Israeli forest fire singes Washington Post feature
A jarring irrelevancy appears in the middle of The Washington Post’s December 27 feature “Forest fire fuels review of Israel’s tree-planting traditions; Devastation has experts reassessing practice of greening the hills”. By Post special correspondent Joel Greenberg, the dispatch tells of Israeli forestry officials’ inclination to let the Mount Carmel woods reseed naturally rather than by traditional extensive planting.
Reporting on Israel’s worst forest fire, The Post says, apropos of nothing, that “Jewish National Fund forests, some planted over the ruins of Palestinian villages emptied during Israel’s war of independence [emphasis added], became popular picnic and recreation areas, providing shade and greenery in a sun-baked land.”
In “Storm socks East Coast; D.C. Area Is Largely Spared; Transportation delays strand many holiday travelers,” in the same edition, The Post reported that “flights were grounded at airports from the Carolinas to Boston, with more than 1,000 cancellations at New York City-area airports alone.” It did not write “flights were grounded at airports from the Carolinas to Boston, land largely emptied of its native American Indian population even before the U.S. War of Independence, with more than 1,000 cancellations at New York City-area airports alone.”
The latter would be read instantly as irrelevant editorializing in a news story. What accounts for the former?
As for “Palestinian villages,” early in the 20th century the term “Palestinian” applied usually to the Jews of that part of the Ottoman Empire. After World War I, it typically meant a Jewish inhabitant of British Mandatory Palestine. Arabs often shunned it as a synonym for Zionist, sometimes describing themselves as residents of greater Syria.
And what portion — probably quite small — of JNF forests were planted over war-ruined Arab villages? How many of those villages were relatively new, built by Arabs attracted by Jewish economic development? Most of all, would any of them have been destroyed had not the Arabs rejected the U.N.’s 1947 partition plan and started a war they lost? In context, it would be obvious immediately that “the ruins of Palestinian villages emptied during Israel’s war of independence” had nothing to do with Israel’s forest fire.
More from SNAPSHOTS
Double Standards: Boycotts and Discrimination in MassLive
May 16, 2025
Anti-Israel activists, including Harvard University’s Lara Jirmanus, a clinical instructor, seem to struggle with the concept of “discrimination.” Quoted in a May 14 MassLive article, “Harvard ‘failed to respond’ to 450 discrimination complaints. Staff hand-delivered [...]
Swarthmore Students Are Learning: It Was Never About Palestinian Rights
May 14, 2025
Students at Swarthmore College are so close to understanding the conflict. An article in the Swarthmore Phoenix details the frustrations of student activists with the college’s Students for Justice in Palestine. The gist of their criticism is [...]
AFP Arabic Stops Mislabeling Northern Israeli Communities ‘Settlements”
August 10, 2021
A view of Metulla, northern Israel (Photo by Hadar Sela)After failing to set the record straight last May when Agence France Presse's Arabic service repeatedly referred to Jewish communities in northern Israel as "settlements," the [...]
NY Times Praises Ilhan Omar’s Book While Glossing Over Her Antisemitism
August 19, 2020
A recent New York Times book review boosts Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) autobiography while glossing over her antisemitism. In the paper’s Aug. 16, 2020 edition, NYT reporter Christina Cauterucci writes: The memoir offers breathing room [...]
When TV Interviews of Ilhan Omar Constitute Journalistic Malpractice
August 11, 2020
Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) documented animosity toward Jews and Israel was ignored in recent interviews by MSNBC and C-SPAN. MSNBC’s The Beat for July 23, 2020 included host Ari Melber’s 10-minute conversation at 6:16 [...]
Boston TV Station WCVB Teamed Up With Terrorist Supporter CAIR
July 7, 2020
WCVB-TV (channel 5) (Boston’s ABC network affiliate) recently misled area viewers about a matter involving antisemitic propaganda. This occurred on its local Sunday show Cityline hosted by Karen Holmes Ward who is described by the [...]
Harper’s Magazine Echoed Palestinian Propaganda Condemning Israel And America
June 2, 2020
Writing in Harper's, Kevin Baker condemns the U.S. Middle East peace plan [“The Striking Gesture,” Easy Chair, May 2020], mischaracterizing it as, “Give up all your [Palestinian] hopes and your holiest places, embark on a [...]