"2023 has been the deadliest for Palestinians living in the West Bank in the last two decades, where at least 80 civilians including 17 children have been killed. Palestinians have been subjected to destructive and violent rampages by illegal Israeli settlers, often resulting in the destruction of Palestinian homes, businesses, and possessions. Palestinians also endure constant raids, arrests, and violence by Israeli forces. By referring to the escalation of violence in such generalized terms, you obscure the asymmetrical nature of Israeli violence on Palestinians."
April 28, 2023
To:
Josef Federman, News Director (Jerusalem), Associated Press
Anne Marie Owens, Editor-in-Chief, Toronto Star
Donovan Vincent, Public Editor, Toronto Star
Dear Mr. Federman, Ms. Owens, and Mr. Vincent,
I’m writing to you on behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME, https://www.cjpme.org) to express my concerns for the article “Israeli army kills alleged Palestinian attacker in West Bank” by the Associated Press and published by the Toronto Star on April 27, 2023.
The article reports on the death of 39-year-old Palestinian man Ahmed Taha who was shot by Israeli forces for an alleged car ramming incident nearby the West Bank settlement of Ariel. The language used to describe Taha’s death is problematic, and the article overall lacks context.
First, in your article you write,
“A nearby soldier unleashes a torrent of gunfire until Taha is reduced to a bloody pulp, footage shows.”
This description grossly over-simplifies a horrifying scene when, after Taha is on the ground, possibly dead, an Israeli soldier repeatedly fires into Taha’s inert body. Your reporting is a total whitewash of the inhumanity of the actual scene.
As such, I insist you correct your sentence to state:
“Two nearby soldiers unleashed a torrent of gunfire, killing Taha, while a third soldier continued to fire on Taha, even after he was presumably dead, dismembering his body, as footage shows.”
In your article, you refer to violence in the occupied West Bank as “unusually high” where “Israeli-Palestinian fighting has surged to heights unseen in years” but fail to provide adequate context regarding the rise in violence.
2023 has been the deadliest for Palestinians living in the West Bank in the last two decades, where at least 80 civilians including 17 children have been killed. Palestinians have been subjected to destructive and violent rampages by illegal Israeli settlers, often resulting in the destruction of Palestinian homes, businesses, and possessions. Palestinians also endure constant raids, arrests, and violence by Israeli forces. By referring to the escalation of violence in such generalized terms, you obscure the asymmetrical nature of Israeli violence on Palestinians.
Your headline “Israeli army kills alleged Palestinian attacker in West Bank,” is also inconsistent with the content in your article. The article provides Israeli and Palestinian sources that raise serious doubts that Taha intentionally sought to ram his car into “civilians and security forces,” considering he only rammed into a neighbouring Palestinian minivan and no one else was injured during the incident.
As such, I ask that you change your headline to “Israeli army kills Palestinian man in an alleged car-ramming incident.”
Finally, in your final paragraph, you state that Israel “captured” the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in 1967. As you may know, international law does not recognize the “capture” of territory by force, and the international community does not recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. I must therefore insist that you change “captured” to “occupied.”
I look forward to seeing the changes made and expect that such problematic language and inadequate context is not repeated in future articles.
Should you wish, you can contact me at 438-380-5410 for more information.
Sincerely,
Tayla Shair
Media Analyst, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East