President Trump's decision to move the American embassy to Jerusalem is a classic in the genre: narrowly self-serving, completely ignorant of history and context, and liable to unleash mayhem as a result. This King Lear deleted scene even featured the emblematic image of the princess and the Dauphin, Ivanka Trump and Son-in-Law-in-Chief Jared Kushner, smiling and celebrating in a grand diplomatic ceremony as scores of Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces at protests less than 60 miles away. CNN captured the juxtaposition in patented cable-news fashion:

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By the end of the day, the Palestinian Authority was reporting that 58 were dead and more than 1,200 were injured. This included children. Many news outlets chose to focus at least as much on the protests—which escalated because of the embassy decision (the demonstrations marked "Nabka," which Palestinians call the birth of Israel)—as the ceremony that happened concurrently. This did not sit well with Donald Trump's favorite TV show:

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It's no surprise to see the residents of the Fox & Friends couch take a pro-Trump, pro-Israel line on Monday's events. The fluid conflation of the protesters, who were urged on by Hamas and some of whom were armed with rocks and burning tires, with "Hamas terrorists," is not a shocker. Neither was Steve Doocy's line that, “Yesterday they used the Embassy as a great excuse to make a lot of mess,” as if a protest that left dozens dead was one of those championship riots where fans of the winning team break some car windows and knock over lamp posts.

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Still, this idea that it's an outrage "the news outlets gave equal or greater news coverage to the demonstrations" than they did Jared Kushner's speech is fairly wild. The protests are not just a grave indication of the unrest the embassy move has exacerbated. (Our European allies and the Arab world fiercely opposed the move on this basis, since control of Jerusalem is a core sticking point of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.) It is also a vastly more important news story that Israeli forces used live ammunition on Palestinian protesters, including children, even if some of those protesters had makeshift weapons.

As Chris Hayes put it on Twitter:

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Is it the official position of the Israeli and US governments that lethal force is justified for unarmed protesters who approach a border fence with intent to climb it? — Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) May 14, 2018

Who on earth cares what Ivanka Trump or, even worse, Jared Kushner had to say about President Dad's big diplomatic move yesterday? Report on it, sure, but it is minuscule by comparison—particularly when you factor in that it was likely a knee-jerk decision to cater to a narrow group of hardliners. Among those most chuffed about it was Sheldon Adelson, a fiercely pro-Israel Republican megadonor who recently pledged $30 million for House Republican elections after a totally normal meeting with Speaker Paul Ryan. (The front page of Adelson's Las Vegas newspaper Tuesday featured an op-ed praising the embassy move from...his wife, Miriam.)

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It also pleased far-right Protestant zealots like the two pastors the administration brought along for the ceremony. One, Robert Jeffress, said that Jews are going to Hell. The other, John Hagee, said Hitler was an agent of God tasked with helping return the Jews to Israel. If you're wondering why a couple of guys with some interesting views on the Jewish community are so pro-Israel, it's because they are armageddon fetishists who believe Jesus will only return for the Second Coming if the Jewish people control the Holy Land.

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But I digress.

Fox & Friend's rant over the media's coverage missed a far more important critique. The Mainstream Media was reluctant to say outright that it was Israeli forces doing the shooting. Even if you believe the group moving towards the fence was entirely made up of Hamas operatives bent on destruction, surely it merits mentioning who shot them. Not so, according to The New York Times:

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Dozens of Palestinians have died in protests as the U.S. prepares to open its Jerusalem Embassy https://t.co/2E3VDG1HMd pic.twitter.com/lMPVH2hUIs — New York Times World (@nytimesworld) May 14, 2018

Or ABC News:

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JUST IN: At least 16 dead, hundreds injured as Palestinians protest U.S. moving its embassy to Jerusalem. https://t.co/EhbKRsSTgI pic.twitter.com/zJxKysioxR — ABC News (@ABC) May 14, 2018

Later on, perhaps after they caught some heat from readers and social media types, these outlets and others started to acknowledge in headlines who was doing the shooting. There is no excuse not to, whether or not the response from Israeli forces was justified—unless, of course, it wasn't justified, but you're reluctant to say it.

There was plenty of media criticism to be done Monday. But the problem was not, as Fox & Friends seemed to think, insufficient praise for the Trump Family's big day out in Jerusalem, in which they presented a plaque that was exactly what you might expect:

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On the new U.S. embassy plaque, "Donald J. Trump" is in a larger font size than "Jerusalem, Israel" pic.twitter.com/OIkW2NJF9x — Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) May 15, 2018

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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