Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #655, 7/21/13

To: Brith Sholom Media Watch Subscribers
From: Jerry Verlin, Editor (jverlin1234@comcast.net)
Subj: Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #655, 7/21/13

This Week In The Inq: The Ultimate Proof of Our Folly
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Wednesday morning, the Inq ran an AP article that I might have constructed as an exaggerated example of the media combining in one article many of the imbalanced terms it uses against us. At noon on Wednesday, Lee and I presented our media-bias slide show to the Middle East Forum in downtown Philadelphia. During our Powerpoint talk, I pointed to eight imbalanced terms in that morning’s Inq AP article (slide 1 on this week’s A655.pps attached).

Wednesday’s Inq article (Inq, Wed, 7/17/13, A12, AP, Josef Federman, “Israel Assails EU Aid Ban”) was about Israel’s leaders condemning the EU’s new ban on aid to Israeli institutions operating over the green line. As always, a pro-Israel media watch’s concern is not on an Israeli action itself, but whether the media reported it accurately in non-pejorative terms.

[1] “occupied territories”: The article led: “Israeli leaders on Tuesday condemned a European Union ban on funding to Israeli institutions that operate in occupied territories ….” [emphasis added throughout]

Not “occupied territories,” but “disputed territories” (one of Wednesday’s attendees suggested “liberated territories” – two can play at that game) would be objective. As the Levy Commission (see attached A655.pps) has reported, Israel has a very strong 20th century legal claim – including the 1920 San Remo documents and the League of Nations Palestine Mandate calling for “close settlement of Jews on the land” – to Palestine west of the Jordan. And there is the physical Jewish connection to that land going back to Abraham at Hebron. “Occupied territories,” which the AP and Inq used Wednesday, and “Palestinian territories,” which the media also frequently uses, beg and decide that substantial legitimate dispute in favor of the Arabs.

Re the consequence of our not contesting “occupied” and its like, David Bedein has an op-ed this week (see link in attached pps) leading off: “Neither anti-semitism nor anti-Zionism motivate the policy that the EU has just enacted.” Bedein charges that while Palestinian Arabs and Israeli NGOs opposed to Jewish “settlement” beyond the green line lobby the EU incessantly, giving “credence to the EU notion that Israeli Jewish communities beyond the [pre-] 1967 lines constitute no less than a ‘war crime,’” Israel’s government does not counter with as forcefully asserting the Jewish people’s homeland case. I’d push it further. The Western media contributes mightily to giving credence to “illegality” of beyond-the-green-line Jewish homeland presence. We Western Jews who acquiesce in this, and even use some these terms ourselves, do so at our folly.

[2, 3 and 4] “Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem”: Wednesday’s Inq AP article’s lead continued that in addition to condemning the EU’s new funding ban, Israeli leaders “also acknowledged the country’s growing isolation over its construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.”

Well, if we ourselves call them “Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem,” can we blame others for not accepting the legitimacy of them? Would we not make a more legitimate and legitimate-sounding, not to say more self-respecting, case to refer instead to Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and [just-plain] Jerusalem?

[5] “lands captured in the 1967 Mideast war”: Wednesday’s Inq’s AP article’s paragraph 2 didn’t let up: “The EU decision marked a new international show of displeasure with Israeli settlements built on lands captured in the 1967 Mideast war, bolstering the Palestinian claim to these territories ….”

My Hope-of-the-Week is that this “new international show of displeasure with Israeli settlements” will wake up both Israeli and Diaspora Jews, convince us of the foolishness of making our homeland claim in the very terms designed to disparage, dismiss and delegitimize it. One of these very terms is “lands captured in the 1967 Mideast war,” as though these “lands” had had no prior historical Jewish connection. The Jewish connection to the heart of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria didn’t begin with their capture by Israel in the 1967 war, though that’s what the Western media would have Western publics believe.

Indeed, the media’s disdain for these areas’ Jewish connection runs more sneeringly disdainful than that. Witness the Los Angeles Times Saturday morning (Inq, Sat, 7/20/13, A2) This Week In The Inq:

Palestinians still say Kerry’s plan does not go far enough in forcing Israel to accept as a basis of talks the borders that existed before it seized additional territory in the 1967 Middle East war.

Most of the media has abandoned “seized” for the less sneering “captured,” but the L.A. Times is a hold-out. Here are the words of Nasser – who kicked out the U.N., closed the Straits of Tiran, marshaled his massive army at Israel’s boundary, and signed a military pact with Jordan – just before Israel “seized lands” in 1967: “We intend to open a general assault. This will be total war. Our basic aim is the destruction of Israel.”

