Levick - Guardian report legitimizes mob attack on Israeli embassy in Egypt, which forced frantic evacuation of embassy staff

Adam Levick
CiF Watch
10 September '11




The facts of what occurred in Cairo today are not in dispute. The Israeli ambassador to Egypt, his family, staff, and their families, were frantically evacuated by the Egyptian military after a large mob, numbering in the thousands, stormed the embassy in an attempt to tear down the compound’s security wall and break into the building.

After demonstrators penetrated the tower block housing the mission, some of the six-member staff on overnight security detail reportedly phoned Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to explain that they feared for their lives and asked him to pass farewells to their families.

After appeals by Netanyahu to Cairo’s interim military rulers and the Obama administration, Egyptian security forces extracted the guards before dawn. Another Netanyahu aide said the Israelis’ heads were covered to throw off the crowds.

Israel had earlier sent a military plane to evacuate its ambassador, Yitzhak Levanon, and about 80 staff and families. A second aircraft brought the six guards “safe and sound” to Israel, Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.

However, the manner in which the Guardian covered the incident speaks volumes about their seeming inability to frame any violence perpetrated against Israelis as anything other than an understandable response to Israeli villainy.

Their report, Israel evacuates ambassador to Egypt after embassy attack, David Batty, Guardian, Sept. 10 contextualized the violence by describing, as the source of mob anger, the six Egyptian security personnel killed in the crossfire which occurred as Israeli forces pursued the gunmen involved in the Aug. 18th terrorist attack near Eilat.

Batty failed to note that eight Israelis, including six civilians, were killed (and 40 injured) in the series of coordinated attacks launched from Gaza via the Sinai Peninsula.

Indeed, reports by both the IDF and the Egyptian army following the incident suggest that the IDF did everything in its power to prevent Egyptian troops from getting hurt during their pursuit of the terrorists. The IDF also found that at least three of the terrorists were Egyptian citizens.

(Read full "Guardian report legitimizes mob attack on Israeli embassy in Egypt")


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