Daily Mail peddles incendiary ‘Jews storming the mosque’ lie

The Daily Mail used dishonest, incendiary rhetoric in two pieces describing an Israeli minister’s controversial visit to the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site.

Though the visit by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the extreme-right National Security Minister, on the Jewish fast day which mourns the destruction of the Temples at the site, was widely criticised for his encouragement of prayer at the Mount, which he claimed falsely was in line with Israeli policy, the Mail article and video report employed the ‘Jews storming the mosque’ libel.

First, words like “storm” is widely used by PA officials, PA-run ‘news’ sites, pro-Hamas extremists, as well as Qatari and Turkish state media outlets, to describe any peaceful visit by Jews to the Temple Mount, and is the term of choice for those who want to incite antisemitic violence.  Second, the Jewish visitors on the day in question visited the Temple Mount Compound (described by some as the al-Aqsa Mosque compound), not the mosque itself.

Also, while it’s forbidden for Jews to pray at the site, it’s legal, and consistent with the current status quo, for Jews to peacefully visit their holy site.

Here’s the Daily Mail headline:

Here’s the opening sentence:

The words “stormed” and “raided” were also used in several photo captions of what was, by all accounts, as well as the photos themselves, an entirely peaceful visit.

Here’s a snapshot of the video report of the row:

We complained to Daily Mail editors, asking that all uses of the term “storm”, and the false suggestion that Jews entered the mosque itself, be removed.

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