Headlines matter. Investigators have concluded – I know not how — that 80% of consumers of the news – in newspapers, or online — do not read beyond the headlines. And that means those headlines can do a lot of good, or a lot of damage. When it comes to covering Israel, it’s more often damage.

A report on how the major news services headlined their coverage of recent shootings by the IDF can be found here: 

“AP, UPI & Reuters Headlines Erase Distinction Between Terrorists and Victims,” by Gidon Ben-Zvi, Algemeiner, April 12, 2022:

Two of the world’s leading news services — the Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI) — reported inaccurately on the story of a Palestinian woman who was shot dead by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank town of Husan on the morning of April 10.

These headlines give readers the impression of gun-toting IDF soldiers arbitrarily opening fire on an “unarmed”– and thus innocent — civilian.

She was anything but.

In fact, the Israeli media disseminated footage of the woman running toward a checkpoint:

That a wave of Palestinian terror has washed over Israel over the past month, prompting heightened security measures, is seemingly inconsequential for the Associated Press, whose piece fails to note the mitigating factors that forced the IDF soldier to stop the woman by shooting at the lower part of her body.

The first thing to consider is the context for this shooting. Four separate terrorist attacks in rapid succession, in Beersheva, Hadera, Bnei Brak, and Tel Aviv, resulted recently in the deaths of 14 Israelis. Members of ISIS, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and even Fatah, have taken part in one or more of these attacks; the terror groups have proudly claimed responsibility, and vowed to continue. There is heightened tension at Israeli checkpoints, as searches go on throughout the West Bank by the IDF, rounding up suspects who may have been involved as accomplices in the most recent attacks, or been planning other attacks still to come. At the same time, the IDF and Shin Bet are well aware of the increased use of female terrorists, who are able to more easily hide their weapons under their Islamic dress.

In this tense atmosphere, a Palestinian woman walked directly toward an Israeli soldier standing at a checkpoint at the village of Husan. She held one hand up above her head, in a menacing matter, as if clutching something. She was ordered to halt. She kept walking. Warning shots were fired in the air. At that point, she began to run straight at the soldier, still with her hand in the air, seeming to hold onto something. As she ran at him, with what seemed might be a knife gripped in her raised hand, he fired another warning shot, and as she kept going, fired at her legs, to stop her in her tracks. She then fell down, and the Israeli soldiers, including the shooter, immediately rushed to treat her, and one of them called for an ambulance.

You can see the video of the incident on YouTube.

But none of this is conveyed in the AP headline that reads:

Israelis shoot, kill 2 Palestinians; one was unarmed.

And at US News the headline reads: “Israeli soldiers shoot and kill unarmed Palestinian woman in West Bank.”…

What the Associated Press and United Press International overlook is that Israeli security forces have on numerous occasions in the past been targeted by Palestinian women, as well as those eyeing “suicide by police”; namely, intentionally drawing fire from security services by acting in a suspicious or threatening manner….

The IDF has been more suspicious of Palestinian men at checkpoints, for historically they have been responsible for most of the terrorist attacks at such places. Until recently, the IDF and Israeli police have been less attentive to women. As a result, Palestinian women have been increasingly used as suicide bombers; some have also been engaged in “suicide by police,” despairing of the misery of their own lives, they act in such a “suspicious or threatening manner” toward Israeli security operatives, as to ensure that they will be fired upon. The “unarmed Palestinian woman” who pretended to be holding a knife as she ignored orders to stop and ran directly at an Israeli soldier may have been doing just that – “suicide by police.”

As a result, female suicide bombers hiding explosives under their clothing, not to mention the use of ambulances to smuggle weapons to terrorists, have become increasingly used to attack Israelis.

Yet, when all readers see is “unarmed” in a headline, they are highly unlikely to internalize any of this relevant information.

Meanwhile, another possible attack has received virtually no international media coverage.

A man was shot dead on April 10, close to Israel’s southern city of Ashkelon, after attempting to steal a weapon from a female soldier at a bus stop.

According to local media, the suspect was identified as a Jewish Israeli man in his 20s who had escaped from a mental health facility.…

Yet if a story can’t be framed to fit into the Palestinian victimhood narrative, then there’s evidently no compelling reason to report on it.…

Since the person shot was a mentally unbalanced Jewish Israeli, and not a Palestinian, no one outside Israel deemed the story worth carrying. UP and AP only want stories about unfeeling Israeli soldiers who shoot to kill, for no reason at all, unarmed Palestinians.

The IDF soldier, observing another – female – soldier being attacked by a man who was trying to wrest away her weapon, did the right thing in shooting him. This Jewish Israeli was obviously a clear and present danger – what would he want with that weapon except to use it on others? No one present at the incident knew that he was mentally imbalanced, but even if they had, it should not have made any difference in how the soldiers quite correctly decided to “neutralize” – i.e., kill – him. The incident does show that the IDF does not distinguish in its response to people posing a mortal danger; Jews are treated exactly as are Arabs.

Israel is not engaged in wanton killings of the innocent. It is trying only to protect its own citizens, and soldiers, from terrorists. The IDF does everything it can to limit the harm to Palestinians whose threatening behavior could make them targets. Soldiers first warn them verbally to halt, then – in crowd situations – use tear gas and rubber bullets, then fire warning shots in the air. If the Palestinian, or Palestinians, are still pushing forward and throwing rocks, Molotov cocktails, and other potentially lethal items, the soldiers have been trained to fire at their legs to immobilize them. If the Palestinians nonetheless push forward, and continue, in the judgment of the soldiers, to still pose a threat, only then are the soldiers authorized to shoot above the waist.

How could those headlines have been rewritten to give a more accurate account?

What about:

“Israelis Shoot Palestinian Woman Who Stabbed Soldier, Another Who Ignored Calls To Halt”

Or

“Palestinian Woman Ignores Calls To Halt, Is Shot After Running At Israeli Soldier”

These give a clearer picture of what actually happened. In neither case was the Palestinian woman simply an innocent. The first was shot after stabbing a soldier. The second was shot only after ignoring calls to halt, followed by warning shots that were also ignored, while running directly towards a soldier, seeming to clutch in her fist held high an object that could easily have been mistaken for a knife. It turned out that here was no knife; she was unarmed; but in the split-second decision-making by the soldier, he can hardly be faulted for thinking that in repeatedly refusing warnings to stop, this woman was hellbent on stabbing him.