The only original HuffPost story about an “extremist attack” during the Third Intifada

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By Jon Sutz, Editor, SaveTheWest.com

Background

This article is part of the evidence SaveTheWest has constructed to support our documentary, “The Huffington Post’s Anti-Semitic Bias and Incitement During the Third Intifada”

As documented in “Chronology of Palestinian attacks during the Third Intifada,” HuffPost ignored 94 out of 105 Palestinian terrorist attacks on Jews from September 13, 2015, through November 30, 2015, in that they never appeared on either its front page or World page.  On the rare occasions when it did cover an attack, HuffPost:

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  Relied on a wire service (AP, Reuters) for the content

• Often manipulated the wire service’s headline to remove indication of who was attacking whom, and instead depicted it only as “violence” or “unrest,” in which people were “losing their lives”

• Sought out and inserted unrelated pictures into these stories – which were exclusively sympathetic depictions of Palestinian and their loved ones (eg terrorists’ family members at their funerals, etc.)

• Never once published a picture of any of the Jews who were attacked, or or videos of the attacks on them (when available), or of their funerals, or their loved ones grieving them

• Took the stories down most often within one day, or at most, two days

There was only one instance, however, in which HuffPost:

• Wrote an original story about a person whom it claimed was “victimized” during the Third Intifada

• Coupled the story with a headline that clearly identified the “attacker” as an “extremist” of his (presumed) faith

• Supplemented the story with a personalized narrative, pictures and a video of the “attack”

• Gave the story sustained coverage on both its front page and World page

What distinguished that story so much that HuffPost decided to shower this level of resources and coverage on it?

HuffPost alleges a “suspected Jewish extremist” attacked a “human rights rabbi”

On October 23, 2015, news broke that a Palestinian terrorist stabbed and attempted to murder an IDF soldier, and in another incident, Palestinian terrorists attacked an Israeli Jewish couple and their three children with a firebomb as they drove their car.  Three of the children, including their 4-year-old girl, were wounded.

HuffPost ignored those stories – just as it ignored almost all of the Jews who’d been murdered and maimed by Palestinian terrorists in recent weeks.  Instead of those stories, on October 23 HuffPost published on its front page “news” items about “unicorn poop,” Prince Harry growing a beard, and anonymous X-rated drawings found in an abandoned house.

The only item that HuffPost published about violence in Israel on both its front page, and near the top of its World page was this one:

Suspected Jewish Extremist Attacks Human Rights Rabbi On Video

An except from this story, written by a HuffPost “reporter” (the only original story we’re aware of that it generated during the Third Intifada):

A masked assailant attacked the leader of a Jewish human rights organization during a Palestinian olive harvest near a Jewish West Bank settlement on Friday in an incident caught on camera. The victim told local media he believed the attacker was a Jewish extremist.

The video shows a masked man throwing a rock and jabbing a knife at Rabbi Arik Ascherman, president of the Jerusalem-based group Rabbis for Human Rights.

Here is the video, which HuffPost featured on its story page – the only video of an “attack” that we’re aware it published in the course of the entire Third Intifada:

So what do we actually know, after seeing that video?  Practically nothing – except that this “rabbi” is a member of the notorious “Rabbis for Human Rights,” a particularly execrable, anti-Israel nonprofit.  At the time this “story” was published:

• No one knew the identity of the masked man.

• HuffPost only inserted “suspected Jewish extremist” into the headline because that’s what the “victim” asserted.
• No one knows if this was a staged “attack,” part of the Pallywood propaganda machine, which has been exposed over and over and over again for producing phony, staged videos and photographs to smear Israel and Jews, and incite Islamists to murder them.

• For all we know, this could be another Pallywood fake event, with acting tips possibly inspired by the dramatic opening sequence (monkey conflict) from “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Regardless of the shoddiness of this “journalism,” HuffPost left this “news” story published on its front page for three consecutive days – and on its World page for four straight days.

This is the only incident we’re aware of in which HuffPost used the term “extremist” to describe any person perpetrating an attack, throughout the Third Intifada.

Yet when Muslim extremists murder and maim Jews, HuffPost not only won’t refer to them as such, it attacks those who do as “racists”

This fact was demonstrated when, in the case of the San Bernadino jihadist massacre of 14 Americans, on December 4, 2015, HuffPost claimed (on its front page) that the NY Post’s association of the murderers with their religion was “racist”:

Also, was it “racist” for HuffPost to publish this lie-filled front page story, about a “pack of Orthodox Jews” whom it (falsely) alleged had “chased off” Gov. Romney?

Or to allege – without any proof whatsoever – that “orthodox Jewish protesters harass, spit on seasoned journalist,” and heavily promote it throughout the site?

Note the stark difference in how HuffPost refers to Palestinian terrorists

In the context of the Third Intifada, as the following sampling of screencaps taken from its front page and World page demonstrate, on the rare occasion that HuffPost presented news about Palestinians who murdered or attempt to murder Jews, it described them in headlines only as “Palestinians” or “Arabs,” “men” or “women” – or nothing at all:

Key questions for HuffPost management

The following are some of the questions we posed to HuffPost’s senior management, in the context of preparing this report and video:

(1) Why did you decide to make the “suspected Jewish extremist” attack the only one that it devoted a reporter to write an original story concerning?

(2) Why did none of the Jews who’d been slaughtered by Palestinian terrorists, or their surviving loved ones, merit such personalized attention?

(3) Why did you decide to include the video of this “attack” in the story, and a still in your headline image – but chose to ignore not only the Palestinian terrorists’ murder of Rabbi Yeshayahu Krishevsky, but the video of the attack on him?

(4) Why is your calling this (unidentified) “attacker” a “suspected Jewish extremist” not racist – when you contend that the NY Post calling the San Bernadino jihadis “Muslim killers,” is?

(5) Why did you decide to leave this story posted on your front page for three consecutive days – and on its World page for four straight days – when, in contrast, you removed the story of Palestinian terrorists’ murder of Ezra Schwartz, an American citizen, from your front page after only 19 hours?

UDPATE: December 18,  2015: Turns out “Rabbis for Human Rights” is funded, in part, by the Palestinian Authority

According to a December 14, 2015 article in Isarel National News (emphasis added):

A shocking report compiled by the Zionist group Im Tirtzu examines 20 Israeli NGOs that receive foreign funding and are actively involved in anti-Israel activity.

The report illustrates how much money was received by each extreme leftist organization, all of which participate in or actively create programs and media that harm Israel. Such activity includes disseminating anti-Israel propaganda across the globe, working towards preventing the punishment of terrorists, and defending murders of Israeli citizens.

The foreign funding includes the New Israel Fund (NIF), foreign governments, the EU – and over 13 million shekels from a Palestinian foundation based in Ramallah. […]

The organizations listed in the report include […] Rabbis for Human Rights.

So basically, we have a situation in which foreign governments and nonprofits are donating billions to propping up the unelected* Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (*he is in the eleventh year of a four-year term as president), located in Ramallah.  Abbas then turns around and donates some of that money to virulent pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel propaganda machines, including “Rabbis for Human Rights,” which puts out this questionable video of a supposed ‘attack” by a “suspected Jewish extremist,” amidst the daily (actual) attacks on Jews during the Third Intifada, about which RfHR has said nothing.  You can validate this for yourself by searching “intifada” at the RfHR website; there are no entries in September 2015 or onwards.

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