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This week’s Star is 100% TRUMP AND HARRIS FREE! FOR A POLITICS-FREE SHABBOS
Aug. 2-8, 2024 Matos-Masei • 27 Tamuz 5784 • Vol 23, No 26
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Murdoch’s trusted Journal goes soft, shoddy on Israel By Andrea Levin, CAMERA he Wall Street Journal’s new editor-inchief, Emma Tucker, has taken the venerable publication in a new direction, alarming readers who have long counted on its fact-focused, serious coverage but find something very different today. For many, the increasingly skewed, factually shoddy coverage of Israel is a striking indicator of the wider shift in tenor and content. As described in a National Review article, Tucker’s been pushing more “lifestyle stories with snappy headlines” in the news section. She has reportedly downsized, if not gutted, the standards desk that handles corrections. And she’s eliminated an editing team “responsible for prepublication review of sensitive stories.” The Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns FoxNews and the New York Post. Reporter Omar Abdel-Baqui could be the poster child for this new Wall Street Journal. One “sensitive” story of his with far too little fact-checking and editorial oversight was a June 15 account focused on the disappointments of young Gen Z Palestinians. Much of the bias of the piece stems from the relentless
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omission of critical information. The online title, “Gen Z Palestinians See Door Slamming Shut on Coexistence with Israel,” perfectly conveys the deceptions and distortions that follow. While Palestinians themselves are the door-slammers — the violent rejectionists of peaceful coexistence with Israel — there’s no hint in the story that the Palestinian leadership has repeatedly refused an independent and peaceful state next to the Jewish state of Israel. There’s no suggestion that the melancholy Gen Z Palestinian teens, who are cast as buffeted by upheaval and uncertainty, should blame their own autocratic leaders for ruining their lives. (The print version was similarly titled: “Gen Z Palestinians Have Little Hope for Peace.”) Striking photographs accompany the story: A 15-year-old girl fully clothed in black and wearing a keffiyeh poses floating on her back in the Persian Gulf, gazing skyward — as if in a fashion spread; a displaced Gazan from a wealthy family, the young woman also appears elsewhere in the online version of the story standing fully clothed in the water, expressionless. This could be Teen Vogue. See Journal drops standards on page 2
Be’eri rises from ashes of 10/7 By Amelie Botbol, JNS As we approached the devastated villages of southern Israel, including Kibbutz Be’eri, the GPS navigation system insisted we “continue straight on Road 232,” commonly dubbed “The Road of Death” by survivors of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre. What was once a very hospitable community can no longer be entered uninvited. As we waited on Monday for our host to arrive, we noticed dozens of cars parked at the entrance to the kibbutz, and yet there was not a sound other than distant explosions in the Gaza Strip. Be’eri resident Sharon Shevo, who nearly lost both his arm and entire family in the invasion, would serve as our guide on the visit. Shevo works in construction engineering and is currently involved in the physical rehabilitation of the kibbutz. He had agreed to walk us through destroyed neighborhoods and show us where new housing units will rise and welcome back residents a few years from now.
“We are currently in the complex stages of planning the reconstruction,” Shevo said. “The security level has not yet reached a point where
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we can see ourselves returning permanently; the war has not yet ended. In the meantime, we are planning what the future Be’eri will look like.”
On July 22, visitors enter Avida Bachar’s house in Kibbutz Be’eri, where his wife Dana and son Carmel were murdered by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7. Amelie Botbol
At the moment, he explained, there are no street lights in the kibbutz, and no functioning grocery story or school. However, the cafeteria still operates, serving lunch and dinner to a handful of residents. It is only the fifth time since Oct. 7 that Shevo has agreed to walk visitors through the streets of Be’eri and relive the most dreadful day of his life. “There is the concept of a house versus a home. Our houses were destroyed and we no longer have a home,” he said. One hundred and one residents of Be’eri were murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7. Thirty were taken hostage and 11 remain in captivity. At Be’eri’s now infamous dental clinic, where five members of the kibbutz, including three of its civil-defense squad — Gil Buyum, Shachar Zemach and Eitan Hadad — and two staff members, Amit Man and Dr. Daniel See Kibbutz Be’eri on page 6
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