Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #701, 6/8/14

To: Brith Sholom Media Watch Subscribers
From: Jerry Verlin, Editor (jverlin1234@verizon.net)
Subj: Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #701, 6/8/14

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: I saw three instances on the internet this week of Christians not accepting the pejorative terminology the Western media misuses to denigrate the Jewish homeland connection to the land of Israel. Perhaps, this will encourage us to shun this loaded lexicon and make clear to the West that the media is purveying the Arab side of a two-sided conflict.

This Week: Three Christian Rejections of Mainstream Media’s Biased Narrative

When CNN’s Christianne Amanpour told an Israeli cabinet minister on the air some months ago that “occupation” is “an international term, Mr. Bennett,” she wasn’t exaggerating. Indeed, even many Jews regard resistance by people like me to terminology like “Jewish settlements in the West Bank” as fruitless fighting of “a battle that was lost a long time ago.” So I was glad to see on the internet this week three Christian sources standing up against the loaded lexicon of Jewish homeland-delegitimizing terminology.

[1] Olive Tree Ministries distributed a video of a musical performance at a city university. You don’t see anything extraordinary when you look at the video. It might have been a video of musical performers shot at any city university anywhere. Only it wasn’t. It was a video of what the world calls “Jewish settler” musical performers shot at Ariel University in Samaria, in what the world calls “the West Bank.” Olive Tree Ministries said:

When media reports mention Israeli “Settlements” in the “West Bank” they conjure up pictures of religious radicals usurping Arab Lands. It is the picture that Arab/Islamic propaganda has sold to the world and the media enables and repeats this regularly.

In truth, Samaria and Judea have been inhabited by the Jewish people for over 3,000 years. Jewish “settlements” are actually fully-functioning cities – homes, schools, businesses, thriving communities. . . .

[2] The Unity Coalition for Israel included in its daily email on Thursday a link to an hour-long presentation that had been given by Dr. Jacques P. Gauthier, a scholar and Canadian lawyer, “whose life’s work has been devoted to a thesis proving the legitimacy of the Jewish claim to Jerusalem under international law.” http://player.vimeo.com/video/16094246. Dr. Gauthier talks about San Remo and the other international documents, but this is no dry academic legalistic dissertation. It’s a moving appeal to the Jews – in a world that calls them “settlers” in the heart of Jerusalem – that, supplementing the case based on the Bible, history and demographics, the Jewish people has a solid legal claim in international treaty law to Jerusalem.

[3] The Jerusalem Post, among other news sources, reported on Thursday, per article lede:

Australia will no longer describe east Jerusalem as “occupied” territory, the country’s attorney-general told the Senate on Thursday, signaling a significant policy shift welcomed in Israel.

“The description of east Jerusalem as “Occupied East Jerusalem” is a term freighted with pejorative implications, which is neither appropriate nor useful,” George Brandis said . . . .

“It should not and will not be the practice of the Australian Government to describe areas of negotiation in such judgmental language,” he said.

The West’s APs and Inqs are not going to stop telling people in the West that that Jews are “settlers” in “the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank” and “East” Jerusalem. What we can do, taking heart from Western Christians who reject this Arab-narrative loaded lexicon, is shun it ourselves and make clear to the West that in insistently purveying it, the Western media is purveying one side’s view of a two-sided conflict. See, for example, passages quoted below from four articles, from three mainstream news sources, this week in the Inq.

This Week In The Inq: 4 Israel Articles Mention “Militants” and “Settlements,” But Not Australians on “Occupation” as a Pejorative

If your sole source of Israel news is our hometown Philly Inquirer (Inq), then you got plenty – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, respectively from the AP, Washington Post, McClatchy and AP again – this week, on “militants” and “settlements,” but not on the Australian government declaring “Occupied East Jerusalem” a pejorative that’s neither appropriate nor useful.

*** The Inq’s Monday AP article (Inq, Mon, 6/2/14, A4, AP, “Israeli: Isolate Palestinian Rule”) led that “Israel’s prime minister on Sunday urged the world to shun the emerging Palestinian unity government due to its ties to the Hamas militant group.” What Bibi actually “urged,” however [see quote midway down in the article] is not that Hamas is a “militant” group, but that “Hamas is a terrorist organization that calls for the destruction of Israel” and that the Arab side’s unity government will “strengthen terrorism.”

The article went on to tie Jewish connection to “the West Bank” and “Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem” to their “capture” by Israel n 1967, without saying from whom and without mention of any pre-1967 Jewish connection to the land.

The Palestinians seek the West Bank and Gaza, along with Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, for their state. Israel captured the three areas in the 1967 Mideast war.

Was it not a little bit relevant to American newspaper readers that the State of Israel is the land’s next native state after Jewish Judaea, that Jerusalem has had a Jewish majority since1800’s Turkish rule, that in 1967 Israel captured “East” Jerusalem and “the West Bank,” that had been granted to the Jews by San Remo, not from Palestinian Arabs, who’d never ruled one inch of it for one day in history, but from Jordan, whose historical connection with it had been 19 years?

*** The Inq’s Washington Post article Tuesday (Inq, Tue, 6/3/14, A4, “PLO, Hamas Share Reins”) referred to “the Islamist militant group Hamas, which the United States and Israel have branded a terrorist organization.” Note here that “terrorist” is the qualified term [“branded” as terrorist], while the media’s term “militant” is stated as fact [“the Islamist militant group”]. Compare the same clause leaving “militant” out: “… the Islamist group Hamas, which the United States and Israel have branded a terrorist organization.”

*** The Inq’s McClatchy Wednesday (Inq, Wed, 6/4/14, A10, “Israelis Fault U.S. on Abbas Cabinet”) doubled down on reporting the “public rift” between Israel and the U.S. over Western dealing with a P.A. with Hamas in it.

*** The AP was back again in the Inq Friday (Inq, Fri, 6/6/14, A4, “Israel Approves New Housing”) on Israel giving the go-ahead for “nearly 1,500 homes in Jewish settlements,” some “900 homes in the West Bank and about 560 in east Jerusalem.”

We do the Jewish homeland case great damage in acquiescing in the media calling Jews living in Judea, Samaria and heart of Jerusalem “Jewish settlers,” and in the media’s re-christening of these parts of the land of Israel as “the West Bank” and “East” Jerusalem. And even calling them “Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.” We need to reject these media terms as creatures of the Jewish-homeland-denying Arab narrative, and make the affirmative case of the Jews’ historical and legal claim to the land. This is not “anti-peace settlement.” Peace is negotiated by sides negotiating serious claims. Nor is Western Jewish challenge to Western media misportrayal of Judea-Samaria Western Jews’ intrusion into the Israeli government’s province. Israel can do whatever it determines to do regarding Judea-Samaria, except call it “West Bank.”

Regards,
Jerry