#742 Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert

To:       Brith Sholom Media Watch Subscribers
From:   Jerry Verlin, Editor  (jverlin1234@verizon.net)
Subj:    Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #742, 3/22/15

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG:  Historians mistakenly say “history is what historians say it is.”  The reality is that history, including current events, is what the mass of the world’s people believe that it is, and daily newspapers like our Philadelphia Inquirer (Inq) that go thump in your driveway every morning, every day of the year, have immensely more impact upon public perception than history books.  To the Jewish homeland’s great detriment.  Case in point: This week in the world’s media, not least in our Inq.

This Week In The Inq:  0 For 3 on Informing the Public on Bibi and a “Palestinian State”

Our Philadelphia Inquirer (Inq) et ilk had three things to inform the American public about this week regarding Israeli and Palestinian Arabs’ respective “two-state solution” positions:

[1]  what Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said in his 2009 speech about the Arab-Israeli conflict’s proposed “two-state solution”;

[2]  what Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said on that subject just before and just after this week’s Israeli elections that has engendered scornful cries he twice reversed his position; and

[3]  what position the Palestinian Arabs take on this U.S. “two-states-for-two-peoples” proposal.

On all three aspects, the mainstream Western media, including our hometown Inq, gravely misled the American public.  It’s not just me who’s saying that, at least in part.  E.g., Ben Shapiro in Breitbart on Friday:  “For the last several days, the entire Western media has run with a false story: the story that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer would, under any circumstances, endorse the possibility of a Palestinian state.”  John Podhoretz on Thursday in Commentary:  “There’s simply no question Netanyahyu was willfully and purposefully misunderstood late last week when hostile reporters announced he had withdrawn his support for a two-state solution.  That was not true.”

But the media’s critics on our side, with whom of course I fully agree as far as they go, focus upon just one of the two ways the Western media misportrayed Israel this week.  One way was to misportray Bibi as an unprincipled schemer who on Monday abruptly cynically reversed his support for “two-states” to win votes on Tuesday, and then on Thursday reversed his position of Monday, in the face of international criticism of his Monday reversal.  Our guys addressed that.  The media’s second misportrayal this week – perpetrated by utter media silence on Palestinian Arab “two-state” qualifications, which exceed Bibi’s – was to cast Israel as the side rejecting the U.S.-promulgated plan for “two states for two peoples.”  From what I’ve read, our guys didn’t address that.  So, as hometown Inq-focused media watchers, let’s look, first, at how our Inq this week – on its own, not in the body text of its eminently-erroneous wire service news articles – misportrayed Bibi as that unprincipled cynical schemer, and then at how it misportrayed Israel as the side rejecting the U.S. vision of “two states for two peoples.”

Monday

Bibi-bashing Fun-In-The-Inq this week began Monday (3/16/15, A10) in an erev-Israeli-election op-ed chosen by the Inq, penned by an American University Assistant Professor, Guy Ziv.  Ok, it was an op-ed and he’s entitled to his assistant professorship political positions.  But not to his “facts”:  “Recently, Netanyahu even disavowed his earlier endorsement of a future Palestinian state.”  [Not exactly, see below]

(BTW:  His Assistant Professorship further faulted Netanyahu for having “consistently spoken out against a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders with mutually agreed land swaps – the basis for the U.S. approach to resolving the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”  [They were 1949 ceasefire lines, “Auschwitz lines” per Eban, not “1967 borders,” and driving Israel back to them was not U.S. policy before Obama, e.g., 242 and President Bush, and it’s the Arab-Israeli, not “Israeli-Palestinian” conflict.])

Tuesday

Then came our hometown Inq on its own above-the-fold on its front page Tuesday (3/17/15, A1, 6), big-bold headlined

Netanyahu’s Reversal

On the eve of the election, Israeli leader rejects a Palestinian state over the top of which the Inq printed (bold-face) these two seemingly contrasting Bibi quotes:

“In my vision of peace, in this small land of ours, two peoples live freely, side-by-side, in amity and mutual respect.  Each will have its own flag, its own national anthem, its own government.” – Prime Minister Netanyahu, June 2009

“I think that anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state today and evacuate lands is giving attack grounds to the radical Islam against the state of Israel.” – Netanyahu, on Monday

Inq page A6 continuation page headline:

Netanyahu now rejects two states

Wednesday, Thursday

Wednesday’s Inq’s headlining focused on Israeli early election results, “Netanyahu has slight advantage after vote,” Inq, Wed, 3/18/15, A1, above fold).  But if you were expecting a big “Bibi Wins Big” headline at the top of the Inq’s front-page on Thursday, when the not-so-slight-advantage results were known, what you got instead, indeed at the top of A-1, was

U.S. to Israel: Don’t count on us

Netanyahu’s new opposition to a Palestinian state draws warning on support at U.N.

