http://salem-news.com/articles/march192011/palestine-babies-aw.php
Artwork by Latuff
http://latuff2.deviantart.com/gallery/
Network news reports Israeli children’s deaths 14 times more than Palestinians.
 Images that accompany list of slain children do not represent the children as listed by name. Artwork by Carlos Latuff in Brazil. |
(SACRAMENTO) - US media have been widely and repeatedly reporting on the awful March 11 murder of three small Israeli children and their parents. While no one yet knows who committed this act, reports presume that the murderers were Palestinian, and for this reason the incident is receiving major attention. Various heads of state, including President Obama, have condemned it.
 Members of the Fogel family of Itamar |
If it turns out that the murderer or murderers were Israeli, as some previously presumed “terrorists” have turned out to be, or a foreign worker who had previously threatened the family over unpaid wages, as some reports from the area suggest, it is likely that coverage of the incident will quickly vanish from U.S. headlines.
For now, however, American news reports continue to provide excruciating details about the atrocity. Given the amount of reportage, it is surprising how much significant information is omitted.
For example, none of these reports mention that the location of the murders, Itamar (near Nablus), is an illegal Jewish-only settlement on stolen Palestinian land in the midst of refugees whom Israel pushed off their ancestral land through massacres and ruthless military actions.
Nor do reports mention the frequency with which Israeli settlers beat, occasionally torture, and sometimes murder Palestinians of all ages, burn their crops, and hack down their groves of olive trees, the livelihood of many Palestinian villagers; hundreds, at least, of these trees, have been destroyed by rampaging Israeli settlers.
Religious extremism
Even lengthy articles on the tragic incident fail to mention the extremely relevant and chillingly ironic fact that Itamar was founded and is largely populated by fanatic Jewish extremists, many of whom believe that the killing of non-Jewish infants is religiously permitted, and sometimes mandated, as discussed in a best-selling book “The King’s Torah,” which was written by authors from the area and endorsed by numerous rabbis and religious schools (but opposed by most Israelis).
In their elaborate descriptions of the murder scene, U.S. articles neglect to mention that the building next door is the house of Chabad Lubavitch emissaries, a Hassidic movement in Orthodox Judaism, and features a photo of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known for his astoundingly supremacist teachings.
Schneerson is widely revered by such settlers (and his followers in the U.S.); many believed him to have been the messiah. In their book “Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel,” professors Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky quote Schneerson’s teachings about the differences between Jews and non-Jews:
“… we do not have a case of profound change in which a person is merely on a superior level. Rather, we have a case of ‘let us differentiate’ between totally different species. This is what needs to be said about the body: the body of a Jewish person is of a totally different quality from the body of [members] of all nations of the world...A non-Jew’s entire reality is only vanity…The entire creation [of a non-Jew] exists only for the sake of the Jews...”
Which children matter?
Finally, news reports on the abhorrent Itamar murders fail to mention the frequent, tragic, and equally abhorrent killing of massive numbers of Palestinian children by Israelis.
For example, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Itamar incident was “the deadliest such attack against Jewish settlers in the area since 2002,” but didn’t bother to report that there have been numerous deadly attacks on Palestinians in the area in the intervening years, that dozens of Palestinian minors have been killed, many more injured and maimed, and even more Palestinian mothers, fathers, and grandparents killed.
This viewpoint is typical of U.S. media. Statistical studies show that primetime network news shows report on Israeli children’s deaths at rates up to 14 times greater than they report on Palestinian children’s deaths; regional newspapers report Israeli deaths at even more disproportionate rates.
Palestinian deaths are therefore often virtually invisible to American news consumers, even though they occurred first and are far greater in number.
In the round of violence that began in fall 2000, over 90 Palestinian children were killed before a single Israeli child; in total, approximately 1,500 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis, and approximately 130 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians during this period.
 The deaths at Itamar were tragic, as every Palestinian's |
Since American media, in stark contrast to coverage of the Itamar victims, so rarely report on Palestinian victims and their weeping families, or provide details of their grisly deaths, at the end of this article is a partial list of these young, largely disappeared victims.
While this very incomplete list does little to balance the moving, detailed reporting on Israeli children’s deaths found in U.S. news media, and completely ignores the even greater number of children grieving for parents killed by Israeli forces, publishing it here at least provides the names of Palestinian victims, a rarity in American media coverage.
