Nazareth — Talks between Barack Obama and the Israeli and
Palestinian leaderships over the past fortnight have unleashed a flood of media
interest in the settlements Israel has been constructing on Palestinian
territory for more than four decades.
The US president’s message is unambiguous: the continuing growth
of the settlements makes impossible the establishment of a Palestinian state,
and therefore peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
It is one he is expected to repeat when he addresses the Muslim
world from Cairo tomorrow.
The implication of Mr. Obama’s policy is that, once Israel has
frozen the settlements, it will have to begin dismantling a significant number
of them to restore territory needed for a Palestinian state.
Understandably, in an era of rolling news many media outlets have
been scrambling for instant copy on the settlers, relying chiefly on the
international news agencies, such as Reuters, the Associated Press (AP) and
Agence France-Presse (AFP).
These organizations with staff based in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
churn out a stream of reports picked up by newspapers and broadcasters around
the globe.
So, given their influence on world opinion and the vital
importance of the settlement issue in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, can readers depend on the news agencies to provide fair coverage? The
answer, sadly, is: no.
Even on the most basic fact about the settlers – the number
living on occupied Palestinian territory – the agencies regularly get it wrong.
There are about half a million Jews living illegally on land
occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. Give or take the odd few thousand (Israel is
slow to update its figures), there are nearly 300,000 settlers in the West Bank
and a further 200,000 in East Jerusalem.
Sounds simple. So what is to be made of this fairly typical line
from a report issued by AFP last week: “More than 280,000 settlers currently
live in settlements dotted throughout the Palestinian territory that Israel
captured during the 1967 Six Day War”?
Or this from AP: “The US considers the settlements – home to
nearly 300,000 Israelis – obstacles to peace because they are built on captured
territory the Palestinians claim for a future state”?
Where are the missing 200,000 settlers?
The answer is that they are to be found in East Jerusalem, which
increasingly means for agency reporters that they are not considered settlers at
all.
In many reports, East Jerusalem’s settler population is left out
of the equation. But even when the news agencies do note the number of settlers
there, they are invariably referenced separately from those in the West Bank or
described simply as “Jews”.
Worse, this misleading approach has had a trickle-down effect.
Major newspapers’ own staff makes the same basic errors.
Thus, The New York Times blithely reported last week that the US
secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, had made a “brusque call on Wednesday for a
complete freeze of construction in settlements on the West Bank”.
In reality, she had said that the US president wanted “to see a
stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth
exceptions.” The implication was that the White House wants a freeze on all
settlements, including in East Jerusalem.
This is not linguistic nitpicking.
Israel’s attempt to differentiate between the status of the West
Bank and that of East Jerusalem, even though these adjacent territories are
equally Palestinian and were both captured by Israel in 1967, lies at the heart
of the conflict and its resolution.
Israel’s official position, accepted by its politicians of the
left and right, is that in 1967 Israel “unified” Jerusalem by annexing its
eastern, Palestinian half, and made the city the “eternal capital of the Jewish
state”.
The 250,000 Palestinians of East Jerusalem – given a status of
“permanent residents” rather than Israeli citizens – are not regarded by
Israelis as living under occupation.
Further, after 1967, Israel redrew the municipal boundaries of
Jerusalem to incorporate a huge swathe of the West Bank stretching almost down
to the Jordan river. Annexation became a way not only to grab East Jerusalem but
also to build settlements on a much larger area of land to sabotage Palestinian
hopes of statehood.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, declared recently of
East Jerusalem that it “is not a settlement and we’ll continue to build there”.
That view was shared by Ehud Olmert, who ordered thousands of
homes for Jews to be built in the Palestinian part of the city in his final
months in office, despite commitments he made for a settlement freeze at the
Annapolis peace conference in late 2007.
Most of the Israeli media can be depended on to toe the
government line on East Jerusalem. But why are many foreign journalists doing
the same? Some doubtless are ignorant, others lazy.
But agency reporters and their editors, who are well versed in
the intricacies of the conflict, are neither. Invariably, however, those making
the final editorial decisions – as opposed to their Palestinian stringers who
supply raw copy – are too close to Israel to remain entirely dispassionate.
Some are Israeli citizens, or married to one. But, even among
those who are not, the overwhelming majority of senior editorial staff live
inside Israel, and soak up the Israeli coverage, either in Hebrew or English.
They also eat in Israeli restaurants and go to Israeli parties, making them
susceptible to adopting the consensual Israeli perspective.
All too easily, agency journalists end up mirroring – and adding
a veneer of legitimacy to – Israel’s opinion about East Jerusalem.
Senior agency staff have admitted to this blind spot in their
coverage. “We think of the East Jerusalem settlers as a separate category,” said
one, who requested anonymity. Why? “Because that’s Israel’s view of them.”
Questioned further, he agreed that they should probably be
included in the figures for settlers. “It’s something we’re discussing,” he
added.
There is no time to lose. Without care, other deceptions Israel
is keen to foist on the US administration could also end up becoming ingrained
in agency copy.
Israel wants a distinction made between the so-called outposts,
which are home to a few thousand settlers, and the 120 established settlements;
and between the smaller settlements west of Israel’s separation wall and the
bulk on “Israel’s side” but still in Palestinian territory.
It is the duty of reporters to remind their readers of the
internationally accepted understandings about the settlements. They should not
forget that international law, and possibly now the White House’s vision of
peace, requires the removal of 200,000 settlers in East Jerusalem too.
A shorter version of this article first appeared in The National,
Abu Dhabi.
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