To: Brith Sholom Media Watch Subscribers
From: Jerry Verlin, Editor (jverlin1234@comcast.net)
Subj: Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #668, 10/20/13
Pop Quiz this week, kids. Question #1, 100 points:
Which occurrence will happen first?
[a] The Messiah comes;
[b] The GOP succeeds in undoing Obamacare;
[c] The mainstream media portrays Israel fairly.
The answer is [a] or [b]. So why am I writing and why are you reading this? Because what matters as much as the Western media getting the Mideast straight is that we in the West who call ourselves “advocates for the Jewish homeland of Israel” shun from our advocacy the very concepts and terms designed specifically to delegitimize that Jewish homeland connection.
Two things about that This Week:
[1] There was a news article This Week In The Inq (more about which below) that beyond using the dirty words proceeded from the perspective that historical Jewish homeland rights end at the 1949 Israel-Jordan ceasefire line (even though that document expressly stated its military “green line” was without prejudice to political claims), and that for every inch beyond the green line that Israel wants to retain it has to offer quid pro quo land swaps with “the Palestinians.” By we ourselves utilizing these very terms – “Jewish settlements in the West Bank for which we’re willing to offer land swaps” – we’re legitimizing our delegitimization. We can do better.
[2] A remarkably clear-seeing advocate named Mike Perloff is just now releasing, as a pdf, a remarkable document that goes beyond just stating the terminology choices. It delves into the historical narratives and legal positions purveyed by those word choices. I hope to have more about this, including how you can get a copy, next week.
A “Palestinians” Parallel???
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But reflect first on this. Those few folks in Washington who on occasion do seem to know what they’re doing have been called, from time immemorial, the “Washington Redskins,” eons longer than Arabs in Palestine have been called “The Palestinians.” Yet, there’s a movement afoot to undo “Washington Redskins.” Intrigued, BSMW wandered around D.C. this week, inquiring into names-written-in-stone name changing.
[a] I turned first, of course, to that daily dispenser of impartial wisdom on everything, the mainstream media. BSMW: “Washington Post, what about this ‘Washington Redskins’ name change?” WP: “Every week the barbarians wearing those jerseys compulsively conduct violent offensives, brazenly charging across neutral zones, attacking and seizing territory of folks merely defending it. We should call those wanton violent aggressors ‘the Washington Militants.’”
[b] I hit the State Department. BSMW: “What should we call these wanton aggressors bent on occupying other folks’ territory?” SD: “’The Washington Settlers.’”
[c] I went to the Treasury Department. BSMW: “What should we call this team that aspires to represent the seat of America’s government in that most prestigious of all the world’s forums, the Super Bowl? What would capture the essence of all that America’s Capital stands for?” TD: “Call them ‘the Washington Deficits.’”
[d] I found my way to the White House. BSMW: “Mr. President, we understand that in your current discussions with the Iranians, you sought their advice, from their vast experience, on what to call those in our very midst who are hell-bent on conducting unprovoked violent aggressive offensives. What did they suggest that we call them?” POTUS: “They said, ‘Call them ‘the Washington Zionists.’”
This Week In The Inq: “W. Bank Settlement Construction is Rising”
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The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an LA Times article, “W. Bank Settlement Construction is Rising” (Inq, Fri, 10/18/13, A12), This Week In the Inq, mentioning “settlers” or “settlements” 11 times in its 8 paragraphs, three times in the context of these “settlements” being Israeli-controlled “West Bank” areas that Israel may seek to retain through offering “land swaps” with “the Palestinians.”
As Lee and I cite under “L – Land Swaps are Kosher Unless an Israeli’s Proposal” in our Pressing Israel: Media Bias Exposed From A-to-Z, the Inq et ilk have manifested an egregiously imbalanced double-standard in greeting “land-swaps” proposed, respectively, by Arabs and Jews. But consider this week the hopelessly uphill fight confronted by Israel advocates electing to argue that the Jewish people has historical homeland equity in “Jewish settlements in the West Bank,” as opposed to in “Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria,” by which these regions were historically known for millennia, not just in biblical times but to the U.N. itself in 1947. Indeed, the very offer to “swap land” within green line Israel for them concedes an absence of historical homeland equity.
