Official Palestinian Authority Radio Praises Bus Attack in “Occupied Jerusalem” as an Attack on a “colony” with no Word of Condemnation

While CNN was communicating Palestinian Authority spokesman Saeb Erakat’s “condemnation” of the bus attack in Kiryat Menachem in Jerusalem, quite another message was communicated on the official PBC radio of the Palestinian Authority.

[Michael Widlanski is completing his PHD on the subject of the Arab media and a lecturer at the Rothberg School of the Hebrew University. IMRA interviewed Widlanski, in English, on 21 November at 8:20 a.m. after a terrorist attack by a suicide bomber against a bus in the Kiryat Menachem neighborhood in Jerusalem that murdered at least 9 in the bus full of schoolchildren. Kiryat Menachem is a neighborhood located within the green line of Jerusalem, built on an Arab village that was abandoned in 1948.]

IMRA: What is Voice of Palestine, the official radio station of the Palestinian Authority, reporting about the terrorist attack?

Widlanski: V.O.P. began its coverage of the bombing attack at about 7:30 this morning. It referred several time to the colony (“musta’ mara”) of Kiryat Menachem and to the whole event as an explosives operation (“amaliyya tafjiriyya”) without any word of condemnation.

Several times V.O.P. made the point that it was in Western Jerusalem but in the colony of Kiryat Menachem.

On the 9 a.m. V.O.P. NEWS, V.O.P. described this as an attack in “occupied Jerusalem”.

IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
imra@netvision.net.il