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Why Does the Media Keep Pushing Lies About Israeli Settler Violence?

People hold Fatah flags during a protest in support of the people of Gaza, as the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues, in Hebron, in the West Bank, Oct. 27, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma

There is a certain kind of journalism that is born out of ignorance, with an unwillingness to be fair. It’s the worst kind of journalism, especially when the writer fills his or her article with deep inaccuracies along the way.

This is an ongoing trend when it comes to Israeli settler violence, and IDF activities in the West Bank. Let’s be clear: I am not here to defend any political stances or make excuses for violence.

However, it is necessary to point out when the media got their facts wrong. This is true for Christina Lamb’s “Gun in hand, the Israeli settler tells the Palestinian: I will kill you” that she wrote for The Sunday Times.

Implication that Israeli settler violence is common & accepted by all settlers

In her article, she writes that:

But many in both communities believe that Israel has opened a second front in the West Bank where Jewish settlers backed by the government have ramped up occupation and violence against Palestinians to unprecedented levels.

The media have a tendency to group a fringe minority of Israeli settlers with the settler population as a whole. This creates a picture that all settlers are violent and extreme, while the overwhelming majority of them do not engage in violence and are simply Israeli citizens who, for any number of different reasons, live over the so-called Green Line.

In fact, there are constant Palestinian terror attacks carried out on Israeli settlers as well, which are rarely documented in the media. And these attacks are not mentioned at all in Lamb’s article.

Just last week, a Jewish security guard in the Bar-On industrial zone in the West Bank was beaten with a hammer by a Palestinian terrorist who then stole his gun. The guard, Gideon Peri, succumbed to his wounds and died in the terrorist attack.

Ideally, Lamb should have mentioned that regardless of one’s personal beliefs on an Israeli presence in the West Bank, settlers don’t deserve to be attacked or murdered either.

Lamb also fails to differentiate Palestinian terrorists from civilians killed in IDF raids and clashes, nor does she distinguish between settler violence and IDF operations.

The majority of those Palestinians were killed while actively engaging in violence against the IDF. These casualty figures fail to differentiate between combatants & civilians.

And why no mention of Israeli victims of Palestinian terror in the West Bank during this period? pic.twitter.com/ZGJfEyogVY

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 25, 2024

This isn’t to say that Israeli settler violence isn’t a problem. It is real, unfortunately. As Lamb wrote, Shin Bet head Ronen Bar recently warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of the “indescribable damage” settler violence is having on Israel.

Activist Daniela Weiss, who is featured in the article, represents a fringe minority, and not the mainstream residents of Jewish settlements.

Hebron is not a “ghost town”

Another major problem is the way Lamb paints an image of West Bank cities like Hebron as a “ghost town,” when in fact, it is quite the opposite. Unfortunately, this is a common trope in the media, as there is a tendency to interview politicized organizations like B’Tselem or Breaking the Silence rather than more neutral experts.

The reality is that Israel, under the Hebron Protocol that then-Prime Minister Netanyahu signed in 1997, has control of only about 20 percent of the city. With that in mind, Palestinians, so-called human rights groups, and others paint a picture of Hebron and other cities as suffering from Israeli military oppression. The reality is that in Hebron, the genuine issues and friction between Palestinians and Israelis are confined to only a small part of the city, most of whose more than 200,000 residents live under the full control of the Palestinian Authority.

As for “Do Not Enter” signs, those are aimed not at Palestinians but Israelis, to prevent them from entering Palestinian towns and villages where they may be at risk of becoming victims of terror. And it is this terrorism that necessitates military checkpoints in place for security purposes.

In addition to the bias, there is also a fact-checking issue. It’s difficult to tell whether this is intentional ignorance, or lazy journalism. A faulty photo caption is not usually the journalist’s responsibility but is indicative of the manner in which the subject matter is being dealt with by editors.

Note to @thetimes: there are no “settlers” in Ashkelon, which is a major city on Israel’s coast.

But this is only one of the problems with @christinalamb‘s story on settler violence inside the West Bank. https://t.co/FpigNz8t9u pic.twitter.com/1T16CIRWmE

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 25, 2024

But a fact used to implicate someone in violence needs to be watertight, and in this case, it certainly isn’t:

The AK47 assault rifle is not issued to any Israelis, who are required to hold a gun license & to register any weapons. Odd that an Israeli settler would be armed with a weapon more commonly used by Islamist terrorists. Is @christinalamb sure about this? pic.twitter.com/MxgumPiAR9

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 25, 2024

The tensions and violence in the West Bank are fair game for the media, and it is incumbent upon decent journalists to expose genuine malfeasance, but it isn’t fair to distort facts or omit them. Lamb, seemingly driven by her own biases, fails to interview any mainstream Israelis from either the settler movement or security services — which seriously impacts the direction of her story.

