On September 30, 2000, an image of a bloodied “Palestinian” teenager crouching in front of a club-wielding Israeli policeman made front-page headlines in the Associated Press, New York Times, and other major media outlets.

 

The caption, “An Israeli policeman and a Palestinian on the Temple Mount,” implied that the Israeli policeman was the cause for this unknown “Palestinian’s” battered state.

 

But it turns out that the teenager was not a Palestinian Arab – he was Tuvia Grossman, a Jewish American yeshiva student who was pulled from his taxi in Jerusalem by a mob of Arabs and beaten to an inch of his life.

 

Tuvia managed to make a run for it and found an Israeli border policeman before collapsing due to blood loss. The policeman, Gidon Tzefadi, succeeded in warding off the terrorists and called an ambulance for the severely injured Grossman.

 

Upon seeing the image of his son in the New York Times, Alan Grossman sent the following letter to the newspaper: “…that Palestinian is actually my son, Tuvia Grossman, a Jewish student from Chicago. He, and two of his friends, were pulled from their taxicab while traveling in Jerusalem, by a mob of Palestinian Arabs, and were severely beaten and stabbed. That picture could not have been taken on the Temple Mount because there are no gas stations on the Temple Mount and certainly none with Hebrew lettering, like the one clearly seen behind the Israeli soldier attempting to protect my son from the mob.”

 

Although a retraction was issued, considerable damage was already done as the infamous picture circulated worldwide casting the Israeli policeman as the perpetrator.