On The Detainment of Those Palestinian Kids “Foraging For Vegetables”

The mainstream media has gone mad over the story over the IDF detaining five palestinian Arab children near the Havat Maon outpost, following release of the following B’Tselem video, which itself went viral.

None more so than NBC News, which has posted it on social media repeatedly since the incident.

https://www.facebook.com/NBCNewsWorld/posts/4106836119335164

https://www.facebook.com/NBCNews/posts/5369593039727349

https://www.facebook.com/NBCNewsWorld/posts/4114971541854955

https://www.facebook.com/NBCNews/posts/5379520055401314

Even if the version being reported was true, the IDF detaining 5 kids for 3 hours warranted such exaggerated media attention? I am pretty sure when our 3 boys were kidnapped and murdered by Hamas, the mainstream media was not all over the story like it is over this one.

Let’s look closer at the NBC news report for a second. It is titled Video shows Israeli forces detain Palestinian boys. They say they went foraging for vegetables, and that is what you see in the above social media posts. But if you read through, you will see that is not why the IDF claims they detained them.

Israeli police said in a statement that the military had detained four minors for allegedly breaking into private property and stealing parrots and other objects. The Israeli Defense Forces said a group was spotted entering private property in the southern Hebron area and was transferred by a military patrol to the Israeli police after “a short initial questioning with police present.” The police said they had not detained the children after they were transferred by the IDF and had tried to locate their parents for “several hours” before waiting for them to collect them.

Even if we don’t know with certainty which version to believe (I know which one I believe), why did NBC use a headline mentioning only the kids’ version? By doing so, the reader is immediately siding with the kids, especially if they only see the headline and don’t read all the way through.

And why isn’t anyone – at least in the media – asking the obvious question: if some kids were sneaking in some remote place around either foraging for vegetables or stealing parrots and other things –  what was B’tselem doing there to video some of it? How did they happen to be exactly there at the right place at the right time?

The entire thing stinks.