Independent revises inaccurate headline on Eisenkot comments

We’ve posted frequently on UK media headlines about the current wave of Palestinian terror that are biased, inaccurate or misleading, and late yesterday The Independent provided yet another example in an article by Ben Lynfield.

indy headline

As the article itself makes clear, General Eisenkot made no such ‘admission’.

Eisenkot, during an address at an Israeli high school, stated that the IDF’s current rules of engagement were “adequate”, and that “security forces must shoot to kill perpetrators of attacks only if the circumstances are life-threatening”.

Eisenkot added the following

“When there’s a 13-year-old girl holding scissors or a knife and there is some distance between her and the soldiers, I don’t want to see a soldier open fire and empty his magazine at a girl like that, even if she is committing a very serious act. Rather, he should use the force necessary to fulfill the objective.”

He was likely alluding to an attack in November carried out by 14 and 16-year-old Palestinian teens armed with scissors in which an elderly man was stabbed.  In that case, an off duty police officer responded by shooting the two female teen attackers, wounding one and killing the other. 

Though the officer was the subject of an investigation over the incident (and later cleared of criminal wrongdoing), Eisenkot certainly was not “admitting” that this police officer in particular, or Israeli “troops” in general, use or have used “unnecessary lethal action”  

Tellingly, The Independent later significantly changed the headline, erasing the original false specific claim and now merely reflecting the broader narrative advanced in the article.

revised indy headline

Since September 2015, 31 people have been killed by terrorists and 355 people injured in 181 stabbings and attempted stabbing attacks, 74 shootings, and 38 car ramming attacks.

For more examples of problematic headlines by news outlets pertaining to the latest terror wave, see CAMERA’s continuously updated post, ‘Wave of Palestinian Violence Accompanied by Spate of Bad Writing‘.

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