Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Elder of Ziyon
The 14-page propaganda piece, by Ben Ehrenreich, is remarkable in how one-sided it is - even for him.
The theme of the article is that Palestinians in the West Bank tried non-violence but the evil Jews kept attacking them for no reason, so now they are sadly forced to become violent.
The central falsehood of the article is the myth of historical Palestinian nonviolence.
Some version of what has come to be called nonviolent resistance dates back more than a century....The idea is simple: to stand together, to refuse the fate chosen for you by your oppressor, and with your courage inspire others to do the same. That was the basis for mass mobilization during the uprising of 1936, throughout the First Intifada in the late Eighties and early Nineties, and in the early weeks of the next one, the fall of 2000. As the Second Intifada dragged into its third year and the losses piled up, nonviolent tactics gained their appeal.
Wow.
About 400 Jews were killed in the 1936-39 "revolt." About 277 Israelis were killed in the "non-violent" first intifada. And the "early weeks " of the second intifada featured the murders of about 12 Israelis including the vicious lynching of two Israelis who made a wrong turn into Ramallah.
This is the tone of the entire article. The atrocities of October 7 are not mentioned. Terror attacks against Israeli civilians since that date - at least 30 killed by West Bank Palestinians - are not mentioned at all. The article implies that the only "resistance" since October 7 is militants defending their homes in Jenin and Tulkarem, not murdering Jewish civilians.
Astoundingly, the word "Hamas" is not mentioned once - even though it is the most popular political group in the West Bank. Not only that, but Hamas tried to spread the October 7 attacks into the West Bank and wanted to activate sleeper cells there, which would explain Israel's aggressiveness in the territories in the weeks and months afterwards.
Of course, Harper's and Ehrenreich don't want their readers to know this.
The entire article is riddled with falsehoods - claiming that 70,000 were killed in Gaza, way beyond what even Hamas claimed. Or even small details like this:
Shireen Abu Akleh was shot to death by an Israeli soldier in May 2022. The monument erected to her had been bulldozed. Across the street was the new martyrs’ cemetery, built for Palestinians killed by Israeli forces. The earliest graves dated to July 2023, and it was already half full.
The cemetery was there when Akleh was killed.
Manal Tamimi is presented as a non-violent peace activist, while her social media is filled with celebrations of terror attacks. And Ehrenreich knows this quite well, because there have been articles criticizing his praising of the Tamimi family in years past.
This is not journalism. This is curated anti-Israel propaganda.
That this level of distortion passed editorial review at one of America’s most prestigious magazines says more about Harper’s than it does about Ehrenreich.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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