Friday, June 03, 2022
Elder of Ziyon
NPR justifies terror and humanizes terrorists.
What compelled a young Palestinian man to open fire at a bar in Tel Aviv last month? It was one of several deadly attacks in Israel that has sparked a military crackdown in the occupied West Bank, where a prominent journalist was recently killed covering an Israeli raid. NPR's Daniel Estrin visited the Jenin refugee camp to trace one early spark that ignited the latest flames.DANIEL ESTRIN: Amin Khazem invites us to his rooftop porch in the Jenin refugee camp.From your rooftop, you can see the whole camp.AMIN KHAZEM: Yes.ESTRIN: What are you growing here? All these rooftop plants, what are these?KHAZEM: Small oranges.ESTRIN: Amin is also raising two parrots ...And looking after his 5-year-old grandson, whose T-shirt, shorts and shoes feature the silhouette of an M-16.Here, the culture in the refugee camp is a culture of jihad and martyrdom," Amin says. They carry the memories of their families' old villages, destroyed when Israel was created.KHAZEM: (Speaking Arabic).ESTRIN: Wow. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine - can't even count how many bullet holes are - oh, on that wall, too.KHAZEM: From the Israeli army.
In his Twitter thread on the story, Estrin says that the IDF took over Khazem's rooftop in 2002 in Jenin - meaning that the bullet holes are likely from Palestinians shooting at the Israelis, not from the IDF. But he doesn't bother to clarify that in the NPR story.
ESTRIN: Scars from a major battle with Palestinian militia 20 years ago. It was the Palestinian uprising. Young men from this camp were going to Israel to carry out deadly attacks. Israel stormed the camp and destroyed hundreds of homes. Amin's 29-year-old nephew Raad watched all of this when he was this little boy's age. One night last month, Raad wasn't home in the camp.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST: A Palestinian assailant opened fire inside a crowded Tel Aviv bar, killing three Israelis.ESTRIN: Hundreds of Israeli officers and armed civilians launched a manhunt through the streets of Tel Aviv. Officers say they found Raad at dawn and killed him in a firefight.KHAZEM: (Speaking Arabic).ESTRIN: Amin says the family was shocked. Raad was a techie. He invested in Bitcoin and was financially stable. But his uncle says neighbors shot Raad in the legs several months ago in a dispute over a loan. He says Raad wanted to shoot them back, but the family convinced him to reconcile. He did, and a week later, he was in Tel Aviv. Did this personal anguish drive him to kill Israelis, knowing he likely wouldn't come back alive?KHAZEM: (Speaking Arabic).ESTRIN: Amin denies any connection. He says Israel links Palestinian attacks to personal hardship to undermine the fight for Palestinian rights. Raad's father was a senior commander in the Palestinian security forces, trained by the U.S. to round up gunmen, bring order and prepare the ground for an independent Palestine. But here, Palestinians are fed up with their own security forces who brought no security and no independence.KHAZEM: (Speaking Arabic).ESTRIN: He says, "we fell in love with the United Nations Security Council and the International Criminal Court in the Arab states and ended up with delusions. People have reached a dead end. There's no horizon that we we will be liberated without us liberating ourselves." He says the camp is full of guns.
It doesn't take much to realize that Ra'ad was humiliated at not being able to take revenge on being shot by his neighbors, but once his family convinced him not to, he had to regain his honor somehow - and killing Jews is always a reliable method to do that.
In fact, this was alluded to in a video from another of Ra'ad's uncles, who praised the murderer for shooting Israelis instead of his fellow Palestinians - which is what he wanted to do!
Khazem can be seen is in the background of this video of the other raving uncle.
Estrin simply accepted the words of the terrorist's uncle - which is the Palestinian narrative that justifies all murders of Jews as a natural response to Israeli actions.
Notice that they aren't featuring any interviews with the victims' families. Only the terrorists must be understood and sympathized with.
(h/t Daniel)
UPDATE: The first picture above has what looks like notone but two swastikas on Khazem's wall. (h/t Ian)
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