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Updates
(1) HuffPost has taken down its search engine and search box.
Since its debut in 2005, HuffPost has featured a search box just below its banner. Now, it is gone – and its search engine has been taken offline. The practical impact of this is that anyone who follows the search links provided in this documentary and its supporting materials, to prove its assertions, ends up at a dead (404) page. See full documentation of this development here.
(2) South African radio interview with Jon Sutz.
STW consultant Jon Sutz wrote, designed and produced this documentary. On March 8, he was interviewed on South Africa’s ChaiFM radio program. Listen here.
Script & resources: “The Huffington Post’s Anti-Semitic Bias and Incitement During the Third Intifada”
Contents:
(2) Four examples of HuffPost’s anti-Semitic bias during the Third Intifada
(2.1) The murders of Rabbi Eitam and Naama Henkin
(2.2) The murder of Ezra Schwartz
(2.3) The murder of Rabbi Yeshayahu Krishevsky
(2.4) The murder of Hadar Buchris
(4) Do HuffPost’s acts and omissions constitute anti-Semitism?
(6) Resources
(1) Overview of this video
(1.1) About the Huffington Post
(1.2) Previous allegations of an anti-Semitic bias at HuffPost
(1.3) Our investigation: Documenting HuffPost’s coverage of the Third Intifada
(1.4) The results of our investigation
(1.5) Methodology
(1.1) About the Huffington Post
The Huffington Post, or ‘HuffPost,’ claims it has nearly 130 million readers per month, making it “the largest news site in the U.S.” One traffic analysis site claims that with its fifteen international editions, HuffPost is now the #1 most-popular political website in the world. It is owned by AOL, which in turn is owned by Verizon.
HuffPost’s banner claims its first mission is to “inform” its readers:
According to its founder and editor-in-chief, Arianna Huffington, this means “informing” readers in an nonpartisan and fearless way::
“[T]oo many reporters have forgotten that the highest calling of journalists is to ferret out the truth, consequences be damned.” (source)
“The editorial stance of the Huffington Post is to debunk the right-left way of thinking, which has become completely obsolete.” (source)
“[HuffPost is] increasingly seen … as an Internet newspaper, not positioned ideologically in terms of how we cover the news.” (source)
See other quotes by Huffington asserting her website’s alleged nonpartisanship at:
HuffPost’s repeated public claims of nonpartisan journalistic principles
And AOL tells HuffPost’s prospective advertisers that it is (screencap):
“[t]he new model for media organizations.”
(1.2) Previous allegations of an anti-Semitic bias at HuffPost by respected watchdogs
However, several respected watchdog organizations have accused HuffPost of bias regarding Israel:
The Simon Weisenthal Center blasted HuffPost for “taking the art of lying to new depths,”…
… and for its false depiction of Israel as a malevolent aggressor.
Background: Don’t Be Fooled. Hezbollah Is Bigger and Badder Than Ever, Shai Oseran and Stéphane Cohen, TheTower.org, March 2014; Israel takes Hezbollah threats seriously, by Ben Caspit, Al-Monitor.com, March 26, 2015.
On two separate occasions, the Anti-Defamation League slammed HuffPost’s bias as “outrageous”:
One ADL letter explicitly accused HuffPost of anti-Semitism (first screencap above):
“We are shocked that a version of the anti-Semitic theme that ‘Jews manipulate the U.S. government’ was boldly featured on your site.”
And the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, or CAMERA, exposed and corrected more than twelve false or misleading allegations that HuffPost made in one article, regarding Israel’s efforts to defend itself from Palestinian terrorism:
Several independent blogs, Huffington Post Monitor and Huff-Watch, have also documented what they claim to be endemic anti-Semitic bias at HuffPost.
(1.3) Our investigation: Documenting HuffPost’s coverage of the Third Intifada
To investigate HuffPost’s alleged anti-Semitic bias, SaveTheWest.com examined how it covered the Fall 2015 wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks against Jews, known as the “Third Intifada.”
[To learn more about this most recent wave of Palestinian terrorism (intifada), please see: Israeli–Palestinian conflict (2015), Wikipedia; Palestinians: The Real Goal of the Intifada, The Gatestone Institute; The Hidden Hand behind the Palestinian Terror Wave, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs; Ready or Not, the Third Intifada May Be Here, by Adam Chandler, The Atlantic, October 7, 2015.]
Our investigation spanned a ten-week period, from the beginning of the Intifada, on September 13, through November 30, during which Palestinians terrorists perpetrated 105 attacks, which left 22 Jews dead – including three American Jews – and more than 200 injured, 21 seriously.
(1.4) The results of our investigation
Our investigation revealed five key facts:
(1) Of the 105 Palestinian terror attacks during this period, HuffPost ignored 94 of them, meaning they never appeared on either its front page or World page, its two highest-traffic pages that deal with international news.
Source: Chronology of Palestinian attacks during the Third Intifada
(2) Of the 11 stories concerning attacks that HuffPost did cover – all of which were wire service reports from the AP or Reuters – in 9 cases it manipulated either (a) the provided headline copy, to blur the distinction between Palestinian terrorists and their Jewish victims, or (b) the headline imagery, to evoke sympathy for Palestinians. In one case, it falsely implied that Israel was the aggressor. In another, it insinuated that Israeli Jews are murderous racists.
Source: Examples of HuffPost’s headline manipulation during the Third Intifada
(3) Instead of reporting about the Jews who’d been murdered or injured, or their grieving loved ones, in the days after these attacks HuffPost gave sympathetic, picture-rich coverage on its front page to stories of abused animals, sad celebrities, and an array of freakish, tabloid-style “news” items.
(4) The only sympathetic, personal images that HuffPost inserted into stories that appeared on its top pages about Palestinian terror attacks were of Palestinian rioters, terrorists or their grieving loved ones. [The lone exception was a close-up of the face of an African migrant who’d been mistakenly identified as a terrorist during a Palestinian attack.]
(5) In several incidents, HuffPost gave top, sustained coverage to editorials that whitewash and legitimize the Palestinian narrative, and at least one that explicitly justifies their terrorist attacks against Jews.
