The Middle East: A Story of Journalistic Failure

August 29, 2024

by: Nils A. Haug ~ Gatestone Institute

Thursday, 29 August 2024 | On May 15, 1948, five Arab armies started a war—and lost. From that time on, many Arabs have called this loss a nakba (catastrophe). Ever since then, they have been seeking sympathy for losing a war that they began. If they are unhappy, perhaps they should not have started a war in the first place.

On that May 15, forces from Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, and Iraq “swooped in…just hours after British forces withdrew from Palestine and Israel had declared its independence.” Until then, anyone born there was a Palestinian. Christians were Palestinians, Jews were Palestinians. The “place of birth” on every passport was stamped “Palestine.”

Arabs who fled during the fighting had likely assumed, based on broadcasts they were hearing, that leaving the area would make it easier for the Arab armies to kill the Jews. The plan presumably was to return soon to collect the spoils and take possession of a swiftly conquered land.

When the Arab armies were defeated, and some of the people who had fled tried to return, they were told they had not been loyal and were refused admittance. It is the Arabs who fled and their descendants who now call themselves Palestinians. They are simply Arabs who fled Israel at the time and were not allowed back.

The well-kept secret, of course, is that according to none other than the late senior official of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Zoheir Mohsen, the “Palestinian people does not exist:

“The Palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva, and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.”

A 2019 article by Professor Timothy Benton notes: “The founding of the PLO, now known as Fatah, had nothing to do with the desire for statehood. Throughout the charter it states again and again its sole goal is the destruction of Israel, nothing more. Thus started the Palestinian narrative. They needed a story behind their need.”

The Arabs who did not leave Israel during the War of Independence and their descendants still live there as Israeli Arabs, full citizens with the same rights as Jews, except exempt from military service. Israel did not want anyone fighting his brother. These Israeli Arabs now make up 20% of Israel’s population and hold prominent positions in medicine, business, journalism, the judiciary, representation in Israel’s parliament and even on Israel’s Supreme Court. The claim of apartheid is a libel. By contrast, Arabs who had fled to Lebanon in 1948 are still prohibited from holding any number of worthwhile jobs. Some Arabs call that the real apartheid.

Israel, during that war and in the years after, welcomed roughly the same number of Jewish refugees who were expelled or fled from Arab states, as there were Arabs who fled from Israel—roughly 700,000 for each side. Unlike the Jews, however, the Arab countries refused to let their Arab “brothers” in as full citizens and demanded that they could only “return” to the country they had just willingly left. Since that time, many Arab countries and enemies of Israel have used these souls and their descendants as political pawns to protest that Israel refused to let them in after they had started a war to exterminate it.

In 1967, the Arabs started another war—and lost. Israel, after warning Jordan not to enter the war, a warning Jordan ignored. retook land, including parts of Jerusalem, which Jordan had captured in the unlawful, earlier war. Israel also re-entered its historical homeland, Judea and Samaria, on the west bank of the Jordan River, which separates the two countries. This was when the calls began claiming that Jerusalem and the West Bank were supposedly “occupied”. They had indeed been “occupied”—illegally, by Jordan since the war of 1948. What is never said, of course, as at least one of the names denotes, is that the supposed “occupiers,” the Jews, have historically been “occupying” this land for nearly 4,000 years.

Nevertheless, calls for Israel to end its supposed “occupation” began to emanate not only from Islamist media but even from supposed journalists in the West. Sadly, these allegations are never based on history or facts but appear to come from ideological myths generated by theories of social justice and real or imagined victimhood.

History and facts reveal a number of erroneous assumptions about Israel’s purportedly unlawful “occupation of Palestinian lands.” When Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, for instance, described the unilateral recognition of a state of Palestine as “an investment in the only solution that can bring lasting peace in the Middle East,” he showed an abysmal grasp of reality. Neither the Palestinian Authority [PA] in the West Bank [Judea and Samaria] nor Hamas in the Gaza Strip nor the Palestinians in general are seeking a two-state solution. They are quite openly seeking a one-state solution: displacing Israel.

How these one-sided articles, proposals and beliefs come about, apart from blatant anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, might be worth looking into.

Some blame can be attributed to a failure to apply the basic principles of journalism, namely, investigating the facts and then seeing where they lead. In today’s kinetic news train, journalists often do not have the time, or possibly think they do not have to bother with, investigating the real story—the history and facts—behind popularized assumptions. They might also be told by their editors, explicitly or implicitly, what stories to bring and what not to bring.

At crucial times in a polarized society, such as the present, independently-minded writers—those with a critical outlook, integrity, and an objective, unbiased, attitude essential for the common good of their audience—appear to be an endangered species.

This brings attention to the land question.

In the view of Islamists, “Palestinian land” extends from the river (Jordan) to the sea (Mediterranean), giving birth to the fashionable slogan favored by an anti-Zionist crowd of dedicated deconstructionists, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Why the neighboring territory of Jordan, on the other side of the river, is not included in the land claim is not explained. The land that comprises Jordan, according the Balfour Declaration, was officially pledged as “a national home of the Jewish people.” Jordan, therefore, is rightfully Occupied Israel. If Israel were a fraction as expansionist as Iran and the Palestinians, it should be claimed as such.

The Wall Street Journal published its July 4, 2024 online edition with a piece titled, “Israel Has Seized More Land This Year Than in Any Year in the Past Three Decades”. This refers to those portions of the West Bank, more correctly described as Samaria and Judea or the “heartland” of Israel. Israel cannot “seize” its own land. There is a historical, legal and ethical warrant for acknowledging Israel’s legitimate rights of ownership to all of its land, including Gaza, the West Bank and Transjordan (Jordan), as originally purposed not only by the Balfour Declaration but also in the San Remo convention of 1920. This allocation was further partitioned by Winston Churchill in 1921 to accommodate claims by the Hashemite Emir Abdullah.

