New York Times Falsely Claims Israel Responded ‘Aggressively’ to ‘Palestinian’ Rioters

Patrick Kingsley, the head of the Jerusalem bureau for the New York Times, has suggested that Israel has responded “aggressively” during these “Temple Mount riots,” in dispersing rioters, even as he downplays the reports that Hamas, the terror group, had deliberately encouraged the mob violence and the use of potentially lethal weapons. His appalling coverage is reported on here.

Hamas, the militant Islamist group, praised the stone throwers several times this week. Some Palestinians involved in the clashes chanted pro-Hamas slogans and carried the green flags associated with the group — raising questions about whether Hamas operatives had played a role in premeditating the unrest, knowing that Israel would likely respond aggressively.

What degree of “aggressiveness” by the Israeli police does Patrick Kingsley think would be appropriate, in a situation where many hundreds of rioters on the Temple Mount are throwing rocks and explosives onto Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall far below and at the police trying to control them? These rioters were out for blood; if they could have murdered Israelis they would have been delighted. What else could the police have done except to respond “aggressively”? And why didn’t Kingsley make clear that the police used tear gas and stun guns, so as to halt and disperse the rioters but not to inflict any permanent injury, unlike what the rioters were trying to do with their rocks and explosives?

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 Kingsley might not have needed to speculate on whether Hamas was instigating riots if he had simply reported the militant group’s own words.

As HonestReporting detailed more than a week before Kingsley’s April 22 article, Hamas had urged Palestinians to come out in the “hundreds of thousands to protect our nation and our mosque,” adding that there are “Zionist threats to invade the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday [April 15] and conduct sacrifices.”

As we have also noted, these incitements are entirely predictable, and are almost a yearly occurrence.

A week into the riots on Temple Mount, on April 22, Kingsley still claimed “not to know” whether Hamas had instigated the riots. All he had had to do was listen to what Hamas was saying just before the riots began on April 15, when it warned about “Zionist threats to invade the Al-Aqsa Mosque” on that day when, Hamas claimed, the Jews were going to “conduct sacrifices” on the Temple Mount. Hamas also asked for “hundreds of thousands” of Palestinians to come out to protect the mosque. Kingsley failed to protect this as well. Finally, when Hamas warned about the Zionists planning to “conduct sacrifices,” this was a reference to a handful — fewer than 50 — of Jewish extremists belonging to a group, “Return to the Mount,” who wanted to ritually sacrifice a lamb on the Temple Mount. Kingsley should have reported on this, and explained why Hamas need not have been worried because, just like the previous 54 years, this year too the Israeli government had prohibited the event, in order not to harm Muslim sensibilities.

Which brings us to our latest update about The New York Times’ Jerusalem office, specifically that its latest hire is a journalist who has already appeared on HonestReporting’s radar.

Hiba M. Yazbek, a graduate of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ), has contributed to numerous articles for the Times, including Patrick Kingsley’s April 22 piece.

In February, we drew attention to a number of tweets — since deleted — that Yazbek posted that appear to undermine her ability to report objectively and impartially about matters pertaining to the Jewish state.

In one, she claimed that she was living under “mental occupation,” while in another, she asserted that Palestinians are a “minority in [their] own land,” which seemingly indicates her opposition to Jewish self-determination in any territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

In another tweet, which is still available to view on Twitter, Yazbek provocatively claimed a man — allegedly a Hamas fighter — was “murdered” after he was caught in Israeli airstrikes that were prompted by the terror group having launched a barrage of rockets at Jerusalem last May.

Let’s get this straight. If members of the terror group Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state (see its Charter, Articles 1 and 3) fires rockets toward Jerusalem – not a military target – in order to kill civilians, and if, to stop those Hamas attacks, the IDF launches air strikes and kills those responsible for such an unprovoked attack, that is not “murder,” but “self-defense.” It is not different in kind from the killing of Osama bin Laden. Who in his right mind would accuse the American government of “murdering” bin Laden? Killed, assassinated, taken down – but not “murdered.”

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