Jerusalem : Compass of the Diaspora Jew
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In 2000, Palestinian Arabs launched a campaign of terror which came to be known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Two days earlier, an Israeli soldier was killed by his Palestinian counterpart while on joint patrol, and the next day, Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount. The next day, on the eve of Rosh Hashana, Palestinian violence erupted across Israel. (Later investigations indicate that the Palestinian Authority had pre-planned the intifada.) Tuvia Grossman, a 20-year-old Jewish student from Chicago, was thrust into the international limelight on when The New York Times published a photo of him -- bloodied and battered -- crouching beneath a club-wielding Israeli policeman. The caption misidentified him as a Palestinian victim of the intifada. The truth was the total opposite, and the realization that Israel was being unfairly portrayed in the media led to the founding of media monitoring groups such as HonestReporting.com. Over the next four years, Palestinian violence -- bolstered by incitement in the Palestinian media -- would claim the lives of over 1,000 Israelis and 4,000 Palestinians. The attacks included a wave of over 100 suicide bombings that targeted Israeli restaurants, synagogues and buses.