Pot, meet kettle

In a story about two suicide bombings in Syria last Friday and the government-run media's heavy focus on the bloodshed for propaganda purposes, Reuters correspondents Alistair Lyon and Erika Solomon demonstrate their practiced understanding of the way media companies employ heavily biased messaging to manipulate audiences: 

State media, often selective in their approach to news, devoted blanket coverage to the bombings, showing graphic footage of the victims and featuring interviews that drove home a single message.

Now, if they could only apply that same insight to their own reporting.

Solomon vs Solomon

In January, we critiqued a story by Reuters correspondent Erika Solomon where she facilely assigns historical ownership of the Jaffa region of Israel to the Arabs, ignoring centuries of control under many other civilizations including of course, the Jews, who Solomon relegates to 20th century "settlers".  We noted that this is consistent with the Reuters/Arab narrative of Jews as modern Western interlopers "colonizing Arab land" in what is today Israel.  In our original post, we called attention to the archeological record which clearly demonstrates Jewish civilization and culture in the area predating any Arab presence by millennia.

In a new "feature" story, Solomon (one can only chuckle at the irony reflected in that surname) attempts to disparage archaeological digs in the Jerusalem area that continue to uncover evidence of the ancient Jewish Kingdoms:

Archaeologists in Jerusalem are competing to unearth artefacts[sic] pointing to the ancient city's Jewish past, which are used to justify Israel's claim to all of it as the indivisible capital of the modern Jewish state. But critics say some of "finds" are really just bending science to prove a "Biblical heritage" that is open to dispute.

Solomon quotes an Israeli archaeologist as suggesting that the excavations do not reflect "best practices" but no supporting evidence for this assertion is provided.  Indeed, even Hani Nur al-Din, a Palestinian Arab archaeologist interviewed by Solomon (the writer) does not refute the importance of the recent discovery of elaborately-designed fortifications dating to the era of Solomon (the King) as documented in the Old Testament.  The best that can be mustered is: 

The Bible should be put aside. It's not a history book.

(We wonder if al-Din and Solomon would say the same of the Qur'an).

The fact is, Solomon's entire story is actually a straw man which seeks to undermine Jewish claims to Jerusalem by suggesting that the archaelogical finds are subject to interpretation and the Bible subject to dispute.  But the issue is not whether the Bible can be considered an immaculate historical archive but rather whether the archaeological record confirms the existence of an advanced Jewish civilization and city centuries before the arrival of Arab invaders.

On that count, there is no dispute.

UPDATE 3/28/2010: A reader notes that whereas Solomon invites skepticism for Israeli archaeological methods and objectives, she is silent on the long-standing wholesale destruction of antiquities on the Temple Mount under the direction of the Waqf (Islamic Authority).  This, in the service of denying a historical Jewish connection to the site.

Reuters adopts, disseminates Palestinian rhetoric

Reuters' Middle East bureau is so entrenched in the Palestinian camp and their correspondents apparently so captivated by the Arab narrative of events, that there is today, little to distinguish between Palestinian rhetoric and that of Reuters.

In a story appearing on its AxisMundi Jerusalem site, Reuters correspondent Erika Solomon -- who has been writing for the media giant for only a short while -- suggests that a third Palestinian intifada may be brewing.  Literally "shaking off", the Arab word "intifada" has become synonymous with the most heinous and bloody acts of savage violence directed at Jewish civilians including mass shootings, stonings, and suicide bombings:

Solomon quotes Palestinian columnist Hani al-Masri, who in a weekend op-ed, incites for another such terror war:

Masri argues that the Palestinian leadership needs “to begin preparing to lead the coming Intifada when the conditions become ripe, because when it happens it will not wait for permission from anyone.”  This is how Palestinian authorities can prevent popular anger from “turning inwards,” he says,  and instead direct it “toward the (Israeli) occupation, in an organised fashion, with specific and realistic political goals that have been agreed upon, or else it will slide into armed confrontation, in which Israel excels.” (Masri would not, however, rule out all forms of armed resistance if an Intifada were to break out).

Note Solomon's unequivocal adoption of the Arab euphemism "armed resistance" -- an Orwellian term if ever there was one -- to describe the kind of wanton murder Palestinians engaged in during the previous intifadas.  Though a clear violation of the Reuters Handbook of Journalism, the use of euphemisms that seek to conceal Arab depravity behind a thin veneer of political correctness is standard practice in Reuters' Middle East reporting.