A few years ago an Israeli army officer emptied, at close range, the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl. Afterward he said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old. Because so many of his underlings reported this particular incident, he was eventually tried in an Israeli military court – but on minor offenses, not murder. He was acquitted of all charges.
It is hard to imagine the feelings of Americans if these were our children and if we were suffering this degree of unbearable loss. The population in the Palestinian Territories is less than 1/90th the population of the U.S.; there is hardly a Palestinian family that has not experienced tragedy.
Because Israel partisans consistently screen out the mass of significant information on this issue, and other editors, perhaps through ignorance, negligence, and/or timidity, go along, Americans receive the kind of highly filtered, lying-through-omission “journalism” that is so effectively creating fear, hatred, and ignorance of Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims – and that perpetuates the uniquely massive flow of American money to Israel, currently over $8 million per day. Israel, with a population of seven million, is reportedly about to ask for an additional $20 billion.
Regarding the as-yet unsolved murder of three children in Itamar, President Obama pronounced:
“There is no justification and there can be neither excuse nor forgiveness for the murder of children. I expect a similar condemnation, and I demand a similar condemnation, from the Palestinian Authority.”
Perhaps someday President Obama will have the integrity – and the courage – to make the same pronouncement about the murders of Palestinian children, and address it to the Israeli government.
A partial list of Palestinian Children Killed by Israelis
The following information is taken from http://www.rememberthesechildren.org/remember2000.html “Remember These Children,” [ which works to document all Israeli and Palestinian children who have been killed, in the belief, sadly not shared by the U.S. media, that all of these children matter.
In the list below, “IDF” stands for Israeli Defense Forces, an offensive, occupying force; “Incursion” refers to an invasion of Palestinian land by Israeli military forces. To reiterate: this is a partial list of children mostly 13 and under of the approximately 1,500 Palestinian minors killed by Israeli forces in the past 11 years; during the same period Palestinians killed about 130 Israeli minors.
2000
Muhammad Saleh Muhammad al-Arja, 12, of Rafah, Gaza, killed by Israeli sniper fire to his head near the Rafah boder crossing.
Math Ahmad Muhammad abu-Hadwan, 11, of Hebron, killed by IDF gunfire to his head in Tel Rumeida.
Abdul-Rahman Khaled Hammouda Khbeish, 4, of Balata refugee camp, killed by IDF gunfire to his head.
2001
Obeisi infant girl, of Nablus, died at an IDF checkpoint when her mother was prevented from crossing to reach the hospital.
Muhammad Ismael Hashem Nasr, 10, of Dahyet al-Bareed, near Jerusalem, killed by Israeli settlers.
Isra Ahmad, 11, of Nablus, died at an IDF checkpoint when she was prevented from reaching a hospital.
Mahmoud Ismael al-Darwish, 11, of Dura, near Hebron, killed by IDF shelling to his chest.
Yehya Fathi Muhammad al-Sheikh Eid, 12, of Rafah, Gaza, killed by IDF shelling to his face, neck and abdomen.
Iman Muhammad al-Haju, 4 months, of Khan Younis, Gaza, killed by IDF shelling while in her mother’s arms.
Suleiman Sami al-Masri, 12, of Rafah, Gaza, killed by IDF gunfire to his back.
Khalil Ibrahim Muhammad al-Moghrabi, 11, of Rafah, Gaza, killed by IDF tank fire to his head while playing with a friend near the border with Egypt.
Diya Marwan Hilmi al-Tmeizi, 3 months, of Ithna, near Hebron, killed, with her older brother, by Israeli settler gunfire to her head and back.
Ashraf Khalil Abdul-Minem, 8, of al-Judeidah, near Jenin, killed, with his brother, in an IDF helicopter missile strike during a targeted assassination.
Bilal Khalil Abdul-Minem, 10, of al-Judeidah, near Jenin, killed, with his brother, in an IDF helicopter missile strike during a targeted assassination.
Azhar Said Shalafa, 2, of Rafah, Gaza, died at an IDF checkpoint when her mother was prevented from taking her to the hospital.
