Telegraph posts 3 stories on settlers’ Kerry spoof, but ignores PA incitement

If you go to the Israel page of The Telegraph, you’ll find three separate stories (and over 1100 words of text) devoted to one short satire produced by the Yesha Council (umbrella organization of councils of ‘settlements’ in Judea and Samaria) that is critical of US Secretary of State John Kerry.

telegraph

Two of the stories were filed by Robert Tait (the paper’s Israel correspondent) within three hours of each other. One characterized the poke at Kerry as “a deliberately disrespectful spoof depicting America’s top diplomat”, while the other editorialized that the clip “undermin[es] a plea from the White House for Israeli politicians to desist from personal attacks on the US secretary of state”, ignoring the fact that the the Yesha Council is a settler’s advocacy group, not a political party.

Here’s the video:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBXvrVgWToM]

While one can reasonably find the video objectionable, it’s curious that Tait would frame one short (and relatively benign) YouTube clip as somehow injurious to peace efforts while, like most of this fellow British journalists, failing to devote serious coverage to genuine incitement to violence by high level Palestinian politicians.  

Indeed, just a few weeks ago, the Telegraph failed to even note a disturbing clip of PA President Abbas applauding a PA Minister of Religious Affairs after he called for jihad in Jerusalem. 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO0Rv268JX8]

Videos such as these, attesting to dangerous incitement to violence by Palestinian officials and explicit antisemitism in the state-controlled PA media, are ubiquitous and easily accessible for journalists genuinely concerned with actions on either side which undermine the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

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