Echoing a century of Arab incitement fabricating Jewish attacks targeting the Al-Aqsa mosque, National Public Radio’s Jane Arraf falsely attributed Iraqi militia attacks on U.S. troops to non-existent “Israeli attacks on the Al-Aqsa mosque.”
Arraf’s Feb. 22 article, “What fighting in the Middle East means for the U.S. troop presence in Iraq,” which is part of NPR’s “Middle East crisis — explained” special series, “explains”:With Israeli attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and the International Court of Justice now reviewing allegations of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, many of the militias attacking forces from the U.S. — a main financial and military backer of Israel — view this as a holy fight.
What “Israeli attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque”? A Lexis-Nexis search of Associated Press stories, which closely track violence on the Temple Mount (where the Al-Aqsa Mosque stands), does not indicate any police confrontations with Palestinians on the Temple Mount – much less “Israeli attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque” – going back to Oct. 7, when Hamas began its war against Israel with mass slaughter, torture, rape and kidnappings of Israeli civilians and soldiers alike and Iraqi militias began routinely attacking U.S. troops.
A week ago, CAMERA asked NPR to either substantiate or retract its claim regarding otherwise unreported attacks on the Al-Aqsa mosque. As of this writing, NPR has neglected to set the record straight. False claims of Israeli aggression targeting the Al Aqsa mosque and worshippers there have fueled no small amount of violence in the region in the past. Far from explaining the Middle East crisis, fabricated reports of attacks on the Al Aqsa mosque exacerbate the conflict.