Casualty Count: 794 Palestinians, 7 Israelis—NY Times Obsesses on Israeli Victims
By Barbara Erickson | TimesWarp | October 8, 2015
Isabel Kershner in The New York Times tells us that Palestinians are running amok, lashing out at Israelis not only in the West Bank but now in Israel as well. Prime Minister Netanyahu has vowed to quell this “wave of terrorism,” she reports, and Israelis are “unnerved” by the spread of incidents.
Kershner describes three alleged stabbing attempts, dwelling at length on one of them; recaps an earlier incident that left two Israelis dead; and in the final paragraphs of her story informs us that “at least two” Palestinians were killed, one of them a 13-year-old boy “described as a bystander.”
Nowhere do we learn that the major victims of violence in this turbulent conflict are Palestinians, not Israelis, as revealed in a recent United Nations report: In one week, ending Oct. 5, Israeli security forces injured 794 Palestinians, while Palestinians injured a total of seven Israelis. (As of Oct. 5, 30 Palestinians had been killed in 2015 compared with eight Israelis.)
This is an injury ratio of more than 100 to one, a shocking disparity, but the Times story shows concern only for Israeli injuries and fears. We find no accounts there of what the Palestinian victims experienced as they faced the aggression of heavily armed security forces.
Readers and viewers elsewhere, however, got a firsthand view of Israeli violence yesterday as videos emerged that revealed undercover agents inciting stone throwers in the West Bank. The agents, wearing keffiyehs and bearing a Hamas flag, urge bystanders to join them, then draw their weapons and assault Palestinian youths.
The videos, by several agencies, including Reuters and Agence France-Presse, went viral, appearing on French, British, Israeli and American media outlets. The Times, however, has so far failed to link to the videos, which show a soldier shooting a captive Palestinian in the leg at point blank range.
The newspaper also avoids any commentary that would shed a clear light on the nature of the conflict even as Israeli columnists have recently provided eloquent testimony of the despair behind Palestinian attacks.
Gideon Levy, writing in the Middle East Eye, notes that when Palestinians remain quiet, they reap nothing but “an intensification of the occupation.” He lists the constant attacks and humiliations they endure and asks, “Are Palestinians to assent to all this in silence?”
Levy notes that after a Palestinian family was burnt alive, Israeli officials admitted that they knew who was responsible but refused to make any arrests. “What people could maintain restraint in the face of such a sequence of events,” he writes, “with the entire might of the occupation in the background, without hope, without prospects, with no end in sight?”
Amira Hass writes in a similar vein, and the headlines on her Haaretz article express it well: “Palestinians Are Fighting for Their Lives; Israel Is Fighting for the Occupation—That we notice there’s a war on only when Jews are murdered does not cancel out the fact that Palestinians are being killed all the time.”
Both these Israelis speak with an honesty that rarely, if ever, appears in the Times. Readers of the newspaper of record instead face a determined effort to protect Israel’s reputation, to preserve the narrative of Israeli victimhood even in the face of the evidence.
As Palestinians fall to Israeli violence at the rate of 100 a day, the Times obsesses on Israeli Jewish victims. It ignores the numbers that reveal an enormous toll of Palestinian suffering and it excludes the news and the voices of conscience that could help readers gain a truer perspective in this conflict.
Video: Israel lures protesters into trap
By Jonathon Cook | The Blog From Nazareth | October 8, 2015
This two-minute video, taken on October 7 in the West Bank near Ramallah, is worth studying carefully to understand how Israel has become so adept at managing the Palestinian population under occupation and at foiling their efforts at resistance.
We can see about 20 men, faces concealed, who look like they are Palestinian protesters throwing stones at the army. In fact, they are what are called “mistaravim”: Israeli security forces in disguise as Palestinian youths.
According to those who witnessed this incident (see update below), the mistaravim began throwing stones at the army in a piece of theatre to lure other Palestinians to the protest.
Then, as we can see in the video, when a few Palestinian protesters separate themselves from the main body of the crowd they are picked off by the mistaravim, like lions going after a gazelle.
Notice, once they have grabbed the main Palestinian in this video, they shoot him in the knee and take turns kicking him.
We can’t see what happens next, but the routine is well known.
He will be taken off to a Shin Bet interrogation (torture) cell, where he will be made to give up the names of anyone he can think off who was there (and very possibly those who weren’t).