Along the way, Solomon also employs the same logical fallacy, post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this) we wrote about over the weekend to suggest that the second intifada was caused by Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount:   

Some are drawing parallels to flaring passions in Jerusalem’s Old City to events that sparked the second Palestinian Intifada–it broke out in 2000 after Ariel Sharon, then the Israeli opposition leader, visited al-Aqsa compound.

Further evidence of Reuters wholesale purchase, and due dissemination, of the Palestinian Arab narrative.

The myth of the two-state solution

Erika Solomon of Reuters reports on Israel's efforts to call attention to ongoing Palestinian incitement to violence, a violation of the latter's obligations under the Road Map peace plan.  Solomon writes:

Fatah, the dominant force behind the Palestinian Authority, calls its legislative body the "Revolutionary Council." Its charter still does not recognize Israel, even as its leaders promote a two-state solution and peace with the Jewish state.

On its surface, this statement appears relatively even-handed but is Solomon's assertion that Fatah's leaders "promote a two-state solution and peace with the Jewish state" actually true?

At a celebration to honor Yasser Arafat's memory in 2007, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas:

urged a throng of 50,000 Palestinians to re-aim their guns at the “occupation” (i.e., Israel) instead of turning them on each other: “Fatah,” he promised, “will not give up our principles and we have said that rifles should be directed against the occupation.... We have a legitimate right to direct our guns against Israeli occupation....”

Those "principles" Abbas insists Fatah will never surrender call for:

armed struggle until the Zionist entity is wiped out and Palestine is liberated.

Not exactly the two-state Shangri-La to which Solomon suggests the Palestinian leadership is committed.

In 2008, Abbas:

revealed that his current feint at negotiations with Israel is — like his mentor Arafat’s similar tactics — a strategic pause at best. He explained to a Jordanian newspaper that he was not pursuing “the armed struggle” at “this present juncture” only “because we can’t succeed in it.” He was quick to add, though, that “maybe in the future things will be different.”

More recently, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared that any peace settlement with the Palestinian Arabs must entail acceptance by the Palestinians of Israel as a Jewish state.  Here's a video clip of Abbas' position on the matter:



Given the Charters of Fatah and the PLO as well as Mahmoud Abbas' continuing truculence and refusal to accept Israel as a Jewish sovereign (as called-for in the UN Partition Plan), what basis we wonder, does Erika Solomon have for asserting that Palestinian leaders "promote a two-state solution and peace with the Jewish state"?

Reuters sanitizes the International Solidarity Movement

Reuters reports this morning on the arrest by Israeli security forces of two members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) for participation in violent riots and for visa violations.  Correspondents Erika Solomon and Ori Lewis characterize the ISM as having been:

established in 2001 to mobilize international support for Palestinian activism against Israeli occupation... Protesters stage weekly demonstrations in various Palestinian villages against Israel's construction of West Bank walls and fences that have denied them access to their land.

Here's what they don't tell us:

ISM members openly  advocate the "liberation" of Palestinians "by any means necessary," including "legitimate armed struggle."

Led by Palestinians working closely with American recruiters, ISM invites American volunteers to travel to the Palestinian territories and disrupt the actions of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), which is engaged in anti-terror operations in the region. ISM maintains a continual, low-level presence in the territories year-round, punctuated by occasional large, episodic campaigns. At various times, ISM members have temporarily taken over Israeli military checkpoints, interfered with the arrests of Palestinians charged with terrorism, and attempted to prevent the destruction of Palestinian homes containing subterranean tunnels for weapons smuggling.

ISM co-founder Huwaida Arraf has acknowledged that her organization cooperates with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

But one might expect this type of skewed reporting from a media organization that actively encourages violence when Palestinians riot.

Reuters has a short memory on Jewish history

One of the recurring themes in Reuters stories on the Middle East conflict is the notion that Jewish history in what is today Israel commenced with settlement in the 20th century.  This is akin of course, to the Palestinian narrative of Jews as Western interlopers and colonizers who came from Europe to usurp Arab land.  Reuters gives short shrift to the archaeological record of Jewish civilization and sovereignty in the area dating back centuries or the fact that over half of Israel's Jewish population descends from Mizrahim, Jews of Middle Eastern stock who remained in the region as part of the diaspora or were taken as slaves following bloody wars of conquest waged against the Jewish Kingdoms.

