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How Israeli far right uses news as a tool of incitement

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemns Palestinian incitement, he should be careful about far right news sites depicting a false picture of the reality, damaging the already fragile relationship between Jews and Palestinians in Israel.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seen on monitors before the evening news bulletin at Channel 10's control room in Jerusalem November 18, 2015. Critics say Netanyahu, known as "Bibi," is hitting the wrong note when it comes to the media, weakening press freedom and holding sway over TV broadcasters in a country that bills itself as the Middle East's only true democracy. Picture taken November 18, 2015. To match Insight ISRAEL-NETANYAHU/MEDIA  REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun  - RTX1VG1F
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In Israel, particularly among political leaders, it is not uncommon to suggest that Palestinian incitement is the root cause of the recent spate of terrorism. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — like some of his Cabinet ministers — holds President Mahmoud Abbas chiefly responsible for incitement in the Palestinian Authority (PA). Before his meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Berlin on Oct. 22, Netanyahu said, “There is no question this wave of attacks is driven directly by incitement; incitement by Hamas, incitement from the Islamist movement in Israel and incitement, I am sorry to say, from President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.” Indeed, Hamas’ Al-Aqsa television network and Palestinian radio stations in the West Bank, particularly in Hebron, exercise no restraint in portraying Israelis mendaciously and perversely, occasionally fabricating events that never took place.

Established in 1998 by Yigal Carmon, the Middle East Media Research Institute has for years been monitoring the Palestinian and Arab media. One of its stated goals is to provide the Israeli public with information about certain phenomena in the media, especially the electronic one. The information is then uploaded onto YouTube and distributed to Israeli news outlets so they would in turn report how Israelis are being portrayed in news reports in the Arab media in general and the Palestinian one in particular. The material disseminated by the institute oftentimes features Muslim clerics characterizing the nature of Jews. In children-oriented programs, the children — mainly Palestinian ones — are imbued with messages of jihad and adoration for the shahid (martyr). Tendentiously directed clips depict the supposedly evil Jew, and so on and so forth.

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