(1.5) Methodology
SaveTheWest documented what appeared – and didn’t appear – on HuffPost’s front page and World page by taking full-page screen captures of these pages every day, often twice a day. We also took full-page screencaps of key story pages. We then correlated all this data to news items that appeared in various other print and online publications in the U.S., Israel and elsewhere.
(2) Four examples of HuffPost’s anti-Semitic bias during the Third Intifada
The following case studies are culled from our master chronology of all 105 Palestinian terrorist attacks, from which we constructed personal profiles of the victims in ten incidents, listed here. These profiles provide summaries of the victims, the attacks on them, the fact that HuffPost either ignored or whitewashed their stories, in contrast to the way it depicts Palestinians who allege wrongdoing, and the “news” items that it chose to post on its front page and World page, instead.
(2.1) The murders of Rabbi Eitam and Naama Henkin
(2.2) The murder of Ezra Schwartz
(2.3) The murder of Rabbi Krishevsky
(2.4) The murder of Hadar Buchris
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(2.1) The murders of Rabbi Eitam and Naama Henkin
Meet Rabbi Eitam Henkin, a 31-year-old American rabbi, and his wife Na’ama, a 30-year-old graphic artist. One close friend described them as “a dream couple… inseparable. Everyone knew that they went everywhere together. They invested a lot in their relationship, in their family, their children.”
On October 1, 2015, three weeks into the Third Intifada, the Henkins were driving home with their four small children. From out of the darkness, Palestinian terrorists emerged with machine guns, and murdered the Henkins in front of their kids.
The story of the Henkins’ murders was covered widely in the Israeli news media, and received coverage in the U.S., on outlets including NBC and the Chicago Sun-Times:
[Note: Israeli media also covered the fact that the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas (whose members were later discovered to have perpetrated the Henkins’ murders) was photographed handing out candy to celebrate this attack, which it called “heroic”:]
The Henkins’ funeral was attended by thousands of Israelis. Their eldest son, age 9, recited the kaddish, or mourner’s prayer, at the service.
The story of the Henkins’ murders was covered widely in the Israeli news media, and received coverage in the U.S., on outlets including NBC and the Chicago Sun-Times.
HuffPost effectively ignored the Henkins’ murders, in that it published nothing about them on either its front page or World page. The only item it published about them was a sidebar editorial, buried near the bottom of a sub-page (screencap), well beyond the view of the casual reader:
[Note: This fact is confirmed by a search of HuffPost’s archives; the first and third of the only three items associated with the Henkins’ names are listed are this editorial; the second is a “huff-wires” story, which means it is part of its automated news feed, invisible to the casual reader – and as you can see, it only mentioned the Henkins in passing:]
Contrast that editorial decision to the personalized, graphic coverage that HuffPost gave to a Palestinian man – both on its front page and World page, simultaneously – after he claimed he was wrongfully tasered by the Israeli police, in front of his children:
Cops Repeatedly Taser Palestinian Man In Front Of His Kids
HuffPost included the man’s name, picture and allegations in the headline, and wrote an original story for it:
The Israeli police, however, claim that the officers were acting in self-defense, and that the video was shot or edited to only show what happened after the man attempted to interfere with them. HuffPost only alluded to that fact in the very last sentence of the story.
And HuffPost put these pictures of a sad, young Palestinian girl from Gaza on its front page and World page, holding a picture of her father, after Israel was accused of abducting him.
HuffPost included this “victim’s” name right in the headline of its story page:
HuffPost knew from copy of this story, from the AP, that this man, Dirar Abu Sisi, was suspected of being a senior member of the Hamas terror group:
Later, he openly admitted to an Israeli court that he indeed was a senior terrorist with Hamas, that he planned the murders of Jews, and used his engineering education to dramatically advance the technology of the rockets that Hamas fires into Israeli cities. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison. HuffPost’s search engine, however, proves that it completely ignored all of those parts of this supposed “victim’s” story.
In another incident, from August 2015, when a Palestinian was killed during violent clashes with Israeli police, HuffPost published the picture and sympathetic, personal story of a wailing relative of the deceased on both its front page and World page, for three straight days (1, 2, 3, 4, 5):
So, being that HuffPost decided to ignore the Henkins’ murders, what kinds of sympathetic “news” stories did it decide were more worthy of graphic, personalized, front-page coverage, in the following days, instead? Here is a sampling:
A cat that was killed by a veterinarian…
…a convicted murderer who protested his execution, which HuffPost featured on its front page for four straight days … [and whose name produces 467 returns in a search at HuffPost]…
… and hungry seals:
To learn more about the Henkins’ murders, please see:
The murders of Rabbi Eitam and Naama Henkin
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(2.2) The murder of Ezra Schwartz
Meet Ezra Schwartz, an 18-year-old American Jew from Boston, who graduated high school in June 2015.
One of Ezra’s friends described him as having “a soul [that] yearned to help others… he would go out of his way to sit with a kid who was struggling.” His grandfather said Ezra earned the respect and love of all kinds of people, but that “kids with little quirks and idiosyncrasies were his specialty.”
On November 18, 2015 Ezra was traveling in a car with friends. While they were stopped in a traffic jam, Palestinian terrorists opened fire on their car with machine guns. Ezra and two others were killed. Palestinian terrorists murdered two other Jews, a few hour later.
The Israeli news media gave heavy coverage to this latest Palestinian murder spree, and to the fact that one of the victims was an American. NBC made Ezra’s picture the centerpiece of its November 19 story about these attacks:
On November 19, Reuters published the following story, the opening paragraphs of which mentioned Ezra, and the fact that he was an American.
“Five dead in Palestinian attacks in Tel Aviv, West Bank – Israel”
The next day, November 20, HuffPost published the Reuters story both on its front page and World page. However, note how it rewrote the headline, to now read:
“American Teen Among 5 Killed In Israel Attacks”
Why did HuffPost remove the part of the Reuters headline that clearly stated that Palestinian terrorists perpetrated these attacks? And why did it also insert the words “in Israel attacks,” as if to imply that Israel itself was responsible for them? If one only gets their news from HuffPost, what other conclusion could they reasonably come to – especially given its virtual blackout on the near-daily Palestinian terrorist attacks on Jews that had been occurring for the previous two months?