Then the Israeli army will make night raids to grab those who were named, or arrest them when they try to cross one of the many checkpoints and roadblocks Israel operates in the occupied territories.
At some point later he will be released. The Shin Bet will use his “confession” as blackmail to get him to serve as an informer.
This has been going on for nearly five decades in the occupied territories. It has created an awful lot of Palestinians trapped in a vicious cycle of collaboration, and a very effective system of control for Israel.
Sam Bahour makes the point that the drama playing out here illustrates the way young Palestinians are being drawn not into an organised intifada but into futile bursts of anger against Israel.
He says it more eloquently than I can:

UPDATE:
Here is another video of the same incident, showing what happens earlier when the mistaravim are throwing stones and then switch sides.
Jordan: Human Rights Activist Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison After Unfair Trial Before State Security Court
Alkarama | October 5, 2015
On 29 July 2015, human rights activist Amer Jubran was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the State Security Court following an unfair trial during which confessions extracted under torture were admitted as evidence. In view of this decision, Amer appealed to the Cassation Court, which has not considered his case yet. Following this, Amer’s friends and family sent a communication to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) in September calling upon the Jordanian authorities to release him immediately, as well as launched a campaign on his behalf.
Amer is a long-time activist for the Palestinian cause and an anti-war advocate who frequently expresses his political opinion on social media. After publishing articles criticising Israel’s policies against Palestine, on 5 May 2014 Amer was arrested by members of the General Intelligence Directorate of Jordan, an intelligence agency notoriously known for its sweeping powers to monitor public life in Jordan and its frequent use of torture and ill-treatment. He was kept in secret detention for almost two months, during which he was subjected to numerous acts of torture in order to obtain confessions, which would later be used as evidence during his trial. The acts of torture inflicted on Amer include 72-hour long interrogations, sleep deprivation, threatening his family, and severe beatings all over his body.
It is only two months after his arrest, on 27 June 2014 that his family was allowed to visit him for the first time for 10 minutes. In August 2014, Amer was charged with a series of terrorism-related offences, which included conducting “acts that threaten to harm relations with a foreign government.” On 29 July 2015, Amer was sentenced to 10 years in prison with hard labour, following an unfair trial before the State Security Court, a military court known for its lack of independence, as it is directly linked to the executive branch and its members are appointed by the Prime Minister. In prison, Amer currently fears that the Jordanian authorities will take retaliatory measures against him for speaking out about his case.
In view of these facts, Alkarama will raise Amer’s case before the UN Committee against Torture (CAT) in view of Jordan’s third review during the Committee’s 56th session, which will take place from 9 November to 9 December 2015. “Although Jordan is a party to the Convention against Torture (UNCAT) and has taken some encouraging legislative measures to put an end to torture – such as removing the term ‘illegal torture’ in Article 208 of the Criminal Code in January 2014 – violations of the right to physical integrity persist,” says Inès Osman, Legal Officer for the Mashreq at Alkarama. “The Jordanian special courts continue to rely heavily on confessions extracted under torture, which, added to their lack of independence, often leads to the arbitrary sentencing of people like Amer,” she continues.
Concerned over the systematic crackdown on dissent under the pretext of the fight against terrorism in Jordan, Alkarama calls upon the Jordanian authorities to:
- Adjust the legal framework, including by amending the Antiterrorism Law to create an environment where the freedoms of expression, association and assembly are respected;
- Abolish the State Security Court; and
- Implement the obligations arising from the Convention against Torture (UNCAT).
NY Times Botches Reporting on Israeli Police Execution
By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | October 5, 2015
Sunday, I reported on the police execution of East Jerusalem Palestinian teenager, Fadi Alloun, outside the Old City. I noted the false reporting of the Jerusalem Post which stated that the police saw him “holding a knife” and “neutralized” him. There has been no supporting reporting in the Israeli media confirming this.
Now the international newspaper of record, the NY Times, gets in on the act. In Diaa Hadid’s report tonight, instead of focusing on his murder, she focuses on a supposed disagreement between villages and political factions about where he should be buried. The title of her story: Dispute Over a Burial Reveals Palestinian Divisions. Instead of focusing on the real news story of the video showing a flagrant execution, she invents a dispute purporting to show the Palestinian national movement in disarray.
