Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #634, 2/24/13

To: Brith Sholom Media Watch Subscribers
From: Jerry Verlin, Editor (jverlin1234@comcast.net)
Subj: Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #634, 2/24/13

This Week in The Inbox: Other Views on Words We Jews Use
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I often begin this weekly media watch “This Week In The Inq:,” but what I try to convey is that anti-Israel media bias isn’t a succession of randomly occurring inaccuracies and imbalances on the particulars of individual stories, but the media persistently portraying the Arab-Israeli conflict using terms that are unfairly imbalanced against Israel and us.

There’ve been three of these “persistent portrayals” that BSMW has jousted against, and tried to entice you Gentle Readers into jousting against. The first two show, I believe, that grassroots Jews can have an effect. The third instance, going on now, elicited, among other emails to me this week, two from a BSMW reader whose take is somewhat different from mine. Perhaps, you’ll find this exchange in this week’s BSMW, not on the reporting of a news story’s particulars in a given news article, but on basic strategy in confronting anti-Israel media bias, of interest. Chime in, if you like.

#1: “Millions of Palestinian Refugees and Their Descendants”

BSMW’s first campaign, which included a fair number of open letters and emails to Inquirer editors, in the early days of this millennium, was against the mainstream media’s mindless, or worse, repetitions in the Inq et ilk of “millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants from Israel’s creation.” A year before national media watchers gained similar corrections from, inter alia, the New York Times and Washington Post, the Philly Inquirer’s foreign editor honorably sent me a staff memo he’d commissioned that stated: “Mr. Verlin is right in saying that there are not millions of refugees from the 1948 war.”

#2: “Palestinian Refugees From The-War-That-Followed-Israel’s-Creation”

Our second campaign, in anticipation, so to speak, of Inq coverage of Israel’s upcoming 60th independence anniversary in 2008, included a 60-page dossier of Inq reporting citations accompanied by 150+ readers’ letters calling on then-Inq publisher Tierney:

[1] Stop calling Arab rejection of Palestine’s partition between its Arab and Jewish populations “the creation and founding of Israel,” as if artificial and out-of-the-blue;

[2] Stop calling the multi-nation Arab invasion for Israel’s destruction “the war that followed Israel’s creation,” without those invading Arab states even named;

[3] Stop calling seemingly-exclusively Arab refugees of the war started by that Arab invasion “Palestinian refugees from the war that followed Israel’s creation”; and

[4] Start mentioning equally prominently that a greater number of indigenously Middle Eastern Jews fled vast Muslim lands, mostly to Israel, where they were absorbed, than Arabs fled tiny Israel. Herb Denenberg, of blessed memory, gave our campaign full page coverage in his column in the Philadelphia Bulletin, of blessed memory.

From Lee Bender’s and my new book, Pressing Israel: Media Bias Exposed from A-to-Z:

The Inquirer did not favor these callers for coverage change with a direct reply. But its May 8, 2008, front-page article on Israel’s commemoration of its independence, authored by its former Jerusalem bureau chief, Michael Matza, referred to the ‘United Nations partition vote,’ and referenced 1948 as when ‘Israel gained its independence from the British,’ and as ‘when the armies of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Iraq invaded the land Israel claimed as its home.’ It wasn’t until that article’s very tail-end last sentence that Mr. Matza signed off with a signature ‘the creation of Israel and war that followed.’

#3: The On-going Terminology War

Our current campaign, directed as much at ourselves as at the media’s reporters, editors and commentators, is against the media’s Arab-Israeli conflict lexicon that’s loaded against the Jewish homeland of Israel. For instance, last week’s #633 quoted the Inq’s house foreign affairs columnist, Trudy Rubin, persistently using “1967 borders … Arab East Jerusalem … West Bank settlements” etc. I suggested we take a lesson from her that thoughtfully choosing the Mideast terms that we use is important. [I emailed #633 to the Inq’s Trudy Rubin with this: “Ms. Rubin, Our media watch this week criticized your Arab-Israeli conflict word choices as imbalanced against Israel.  If you feel I did you injustice and care to reply, we’ll run it next week. Jerry Verlin”]

Israel Hayom on Friday (2/22/13) this week carried a newsletter, “Don’t Call It a Settlement, It’s a Community,” on a gathering of “residents from all over Judea and Samaria” [as opposed to “settlers from all over the West Bank”] on “dealing with a hostile international press.” One of the speakers

emphasized the importance of choosing the proper terminology with which to communicate the message. Instead of using the term ‘settlement,’ it is preferable to opt for ‘community’ when talking about a residential area. ‘Security fence’ is a better term than ‘wall’ in describing the obstacle that runs along the perimeter of the town.

‘Words create images, Mira said. ‘It’s preferable that the images be as positive as possible.’

Dave

Now, then, Dave. What seems to be, because it is, a half-century ago, Dave and I started law school together, and until early this month I had not seen him since. He’s a member of a New Jersey congregation to which Lee and I presented our Powerpoint talk this month on our book. We shared a nice brunch. This week, Dave sent me two thoughtful eloquent emails, the first on last week’s #633 and the second on my reply to his first.

(Dave’s at least third in line in questioning my emphasis on place names as important. A Jewish Exponent reader wrote in response to its interview article on Lee and me that our heart is in the right place, but our insistence that we use “Judea and Samaria” and not “West Bank” diverts attention from the true issue of whether, whatever it’s called, Jews are there as “occupiers” or as of right. At another men’s club brunch a couple weeks later, a member said the same thing: “occupation,” not “West Bank,” is the term to be countered. Of course, Lee and I see “occupation” and “West Bank” as inseparable.)

So take a look, if you will, at Dave’s emails and my comments on them below, from the standpoint of the significance of our own use of these terms.

