Soccer Dad: Salt in wounds

March 2, 2007

Salt in wounds

In "Who performed a miracle in this place" Shiloh Musings reflects on escaping a terrorist attack eleven years ago.

It is one that I remmber well too. An Arab-American named Ahmed Hamideh drove his car into a crowd of people (people not settlers) killing a young woman name Flora Yechiel and injuring more than twenty others. Mrs. Yechiel had been in Jerusalem receiving treatments for cancer. She was with her sister, Irit Mizrachi, whose husband had been murdered by terrorist earlier.

I already commented on the awful reporting that followed this attack. Part of the problem was that the Israeli government was trying to play down the terror angle. Hamideh committed his act of terror just after one of the worst post-Oslo terror attacks to that time and the government hoped that it could preserve a small amount of political support for peace moves with the PLO. What I didn't remember clearly is that the Police Chief of Jerusalem quickly changed his position. According to Newsday on Feb 28, 1996 ("Jerusalem Crash Likely No Accident")

Immediately after the crash, police commanders said they apparently were dealing with a terror attack, but then said it was most likely an accident because they found skid marks suggesting the driver tried to stop.

Police later hosed down the road to simulate Monday's rain-slicked conditions, and an officer drove the car at high speed toward the bus stop and hit the brakes. The car came to a stop without smashing into the bus stop, showing its brakes were fine, Amit said. And he said the skid marks were apparently from another car.

"In all likelihood, we are not talking about an accident," Amit said.

In contrast the Washington Post ran a headline for a Reuters story:

ISRAELI AIDE SAYS AMERICAN MAY HAVE INTENDED TO KILL
U.S. RELATIVES CALL SUGGESTION INCONCEIVABLE'

So despite the evidence, the Post was attempting to stir doubts about Hamideh's intent.

And the next day the Post was worse. The first paragraph of a report titled "PERES: ISRAEL MAY BREAK PLEDGE UNLESS ARAFAT REINS IN MILITANTS" read:

Prime Minister Shimon Peres, his political prospects damaged by Sunday's twin terrorist attacks, is intimating for the first time that he may break Israel's commitment to pull back troops in the West Bank city of Hebron if the Palestinian Authority fails to act firmly enough against armed extremists.

So all the while the PA was failing or refusing to adhere to its commitments only Israel had a commitment that could be broken.

In the intervening years, things haven't gotten much better.

Blogdigger tags: Terror, Media Bias, Israel.