This paragraph in particular irks:
“Mr. Alon was fatally shot by police officers early Sunday after he stabbed and wounded a 15-year-old Jewish boy on a road outside the Old City, according to the police. A video clip showed Mr. Alon being shot, apparently as he was trying to flee, with Israeli civilians in pursuit and shouting “Shoot him!”
In fact, no Israeli media has offered any proof that Alloun was the attacker who stabbed the Israeli. If you watch the video of the Alloun killing, he was not “apparently fleeing” the stabbing. He was fleeing the Israelis who were rushing at him. At one point, he says to his attackers: “Let me pass.” This is a youth being pursued by baying hounds, and seeking safety.
Why does the report not display the video of the Alloun killing in which the policeman exits his car and immediately murders Alloun without telling him to stop or saying anything to him? Why not note that when the policeman asks a bystander if Alloun had stabbed anyone, the bystander replies: “not yet.”
Why would the NY Times permit a regurgitation of police claims without offering any qualification or skepticism when no actual proof or evidence has been offered?
This is the rankest of journalism. Instead of providing illumination to readers in a dark hour of Israeli-Palestinian history, the Times gives us pandering and stenography.
Finally, there remains a possibility that Alloun was the attacker who stabbed the Israeli boy (the stabbing and later murder happened in the general vicinity). But there is not yet any firm evidence supporting this claim. The Times’ rush to judgment is irresponsible.
A minor quibble: though I am not an expert in Arabic (by any means), Hadid spells Alloun’s name “Alon.” That does not seem to be phonetically close to the spelling Electronic Intifada adopted and which I’ve used. The name Alon is a common Israeli name. But Palestinian?
Israeli forces raid mourning tent of slain Jerusalem teen
Ma’an – October 6, 2015
JERUSALEM – Israeli forces on Tuesday raided the East Jerusalem mourning tent of a Palestinian teenager killed by Israeli forces in the early hours of Sunday.
The father of Fadi Alloun, 19, told Ma’an that Israeli forces and intelligence officers raided the tent in Beit Hanina and threw stun grenades and pepper-sprayed mourners.
They also removed Palestinian and Fatah flags from the tent and detained an unidentified youth, he said.
A Ma’an reporter said Israeli forces then fired stun grenades at cars leaving the mourning ceremony, including at the private vehicle of Fatah official Adnan Ghaith.
Israeli authorities on Monday night said they would not be handing over the body of 19-year-old Fadi Alloun to relatives, despite having agreed to do so earlier that day, a human rights lawyer told Ma’an.
Israeli authorities initially said the body would only be released on condition that no more than 70 Palestinians attend the funeral.
They also demanded that Alloun’s family pay a guarantee of 20,000 shekels ($5,200), which would have been refunded if the condition was met.
Alloun was shot dead by Israeli forces after he allegedly attempted to stab a 16-year-old Israeli in East Jerusalem early on Sunday.
However, Alloun’s family has disputed that he was involved in the attack, saying saying that Israeli forces shot him dead while he was fleeing from Israelis who were trying to attack him.
Al-Manar Cameraman Injured by Israeli Fire in West Bank
Al-Manar | October 6, 2015
Al-Manar TV cameraman, Salah al-Zayyat, was shot by the Zionist soldiers at the Qalandiya checkpoint on Tuesday in the West Bank while he was shooting the occupation attacks against the Palestinian people.
According to Al-Manar TV correspondent, Zayyat was wounded by a bullet in the abdomen during the Zionist attacks, and he has undergone a surgery in Ramallah hospital to extract the metal pieces that infiltrated into his body.
“Three others were wounded by the Israeli attacks, and dozens of people suffered from asphyxia due to the use of toxic gases by the Israeli enemy were treated in the scene,” the reporter added.
More Palestinians injured as Israeli forces violently attack mourners at a funeral in Bethlehem
The body of Abed al-Rahman Obeidallah at the funeral march
International Solidarity Movement | October 6, 2015
Bethlehem, occupied Palestine – The funeral of the 13-year old Abed al-Rahman Obeidallah, who was shot and killed by Israeli forces on his way home from school yesterday, took place today in Betlehem with over a thousand attendees. They marched from the Beit Jala hospital to Abeds house in Aida refugee camp. After the burial ceremony the mourning Palestinians were violently attacked by Israeli forces as they sprayed the streets with skunkwater and fired over a hundred tear-gas canisters, shot endless rounds of rubber-coated steel bullets and live ammunition. This resulted in more than 20 injuries. At least 13 Palestinians suffered from excessive tear-gas inhalation. At least 8 Palestinians were injured from rubber-coated steel bullets and at least 2 were shot with live ammunition.

