The bloodbath at a West Jerusalem synagogue yesterday, in which four rabbis were killed, was the big story on the network news last night and the cables too. And Palestinians didn’t fare well in the coverage.

On CNN, Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer equated Palestinian militants to Nazis; and Wolf Blitzer nodded but had no rejoinder. Dermer belittled the idea that Palestinians have any grievances under Israeli rule before noting, “The Nazis had a lot of grievances too.” But: “Nothing justifies Nazism. And nothing justifies terrorism.”

Blitzer knows the history of the conflict; Zionist forces used terror during the Mandate period to force the British to leave and later to ethnically cleanse tens of thousands of Palestinians from Jaffa and other towns and cities. Zionist militias blew up the King David Hotel in 1946, killing 91, and knocked off European diplomats Lord Moyne and Folke Bernadotte. Blitzer might have mentioned these facts, but he was playing Charlie McCarthy.

Dermer also implied that the Palestinians were targeting the United States. Hamas is the Palestinian version of ISIS, he said, and the US is in the same war that Israel is in. The theme was echoed by former Israeli ambassador Dore Gold, on Erin Burnett’s CNN show, when he stated that the murders were the same as the ISIS beheadings of Americans in the Syrian desert.

Senator Ted Cruz is on message. He issued a statement saying that the Palestinians are targeting the U.S.

All our friends in Israel have our sympathies in the aftermath of this atrocity, but they need more than that. They need an unequivocal statement of solidarity, a recognition that America is not a disinterested bystander in this battle. Our citizens are dying too, targeted by these same vicious murderers, and our good friend and ally should have not only our prayers but also our unequivocal support as the Israeli people continue the fight against the terrorists who have declared war on both our nations.

Jake Tapper put a stamp of approval on this argument when he stated that more American citizens have been killed by Palestinian terrorists in the last year than by ISIS. Dore Gold issued the same scary pronouncement on CNN.

Much was made on television news of the fact that folks in Gaza celebrated the murders. In a substantial editorial titled, “Horror in Israel,” The New York Times laments the fact that Palestinians are not jumping to condemn the murders:

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, had to be pushed by Secretary of State John Kerry into speaking out…. That was apparently the first time he had denounced Palestinian attacks in recent days… As a political leader, Mr. Abbas has a duty to make the moral case that such brutality and inhumanity can only bring shame upon the Palestinian people.

“The Times says that approval of such tactics brings shame to the Palestinians,” Donald Johnson writes. “Fine, except I can’t remember them ever saying anything remotely comparable to the Israelis. The Times is in their comfort zone now, where a Palestinian atrocity and the support it gets from the population gets their full-throated condemnation.”

I don’t think any of these news outlets have noted the fact that Israelis celebrated an Israeli border officer who is accused of shooting and killing an unarmed Palestinian teen earlier this year: During the court proceedings friends of the accused officer gathered outside the court house, sang supportive songs and called out to him with declaration that he was a “hero.” And speaking of double standards for Palestinians at the Times, FAIR has an excellent piece of media criticism focusing on a Times headline, “Palestinian Shot by Israeli Troops at Gaza Border.” The Palestinian in question was ten years old. FAIR wonders

why the Times would leave this key fact out. Space, maybe? But “Gazan Boy Shot by Israeli Troops at Border” would have fit just as easily.

Or “Child Shot by Israeli Troops at Gaza Border,” for that matter, since the shooting victim’s likely nationality would be clear from context; there aren’t too many Israeli children near the border with Gaza. In any case, the victim’s age is arguably a more important fact than his ethnicity. So–did the editors leave out of the headline the fact that it was a child who had been shot because they didn’t want readers to get too upset about Israel doing the shooting?

Update. The hits keep coming. I am informed that Carol Costello said on CNN today that Americans can relate to Israel because we’re dealing with ISIS.