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Once Again, Another Media Outlet Whitewashes Palestinian Islamic Jihad
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by Simon Plosker
Militants stand during the funeral of two Palestinian Islamic Jihad gunmen who were killed in an Israeli raid, in Jenin refugee camp, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank May 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta
It’s not only The New York Times that’s sanitized the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organization, and its genocidal ambitions.
This time, The Washington Post’s Miriam Berger provides her readers with an inaccurate and misleading portrait of Islamic Jihad.
Why does @washingtonpost‘s Islamic Jihad profile feel like a whitewash of the terror group and a justification for its actions?
➡Islamic Jihad’s commitment to Israel’s destruction is omitted while this description of Israel leaves much to be desired. ?https://t.co/ncWQMtVUHR pic.twitter.com/150n7vRCyS
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 14, 2023
In “What is Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the militant group Israel is targeting in Gaza?” Berger describes Islamic Jihad as a group “committed to armed resistance against Israel, a self-described Jewish state established in 1948 on land Palestinians claim,” “more ideologically extreme” than Hamas, and “focused on the Palestinian struggle.”
Aside from her seeming justification for Islamic Jihad’s terrorism as steeped in a decades-old territorial dispute, the most glaring flaw in this analysis is Berger’s failure to mention Islamic Jihad’s raison d’etre: The destruction of Israel and its replacement with an Islamic state.
As I wrote about The New York Times’ coverage last week:
Stating simply that Islamic Jihad “was founded to fight the Israeli occupation” implies that the organization’s aims are primarily territorial and could even be reasoned with in exchange for territorial concessions or the creation of a Palestinian state.
The reality is quite different. Reuters’ “Factbox” on Islamic Jihad, which offers a useful source of comparison with The New York Times, states: “The group is sworn to destroying Israel and replacing it with an Islamic state spanning what was pre-1948 British Mandate Palestine, including the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.”
Indeed, the clue is in its name. Islamic Jihad’s raison d’etre is a holy war against not only Israel but also the Jews, who are seen as an eternal enemy of the Muslims.
If other major news organizations, such as Reuters and CBS, can depict Islamic Jihad’s genocidal aims accurately, why do Miriam Berger and The Washington Post feel the need to whitewash the organization with such sanitized and deceptive terms as “resistance” and “Palestinian struggle”?
