Marching toward Armaggedon

Juan Cole comments on the media coverage of the stand-down in Jerusalem:

The Washington Post said that the Palestinians were protesting plans by the Jewish fundamentalists to "rally at the site." That wasn't what they were afraid of at all. They were afraid that the extremists were bringing dynamite to blow up the mosque (a widespread rumor).

The New York Times likewise did not report that the Muslims understood the extremist group, Revava, to have sinister designs on the shrine. The NYT even put scare quotes around the word "defend" when it reported that young Muslim men were going to the Aqsa Mosque over the weekend, saying they wanted to defend it. I don't understand the scare quotes. Why not just report that they said they wanted to defend the shrine?

The Los Angeles Times reported that some Palestinians pledged violence against the Revava members if they came into the Aqsa Mosque. But the paper never explained why the Palestinians might have been that exercised. They thought Revava was coming in with sticks of dynamite.

Now, maybe Revava never threatened to destroy the mosque. I don't know. They don't appear to be humane, level-headed people, so maybe they did make the threat. But it is a gross dereliction of duty for the US press to neglect to even report that this threat is what had alarmed the Muslims around the world.

How can we possibly fight al-Qaeda and understand the Muslim world if our press does not even report what Muslims think is at issue in incidents like this? And note that no Western press article appears even to have rounded up the reaction in the Muslim world. They are invisible to our public, even when they are outraged.

Read Cole's explanation of what happened, including a very brief outline of the history of the Temple Mount here.