Found on Horowitz's web site:

Remembering Noam



by Jonathan Medved 01-03-03

Noam Apter, aged 23 died Friday night Dec 27 as a hero in the attack on the Jewish settlement of Otniel. His picture was on the front page of every Israeli daily newspaper. His bravery reported on every newscast in Israel. His family's mourning and loss have been a subject of conversation at dinner tables, office coolers, essentially all over Israel for the past week.

Yet, the story of Noam Apter did not appear in the Los Angeles Times, or in most papers abroad. Not even his name appeared. Nor his age. Nor the names or ages of the other 3 victims brutally murdered in the Sabbath eve massacre at Otniel. He was just another one of "four Israelis killed in the West Bank".

To illustrate how one sided the coverage of Israel has been one needs to go no farther than the Los Angeles Times. * During the four days after Noam's death, the LA Times reported extensively on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Seven major articles were published with a total of over 7000 words. Yet no room could be found for Noam's name or for the story of his bravery, nor for the story of his family's loss. Is this because Noam was not a Palestinian?

It turns out that Palestinian stories, names and ages filled all of these seven Los Angeles Times articles over those four days. While not a single name of an Israeli victim was listed, nor the age of a single Israeli victim, the Los Angeles Times did find the room to list by name 17 Palestinians "victims" (some of whom were terrorists killed in gun battles with Israeli troops).

The Times also found it appropriate to list the ages of a total of 20 different Palestinian "victims", while not a single Israeli receives the honor of being attributed with an age in this extensive reporting.

Lack of ages and names are only the beginning. Each Palestinian "victim" has a story, heart rending, full of context, detail, local color, and moving quotes. The Israeli victims are just statistics, without quotes, without a context, essentially without a story. This lack of balance might be explained if the numbers were unbalanced -- so many more Palestinians dying than Israelis. Yet in the Times' reporting itself (on Dec 29) they noted that in the month of October more Israeli civilians were killed (45) then Palestinians (41). So why no names, no ages, no stories for the Israeli victims? Why don't the Israeli unarmed civilians who are deliberately targeted by terrorists get at least the same journalistic treatment as the Palestinian civilians who are tragically and mistakenly killed in a tough war against terror that Israel must fight in populated areas?

One is left with the unmistakable conclusion that for the Los Angeles Times, Palestinian suffering deserves color and details, Jewish suffering is simply a set of statistics, faceless soldiers conducting "aggressive" anti-terrorist campaigns, and government officials rolling out routine condemnation of terror.

Yet our victims do have names, ages and stories. The story of Noam Apter will be told by Israelis for generations. Since you probably missed it, here it is:

On last Erev Shabbat, December 27, over a hundred Israeli teenagers and young adults sat down for the Sabbath meal at the Yeshiva (Jewish school) of Otniel. These kids are not "ultra-orthodox" as erroneously reported in the Los Angeles Times, but "modern-orthodox" kids who study in Yeshiva before and sometimes during their army service. Four of the students whose turn it was to be the evening's "waiters" went to serve the main course in the kitchen adjoining the dining room. Noam Apter was among them. The other three waiters were: Yehuda Bamberger, 20, Zvi Ziman 18, and Gabriel Hoter, 17.

Suddenly two terrorists dressed in Israeli army uniforms burst into the kitchen and sprayed the four waiters with fire from their M16's. Hit by the bullets and mortally wounded, Noam used his last strength to run to the door connecting between the kitchen and the dining room, and closed it. He locked it and threw the key into a corner. He then collapsed and died, lying against the door. The terrorists tried to open the door.

Seeing it locked, they tried to spray fire through a small glass window into the dining room. After realizing that this fire was inaccurate and wild (it only wounded six more students) and having already killed the four student waiters, the terrorists fled the kitchen, later to be hunted down and killed by the Israeli army.

According to Yaacov Ohana, an 18 year old wounded survivor of the attack, quoted in the Israeli daily Ma'ariv, "Our great luck was that Noam succeeded in locking the door to the dining room and throwing the key into a dark corner, otherwise the terrorists would have massacred dozens".

Noam Apter was just another of the many heroes of the current war Israel is waging against terror. They all have names. They all have ages. And they all have stories. It's about time they were told.



*One of our famous "Israel-censored" sources of news.