That Bibi did win did make the headline of a second Inq news article on A2,

Netanyahu secures a fourth term

After a bruising campaign, Israel’s prime minister faces criticism for hard-line stances on Iran and Mideast peace

And all this came to the accompaniment of the Inq’s house foreign affairs’ columnist’s (“oy gevalt!”, Ms. Rubin’s term and italics, not mine):

Worldview: Fear-mongering secures win

wherein Ms. Rubin wrote: “He said no territory would be returned [as though they’d ever ruled it] to the Palestinians and there would be no Palestinian state.”  A little further down, she stated:

To woo back the settler vote, Netanyahu reversed his previous acceptance of a two-state solution to the Palestinian issue.  In reality, he had placed so many caveats on the idea that it was clear he rejected the concept.  But his tactical acceptance enabled peace talks to continue for years.

Friday

Inq, Friday, 3/20/15, A1, 12:

Netanyahu revisits words on statehood

Denies post-vote shift; White House blasts “cynical” tactics

On the A12 continuation page the Inq reprinted, as inset headlines just beneath an across-the-page headline “Netanyahu revisits statehood remarks,” the two bold-face Bibi quotes, one from 2009 and the other from the day before this week’s election that the Inq had run high-up on A1 on Tuesday, to which it now added a third:

“In my vision of peace, in this small land of ours, two peoples live freely, side-by-side, in amity and mutual respect.  Each will have its own flag, its own national anthem, its own government.” – Prime Minister Netanyahu, June 2009

“I think that anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state today and evacuate lands is giving attack grounds to the radical Islam against the state of Israel.” – Netanyahu, on Monday “I haven’t changed my policy.  I never retracted my [2009] speech.  I don’t want a one-state solution, I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution, but for that, circumstances have to change.” – Netanyahu on Thursday

Ok, so that was Bibi’s three successive pro-con-pro “two-state” positions – one from 2009, and one from just before and one from just after this week’s Israeli election – as presented to readers by the Philadelphia Inquirer this week in the Inq.  I.e., “I was for it before I was against it before the election, and now after the election in which I was against it, I’m for it again.”

But the Inq’s Ms. Rubin is right to the extent that Bibi’s 2009 speech was in fact a qualified endorsement of a Western Palestine Arab state.  An eretzisrael.org post this week: “No Flip-Flops.  Absolute Consistency.  Does Anyone Ever Listen To What Netanyahu Actually Says?” directly quoted an excerpt of Netanyahu’s 2009 Bar-Ilan University address.  These qualifications included Arab-side recognition of Israel as the Jewish people’s nation-state; demilitarization of that Western Palestine Arab state; defensible borders for Israel; and “Jerusalem remaining the united capital of Israel.”

The Inq-quoted excerpt of Bibi’s 2009 “vision of peace, in this small land of ours” excludes any hint of qualifications on his vision of two states.”  The Inq’s quote was an Inq set-up of Bibi this week as a unprincipled electioneering two-time quick-reverser.  As the Inq’s Ms. Rubin put it, just before acknowledging there’d been qualifications:  “To woo back the settler vote, Netanyahu reversed his previous acceptance of a two-state solution to the Palestinian issue.”

But the Inq’s misportrayal of Bibi as an unprincipled politician pales in one-sidedness alongside the Inq’s and its wire services’ UTTER OMISSION of Israel’s “peace partner’s” position on two-states.  Talk about 2009 qualifications to “two-states”?  Here’s what Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ own Fatah said on that subject also in 2009 at its General Assembly in Bethlehem, excerpted from Lee Bender’s and my book Pressing Israel: Media Bias Exposed From A-to-Z (emphasis added):

Resolutions adopted by “moderate” Fatah at its August 2009 Bethlehem General Assembly reveal not moderation but extremism on all principal issues.

