Once Again, the Israeli Media Repeats Palestinian Claims Without the Most Basic Fact-Checking

Recently, journalist Nahum Barnea wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth about an incident that allegedly took place in the Palestinian hamlet of Khumsa between Palestinians and Jews. We will use Barnea’s remarks to illustrate the method, because it is always the same method.

Barnea joined a tour of what he described as “the pogrom sites in the West Bank,” led by retired Major General Yaakov “Mendi” Or. The tours are organized for groups of what Barnea calls “senior members of Israel’s old elite.” Or, now 80 years old, appears nostalgic for the senior positions he held in the IDF and the Civil Administration during the height of the peace-process euphoria in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when he participated in the ultimately fruitless negotiations with PLO terrorists in the hope of achieving peace.

To illustrate for Barnea and the readers of Yedioth Ahronoth just how cruel the local settlers are, and how grievously they supposedly harm innocent Arabs, Or told Barnea the following:

“There was a pogrom in Khumsa two months ago. They tied up all the residents and beat them. They fastened a zip tie around a toddler’s genitalia. They loaded the residents’ flock—400 sheep—onto a truck and disappeared. A CNN crew documented the attack. The video caused an uproar around the world.”

“There was a pogrom in Khumsa two months ago. They tied up all the residents and beat them. They fastened a zip tie around a toddler’s........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)