#821 9/26/16 – This Week at U.N.: AP Echoes Loaded Terms Used by Palestinian Arabs

 

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG:  The mainstream media, through the AP, used two Jewish homeland delegitimizing expressions – “Israel’s occupation” and “the 1967 borders” – in reporting speeches made this week by Abbas and Netanyahu at the U.N.  The consequence of our failure to contest Jewish homeland-delegitimizing expressions – which does not preclude compromising for peace – was made vividly clear by the U.S, President’s own use of words at the U.N.

This Week at the U.N.:  AP Echoes Loaded Terms Used by Palestinian Arabs

Along with many other American papers, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran the AP’s news article Friday, datelined United Nations, on addresses made to the General Assembly on Thursday by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and a few minutes thereafter by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu (Inq, Fri, 9/23/16, A6, AP).

The AP directly quoted Abbas and other PA leaders mouthing the Palestinian Arab narrative’s usual phrases:  “… Israel’s intransigence on moving forward with the Mideast peace process … end the Israeli occupation of our land and our people … [Israel refuses to] abandon the mentality of hegemony, expansionism and colonization . . . You can measure Netanyahu’s interest in achieving peace through the number of illegal settlements he builds and Palestinian homes he destroys.  He has chosen occupation over peace.”

“Occupation … expansionism … colonization … illegal settlements” are, of course, politically loaded expressions which Israel, the Jewish homeland, and its supporters reject.  Without excluding potential peace-process compromise, the Jewish people’s historical and legal claim to the land of Israel includes the Judea-Samaria heartland and historic Jerusalem.  Far from ourselves engaging in “expansionism,” we’re contesting reductionism – reducing the Jewish homeland from the entirety of the Palestine Mandate, pared down to just the 23% or so west of the Jordan, pared down to just what’s west of “the green line,” the 1949 expressly military-only ceasefire line between the Israeli army and that of the invading kingdom of Jordan.  We reject characterization of Jewish presence in the land of Israel across the old defunct 1948 war ceasefire lines as “Israeli occupation.”

What’s troubling, from a balanced-reporting-on-Israel perspective, is not the AP’s above direct quotes of Palestinian Arabs, but the AP’s own terminology, literally echoing Palestinian Arab claims of Israeli  “occupation,” in its Friday news article, when it was not quoting Palestinian Arabs:

“Netanyahu rejects a settlement freeze, rejects the 1967 borders as the basis for talks, and rejects any division of Jerusalem.  He has also said he would not uproot settlements.

“…. As the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation approaches in June, Abbas urged the 193-member General Assembly to declare 2017 as ‘the international year to end the Israeli occupation of our land and our people.’” [emphasis added]

And just as it was imbalanced for the AP to call Israeli presence across the old 1949 ceasefire lines “Israel’s occupation,” so was it imbalanced for the AP to call those 1949 ceasefire lines, which were expressly declared in their defining document not to be political borders, Israel’s “1967 borders.”  The AP’s use, not in direct quotes but on its own, of both of these terms – “Israel’s occupation” and “the 1967 borders” – adopted two key Israel-and-Jewish-people-contested Palestinian Arab contentions – that the 1949 military ceasefire lines are holier than the 1967 war ceasefire lines between the same two fighting sides, and that Jewish presence in the Judea-Samaria and historic Jerusalem areas of the land of Israel is outsider “occupation.”

We ourselves are not free from blame.  When we talk about “east” Jerusalem, as though Jordan’s 1967-ended 19-year seizure of part of the city has 2016 significance; when we call Judea-Samaria “the West Bank,” which 1948-invading, 1967-ousted Jordan named it in 1950 to disassociate it from us; when we ourselves label Jewish presence across the old 1949 lines “Jewish settlements,” we act as our enemies’ and mainstream media’s at best unwitting accomplices.

To what cost to our case?  The President of the United States addressed the United Nations’ General Assembly this week, saying briefly but tellingly, “Surely, Israelis and Palestinians will be better off if Palestinians reject incitement and recognize the legitimacy of Israel, but Israel recognizes that it cannot permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land.”

The ZOA, for one group, rightly recognized in a Friday press release, “ZOA Critical of Obama’s Calling Judea/Samaria ‘Palestinian Lands,’” that this begs the question of Jewish/Arab equities unjustly to us.  “It is well-known that there are conflicting claims to the land, but it is also important to note [for reasons stated in the press release] that Israel has better claim in law [emphasis original] than any other party.”

It’s easy for us grassroots Israel supporters to feel powerless in the face of powerful forces – the mainstream media, the U.S. President, the United Nations itself (powerfully pointed out to the U.N. in Bibi’s speech) – using expressions delegitimizing the homeland of Jews.  But we grassroots Jews can go beyond cursing the darkness.  Stop saying stuff like “West Bank … ‘East’ Jerusalem … 1967 borders … occupation … settlements … Palestinian lands … [and, yes, Palestinian Arabs as ‘The Palestinians’].  Encourage Jewish leaders and spokespersons to stop.  And then, when we’ve got our own act together, we can credibly call on others, starting with the mainstream media, to stop.