Bigotry Wrapped in Journalism

Israel Today published a story about an increase in honor killings among Palestinian women. The story itself seemed poorly researched and improperly cited (as in, there were no citations—the story cited “an old Jordanian law” that allowed men who confessed to honor killing to serve light jail time, and yet, they didn’t mention specifically which law permits this).

It is my understanding that the purpose of journalism is to spread awareness and understanding, not rationalize bigotry. This article didn’t look to spread awareness or offer answers, it only served to reinforce the idea that Muslims are barbaric and that Muslim men view their women as less than human.

But what really bothered me are the comments. I know, I know, I shouldn’t even have looked at them. And I don’t think you should, either. But in my defense, I didn’t really need to: the titles of the comments told me all I needed to know: “Vengeance, Violence, and Wrath is their manner” and “SEE? THEY ARE CRAZY PEOPLE!!!” are some of the eloquent ones.

Only one of the posters, Lil Sis in Jesus, was concerned about the fate of these women. Only one person out of nine posters (and let’s throw in the author of the article) cared that women were being murdered. The rest of them really just used the article as an excuse to start a dehumanizing hate-fest against Muslims and Arabs. After awhile, the comments are so ridiculous as to be laughable, but still.