Israel

  • Print Friendly, PDF & Email
  • Send to Kindle

Al Jazeera Apologizes for Misleading Tweet About Jerusalem Attacks; BBC Doesn’t

by TheTower.org Staff |

Al Jazeera has apologized for a tweet that seemed to blame Israel for the death of a Palestinian man without noting that the man had stabbed two Israelis to death.

Muhammad Shafeq Halabi killed Aharon Bennett with a knife before seriously injuring his wife Adele and lightly wounding their two-year-old child. Nehemia Levi, an IDF reserve officer who reportedly ran out with a handgun to assist the family once he heard the commotion, was also stabbed and killed. Halabi, who posted “the third intifada has begun” on social media before the attack, was shot dead by security forces on the scene.

Al Jazeera admitted that the criticism of the tweet was valid, as it “appears to minimise the killings of the Israeli victims and leaves out the context that the Palestinian man was their attacker.”

Al Jazeera, which is owned by the government of Qatar, is being sued by multiple former employees alleging sexist discrimination and frequent anti-Semitic statements in the workplace, and mandates that coverage of the Middle East be skewed against Israel.

The station anti-Israel bias is even more severe on its Arabic-language channel. A commentary published after four Israelis were killed while praying in a synagogue by a Palestinian terrorist said that the terror attack had “symbolic importance” and praised its actions. It also published a story last year alleging that the beheadings of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff by ISIS were actually faked by Hollywood.

The BBC used a similar headline to Al Jazeera in its coverage of the attack: “Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attack kills two.” While the station later changed the headline after severe criticism on social media, it did not apologize when it made a statement to the Israeli newspaper Yediot Achronot, though it acknowledged that the initial headline was erroneous. It did, however, apologize for faking footage of a volcano eruption in one of its nature documentaries.

[Photo: WochitGeneralNews / YouTube ]

tt