When the story first broke two weeks ago that Hallel and Yagel Yaniv, two brothers from Har Bracha, were murdered in the Arab village of Huwarrah in Samaria, the media’s response was predictable, although a bit softer than normal. This particular attack was so brutal that it was difficult for even the most left-leaning outlets to NOT condemn the terrorist, and express sympathy for the brothers’ family. Of course, the blatant anti-Israel media still found a way to blame Israel.
It was only hours after the murder took place, that the international media found a new, related story to stick their attention to (much to their relief I’m sure). After a group of Jewish teenagers threw rocks and set several fires in Huwarrah, the world discovered their main story to focus on, ensuring that they wouldn’t have to evoke anymore sympathy for the Yaniv family.
The media reported that violent, radical settlers descended on the town of Huwarrah, burning dozens of homes and cars. They claimed that the settlers killed a Palestinian man (although unverified), and the end result was a pogrom equivalent to the Holocaust. In the aftermath, more than a million shekels were raised to go to the villagers who were affected by the so-called pogroms, and the vandalism received universal condemnation from those on the right and left, conservative and liberal media outlets, politicians and organizations.
There was just one small problem. Much of what was reported is not true.
Hallel and Yagel were murdered early in the afternoon of February 26th. That evening after dark, we headed to the town of Huwarrah with our camera crew to investigate what was going on for ourselves as we had heard rumors of riots and protests. Admittedly, when we got close to the town, it seemed as if there was a riot taking place as there were flames rising high in the air next to one building, and there were several smaller fires in the area. On closer inspection, we found one Arab car junkyard that was in flames, and several isolated fires, some bonfires around Arab houses, and a few other cars that were aflame.
A few hundred meters from the village, there were several dozen teenage boys, throwing rocks, and I assume, some were lighting fires. Closer to the village, there were at least a hundred Jewish families – mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, silently standing in the road, protesting the fact that their brothers had been horrifically murdered in the village just a few short hours before.
To make sure we got the facts straight, we went back to Huwarrah a few days after the attack after things had quieted down. We found one junkyard that had been burned, probably 40-50 cars in total. On the outskirts of town, there were several smaller junkyard lots that had each been partially burned, totally 10-20 more cars. There was a nearby house with its windows broken, and an apartment farther inside the town that had clearly been burned. That was it.
To be clear, we don’t condone any violence or vandalism. The majority of the leaders of the Jewish communities in these areas oppose violence against the Arabs, including the head rabbi of Har Bracha and the Yaniv family themselves. In fact, I have not heard one person who did not oppose the vandalism that was committed by a small group of Jewish boys that night.
The actual deeds committed however, while still not the right course of action, were a far cry from what the media reported as a “pogrom similar to the Holocaust”. There was even a video on social media of a cameraman filming an obviously burned out house. The only problem is that this particular house was burned in an internal Arab feud two years ago. I drove by when it was on fire at the time.
Leftists in Israel, and many around the world, I’m sure, were much too quick in starting a fundraiser for the supposed “pogrom” in Huwarrah. If any of them are reading this, they should know much of the money will probably go to the owner of the junkyard that was burned, who, ironically enough, is a terrorist who spent five years in an Israeli prison.
The sickening part of this entire saga, is how quickly the media pounced on the story of the supposed settlers that descended on Huwarrah, while at the same time abandoning the more horrific story of Hallel and Yagel, murdered simply because they were Jews who lived in the land of Israel. Since the terrorist attack was so brutal, it would have been difficult for them to switch to condemning Israel as quickly as they normally would have. When two young men are executed in cold blood, it is not a good look to lay the blame on the victims, even for the mainstream media. Since a few dozen vandals threw rocks and set cars on fire however, the media had the excuse they needed to quickly switch to unending condemnations of Israel and the Jewish people.
The world has a weird fetish with hating Jews and the nation of Israel. Often they don’t need an excuse. The media just publishes lies and false propaganda, and the Jew-haters go along with it. This time however, they pounced on a story that was blown entirely out of proportion, using it as their catalyst to drive their hatred for God’s land and people even deeper.
As a Christian Zionist who saw the entire saga up close and first hand, I find it particularly horrific and sickening.
