#822 10/2/16 This Week: “Jerusalem, [strike-thru] Israel”

 

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: Many Jews were upset that the U.S. government “corrected” its press release on President Obama’s eulogy of Shimon Peres by inserting a strike-thru over “Israel” in its byline of the eulogy as having been made in “Jerusalem, Israel.” 

 But ask yourself, how good a job have we done contesting mainstream Western media mis-characterization of Jewish connection to historic Jerusalem as “captured/seized by Israel in 1967”; of the historic part of Jerusalem conquered and held by Jordan from 1948 to 1967 as a separate “East” Jerusalem still-extant today; and of Jews, of all peoples, residing in that historic Jerusalem as outsider “Jewish settlers.”  Does the media really purvey these mis-characterizations?  Come and see.

This Week:  “Jerusalem, Israel

This is the U.S. State Department’s “corrected” header to President Obama’s eulogy of Shimon Peres this week:

“REMARKS BY PRESIDENT OBAMA

“AT MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR

“FORMER ISRAELI PRESIDENT

“SHIMON PERES

“Mount Herzl

“Jerusalem, Israel

(In the “correction,” the word “Israel” in “Jerusalem, Israel” has a strike-thru through it, if that doesn’t show up as such in your viewer.)

Pro-Israel commentators were upset by the U.S. State Department’s “correction” of the original press release of President Obama’s eulogy of Shimon Peres by the striking of a line through “Israel” following “Jerusalem,” in the press release’s title.  “Mount Herzl is in “West” Jerusalem, and surely at least that’s part of Israel.”  Nope, that’s a “final status” issue.  In any case, just dropping “Israel,” rather than striking a line through it, would have been, shall we say, more diplomatic, less in-your-face, than how the State Department made its “correction.”

As for us media watchers, ask yourself how vigorously we champions-of-the-Jewish-people’s-claim-to-our-homeland’s-Eternal-Capital-of-Undivided-Jerusalem have protested mainstream Western media denigration of our Jerusalem claim.

???  When the media dates at least modern Jewish connection to historic Jerusalem to “its capture/seizure by Israel in 1967,” do we counter that Jewish Jerusalem presence has existed continuously throughout history, except during foreign conquerors’ expulsion spells, from which we relentlessly returned, with re-attainment of a Jewish majority during 1800’s Ottoman rule?

???  When the media treats “East” Jerusalem, which existed for but 19 of the past 3,000 years, from Jordan’s 1948 invasion until ousted by Israel in 1967, half-a-century-ago, as a still-existing separate city half-a-century-later, do we counter that half-a-century-ago Jerusalem reverted to the single city structure it had had for the past 3,000 years?

???  When the media relentlessly calls Jews, of all peoples on Earth, “settlers” in historic Jerusalem, do we raise a hue and cry that nobody, including the Arabs, has a deeper claim, historically, demographically and legally, to Jerusalem than the Jews?

For any who doubt how the media reports on Jerusalem, here’s the media at work over the last couple years:

***  Take, for example, Reuters (6/2/16, “US Not Bringing Specific Proposals to Middle East Peace Talks in Paris”),  which included:  “The Palestinians say Israeli settlement expansion denies them a viable state they seek in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip and a capital in Arab East Jerusalem.”  [emphasis added, but not by much]

***  A Washington Post article in the Philadelphia Inquirer (Inq, Wed, 3/9/16, A3, WP) harked back to Vice President Biden’s 2010 visit in an article on his next state visit to Israel:

“This trip is Biden’s first state visit to Israel since a diplomatic disaster in 2010, when Israel announced during his visit construction plans in the Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem” [emphasis added]

***  AP (Inq, 1/18/16, A12):  “[while] Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as their capital, Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital, including the eastern section of the city seized in the 1967 Mideast war.”  [emphasis added]

***  Philadelphia Inquirer photo caption 12/17/15, A13:

“An Israeli flag hangs on a building, in the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem, that was taken over by settlers after Palestinian families were evicted.”  [emphasis added]

***  AP, 11/18/15 (Inq, A6):  “… a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem”

***  AP in Inq, Thu, 10/1/15, A10:  “Addressing the U.N. General Assembly, Abbas said Israel had repeatedly violated its commitments, most notably by expanding settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, on lands the Palestinians seek for a future state.”

***  The 9/14/15 New York Times headlined: “Jewish Man Dies as Rocks Pelt His Car in East Jerusalem.”  [Actually, he was murdered by the hurlers of those rocks, but what’s next – “Knife Stabs  East Jerusalem Jew”?]

***  AP article (Inq, 9/30/15, A4):  “The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem, which was captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war, as their future capital.”  [As if there had previously been an “East” Jerusalem that [nee Trans-] Jordan had ruled from Time Immemorial]

***  Washington Post 6/9/15 (Inq A1, 8):

     “Both Israel and the Palestinian national movement claim Jerusalem as their capital.  But the city was divided in 1949 following the war that broke out after Israel declared its independence.

     “Israel has controlled western Jerusalem since then, and nearly two decades later occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.”  [emphasis added]

[“Controlled” conveys mere de facto possession; “occupied” conveys no-rights possession]

***  AP in Philly Inquirer 5/8/15 (A6): “Israel is pushing ahead with a Jerusalem construction project” in Ramat Shlomo according to “the settlement watchdog Peace Now,” that has “caused a rift between Israel and the United States.”   Inq headline:  “Israel: Settler Homes OKd.”

***  Los Angeles Times 4/21/15 (Inq A2):  “[Netanyahu’s coalition-building efforts are mired in] a wide range of issues, such as the settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem ….”  [emphasis added]

***  AP in Inq, 11/13/14: “continued Israeli settlement construction in east Jerusalem.”

***  AP in Inq, 11/6/14: “stepped-up Jewish settlement construction in the eastern sector [of Jerusalem]”

***  AP in Inq, 11/4/14:  “Israeli officials pushed forward Monday with plans to build new apartments in an east Jerusalem settlement”

***  AP in Inq, 10/31/14: “East Jerusalem, the section of the city captured by Israel in 1967.”

***  AP in Inq, 10/23/14: “… east Jerusalem, the section of the holy city captured by Israel in 1967”

We should not acquiesce in the mainstream Western media telling Western publics that Israel “controls western” Jerusalem and “occupies East” Jerusalem; that Israel’s connection to the Jerusalem that has been the capital of three states – all homeland states of the Jews – in the past 3,000 years is that Israel “captured” or “seized” it “from Jordan in the 1967 war”; that Jews are alien “settlers” in that Jerusalem.

Yet that’s what we do, to our peril.