Claims to territory are generally validated through various factors, including international law. In the case of Hebrew–Jewish claims to the land, validation also comes from Israel’s history, its ancient documents, religious texts, tradition, archaeological findings and Jews living in the same land for more than 3,600 years. The Jews have maintained their historic language, culture and religion over nearly four millennia, and are the only remaining tribe in the region that can prove its ancient heritage and identity.

All these factors and more give credence to Israel’s claims of legitimacy, namely, that the Jewish people are rightful owners of all of Israel. It therefore takes a strong dose of purposed cognitive dissonance, religious fanaticism, ignorance, naiveté or even anti-Semitism to deny Israel’s claims. When taking all these considerations into account, it is understandable that renowned international law expert Jacques Gauthier urges the Jewish people of Israel: “Never allow people to tell you that you are trespassers. It’s your land; it’s been given to you in law.”

The March 28 recognition by Norway, Ireland and Spain of a non-existent Palestinian state—one without a functioning government, a definable border or even a viable economy—has been shown to reflect an anti-Semitic bias by those nations when compared to the attitudes of Europe’s other countries, which do not, at present, accept the legitimacy of a non-existent Palestinian state.

Although 145 UN members “currently recognize a Palestinian state, this doesn’t make it so,” wrote author James Sinkinson. What exactly does the recognition of such a state entail in practice? Exclusive Islamist ownership of the land? What areas of land are these nations referencing exactly? Do they validate the legitimacy of radical Islamism and a jihadist government with its own military? Who has jurisdiction to make these decisions? What about the Jews and their claims? Will the result be a jihadist, Islamist, Palestinian Gaza and West Bank with a little bit of land in between for Jews so that they are eventually squeezed or murdered out of existence? Will these countries try to force this recognition onto Israel?

With these questions and more, “recognition” makes no sense. All it does is to expose these countries’ historic anti-Semitism, raise false expectations and create the danger of more deaths far from the countries making these unnecessary, sanctimonious, cost-free claims. Unilateral recognition of “Palestine” will inevitably result in yet another failed state, inhabited by jihadi terrorists, openly eager to repeat the terror of October 7, 2023 on Israel’s population.

On July 17, 2024, Israel doubled down on its rights to the land. Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed a resolution rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state or any part of one “on any piece of land west of the Jordon River.” The situation is now clear. There is no chance of Israel agreeing to a so-called “two-state solution” to the Palestinian question. The Oslo Accords, having died a long time ago, are now officially dead.

Therefore, when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) made a finding on July 19, two days after the Knesset resolution, to the effect that “the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law,” Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu replied: “The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land, including in our own capital Jerusalem, nor in Judea and Samaria, our historical homeland. No absurd opinion at The Hague can deny this historical truth or the legal rights of Israelis to live in their own communities in our ancestral home.”

George Mason University Law Professor Eugene Kontorovich, a specialist in international law, notes that “all the arguments that make Israel out to be an occupying force collapse under the weight of a single, simple fact. A country cannot occupy territory to which it has a legal claim.”

Journalists deceive their audience by endorsing, without investigative effort, the standpoint of many political leaders in the West. Compliance with editorial culture can be a mitigating factor, yet journalists worthy of the name are prepared to expose the real story.

When the UN recognized “Palestine as eligible for statehood,” noted the French–Canadian attorney and scholar Jacques Gauthier, “many people wouldn’t be following this falsehood if they knew the true narrative.”

Accordingly, it is the task of journalists of courage always to carefully investigate the validity of each party’s claim. Should they do so in this instance, the outcome becomes clear: the land belongs to the Jewish people, and those they graciously welcome there. As this is not the conclusion that many writers and their editors seek, the propaganda of a Palestinian victimhood theory will in all likelihood persist. As an attempted solution, Newsweek now displays on its website a “Fairness Meter,” asking readers to indicate the level of bias or fairness (factuality) of a published article. Perhaps more news sites might consider a like idea.

To counter the prevailing “conventional wisdom” that often impedes the truth of a story, it is time, as James Bennet wrote, for journalistic “courage combined with a critical approach, objectivity, fairness, and integrity” to again take a rightful place in restoring public trust in the media. These requirements are particularly necessary in matters of international importance such as the intentions of Russia or China, or the claims of Iran and its proxies such as the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas. It is time for realism and truth to dominate the narrative, not idealism and ideology.

Nils A. Haug is an author and columnist. A Lawyer by profession, he is member of the International Bar Association, the National Association of Scholars, a faculty member at Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. Retired from law, his particular field of interest is political theory interconnected with current events. He holds a Ph.D. in Apologetical Theology. Dr. Haug is author of ‘Politics, Law, and Disorder in the Garden of Eden – the Quest for Identity’; and ‘Enemies of the Innocent – Life, Truth, and Meaning in a Dark Age.’ His work has been published by First Things Journal, The American Mind, Quadrant, Minding the Campus, Gatestone Institute, National Association of Scholars, Israel Hayom, Jewish News Syndicate, Anglican Mainstream, Jewish Journal, Document Danmark, and others.

Posted on August 29, 2024

Source: (This article was originally published by The Gatestone Institute on August 25, 2024. Time-related language has been modified to reflect our republication today. See original article at this link.)

Photo Credit: Orionist/wikimedia.org

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