The Ramot Junction shooting attack: Terror in Jerusalem, misinformation in the media

Several reports included inaccuracies and misinformation, skewing how the attack was viewed around the world.

By Chaim Lax, HonestReporting

Today, as the Israeli morning rush hour wound down, two Palestinian terrorists opened fire on a bus that was stopped at the busy Ramot Junction in northern Jerusalem.

After spreading carnage, the two terrorists were neutralized by an off-duty soldier and a civilian who were present at the scene.

As of this writing, six Israeli civilians were confirmed killed in the attack, and there are multiple wounded being treated in Jerusalem hospitals.

Soon after the news of the terror attack broke, multiple international news agencies and media outlets picked up the story.

However, several of these reports included inaccuracies and misinformation, skewing how the attack was viewed around the world.

The Media’s Faulty Geography

One of the most pervasive inaccuracies that was spread by the media is that the attack occurred in close proximity to Israeli “settlements.”

Ramot Junction in northern Jerusalem intersects a major road that leads to Jerusalem’s city center and Tel Aviv, as well as local neighborhoods.

The Associated Press’s first report, however, referred to the junction as a “major intersection…on a road that leads to Jewish settlements located in east Jerusalem.”

Most audiences are unaware of the complex geography of Jerusalem and its environs.

By fixating on “settlements,” the AP appallingly insinuates that a terror attack at this location is somehow, at best, understandable, at worst, even justified.

The reality is that terrorists targeted a busy thoroughfare in a northern Jerusalem neighborhood filled with ordinary Israelis going about their daily business.

In a graphic demonstration of the power of AP, and wire services in general, the news agency’s copy was picked up by several other prominent news organizations, including Sky News, Fox News, ABC Australia, and The Telegraph.

Just one AP report can cause significant damage to the truth.

AFP and Getty’s photo captions referred to the north Jerusalem junction as being located in “Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem,” lending a distinctly political rather than geographically accurate flavor to the story.

While it may be located just beyond the Green Line, the junction is certainly not in eastern Jerusalem.

BBC’s Middle East correspondent Yolande Knell, meanwhile, explained that the junction is “not far as well from the Neve Yaniv settlement in east Jerusalem.”

Knell actually meant to say the northern Jerusalem neighborhood of Neve Yaakov rather than the non-existent “Neve Yaniv settlement.”

Again, a reference to a “settlement,” as if this could somehow explain why such a murderous act could take place at that location.

Referring to attacks in Jerusalem as being located in settlements not only misrepresents the political reality on the ground but also implicitly provides a justification for the attack based on its disputed location.

Real Bullets, “Suspected Shooting”

In an absurd instance of journalistic misconduct, Reuters captioned a photo of the scene of the terror attack as a “suspected shooting” even though it was already over one hour after the attack had taken place, and there were already Israeli civilians who had been declared dead and it was crystal clear that firearms were involved.

When it comes to attacks on Israel, how long does it take Reuters to declare that a shooting had taken place and not just a suspected one?

To add to the absurdity, ABC News reprinted a Reuters photo that was captioned “bullet holes in the windshield at the scene where a suspected shooting attack took place.”

In what reality does Reuters exist where there are actual bullet holes but the event is still referred to as “a suspected shooting attack”?

Misleading Terrorist Targets

The two terrorists purposefully opened fire on a bus full of passengers, hoping to inflict maximum pain on Israeli civilians because they’re Israelis.

The BBC’s live updates, however, deemed the target of the terrorists to be “a bus stop,” reducing it to an attack on an inanimate object instead of an attack on innocent human beings.

On social media, CNN made a similar claim, posting on Instagram that “two attackers…opened fire toward a bus stop.”

This media spin, incorrectly focusing on objects instead of humans, has been criticized by HonestReporting before, both when it is used to dehumanize victims and when it is used to take agency away from terrorists.

The victims were not “collateral damage,” they were very much the targets.

“Terrorists” in Scare Quotes

In what would come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the BBC’s obstinacy when it comes to calling out terror for what it is, an Instagram post by the British broadcaster also put the term “terrorists” in scare quotes, casting doubt on whether someone who opens fire on a bus full of civilians and is celebrated by both Hamas and Islamic Jihad is truly a terrorist.

Lamentably, the BBC’s official policy is not to even refer to the internationally recognized terror organization Hamas as terrorists.

When terrorists deliberately target innocent civilians, there should be no room for moral equivocation. But when it comes to coverage of attacks on Israelis, the media always manages to find a way.