Guardian report characterizes Palestinian terror movement as merely a ‘Leftist’ group

A Feb. 28 Guardian/AFP report titled ‘Palestinian killed in Israeli army raid on his home is buried‘ begins thus:

A Palestinian killed during an Israeli army raid on his home in the West Bank town of Birzeit has been buried.

Motazz Washaha was found dead after the raid on Thursday morning. The army said he was “suspected of terror activity”.

Actually, Washaha reportedly had helped plan and carry out numerous terror attacks across the West Bank.

The Guardian report continues:

About 4,000 mourners attended the funeral on Friday at Birzeit, north of Ramallah. Many called on Palestinian factions to unite and avenge Washaha’s killing. He was identified by neighbours as a member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP] – the movement’s flags were raised at his funeral.

So, Guardian readers are informed that PFLP is merely a “Leftist” organization!

Of course PFLP is a Marxist-Leninist Palestinian terrorist group which rejects Israel’s right to exist within any borders. PFLP is known for having pioneered techniques of international flight hijackingswas responsible for multiple deadly terror attacks in Israel and is officially listed as a terrorist group by the United States and European Union.

strategy-libpal-copy
Graphic from PFLP website

Some of its more high profile attacks include:

  • The hijacking of an El Al plane (July 23, 1968); 16 prisoners were released.
  • Hijacking of 3 planes belonging to Western countries (September 6, 1970): Three commercial airliners were hijacked and blown up after the passengers were evacuated. An attempt to hijack an Israeli (El Al) airliner was foiled. Three days later another Western plane was hijacked as well.
  • The assassination of Rehavam Ze’evi (October 17, 2001).
  • suicide bombing attack at the West Bank village of Karnei Shomrom (February 16, 2002); 3 Israeli civilians murdered, 25 wounded.
  • A suicide bombing attack at a bus station at the Geha junction in Tel Aviv (December 25, 2003); 3 Israelis murdered.

As CAMERA noted in a post earlier, you’d almost think, based on the article, that PFLP was “Leftist as in the Israeli Meretz-types who advocate for an immediate Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.”

On PFLP’s website, violence against Israeli civilians is justified by virtue of the fact that they are a “liberation movement” and – evoking agitprop used historically by Marxists to justify violence and other extremist measures – a “progressive national movement against the forces of aggression and imperialism“.  

Whilst it’s of course not at all surprising that the group would present themselves as a left-wing or progressive force, professional journalists have the duty, at the minimum, not to serve as a mouthpiece for such crude propaganda.

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