by Howard Feldman
Every Saturday on my return from the synagogue, I collect the Saturday Star from where it lies at the end of the driveway. I walk into my home scanning the headlines and checking if there is anything at all worth reading.
I am often amazed at the poor choice of lead-story but mostly I find it somewhat more amusing more than I do offensive. One of the most notable was at the end of Brexit week when the world stood gasping and contemplating the ramifications of the UK exiting the Eurozone, the Saturday Star lead with a piece about the head coverings in the Muslim community. It perplexed me then, and has continued to nag at me that a real person decided that this issue was more suitable for the headline and lead than Brexit.
Janna Ayyad Jihad
But this week’s lead in Canvas Life of the Saturday Star revealed beyond question what the Saturday Star has become. It’s not fake news, because even Fake News attempts to display some measure of balance. The article with the headline “Fearless” did no such thing.
It was a lazy, un-researched piece about Janna Ayyad Jihad written by Sameer Naik. An alarming majority of the article is in quotation marks and seems to be a reproduction of a speech that she might give at a rally. Some of her best lines are quoted in bold and read as follows:
“I try to live my childhood as best as I can, but it’s hard. When were playing outside, Israeli soldiers come and start shooting at us. We get pepper sprayed and have gas canisters thrown at us. They are stealing our land, killing children, burning children, arresting my friends and injuring loved ones.
The Saturday Star – July 29 2017
Remember the blood libels? Where Jews were meant to have stolen children, and used their blood for the matzah. Well that is so 19th Century. Welcome to the blood libel of the modern age. Where Israeli soldiers (Jews) burn Palestinian children at will, where they shoot at them at play and pepper spray them just for good measure. And thank you Saturday Star for propagating such falsehood.
The writer of the article made no attempt to qualify any statement made and somehow fails to mention that the very area that Ms Jihad comes from has just in the last week seen the brutal murder of the Salamon family as they sat down to eat their Sabbath meal. A knock on the door would allow a knife wielding terrorist to enter to kill three family members whilst the mother hid in a room with her children. Knowing full well what was happening. The writer fails to mention that many members of Ms Jihad’s family are known terrorists responsible for the murder of Jews as they ate pizza and tried to live in peace. Peace that Ms Jihad would not want because they are Jews living in Israel. Something that is so painful to her family that they exalt and celebrate the murder of every Jew in the State of Israel.
Israel is a flawed and imperfect State. But one that gives her citizens; Jew, Muslim, Christian and everyone in between full rights. Unlike most Arab States where more than 850,000 were expelled penniless because they were Jewish. Unlike neighboring Arab states where homosexuals are persecuted and murdered, where there is no freedom of speech and where there is institutionalized abuse of women.
Ms Jihad is very sadly a product of Palestinian education system that teaches children to hate and to murder. It celebrates death and pays significant monthly stipends, sometimes in the thousands of US Dollars, to those who have murdered Jews. From a young age, children are educated that Jews are lesser than and that to kill them them is to exalt oneself.
Maybe the Saturday Star should pay more attention to truth and do a little fact checking. Because articles like this one don’t just misinform but will cause anti – Semitism and bloodshed.
Unless of course that is what they want?