The New York Times has been hostile to Israel since before it became a country. It opposed Israel’s establishment, and has been hostile to it ever since. But most of the media was not. In those days, most of what is now the lame-stream press was busy reporting the news. They were liberals. But, in the past couple of decades, accelerating after our Islamo-Nazi-in-chief took the throne, the liberals have become virtually extinct, as it was hijacked by the hard left-wing, which has opposed Israel and hated Jews for over 70 years. No longer can the press be counted on to report news, it reports left-wing propaganda. If it cannot find an excuse to show its true colors, it invents one (see Dura film). It is sickening for me because I AM a liberal. One of the few still around.
When I was younger, the liberal Democratic Party were the good guys, and the conservative GOP were the bad guys. Not all the time. Jacob Javits was a liberal, Nelson Rockefeller was regarded as a liberal (he was not, he was a Nazi, but this did not come out during his political career). Romney senior also was among the liberal branch of the GOP, just as Senator Jackson, and the southern Democrats were conservative. Liberals were celebrated as political people with a conscience, that wanted to help people. In short, they were those who believed in the Jewish way of helping their fellow men and women. The press pretty much followed this outlook. There were papers, like the Daily News, that were more conservative, but were not right wing, and were pro-Israel. EVERYONE with a conscience was pro-Israel. The handful who weren’t were the Buchanans, the Sobrans, the Ron Pauls. Even the conservatives, such as the Buckleys, disavowed these renegade GOPers. In an old television comedy, “Get Smart,” there was an episode where the chief had to state that the Arab they were protecting was friendly to Israel.
That was then. When the most evil man ever to enter the White House (and that is saying a lot! I remember tricky Dicky) took the throne in 2009, he made it his business to gradually turn the liberal party and the liberal press into the hard left that abhors Jews and Israel. From day one he showed his colors when he kept Bibi waiting while he had dinner. That was at the BEGINNING of his term. With political skills and a genuinely malevolent viewpoint (he finally came clean in his last book, if you can call it clean), he completely replaced liberalism with Stalinism, Islamo-Nazism. I left that party in 2015, not because of him (there are always evil players around, and everyone always hates the Jews anyway), but because the Democratic senate passed his crime against humanity without even allowing debate. That is a hard left trick, and the party and their PR department (the press) has unquestioningly given such genuinely evil ideas full credence ever since. Some people were reminded about this when old footage of the press calling Biden (before his dotage) on his serial lying and plagiarism. People who never knew the real news media, or had forgotten it, were astounded at the genuine honesty involved in the reporting.
There was once such a thing as a free press. It is dead. Bigoted group think is all that is found in the media today. And a big part of it, in the media and in social media, is the growing number of terrorists employed. They have free reign, and, in this era of politically-coerced censorship, woke, intersectionality, and all the other atrocities infesting society today, no one is going to call minorities on evil no matter how evil it is. Again, the left-wing model. It is not what people say and do it is who is saying and doing. If BLM and Antifa are burning down cities, destroying businesses, peoples’ homes, and murdering a few it is peaceful protests. But, when law abiding citizens protest the 2020 election (remember ‘the resistance’ from 2016?), they are infiltrated by BLM and Antifa, which perpetrated some rioting, and the press, which once would have reported it, instead have blatantly lied for over 2 years, and people have been in jail for years since then. Now the facts have FINALLY came out. Is the media sheepish? No, they double down on their bigotry and hatred and continue to do all they can to lynch Trump.
Israel is being torn apart by the left. The US is being torn apart by the left. The media covers for all manner of crimes, which once would have been headline news (a walking corpse in the White House, an incompetent vice president, an incompetent dealing with train derailments), now they cover for them. Israel is the symbol for Jews. The world hates the Jews, and they hate the one Jewish state on earth. And now there isn’t even a free press to report the truth anymore.
I do not think it is a coincidence that the left love all terrorists so much. Terrorists murder and destroy, but they never govern. Their people are miserable. Morsi in Egypt, Iran, Qatar, the various indigenous Arab groups, commonly but inaccurately, called Palestinians, all run by terrorists and none care anything about their own people. So it is with the left, that murder and destroy and don’t govern. The past 2 years have proven this.
Who invented God?
God gets the blame or praise of everything. About time humans recognize they only have tô blame themselves
Stil would like to know who invented God as a all commanding entety
Your premise is wrong. People invent lies concerning God. God, however, was not invented. He is truth and he is eternal. You can know the truth regarding God by reading his word, the Scriptures.