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Hugh Fitzgerald: How the AP Covered the Murder of Ori Ansbacher (Part Two)

Apr 4, 2019 10:00 am By Hugh Fitzgerald

In the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians attended the funerals of the teenagers.

The mother of 14-year-old Hassan Shalabi wailed as mourners brought his body on a stretcher for a final farewell at their home in the Nusseirat refugee camp.

“He was everything beautiful at home; his voice, his happiness fills the house. There is laughter and play when he is home,” said the mother, Fatma, soon after the body was carried away, wrapped in a Palestinian flag.

The AP report includes this supposedly heart-rending remark by the wailing mother of one of the protesters  killed. But why was there nothing similar reported about the reaction of Ori Ansbacher’s family? Is it only the “Palestinians” who are deserving of such tugging-at-the-heart details? The report about Ori Ansbacher could, and should, have included some remark by her parents. There was this: “You were a child of light. You brought so much light and happiness to the house,” her mother Na’ama said. Or this  description of Ori by her parents: Ori was “a holy soul seeking meaning, with a sensitivity for every person and creature and an infinite desire to correct the world with goodness.” The Ansbachers weren’t allowed to speak in this report; Fatma Shalabi was. Why?

The two [Palestinian] teenagers were standing 50-60 meters (160-200 feet) from the fence at separate protests when they were shot by Israeli forces, according to rights group al-Mezan.

Voice of America reports that the teens were killed — in two different places — “at the fence.” The AP reporter who relied on Al-Mezan apparently does not know that the “Al-Mezan Human Rights Group” is an endless fount of anti-Israel propaganda. Ordinarily the Israelis use tear gas, rubber bullets, and stun guns to dissuade protesters from reaching the security fence; live fire is used only when they are very close to, or already at, the fence, and trying to cut through it. It is doubtful that live fire would have been used against anyone that far — 160-200 feet — from the fence. One remains skeptical of any report issued by Al-Mezan.

This part of the AP story should have been written thus: “The Palestinian group Al-Mezan claims the two teenagers were standing 50-60 meters from the fence when they were shot.’” This removes the too-charitable description of Al-Mezan as a “human rights group” — just as CAIR’s description of itself as a “civil rights group” is so misleading. The verb “claims,” with its semantic freight of doubt, is justified because there has been no independent corroboration of Al-Mezan’s insistence that the two boys were “50-60 meters” from the fence when they were shot. We know, from the last ten months of protests, that Israel uses live fire only on those who are close to or at the fence.

In Gaza City, mourners buried Hamza Ishtiwi. The Health Ministry put his age at 18, but Mezan said he was 17. Footage of the teen lying on his back the moment after a bullet struck him in the neck spread on social media.

The Gaza Health Ministry matter-of-factly put Ishtiwi’s age at 18. Al-Mezan’s claim that he was actually 17 was likely made so as to be able to insist that both boys were minors; it’s a short step from that to describing these boys as “children,” as UNICEF subsequently did. Mention of the “footage of the teen lying on his back” is meant to make the scene more vivid, and readers of the report more sympathetic to the Arab version of events. No such details (and they would be very disturbing, for she was raped, with extreme violence, before being stabbed many times) about the body of Ori Ansbacher are contained in this  AP report.

Gaza’s Hamas rulers have organized mass demonstrations along the frontier every Friday since March, in part to protest against the Israeli and Egyptian blockade on the territory imposed when the Islamic militant group seized power in 2007. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed and thousands have been wounded.

The Great March of Return organized by Hamas was not a protest against the blockade by Egypt and Israel, but a sustained attempt, every Friday since March 31, 2018, to damage and breach the security fence, and then to push into Israel, as a demonstration of Palestinian “resistance.”  It was, and remains, a propaganda stunt, as well as a direct assault on Israel’s defenses.

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Filed Under: Featured, Hugh Fitzgerald, Israel, journalistic bias, Palestinian Authority Tagged With: Associated Press, Ori Ansbacher


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Comments

  1. eduardo odraude says

    Apr 4, 2019 at 1:18 pm

    Outstanding critique of the appallingly biased AP “report.”

    • Robert_k says

      Apr 4, 2019 at 4:02 pm

      Add Reuters, founded by Reform German Jews to the AP propoganda machine.

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