Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #670, 11/3/13

To: Brith Sholom Media Watch Subscribers
From: Jerry Verlin, Editor (jverlin1234@comcast.net)
Subj: Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #670, 11/3/13

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: Which news purveyor was more balanced this week on Jews residing in over-the-green-line Jerusalem? The Jerusalem Post, which referred to Israel building “residential units beyond the 1949 armistice line,” or the Washington Post in the Inq, with the Arab narrative’s “East Jerusalem Jewish settlers”?

And compare the Inq’s response this week to a U.S. drone killing a Taliban leader to how the Inq had responded over the years to Israel targeting [1] a mass-murder enabler and [2] an open advertiser for female “suicide” bombers because Israel was stopping the male ones.

This Week in the Inq: Arab Narrative of Jews as “East Jerusalem Jewish Settlers”
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The Philadelphia Inquirer (“Inq”) ran a Washington Post article this week (Inq, Thu, 10/31/13, A5, WP, “After Releases, Israel Revives Settlement Plans”) laced with language purveying the Arab narrative labeling Jewish presence in the heart of historic Jerusalem that of “East Jerusalem Jewish settlers.” Reflect on that for a minute. Can you conceive of a deeper delegitimization of the Jewish homeland than labeling Jews, of all peoples, in the heart of historic Jerusalem “East Jerusalem Jewish settlers”?

There were, however, media voices out there this week that called the 1949 Israel-Jordan ceasefire line “the 1949 ceasefire line”; housing for Jews over that line in Jerusalem “residential units,” not “settlements”; Jerusalem “Jerusalem,” not “East Jerusalem”; and Judea and Samaria “Judea and Samaria,” not “the West Bank.” OK, these media voices were in Israel, but ask yourself which news source this week was more objective, the Jerusalem Post that called Israeli building plans for 1,500 residential units beyond the 1949 armistice line “building plans for 1,500 residential units beyond the 1949 armistice line,” or the Washington Post in the Inq that called Jews in the heart of historic Jerusalem “East Jerusalem Jewish settlers”?

Thursday’s Inq’s Washington Post article about Israel’s new over-the-green-line Jerusalem construction plans stated –

About 550,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem

and

About 193,000 Jews live in a dozen East Jerusalem settlements

The Inq headlined this Jews-in-Jerusalem article “… Israel Revives Settlement Plans.”

That same day this week, Thursday, the Jerusalem Post ran an editorial on those new Israeli Jerusalem housing plans. The JPost non-pejoratively, matter-of-factly, historically-accurately called them

… building plans for 1,500 residential units beyond the 1949 armistice line.

And it called Judea and Samaria “Judea and Samaria.” As did Arutz Sheva on this same day. In an article titled “EU’s Ashton Slams Israeli Construction in Jerusalem,” Arutz Sheva pointed out

*** that “Arabs and anti-Zionist media call all areas reunited with Jerusalem in 1967 ‘eastern Jerusalem,’”

*** that the area in which Israel just announced new building plans is in “Jerusalem’s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, which in fact is northern Jerusalem, between Ramot with 60,000 Jewish residents and the Har Hotzvim Industrial Park,”

*** that “it was empty hills before the reunification of the city in 1967,”

*** and that “Ms Ashton would do well to look at a map of the city.”

If that last bit sounds a bit irreverent, Ms Ashton began it by condemning what she called “the publicly stated intention of the Israeli government to continue settlement activity in east Jerusalem.” That’s not exactly how the Israeli government publicly stated what it intended. Arutz Sheva: “Israel … regards Jerusalem as anything but a ‘settlement.’”

The Inq’s Washington Post article acknowledged that what Palestinian Arabs call “occupied territory” Israel sees as “neighborhoods that are part of the city,” but the Washington Post nonetheless laced its article with “East Jerusalem … Jewish settlers … West Bank and East Jerusalem … the settlements … East Jerusalem … East Jerusalem settlements.” And, not to be left out in the cold, the Inq headlined this as Israel’s “Settlement Plans.”

The slur “settlements” – in contrast to what the Jerusalem Post non-pejoratively called “residential units” – is Jerusalem-rights question-begging and pejorative. And so are “West Bank” and “East Jerusalem,” in contrast to what these areas have been called throughout history, including by the U.N. in 1947 – Judea, Samaria and just Jerusalem.

