EXCLUSIVE – Michael Oren: Terror Against Israel Is Working Because NYT Sugarcoats It

Deborah BrandMarch 30, 2022

Former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren slammed the New York Times and other mainstream media outlets Wednesday for “sugarcoating” Palestinian terrorism and pinning the blame for the recent terror attacks on Israel for “overlooking” the Palestinian issue.

In its coverage of a historic summit in the Negev desert attended by four Arab foreign ministers as well as Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, the Times chastized Israel for the absence of the Palestinian leadership from the discussion.

The summit took place the day after a shooting attack that killed two Border Police officers and six days after another attack that saw four Israeli civilians killed.

While top diplomats from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco all remarked that such a summit was the answer to terror, the Times and other outlets devoted multiple column inches to how the Palestinians were kept away, thereby emboldening terrorists.

“The New York Times and other Western media claimed that the spate of murderous terrorist attacks against Israelis is proof that the Palestinian issue cannot be overlooked,” Oren told Breitbart.

Former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren said the bombshell revelation by former Trump envoy to Israel, David Friedman, that he was told by the State Department to “tone down” his Jewishness came as “no surprise.” https://t.co/hndeENuFYW

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) February 3, 2022

“In fact, all the attacks were carried out by Jihadists who reject any peace with Israel and are sworn to destroy it. Those same terrorists aim to kill moderate Arabs and Americans alike,” he added.

“Terror only works when papers like the Times try to sugarcoat it,” Oren concluded.

On Tuesday night, five more people were killed in a shooting attack in the central Israeli city of Bnei Brak, marking the third terror attack within a week and bringing the death toll to eleven.

Israeli emergency personnel evacuate a wounded woman from the scene of a shooting attack on March 29, 2022 in Bnei Brak. Attacks in different locations near the Israeli city of Tel Aviv killed at least five people, emergency responders said. (GIL COHEN-MAGEN/AFP via Getty Images)

Palestinians in multiple cities came out in droves to celebrate the attack, carried out by Diaa Hamarsheh, 26, a Palestinian from near the West Bank city of Jenin. Hamarsheh smuggled into Israel illegally and began a shooting spree with an M16 assault rifle.

He had previously served 2.5 years in prison for planning to take part in a suicide bombing and for being a member of a terror group.

Palestinians celebrated outside Hamarsheh’s family home and in other Palestinian cities later that evening.

Dozens of pictures and videos emerged of Palestinians all over the West Bank and Gaza handing out sweets as per the tradition in the aftermath of a deadly attack against Israelis.

A question for non-Israelis: Have you ever heard of the practice of handing out sweets to celebrate deaths in terrorist attacks?

Unfortunately, the practice is extremely common after successful Palestinian terrorist attacks. pic.twitter.com/zrYizxYy36

— Michael Starr (@Starrlord89) March 30, 2022

The Times also mentioned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ rare condemnation of Tuesday night’s attack but failed to mention the Palestinian Authority’s persistent support for terrorists, not least of all with its pay-for-slay policy of rewarding terrorists and their families.

In addition, while Abbas was issuing a diluted condemnation that was reported to have occurred only after he was pressured by Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz, the Palestinian leader’s ruling Fatah faction was praising Hamarsheh as a “heroic martyr” who was “the symbol of self-sacrifice.”

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CEO of the International Legal Forum and human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky slammed leftwing NGOs and the United Nations for “whitewashing” Palestinian terrorism while “demonizing Israel.”

“Those who rush to reflexively condemn Israel or terror around the world, but stay silent as Israelis are mowed down on the streets in violent fits of terror by Palestinians, display deafening hypocrisy and are part of the problem,” Ostrovsky told Breitbart.

Terror attacks such as those carried out over the past weeks in Israel “do not occur in a vacuum,” Ostrovsky maintained.

“Such acts of pitiless slaughter are a direct result of a pervasive Palestinian infrastructure indoctrinating hate and inciting violence that are only emboldened and enabled by organizations like Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and UN Human Rights Council, who relentlessly whitewash Palestinian and Islamic terror while demonizing the State of Israel,” he said.