In English, Haaretz Whitewashes Temple Mount Killings

By Published On: October 6, 2019

Shnaan Sitawe Druze officers.jpg

Master Sgt. Kamil Shnaan, left, and Master Sgt. Haiel Sitawe, right, the police officers killed in the terror attack next to the Temple Mount complex in Jerusalem on July 14, 2017. (Israel Police)

In an article last week on the occasion of IDF’s Brig. Gen. Eran Niv wrapping up his post as commander of the Judea and Samaria Division, Haaretz‘s English edition whitewashes the July 2017 killing of two Druze police officers shot dead by three Israeli Arab assailants just outside the Temple Mount.

Haaretz‘s English edition, both in print (page 4, Sept. 29) and online refer to the “deaths of two Border Police officers” in the summer of 2017:

The perceived violation of religious symbols is a particularly potent accelerant for violence, Niv says, recalling the violence that erupted after Israel installed metal detectors at the Temple Mount in the summer of 2017, following the deaths of two Border Police officers, as well as the brief outburst that followed visits by Jews to the Temple Mount in August on Tisha B’Av, which coincided with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. (Emphases added.)

Why does the English edition fail to note that the border police officers were killed by Israeli Arab assailants leaving the Temple Mount? Indeed, violence didn’t erupt only after the officers’ “deaths” — their deaths themselves, ie murders, were violent.

The Hebrew version of the same article more precisely reported that the officers were killed (CAMERA’s translation):

Niv identifies several negative accelerants which could contribute to an escalation: blood, the harming of religious symbols and nationalist friction between Palestinians and settlers. The religious element is particularly sensitive. The storm over the installation of metal detectors, after the killing of two border policemen at the Temple Mount in the summer of 2017, was a good example. In August [2019], we experienced a brief escalation following Palestinian rage, when Jews went up on the mount on Tisha B’Av — which coincidentally overlapped with Eid al-Adha.

See here for more instances of “Haaretz, Lost in Translation,” in which the English edition downplays, whitewashes or omits instances of Arab violence or other wrongdoing which were reported in the parallel Hebrew article.

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