Toulouse Murder Suspect Was Motivated by Propaganda and Lies—David Frum

Do you regularly read Tom Gross' site?

If you care about Middle East issues, you really must. If you did not read it today, for example, you missed the following important news:

French intelligence should be congratulated on pursuing the possibility of an Islamist link and their apprehension this morning of a suspect of Algerian origin in relation to the Toulouse murders (although questions must be asked why, since they have been tracking him since last Thursday's shooting of the French Muslim soldiers, they didn't do more to stop him killing Jewish children on Monday).

The suspect, who is currently in a stand-off with police, has admitted having been trained by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. French intelligence has confirmed he was previously arrested in Afghanistan in 2010.

Many international media have this morning been claiming that the suspect was motivated by "Israel's killing of children in Gaza earlier this month".

However, Israel didn't kill any children in Gaza this month. Israel only hit armed Islamic Jihad adult operatives, most of whom were launching missiles into Israel at the time Israel identified and hit them.

But the same irresponsible Western media reported ˆ wrongly ˆ that Israel had killed Palestinian children in Gaza this month, when it hadn't. Not for the first time, Western journalists were taken in by Palestinian propagandists in Gaza.

Please see this link for the way the media was duped.

A further Palestinian claim that another Palestinian child (Adham Abu Selmiya) had been killed by an Israeli air strike at a Gaza funeral of an Islamic Jihad leader this month was subsequently acknowledged by his own parents, and other eye witnesses as false; the death was a result of gunfire unleashed at the funeral.

Agence France Presse (AFP) has now admitted that it was misinformed by its Palestinian sources about the reasons for Adham Abu Selmiya's death and Israel had nothing to do with it. Other Western news outlets have not admitted that ˆ yet again ˆ they unfairly accused Israel of doing something it didn't do.

In my opinion, highly irresponsible and inflammatory reporting about Jews and Israel in the Western media is one of the causes of recent increased anti-Semitism among many western Muslims and others.

Click here to read the full story.