Latest Israeli web trend: CNN 'victim blaming' memes

The web took advantage of CNN's headline gaffes following the Jerusalem synagogue terror attack in the form of memes with imagined coverage of events throughout history.

NOVEMBER 19, 2014 13:27

Meme parodying CNN's overly-neutral headlines‏ (photo credit: SOCIAL MEDIA) — Meme parodying CNN's overly-neutral headlines‏

(photo credit: SOCIAL MEDIA)

A "CNN victim blaming" meme trend has emerged in response to the TV news network's skewed coverage of the deadly terror attack on a Jerusalem synagogue on Tuesday.

In its initial coverage of the attack, CNN used the headline "4 Israelis, 2 Palestinians dead in Jerusalem," which failed to mention that the two Palestinians who were shot and killed by Israeli police were in fact the midst of a deadly attack on Jewish worshippers.

Making matters worse was another CNN headline error that said the attack took place at a mosque.

CNN headline gaffe (photo credit: screenshot)

The web took advantage of the headline gaffes in the form of memes. Facebook user Sam Baum shared a meme of a fake 9/11 report with the headline "8 Saudi men die in plane accidents."

Amir Schiby's depiction of the attack on Pearl Harbor framed it as "12 Japanese pilots died in a crash."

Post by Amir Schiby.

Steven Sotloff's muder by ISIS was described in Yehuda Elmaliach's meme as "A knife was attacked by a man."

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Post by Yehuda Elmaliach.

Ofir Penso created a mock headline of the arrest of Yigal Amir, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassin. The mock headline read "Another Yemenite Kidnapped," which referred to a racist Israeli policy in the late 1940s and early 1950s in which the babies parents born in Yemen were given to parents with European origins.

Post by Ofir Penso.

Ben Wedeman, who reported the story for CNN, responded to a critic on Twitter, saying "If it actually matters to you I DON'T write those headlines. Someone thousands of kilometers away does."

@noach_a If it actually matters to you I DON'T write those headlines. Someone thousands of kilometers away does.
— benwedeman (@bencnn) November 18, 2014

CNN later issued an apology. "As CNN updated its reporting on the terrorist attack on the synagogue in Jerusalem earlier today, our coverage did not immediately reflect the fact that the two Palestinians killed were the attackers. We erred and regret the mistake."