News & Comment

Americans are told more about stabbings in Jerusalem than in their own crime-ridden cities

News

A judge ruled on the 11th of October that 16-year-old Michael Bever, from Oklahoma county, will be tried as an adult for assisting his 18-year-old brother in the fatal stabbing of his mother, father and three younger siblings. The Associated Press reported that freshly released autopsy reports "show the five family members were stabbed dozens of times and died of multiple, sharp-force injuries. The report noted that David Bever had at least 28 total wounds to his body; April Bever had at least 48 total wounds."

Comment

This news had very little impact in the US, and received very limited publicity. In contrast, the recent flurry of stabbings of 'Israeli' Jews in Jerusalem by Palestinian youths has attracted massive international media coverage. The boys who stabbed to death 5 members of their family in the US did so for no reason, which is now so common that the US has become indifferent to it. Mindless killing in the US is normal! However, the stabbings in Jerusalem are not mindless. They do have a reason, and because this reason relates to ideology and US foreign policy it is of interest and does get wide media coverage in the US.

Mindless violence and mindful violence are linked in another recent stabbing in the US, which received wide publicity for a short while. USA Today reported on the 8th of October that: "Spencer Stone, one of three Sacramento, California men who stopped an alleged terrorist on a French train this summer, was stabbed multiple times in nightclub-related incident, according to police." It was not the strange irony that an American who survived an alleged Islamic terror attack in France and became a hero, returned to his home country only to get stabbed in a meaningless attack that attracted attention. Rather, it was the possibility that this stabbing might also have an Islamic ideological motive. The story died as soon as the Sacramento Police released the following Twitter post: "The assault incident is not related to a terrorist act. Assault occurred near a bar, alcohol is believed to be a factor." Once Islam was ruled out as a motive, Americans were able to feel safe again, because this violence was produced by their own culture: by alcohol!

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Dr. Abdullah Robin