How to Make A Civilian Terror Attack Look Like It Was A Military Target

We’ve grown used to media bias in the international press, whereby terrorists who kill Jews are referred to as “gunmen”, “militants”, and just plain “Palestinians” but when innocents are killed in Brussels or Paris, they are called “terrorists” plain and simple. We’ve grown used to the international press reporting on “shootings” in Israel and “terrorist attacks” in other places. It is true that the PC United States sometimes has problems calling Muslim terrorism on American soil for what it is, but my concern is Israel. Whether or not such “inaccuracies,” when it comes to reporting on Israel, are related to antisemitism, it is clear that media bias promotes misunderstanding at the least and helps demonize Israel in more extreme cases.

This post is a slightly modified version of a post that first appeared on Israellycool on 9 June 2016, a few days after the Sarona attack.

After the latest terror attack last night in Tel Aviv, at the popular market area in central Tel Aviv, I noticed that most international press reports did have headlines that acknowledged (how nice of them) that it was a terror attack. Those that did not, soon changed their headlines. For example, RT initially reported on “2 Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Gunmen Kill 3 in Central Tel Aviv” and within a short time they changed it to “2 Palestinians Dressed as Orthodox Jews Kill 4 In Tel Aviv”. The Australian Herald Sun published the news with the headline “Terrorists Target Open-Air Market in Israel.” The Fox News headline, on the other hand, does not suggest that the shooting was a terror attack, “At Least 4 Dead In Shooting Attack in Tel Aviv.”

But headlines are not the only way anti-Israel media bias misleads readers. The AFP gives you the impression that the innocents may not have been all that innocent, given the supposed proximity of the restaurant in which the attack occurred to THE ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTRY!  Here is what it looked like on the landing page of Yahoo (up until afternoon July 9, Israel time) and on the AFP article itself.

Screenshot of AFP report on Yahoo Landing Page – June 9, 2016 morning, Israel time.

Note the photo used in this article – it is quite different from the one of the empty restaurant used in most of the online reports of the attack. This photo almost makes it seem that the target was, in fact, a military target and not people sitting in a restaurant on a pleasant Tel Aviv summer evening. (In the meantime, the photo below has been removed from the article on Yahoo, but the wording remains.)

Screenshot of AFP article, entitled: “Four Killed in Shooting at Tel Aviv Night Spot” – June 9, 2016.

Let us now look at the “near-by” military headquarters.

Screenshot of Google Map showing location of the attack (1) and other “near-by” sites.

I have marked out the location of the Tel Aviv terror attack at the Sarona Market and the Israel Defense Ministry. Just to give a sense of the nature of anti-Israel media bias comprised of a misleading statement implying that the attack took place near the Defense Ministry, I have marked other familiar sites that are within the same walking distance (about 10 minutes according to Google Maps).

1. The location of the restaurant in which the attack took place.
2. The Defense Ministry.
3. Azrieli Tower.
4. The Shalom Train Station.
5. The Ministry for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee.
6. The German Embassy.

Just for the sake of complete transparency — “7” shows the security gate through which one would have to pass in order to get to the Defense Ministry building. There are cement blocks and a very sturdy gate protecting the entranceway. If the terrorists had wanted to attack there, they would have, at most, been able to wound 1 or 2 soldiers before being promptly killed.

Now why would AFP want to imply that the attack somehow had something to do with the Defense Ministry of Israel?

[Image by Feldbum via Wikimedia Commons]