by Hugh Fitzgerald
The AP recently carried a story, designed to tug at our heart-strings, about a Palestinian woman who, imprisoned, was not let out by her Israeli jailers to attend her daughter’s funeral. The story is here: “Associated Press Transforms Convicted Terrorist Into ‘Palestinian Lawmaker,’” by Gidon Ben-zvi, Algemeiner, July 16, 2021:
In a July 13 piece titled, “Israel bars jailed Palestinian from daughter’s funeral,” the Associated Press (AP) described Israel’s refusal to:
let a prominent jailed Palestinian lawmaker attend her daughter’s funeral, despite a campaign by activists and human rights groups for her to be released on humanitarian grounds.”
However, basic journalistic due diligence would have quickly revealed that Khalida Jarrar, is, in fact, a convicted terrorist.
Khalida Jarrar is described by the AP as a “prominent jailed Palestinian lawmaker.” She is not. She hasn’t been a “lawmaker” since 2007, when the Palestine Legislative Council essentially closed up shop. And there is something bizarre about describing her as “imprisoned” but not telling the reader what she was imprisoned for. There is a difference, after all, between robbing a store and taking part in murdering people in a terrorist attack.
Her daughter Suha Jarrar is described in the AP article thus:
Her 30-year-old daughter Suha… worked on issues related to gender and climate change for the Al-Haq human rights group.
Sounds good, doesn’t it – she worked on “issues related to gender and climate change.”
But was that all? After all, Al-Haq is an “organization with ties to the US-designated terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), of which her mother was a member.” Why not mention that? AP should explain that Al-Haq is an organization with ties to the PFLP, a terrorist group. Al-Haq has claimed that terrorists – murderers – deserve to receive those “Pay-For-Slay” subsidies from the PA that both reward past, and incentivize future, acts of terrorism.
The AP’s distortions were reprinted by influential outlets such as The Washington Post, ABC News, Yahoo, and CBS News.
Note the vagueness of the Associated Press headline: Israel bars jailed Palestinian from daughter’s funeral. While the AP thereafter refers to her as a “Palestinian lawmaker,” it fails to note Jarrar’s history of using her status as a former legislator to cover up her involvement in various illegal activities.
Moreover, it is simply bizarre for the AP to open its coverage of Jarrar by referring to her as a ‘lawmaker.’ After all, the Palestinian Legislative Council in which she served has essentially been defunct since 2007 — after the Hamas terrorist group ousted the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority from the Gaza Strip — and was officially dissolved in 2018.
It has been fourteen years since the PLC has been a going concern – that is, 14 years since Jarrar has been what AP chooses to describe her as now being – a “prominent Palestinian lawmaker.” For many years, she has been a member of a terrorist organization, the PFLP, a facilitator of terrorism, and a terrorist herself. She was no minor figure, either, but according to the Shin Bet, was the head of a group of 50 terrorists belonging to the PFLP.
When the AP eventually gets around to reporting on Jarrar’s link to PFLP, the connection is remarkably unspecific, as if she is little more than a fan of the terrorist outfit:
Jarrar was sentenced to 15 months in 2015 on charges of incitement and membership in the PFLP. She has also been held for months at a time in what’s known as administrative detention, under which Israel detains Palestinian suspects for lengthy periods without charge.
Left unmentioned is that following her release from prison in 2017, Jarrar was placed in administrative detention because Israeli security officials accused her of resuming work on behalf of the PFLP. As such, Khalida Jarrar is much more than an average “Palestinian.”
No sooner was she released from prison in 2017 than she went right back to work with the terrorist group, the PFLP, no doubt helping to perform all the tasks – recruitment of new members, planning and directing of terrorist attacks – that such a talented lady could be counted on to fulfill.
She is a convicted terrorist responsible for, among other attacks, the murder of a 17-year-old Israeli girl.
In 2019, Jarrar was again arrested in the wake of a PFLP-directed terror attack that killed Rina Shnerb near the West Bank Jewish community of Dolev. The Shin Bet security agency specifically identified Jarrar as head of a 50-strong terrorist cell that carried out the murder….
You will not learn from the AP report that Khalida Jarrar was imprisoned for her links, as a member of the PFLP, to terrorism. You will not find out that this “lawmaker” hasn’t been a lawmaker for 17 years. You will not read about Rina Schnerb, the 17-year-old Israeli, murdered by members of a PFLP terror cell that Khalida Jarrar directed. All you will know is that she is a “prominent Palestinian lawmaker” who has been “jailed” for reasons the AP chose to withhold, and who was not allowed to attend her daughter’s funeral.
Nor will you learn that Al-Haq, the organization for which Suha Jarrar worked, is one of the most extreme anti-Israel NGOs. It describes itself as a “human rights organization” but it spends all of its energy on promoting, in whatever forum it can, the “isolation and demonization” of Israel.
The writer, Gidon Ben-zvi, concludes:
The Associated Press should be held to account for its apparent willingness to act as a public relations outfit for a convicted terrorist and an anti-Israel organization.
“Held to account”? The mighty AP? Don’t be silly.
First published in Jihad Watch.
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One Response
RICHMOND, South Bank (AP) – John Wilkes Booth, famed actor and outspoken anti-tyranny activist, shot by Federal mob in pastoral Maryland farm country. Eyewitness states that Booth was convalescing from a recent leg injury at the time of his extrajudicial execution. Check out CNN for details.