Tuvia Grossman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tuvia Grossman is a Jewish-American who was mistakenly identified as a Palestinian instead of a Jew in a news photograph published worldwide. Some claim that caption implied he was being assaulted by an Israeli policeman although in fact the policeman had been defending him from Palestinian rioters.
Contents |
[edit] Victim of the media war
At the outset of the Al-Aqsa Intifada on September 30, 2000, the New York Times and other media outlets published a photo of a bloodied young man crouching beneath a club-wielding Israeli policeman, based on an Associated Press photo. The caption under the photo identified the two as: "an Israeli policeman and a wounded Palestinian." [1]
An AP editor based in Jerusalem has been given unclear information from the Israeli photographer who captured the picture and mistakenly the injured man was a Palestinian man wounded in the day's demonstrations. [2]
The victim's true identity was revealed when Dr. Aaron Grossman of Chicago sent the following letter to the Times:
Regarding your picture on page A5 of the Israeli soldier and the Palestinian on the Temple Mount -- that Palestinian is actually my son, Tuvia Grossman, a Jewish student from Chicago. He, and two of his friends, were pulled from their taxicab while traveling in Jerusalem, by a mob of Palestinian Arabs, and were severely beaten and stabbed. That picture could not have been taken on the Temple Mount because there are no gas stations on the Temple Mount and certainly none with Hebrew lettering, like the one clearly seen behind the Israeli soldier attempting to protect my son from the mob.
The New York Times published a correction identifying Tuvia Grossman as "an American student in Israel" omitting his beating by the Arabs. It also stated that "Mr. Grossman was wounded" in "Jerusalem's Old City". The beating really occurred in the Arab neighborhood of Wadi Al-Joz.
In April 2002, a District Court in Paris ordered the French daily newspaper "Libération" and the Associated Press to pay 4,500 Euro to Grossman in damages for misrepresenting him.
[edit] US Media Coverage: Responses, Retractions, and Criticism
According to Seth Ackerman of FAIR, seven to eight U.S. newspapers picked up the photo along with the original misleading caption. The Associated Press acknowledged the error and set about correcting it, along with almost all of the newspapers that printed the photograph. The New York Times published two retractions (one on October 4, 2000 and another three days later) as well as a 670-word news article tracing the incident from the time the photograph was taken to when it was published.
Ackerman posits that the response of pro-Israel media critics was excessive as "no one alleged any deliberate falsification" by AP adding that "the vast majority of injuries in Jerusalem the day the Grossman photograph was taken were sustained by Palestinians"[3]:
"Newspapers across the country carried angry commentaries and letters by supporters of Israel brandishing the mislabeled photograph as palpable proof of their long-held suspicions. The New York Post (10/5/00) and Wall Street Journal (10/6/00) each ran op-eds on the photo. In commentaries, the mislabeled photo was proof that pro-Palestinian "misreporting by the media has been rampant" (Albany Times-Union, 10/25/00), and that "Anti-Israel Bias Warps American Minds" (Providence Journal-Bulletin, 10/13/00). Daily Oklahoman columnist Edie Roodman (10/13/00) accused the media of "'indirectly stimulating riots' by Palestinians."
[edit] Abuse of Grossman's picture
Several organisations have used Grossman's picture misleadingly, presenting him as a Palestinian. One of them was an Egyptian government website. Along with a number of other Arab sites. [4]
This same picture has been used to gather support for the boycotting of Coca-Cola by Muslims, by once again misleadingly showing him as a "Palestinian". [5]
[edit] Aliyah
On September 7, 2005, Tuvia Grossman made Aliyah (immigrated to Israel) from his native Chicago.
"I knew that I wanted to be here, in Israel," Grossman said as he prepared to leave his hometown of Chicago for his flight. "Nothing was going to stop me."
Grossman, who recently completed a law degree in Chicago, now lives in Tel Aviv and works as a legal intern at Gornitzky & Co., a large Tel Aviv law firm, while preparing for the Israeli Bar exam.
[edit] External links
- Grossman's story in his own words
- An Honest Reporting article describing the incident
- Photo Falsehood and the Temple Mount Riots (September 2000)
- "Those Aren't Stones, They're Rocks" by Seth Ackerman, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR); discusses Grossman incident in "SIDEBAR: The Smoking Caption" section at bottom of article
