The AP’s report on the murder of an Israeli girl, Ori Ansbacher, and on the deaths of two “Palestinian” teenagers, left much to be desired.
The body of Ori Ansbacher, 19, was found in the woods in the West Bank near Jerusalem on Thursday with stabbing wounds. She was buried Friday in the Israeli settlement of Tekoa amid calls by hard-line Jews for revenge.
First, Ansbacher had been working as a volunteer counsellor at the Yeelim Youth Center. That ought to be been reported; it would have made her more than just a name.
Second, calling the Israelis at her funeral “hard-line Jews” already undermines them. What makes them “hard-line”? Apparently the fact that they had had enough of Arabs killing Jews, and wanted whoever had raped, killed, and mutilated the body of Ori Ansbacher to be caught, tried, and given a death sentence. These were not calls “for revenge,” but for appropriate punishment, by which these Israelis, in their despair and revulsion at the killing, meant capital punishment. Many people may not realize that despite the most horrific atrocities by “Palestinians,” Israel has never imposed that punishment on any Arab murderers. Only one person has been executed by the state in Israel’s entire history: Adolf Eichmann.
Over 600,000 Jewish settlers live in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories the Palestinians want as part of their future state. Most of the international community views the settlements as illegal.
This paragraph is both tendentious and irrelevant. It has no business being in this story, which is about the murder (and rape, and mutilation of the body) of an Israeli teenager, Ori Ansbacher, and the killing of two “Palestinian” teenagers who were engaged in the Great March of Return, to breach Israel’s security fence. Why is there mention of the “Israeli-occupied” West Bank and east Jerusalem, and why include the claim that the “Palestinians” want those territories “as part of their future state”? Is it meant to be an oblique justification, or at least explanation, for the rape and murder of Ori Ansbacher? Was she attacked because she was living in the “Israeli-occupied” West Bank? Would that have made her killing more understandable? Of course not; her attacker had no idea where she came from, nor would it have mattered if he did. He knew only that she was Jewish, and defenseless. He needed no other reason.
The remark that “the Palestinians want as part of their future state” the West Bank and east Jerusalem is misleading. Most Palestinians, when asked, say clearly that they want their “Palestine” to replace all of Israel. They want the Jewish state to disappear. They deny that the Jews have a legitimate claim, any historic link, to the land. They want a “Palestine” that stretches “from the river to the sea.” This paragraph suggests they have more modest territorial ambitions.
If the whole paragraph were not to be omitted, it at least should be reduced to this: “Ori Ansbacher was raised in Tekoa, and thus was one of the 600,000 Israelis who live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories Israel won in the Six-Day War.” That has the virtue of being true, and it leaves out both the loaded word “settlers” and the loaded phrase “Israel-occupied.” And of what relevance to this story is the fact that “most of the international community views the settlements as illegal”? Most of the “international community” will vote for any anti-Israel resolution the Arab and Muslim lobby chooses to propose at the U.N. So what? Israel has a considerable legal and historic claim to those territories, based on the original Palestinian Mandate, on Resolution 242’s call for “secure and defensible borders,” and on the rules by which victors in a war customarily get to keep some of their spoils. That quite unnecessary last sentence about the supposed “illegality of the settlements” contributes nothing to the story of the killing of Ori Ansbacher. It only serves to undermine Israel.
Even more disturbing is what is not reported: that many “Palestinians” regard Israeli civilians as legitimate targets for murderous attack, that they know both that the Israelis will not execute them, no matter how many murders they commit, and that the Palestinian Authority will provide generous support to jailed terrorists, and if they are killed, to their families, in what is known as a “Pay For Slay” program.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commended the security forces for “apprehending — within a few hours — the abhorrent murderer.” He expressed condolences to Ansbacher’s family.
Prime Minister Netanyahu did not merely “express condolences” to Ori Ansbacher’s family. He went to Tekoa to express his condolences directly to her family. There is a difference.