A case in point is yet another human interest story by Erika Solomon of Reuters sympathetic to Arab interests.  In her latest bid to demonize Israel for what she obviously perceives as maltreatment by the authorities, Solomon writes of Arab residents in Jaffa who are reportedly facing eviction by the greedy Israel Land Authority (ILA) which "stands to make a killing by selling their homes" so that bourgeois Jewish Israelis can buy and build on lots with million dollar beach views.  The problem for some of these Arabs, according to Solomon, is that they are officially classified as "protected tenants" whose right to the homes expired after two post-1948 generations.  On the other hand, it is clear from Solomon's story that in cases where full or partial ownership can be demonstrated, Arab residents now have property stakes that are worth an immense amount of money:

"They want us to buy them out. But guess how much they say that 40 percent is worth? Two million shekels ($540,000) or more! How am I going to get that kind of money?"... "They said we had rights to 60 percent of this property, because my husband's mother is second generation, but the other 40 percent is theirs," said Latifah [Hattab], whose single-level house sits on about 120 sq.m.

In other words, Hattab holds 60 percent equity in a home which the Israel Land Authority has valued at $1,350,000.  Solomon quotes Hattab as suggesting that the ILA wants her (Hattab) to buy out the remaining 40 percent interest and alleges that:

low-income families like the Hattabs cannot simply sell, or raise big loans, because their ownership is disputed

Solomon is silent on any alternatives that might be on offer to compensate Hattab for her $810,000 interest in the property.  Is this because none have been forthcoming from the ILA?  We can only speculate but think that's implausible given the ILA's acknowledgment of Hattab's ownership stake and the transparency with which it has valued the property.  Israeli civil law is quite clear on Hattab's rights in the matter which are the same afforded to Jewish homeowners and those afforded to property owners in all Western democracies.  In short, we don't know how this particular civil dispute will wind up but neither does Solomon and in the mean time, it's difficult to see what Solomon and a very wealthy Latifah Hattab are whining about.

The discussion above on land economics and the law is a digression however, from the original point of our post which is Reuters expunging of Jewish history in the land of Israel, Judea, and Samaria prior to the early 20th century.  Solomon writes:

Jaffa was a major port and cultural center of the Arab world before Tel Aviv was established in 1909 by Jewish settlers.

With this terse synopsis, Solomon assigns historical ownership of Jaffa to the Arabs and ignores centuries of control under many other cultures and civilizations including of course, the Jews going back to the time of King David when cedars from Tyre were brought in to Jaffa for use in the construction of the First Temple.  The rest of Jaffa's history prior to the arrival (dare we say "settlement") of the Arabs is just as vibrant.

The other news

In last week's installment of "The other news", we cited an article in Palestine Today reporting on Palestinian snipers firing at Egyptian security forces associated with the subterranean wall Egypt is building along its border with Gaza.  ANSAmed reports that on December 21:

in Rafah (south of Gaza) some 700 people joined a demonstration staged in this portion of Palestinian territory controlled by Hamas Islamic radicals to protest against the underground steel barrier planned by Egypt along the only section of the Gaza Strip border that is foreign to Israel. The protesters gathered in front of the so-called Saladins Door, near the Egyptian border, but not in front of the main Rafah pass. The crowd included local residents, local Hamas activists and even one of the movements spokespersons who arrived from Gaza City, Sami Abu Zahri, who requested a halt to work in progress and the dismantling of the section of the barrier that has already been built. During the gathering people chanted slogans inviting Egypt not to choke the people of Gaza and to help the Palestinian people, while others carried signs saying Stop the siege or Enough walls and invoked Arab solidarity

Apparently, Erika Solomon of Reuters was too busy doing her Christmas shopping in Bethlehem to attend the party at Saladin's Door or to notice the very unfestive wall on the Egypt-Gaza border.

                                                      Photos courtesy of Elder of Ziyon

Reuters recycles Palestinian propaganda on Bethlehem

Recycling a message issued three weeks ago by correspondent Erika Solomon, Reuters runs a story today castigating Israel for the security barrier in the city of Bethlehem.  In her previous story, Solomon interviews a "tourist" (actually a professional fund-raiser and political activist for the Palestinians) who denigrates the barrier as "an indicator of how many steps back we've taken [in the peace process]".

In the rehashed material today, Mustafa Abu Ganeyeh -- with help from Solomon and Douglas Hamilton -- writes:

In a message to remind the world of the barrier's existence, the Palestine Liberation Organisation said the wall symbolizes a "Christmas without hope" for the ancient city, where normal life is fragmented and stifled by Israel's security measures.

