#831 12/4/16 – This Week by Bloomberg: “… settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem”

 

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG:  A fair number of dirty words were hurled at Israel this week in the media and at the UN.  On the bright side, Friday’s Daily Alert referenced multiple pro-Israel voices answering back.  Maybe hearing these strengthens our resolve to make clear to the world that we do not acquiesce in misportrayal of Jews as “settlers” and Israel as “the occupying power” in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem.

This Week By Bloomberg:  “… settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem”

The Philadelphia Inquirer (Inq, 11/30/16, A7), among other papers, carried a brief news article Wednesday by Bloomberg news service reporting:

“Abbas has refused to negotiate with Israel unless its government halts settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”

This media watch has long railed against shameful Jewish acquiescence and even joinder in the media’s and Israel’s detractors’ Jewish homeland-denigrating pejoratives like calling Jewish communities over the old 1949 ceasefire lines “Jewish settlements,” calling Judea-Samaria “the West Bank,” and calling historic Jerusalem “East” Jerusalem, as though there had historically been an “East Jerusalem,” not just during the half-century-ago-ended 19-year Jordanian occupation of 1948 to 1967.

Friday’s Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations important “Daily Alert” contained quite a bit of confirmation that You-Who-Put-Up-With-Me-Weekly and share these views are not just lonely voices crying out in the Judean wilderness.  Perhaps, seeing such confirmations will strengthen our resolve as missionaries to the Jewish homeland’s supporters to stop gratuitously mouthing terms designed to delegitimize that very homeland.

A Gatestone Institute article titled “The UN’s Palestine Language” cited regularly-used UN terms – “Palestine … occupation … West Bank … settlement” as “misleading.”

“Settlers” versus Jews as Indigenous People of the Mideast

The term “settlement,” the Gatestone article author wrote, “evokes imagery of white European settlers encroaching on the ancestral territories of red, brown and black peoples, connoting the moral baggage of colonialism.  The UN uses the term to insinuate Israeli theft of ‘Palestine.’”

And that is precisely what Bloomberg’s article Wednesday evokes in portraying Abbas as refusing to negotiate with Israel unless it unilaterally ceases building “settlements” in “the West Bank” and “East” Jerusalem, which historically objective terminology would have called “Jewish communities in Judea-Samaria and formerly Jordanian-occupied portions of the city of Jerusalem.”  The insinuation extends beyond the loaded terms themselves to evoke imagery of Israel as a country of European colonialists and not a homeland of a people, Jews, as in the ancient name “Judea,” indigenous to the land of Israel and Middle East.

On this latter point of the Jewish people being indigenous to the Middle East, see also in Friday’s particularly important Daily Alert, David Harris’ (of the AJC) moving World Post article, “In Honor of Jewish Refugees from Arab Lands: Letter from a Forgotten Jew.”  Beyond invaluably tracing the millennia-long continuous Jewish presence, now reduced to virtually nil, throughout the Arab world, and noting their absorption mostly by Israel when they fled in “hurried departures – in the wake of intimidation, violence and discrimination,” Harris gives voice to an unjust imbalance this media watch has been railing against since weekly edition #1 in 2001:

“Why does the world relentlessly, obsessively speak of the Palestinian refugees from the 1948 and 1967 wars in the Middle East – who, not unimportantly, were displaced by wars launched by their own Arab brethren – but totally ignore the Jewish refugees from the 1948 and 1967 wars?

“Why is the world left with the impression that there’s only one refugee population from the Arab-Israeli conflict, or, more precisely, the Arab conflict with Israel, when, in fact, there are two refugee populations, and our numbers were somewhat larger than the Palestinians?”

No Historic Arab Land of Palestine Governed by ‘The Palestinians’

The second routinely used UN term that this week’s Gatestone article calls misleading is “Palestine” in the context of an historic land governed by an historic “Palestinian” people,

“While UN documents regularly refer to ‘Palestine’ and ‘the State of Palestine,’ there is, in fact, no state of Palestine.  As David Bukay shows [citation] ‘there has never been a land known as Palestine, governed by Palestinians at any time in history.’  Until recently [citation], there have never been a people nor a culture known as ‘Palestinian’ distinct from ‘Arab.’”

