Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #731, 1/4/15

To: Brith Sholom Media Watch Subcribers
From: Jerry Verlin, Editor (jverlin1234@verizon.net)
Subj: Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #731, 1/4/15

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: By a single abstention, the U.N. Security Council this week failed to adopt a resolution [all right, subject to a likely U.S. veto]that would have demanded Israeli withdrawal back to the perilous 1949 ceasefire lines, sans the heart of Jerusalem. The media watch aspect is the loaded-lexicon in which that resolution was framed, offering the mainstream Western media cover in covering that U.N. resolution in identical terms. But even then, an MSM report in the Inq mischaracterized the U,N. as using a term even worse.

A blogger this week cut to the crux of our own loaded-lexicon use. Is it not “absolutely incomprehensible” that all of us, from Israel’s leaders on down, call Palestine’s Arabs “the Palestinians”? Think about whether what eventually inevitably follows from that includes this week’s by-one-vote-failed U.N. resolution.

This Week In The Inq: Media Pushed Loaded-Language UN Resolution One Step Further

Thanks partly to a fellah named Goodluck Jonathan, the amended Arab resolution calling for negotiations leading to “a sovereign, contiguous and viable State of Palestine” [paragraph 1] failed passing the U.N. Security Council this week by one vote.

The media watch aspect is the language, echoed and then some by mainstream media, in which that resolution was framed. It called, inter alia, for

*** “borders based on 4 June 1967 lines with mutually agreed, limited, and equivalent land swaps” [par. 2];

*** “full and phased withdrawal of the Israeli occupying forces, which will end the occupation that began in 1967” and their replacement with “security arrangements, including through a third-party presence” [par. 2];

*** “a just and agreed solution to the Palestine refugee question ….” [par. 2]

*** “a just resolution to the status of Jerusalem as the capital of the two States ….” [par. 2]; and

*** a Security Council “demand” for immediate “complete cessation of all Israeli settlement activities in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem” [pars. 10 and 10b];

Last-minute updates to the resolution’s preamble included

*** appending to “Reaffirming the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination” the clause “and to independence in their State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital,” and

*** a reference to the International Court’s “advisory opinion “ on “the legal consequences of the construction [by Israel] of a wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

My hometown Philly Inquirer (Inq) ran two mainstream media articles on this close call (which would almost certainly have been met with a U.S. veto), a Washington Post article Wednesday (“Palestinian-backed Measure Fails at U.N.”, Inq, Wed., 12/31/14, A10), and an AP piece Thursday (Inq, Thu, 1/1/15, A1, 9) that led with Abbas turning next to the International Court.

In most respects, these two articles echoed the U.N. resolution’s language, giving the MSM cover in using it. E.g., Wednesday’s WP article reported that the resolution called for “an end to Israeli occupation,” that “it declared that East Jerusalem would be the capital of a Palestinian state,” and that “it also demanded an end to Israeli settlement building.” Thursday’s AP article cited the resolution as “setting a three-year deadline for establishment of a Palestinian state on lands occupied by Israel,” and, in the International Court context, referenced “settlement construction on occupied lands.” Charmingly, the AP characterized this summer’s war as “between Israel and Palestinian extremists in Gaza,” Inq-speak for “Gaza’s government.”

Pro-Israel media watchers have a bone to pick with this mainstream media reporting this week in the Inq, and let’s quickly address that before turning to the crux of what this week’s UN activity and its coverage reveals of our media problem.

Wednesday’s Washington Post article twice mischaracterized the UN resolution. In lead paragraph 1 the WP wrote that the resolution called “for Israel to withdraw to its 1967 borders.” In paragraph 4 it wrote that the resolution “said a final deal should be based on borders that existed before the 1967 war.” What the resolution’s paragraph 2 actually said was “borders based on 4 June 1967 lines ….” This media watch is hardly alone in having cited the substantial substantive difference between ceasefire lines, which the 1949 Israel-Jordan armistice lines (“the green line”) expressly were, and internationally recognized political borders. Having been expressly declared in their defining document as dictated by military considerations exclusively, without prejudice to either side’s claims of political borders, the 1949 Israel-Jordan ceasefire lines are no holier (are indeed less holy) than their successor 1967 Israel-Jordan ceasefire lines.

So the media’s language this week was even more loaded against Israel than the UN’s (and that’s saying something). But it’s not saying what really and truly needs to be said. Here’s those UN resolution and preamble excerpts again, with emphasis added, and ask yourself have Israel and its supporters done a good enough job in contesting these loaded terms that failed this week to muster a 9-out-of-15 U.N. Security Council adoption by one single vote:

*** “borders based on 4 June 1967 lines with mutually agreed, limited, and equivalent land swaps” [par. 2];

*** “full and phased withdrawal of the Israeli occupying forces, which will end the occupation that began in 1967” and their replacement with “security arrangements, including through a third-party presence” [par. 2];

*** “a just and agreed solution to the Palestine refugee question ….” [par. 2]

*** “a just resolution to the status of Jerusalem as the capital of the two States ….” [par. 2]; and

*** a Security Council “demand” for immediate “complete cessation of all Israeli settlement activities in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem” [pars. 10 and 10b];

*** last-minute appending to preamble “Reaffirming the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination” the clause “and to independence in their State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital,” and

*** a reference to the International Court’s “advisory opinion “ on “the legal consequences of the construction [by Israel] of a wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

“4 June 1967 lines” is certainly better than “4 June 1967 borders,” but they weren’t lines that were drawn on “4 June 1967,” but back in 1949. They need to be seen as 1949 ceasefire lines between two sides whose renewed fighting in 1967 resulted in successor ceasefire lines.

“Occupying … occupation … occupied … occupied” doesn’t make it so, unless Israel acquiesces in it being so. The Levy Commission Report, challenging this classification, still languishes for adoption by even Israel’s Likud-led government. The adoption campaign led by in-Israel advocates Jeff Daube and Arlene Kushner seems ever-increasingly critical.

In officially recognizing the significance of the Israel-absorbed Jewish refugees from Muslim lands, Israel did take a significant step in 2014 to contest the concept of what this UN resolution called “the Palestine refugee question.” In a “just resolution” (to borrow a phrase from this UN resolution) of the Arab-Israeli conflict’s refugee issue, Jewish as well as Arab refugees count.

Israel and its supporters (including the Reform movement’s Rabbi Yoffie when he was its leader) do strongly contest the characterization of Jewish communities over the old 1949 ceasefire lines in Jerusalem as “settlements,” but even dyed-in-the-wool Zionists refer to “Jewish settlements in the West Bank,” if not “Occupied West Bank.” What sense is there in this?

BSMW, the mission of which is to us, not to the media, has long pleaded that we should ditch the increasingly-universally-used loaded lexicon, in toto, completely, altogether. There was a Times of Israel blog posted Friday (1/2/15) by a Sheri Oz, “Will the Real Palestinian Please Stand Up!” The link is http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/will-the-real-palestinian-please-stand-up. It’s a history-based plea for all of us, from Israel’s leaders on down, to stop calling Palestinian Arabs “the Palestinians.” Go read this and ask yourself, in light of this week’s by-one-vote-failed UN Security Council resolution to drive the Jewish homeland back to the perilous 1949 ceasefire lines, sans the heart of Jerusalem, is this blogger being too extreme? I think not. Even the UN, 1947, called Palestine’s Jews and Arabs “the two Palestinian peoples.”

Regards,
Jerry