Deception in the News
 Caption - "An Israeli policeman and a Palestinian on the Temple Mount." (Associated Press, September 30, 2000) |
Look at the picture above. The implications are obvious, right? The Israeli policeman has just beaten that poor Palestinian guy and is about to go after the photographer. This is what the Associated Press would like you to believe.
The fact is that the supposed incident never took place on the Temple Mount. In fact, there are no Israeli gas stations (like the one pictured in the background) on the Temple Mount. The father of the victim, Dr. Aaron Grossman, of Chicago, Ill., sent the following letter to the Times: "Regarding your picture on page A5 (Sept. 30) of the Israeli soldier and the Palestinian on the Temple Mount - that Palestinian is actually my son, Tuvia Grossman, a Jewish student from Chicago. He, and two of his friends, were pulled from their taxicab while traveling in Jerusalem, by a mob of Palestinian Arabs and were severely beaten and stabbed. That picture could not have been taken on the Temple Mount because there are no gas stations on the Temple Mount and certainly none with Hebrew lettering, like the one clearly seen behind the Israeli soldier attempting to protect my son from the mob."
The victim, Tuvia Grossman, was on his way to the Western Wall on Friday afternoon, September 29, 2000 when he was severely beaten and stabbed. Later, he told the press, "I was in a taxi on the way to the Kotel [Western Wall] and we got stoned... [They took me out of the car and beat me and] I gave a scream, and for a second they let go of me, and I said Shma Yisrael, because I thought it was all over... After they let go of me, I ran - even though I had a knife in my leg, G-d gave me the strength to run and I was able to make it up the hill where there were soldiers by the gas station and they took care of me. But I was being beaten for around 5 or 6 minutes with a rock on the top of my head, and I was stabbed in the back of my leg and kicked and punched all over my body."
"[When I saw the mis-captioned AP picture] I was extremely, extremely upset. People see a picture of a youth and they think that it's a Palestinian being beaten by Israelis, it changes their world view and makes them think that it's the Israelis beating up the Arabs. I was extremely upset. It was totally the opposite. That policeman was yelling at the Arabs to back off, and was protecting me from them - so to change it around and to say that he was beating me, that's just total distortion, and the world must be notified about how this is not true - the Jews are the ones suffering at the hands of the Arabs."
The moral of the story - Don't believe everything you read in the press.
http://www.godandscience.org/doctrine/newsdeception.html
Last Modified June 18, 2001
Top of Page 
Back