U – U.N.: Even Worse in the Press
The United Nations is no friend of the Jewish homeland of Israel. Its resolutions, and those of its agencies, are replete with language embodying the Arab narrative of Israeli “occupation of Palestinian land.” But mainstream Western media reporting of anti-Israel U.N. resolutions makes the maligning of Israel even worse.
[1] Late December 2014 Resolution
*** On 12/31/14, the Washington Post reported on a United Nations Security Council Arab-Israeli conflict resolution which failed by one vote (the U.S. would almost certainly have vetoed it, had it passed). The WP article accurately reported that the resolution called for “an end to Israeli occupation,” that “it declared that East Jerusalem would be the capital of a Palestinian state,” and that “it also demanded an end to Israeli settlement building.”
But the WP article went beyond that to twice mischaracterize the UN resolution. In lead paragraph 1 the WP wrote that the resolution called “for Israel to withdraw to its 1967 borders.” In paragraph 4 it wrote that the resolution “said a final deal should be based on borders that existed before the 1967 war.”
What the resolution’s paragraph 2 actually said was “borders based on 4 June 1967 lines ….” [emphasis added] There is a substantial substantive difference between ceasefire lines, which the 1949 Israel-Jordan armistice lines (“the green line”) expressly were, and internationally recognized political borders. Having been expressly declared in their defining document as dictated by military considerations exclusively, without prejudice to either side’s claims of political borders, the 1949 Israel-Jordan ceasefire lines are no holier (are indeed less holy) than their successor 1967 Israel-Jordan ceasefire lines.
[2] Misreporting The “Goldstone” Commission’s Commission
*** AP, 7/16/09:
The United Nations has launched a probe, headed by a respected war-crimes prosecutor (a Jewish South African judge named Goldstone), into the actions of both Israel and Hamas.
“… both Israel and Hamas”? Jerusalem Post article on that same day quoted the U.N.’s exact written words (paragraph 14) in the Goldstone Commission’s commission:
“…investigat[ing] all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression (Cast Lead).
It was a kangaroo court, as commissioned. So where did the A.P.’s “both” come from? That Jerusalem Post article quoted Judge Goldstone as having “indicated” to the “then-president of the (U.N.’s) Human Rights Council” Goldstone’s view that the commission should examine “alleged war crimes and human rights violations on all sides,” and that the then-president told him that “this was already implied in the resolution.”
The Jerusalem Post article then quoted an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson that the language of the Goldstone panel’s written commission was NEVER CHANGED. “‘There is no formal expansion of the mandate. The only relevant mandate is the one which includes operational paragraph 14 [quoted above]….That’s the only legal basis of this mission,’ said [spokesperson] Levy.”
[3] Burying the Palmer Report on Israel’s Legal Gaza Blockade
The Philadelphia Inquirer obsessed on “Israel’s deadly raid on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza” for over a year. The Inquirer’s coverage began on June 1, 2010, with a huge (greater than 12 sq. in.) headline and sub-head at the top of its front page “Outcry, Crisis After Deadly Raid By Israel….” Every day for a week, the Inquirer ran an article on Israel’s “aid flotilla raid” on its front page or A2, and many more articles through the summer and fall, and some in 2011, with “raid” appearing in headline and text over and over, down to August 18, 2011 (Inq., A6), which the Inquirer headlined “No Israel Apology To Turkey Over Raid.”
On September 2, 2011, the Inquirer ran a N.Y. Times article which it headlined: “U.N.: Israeli Blockade of Gaza Legal,” which reported
the [U.N. Report’s] conclusion that Israel’s naval blockade is in keeping with international law and that its forces have the right to stop Gaza-bound ships in international waters.
The Inquirer ran this bomb-shell U.N. report on page 18.
But the very next day, the Inquirer (9/3/11) ran above-the-fold on front page A1, and article it headlined:
Turks Oust Top Israeli Diplomat; They Want an Apology for a Raid Last Year
[4] Delegitimizing the Jews of Hebron as “Ultranationalist Jewish Settlers”
In the context of reporting the U.N.’s objections to Israel declaring the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb national heritage sites, the A.P. delegitimized Hebron’s Jews as “ultranationalist Jewish settlers” in “the West Bank.”
? On February 23, 2010 (Inq., A8, “Clashes Erupt in West Bank City”), the A.P. reported that “the Palestinians,” who “claim all of the West Bank as part of a future state,” were “enraged” that Israel had added “a disputed Hebron shrine,” the Cave of the Patriarchs, along with “a second West Bank shrine,” Rachel’s Tomb, to its list of national heritage sites. The article, which called Hebron Jews “ultranationalist Jewish settlers,” reported that the U.N.’s representative “noted the sites were holy to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike.”
? Three days later (A.P., 2/26/10, Inq., A17, “Netanyahu Tries To Calm Tension on Shrines”), Netanyahu was quoted as saying that designating the shrines as heritage sites wasn’t “a political decision,” just “concerned with preserving heritage.” The article continued: “The move angered Palestinians, who want Israel out of the territory. The United States, United Nations, and some European nations have expressed opposition [to Israel’s action].” For the second time that week, the A.P. labeled Jews in Hebron, one of the Yishuv’s historic four holy cities with Jewish connections going back to Israelite origins, “ultranationalist Jewish settlers.”
The M.S.M.’s term “ultranationalist Jewish settlers” conveys that Jews have no historical connection to this “West Bank” city, Hebron. The U.N.’s “noting” that the Cave of the [Jewish] Patriarchs, and the Tomb of [Jewish matriarch] Rachel, are “holy to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike” is an attack on the Jewishness of every Jewish shrine which Transjordan managed to grab in 1948-1967. And the U.N. can no more “note” that Rachel’s Tomb, what the media calls “a West Bank shrine,” and the Patriarchs’ Cave are “holy to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike,” than it can “note” that Rachel’s Tomb is “a mosque.” [See Shragai, Jerusalem Post, November 8, 2010: “Until 1996, Nobody Called Rachel’s Tomb a Mosque; Analysis: UNESCO’s recent designation flies in the face of Jewish history, Islamic tradition and Ottoman confirmation.”]
EXHIBITS: 2, 4, 7, 9, 13, 25, 28, 34, 38, 39a, 53, 59, 62, 64, 66, 68