Media bias? (illustration)
Media bias? (illustration)Reuters

The past couple days have seen horrible attacks hitting Israel as the ongoing wave of terror charges ahead.

The media watchdog Honest Reporting, though, found that a number of news agencies around the world seemed to believe that the suffering of Israelis pales in comparison with that of the terrorists.

The International Business Times summarized yesterday's attacks in its headline as "Israel: Three Palestinians shot dead as US vice president Joe Biden arrives for talks."

It was later changed to "Israel: US tourist killed and others wounded in series of attacks as Joe Biden arrives," though the body still states that "At least 174 Palestinians and 28 Israelis have been killed in recent months as a result of increasing attacks against each other," downplaying the fact that the Israeli "attacks" largely consisted of stopping terrorists who had already begun their attempts to murder.

New Zealand's One News also gave a headline of "Three Palestinians shot dead by Israeli security forces in separate incidents." The blurb noted that "a Palestinian opened fire at Israeli police officers," but the article never mentions the stabbing rampage in Jaffa that left a US tourist dead and 10 people wounded.

The article and headline have still not been corrected as of this time.

The BBC acknowledged that Israelis were the victims in attacks, but did not suggest who could have been behind them. "One killed and several wounded in attacks on Israelis," it offered. The title has since been changed to "Palestinian kills US tourist in Israel."

NBC seemed to suggest that it was Israelis who carried out the attacks by writing "American tourist killed amid Israeli stabbing violence as Biden arrives for talks."

The fact that it was a Palestinian who murdered Taylor Force is not mentioned until the second paragraph, and even then it is qualified as "police say a Palestinian man launched an attack."

Similarly, the Irish Times also implied that the murderer was Israeli, as its article is titled: "American dies after 10 stabbed by lone Tel Aviv attacker." This phrasing is particularly egregious as the attack took place in Jaffa and the terrorist was an Arab from Judea-Samaria. The news piece continues, "Four Palestinians shot dead after attacks across Israel as US vice-president Joe Biden visits," without noting that the Palestinians were the attackers.

The public awareness of biased and inaccurate reporting of Palestinian terror attacks has been growing recently. With the almost daily attacks against Israelis over the past few months, readers have been able to see continual trends of media outlets refusing to portray Palestinians as anything other than the victims of Israeli violence.

After government bodies issued reprimands to several organizations, the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee invited members of the Foreign Press Agency to explain themselves. The FPA responded with a letter acknowledging that "in a few isolated incidents of reports about events only a few minutes after they took place, inaccurate reports were made. These reports were corrected as quickly as possible after various officials, including spokespeople for the State of Israel, brought them to the editors' attention."

Despite the pledge, many of these same inaccuracies continue to show up, and are often not corrected even numerous hours after all facts are available.