On Jerusalem: 

Jerusalem Post (8/8/09):

Return [they never held any of it] of both east and west Jerusalem to Palestinian control was a “red line” which was nonnegotiable, and would need to be fulfilled before any peace talks could renew, Israel Radio reported….The document went on to state that all of Jerusalem, including the surrounding villages, belonged to the Palestinians, and lands conquered following the Six-Day war shared the same status as those located within the green line….A document adopted by the delegates of the assembly declared that Fatah would “continue to sacrifice victims until residents of Jerusalem are free of settlements and settlers.

Christian Science Monitor (8/11/09):

The congress adopted a resolution that all of Jerusalem be returned to the Palestinians.

TomGrossMedia.Com (8/14/09, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations’ “Daily Alert”):

Another resolution decreed that placing both east and west Jerusalem under Palestinian control is a ‘red line’ that is non-negotiable.
 

On Arab Refugees:

TomGrossMedia.com (8/14/19, “Daily Alert”):

A resolution approved by the assembly stated that Fatah will not give up the armed struggle until all the descendants of those claiming to be of Palestinian Arab origin can live inside Israel.

On Fatah’s Official Armed-Wing:

 Jerusalem Post (8/8/09, Khaled Abu Toameh, JPost.com):

The conference also endorsed the Aksa Martyrs Brigades as Fatah’s official armed wing….The Aksa Martyrs Brigades, which was established shortly after the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000, has been responsible for many terrorist attacks – including suicide bombings – that killed and wounded hundreds of people.

On Israel as the Jewish State:

TomGrossMedia.com (8/11/09):

A further resolution explicitly said Fatah would oppose recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.  In other words, in spite of misreports by apologists for Fatah in the Western media, Fatah made it clear it is still not willing to accept the principle of two states for two peoples: a predominantly Jewish state and a predominantly Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace.

On Jews and Arabs in Each Other’s Territory:

Jerusalem Post (8/13/09, Caroline Glick, “Column One”):

At the conference, Fatah’s supposedly feuding old guard and young guard were united in their refusal to reach an accommodation with Israel….

Both demanded that all Jews be expelled from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem ahead of the establishment of a Jew-free Palestinian state.

Both demanded that any settlement with Israel be preceded by an Israeli withdrawal to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines and by Israel’s destruction as a Jewish state through its acceptance of millions of foreign-born, hostile Arabs as immigrants within its truncated borders.

And, as for Abbas:

?  On the very day, September 23, 2011, that Abbas addressed the U. N., seeking U.N. recognition of a western Palestine Arab state, YNetNews.com quoted Abbas:

They talk to us about the Jewish state, but I respond to them with a final answer:  “We shall not recognize a Jewish state, Abbas said in a meeting with some 200 senior representatives of the Palestinian community in the US, shortly before taking the podium and delivering a speech at the United Nations General Assembly.

Jerusalem Post (9/7/10), directly quoting Abbas:  “‘If they demand concessions on the rights of the refugees or the 1967 borders, I will quit.  I cannot allow myself to make even one concession,’ he said.”

?  CAMERA, Eric Rozenman, “Abbas the Relative Moderate,” 3/18/09, on what Abbas briefed the Jordanian daily Al-Dustour on the 2007 Annapolis summit: “Abbas stressed that he is opposed to the so-called Jewish State.’ ”

Jerusalem Post (1/11/07):  “The issue of the refugees is ‘non-negotiable,’ Abbas said.  ‘We will not give up one inch of land in Jerusalem . . . ‘“

?  A 2007 Ami Isseroff article, http://www.zionism-israel.com/hdoc/Abbas_ROR.htm, quoted Abbas as having said of Jerusalem:  “Jerusalem must return to our sovereignty.”  The article pointed out that “Jerusalem in fact was never under the sovereignty of Palestinian Arabs in all of recorded history.” [and under foreign Arab empire sovereignty only part of the time between 638 and 1099].

Was none of this relevant to Inq-readers reading about Israel’s prime minister’s views on two-state qualifications This Week In The Inq?

Regards,
Jerry