Trump Administration Lists 78 ‘Under-Reported’ Terror Attacks – Leaves Israel Out!
List includes attacks – such as the Bataclan attack and San Bernardino – that were widely covered by media. No reason was given how list was compiled, and why Israel not included.
The White House on Monday published a list of terror attacks from recent years that it claims were “under-reported” by the American media, after President Trump claimed in a speech that the media was refraining from reporting on terror attacks. The list includes 78 incidents worldwide, but notably, doesn’t mention even one terror attack in Israel.
This is really hard 2 explain. Several serious terror attacks in Israel *were* genuinely underreported. So why omit?https://t.co/xMT0t0ffjr
— Dan Shapiro (@DanielBShapiro) February 7, 2017
The list published by the White House included a number of terror attacks that received wide coverage and dominated the headlines in the U.S. and around the world for days, contradicting the president’s claim that the media was ignoring or downplaying terror attacks.
For example, one event appearing on the list is the November 2015 attack in Paris which led to the death of 129 people and was the most covered news story in the world at the time. The White House did not include an explanation or any evidence to support the claim that this event did not receive wide coverage in the U.S. or international media.
Another terror attack in Paris mentioned in the report was the attack on a Kosher supermarket in the French capital in January 2015, which occurred on the same week as the attack against the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. At the time, there were indeed complaints from French Jews that the attack on the supermarket received less attention than the attack on Charlie Hebdo, but nevertheless, it was an event that received widespread coverage in the U.S. and around the world.
The list also included the attack in San Bernardino, California in December 2015 and the attack in Orlando, Florida, in June 2016. Both dominated headlines for days. The San Bernardino attack was what led Trump to first propose a ban on Muslims entering the United States, making it doubly strange that his administration is now claiming that the event did not receive media coverage. It should be noted that complaints about the nature of that coverage – for example, on the question of whether or not to refer to the event as a terror attack carried out by Muslim extremists – were indeed raised at the time, both in regards to the San Bernardino attack and the Orlando one. But such complaints are different than claiming the events weren’t covered by the media sufficiently.
While the list includes dozens of attacks that were carried out in countries all across the world, it doesn’t mention even one such attack against Israel, a country where dozens of stabbing, car-ramming and shooting attacks have led to the deaths of Israeli citizens, policemen and soldiers in the last two years. The administration didn’t clarify on Monday how the list was composed, and why it made sense to include widely-covered events like the Paris and San Bernardino attacks but leave out any reference to Israel.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro criticized the omission, tweeting “this is really hard 2 explain. Several serious terror attacks in Israel *were* genuinely underreported. So Why omit?”
Israeli officials and supporters of Israel have been complaining for years that the international media is downplaying or minimizing terror attacks against the Jewish state. Another frequent complaint heard from Israel has been that the headlines chosen by certain international media organizations do not accurately reflect the nature of these terror attacks.
Unlike Israel, other Middle Eastern countries were included in the list, including Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Turkey, Kuwait, Algeria and Tunisia. Some of these attacks, such as the June 2016 attack on Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul, Turkey, dominated headlines around the world when they took place, while others, that included much less casualties, did not.
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