‘Extremely rare’: Palestinian media depicts Jew favorably

“It is extremely rare to find a positive mention of individual Israelis/Jews in the official PA-controlled media,” Palestinian Media Watch reported.

By Josh Plank, World Israel News

An official newspaper of the Palestinian Authority (PA) published an article last month portraying a Jewish citizen of Israel in an unusually positive light, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reported Wednesday.

“It is extremely rare to find a positive mention of individual Israelis/Jews in the official PA-controlled media. Therefore, Palestinian Media Watch reports whenever an Israeli is portrayed positively,” PMW reported.

The positive mention of a Jew occurred in the July 27 edition of Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, an official Arabic-language daily of the PA.

The article covered the death of an Arab from Bethlehem who drowned at sea off the Jaffa coast despite the efforts of a Jew who tried to rescue him.

“On Sunday [July 25, 2021], at approximately 7:00 p.m., Musa Abu Dayya, a young person from Bethlehem who came to spend time at the coast of Jaffa, decided to go into the sea for the last time before the sunset and then return to his city. Musa went into the sea, but did not take into account the waves that washed him away,” Al-Hayat Al-Jadida reported.

“According to a relative, he cried for help several minutes after he went into the sea, and one of the Jewish bathers responded and hurried into the sea. He succeeded in grabbing Musa’s hand, but the force [of the water] sweeping him away was most strong, and he let his hand go. He was the last person who saw Musa, who disappeared into the sea,” the report said.

Search teams attempted to locate Abu Dayya for five days before finding his body stuck between the rocks about 200 meters from where he was last seen.

One of Abu Dayya’s distraught relatives initially cast blame on the rescue teams, according to Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, saying, “If you had done well, you would have found him and brought him out on the first day.”

However, the deceased’s brother praised the efforts carried out by the rescue teams, noting that some volunteers were injured in the search and two personal watercrafts were lost.