A variation of this was sent out as a PRIMER-Israel alert. There are three PRIMER groups, in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Israel. Check out their websites and consider getting on their alerts lists.
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While we mourn our victims, both murdered and injured, of this year’s Ramadan terror spree, and while our soldiers and police act to protect us all from the additional attacks we know are planned or will be planned, those of us who fight with our keyboards need to do our part to prevent Iran, the Palestinian Authority, the PLO, Fatah, Hamas, Hezbollah and the other terror groups from also getting a propaganda victory.
Almost all the reporting has been typically biased, using loaded language, terminology defined by Israel’s enemies, misinformation, disinformation and outright false information while often omitting important context. It’s up to us to do our best to provide it.
We will include some of our own thoughts below, but urge you to read the emails you get from so many other sources with more resources and also check their websites and write letters and social media posts to give the facts and your unique perspective as an Israeli living here in Israel.
Among the resources we recommend (forgive us for leaving out so many; we’ll just list a handful of our favorites):
For examples of media bias:
CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis)
For fairly up-to-date information:
JNS (Jewish News Syndicate)
JTA (Jewish Telegraph Agency)
Thoughts and observations:
• I heard this expressed on i24 News. I have not been able to find the video to watch again, so my recollection may not be exact.
The question came up regarding why the Muslim “worshippers” barricaded themselves in the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Tuesday night, arming themselves with the stones and fireworks, when they are generally allowed to stay overnight during the last ten days of Ramadan anyway.
The reason explained was that since the first Seder was Wednesday night, they knew many Jews would be visiting the Temple Mount on Wednesday, so it was a golden opportunity to attack a lot of Jews with the stones and fireworks.
It was also noted that the rockets started flying from Gaza as soon as videos of the confrontations with the Israeli police were posted on social media and this was not a coincidence. This was planned, almost certainly masterminded by Iran. The rockets were prepared in advance and people were ready in the mosque to take videos and post them as soon as the confrontations started, while the terrorists in Gaza were prepped and ready to launch the rockets as soon as those videos were posted.
My interpretation - this wasn’t clear from what I remember on i24 - was that Iran and its terrorists in the mosque were prepared for two possibilities:
The first: What happened. The police, knowing they were preparing to attack Jews on the Temple Mount with the stones and fireworks they had smuggled into the mosque, would enter the mosque to prevent the attacks, in which case they would start attacking the police, take videos, quickly edit them to make Israel look bad to the world, post them on social media and immediately launch rockets.
The second: The police wouldn’t enter the mosque, in which case they would attack Jews on the Temple Mount Wednesday morning, take videos, post them with the message they were protecting Al-Aqsa from the Jews, and immediately launch rockets.
• The media almost always describes Al-Aqsa as the third holiest site for Muslims. However, it’s only holy for Sunni Muslims; it has no significance for Shiite Muslims. Moti Kedar has also explained (there are many sources, both articles and videos) how the source of its holiness was a fraud and that the “Al Aqsa” mentioned just once in the Koran was actually in what’s now Saudi Arabia, not far from Mecca and Medina. (See, for one example out of many, “Why and When was the Myth of al-Aqsa Created?”)
• Media bias can be simultaneously blatant and subtle. Here’s one example taken from today’s Hartford Courant. (I used to live in Connecticut and keep an eye on that paper.)
The Hartford Courant published an Associated Press article on Friday’s murder of Maya and Rina Dee. (As I write this, their mother remains in critical condition.) The article was accompanied by a large photo of a seriously damaged automobile. But, although there are many photos available of the car ambushed by the terrorists, the photo accompanying the article wasn’t of that; rather, it was of a car in Gaza allegedly damaged by Israeli airstrikes. The text of the article similarly changed the focus from the fatal terror attack to Israel’s responses to all the terror attacks and was written in a way as to create sympathy for the terrorists.
• How holy can “worshippers” believe Al-Aqsa is if they use it as a weapons arsenal (storing stones and fireworks) and use it as a base from which to attack Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount?
• Although I personally think it’s rather meshuga to consider sacrificing a goat today, on the Temple Mount or anywhere else, there’s absolutely no reason for Arabs or Muslims to get upset about the possibility unless they’re animal activists and/or vegetarians. That they make an issue of the desire of some to do it on the Temple Mount - especially since they know the Israeli officials will not let them carry it out - is just another example of them looking for pretexts to launch attacks.
• There is invariably an uptick in terror attacks during Ramadan. There are also almost always serious attempts to perpetuate bloody terror attacks during Jewish holidays. It would thus have been astounding if the Palestinian Arabs didn’t do everything in their power this year, with Pesach being celebrated during Ramadan, to make sure Ramadan did not pass quietly.
Please check the newspapers you are familiar with, along with the examples provided by CAMERA, HonestReporting and other sources, and fight back with your keyboard.