A related term bandied around in this Inq LA Times article (paragraph 3, paragraph 5 twice) is “two-state solution.” The article says that the “anti-settlement advocacy group” Peace Now has assessed that “although Israel’s settlement enterprise has destroyed trust with the Palestinians,” so far “it hasn’t destroyed the two-state solution.” What the LA Times and Inq didn’t tell readers is that so far the Palestinian Arabs have never accepted “the two-state solution” in its only meaningful sense that Israel, and the U.S., conceive it – two states for two peoples, Arabs and Jews. (Emphasis added throughout)
? On the very day, September 23, 2011, that Abbas addressed the United Nations, seeking U.N. recognition of a western Palestine Arab state, YNetNews.com quoted Abbas:
“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.
? Caroline Glick’s Jerusalem Post column (Townhall.com, 8/5/11) quoted a senior P.A. negotiator’s statement showing clearly that Palestinian Arabs understand exactly what the U.S. and Israel mean by “two states for two peoples,” and that they expressly reject it. Glick:
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.”
Compare the U.S. position:
? U.S. Special Envoy George Mitchell, who repeatedly met with Israeli and Palestinian Arab leaders, reiterated that American view of “two states.” (A.P., 4/17/09, Inq.):
“U.S. policy favors…a two-state solution, which would have a Palestinian state living in peace alongside the Jewish state of Israel,” Mitchell said.
Excerpts from U.S. State Department “On-The-Record Briefing” by United States Special Envoy Mitchell, Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt September 14, 2010:
All of us reaffirmed our commitment to reaching a shared goal of a just, lasting and secure peace. Our common goal remains two states for two peoples….
We have said many times that our vision is for a two-state solution that includes a Jewish democratic state of Israel.
? “Two states for two peoples” was reiterated by U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N. Susan E. Rice in her address to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations on December 14, 2011:
There is no substitute for direct, face-to-face negotiations. The goal remains a lasting peace: two states for two peoples, Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland of the Palestinian people, each state enjoying self-determination, mutual recognition, and peace. That is the only path to Israel’s decades-long quest for security and the only path to fulfilling the Palestinian people’s legitimate aspirations.
And the Israeli position:
? Israeli P.M. Netanyahu’s statement to the Cabinet meeting on April 20, 2009:
We insist that the Palestinians — in any diplomatic settlement with us – will recognize the State of Israel as the national state of the Jewish people. The entire international community demands that we recognize the principle of two states for two peoples and we are discovering that this is two states but not for two peoples but two states for one people, or two states for a people-and-a-half.
? Excerpts from Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor’s address to the U.N. Security Council, July 26, 2011, (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs):
Our nation seeks a lasting peace in which the Palestinians will have their own state, alongside – but not instead of – the Jewish state of Israel….
Mr. President, on the issue of the Jewish state, we must have clarity as well. For lasting peace to take hold, Israel’s recognition of a future Palestinian state must be met with an equal acknowledgement that Israel is the Jewish state.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has stated openly and repeatedly that we will accept a Palestinian state, alongside a Jewish state. Yet, the Palestinian leadership has not done the same. They will not tell their own people that they accept a Jewish State….
Yet the mainstream media quotes Palestinian Arabs as professing support for “the two-state solution” and chiding Israel for not supporting it:
? Jerusalem Post (1/10/10) quoting “top Palestinian negotiator Saab Erekat”:
“We want a clear recognition of the two-state solution and the 1967 borders,” Erekat said.
? L.A. Times (4/22/09, Inq.), (but see Israel Prime Minister’s Office release, 4/20/09, two days earlier, quoted above):
the newly installed Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not endorsed the two-state goal endorsed by the United States.
? A.P. (4/13/09, Inq.):
Abbas has said there was no reason to negotiate if Netanyahu did not support a “two-state solution.”
? A.P. (2/13/09, Inq.):
Yesterday evening, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas urged Israel’s incoming leaders to press ahead with peace efforts….Israel should “accept the two-state solution–Palestine and Israel living side by side in security and peace,” Abbas said.
If even “Washington Redskins” is not immutable, neither is “The Palestinians,” and all its companion terms which even we ourselves use, all of which were designed to delegitimize the Jewish homeland of Israel.
Regards,
Jerry