As this media watch has pointed out, citing particularly ‘Eye On The Media’ columns by David Bar-Illan, late editor of the Jerusalem Post, in that publication, “Palestinian” used to refer, in Mandate times, mostly to Palestine’s Jews.  And the name “Palestine” was coined c 135 CE by the Romans, in reference not to Arafat’s ancestors but to the even by-then long-gone Philistines, to disassociate what had been Jewish Judaea from Jews, a rechristening imitated eighteen hundred years later by Jordan in renaming Judea-Samaria “the West Bank.”

“West Bank” Called for Millennia Judea and Samaria

The third of the four UN terms challenged in this week’s Gatestone article is “West Bank.”

“The term ‘West Bank’ is also a misnomer.  In fact, this territory was for millennia called Judea and Samaria.  After the 1948 War of Independence, Transjordan (now known as the Kingdom of Jordan) annexed it, renamed it the ‘West Bank,’ and occupied it for nearly two decades.”

In this media watch, and in my books, I’ve cited numerous post-biblical references to the names “Judea” and “Samaria,” including by the UN itself in the partition resolution of 1947:  “… the hill country of Samaria and Judea.”

The “Occupation that Isn’t

Gatestone article:  “When it comes to Israel, the UN is obsessed with the word ‘occupation’ ….

“… Referring to this territory [‘Judea and Samaria’] as the ‘occupied West Bank’ is an unnecessary concession to the UN narrative.   Saying that Jews are ‘occupying’ Judea is an nonsensical as saying Arabs are ‘occupying’ Arabia or Gauls are ‘occupying’ France.  Nevertheless, many media sources (Washington Post, New York Times) use this term reflexively.  New-media sources often take it a step farther.  Any Google search combining the words ‘occupation’ and ‘Israel’ leads to a ‘People Also Ask’ drop-down offering the following: ‘At the heart of the Israel/Palestine conflict today lies the question of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since the war of 1967, which include the West Bank,  Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem….”

The UN This Week

Is this UN “Palestinian Language” obsession, which really means UN members’ “Palestinian Language” obsession ongoing?  Friday’s Daily Alert wasn’t done.  It carried an extract of an I24News account that the General Assembly had overwhelmingly passed a resolution using exclusively Muslim terminology for the Temple Mount, ignoring “the site’s biblical role in Judaism and Christianity,” with France, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom and 143 other nations voting in favor, and only seven nations – the US, Canada, Israel, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Naura and Palu voting against, with eight abstentions.  The resolution stated that “any actions taken by Israel, the occupying power, to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem are illegal and therefore null and void and have no validity whatsoever….”

US Views “Settlements” as “Illegitimate,” Not “Illegal”

Friday’s Daily Alert still wasn’t done.  It carried a reference to the truly wonderful organization CAMERA garnering an AP correction to an article in which it had referred to “Israel’s West Bank settlement construction, which the U.S. and much of the international community view as illegal and an obstacle to peace.”

This is the AP’s correction following contact from CAMERA:

“JERUSALEM (AP) – In a story Nov. 16 about Israel’s settlement policy, The Associated Press reported erroneously that the United States considers Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank to be illegal.  While the United States opposes settlement construction, it does not take a position on its legality.  Instead, it says that settlements are ‘illegitimate,’ ‘corrosive to the cause of peace’ and ‘raise serious questions about Israel’s ultimate commitment to a peaceful negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.’  Most of the international community views the settlements as illegal.”

CAMERA’s mission, which it fully accomplished in this exchange with the AP, is attainment of accuracy in Middle East reporting in America.  It is a critically important mission, deserving of all Israel supporters’ respect and support.  But it is not my mission, which is not to correct the AP (et ilk) from saying “the US calls Israel’s settlement policy in the West Bank illegal” to saying “the US calls Israel’s settlement policy in the West Bank illegitimate,” but to get us to stop saying “Israel’s settlement policy in the West Bank” to begin with and start saying “Israel’s community construction policy in Judea-Samaria.”

So long as the world continues to distinguish between “Jewish settlements” and “Palestinian towns and villages” in “the Israeli-occupied West Bank,” and between “Jewish settlements” and “Palestinian neighborhoods” in “Israeli-occupied East” Jerusalem, a good day will see the Marshall Islands and a trio of other Pacific Islanders (thank you) still standing alongside Israel, the US and Canada, against 147 other nations, in the UN.

 

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