Muhammad Subhi abu-Arrar, 14, of Rafah refugee camp, Gaza, killed by IDF sniper fire to his chest while playing in front of his home.
Inas Samir abu-Zeid, 5, of Rafah, Gaza, killed, with her brother, by IDF shelling. Suleiman Samir abu-Zeid, 7, of Rafah, Gaza, killed, with his sister, by IDF shelling.
Abdallah Atatrah, 3, of al-Tarm, near Jenin, died at an IDF checkpoint when the car carrying him was prevented from getting to the Yabad medical center after he fell into a swamp.
Khaled Arafat al-Batash, 2, of Hebron, killed by the IDF and Israeli settlers during a gas attack.
Riham Nabil Younis Abul-Ward, 10, of Jenin, killed by IDF gunfire to her head while in her classroom.
Abed-Rabo infant, newborn, of Bethlehem, died at an IDF checkpoint after its mother was denied access to medical care.
Akram Naim Abdul-Karim al-Astal, 6, of Khan Younis refugee camp, Gaza, killed, with his brother and three cousins, by an IDF missile while on their way to school.
Anis Idris Muhammad al-Astal, 11, of Khan Younis refugee camp, Gaza, killed, with his brother and three cousins, by an IDF missile while on their way to school.
Muhammad Rateb abu-Shahla, 12, of Jenin, killed by IDF shelling to his head.
Shadi Ahmad Abdul-Moti Arafeh, 13, of Hebron, killed in an IDF helicopter missile strike during a targeted assassination.
Burhan Muhammad Ibrahim al-Himuni, 3, of Hebron, killed in an IDF helicopter missile strike during a targeted assassination.
Muhammad Zakin, 8 hours, of Yamoun, near Jenin, died at an IDF checkpoint after his mother was denied access to medical care.
Rami Salahaldeen Muhammad Zurob, 13, of Rafah, Gaza, killed by IDF helicopter fire to his head while playing in front of his house.
2002
Muna Sami Ataya al-Bajasa, 13, of Khan Younis, Gaza, killed, with her mother, by IDF tank fire to her head during an incursion.
Mahmoud Hasan Ahmad al-Talalka, 7, of Beit Hanoun, Gaza, killed by IDF gunfire to his abdomen near the Nisanit settlement.
Maria Izaldeen abu-Sarieh, 9, of Jenin refugee camp, killed by IDF shelling to her head while in her home during an incursion.
Inas Ibrahim Eisa Saleh, 9, of Jabalya refugee camp, Gaza, died of wounds sustained Feb. 19 from IDF shelling during a targeted assassination.
Muhammad Hussein abu-Kweik, 8, of Amari refugee camp, killed, with his two sisters, by IDF helicopter fire during a targeted assassination.
Shaima Izaldeen Ibrahim al-Masri, 7, of Ramallah, killed by IDF helicopter fire during a targeted assassination.
Said Ali Ibrahim Subeih, 12, of Ramallah, died of head wounds sustained Feb. 28 from IDF gunfire.
Muhammad Mamoun Fayez abu-Ali, 10, of Tulkarm refugee camp, died of chest wounds sustained March 7 from IDF gunfire during an incursion.
Amani Odeh Muhammad al-Awawdah, 12, of Bureij refugee camp, Gaza, killed, with her mother, brother, sister and cousin, by an IDF land mine while riding on an animal drawn cart.
Salim Odeh Muhammad al-Awawdah, 10, of Bureij refugee camp, Gaza, killed, with his mother, 2 sisters and cousin, by an IDF land mine while riding on an animal drawn cart.
Tariq Muhammad Salman al-Awawdah, 10, of Bureij refugee camp, Gaza, killed, with his aunt and three cousins, by an IDF land mine while riding on an animal drawn cart.
Mujahed Arafat abu-Shabab, 2, of Rafah, Gaza, killed by IDF shelling.
Shaima Said Abdul-Rahim Hamad, 12, of Rafah, Gaza, died of head wounds sustained March 15 from IDF gunfire.
Iyad Imad Muhammad al-Mughrabi, 11, of Askar refugee camp, died of head wounds sustained March 17 from IDF gunfire.
Riham Hussam Mustafa abu-Taha, 4, of Rafah refugee camp, Gaza, died of head wounds sustained March 21 from IDF shelling.
