Fisking Tom Perry (part I)

As one of the most deeply dishonest and propagandistic of Reuters many dishonest and propagandistic correspondents, Tom Perry's stories feature prominently in our site commentary.

In a nearly 1,800-word appeal to pity (Reuters stories typically average about 400 words) on the efforts of the Palestinian Arabs to eradicate Israel obtain their own state, Perry masterfully weaves propaganda, lies, half-truths, and distortions into every paragraph.  Indeed, there are so many journalistic and ethical failures in Perry's piece, our fisking of his story will absorb three posts here at RMEW.

"[Palestinians] squeezed by the rule of Israeli occupation" [in the territories]. 

 
Jews are in the territories by right in international law, as resolved by the League of Nations nearly a century ago and adopted by the United Nations 25 years later.  There is no “occupation”.

"[Israel has] demolished the [Palestinian] encampments since 1997, typically on the grounds they were put up without permission". 

Yes, just as Jewish settlements not approved by the Israeli government have been demolished, as in Migron just last week.

"Demolitions are just one of the problems that Palestinians living under Israeli control in the West Bank have to deal with”. 

Perry employs the propaganda mantra "West Bank" to identify the disputed territories, an Arab-ethnocentric term invented following expulsion of the entire Jewish population from the area in 1949.  The land is known as Judea and Samaria by the Jews, who lived there for thousands of years before being ethnically cleansed by the invading Arabs.

“The expansion of Jewish settlements has eaten up land”. 

And of the 78% of the original Mandate of Palestine, set aside for a Jewish national home yet "eaten up" by a Palestinian-majority state known as Jordan, Perry is curiously silent.

“Palestinians, along with their property, are increasingly the target of settler violence”.    

Shall we compare the violence of graffiti spray-painted onto a Palestinian mosque with the violence of a Jewish infant butchered in his sleep by Palestinians?