And so this week saw Arutz Sheva and the Jerusalem Post using non-loaded terms – residential units, Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, and “1949 ceasefire line” (when was the last time you saw that – and not “the 1967 lines,” even “the 1967 borders” – in the Inq?) – and the Inq and the Washington Post propagating the Arab narrative – “Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem . . . Jews live in a dozen East Jerusalem settlements …. Israel Revives Settlement Plans.”

This Week Not In The Inq: “U.S. Defends Assassination”
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Saturday’s Inq’s front page headlined “U.S. Drones Kill Taliban Leader.” Its AP article led:

A U.S. drone strike killed Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Talban, in a major blow to the group that came after the government said it had started peace talks with the insurgents ….

We don’t have to speculate how the America’s Inqs would have handled this had it been Israel taking out a leader of a mortal foe who preyed on Israeli civilians. We have at least two actual instances dripping with the ridicule and contempt the Inq heaped upon Israel.

[1] Back in 2001, Israel took out in a pinpoint strike an Hamas leader targeted for involvement in “a series of suicide attacks [the Sbarro Pizza and Dolphin Disco atrocities among them] in which dozens of Israelis were killed and hundreds injured.” The Inq ran a 4-column headline “Israel Defends Assassination” above a Knight-Ridder “news” article that led: “An unrepentant Israel yesterday defended the assassination of the radical Hamas movement’s military leader ….”

[2] In January 2004, the Inq ran an AP article that midway down mentioned matter-of-factly:

Also yesterday, the founder of Hamas said the Islamic group would increasingly recruit female suicide bombers. Last week, Hamas sent its first female assailant, a 22-year-old woman who blew herself up at the Gaza-Israel crossing and killed four Israeli border guards. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin said in Gaza that there had not before been a need for women to carry out bombings. Now, he said, women must step up to fulfill their obligations. He suggested that male bombers were increasingly being held back by Israeli security measures.

Two months later, when Israel in a pinpoint attack took this female mass-murder bomber seeker out, the Inq went nuts. It ran an Auth cartoon of Israel ‘strangling the peace dove” and a banner headline across the top of its op-ed page: “Did Peace Die Along With Sheikh Yassin?” [BSMW that week asked (rhetorically): “Did Medical Ethics Die With Mengele?”]

Grassroots Input Solicited for Next Edition of Mike Perloff’s Terminology Guide
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Quite a number of BSMW readers responded to the offer we made in last week’s #669:

Tireless Israel advocate Mike Perloff sent out an email last week, attaching his superlative 88-page Terminology Guide for “Avoiding Damaging Words in the Battle of Narratives” in the Arab-Israeli conflict, subtitled “A Guide for Making Intelligent Choices.” Yes, it is. If you’d like a pdf copy, email me.

That offer stands.

Those of you who took us up on that offer may have been impressed to see that tireless Mike’s document is labeled “8th Edition.” Mike’s now at work on version 9. He’s asked me to ask those of you who’ve asked for a copy to contribute through email to me any comments you have, especially suggestions for new terms to include in version 9. Thanks.

“Big Jump in Inquirer Paid Online Circulation”
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The Inq ran a staff writer article Friday to the effect that its paid online circulation has gone up in the past year by more than its print circulation has gone down. By me, this shows two things: [1] Their website wasn’t built by the Obamacare guys, and [2] This shift is a positive development from our perspective.

Certainly, we’d like to see the Inq call Jews in Jerusalem “Jews in Jerusalem,” not “East Jerusalem Jewish settlers,” etc, but we’re not holding our breath. And certainly we’d like to see the printed Inq cease having Philadelphia’s daily hardcopy newspaper field to itself, but we’re realists on that as well. But, from the standpoint of readers accessing multiple news sources, getting multiple news story perspectives, the thing that’s most unwholesomely lacking today, this Inq shift from hardcopy to internet is a good thing. Readers who are already online are a click away from other news sources on the same international stories, where both the terminology and perspective will be more diverse. Witness the terminology and perspectives this week in the (free) online Jerusalem Post and Arutz Sheva sites on Jews in Jerusalem that weren’t this week in the Inq.

Regards,
Jerry