[6] “the Palestinians”: Wednesday’s Inq AP article quoted Netanyahu that the borders issue “could only be resolved through direct negotiations with the Palestinians.” Let us remember that in 1947 the United Nations referred to the Jews and Arabs of Palestine as “the two Palestinian peoples.” AP in Inq 12/11/11, A4: “[during the Mandate] Muslims, Christians, and Jews living there were ALL referred to as Palestinians.”

Without any fanfare or official announcement, just start calling Palestinian Arabs Palestinian Arabs, and no longer “The Palestinians.” When the Seized Boys see it, we’ll be the objects of their ridicule, but are we not already?

[7] “the pre-1967 borders”: Wednesday’s Inq’s AP article went on that by saying “we will not accept any external edicts about our borders,” Netanyahu was “suggesting that the settlements were aimed at bringing about changes in the pre-1967 borders, but not absorb the entire West Bank.” And the LA Times, as quoted above, laid it on Saturday with Israel’s “borders that existed before it seized additional territory in the 1967 Middle East war.”

Left out, of course, is that the now-Kerry-abandoned U.N. resolution 242, after the 1967 war, pointedly did not call for restoration of the 1949 lines, which the 1949 armistice agreement had pointedly called military ceasefire lines and expressly not borders.

[8] “Israeli settlement construction at the heart of the deadlock”: Towards the end, Wednesday’s Inq’s AP article pontificated:

Negotiations have been stalled for nearly five years, with Israeli settlement construction at the heart of the deadlock.

The AP and Inq are entitled to their opinion, in opinion articles, as to what’s “at the heart of the deadlock” over peace talks’ restart, as I am to mine. In both cases, they’re matters of opinion, not fact. My opinion is that since Netanyahu has throughout those years continuously called for talks with no preconditions [fact], while Abbas has determinedly demanded Israeli concessions as talks’ resumption pre-conditions [fact], it’s the Arab not Jewish side’s position that’s at the heart of the deadlock [opinion]. Add to that the fact that both the U.S. and Israel interpret “the two state solution” as “two states for two peoples,” Arabs and Jews, while:

[a] YNetNews.com, 9/23/11

Abbas: No to Jewish state
On Friday afternoon, Abbas said he was adamant about not recognizing Israel as the Jewish state.
“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.
And [b] Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick (Townhall.com, 8/5/11):

Israel has no one to negotiate with because the Palestinians reject Israel’s right to exist. This much was made clear yet again last month when senior PA “negotiator” Nabil Sha’ath said in an interview with Arabic News Broadcast, “The story of ‘two states for two peoples’ means that there will be a Jewish people over there and a Palestinian people here. We will never accept this.”

This Week on the Israelite-Philistine Border

Well, we have half-a-page left. Those of you who’ve read my first book, Israel 3,000 Years, recall perhaps that in the book’s opening chapters on early Israelite presence I devote much attention to important archeological findings at Elah Fortress, Khirbet Qeiyafa, which dates to late 11th-early 10th century BCE. Much remains murky, but these findings of a massive Israelite two-gate fortress and maybe earliest Hebrew writing on a pottery shard strongly support the existence of a substantial Israelite entity in Judah by the time of King David. This is greatly significant because, despite an Israelite enemy’s “House of David” inscription and Eilat Mazar’s unearthing in Jerusalem’s City of David of what’s likely David’s Jerusalem palace, David’s stature and even historical existence are questioned. It’s critical that media and other predators eager to pounce upon openings to challenge Jewish archeological findings not be gratuitously handed apparent such openings.

Alas, just such self-inflicted vulnerability may be occurring this week. You may have read this week that a “palace of David” has been found at this two-gate Israelite fortress at Elah on the Philistine border. That may be pushing what are indubitably most significant findings too far. I refer you to the statement by David Willner, co-Director of Foundation Stone, an Education Through Archeology organization deeply involved at Elah, on that organization’s home page, linked in this week’s attached pps.

The menace of anti-Israel media bias is its bottom-line message: what we call the land of Israel, except for maybe a lowland coastal strip nine miles wide at critical points and maybe some desert, but including the core of Jerusalem, is the homeland of Arabs not Jews. The response to that menace, beyond that “West Bank … East Jerusalem … etc.” are dirty words, is that Jewish homeland history happened, that the Jews never left the land of Israel or the Mideast. I cite in my book’s preface the importance that Israeli premiers Begin, Sharon and Netanyahu have attached to that fact. I invite you to take a look for yourself. Verlin, Israel 3000 Years: The Jewish People’s 3000 Year Presence in Palestine, www.pavilionpress.com. (also Amazon)

Regards,
Jerry