Even though HuffPost included Ezra’s name in the story page URL…
… its story page included no pictures of Ezra, and nothing about him, personally:
[HuffPost also ignored the fact that shortly after Ezra was murdered, a Hamas spokesman called the attack “an act of bravery.”]
A few days after Ezra was murdered, hundreds of Israelis gathered to pay a tearful tribute to him, before his body was returned to America (video). HuffPost ignored that fact. Ezra’s funeral in America was attended by more than fifteen hundred people. HuffPost ignored that, too.
On November 23, the New England Patriots football team, of which Ezra was a huge fan, devoted a moment of silence to him, by name, reflecting on his murder at the hands of Palestinian terrorists. HuffPost ignored that, too.
[In fact, to this day, it has never published a picture of Ezra on either its front page or World page. Our evidence further shows that HuffPost only allowed the story of this nondescript attack to remain on its front page for nineteen hours, then removed it.]
Now, contrast HuffPost’s treatment of Ezra to the coverage it gave to another “American” teen who was killed in the region, but who was clearly not the innocent child that Ezra was.
“AMERICAN KILLED IN FLOTILLA RAID”
That splash headline led to a story page in which HuffPost presented the teen’s name in the headline, and assigned responsibility for his death to Israel:
“Furkan Dogan, U.S. Citizen, Killed In Israeli Flotilla Raid”
The reality was that this teen, Furkan Doğan, was born in America, but family relocated to Turkey when he was two years old, where he remained ever since. Further, he was killed under disputed circumstances, aboard a ship with Islamist militants who were intent on penetrating Israel’s lawful blockade on the terrorist-controlled Gaza Strip, and who then tried to murder Israeli soldiers – an attack that was captured on video:
[In fact, as was discovered soon after Doğan‘s death, hours before the attack aboard the flotilla, he claimed in his diary that his objective was to die as “a martyr” – a claim also made by the militant Islamists on the ship who attempted to murder the IDF soldiers. HuffPost ignored all of those facts in its story, even after it updated the page, more than a year later (screencap).]
The Jewish Policy Center produced a detailed page of documentation and videos about the background, intent and actions of the terrorists aboard the flotilla.
Based on these facts, the Anti-Defamation League blasted HuffPost’s coverage of Doğan’s death as “outrageous,” especially an editorial that compared it to a Palestinian terrorists’ murder of a crippled Jewish man:
“(Doğan) was among a group of extremists… who came aboard with axes, knives and other weapons with intent to attack and kill Israeli personnel when they boarded the ship. Israeli naval forces acted in self-defense when numbers of their group found themselves under vicious assault and their lives in jeopardy. [The] comparison of the death of Furkan Dogan… to that of the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, is outrageous.”
[Learn more about the reality of the “Flotilla of Terror” in this video.]
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Addendum: In another incident, from July 4, 2014, HuffPost devoted a World page splash to a Palestinian teenager who’d been murdered:
At the time, it was suspected that the crime was perpetrated by Jewish terrorists, in response to the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish teens – including an American, Natalfi Frankel – a few days earlier (Hamas later admitted it was responsible).
HuffPost published the Palestinian teen’s name in the story page headline, and included pictures of his grieving mourners at his funeral:
A search at HuffPost shows that it has never featured a story about the American teen who’d been murdered by Hamas, Natalfi Fraenkel, however, or the other two Jewish teens who’d been murdered by Hamas, nor of their funerals.
In fact, a search of these two teens’ names confirms HuffPost’s anti-Semitic bias:
A search of the American teen, Natalfi Fraenkel, reveals four results (screencap), stories which HuffPost never published on its front page or World page.
A search of the Palestinian teen, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, reveals seventeen results (screencap) – which, as shown above, climaxed with a top-of-the-World page splash headline, replete with pictures and his personal narrative.
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Being that HuffPost decided to whitewash and downplay Ezra’s murder, what kinds of sympathetic “news” stories did it decide were worthy of graphic, personalized, front-page coverage, in the following days, instead? Here’s a sampling:
A story about abused puppies…
… and a sad “news” story of a model losing “followers” on social media, which ran on its front page for three days straight…
… as did the latest photos of a pop star revealing her private parts – at the top of its front page (screencap) – where it remained for three straight days:
To learn more about Ezra Schwartz and his murder, please see:
To see more examples of how HuffPost manipulated the headlines and/or headline imagery in 9 of the 11 Palestinian terror attacks that it did give top coverage to, please see:
Examples of HuffPost’s headline manipulation during the Third Intifada
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(2.3) The murder of Rabbi Yeshayahu Krishevsky
Meet Rabbi Yeshayahu Krishevsky, age 59, a father of one son. News reports described him as devoted scholar of the Torah, and an author who wrote a series of books on weekly prayers.
Rabbi Krishevsky’s son described him as, “All heart and kindness… those poor people who no one wants to go near, he would come to them, help them, without thinking at all.”
On the morning of October 13, 2015, Rabbi Krishevsky finished prayers at a Jerusalem synagogue, then walked to the nearby bus stop. A Palestinian terrorist drove his car up onto the sidewalk, then into the bus stop, and ran down the the rabbi and several other Jews. The terrorist then got out of his car and hacked Rabbi Krishevksy to death with a meat cleaver.
The entire attack was captured on video:
Several Israeli and Western news organizations presented this video in their reports of the attack. Other news organizations clearly identified Palestinians as the perpetrators of this and three other terrorist attacks that occurred the same day, which left two more Jews dead and nineteen wounded:
From Israel National News:
And the Algemeiner, the largest Jewish online newspaper in America:
And the Daily Mail (UK):
Nineteen other Jews were injured in three other Palestinian terror attacks that day, including an American peace activist, Richard Lakin, who was left clinging to life after Palestinian terrorists shot him in the head, and stabbed him in the chest. (He died two weeks later).
The video of Rabbi Krishevsky’s murder was also included at the very top of the story that Reuters wrote about that bloody day of Palestinian terrorism against Jews, which it matched with this headline copy:
“Palestinian ‘Day of Rage’ attacks kill three: Israeli police”
HuffPost published the Reuters story, on both its front page and World page. However, note how it changed the copy of the headline, to remove any indication that Palestinian terrorists were responsible for this massacre.
