hezbollah was responsible for murdering more Americans than any other terror group.

Hezbollah engages in illicit activities to raise funds, including narcotics trafficking and smuggling arms, ivory, and diamonds. In a June 2016 speech, Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah stated: “We are open about the fact that Hezbollah’s budget, its income, its expenses, everything it eats and drinks, its weapons and rockets, come from the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Prior to Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian civil war—in which the terror group and Iran fought to keep Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in power—the group was thought to receive $200 million a year from Tehran. However, Mandelker’s comments indicate that Hezbollah is thought to receive at least three times that figure.

Joyce Karam, a reporter for The National, noted that Ms. Mandelker also “accused the Iranian regime of using shell and front companies, and forging documents to conceal its tracks in order to ‘fund terrorists, support weapons of mass destruction proliferation or exploit its own people through corruption and human rights abuses.’”

The U.S. Treasury official also stated that Iran’s Central Bank is guilty of moving funds on behalf of Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force, which is responsible for training terror groups abroad. In previous years, the IRGC Quds Force has trained operatives from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas and al-Qaeda, among other U.S.-designated terrorist organizations.

In a widely underreported move, fourteen members of the United States Congress called upon the U.S. State Department to “immediately suspend all aid payments to the Palestinian Authority.” The PA is dominated by the Fatah movement and rules the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).

The Congressional members sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on April 27, 2018. Highlighting the PA’s policy of paying terrorists and their families for carrying out attacks, the letter requested that the U.S. cease U.S. aid payments to the authority. The representatives noted:

“In March 2018 Congress took a clear and bi-partisan stance on how aid dollars are to be used by the PA by passing the Taylor Force Act. This law prohibits U.S. taxpayer funds from being made available to the PA if they continue their practice of paying terrorists and their families. Yet, despite clear Congressional intent, media reports have stated that the PA’s 2018 budget has codified this practice. The budget sets aside 8% of its total to the so-called ‘martyr’s fund,’ which amounts to over $350 million in U.S. taxpayer funded aid.”

Further, the 14 signatories cited a report by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), a non-profit organization that monitors Arab media in eastern Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. PMW had translated a Jan. 14, 2018 speech by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, in which the Palestinian leader declared:

“There is something that the Americans are telling us to stop – the salaries of the Martyrs and the Martyrs’ families. Of course, we categorically reject this. We will not under any circumstances allow anyone to harm the families of the prisoners, the wounded, and the Martyrs. They are our children and they are our families. They honor us, and we will continue to pay them before the living.”

Citing these “disturbing” comments, the Congressional members wanted to know how many foreign aid dollars went to the PA “that were then used to fund terrorists prior to the passage of the Taylor Force Act,” as well as “what measures are you planning to take to enforce the law and suspend aid to the PA…?”

The PA’s policy of offering financial incentives to commit acts of terror is frequently ignored or obfuscated by major media outlets. For example, prior to the passage of the Taylor Force Act, The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” column minimized and misled about the PA’s “Pay to Slay” program—prompting a rebuttal from CAMERA in the Washington Examiner (“U.S. Media Are Covering Up Palestinians’ Pay to Slay Policy,” March 21, 2018).

A letter from more than a dozen members of Congress to a U.S. Secretary of State calling to cut aid to a nominal ally should be newsworthy. However, many major news outlets, such as The Washington Post, USA Today, The Baltimore Sun, Politico, among others, ignored it. By contrast, The Washington Free Beacon provided a full-length report (“Congress Seeks Showdown on Ending U.S. Aid to Palestinians,” May 1, 2018).