Mahmoud Muhammad Musa abu-Yasin, 13, of Jabalya refugee camp, Gaza, died of abdominal wounds sustained March 12 during a funeral.
Abdullah Samir Omar al-Shubi, 10, of Nablus, killed, with his family of seven, by an IDF missile during an incursion.
Anas Samir Omar al-Shubi, 4, of Nablus, killed, with his family of seven, by an IDF missile during an incursion.
Azzam Samir Omar al-Shubi, 7, of Nablus, killed, with his family of seven, by an IDF missile during an incursion
Salwa Khaled Dahaliz, 10, of Rafah refugee camp, Gaza, killed by IDF gunfire to her head near the Rafah Yam settlement.
Sumaya Najeh Abdul-Hadi al-Hasan, 6, of Rafah refugee camp, Gaza, killed by IDF shelling to her head.
Isra Ghaleb Othman, 10, of Beitunia, near Ramallah, killed by IDF gunfire to her side.
Ahed Rasmi Ali Hamad, 5, of Hebron, killed by IDF gunfire during an incursion.
Qusay Farah abu-Aisha, 12, of Askar refugee camp, killed by IDF gunfire while playing in his yard during an incursion.
Fadel Mahmoud abu-Zuheirah, 9, of Beitunia, near Ramallah, killed by IDF tank fire to his abdomen while in his home during an incursion.
Rifat Bassam Shehada Awad, 12, of Awarta, near Nablus, killed, with his two brothers, by an IDF armored personnel carrier.
Khayri Bassam Shehada Awad, 11, of Awarta, near Nablus, killed, with his two brothers, by an IDF armored personnel carrier.
Faraj Hekmat Udwan, 4, of Awarta, near Nablus, killed by an IDF armored personnel carrier.
Othman Fadel Khaled Masharqah, 7, of Jenin, killed by IDF shelling to his head and limbs during an incursion.
Asad Faysal Ersan Qarini, 10, of Jenin, killed by IDF gunfire to his head and foot during an incursion.
Huda Muhammad Said abu-Shaluf, 12, of Rafah, Gaza, killed by IDF shelling to her head while at home during an incursion.
Fadi Ghassan al-Ajlouni, 8, of Hebron, killed by IDF gunfire.
Abed Khaled Muhammad Ismael, 11, of Artas, near Bethlehem, killed by IDF gunfire.
Abeer Muhammad Yousef Zakarna, 3, of Qabatiya, near Jenin, killed, with her brother and mother, by IDF shelling to her limbs.
Basel Muhammad Yousef Zakarna, 4, of Qabatiya, near Jenin, killed, with his sister and mother, by IDF shelling to his back.
Tamer Khaled Mahmoud abu-Siriyye, 10, of Tulkarm, killed by IDF tank fire to his chest while throwing stones.
Salem Sami Salem al-Shaer, 15, of Rafah, Gaza, died of back wounds sustained May 7, with his brother, from IDF gunfire during an incursion.
Anwar Elian Saleh abu-Said, 12, of Juhor al-Deek, near Khan Younis, Gaza, killed by IDF shelling.
Hussein Eid Hassan al-Matwi, 8, of al-Maghraqa, near Khan Younis, Gaza, killed by IDF shelling to his heart near his home.
Abdul-Samad Hashem Shamlakh, 10, of Gaza City, killed by IDF gunfire to his head while in his home during an incursion.
Ahmad Yousef Abdul-Aziz al-Ghazawi, 9, of Jenin, killed by IDF tank fire.
Fares Hussam Fares al-Sadi, 13, of Jenin, killed by the IDF when his neighbor’s house was blown up.
Sjoud Ahmad Turki Fahmawi, 6, of Jenin, killed by IDF tank fire to her chest and left arm during an incursion.
Jamil Yousef Abdul-Aziz al-Ghazzawi, 12, of Jenin, died of leg and thigh wounds sustained June 21, with his brother, from IDF tank fire.
Bassam Ghassan Ragheb al-Sadi, 6, of Jenin refugee camp, killed by IDF gunfire to his chest.
Muhammad Shteiwi, 12, of Fara refugee camp, killed by IDF gunfire to his chest.
fontfontfontfont
No comments:
Post a Comment