“Israel and Palestine: Worst unrest in years”
Note also that instead of matching its altered headline with a picture of any of the three Jewish victims who were killed – or the American Jew who was left clinging to life, HuffPost instead chose to match it with a picture of a Palestinian rioter.
HuffPost clearly knew what this story was about, as shown on the story page’s sub-headline, and in the URL (see full-page screencap here):
HuffPost later inserted video into the story page – but not the video that Reuters provided, of Rabbi Krishevsky’s murder. Instead, it embedded this video, produced by the Wall St. Journal, of overall violence in Israel and the West Bank.
This can all be confirmed via The Internet Archive (the “Wayback Machine”), which automatically saves pages from millions of websites every day.
Later that same day, HuffPost ratcheted up its obfuscation of the facts, by publishing this splash headline at the top of its World page.
Note the wording it employed:
“Unrest…” “Turmoil…” “Numerous Israelis and Palestinians have lost their lives in… attacks…”
If one only got their news from HuffPost, they would have absolutely no means of discerning from this headline who was killing whom, or why. It would appear as if this were merely a tit-for-tat series of attacks, with no telling who was the attacker, and who the victim. And they certainly would have had no reason to know that Rabbi Krishevsky had been murdered, or that it had been captured on video.
Rabbi Krishevsky’s funeral was attended by thousands of Israelis. HuffPost also completely ignored that story.
In fact, a search of Rabbi Krishevsky’s name at HuffPost reveals that it has not published even one story containing his name, let alone the video of his murder.
It is worth noting that HuffPost has demonstrated the technical ability to display full-motion video on its front page, when it decides the story is sufficiently newsworthy. One such incident occurred on August 7, 2013, when visitors to HuffPost’s front page were greeted with full-motion video of a woman rubbing her buttocks in dog’s face, as “news,” which auto-played as soon as the page loaded:
More recently, on November 12, HuffPost devoted its top-of-the-front-page splash to an undercover video of pigs being abused:
Think about that: HuffPost’s editorial policy apparently says that abused pigs in a slaughterhouse are deserving of graphic, top-line sympathy – but a beloved rabbi who is slaughtered, on video, deserves only to be ignored.
Then, there’s the fact that when there is reasonable suspicion or proof that when there is reasonable suspicion or proof that Jewish extremists cause harm to Palestinians, it crafts headlines that identify them as such. It then matches these headlines with sympathetic pictures of the victims – or their grieving survivors, then prominently positions these stories on its front page or World page (or both, at the same time).
In one incident, HuffPost even published a “news” story on its front page in which it referred to Jews as subhuman animals, claiming that a “pack” of them had “chased off” Gov. Mitt Romney. (In reality, this “pack” of Jews were actually Romney supporters – something that HuffPost admitted in a corrected version.)
Given the ease with which HuffPost identifies Jews as “extremists,” who operate in “packs,” is it not ironic that when the New York Post identified the jihadists who recently murdered fourteen Americans in the San Bernadino massacre as “Muslim killers,” HuffPost blasted the paper as being “racist”?
Returning now to Rabbi Krishevsky’s murder, being that HuffPost decided to ignore his story, and the anguish of his loved ones, what kinds of sympathetic “news” stories did it decide were more worthy of graphic, personalized, front-page coverage, in the following days, instead? Here is a sampling:
A story of abused dogs…
… Khloe Kardashian’s sadness after her ex-boyfriend was found passed out from a drug overdose in a whorehouse…
[Notably, HuffPost also wrote an original story, evoking sympathy for this multi-millionaire athlete, asserting that “we” wouldn’t shame him if he had a heart attack, so why should “we” shame him for drug abuse? – because after all, “people with substance use disorder are suffering terribly.”]
… and “What to eat and drink to help you poop”…
To learn more about Rabbi Krishevsky and his murder, please see:
The murder of Rabbi Yeshayahu Krishevsky
To see more examples of how HuffPost manipulated the headlines and/or headline imagery in 9 of the 11 Palestinian terror attacks that it did give top coverage to, please see:
Examples of HuffPost’s headline manipulation during the Third Intifada
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(2.4) The murder of Hadar Buchris
Meet Hadar Buchris. This 21-year-old Jewish girl studied theater, and had two goals in life: to travel to India and to get married. Hadar completed a half-year trek through India in late 2015, and according to one of her closest friends, she “was already thinking of what names to give her future children.”
One of Hadar’s teachers described her as: “a fantastic, bright girl… she always created positive vibes around her friends. She was also a kind of ‘psychologist’ who would lend a sympathetic ear to whoever needed it.” Another of her friends described Hadar’s “beautiful spirit,” and how “she would start her day with a huge smile of optimism and love… a lioness in the midst of battle… (who) never gave in to sorrow or pain…”
While Hadar was sitting at a bus stop on November 22, 2015, a Palestinian terrorist stabbed her repeatedly in the face, head and chest. She was taken to the hospital in critical condition, but died a few hours later.
According to interviews with the medical team:
Magen David Adom paramedic Zaki Yahav, who was called to the scene, said, “A young woman was lying on the ground unconscious with stab wounds to her upper body.
“Civilians who were there had started to help stop [her] bleeding. We quickly put her into the ambulance and administered first aid while she was anesthetized and on a respirator while taking her to a hospital.”
Dr. Ofer Marin, head of the trauma unit at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, where Buchris was taken, said her chances of survival had been slim.
“She sustained a great number of stab wounds, both to the head and in the chest and heart area, and arrived in critical condition, on a respirator, without a pulse,” Marin said. “The trauma unit made attempts to resuscitate her, but unfortunately we were forced to declare her dead. There was nothing we could do.”
The story of Hadar’s murder and her funeral, which was attended by thousands of Israelis, was covered in depth by the Israeli media, and certain U.S. news outlets.
