The next day, the liberal "all the news that’s fit to print" New York Times reported that "Palestinian snipers ambushed Jewish settlers walking home from Sabbath prayers." Other papers, choosing words designed to elicit outrage, also echoed Tel Aviv’s official line.

Eric Boehlert tracked the story in a November 19 report for the online magazine Salon.com entitled, "Manufacturing a Massacre."

"The first reports of a so-called civilian massacre originated from the office of [Benjamin] Netanyahu, Israel’s newly appointed foreign minister," he wrote. According to this version, Palestinian gunmen "ambushed Jewish worshipers as they walked home from Sabbath prayers, spraying them with gunfire and even tossing grenades.... Israeli soldiers, who escort the worshipers every Friday night, rushed into a dead-end alley to try to help. After a four-hour gun battle, 12 Israelis were dead."

Major U.S. newspapers "rushed to report the gruesome details," reported Boehlert. "Ambush; 12 Israelis Murdered at Prayer" was the front-page headline in the conservative New York Post. "Militants ambushed a group of settlers," reported the liberal Boston Globe.

In fact, wrote Boehlert, the Palestinian fighters opened fire on the Israeli troops well after the Jewish settlers were in their homes. Three Palestinians died in the firefight. All 12 Israelis killed were soldiers or security guards.

"It wasn’t a massacre, it was a battle," Matan Vilnai, a former Israeli general, told the Israeli press. The leader of the Israeli settlement in Hebron described the incident as a "pure military event" and noted that "the worshipers had passed a quarter of an hour before."

"Many news organizations failed to clarify that point," wrote Boehlert. Those newspapers that did report the casualties accurately tended to bury the information, in contrast to their headline coverage of the government’s "massacre" story.

Well into the Times’s third story on the ambush, for example, the paper noted that "the Israeli Army initially said the attack was on Jewish worshipers, but it appears to have been directed at security forces who guard settlers."

The day after the battle, Israeli soldiers and armored vehicles swept through Hebron. They imposed a curfew and rounded up some 40 Palestinians for questioning. About 1,000 Israeli settlers joined a rally, chanting "revenge," and "death to the Arabs." Made up of only 450 people, the Israeli settlement inside Hebron, a city that is home to 130,000 Palestinians, is maintained by virtue of the heavy Israeli military and police presence. Rightist settlers have stoked anger at their presence by carrying out armed attacks on Palestinians.
 
 
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