Israel Protests Reaction to Family's Slaughter

Israel is demanding that CNN apologize for "tendentious and deceptive" coverage of Friday night's brutal slaughter of five members of a family as they slept in their home in a West Bank settlement.

Authorities are unsure whether one or two terrorists apparently scaled the security fence surrounding Itamar, an Israeli West Bank settlement, forced their way into the home of Udi and Ruth Fogel and went from room to room stabbing people as they slept. The Fogels (a rabbi and a schoolteacher) and three of their children were killed. Yoav Fogel was 11. Elad was three, and their sister Hadas was just three-months-old.

An early version of a story on CNN's website carried the headline "Israeli Family of five killed in 'terror attack.'"

"Only you decided to use the term terrorist attack in quotation marks, as if this were not necessarily the case," wrote Oren Helman, director of Israel's Government Press office, in a letter to CNN Jerusalem Bureau Chief Kevin Flower protesting the coverage. "There is a limit to the extent of objectivity regarding such a horrific deed."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to forcefully condemn the attack in Palestinian media. Abbas did condemn the attack in an interview with Israeli radio, but Netanyahu said that

Three other Fogel children survived the attack. Tamar, a 12-year-old girl, was at a neighbor's house at the time. She discovered the carnage when she returned home. Two brothers, ages two and eight, were in a side room and were unharmed.

In an interview with Ynetnews.com, a neighbor described the aftermath, as the surviving children learned their parents and sibling dead. One of the surviving sons had blood all over his clothes. He was crying: "Where's my daddy? Where's daddy? I want my daddy," the neighbor said. "I changed his clothes, he was tired, and I cleaned the blood off his legs."

"The children were literally slaughtered," an IDF officer said, describing the scene in the Fogel house, where blood-soaked toys were strewn across the floor. "This is one of the most brutal attacks we have ever seen."

Israeli soldiers are searching for Palestinian terrorists in connection with the massacre. Relatives released gruesome photographs of the victims. Israel Today explained the family wanted "to show the world the kind of cruelty with which Jews are targeted in their homeland."

Reader comments on this item

They don't have what it takes

Submitted by JAG, Mar 17, 2011 06:08

This issue will not be solved with negotiations. This is literally a blood feud going back to Abraham. The Jews belong in "Judea". I know, it's a shocker, right. That isn't the point. It isn't Palestinian land. The point is Jews are breathing their air, and they can't stand it.

Look at any islamic nation that surrounds Israel. They are say the same thing as the Palestinians. Push them into the ocean. It isn't about land. It's about birthright.

The only way for this to be resolved is for the Palestinians or the Jews to be wiped out. One of them has to die. Preferably the muslims for the rest of the World's sake. This tit for tat garbage solves nothing. Tit for tat is terrorism. It's not about control, it's about terror only. Israel needs to have an all out offensive war and claim the land that's their's or get used to being picked off one by one.

Afghanistan, the Al Qaeda backed government, refused to hand over the attackers of 9-11. We destroyed their entire Country simply for that. Unless you meet force with overwhelming force you will gain nothing and lose everything.

Why must only Jews fear teror attacks?

Submitted by Alan Bergstein, Mar 16, 2011 12:01

When terror is brought home to Palestinian supporters of terror, attacks on Jews will stop. The numerical listing of local Palestinian villages which would be wiped out as retaliation for attacks against Israelis would solve the problem. After each attack on Israelis, the next town on the list would be obliterated by the IDF. At least they would be forewarned. There appears to be no humanitarian method of stopping these attacks. Terror must be met with terror. That is how we won WWII.

What do you expect?

Submitted by Fred Baehr, Mar 14, 2011 22:53

Sure they put terrorist attack in quotes. To do less would impune them and somehow impune all Muslims as terrorists. Besides just because a family sleeping in their home is slaughted like animals is no reason to give in to common prejudices and inflamatory rhetoric. You have to see the big picture here like the progressive thinkers at CNN do.

Those people were illegally sleeping on Palestinian land. Those people were not innocent. Those people were occupiers. Those kids were opressing Muslims. Their father was a Rabbi wasn't he? What more needs be said? The brave fighters who snuck into their unguarded house in the dead of night and cut them to ribbons are heroic defenders of Muslim rights. It was a defensive attack. Just check your international law if you deny it. From the river to the sea, Palestine must all be free!

When was the last time some Jews snuck into some Palestinian home in the dead of night and slaughtered kids like pigs? Oh, sorry, I forgot the IDF does that kind of thing every other Tuesday. At CNN they will boldly tell the truth: the ones who did this are the real victims, prisoners in their own land, who have a perfect right to slaughter men, women, and children at any time, in any place, in their just fight for freedom! Heil Allah!

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