HuffPost completely ignored Hadar’s murder, her funeral, and the grief of her loved ones. You can confirm this fact for yourself, by doing a search of her name at HuffPost – which turns up zero results:
Contrast HuffPost’s treatment of Hadar to the sympathetic, front-page coverage it gave to a Palestinian journalist who alleged she was detained and interrogated:
… and female inmates in an Israeli jail who alleged (with no proof) that guards “humiliated” them:
… and the top-of-the-front page splash headline it gave to a Palestinian film maker who alleged he was detained for 60 minutes at a U.S. airport:
[If you follow the links beneath those pictures to the story pages at HuffPost, you’ll find that in each of these cases, HuffPost presented the victim’s faces, names and sympathetic personal narratives.]
Also contrast HuffPost’s treatment of Hadar to how it treated members of an all-girl Russian punk band, after they were arrested for barging into a famed orthodox church in Moscow, during services, then singing a vulgar song. HuffPost essentially went apoplectic over the plight of the band, Pussy Riot, and began a multi-year stream of more than a hundred sympathetic stories about these “victims,” including top-of-the-page splash headlines:
On one day alone, HuffPost had nine separate stories on its World page about Pussy Riot – at the same time:
2012-08-19 Wphls 1235a – 9 Refs to Pussyriot – Zero Israel by SaveTheWest
In fact, while a search of Hadar’s name at HuffPost yields zero results, a search of the term “pussy riot” returns 133,000 entries:
So, being that HuffPost decided to completely ignore Hadar’s murder, what kinds of sympathetic “news” stories did it decide were worthy of graphic, personalized, front-page coverage, in the following days, instead? Here’s a sampling:
A story about an abused puppy…
…a splash front page headline about Muslim refugees who are sewing their mouths shut…
…and a story about “Nola,” a rhino that died:
See our complete profile of Hadar Buchris’s murder at:
The murder of Hadar Buchris : Save The West
(3) HuffPost’s use of pictures and words to help legitimize and incite Palestinians’ anti-Semitic hatred and violence
Our investigation also revealed HuffPost’s efforts to legitimize and incite Palestinians’ anti-Semitic hatred and violence.
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(3.1) Examples of HuffPost’s selective use of pictures to present Palestinians as the only victims of the Third Intifada, while ignoring Jewish victims
Consider these pictures, taken at funerals for the Jewish victims of the Third Intifada, many of which were attended by thousands of Israelis. If you had only gotten your news from HuffPost during the Third Intifada, you would have seen none of them:
Instead, you would have only seen unrelated, heart-wrenching pictures of Palestinians in despair, and cast as victims – which HuffPost sought out and inserted into the handful of articles it published about Palestinian terrorist attacks on Jews, and Israel’s efforts to stop them. Here are two examples of this phenomenon:
Example 1
By October 6, three weeks into the Third Intifada, Palestinian terrorists had murdered the Henkins and three other Jews, and injured eight, including a two-year-old boy. HuffPost ignored all of these stories.
On October 6, HuffPost published this, its first front-page story that in any way related to the situation in Israel.
Note how the headline implied that Israel was taking unprovoked, malicious action against Palestinians – specifically, the poor woman in the picture. That mangled headline, however, was just a hint of how far HuffPost would go to incite hate against Israel in this opening “piece.”
Upon clicking on that headline link, the first thing one sees on HuffPost’s story page, written by the AP, is the sub-headline that tells the actual story, but which the casual reader may miss:
“The violence comes amid a new wave of violence after Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli couple in the West Bank.”
What couple? What gunmen? After all, until this point, HuffPost had ignored all of the Palestinian terrorist attacks on Jews.
But HuffPost was just getting started. On the story page, beneath the picture of the woman in front of the demolished structure, HuffPost inserted this picture of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, clearly very angry.
Then, beneath one more picture of a demolished home, HuffPost inserted this picture, of a wailing Palestinian mother, mourning over her son’s casket.
The caption HuffPost inserted beneath the photo read (emphasis added):
Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian teenagers, including a 13-year-old boy, on Monday. In this photo, the mother of 13-year-old Palestinian Abdel Rahman Abdullah mourns at her son’s funeral on Oct. 6.
HuffPost clearly asserts that Israeli soldiers murdered two Palestinian teenagers. What HuffPost left out of this caption, however, is the fact that this woman’s son was shot while he was attacking Israeli soldiers with rocks. How do we know this? Because it’s deep in the copy on HuffPost’s own story page:
Israeli forces killed another Palestinian assailant over the weekend and on Monday the troops shot dead two teenagers — including a 13-year-old boy — who were throwing stones during clashes with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.
It is also worthwhile to note that neither the picture of Netanyahu, nor of the grieving mother, were included in the story that HuffPost obtained from the AP, as evidenced by the CBS.com and SFGate.com versions. Why did HuffPost seek out and insert those pictures – but none of the Jewish victims – if not to falsely insinuate that Israel was acting as a murderous aggressor, and Palestinians were the innocent victims?
This is exactly the same kind of libelous incitement and obfuscation that the Palestinian “governments,” terrorist groups and the media entities that support them use to justify murdering Jews, supposedly for “retaliation.”
Example 2
On November 27, 2015, the AP published a story about two separate incidents, on the same day, of Palestinian terrorists attempting to murder Israeli soldiers by ramming cars into them. Note that the only picture the AP included in the story was of the crime scene.
HuffPost published the AP story on its front page and World page, but manipulated the headline to once again visually depict Palestinians as the victims. This time, it did so by inserting an unrelated picture of a Palestinian funeral scene in which angry attendees are holding up the corpse of what may well have been one of the terrorists who was killed during or after an attack on Jews:
And on the story page, HuffPost inserted another unrelated picture, this time, of wailing Palestinian women:
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(3.2) Examples of HuffPost giving top, sustained coverage to editorials during the Third Intifada that legitimized the Palestinian narrative, and their terrorist attacks against Jews
Here are three examples of this phenomenon:
Example 1
On October 19, five weeks into the Third Intifada, HuffPost published this splash headline on its World page, which it matched with this sympathetic picture of an apparently exhausted Palestinian rioter, or terrorist:
In this editorial, the “journalist” compared Palestinian teenagers to those she encountered as a “teacher” in America, and in the West Bank, as being:
“[n]ormal kids who wanted normal lives… [T]hey wanted to sleep through the night without the fear of soldiers raiding their house, turning it upside down, or stationing themselves on the roof…”
And what about the fact that these teens were perpetrating a significant portion of the murderous attacks against Jews?
