Washington Post versus “Tiny” Israel. Again
The Washington Post has done it again. That is, referred to a country much larger then Israel as “tiny”. This time it was Azerbaijan (“U.S. relies more on Central Asian road, rail routes,” July, 3).
According to the CIA World Fact Book, Azerbaijan encompasses about 33,436 square miles (making it slightly larger than South Carolina), and has a population of about 8 million people.
Israel has a territory of about 8,019 square miles (roughly the size of New Jersey), and a population of about 7.5 million people.
As pointed out previously by CAMERA, The Post has rarely, if ever described Israel as “tiny.”
It has, however, applied the diminutive to countries such as Jordan, Eritrea and Georgia, as well as to Azerbaijan — all significantly larger than the Jewish state.
The Post can see tiny in Israel’s neighborhood. In addition to Jordan, it has so referred to Lebanon, which is slightly smaller than what, for the newspaper, appears to be its huge southern neighbor.
If The Post put Israel’s size and population relative to that of Arab and Muslims countries into perspective, would that compromise the Palestinian tilt in the paper’s Arab-Israel news coverage?
— by Sophie Linshitz, CAMERA Washington research intern.
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