Israeli forces sprayed the streets with skunk water
Excessive use of tear-gas by Israeli forces
The Constant Cruelty of the Israeli Occupation: A No-go Zone in The NY Times
By Barbara Erickson | TimesWarp | October 5, 2015
As Israelis and Palestinians die in an upsurge of violence, The New York Times fails once again to give readers an honest look at the causes of this agonizing conflict. Missing from its pages is any real exposure of the brutal and illegal occupation of Palestine that underscores every aspect of the current crisis.
Thus we find a story today that focuses on the abstract: how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can “calibrate his response” to avoid provoking greater violence and satisfy his extremist opponents in the government. It is heavily weighted with Israeli punditry and refers to ongoing clashes and attacks, but it makes no effort to provide the essential context.
In this article by Jodi Rudoren and Isabel Kershner the word “occupation” appears only in a quote by PLO official Hanan Ashrawi. “Palestine,” she says, “has been subject to the systematic and escalating violence of the occupation, whether in the form of settler-terrorism or at the hands of the Israeli military using live ammunition.”
Times readers are likely to dismiss her words as little more than rhetorical flourishes of the opposition, given that the newspaper has consistently failed to show the full reality of life for Palestinians, glossing over violence by soldiers and settlers and giving prominence to Palestinian attacks.
For instance, today’s report states that a Palestinian teenager was shot after he tried to stab an Israeli youth early Sunday, but it omits any mention that videos show he was chased down by a mob, shot by police, was carrying no knife and did not pose a threat to anyone in the area.
The story also says nothing of settler rampages throughout the West Bank in recent days, which have left dozens injured and forced the Red Crescent Society to declare a state of emergency after numerous attacks on its ambulances by both settlers and security forces.
Times readers rarely receive even a brief glimpse of what occupation means to Palestinians. The newspaper largely ignores the constant reports emanating from alternative media, the United Nations and monitoring groups that show how a sophisticated military power oppresses a nearly helpless population lacking even the most basic weapons for defense.
Readers remain ignorant of the Israeli abuse of Palestinian child prisoners, a situation that has been documented and criticized in numerous reports. They are unaware of the frequent Israeli attacks on Gaza fishermen and farmers and a recent United Kingdom report that states Israel has violated the 2014 ceasefire some 700 times since August of last year.
They hear nothing of the ethnic cleansing of the Jordan Valley, where Israeli troops harass the poorest and most vulnerable communities, burning their crops, destroying their tents and water systems and repeatedly forcing them from their homes for “maneuvers.”
They are unaware of the huge disparity in water supplies between the illegal settlements in the West Bank and the indigenous Palestinian villages, and they were never informed when hundreds of animals died in the West Bank community of Kafr Qaddoum this summer as Israeli officials cut off water deliveries during a stifling heat wave.
These constant, daily cruelties find no place in the Times, and readers likewise find no historical backdrop for the occupation. It is rarely, if ever, reported that Israel is in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as a military occupying force and that the settlements are built in defiance of international law.
Without this backstory, it is not surprising when readers take Netanyahu’s claim at face value: that acts of resistance against the occupation are nothing but terrorist assaults arising out of a free-floating hatred of Jews.
Palestinians watch with dismay as Israel confiscates ever more land and resources, forcing the indigenous communities into poverty-stricken bantustans. This is the reality that is missing from the Times, deliberately obscured in the context-free reporting of Rudoren and Kershner.
12 year old Palestinian killed in Bethlehem as violence explodes across the West Bank
International Solidarity Movement | October 5, 2015
West Bank, occupied Palestine – Abed al-Rahman Shadi Obeidallah, 12 was still in his school uniform when he was rushed in a civilian car to Beit Jala hospital from Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem today. The boy, from from a Al Kahder village, was shot in the heart during confrontations at Aida camp as violence explodes across the West Bank prompting the Red Crescent to declare a level 3 state of emergency across the occupied Palestinian territories. Another boy was shot in leg with live ammunition during the attack.
