Even This Paper Perpetuates Anti-Israel Media Bias

The Jerusalem Post inadvertently provides support for the demonization of Israel by using language that plays into the hands of the anti-Zionists. It is in the small details that history is either confirmed or made. In the case of Israel, there are continual efforts to rewrite history and besmirch, not only the reputation of this small land, but also its very legitimacy, as if of all the nations in the world, only Israel needs to justify its very right to exist. For this reason, our newspapers have to be especially careful not to use terms consistent with anti-Israel media bias.

Most impactful are the little things – those comments or choice of words that niggle their way into peoples’ consciousness far more insidiously than bombastic statements that invite open debate.

“The Evil Spirits of the Modern Day Press”. Puck US magazine 1888; Nasty little printer’s devils spew forth from the Hoe press in this Puck cartoon of Nov. 21, 1888. By Sydney B. Griffin (1854-1923) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Here is just one recent example: In an article on the complex negotiations underway for renewal of the US-Israel Memorandum of Understanding, the following statement was made, intending to provide context –

Any UN Security Council resolution would be non-binding, following on or possibly replacing Resolution 242, which set the standards for a peace agreement after Israel’s seizure of land in the 1967 Six Day War.

The word, seizure, is the problem here.

It would have been simple to use more accurate terminology, such as:

. . . which set the standards for a peace agreement after Israel regained control during the 1967 Six Day War to land illegally occupied by Jordan, Egypt and Syria since 1948.

because, in fact, Israel did not seize land in the 6-Day War. That would imply that it conquered land that was not hers to conquer. The truth is that Israel regained land that had been part of the intended Jewish state before Britain capitulated to the Arabs and offered a second Arab state after Jordan had already become the first Palestinian state. Because of Arab inability to countenance the presence of Jewish sovereignty anywhere, they refused this offer for a second Palestinian country and opened the 1948 offensive against the newly recognized modern State of Israel with the intention of eliminating it.

The funny thing is, I have a feeling that many people would have quickly picked up on the phrase I am suggesting, and the talk-backs may have raged on and on about how “biased” reporting twists things around and promotes the evils of the Zionist colonial project.

It is sad that probably not very many people even noticed the use of the word, seized, for the simple reason that we have become inured to such loaded language where anti-Israel media bias is the norm. How could it be otherwise when even a pro-Zionist news outlet lets such things pass!