The Media’s Role In Fueling Slaughter of Jews

The slayings of a young couple and a pregnant woman are not only the latest signs that antisemitic terrorism is spreading like an inferno. They are also powerful reminders that the hatred behind this murderous movement is fueled by big media.

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Mainstream news organizations — those that present themselves as nonpartisan — have spent decades pouring gasoline on this fire. The media has lied about “occupation.” It has told people worldwide that terrorism stops being terrorism when Jews, and anyone else connected with Israel, are the targets. It has violated the most fundamental rules of journalism by making false claims about “international law.” It has supported the dehumanization of Jews, and infantilization (another form of dehumanization) of those who identify with the Palestinian movement.

The list goes on. So the killing of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, staffers at the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC, is not a shocking aberration. Neither is the killing of Tzeela Gez, an Israeli woman who was en route to give birth.

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Both are consequences of incitement. Young people especially have grown up in a world in which the media normalizes barbaric antisemitism. It also engages in “bothsidesism,” downplaying Islamist terrorism by pretending that when Israel fights back after the most evil terrorist attack of modern times, deaths in war are somehow comparable. In fact, it often presents deaths in this one war as even worse than terrorism, while ignoring far larger death tolls in other raging wars.

Now, the same news organizations that regularly fail basic journalistic standards are running oblivious, hypocritical reports about these killings, as though their own false reporting has in no way contributed to these dangers. They’re not engaging in any real self-reflection. They’re not considering what they’ve done to help antisemitism skyrocket.

Getting the media to stop the madness, and finally start telling the truth, is a crucial fight of our time.