In a story headlined “Palestinian woman shot after reportedly trying to stab officer in Hebron,” the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (because the telegraph means progress) picked up the Palestinian Ma’an news agency practically verbatim, including the astonishing reference to an ancient building dating back to early Biblical times. So, brace yourselves, here goes:
“The woman, identified on Ynet as Sara Hajaj, 27, on Friday tried to carry out a stabbing attack near the Ibrahimi Mosque in the Old City of Hebron, Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld said. Border Police shot her after she had tried to stab an officer at a checkpoint with a knife, Israeli police said.”
Never mind all the “reportedly” stuff, which is JTA for the Palestinian Ma’an news agency’s despicable “allegedly,” an absurd term used to downgrade the veracity of the reports on crimes routinely carried out by Arab murderers. Never mind that JTA opted to quote a Ma’an story that quotes a perfectly acceptable Israeli website. The fact that the Jewish telegraph operators over on Seventh Avenue are not aware of the fact that Jews refer to the site in Hebron as Ma’arat Ha’Makhpela, or the cave of the Patriarch, and they use the Arab name for the mosque on the site should put in question this agency’s entire body of report on Israeli topics.
Honestly, did Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld really refer to the site as “the Ibrahimi Mosque?” Are they compeletely cut off from Israeli reality over there?
That first telegraphic atrocity was followed by this paragraph:
“In a second attack on Thursday, an armed Israeli civilian shot dead a Palestinian man in the Israeli coastal city of Netanya after he allegedly carried out a stabbing attack, leaving two Israelis wounded.”
He didn’t “allegedly” stab his Jewish victims, he really, really did stab them, a 40-year-old Haredi man and a 62-year-old woman who don’t live in the “occupied territories,” who aren’t involved in any way in oppressing anyone save for the chickens they were about to buy for Shabbat, who were attacked viciously simply because they were Jews — what is “alleged” about that incident, which was documented by dozens of media sources, including Ha’aretz, where JTA normally copies its stuff. What’s the meaning of this “allegedly” here? They weren’t stabbed? They stabbed themselves? The Arab guy lying face down on the pavement is not the killer? He was shot because he was handing out pamphlets inviting people to a Humus festival?
Something nasty is taking place in modern Jewish American journalism, and the most disheartening signs of that nastiness are evident in what used to be a half decent Jewish news service, albeit one utilizing telegraph poles to disseminate its bulletins.