CNN did it again! CNN anchor Ashley Banfield shows anti-Israel bias, saying Arab terrorists kill Israeli civilians because of compulsory military and national service.
CNN’s Ashleigh Banfield declared Wednesday during an interview that all Israelis are logical targets for Arab terrorist attacks. The reason? Every Israeli eventually serves as a soldier in the IDF or in national service, so Palestinians can effectively say that all Israeli citizens are soldiers.
Banfield offered this reasoning while interviewing Professor Alan Dershowitz in the wake of the Jerusalem synagogue massacre on Tuesday. Banfield adamantly insisted that the conflict in Israel should be seen as a religious war, but Dershowitz disagreed. Banfield then made the following statements:
BANFIELD: And when you have mandatory conscription and service in Israel, effectively the Palestinians will say it’s war against everyone because everyone’s a soldier.
DERSHOWITZ: Well, that’s just racism and bigotry to say that everyone is a soldier. Ah —
BANFIELD: But everybody is.
DERSHOWITZ: No, not everybody is. First of all, number one. Number two, they’re not soldiers at the time. The law (INAUDIBLE) is very clear, you can’t kill a two-year-old child claiming he’s going to be a soldier because then Israel could say, we can kill a two-year-old Palestinian because he’ll grow up and be a terrorist. You have to have rules of warfare. And rules of warfare forbid the deliberate killing of civilians. And this was a deliberate killing of civilians in a synagogue.
Banfield’s comments demonstrate the danger of believing that some valid reason exists for Palestinian aggression, which eventually leads to terrorism. It also shows another case of CNN’s anti-Israel biased reporting.
CNN Apologizes for Biased Reporting
Banfield’s comments only added fuel to the fire raging against CNN. Public outcry compelled the news media outlet to apologize for the reporting mistakes and biased news coverage of the Jerusalem synagogue terror attack.
It all began with senior international correspondent, Ben Wedeman initially reporting that the attack involved a police shooting of two Palestinians.
After getting the facts straight, CNN changed their headline to read: “4 Israelis, 2 Palestinians, killed in synagogue attack,” implying that the Israelis and Terrorists were both victims. Adding insult to injury, a four minute report by CNN on the terror attack even said that it happened in a mosque rather than a synagogue!
CNN issued their apology after these reporting mishaps, but how sincere was it?
Banfield’s rationale suggests Palestinians have an effective justification for terror attacks against civilians. It also demonstrates the insincerity of CNN’s apology, their lack of commitment to change their reporting policies and the diminished value placed on violence directed at Jews in Israel.
The network made a point of reporting that the massacre happened within the same vicinity as the hanging of the Israeli Arab bus driver, earlier this week. An autopsy performed at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv, in the presence of a family member, conclusively proved the hanging was a suicide. Despite these facts, CNN came to a similar conclusion as Hamas: the synagogue massacre was payback for what happened to the hanged Arab.
Like Hamas, CNN was wrong.
Tell us in the comments below: what do you think the effect of CNN’s reporting on the Jerusalem Synagogue Massacre?
Author: United with Israel Staff