This is rich.  Reuters quotes the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) lamenting for a Christmas holiday and blaming Israel for "fragmenting" and "stifling" normal life.  Might this be the same PLO formerly led by that infamous Christmas elf Yasser Arafat, responsible for ordering hundreds of terrorist attacks in Israel and abroad killing and maiming thousands of people?

Or perhaps Reuters is referring to the PLO which, in its other guise as the Palestinian Authority, governs much of Judea and Samaria ("West Bank") and has been allowing the systematic persecution of Christians in Bethlehem and the disputed territories since taking control in 1994.

Reuters quotes Samir Hazboun, head of Bethlehem's Chamber of Commerce and Industry:

How can we promote Bethlehem as a holy tourism site while it is surrounded by an ugly concrete wall?

We have some free Christmas decorative advice for Hazboun: hang mistletoe.

UPDATE Christmas Eve: In a poignant editorial appearing in today's Wall Street Journal, Daniel Schwammenthal offers us further insight into the suffering of Christians at the hands of Muslims in Gaza and yes, Bethlehem:

But even here in Jesus' birthplace, which is under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Christians live on a knife's edge. Mr. Khoury tells me that Muslims often stand in front of the gate of the Bible College and read from the Quran to intimidate Christian students. Other Muslims like to roll out their prayer rugs right in Manger Square... Christians have only recently begun to talk about how Muslim gangs simply come and take possession of Christian-owned land while the Palestinian security services, almost exclusively staffed by Muslims, stand by. Mr. Qumsieh's own home was firebombed three years ago. The perpetrators were never caught.

Ah yes, it's those Israeli security measures which are"stifling" normal life in the Holy Land.

The other news

On Tuesday, we highlighted a Reuters story where writer Erika Solomon sees the glass half-empty with respect to economic gains in Bethlehem since Binyamin Netanyahu became Israeli Prime Minister.  On a visit to the cities of Nablus and Hebron, Tom Gross sees things a bit differently:

As I sat in the plush office of Ahmad Aweidah, the suave British-educated banker who heads the Palestinian Securities Exchange, he told me that the Nablus stock market was the second best-performing in the world so far in 2009, after Shanghai. (Aweidah's office looks directly across from the palatial residence of Palestinian billionaire Munib al-Masri, the wealthiest man in the West Bank.)  Later I met Bashir al-Shakah, director of Nablus's gleaming new cinema, where four of the latest Hollywood hits were playing that day. Most movies were sold out, he noted, proudly adding that the venue had already hosted a film festival since it opened in June.  Wandering around downtown Nablus the shops and restaurants I saw were full. There were plenty of expensive cars on the streets. Indeed I counted considerably more BMWs and Mercedes than I've seen, for example, in downtown Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.

The shops and restaurants were also full when I visited Hebron recently, and I was surprised to see villas comparable in size to those on the Cote d'Azur or Bel Air had sprung up on the hills around the city. Life is even better in Ramallah, where it is difficult to get a table in a good restaurant. New apartment buildings, banks, brokerage firms, luxury car dealerships and health clubs are to be seen. In Qalqilya, another West Bank city that was previously a hotbed of terrorists and bomb-makers, the first ever strawberry crop is being harvested in time to cash in on the lucrative Christmas markets in Europe. Local Palestinian farmers have been trained by Israeli agriculture experts and Israel supplied them with irrigation equipment and pesticides.

Cheer up, Erika; life is good.

In the interest of full disclosure

Reuters correspondent Erika Solomon has previously demonstrated both an inattention to facts and a penchant for anti-Israel propaganda.  In a story today which has been picked up by newspapers around the world including the New York Times, Solomon writes of holiday malaise in Bethlehem due to a lack of "big-spending" foreign tourists.  Although Solomon acknowledges that Israel's "right-wing" prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has removed checkpoints and facilitated freedom of movement for Palestinians in the West Bank (also, Judea and Samaria) resulting in local economic growth of 7 percent this year, the thrust of her story is that things are just "not like the good old days" before the Palestinian intifada (violent uprising).

Solomon specifically targets the Israeli security barrier between Jerusalem and Bethlehem as the culprit responsible for spoiling the Christmas cheer:

The two cities are divided by just a few kilometres (miles) but also an Israeli wall that complicates the journey.

Indeed, Solomon devotes 6 paragraphs to this notion in which she interviews a "foreigner", Protestant Minister Doris Warrell, who laments that:

"I have a clear impression that the Israeli government would prefer that I not come here"

And that on a "very different trip to Bethlehem in 1994":

"People were happy and celebrating. There was a checkpoint, but you didn't have this huge visual impediment," she said, in reference to the West Bank barrier... As someone who wants peace for both Palestinians and Israelis, to see that wall there is just an indicator of how many steps back we've taken."