HuffPost hoisted this “journalist” to the top of its World page to claim that these teenage terrorists are the victims in this equation (full-page screencap here):
“[T]oday’s stabbings… are cries of despair and hopelessness…”
UPDATE: January 22, 2016 – Hamas leader denies Palestinian terror is due to “despair”: On January 19, 2016, senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh confirmed that, “This intifada is not the result of despair. This intifada is a jihad, a holy war fought by the Palestinian people against the Zionist occupation. Only a holy war will drive the occupier out of Palestine.” In Hamas-speak, “Palestine” is all of the land within which Israel currently exists; and it is Hamas’s stated mission to wipe Israel, and Jews, off the face of the Earth.
HuffPost ignored Haniyeh’s statement. Instead, it published the following “news” stories on its front page:
“Lost Erotica Of Spain Reveals An Overlooked Feminist History (NSFW),” an explicit, X-rated photo-essay [Caution; PG-rated preview here.]
“Here’s What Happened When These Gay Men Touched A Vagina For The First Time”
“Newly Discovered Trench In Loch Ness Is Just The Right Size For A Monster”
Was HuffPost unaware of the fact that on October 16, three days before it published this splash editorial, a Palestinian teenager was captured on video attempting to murder Jews in an Israeli supermarket? Does he appear to be a “normal kid,” or “crying out in despair?”
How about this Palestinian teen, caught on video on October 13, as he attempting to murder Jews at a bus stop?
And what about these Palestinian children, ages 11 and 14, who attempted to stab an Israeli security guard to death on a train? Do they appear as if they’re mired in “cries of despair and hopelessness”?
Curiously, as much as HuffPost enjoys giving top coverage to videos that it believes are newsworthy (example: woman rubbing her buttocks in dog’s face), it completely ignored those videos.
Example 2
Later on October 19, HuffPost inserted this editorial at the top of the blog section on its World page: an even more-Orwellian means of once again depicting Palestinians as the real victims of the situation, who face “summary execution” – and suggests that their terrorism is only in their defense:
A one-sentence except is all that’s needed to expose the depth to which this “journalist” – and HuffPost – sunk to engage in this kind of libelous incitement:
“Palestinians in Jerusalem are feeling terrorized, worried about leaving their homes and becoming a victim of summary execution.”
HuffPost left this screed on its World page for the next seven days.
Example 3
Those editorials, however, pale in comparison to this one, which HuffPost decided was worthy of publication on its World page, the headline of which explicitly justifies Palestinian terrorist attacks on Jews. And Huffpost left it there for six straight days.
At this point, anyone who knows even the most basic facts of what had been occurring in Israel and the disputed territories over the previous few months, might reasonably wonder: “Is this a legitimate Western newspaper we’re reading – or a radical Islamist propaganda website?”
(4) Do HuffPost’s acts and omissions constitute anti-Semitism?
“The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”
Do HuffPost’s acts and omissions constitute anti-Semitism? To answer this question, we must first define “anti-Semitism,” especially in the context of journalism.
For thousands of years, anti-Semitism has been defined as the hatred of Jews. Since Jews were enabled, in 1948, to return to their ancestral homeland in Israel, however, the definition of anti-Semitism has broadened, to encompass the expanded manifestation of the hatred and discrimination its root. Many major organizations have now adopted some variation of the “three Ds” test for defining anti-Semitism, developed by the scholar and human rights activist Natan Sharansky:
- Demonization: Vilifying Israel or Jews as a whole; bigoted smears versus legitimate criticism over factual issues
- Double-standards: Applying standards of conduct to Israel (or Jews) that are applied to no other nation or group
- Delegitimization: Denying Israel’s right to exist, or the fact that Jews have existed in Israel (and the “occupied territories”) for thousands of years
We contend there is also a fourth “D,” though, that pertains directly to the content of this video:
Dehumanization: The claim that Jews are not part of the human race, and therefore do not deserve the same status or considerations that human beings enjoy. Just as slaveholders justified trading in black Africans on the basis that they are a sub-human species, akin to cattle, for thousands of years anti-Semites claimed that their attacks on Jews are justified, because they are akin to vermin, infesting the world.
The Nazis industrialized this dehumanizing hatred, and ended up murdering six million Jews.
Today, the Palestinians have picked up the Nazis’ mantle, as demonstrated by their official propaganda, and their “educational” system. Here, for instance, is a preteen girl claiming on Palestinian TV that Jews are “barbaric monkeys, and wretched pigs”:
In the context of journalism, we contend that a news organization is engaging in anti-Semitic bias when it consistently dehumanizes Jews, by consistently:
- Ignoring or downplaying stories about Jews who’ve been murdered or maimed because they were Jews, while at the same time giving prominent, sympathetic coverage to sub-human animals who meet misfortune.
- Removing or blurring the distinction between terrorists who violently attack Jews, and their Jewish victims, to the point where the casual observer can’t tell who attacked whom – or even depicting Palestinians as the victims
- Providing sympathetic, graphic depictions of those grieving Palestinian terrorists and rioters, while completely ignoring those who mourn the Jews who were murdered or maimed by them.
If you agree that these “four-Ds” are a legitimate standard of measure, then we contend that HuffPost’s acts and omissions during the Third Intifada can only be classified as a particularly vicious, ugly manifestation of anti-Semitic bias. We further contend that by prominently publishing editorials that rely on demonstrably false, libelous accusations to justify or whitewash violent attacks on Jews, HuffPost has taken anti-Semitic bias to a whole new level, and into the realm of overt incitement.
[This takes on added significance considering that in mid-2015, HuffPost opened its first all-Arabic branch. Given the bias and incitement documented in this video, one can only imagine the extent to which the HuffPost network of sites is helping to fuel the global resurgence of anti-Semitic hatred and violence, which numerous experts say is now worse than at any time since the 1930s.]
