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September 24, 2019
Media Confounds, Calling Israel's Voting Arab Citizens 'Palestinian'
The impressive turnout on the part of Arab citizens of Israel in last week's elections -- making the Joint List of Arab parties the country's third largest party and placing it in position to lead the opposition -- garnered significant media coverage. Some media outlets, unfortunately, provided confusing coverage by insisting on referring to Israel's Arab voting population as "Palestinians," despite the fact that they are Israeli citizens, they do not reside in Palestinian controlled areas, and the overwhelming majority of them do not identify as Palestinian.
Particularly in the context of Arab citizens exercising their right to vote in Israeli elections, the "Palestinian" label is unjustified and misleading.
In The New York Times, for example, bureau chief David Halbfinger confounded:
Mr. [Ayman] Odeh’s ads practically beg Palestinian citizens to vote on Tuesday, saying that one million citizens, if they all voted, would translate into 28 seats in the Knesset. . . .
Indeed, such misleading nomenclature for Arab citizens of Israel confuses them with Palestinians -- Arabs who live in Palestinian-controlled territories and who do not hold Israeli citizenship. For example, in the same article, Halbfinger refers to "Israel's treatment of the Palestinians living under the occupation" and also to an Instagram photo of an "iconic Tel Aviv skyscraper with its facade displaying the Palestinian national flag." How are all but the already well-informed readers meant to unpack this terminology, and distinguish between the voting "Palestinians" versus Arabs in the West Bank or Gaza who are not Israeli citizens?
Indeed, NPR's Daniel Estrin seems to recognize the problem with referring to Israel's Arabs as "Palestinian" even as he does so. He refers to "Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel" but then feels compelled to clarify:
And another thing to note here is that the party representing Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel - I'm not talking about the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza, they don't have voting rights in Israel - but the Arab party is poised to be the third-largest party in the Parliament.
Besides confusing uniformed news consumers, referring to Israel's Arabs as "Palestinians" does not reflect how the vast majority self-identify. A poll released this week by the Guttman Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at the Israel Democracy Institute found that 13 percent of Israeli Arabs identify primarily as Palestinians. As Haaretz reported:
Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of Arab citizens said they were proud to be Israelis – the highest rate since 2003. Asked how they self-identify, 38 percent said as Arab, 36 percent said by religion (Muslim, Christian or Druze), 13 percent said as Palestinian and 9.5 percent said as Israeli.
Posted by TS at 07:31 AM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2019
Mahmoud Abbas’ Diatribe Threatening Israel Included Bogus Canaanite Claim
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ recent anti-Israel diatribe that aired on PA TV was monitored and translated by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).
Excerpt: "I say to [Israel]: Every stone you have built on our land [present day Israel and the West Bank] and every house you have built on our land — there is no escaping that they will disappear, Allah willing. And the more they announce houses here or settlements there — they will all disappear, Allah willing, and will be in the garbage dump of history. And [Israelis] will remember that this land belongs to its people; this land belongs to its inhabitants; this land belongs to the Canaanites who were here 5,000 years ago — and we are the Canaanites!... We will enter Jerusalem as fighters by the millions…”
(PMW is an Israel-based nongovernmental non-profit organization that monitors Arab media in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.)
Palestinian historical histrionics
The Canaanite claim even goes against at least one passage in the Quran (Koran) (Islam’s bible). Chapter 5, verse 21 teaches that the land of Israel (from the river to the sea) belongs to the Jewish people: “Moses said to his people: O my people! Remember the bounty of God upon you when He bestowed prophets upon you and made you kings and gave you that which had not been given to anyone before you amongst the nations. O my people! Enter the Holy Land which God has written for you, and do not turn tail, otherwise you will be losers.”
Moreover, the Canaanite claim is unsupported by any historical or scientific evidence. On the other hand, contradicting Palestinian denials of Jewish rights to the Land, there is a continuous Jewish diaspora history from the Roman expulsions to the rebirth of Israel as a Jewish state. And ample archeological evidence and biological (DNA) evidence exists — cited here, here and here.
Other such hateful diatribes indoctrinating the Palestinian people are plentiful; for example, a teaching on television by the PA’s Supreme Shari’a Judge Mahmoud Al-Habbash, PA Chairman Abbas’ personal advisor on Islam. Al-Habbash stated that Israelis/Jews are the “enemies of Islam,” have a “culture of Satan,” and represent “evil.”
And finally, why do virtually all mainstream media entities — although extensively covering the Palestinian conflict with Israel — continue to ignore all the hateful Palestinian brainwashing?
Posted by MK at 05:30 PM | Comments (0)