What Solomon fails to mention is that Warrell is not just another foreign tourist who happened to be on a shopping trip to Bethlehem on the lucky day when Solomon was interviewing.  Warrell lived near Bethlehem between 1994 and 1995 and is a professional fundraiser and political activist for "Palestine".  While there is nothing untoward in this role, we think readers are entitled to this information when assessing whether Warrell's comments are those of a neutral observer.

Note also, Solomon's meager sotto voce handling of Israel's rationale for the security barrier:

Israel says the barrier has largely succeeded in reducing violence. [10 words]

As compared to her loquacious parroting of the Palestinian line:

Palestinians, backed by a ruling from the World Court, see its construction on occupied West Bank territory as a land grab and a tool to consolidate Israeli control of Jerusalem. [30 words]

In fact, that "huge visual impediment" has saved countless lives.  Comparing the situation today with events prior to construction:

On Feb. 22, 2004, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades dispatched Muhammed Za'ul from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. He detonated a bomb strapped to his body on Egged bus No. 14A in Jerusalem, killing eight and wounding more than 60; 11 of them were high school students,

We have no nostalgia for the "cheer" of Christmas past.

Palestinians handing out sweets in celebration of a successful suicide bombing in Jerusalem.

Reuters' Solomon receives handoff, runs for endzone carrying only a cherry pie

Following a series of stories featuring shoddy research and transparent anti-Israel propaganda, Reuters' correspondent Erika Solomon took a two-month hiatus.  She returns to the pages of Reuters AxisMundi Jerusalem website with more creative distortions and cherry-picking in a story on Hamas suggesting that:

both Israeli and Palestinian populations are looking to see Hamas step up to the plate in negotiations.

Solomon's "evidence" for this notion is a poll conducted by the "Israel Dialogue Institute" which Reuters originally cited here but to which it did not link.  (Solomon does not provide a link either).  Of course, absent the original survey data and methodology, readers are unable to judge the credibility or accuracy of the poll results.  Nor are we are able to assess Reuters' fidelity in communicating the results.  And given Reuters' record of misinforming on survey data in the past, we are left with only hearsay from Reuters suggesting that:

over half of the Israeli public wants to see Hamas brought into negotiations if it recognized Israel

This purported figure is based on respondents' support of a plan discussed last week by Israeli Minister Shaul Mofaz to dialogue with Hamas if the terrorist group were to meet the three conditions set forth by the Quartet, i.e., renounce violence, recognize Israel, and accept all previous agreements negotiated with the Palestinian Authority.  As these terms are the same as those officially endorsed by the government of Israel, it is not surprising that a majority of Israelis might support them as well.

Solomon then leaps from the above to this assertion (in a stand-alone paragraph):

Even more surprising is that among supporters of Likud, Israel’s right-wing political party, 53% of the public approved of negotiating with Hamas.

Note how Solomon omits the very specific conditions under which Israelis purportedly indicated they would agree to negotiations with Hamas.  We know, a trifling detail.

The point of Solomon's piece, headlined with her odious longing "O Hamas where art thou?", appears to be that Hamas is in the ascendancy and can simply wait until the Palestinian Authority collapses and/or elections bring them to power in the West Bank.  But her premise that Israelis are shifting toward an acceptance of Hamas as currently constituted is pure fabrication.

Reuters: Israelis are racist, gun-toting thrill-seekers (but we didn't say it)

Reuters Middle East correspondents frequently pen “human interest stories” in an effort to peddle their own point of view without having to declare their work as an op-ed. We have previously linked to several examples of such stories clearly intended to paint the Palestinian Arabs as oppressed victims of Israeli aggression and inequity and to elicit sympathy from the reader.

While Reuters’ consistently fails to report on the culture of violence endemic in Palestinian Arab society and ingrained in Palestinian children, its correspondents diligently pursue opportunities to portray Israeli society in this light from a variety of angles including the human interest format.

In "Terrorist" targets popular at West Bank gun range, Erika Solomon tells the tale of an Israeli anti-terrorism course in Gush Etzion where Israelis, Americans, and Europeans learn to shoot “everything from handguns to M-16 combat rifles”.

Through her storytelling, Solomon wants the reader to buy several notions she is peddling. First, that Israel is teaching its children to use violence:

“Sharon Gat… steadies a little girl who comes up to his gunbelt. They're holding a rifle almost as big as she is.”

