The Washington Post’s ‘Little Kingdom’ is Four Times Bigger than Israel
Describing Jordan in an article headlined “Beneath the civility, Jordanians simmer; Growing frustrations threaten the stability of key U.S. ally” (May 8), The Washington Post referred to “this little kingdom….”
The land area of Jordan, Israel’s eastern neighbor, totals 34,500 square miles. Jordan’s population is 6.5 million. Israel comprises 8,019 square miles and its population totals 7.6 million (all figures from the CIA World Fact Book). That makes “this little kingdom” more than four times larger than the Jewish state.
Jordan ranks 112th by size out of more than 200 on the list of countries. Israel is 154th. If Jordan is, accurately, “this little kingdom,” then readers should expect journalistic descriptions of Israel as “this tiny democracy.”
But as CAMERA has noted, although The Post and other news media repeatedly refer to countries larger than Israel – often much larger – as small, little or even tiny, the Jewish state rarely if ever rates descriptions in the diminutive. This even though they would be accurate and often relevant.
Why the functional if not intentional double standard? One reason may be that if, as we have suggested, Israel is seen primarily through the filter of Palestinian complaints, it appears to be the larger party. And as the larger party, responsibility for existing problems and to make concessions to solve them would fall primarily on it.
But if Israel is placed in context of the surrounding Arab and even greater Islamic world, most of which unreconciled to Jewish equality and sovereignty, then it is the smaller, indeed tiny party. And primary responsibility to “take risks for peace” would lie with its neighbors.
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