If an author is reporting on Israeli settler violence, he or she should also report Palestinian violence in the West Bank — to accurately report why the IDF carries out raids in the West Bank and who exactly was killed during those raids. There must be an accurate picture, and not the media’s favorite distortion of it.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The post Why Does the Media Keep Pushing Lies About Israeli Settler Violence? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Trump’s Travel Ban on 12 Countries Goes Into Effect Early Monday

US President Donald Trump attends the Saudi-US Investment Forum, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder

US President Donald Trump’s order banning citizens of 12 countries from entering the United States goes into effect at 12:01 am ET (0401 GMT) on Monday, a move the president promulgated to protect the country from “foreign terrorists.”

The countries affected by the latest travel ban are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

The entry of people from seven other countries – Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela – will be partially restricted.

Trump, a Republican, said the countries subject to the most severe restrictions were determined to harbor a “large-scale presence of terrorists,” fail to cooperate on visa security, have an inability to verify travelers’ identities, as well as inadequate record-keeping of criminal histories and high rates of visa overstays in the United States.

He cited last Sunday’s incident in Boulder, Colorado, in which an Egyptian national tossed a gasoline bomb into a crowd of pro-Israel demonstrators as an example of why the new curbs are needed. But Egypt is not part of the travel ban.

The travel ban forms part of Trump’s policy to restrict immigration into the United States and is reminiscent of a similar move in his first term when he barred travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations.

Officials and residents in countries whose citizens will soon be banned expressed dismay and disbelief.

Chad President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno said he had instructed his government to stop granting visas to US citizens in response to Trump’s action.

“Chad has neither planes to offer nor billions of dollars to give, but Chad has its dignity and its pride,” he said in a Facebook post, referring to countries such as Qatar, which gifted the U.S. a luxury airplane for Trump’s use and promised to invest billions of dollars in the U.S.

Afghans who worked for the US or US-funded projects and were hoping to resettle in the US expressed fear that the travel ban would force them to return to their country, where they could face reprisal from the Taliban.

Democratic US lawmakers also voiced concern about the policies.

“Trump’s travel ban on citizens from over 12 countries is draconian and unconstitutional,” said US Representative Ro Khanna on social media late on Thursday. “People have a right to seek asylum.”

The post Trump’s Travel Ban on 12 Countries Goes Into Effect Early Monday first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Israeli Military Says It Struck Hamas Member in Southern Syria

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron after a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, May 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq/Pool

The Israeli military said on Sunday that it struck a member of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in southern Syria’s Mazraat Beit Jin, days after Israel carried out its first airstrikes in the country in nearly a month.

Hamas did not immediately comment on the strike.

Israel said on Tuesday it hit weapons belonging to the government in retaliation for the firing of two projectiles towards Israel for the first time under the country’s new leadership. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz held Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa accountable.

Damascus in response said reports of the shelling were unverified, reiterating that Syria does not pose a threat to any regional party.

A little known group named “Martyr Muhammad Deif Brigades,” an apparent reference to Hamas’ military leader who was killed in an Israeli strike in 2024, reportedly claimed responsibility for the shelling. Reuters, however, could not independently verify the claim.

The post Israeli Military Says It Struck Hamas Member in Southern Syria first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Israel Orders Military to Stop Gaza-Bound Yacht Carrying Greta Thunberg

FILE PHOTO: Activist Greta Thunberg sits aboard the aid ship Madleen, which left the Italian port of Catania on June 1 to travel to Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid, in this picture released on June 2, 2025 on social media. Photo: Freedom Flotilla Coalition/via REUTERS/File Photo

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz told the military on Sunday to stop a charity boat carrying activists including Sweden’s Greta Thunberg who are planning to defy an Israeli blockade and reach Gaza.

Operated by the pro-Palestinian Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), the British-flagged Madleen yacht set sail from Sicily on June 6 and is currently off the Egyptian coast, heading slowly towards the Gaza Strip, which is besieged by Israel.

“I instructed the IDF to act so that the Madleen .. does not reach Gaza,” Katz said in a statement.

“To the antisemitic Greta and her Hamas-propaganda-spouting friends, I say clearly: You’d better turn back, because you will not reach Gaza.”

Climate activist Thunberg said she joined the Madleen crew to “challenge Israel’s illegal siege and escalating war crimes” in Gaza and highlight the urgent need for humanitarian aid. She has rejected previous Israeli accusations of antisemitism.

Israel went to war with Hamas in October 2023 after the Islamist terrorists launched a surprise attack on southern Israel, killing more 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to the enclave.

Katz said the blockade was essential to Israel’s national security as it seeks to eliminate Hamas.

“The State of Israel will not allow anyone to break the naval blockade on Gaza, whose primary purpose is to prevent the transfer of weapons to Hamas,” he said.

The Madleen is carrying a symbolic quantity of aid, including rice and baby formula, the FFC has said.

FFC press officer Hay Sha Wiya said on Sunday the boat was currently some 160 nautical miles (296 km) from Gaza. “We are preparing for the possibility of interception,” she said.

Besides Thunberg, there are 11 other crew members aboard, including Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament.

Israeli media have reported that the military plans to intercept the yacht before it reaches Gaza and escort it to the Israeli port of Ashdod. The crew would then be deported.

In 2010, Israeli commandos killed 10 people when they boarded a Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, that was leading a small flotilla towards Gaza.

The post Israel Orders Military to Stop Gaza-Bound Yacht Carrying Greta Thunberg first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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