Second, that Israelis are racists. Here, Solomon cherry picks a quote from one of the participants:

"It could indoctrinate children with racist beliefs. It was sad to hear young kids express such racism."

Next, is an association between Zionism and the use of violence:

“… Gat says his course is not just about shooting guns; it also teaches "Zionist values."

Finally, that the Israelis consider this a lot of fun:

"Gat says his anti-terrorism theme is mostly for excitement."

Conspicuously missing from Solomon's story on the weapons training at Gush Etzion is any account of the devastating history of that community which amongst other appalling events, includes the massacre of 240 Jewish residents who had surrendered to an Arab army in May of 1948.

Perhaps the significance -- and irony -- is lost on her.

"We believe our post is accurate"

That was the definitively equivocal reply of Reuters' AxisMundi Jerusalem editor and Bureau Chief for Israel and the Palestinian territories, Alastair Macdonald, to a reader who had pointed out that Reuters' correspondent Erika Solomon did not have her facts straight when she claimed that Uri Davis was Jewish:

"The elections for Fatah’s sixth conference, which just ended in Bethlehem, had an unusual first: their first Jewish Israeli member elected to the 120-member Revolutionary Council."

Davis may have been born Jewish but as many sources have documented, he converted to Islam shortly before he married a Palestinian woman in 2008.

Rather than do the simple fact-checking one would expect from a Reuters' editor and Bureau Chief (which should have occurred prior to original publication) or correct Solomon's erroneous assertion after being rightly challenged, Macdonald responds equivocally:

"We believe our post is accurate. But for more detail on Davis’s complicated biography, we would direct readers to his Web site at http://www.uridavis.info/."

We would prefer to characterize Davis' website autobiography as obscurantist but nowhere does he claim to be currently Jewish.

Beyond underscoring the editorial sloppiness at Reuters, Solomon's original mis-identification of Davis as Jewish and Macdonald's subsequent refusal to correct the error reflects an obvious attempt to enhance the propaganda value of the story. Clearly, it is more damaging to Israel and more flattering to the Palestinians if Fatah (which is committed to Israel's destruction) has elected an Israeli Jew to represent them rather than a Muslim who -- as Davis himself states -- was Jewish solely by the "accident of his birth".

It is also supremely ironic that while Davis refers to himself as a Palestinian, Fatah considers him a "non-Palestinian" because he is not Arab and was born Jewish. This tells us much about the Palestinian ethos on race and religion.

Reuters revolves around Jewish "settlements"

In a piece for the Reuters blog AxisMundi Jerusalem, Erika Solomon argues that controversy over Jewish settlements is at the core of current discussions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and European leaders.  Solomon links to a Reuters article on its World news page by Allyn Fisher-Ilan which argues the same point.  Despite the contentious headlines, "Settlement Freeze Still the Hot Topic" and "Settlements Seen Clouding Netanyahu's Europe Trip", neither piece actually provides any evidence that Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria (also the "West Bank") is the central item on the agenda at these meetings or an impediment to ("clouding") discussions.

It is clear however, that for these two Reuters' correspondents, Jewish settlements are the topic.  In a transparent appeal to authority for example, Fisher-Ilan cites a statement by the discredited group Peace Now that "more than 40,000 more homes [for Israelis] could be built under plans already ratified".  Solomon, who parrots the same claim in her piece, goes on to suggest that, "even touchier than the settlement issue in the West Bank has been settlement building in East Jerusalem".  Presumably to illustrate the sensitivity of the issue for all parties in the conflict, Solomon cites a previous Reuters story and video on the eviction of Arab squatters from homes in Jerusalem pursuant to an order by the Israeli High Court.  Solomon's earlier story never mentions the fact that these families were evicted for failing over several years to pay rent or that other Arab families living in Jewish-owned homes in Jerusalem who do pay rent have not been similarly evicted.

It is Solomon's reference however, to "East Jerusalem" that is most tendentious. There is of course, no city of "East Jerusalem" but Reuters correspondents consistently and guilefully deploy the fictitious term in their stories in an effort to demarcate this area as separate from the rest of the city and by implication, outside of the domain of the state of Israel. Fisher-Ilan extends the fiction even further by referring to the area as "Arab East Jerusalem". (Note that there is no corresponding reference to "Jewish West Jerusalem"). That the eastern portion of Jerusalem is home to the most sacred of Jewish antiquities and 42% Jewish by population despite widespread ethnic cleansing by Jordan between 1948 and 1967, is to this writer's knowledge, never discussed by Reuters.