Arabs set fire to Jewish fields. They claim Jews set fire to Arab fields. B'Tselem, Peace Now believe the Arabs.

B'Tselem tweeted that Jews had set Arab fields on fire last night.

The tweet received thousands of "Likes" with respondents calling the arsonists terrorists.

Which they are.

Except they are Arab, setting fields from the neighboring Jewish community of Givat Ronen on fire.

Residents spent hours fighting the blazes. 

An IDF spokesperson confirmed that security cameras detected three separate fires were set by Arabs at Givat Ronen. 

Arabs setting fires to Jewish fields is hardly unusual - it happens every year, and it has happened since before the State of Israel was established. 

But B'Tselem, Peace Now and others immediately believed the lies that these fires were set by "settlers" and spread the slander to thousands of people already primed to believe any lies about Jews. 

To be sure, there has been arson done by Jewish settlers, and it should be condemned. But it is the responsibility of NGOs to check stories before spreading them, and the track record of Arab media that they mindlessly parrot is not very good in cases like these. 

Similarly, no one seems to report things like Arabs shooting fireworks directly at Jewish-owned houses in Jerusalem, while the converse would have been front page news. (This happened last month.)

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