Some are fighting the anti-Israel narrative from Germany

The Jerusalem Post reported last week:

The online editor-in-chief of the mass-circulation Bild published Sunday a column filled with blistering criticism over the anti-Israel media in Germany during the Temple Mount clashes.

“No other country, which suffers under permanent terror, is reported on in Germany in the cynical, ice-cold and heartless manner like Israel is,” wrote Julian Reichelt. His commentary was at one point the second most read article on the popular website.

The title of his column reads: “Middle East coverage in the German media: Perpetrators turned into victims.”

Reichelt wrote that “Metal detectors at the entry to the Temple Mount are described as injuring religious feelings. And the German media briskly spreads this fairy tale from an Israeli attack on religious freedom.”

He lambasted the German press for “routinely interchanging perpetrator and victim.” Reichelt cited the example of the German public news show Tagesschau’s rationale for terrorism against Israeli Jews.

“The Taggeschau permitted the father of a young Palestinian, who slaughtered a Jewish family, to justify his son because the ‘honor of Muslims’ is endangered.”

His media criticism took headline writers to task. “When terrorists attack soldiers, it reads: ‘Two Palestinians killed by Israeli military action.’ That is as if one would write about the terrorist from Nice: ‘Truck driver shot by police.’”

Reichelt noted that “Israel is on the front line in the battle against a murderous ideology that envisions annihilation of us… we Germans should back the Israelis in this battle instead of expecting that they nicely allow themselves to be destroyed.”

 Die Welt had another op-ed, by Richard Herzinger,  that questioned the reflexive support for Palestinians in Germany:

The conflict over the Temple Mount is not about injured religious feelings of Muslims nor about mistakes of the Israeli security authorities: Jewish history is to be delegitimized.

Israel dismantles the metal detectors on the Temple Mount, which have given the Palestinian Authority (PA) the pretext to stir up rebellion against the hated “Zionist occupation”. But no one should believe that this concession could end the recent, religiously charged Palestinian hate-wave against the Jewish state.

In German and international media it has often been felt that the increased security measures taken by the Netanyahu government after the shooting of two Israeli police by Palestinian terrorists are the cause of the current unrest. But this represents a breathtaking reversal of cause and effect as well as the offender-victim relationship .

In fact, the conflict over the Temple Mount is not about any injured religious feelings of Muslims nor about possible mistakes of the Israeli security authorities. The latest confrontation is the result of a strategically conceived, systematically driven campaign by the PA leadership to discredit and isolate Israel.

These are baby steps but they may be hiding a much larger sea change in European opinion that most are not yet comfortable saying out loud.

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