Question: As Racial Tensions Boil Over, Are Car Rammings In Israel Covered Differently? - by Gidon Ben Zvi

Car ramming is no longer a distant Israeli story. Today, people around the world are increasingly being exposed to this brand of terrorism. They deserve to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Ignoring, glossing over, or misrepresenting car ramming attacks in Israel makes it difficult for people in other democratic societies to get a proper perspective as to the severity and scope of the problem.

Gidon Ben Zvi..
Honest Reporting..
20 July '20..

Over the past months, as renewed anti-police violence protests have spread across the US, dozens of drivers have accelerated into the crowds. Vehicle rammings first gained popularity in the United States as a violent anti-protest tactic during the early waves of Black Lives Matter street-blocking protests in 2015. In Europe as well, terror-ramming attacks have increased over the last five years. And since 2015, there have been over 80 vehicular ramming attacks in Israel.

But if the amount of vehicular attacks being perpetrated around the world is increasing, why are rammings that take place in Israel either not covered by the international media, or grossly misrepresented?

Car rammings: A growing first-world problem

Most other types of terrorist attacks occur in conflict zones in the developing world. However, most vehicle ramming attacks occur in developed countries. Europe and the United States account for more than half of the recent attacks. But it was Israel that was the canary in the coal mine. Ramming attacks did not become a terrorist tactic until the 1990s, when Palestinians started carrying out vehicular assaults in Israel.

According to counter-terrorism expert Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, terrorists began using vehicles as weapons in Israel partly because, “the security barrier is fairly effective, which makes it hard to get bombs into the country.” By 2016, vehicle ramming attacks had evolved from a statistically rare event to become the second most-common form of terror attack in Israel and the second-deadliest form of attack carried out by Palestinian assailants.

As for individual countries, Israel and the Palestinian Territories lead with 41 attacks, followed by the United States with 39 attacks, China with 28, France with 14, and the United Kingdom with 10.

Vehicular attacks in Israel: Wherefore art thou media?

Even though the international press is well aware of the car ramming phenomenon, and has reported on it extensively, it tends to go MIA when it comes to coverage of vehicular attacks inside Israel. In this case, a lack of reporting is as much of a breach in journalistic ethics as biased coverage. By choosing to report certain events over others, or withholding key details, the media controls access to information. When news organizations neglect to report on a car ramming in Israel, it’s engaging in a subtle yet highly effective form of media bias, selective omission.

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