#806 – 6/12/16 This Week: AP: “… nearly 50 years of Israeli occupation”

 

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: Justified initial reaction to media coverage of this week’s Tel Aviv terror attack focused on the absence of the term “terror” from headlines and news article text.  (Ironically, two days before, my hometown paper, the Philly Inquirer (Inq), had used “terror” in headlining an attack in next-door Jordan.)

 But the main damage done to Israel by the AP this week was its statement as historical fact that Palestinian Arabs have lived under “nearly 50 years of Israeli occupation.”  This, the week that the Democrats are debating whether including the term “occupation” in their platform would “prejudge” negotiations between Israel and Palestinian Arabs.

 And further this week, the AP and Inq both accused Israel of having “seized” the heart of Jerusalem and “West Bank” from Jordan, as though that’s what the 1967 was about, that Jordan had not done the seizing, and that Jewish connection to those parts of the homeland dates from 1967.

 If this breed of Israel news coverage upsets you, credibly confronting the media begins with we ourselves, the Jewish homeland’s supporters and advocates, ceasing our own use of media-used terms designed to delegitimize Jewish homeland connection.  We’re building ways to address that.  Read to the end and sign up to be part.

This Week:  AP: “… nearly 50 years of Israeli occupation”

T-Word Missing From Headlines

Initial reaction on our side to media coverage of Wednesday’s terror attack in Tel Aviv was dismay that “terror” wasn’t mentioned in most headlines and text.  Exception: FoxNews website: “TERROR IN ISRAEL: At least 4 dead, 5 injured in Tel Aviv shooting spree,” and its Greta Van Susteren did a video on what she expressly called a terror attack.

My hometown Philadephia Inquirer (Inq) headlined “Two Palestinian Gunmen Kill 4 at Tel Aviv Market,” sub-headlining “The attack occurred in a popular tourist area. Military headquarters is across the street.”  (Inq, Thursday, 6/9/16, A6).  Ironically, two days before (Inq, Tuesday, 6/7/16, A4), it had headlined an “Around the World” AP squib on an attack on Jordan’s national intelligence agency, killing four guards and a receptionist, as “Jordan: Apparent Terror Attack Kills Five.”

United With Israel criticized the Daily Telegraph for headlining the shooting as “near Israel Defense Ministry” (as did the Inq’s sub-head), stating:  “Let it be absolutely clear.  This latest terrorist attack targeted civilians and not security personnel.”  And compare the Jordanian target in what the Inq headlined Tuesday as an “Apparent Terror Attack.”

Still, given my hometown Inq’s Israeli-victims headlining history, its headline this week that “2 Palestinian Gunmen Kill 4 at Tel Aviv Market,” (“military headquarters” in sub-headline and all), is closer to balanced than not-that-long-ago Inq-headlining would likely have been.

“Occupation” Led Dirty-Words List

What bothered me most was the statement of both sides’ views on the attack’s causation in the AP article the Inq ran on Friday (Inq, Friday, 6/10/16, A6, AP):

     “Netanyahu has repeatedly blamed Palestinian incitement for fueling the violence.  The Palestinians say the fighting stems from frustration over nearly 50 years of Israeli occupation.”

First off, what’s going on there isn’t what Friday’s AP (Deitch, Jerusalem) article in the quote above called “the violence … the fighting,” or in paragraph 2 “a nine-month wave of violence,” or what Thursday’s AP (Federman, Jerusalem) article (lede paragraph 1) called “an eight-month wave of violence.”   What’s going on is what Thursday’s article, in a refreshing paragraph 11 interlude of fact-stating reporting, reported:

Over the last eight months Palestinians have carried out dozens of attacks on civilians and security forces, mostly stabbings, shootings and car ramming assaults that have killed 32 Israelis and two Americans….

Ah, yes, “the violence … the fighting,” but focus on the AP’s own words Friday, quoted above and below, on what “Palestinians say” and from what “the fighting stems”:

“The Palestinians say the fighting stems from frustration over nearly 50 years of Israeli occupation.”

The AP pointedly did not say here, “what Palestinians say  has been Israeli occupation for 50 years,” but “nearly 50 years of Israeli occupation.”

That the Levy Commission Report, among other Israeli statements, has challenged the view, purveyed as unchallenged fact by the AP this week, that Jewish presence in Samaria-Judea is “occupation” should have caused the AP to qualify “occupation” as contested.  But but what makes this particular week different from most other weeks was driven vividly home by an article yesterday, Saturday, 6/11/16, in the Jerusalem Post:  “Democrats Tussle Over Adding ‘Occupation’ to Party Platform”:

     “Much of the back and forth Thursday afternoon, when the committee considered foreign policy, was about whether the committee should describe Israel’s presence in the West Bank as an ‘occupation.’”

Those witnesses called before the Democratic Party’s platform committee this week who, like former Congressman Wexler, said that “to include the word ‘occupation’ would prejudge the outcome of negotiations,” revealed what damage we Jewish homeland supporters do to our own cause by averting our eyes from Western mainstream media purveying of  “occupation” as unchallenged historical fact, not to say by ourselves using that term.

“Seized from Jordan in the 1967 War”

 The AP and Inq weren’t done.  Between them, twice this week they told readers that Israel “seized” the “West Bank” and “east” Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967 war, as though Israel “seizing” places was what the 1967 war was about, as though Jordan had had any right to those places and had not been the seizer of them in the 1948 war, and as though Jewish connection to those places dates from CE 1967 and not continuously from three thousand years before then.

[1]  Inq-crafted photo caption to AP article Monday, 6/6/16, “Israelis Hold Annual March Through a Tense Jerusalem”:

     “Israelis dance at Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’s old city on Sunday during an annual celebration of the 1967 seizure of the eastern half of the city.”  [emphasis added]

[2]  Inq AP article Thursday, cited above, paragraph 12:

    ” Most of the attacks have been in east Jerusalem or the West Bank, territories Israel seized from Jordan in the 1967 war which the Palestinians want for their future state.”  [emphasis added]

How YOU Can Get Involved

 Has this email and those before it made you upset that the media uses terms designed to delegitimize the Jewish homeland of Israel?  Credibly challenging the media’s use of these delegitimizing terms begins with we ourselves purging our own self-disrespecting counter-productive use of them.  An effort’s being made to do this, and you can be in it.

A non-profit corporation has been formed, a website – www.factsonisrael.com – is up, articles in multiple publications have been authored, Powerpoint presentations have been developed and are being presented, various projects are planned, and we want to build a grassroots group of responders, not first to the media, but to pro-Israel users of delegitimizing terms, that such use is self-disrespecting and counter-productive.  For openers, join this team of responders.

When we see a blatant instance of such misuse of terms, and you should keep an eye out for such misuse, we’ll email it to this team with documentation on why the term’s delegitimizing and contact info for responding.

If this makes sense to you, send me an email.

jverlin1234@verizon.net