by Hugh Fitzgerald
Can the media be shamed for their coverup? Don't be silly.
Alice Speri is a far-left journalist whose work appears in even farther-left Internet site, The Intercept. She recently wrote a piece, which also appeared in the French newspaper Le Monde, on innocent Americans “killed by Israel.” A report on her indictment is here: “Anti-Israel journalists cover up the Palestinians’ murder of numerous Americans,” by David J. Michaels, JNS, August 24, 2022:Alice Speri (Photo: Francesco Ascanio Pepe)
…Who are the primary victims of the bloodlust supposedly uncovered by The Intercept and Le Monde?
One is Rachel Corrie, a young woman originally from Olympia, Washington who died in 2003.
The other is Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian journalist who obtained U.S. citizenship through relatives in New Jersey. She was fatally wounded by gunfire in May.
But Israel did not dispatch agents to Washington and New Jersey to kill these two women. Nor did Israelis conspire to harm them at all.
Corrie was killed after journeying to the Gaza Strip as an anti-Israel activist. She was hit by an Israeli bulldozer that was demolishing structures near the Egyptian border. It was doing so as part of an effort to stop the smuggling of weapons to Palestinian jihadists who explicitly seek Israel’s destruction. Corrie was affiliated with the International Solidarity Movement, a self-declared “non-violent” Palestinian-led group that endorses “legitimate armed struggle”—that is, terrorism—against Israel. According to an ISM witness’s own account, Corrie approached the military bulldozer, climbed onto it, fell off and was then dragged by its shovel, which caused mortal injuries.
In other words, Corrie’s death was unintentional. She had climbed onto a bulldozer, then fell off it, unobserved by the driver, which led to her being dragged by its shovel. There was no intention to hurt her; the driver was unaware that Corrie had climbed onto the bulldozer, and had then fallen off. This was purely an accident, not a deliberate murder.
Akleh was killed in Jenin in Judea/Samaria. An Al Jazeera correspondent, she was there to cover an Israeli counterterrorism raid that followed a wave of gruesome Palestinian attacks that murdered 19 people across Israel. When Israeli security forces attempted to apprehend Palestinian suspects, a fierce gun battle erupted and Akleh was fatally wounded. Al Jazeera, a Qatari state-owned network whose funders do not recognize Israel, asserted immediately that “Israeli occupation forces assassinated” Akleh while she was “covering their brutality.” However, there was no proof that the bullet came from the Israelis’ position, let alone that Akleh’s death was intentional. Palestinian leaders refused to share physical evidence with Israel or conduct a joint investigation.
Shireen Abu Akleh was caught in the crossfire during the gun battle between the IDF and Palestinians on the outskirts of Jenin. It is still unclear which side killed her. The bullet that was retrieved, and reluctantly turned over by the P.A, to the Americans for analysis after weeks of refusing to release it, had been too damaged — possibly deliberately so – for them to determine who had fired the fatal bullet. And no matter which side was responsible for her death, her killing was certainly an accident. But the anti-Israel brigade, including Alice Speri, ignore all this, claiming from the very first that the IDF deliberately “murdered” Shireen Abu Akleh. Both the American and Israeli governments have rejected this charge.
Of course, neither the actions nor the personal politics of Rachel Corrie or Shireen Abu Akleh dispel the tragedy of their deaths. But to suggest that their demise indicates calculated, systemic Israeli malice towards Americans is absurd. On the contrary, Israel has every reason to prevent such deaths, as it knows very well that they will be exploited to maim Israel politically. Israel expressed sadness over Corrie’s demise and left the questions surrounding Abu Akleh’s death to be answered by a full investigation.
What Speri and Filiu ignore is as significant as their wild accusations. Put simply, they engage in the wholesale omission of American victims of brutal and deliberate Palestinian violence.
Over the three decades since Israel gave the Palestinians autonomy, which eventually included a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, some 60 Americans have lost their lives to Palestinian terrorism. Here are some of their names:
Koby Mandell, 13, was stoned to death.
Malki Roth, 15, was killed in a suicide bombing in a pizzeria.
Nachshon Wachsman, 19, was taken hostage and then shot dead.
Naftali Fraenkel, 16, was kidnapped while hitchhiking and killed.
Hannah Rogen, 92, died in a bombing of a Passover seder.
Rabbi Moshe Twersky, 59, was killed in a hacking and shooting attack on a synagogue.
Marla Bennett, 24, died in a bombing of a Hebrew University cafeteria.
Kristine Luken, 44, a Christian, was bound and fatally stabbed during a hike.
Hallel Yaffa Ariel, 13, was stabbed to death in her own bed.
Chaya Zissel Braun died in a car-ramming attack. She was just three months old.
These are some of the 60 Americans deliberately murdered by the Palestinians. Alice Speri makes no mention of a single one of them. She’s concerned only with the two American citizens killed by the IDF Rachel Corrie and Shireen Abu Akleh — and in circumstances quite different from those deliberate murders of sixty Jewish Americans in Israel.
During the time these atrocities took place, the Palestinians received more than $6.3 billion in U.S. aid. Yet Palestinian leaders continue to be implicated in endemic, shocking glorification of violence, and they officially dispense payments to those found guilty of terrorism.
Each victim of these attacks had a past, a stolen future and a grieving family left behind.
Will The Intercept and Le Monde speak their names? Or do their lives—and the Palestinian atrocities that took them—not matter?…
Have there been any articles published in either The Intercept or Le Monde (France’s paper of record, read by its elite, and which has become increasingly anti-Israel during the past 40 years) about any of the Americans murdered by Palestinian terrorists? Not a one.
And can those outlets be embarrassed or shamed into finally reporting on those 60 American victims of Palestinian terror? Don’t be silly.
Hugh Fitzgerald
Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/09/selective-memory-left-forgetting-americans-killed-hugh-fitzgerald/
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