Here’s Dave’s first email, in which he also addresses my inclusion among the conscious users of delegitimizing terms in #633 of “’liberal’ Jews riding the terminology tiger ‘to push ‘the peace process’ along.’”

Jerry, 

Plenty of Jews are liberal in some issues, conservative in others and moderate in some, too, and still fully devoted to Israel. It is not good to use “liberal” as a pejorative. It’s not a matter of ideology across the board. The practical question is what impact does it have and what is to be done, even while accepting one terminology or another. The Israelis use various terms, but at no time do they think that the words are the issue. It would be good if you were to tie the words to plans of action. What do these words cause to happen or permit to happen, and what would other words cause or permit? The history is prelude to the future, but does not determine it. Action and strength will determine the fate of the nation and the people.

By the way, I agree that “1967 borders” is a non-starter for discussions. There is no such line, certainly not going forward.

All best, Dave

And here’s Dave’s second:

Jerry,

I get that the right to be there is the main thrust of the verbiage discussion. The main issue, though, is what actions are possible to ensure the Jewish presence in Israel in perpetuity. The Israelis will not move out of anywhere without a beneficial deal, even if the land were called Nebraska. Also, calling the land Jordan, Palestine, Jewish State, Israel, Zionist Entity, or whatever will not make any difference to the radical Arabs who will try to kill all Jews and throw Israel out by force. They will not be appeased by words, nor further inflamed by words. The only realistic state of peace is when they are not shooting right now. Best is for Israel to remain militarily and technologically superior, and, regardless of promises from others, stay alert for what may come their way. No sleeping and no complacency. Right without might gets you bupkes.

We are used to being on the s— list throughout history. We are still here. 

The sad thing is that the neighbor states could benefit enormously from peaceful relations with Israel. Israel has so much to offer and to share which would raise their standards of living and comfort. It just isn’t logical to refuse relations with Israel. Hate is by its nature illogical and internally corrosive. They prefer to suffer and fight Israel, rather than make peace, or at least detente, in order to build their own nations.

Middle East logic is THE classic oxymoron.

All best,
Dave

[a] First of all, “liberals.” Dave’s right: “It is not good to use ‘liberal’ as a pejorative.” I don’t plead guilty to doing it. A real liberal could say, e.g., “the Jewish people has a substantial historical claim to Judea and Samaria, but it should withdraw from it for peace with Palestinian Arabs.” The people I criticized are those who, while calling themselves “liberals,” say, e.g., “we too oppose the occupation of the West Bank and the establishment and entrenchment of settlements there” [J Street, separate letter opposing BDS confab at Penn, January 2012]. In describing such people as “riding the terminology tiger ‘to push ‘the peace process’ along,’” I called them quote liberals unquote. BTW, I don’t give conservatives a terminology pass. Israel’s elected government has the right, in a peace deal, to withdraw from Judea & Samaria. It doesn’t have the right to call it “West Bank.”

[b] Alas, Dave’s also right that “The Israelis use various terms, but at no time do they think that the words are the issue.” But see Israel Hayom article again, Friday:

“There’s a certain contradiction in the fact that almost all Israeli governments either supported or encouraged the establishment of the settlements and the fact they have not really provided us with public relations assistance,” said Yisrael Meidad, a resident of Shiloh, a moshav in the West Bank [sic]

…. According to Meidad, the problem is also reflected in the terminology that has become second-nature in the Israeli lexicon. “What would happen if a few ministers began to make statements in the media regarding ‘Arab settlements’ in Israel, and not just Jewish settlement?” he wonders….”

One more quick quote from Lee’s and my book on media bias “From A-to-Z”:

S
“Settlements” if Jewish, “Neighborhoods, Villages” if Arab

“Settlements” is a dirty word, connoting intrusion into a place of people who have no roots there. The Inquirer, for one, instantly retracted it when it applied it to Arabs. Inquirer (3/16/02, A4):

Clearing the Record: In an Inquirer article Thursday, (3/14/02) on President Bush’s news conference, the words ‘Palestinian settlements’ were used in reference to attacks by the Israeli military in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The attacks were directed at Palestinian towns and refugee camps.

Actually, Israel’s “attacks” were directed “at” terrorists in those “Palestinian towns and Arab “refugee camps” from the 1948 war….

[c] Dave’s [hopefully] also right that “the Israelis will not move out of anywhere without a beneficial deal, even if the land were called Nebraska,” and that those Arabs “who will try to kill all Jews and throw Israel out by force … will not be appeased by words, nor further inflamed by words.” But as Dave says, “the main issue, though, is what actions are possible to ensure the Jewish presence in Israel in perpetuity.” Such actions begin, by me, with all of us Jews using terms – e.g., “Judea and Samaria,” which everyone, including the U.N., used through 1950 – that exude continuous Jewish connection, and not “West Bank” or “Nebraska,” which exude the reverse. Beyond self-respect, our purpose in we ourselves not using self-delegitimizing speech, is neither to “appease” nor “inflame” Arabs, but to make the case to the West, including its turned-off-to-Israel young Jews, of the deep historic roots of the Jewish homeland of Israel.

[d] And, finally, Dave’s finally right that “Middle East logic is THE classic oxymoron” [emphasis original]. The way I heard it was this: A scorpion asked a camel who was about to swim across the Suez Canal, “Can I hitch a ride?” The camel demurred, saying the scorpion would sting him halfway across, and he’d drown. “But then we’d both drown,” the scorpion [a liberal] responded with Western logic. Halfway across, the scorpion stings the camel and both start to drown. “Why did you do this!? We’re both going to drown!” “I don’t know. This is the Middle East.” (The saddest part is I heard this A Long Time Ago, before Dave and I started law school. Nothing’s changed.)

Regards,
Jerry