Two MSNBC Middle East correspondents who have been exposed misreporting news from Israel in the past year blamed Wednesday’s deadly terror attack in Tel Aviv on the Israeli government.
Ayman Mohyeldin and Martin Fletcher claimed in a segment broadcast Wednesday that the terror attack — carried out by two Palestinian gunmen — was a reaction to Israeli policies.
In the segment, Mohyeldin spoke of “the bigger picture, in the context of what has been happening” between Israel and the Palestinians. He then described Palestinian frustration with “the shift of Israeli politics including now, the current government, to the right, to what has been described by Israelis as an even more extreme right-wing government, some of the measures that have taken place in the West Bank, the siege that continues in Gaza, all of those continue to fester.”
Mohyeldin did not mention that Hamas in fact blamed Wednesday’s attack on Israel’s alleged desecration of the al-Aqsa Mosque, a justification the group — which has vowed to never recognize Israel — has invoked after past attacks. (Though the Israeli government routinely rejects the charge, and non-Muslim presence and activity in the Temple Mount complex remains highly restricted, Palestinian leaders often declare that al-Aqsa is in danger, an accusation that predates the founding of Israel.)
Mohyeldin also failed to acknowledge multiple Palestinian celebrations that broke out in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and eastern Jerusalem following news of the killings in Tel Aviv, or place them in context of the incitement to violence that has fueled the current wave of Palestinian attacks against Israelis. This incitement, in part, includes the propagation of the libel that Israel is planning to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque; the demonization of Israel and Jews across Palestinian society, including in school plays and textbooks; the glorification of Palestinians who attack Israeli and American civilians and soldiers; and the paying of terrorist salaries.
After Mohyeldin reiterated his assessment, Fletcher added, “Every few years we say this is the most right-wing government in Israel’s history and it just keeps getting more right-wing.”
Though neither fully explained the term “right-wing,” which they used to criticize the Israeli government, one measure could be its commitment to a two-state solution. If this is the basis for their criticism, it is mistaken.
In his final speech before the Knesset in October 1995, the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin — who was aligned with the Israeli Labor Party — laid out his vision for peaceful coexistence between Israel and the Palestinians, and explicitly ruled out Palestinian statehood, explaining:
We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.
Current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has committed himself in 2009 and subsequently recommitted himself to seeking a two-state solution on numerous occasions. Newly appointed Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman has stated that he would leave his home in the West Bank in order to achieve peace. Netanyahu and Liberman have both recently endorsed elements of the Arab Peace Initiative.
In contrast, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas scuttled American-led peace talks in 2014 by refusing to accept a peace framework laid out by the Obama administration. Late last year, he also admitted that he rejected Ehud Olmert’s 2008 peace offer. In March, he rejected an offer from Vice President Joe Biden to restart peace talks with Israel. Last month, the Palestinian Authority turned down an offer to negotiation one-on-one with Netanyahu.
Mohyeldin and Fletcher’s characterization of Wednesday’s attack is not the first time they were inaccurate or misleading in their reporting on the Middle East.
Mohyeldin suggested during an on-air segment last October that a Palestinian terrorist who was fleeing from Israeli police had both of his hands “open and both of his hands did not have a knife.” However, a knife was clearly visible in the terrorist’s hand in the video Mohyeldin was describing, which was broadcast to viewers.
A few days later, Fletcher gave credence to a series of maps favored by anti-Israel activists that claim to depict Palestinian land loss since 1946. The maps have been repeatedly discredited in the past, including by Shany Mor in The Mendacious Maps of Palestinian “Loss,” which was published in the January 2015 issue of The Tower Magazine. Fletcher apologized the next day for validating the misleading maps after their inaccuracy was brought to his attention.
[Photo: Gili Yaari / Flash90 ]