Media Equates Murdered Israeli Teen with Violent Gaza Youth

While the murdered Israeli girl’s name, Ori, means “My light” in Hebrew, international reporting on a murdered Jew once again descended into total immoral darkness.

By Daniel Krygier, United with Israel

The brutal murder of Israeli teenager Ori Ansbacher has one again emphasized the vast moral gulf separating civilized Israel from a barbaric neighboring culture that embraces lethal hatred. While the murdered Israeli girl’s name, Ori, means “My light” in Hebrew, international reporting on a murdered Jew once again descended into total immoral darkness.

The Associated Press, for example, is one of the world’s leading news outlets. It went the extra mile to dehumanize Ori Ansbacher by stressing that she hailed from the Israeli “settlement” of Tekoa. There were also no photos of the murdered Israeli girl accompanying the report. Instead, AP displayed the picture of relatives of the Gazan youth Hassan Shalabi who was reportedly killed on Friday in clashes with the Israeli military. AP outrageously reduced Ansbacher to a faceless Jewish “settler”, apparently unworthy of any sympathy.

By contrast, Shalabi’s family was featured mourning on the photo. The news agency stressed that the Gazan teenager hailed from the Nuseirat “refugee camp.” Few, if any, international journalists ask themselves how Shalabi can be a “refugee” when both he, his parents and probably also his grandparents were born and raised in Gaza. This is nothing else than pandering to deeply ingrained anti-Israeli propaganda that whitewashes truth.

All loss of life is regretful. However, the circumstances of the deaths of Ori and Hassan are completely different.

Ori was brutally attacked and murdered while walking peacefully in a forest. She did not threaten anyone. She was reportedly a kind-hearted volunteer at a children’s center who loved poetry.

By contrast, Hassan was killed during violent clashes organized by Islamists who seek the destruction of Israel. If Hassan had not participated in the anti-Israel border aggression, he would still be alive.

Hamas’s lethal anti-Semitism is ultimately responsible for the violent Hassan’s premature death. It is also responsible for the brutal murder of Ori and many other innocent Israeli victims of terror.

Ori from Israel and Hassan from Gaza symbolize two neighboring societies that could not be more different. While Israel, like any democracy, has its flaws, the Jewish state embraces life above all. A typical Israeli teenager, Ori embraced life and dreamed of peace. By contrast, teenagers in Hamas-ruled Gaza and in the Palestinian Authority-ruled territories in Judea and Samaria grow up in a culture that embraces lethal hatred for Jews and racist Islamist supremacy.

There is no moral equivalence between Hassan and Ori. While Hassan was killed because of what he did, Ori was murdered because of who she was. Hassan was killed while participating in violent border aggression against Israel. By contrast, Ori was murdered because of who she was: a Jew  living peacefully in the Jewish homeland.

The fact that nothing can be found about Ori’s murder on some of the other mainstream news sites, like CNN and BBC, says everything about their anti-Israel bigotry as well.