A Palestinian’s recent attempt to kill an Israeli policewoman with his car prompted sympathy for the terrorist from Rashida Tlaib and a troubling report from CNN.
By Yakir Benzion, United With Israel
Last week a Palestinian pulled up to a guard post near Jerusalem and in a terrifying moment captured on security cameras suddenly rammed his car at full speed and slammed into an Israeli policewoman.
Car rammings such as this one remain one of Palestinian terrorists’ favorite forms of attacks. Indeed, Palestinians have committed 80 vehicular ramming attacks, killing and maiming scores of Israelis.
The attack last week was caught clearly on video, showing the car slowly approaching the check point, after which the terrorist then suddenly veers to the right and accelerates to slam into the Israeli policewoman. The officer was sent flying through the air, but fortunately was not killed and was released later from the hospital.
Although the attacker, identified as 27-year-old Ahmed Erekat, was quickly shot and killed before he could do any more damage, Palestinians ridiculously claimed he had been “executed.”
Erekat was the nephew of senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat, whose family members quickly sent out messages on social media blaming Israel for an “extrajudicial killing” despite the clear evidence showing the driver tried to kill the policewoman using the exact modus operandi of tens of other impervious attacks.
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib quickly retweeted posts from Noura Erekat – a cousin of Ahmed and a well-known anti-Israel activist at Rutgers University who claimed the driver was innocent.
Tlaib’s retweet is part of her pattern of spreading anti-Israel messages to her one million Twitter followers, which included in January an old-fashion blood libel falsely accusing Israelis of killing an Arab child who in reality tragically drowned due to flooding after heavy rain.
In this case, Tlaib retweeted that Erekat was “executed,” failing to mention that he purposefully drove his car into an Israeli policewoman in an attack patterned after numerous similar Palestinian vehicle attacks.
With Palestinians like Saeb and Noura Erekat ignored the video evidence, CNN jumped in with a misleading headline that starts after the attack: “Video of Palestinian man being shot after suspected attack at checkpoint sparks controversy.” Sparks controversy?
CNN was raked over the coals by the media watchdog group Honest Reporting, who called out CNN for the poor reporting.
“CNN’s headline emphasizes the Israeli response – ‘man being shot’ – though most of the video documenting the incident is of Erekat attempting to ram his car. A bit misleading, no?” wrote Honest Reporting.
“CNN reports on the seemingly problematic fact that the image of Ahmad Erekat in the video is blurred,” continues Honest Report, continuing, “Someone reading this piece could easily conclude that the incident was a one-off, and that Israel Border Police officers may well have overreacted to a harried young man rushing to a wedding – with tragic consequences.
“What’s missing here is any sense of historical context. In fact, Israeli security forces have become all too familiar with the pattern of a suspect ramming a car, exiting it, and then proceeding to stab at people,” the report concludes.