Additional resources: General
HuffPost’s Sympathetic Treatment of Animals: An original slide show that illustrates HuffPost’s editorial thirst to find, and give top publicity to sad stories about animals from around the world – while ignoring Jews who are murdered and maimed, because they are Jews.
Antisemitism, Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, August 18, 2015.
Antisemitism, U.S. Department of State.
3D Test of Antisemitism: Demonization, Double Standards, Delegitimization, by Natan Sharansky.
Fact Sheet on the Elements of Anti-Semitic Discourse, by Kenneth L. Marcus, The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law; see Section 10:
“Beastilization: Since ancient times, Jews have been compared in derogatory terms to barnyard and wild animals. In some influential ancient Christian texts, for example, Jews are compared to pigs, goats, and cows.”
Palestinian Authority TV Airs Video of Children Referring to Jews as ‘Barbaric Monkeys’ and ‘Wretched Pigs’ (VIDEO), by Zach Pontz, The Algemeiner, July 7, 2013.
News Flash: Jews Are ‘Apes And Pigs.’ So Why Is Egypt’s Morsi The Elephant In America’s Newsrooms?, by Richard Behar, Forbes, January 11, 2013.
Animalization and dehumanization, a special report by Palestinian Media Watch.
Antisemitism on rise across Europe ‘in worst times since the Nazis’, by Jon Henley, The Guardian (UK), August 7, 2014.
ADL chief warns anti-Semitism worst since WWII, even US Jewish kids feel intimidated, By David Horovitz, Times of Israel, July 13, 2015.
‘Hamas wants Israel completely destroyed,’ an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Israel Hayom, August 1, 2014.
Additional resources: Skyrocketing anti-Semitism around the world
Is Anti-Semitism A Worldwide Phenomenon? A 2015 global study by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that an estimated “26% of respondents harbor anti-Semitic attitudes, and believe in a majority of traditional anti-Jewish stereotypes.”
Israeli report: 2015 saw a 40% surge in violent anti-Semitism globally, more than 40% of EU citizens hold anti-Semitic views, by Maud Swinnen, European Jewish News, January 25, 2016.
Shocking New Israeli Report: Over 40% of Europeans Hold Antisemitic Views, by Ruthie Bloom, The Algemeiner, January 24, 2016.
Jewish leader warns that anti-Semitism in Europe is “like the 1930s,” by Helena Williams, The Independent (UK), March 25, 2015.
Anti-Semitic Incidents on U.S. College Campuses Spike, by Adam Kredo, The Washington Free Beacon, January 22, 2016.
Study: 75% of Jewish North American College Students Exposed to Antisemitism in 2014, by Eliezer Sherman, The Algemeiner, July 28, 2015.
(5) Our inquiry to HuffPost
On December 21, 2015, we asked HuffPost’s media relations department the following questions, via its contact form (which limits inquiries to 1,000 characters; this came in at 998):
Dear Sir or Madam:
Regarding your coverage of recent Palestinian terrorism (the Third Intifada):
1) Why have you not presented any stories or pictures on your front page or World page that focused on any of the Jewish victims of these attacks – especially the 3 Americans who were murdered – or their grieving loved ones?
2) Why, in contrast, do you consistently and exclusively insert graphic, sympathetic pictures of the Palestinian terrorists and their grieving loved ones into your news stories about the Third Intifada?
3) Why do you effectively dehumanize Jewish victims of Palestinian terrorism, by publishing on your front page sympathetic, picture-rich stories about abused animals and sad celebrities in the hours and days after these Jews were murdered and maimed, instead of anything about them?
4) Why do you rewrite wire service headlines that explicitly describe acts of Palestinian terrorism and murder, to instead claim only nondescript “unrest” or “violence” is occurring?
We requested that HuffPost reply by Monday, December 28th, 2015 (video of email being sent here).
As of February 3, 2016, HuffPost has not replied to our inquiry.
If you’d like to express your views on the matters documented in this video to HuffPost’s parent company, Verizon, see the contact information below. Please be polite and concise.
Verizon Communications, Inc.
1095 Avenue Of The Americas
New York, NY, 10036
212-395-1000
Lowell C. McAdam (bio)
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Verizon’s Office of Ethics and Business Conduct
844-894-8433
Contact page description: “This website may be used to… ask questions, express concerns or report suspected violations of Verizon’s Code of Conduct [or] corporate policies.”
(6) Resources
This video was constructed as an outgrowth of extensive research and documentation, to validate all the assertions it contains. To enable viewers to see the evidence for themselves, and learn more about certain facets of the issues this video raises, we offer the following resources:
At SaveTheWest.com
(6.1) Third Intifada victim profile pages
Dedicated pages that profile twelve of the Jewish victims of Palestinian terrorist attacks during the Third Intifada. Each profile page contains:
(a) Information about the victim(s), how they were attacked, the grief their loved ones endured
(b) A sampling of the “news” stories that HuffPost featured on its front page and World page in the days following the attack on them, instead of their story
(c) Slide shows demonstrating how HuffPost’s editorial decision in this regard compares to the prominent, sympathetic, graphic treatment it provides to Palestinians, terrorists, convicted criminals, animals and others who meet misfortune (see Section 6.4)
(6.2) Chronology of Palestinian attacks during the Third Intifada
A comprehensive, chronological account of:
(a) The 105 Palestinian terrorist attacks on Jews during the period we investigated, from September 13- November 30, 2015
(b) Indications of the 11 that HuffPost covered
(c) Notable events that took place during this period, that provide a fuller context with which to consider this video
(6.3) Examples of HuffPost’s headline manipulation during the Third Intifada
In this video, we claimed, “Of the 105 Palestinian terror attacks on Jews between September 13 – November 30, 2015, HuffPost ignored 94 of these attacks [and] of the 11 Palestinian terrorist attacks that HuffPost did report – all of which were wire service reports from the AP or Reuters – in 9 cases it manipulated the provided headlines and/or associated imagery in [one of two ways].” This page provides detailed, step-by-step validation of this assertion.
