Guardian buries story of Israelis murdered by Palestinian terrorists, highlights revenge attack on mosque

Those looking at the Guardian’s Israel page today saw the story, Vandals attack mosque in Northern Israeli village“, Oct. 3, which contained this headline and photo:

The 330 word piece noted that “Vandals have set fire to a mosque in an Arab village in northern Israel,” by “Jewish radicals”, and further stated that the vandalism was a “price tag” attack, which, the report noted, is “a reference to a settler practice of attacking Palestinians and their property in retaliation for Palestinian attacks”.

The report only alluded to the terrorist attack which initiated the vandalism in this passage, eight paragraphs down, encompassing 60 words:

Army Radio reported that the family name of a settler and his infant son who were killed in a car crash near the West Bank town of Hebron last week was also scrawled on a wall….Israeli police said rocks were thrown at the man by Palestinians, hitting him around the head and causing him to lose control of the car.

Contrast this report with the Guardian’s dearth of coverage regarding the terrorist attack on the “settler and his infant son” (whose names are Asher and Yonatan Palmer, of Kiryat Arba) on Sept. 23.

News of the terrorist attack was buried in the following story which primarily focused on the shooting death of Palestinian man (allegedly by IDF soldiers) who was participating in riots in the West Bank, “Palestine to press for UN vote on full statehood as soon as possible“, Sept. 23, by Harriet Sherwood.

Here’s the headline and photo.

The 482 word story included 22 words on the Palestinian terror attack “on a Jewish settler and his son” without even a hint of who was responsible, despite the fact that the Israeli press had reported hours earlier that police indeed concluded that it was a Palestinian terrorist attack. Here’s the sum total of Sherwood’s focus on the murder of Asher and Yonatan. 

the death of a Jewish settler and his son in a car crash that police said was probably caused by rock-throwing

The only reference to the Palestinian terror attack was similarly buried in a story by Harriet Sherwood about new “settler” homes in Jerusalem.  Sherwood’s 650 word story, Israel approves new settler homes in East Jerusalem“, Sept. 27, included the following headline and photo:

Sherwood’s passage about the terror attack on “a settler and his infant son”, included 30 words, was placed in the third from the last paragraph, and quickly pivoted to reporting on a rabbi at the murdered Israelis funeral who called for revenge.

An Israeli police investigation concluded that a settler and his infant son, who were killed when their car overturned last Friday, had been struck by a rock thrown by Palestinians. At their funeral on Sunday night, a rabbi called for “collective punishment” of Palestinians, saying “there are no innocents in a war”. 

So in sum, the Guardian has devoted 330 words, in a feature story, on the vandalizing of a mosque in retaliation for a terrorist attack, while their reports on the murdered Israelis encompassed 52 words, and was only mentioned in passing in the context of two separate stories which focused primarily on Palestinian victimhood.

Even more telling of the Guardian’s disregard for Israeli victims of terror, the Jewish man and his son murdered were never named.  Both reports callously referred to Asher and Yonatan as “a settler and his infant son.”

To the Guardian, Israeli life is cheap, and “settler” life is even cheaper. 

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