Lip Service

In the last couple of days, Reuters has restarted its odious campaign to endorse the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Jerusalem by repeatedly employing the racist epithet "Arab East Jerusalem" when referring to the Old City and its surrounds.  That Jews founded the city, resided there for over three millennia, represented, in the modern era, the majority religio-ethnic group from the 1840s, and were forcefully driven out by the Arab Legion following the 1947-48 war, appears to provide no ethical dilemma for Reuters in its adoption of Arab rhetoric and racism.

Not only are Reuters correspondents dutifully parroting this rhetoric, they are now brazenly attempting to make it appear as if Israeli officials, including the Prime Minister, have adopted the same rhetoric:

Netanyahu countered censure of the latest Israeli project by noting that Jewish homes had gone up in Arab East Jerusalem during previous rounds of peace talks, without blocking them.

Netanyahu did not refer to, and almost certainly would never refer to, Jewish homes going up in "Arab East Jerusalem" but that doesn't prevent Reuters correspondent Patricia Zengerle and her editors Mark Heinrich and Anthony Boadle from fabricating the alleged statement.  This is of course, a violation of all professional and ethical standards in journalism and a specific transgression of both the Reuters Trust Principles and the agency's Handbook of Journalism.

While Reuters has no difficulty putting words in the mouths of others, a code of ethics for the agency is apparently just lip service.