Four Israeli civilians in the West Bank were killed in a terror attack Tuesday this week. The perpetrators were members of the terror group Hamas which currently rules in the Gaza Strip, and which would like to control the West Bank as well. Hamas refuses to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist; in fact the Hamas charter is not only anti-Semitic but genocidal. Hamas has continuously shot deadly rockets into Israeli territory aimed at innocent civilians. The latest terror attack, which was a response to the current peace talks between the state of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, claimed the lives of four Israelis. Among the victims was Tali Ames, who was 9 months pregnant. According to Debka File:
-“The gunmen fired a hail of automatic fire from a following car, then approached the bullet-riddled vehicle and fired again at point-blank range to make sure their victims were dead.”
A second attack which occurred near the settlement of Kochav HaShachar was described by shooting victim Moshe Morani in the Israeli daily Haaretz:
-"‘…As we came round a bend, he came past me and the shooting started.’ The assailants fired continuously, hitting the car door at least 10 times, before an apparent weapons malfunction allowed the passengers to escape from their overturned vehicle, Moreno said.
"‘One of the guns seemed to jam and that gave us the chance to roll away and take cover. I knew that if they reached us, they would spray us with bullets at point blank range.’”
(Debka File reports that the IDF has surmised that the gunmen are operatives from small cells imported from Syria or Lebanon; this may point to a cooperative link with Hizbollah, the Iranian-sponsored terror group.)
To illustrate their joy over the killings, Hamas showed their brutal and repulsive nature and publically celebrated the event, with 3,000 people joining in a celebratory rally. A spokesperson for Hamas in the Gaza Strip called the attack heroic and also eagerly promised that more (murderous) attacks on civilians in Israel were to be expected.
Most Swedish newspapers have reported warmly and in detail on Israel and the Palestinian Authority starting peace talks in Washington. Major Swedish newspapers have chosen in reporting on what was unquestionably a terror attack to completely avoid using the word “terror”. In addition, reports gave minimal details of the victims, mostly describing them as nameless “settlers”.
That the large Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet doesn’t report on the Palestinian terror attack on Israeli civilians does not come as a surprise. The tabloid has a record of spending vast amounts of time demonizing Israel and its political chief editor is a deep-dyed Israel hater . As of this writing, no reports of the attacks have appeared on Aftonbladet’s website.
By avoiding using the term “terrorists” to characterize Hamas, while at the same time constantly reporting news items which portray the Palestinians as the underdogs, the Swedish media continues to create a distorted image of the conflict. By reporting in a minimalist way (or not at all) on the resumption of lethal shootings by Palestinian terrorists against Israeli civilians, the Swedish media presents reports in which Israeli citizens are reduced to numbers and faceless bodies. There is almost no human story presented when it comes to Israeli victims.
When the Swedish media fail to report in an unbiased way on the conflict in the Middle East, continually showing the Palestinians as victims, but failing to identify with the victims of Hamas terror, they grant legitimacy to Hamas. When peace talks fail, the same media will blame Israel alone, contributing to the demonization of the Israel and its people.
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