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Source: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-893994
How Media Shapes a False Wartime Narrative
(Jerusalem Post) Naomi Linder Kahn - Turmus Aiya, a Palestinian Authority village north of Jerusalem, has made headlines in recent months with accounts of violence. Since many of its residents also hold U.S. citizenship, incidents there often receive outsized attention in American media. In the latest episode, initial reports described Israeli youths stoning cars on the highway just outside Turmus Aiya. The facts tell a different story. On April 20, Turmus Aiya dedicated a park in memory of Amar Rabi, a local terrorist killed last year by IDF soldiers while attacking Israeli motorists. Turmus Aiya's social media channels actively promoted the event and called on participants to carry out stone-throwing attacks afterward. Israeli vehicles were pelted with stones on Route 60 immediately afterward. Despite the IDF presence, documented incitement, and the IDF arrest of the perpetrators, some journalists misreported the event, attributing the stone-throwing to Israelis. By the time retractions or corrections trickled in, the story of Israeli violence against the peaceful village of Turmus Aiya had already taken hold. The narrative war is not a sideshow. It is a battlefield in its own right. At a minimum, reporting should be grounded in verifiable facts - not assumptions, not social media echo chambers, and not the pressure to conform to a preferred storyline. The writer is the director of the International Division of Regavim.