(6.4) Slide shows that further document HuffPost’s anti-Semitic bias
In contrast to its practice of ignoring or downplaying Jews who are victims of Palestinian terrorism, HuffPost showers prominent, sympathetic, graphic coverage on non-Jews and even animals who meet misfortune, or allege victimhood. We’ve produced several slide shows to illustrate this:
HuffPost’s Sympathetic Treatment of Palestinians
HuffPost’s Sympathetic Treatment of Palestinian Terrorists
HuffPost’s Sympathetic Treatment of Convicted Murderers
HuffPost’s Sympathetic Treatment of Animals
HuffPost’s Sympathetic Treatment of Non-Jews
We also produced a slide show to illustrate the faces of the people who were grieving the Jews who were murdered during the Third Intifada – which HuffPost ignored:
Funerals for Jewish victims of the Third Intifada – which HuffPost ignored
We also produced a slide show that documents some of the anti-Semitic graphic imagery through time, including that which dehumanizes Jews, from communists, Nazis and Palestinians:
Anti-Semitic Propaganda Slide Show
Other resources
The following are several resources whose research and analysis work has been vital to the development of this video, and the supporting pages.
Palestinian Media Watch: Self-description: “Studies Palestinian society from a broad range of perspectives by monitoring and analyzing the Palestinian Authority through its media and schoolbooks. PMW’s major focus is on the messages that the Palestinian leaders, from the Palestinian Authority, Fatah and Hamas, send to the population through the broad range of institutions and infrastructures they control.”
Middle East Media Research Institute: Self-description: “Exploring the Middle East and South Asia through their media, MEMRI bridges the language gap between the West and the Middle East and South Asia, providing timely translations of Arabic, Farsi, Urdu-Pashtu, Dari, and Turkish media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends.”
The Gatestone Institute: A source of original analysis about, reporting from within the Palestinian territories (link). Introductory self-description: “A non-partisan, not-for-profit international policy council and think tank is dedicated to educating the public about what the mainstream media fails to report.”
CAMERA (Committee for Accurate Middle East Reporting in America): Self-description: “A media-monitoring, research and membership organization devoted to promoting accurate and balanced coverage of Israel and the Middle East. CAMERA fosters rigorous reporting, while educating news consumers about Middle East issues and the role of the media.”
HonestReporting: Self-description: “HonestReporting monitors the news for bias, inaccuracy, or other breach of journalistic standards in coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It also facilitates accurate reporting for foreign journalists covering the region. HonestReporting is not aligned with any government or political party or movement.”
The Investigative Project on Terrorism: Self-description: “A non-profit research group founded by Steven Emerson in 1995. It is recognized as the world’s most comprehensive data center on radical Islamic terrorist groups. For more than a decade, the IPT has investigated the operations, funding, activities and front groups of Islamic terrorist and extremist groups in the United States and around the world.”
IDF Blog: The official blog of the Israel Defense Forces.
Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Prime Minister’s Office (Israel)
Huff-Watch: An independent blog site. Self-description: “The purpose of Huff-Watch is to act as a repository for factual, relevant, contextual analysis of HuffPost, and the criticism that has been directed at it from other sources.”
Huffington Post Monitor: An independent blog site. Motto: “Standing Up Against Hate on the Huffington Post.” See this four-minute video that HPM produced that indicates HuffPost’s anti-Semitic bias goes back to at least 2010:
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References on journalistic standards and practices
American Press Institute: Self-description: “The American Press Institute conducts research, training, convenes thought leaders and creates tools to help chart a path ahead for journalism in the 21st century. The Press Institute is an educational non-advocacy 501(c)3 nonprofit organization affiliated with the Newspaper Association of America. It aims to help the news media, especially local publishers and newspaper media, advance in the digital age.”
See two API articles in particular: “What Is The Purpose Of Journalism?,” and “The Lost Meaning of ‘Objectivity’.”
The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics: Organizational self-description: “The Society of Professional Journalists is the nation’s most broad-based journalism organization, dedicated to encouraging the free practice of journalism and stimulating high standards of ethical behavior.” The Code of Ethics is described as: “a statement of abiding principles supported by explanations and position papers that address changing journalistic practices.”
FAQ
(Q) “I don’t believe the allegation you made in Section (x). What proof do you have that HuffPost had this story on its story for (x) straight days?”
(A) Every allegation in this video is based on physical evidence, most often in the case of screencaps, either full-page or screen-sized. If you would like to receive the evidence for any allegation, email jon@savethewest.com, and copy and paste the specific allegation about which you are inquiring. We will email you the screencap(s) as soon as possible.
(Q) “Why do some of your screencaps show HuffPost’s headlines with underlines beneath the words, but others don’t?”
The short answer is that it is the only way by which to associate a headline with its URL, in the master JPG.
Detail: to take a simple JPG screencap at HuffPost or any other site, on the Windows platform, one presses Control-PrntScr (Command-PrntScr on Mac), then pastes it into a photo program. For example, if one wants to show that this “news” story regarding Kim Kardashian appeared on HuffPost’s front page at 10:30am on February 3, 2016, this is what would appear, employing that method:
If, however, one wishes to demonstrate that this story had appeared on HuffPost’s front page for two straight days (in addition to a screencap the day earlier), and associate this story with its corresponding URL, one would hover their cursor over the headline, which causes the underline, and the URL appears at the lower left of the screen, as shown below:
The other red lines indicate that this “news” story appeared near the top of HuffPost’s front page, and the specific time and date that it appeared. A zoomed-in version of the URL reveals the following information, which is useful in understanding where and when the article first appeared on HuffPost. The first part of the URL shows that it appeared on HuffPost’s front page. The date shows when it was published there; correlated with the screencap date at the lower right of the full screen (above), and one can instantly see how long the story appeared there.
The significance of this is that the above screencaps were taken five hours after news broke that Palestinian terrorists attacked two female Israeli police officers with knives and guns, leaving one dead, and one fighting for her life:
Full-page screencaps of HuffPost’s front page and World page show that it has ignored this story. Instead, it chose to put the story of Kardashain nonsense, and nearly-nude brides at the top of its front page – and the URL shows where that story is located – and that it was published 3 days ago:
Addendum:
And thanks to HuffPost’s search engine, we can see that at the time these “news” stories were published, it still had not even mentioned the murdered Israeli police woman’s name, Hadar Cohen, by 12:19PM, five hours later.
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