Abed al-Rahman Shadi Obeidallah, 12, just before being shot to death by Israeli forces in Bethlehem
Denouncing Israeli violations against humanitarian international law, the Palestine Red Crescent Society staff have endured 14 attacks on their emergency vehicles as Israeli forces and settler violence has sharply surged in a bloody three days. Attacks on PRCS have included medics being beaten by soldiers in Jerusalem, Israeli forces beating an ambulance crew with batons in the old city of Jerusalem and after one attack on an emergency crew in Jabal Al Taweel (Al-Bireh), two medics were injured. Israeli forces attacked an ambulance in al-Issawiya village in occupied East Jerusalem, before arresting an injured Palestinian who was being treated inside the ambulance. An ambulance windshield was also shattered by settlers in Burin village in Nablus. Burin underwent a frightening attack by settlers which left much of it in flames.
Reportedly 465 Palestinians have been injured thus far, including 28 shot with live ammunition and 68 injured with rubber coated steel bullets. Hundreds of others have been overcome by teargas that Israeli forces have been showering over villages and in cities where Palestinians have gathered to demonstrate against their murdering of several Palestinian youths since this past Saturday.
Young Palestinians martyrs recently murdered by Israeli forces.
Fadi Samir Mustafa Alloun, 19, from the East Jerusalem village of al-Issawiya, was shot to death by Israeli forces after allegedly attempting to stab a group of Israelis. 18-year-old Huthayfa Othman Suleiman was shot in the chest during clashes and died in the operating room. In a particularly heinous attack, Yousef Bayan al-Tabib, just six years old, was standing on the side of the road when a settler reportedly stopped his car, shot the child in the stomach, and fled the scene.
Across the occupied Palestinian territories, there have been reports of settlers slaughtering Palestinian’s sheep, attacking Palestinian cars with stones on roads and carrying out violent attacks on villages. As for Israeli forces, soldiers disguised as Palestinians assisting an injured Palestinian into a hospital in Ramallah, disabled security cameras and proceeded to arrest a Palestinian undergoing medical treatment. This is similar to other hospital raids in recent days where a variation of this tactic was repeated.
As for the Israeli government, Netanyahu today made an inflammatory statement to wage a “harsh offensive” against Palestinians; Zionist opportunism at its most typical. Collective punishment is the usual expectation when it comes to the illegally occupying force dealing with the civilian population whose land they are occupying. Israel launched three air strikes in the besieged Gaza strip targeting alleged Hamas ‘terror’ sites after two rockets were fired from Gaza, hitting nothing and injuring no one.
News reports of shootings, injuries, murders, arrests and raids continue to flood in as the situation unfolds at a lightning quick pace. For Palestinians enduring the brunt of Israeli incited race hatred and promoted retribution for the shooting of two Israeli settlers last week, the cavalierly imposed restrictions on al Aqsa Mosque, which have sparked outrage and violent confrontations- and the ensuing chaos, are yet another violent incursion into their lives.
Sami Ali El Goga – The Story of a Gazan Fisherman
International Solidarity Movement | September 3, 2015
ISM Gaza met the fisherman Sami Ali El Goga, 36, who lost his hand and part of his arm the 12th March 2007, when he was attacked by the Israeli navy. In the same attack his boat was completely destroyed and his 13-year-old nephew, who was in the boat with him, sustained shrapnel wounds throughout his body.
Eight years later he is still waiting for the assistance promised by several international agencies, as he hasn’t been able to work since the attack, and without the boat a 20-member-family lost its source of income.
On that day, Sami and his nephew had just reached the 1.5 miles naval blockade when the zionist army approached and started shooting rockets towards them. They attempted to escape to the closest beach, as there was no chance to reach the port. Once on the beach the shooting didn’t stop. Whilst attempting to escape from the boat with his nephew, it was hit by a rocket and in the explosion Sami was severely injured. He nearly bled to death waiting for medical assistance as the Israeli navy prevented any recue from reaching him until 30 minutes later.
After 3 hospitals in Gaza weren’t able to treat him the Palestinian Authority mediated in order that he could be treated in a Hospital in the ‘48 territories (AKA Israel), as the occupation had previously refused to allow him to exit Gaza. The doctors there amputated his hand and afterwards he was taken by the zionist intelligence for an interrogation before sending him back to Gaza.
This wasn’t the first attack Sami suffered, as another boat from his family had been stolen by the occupation in the past.





