{"id":96785,"date":"2022-07-16T17:05:25","date_gmt":"2022-07-16T15:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=96785"},"modified":"2022-07-15T05:46:46","modified_gmt":"2022-07-15T03:46:46","slug":"24-05-77","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=96785","title":{"rendered":"The Washington Post Publishes Op-Ed by J Street Founder That Manipulates Facts as Biden Visits Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>The Washington Post Publishes Op-Ed by J Street Founder That Manipulates Facts as Biden Visits Israel<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

Gidon Ben-Zvi<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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The former Washington Post building. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The arrival of US President Joe Biden in Israel is being used by an ostensibly \u201cpro-Israel, pro-peace advocacy group\u201d as a pretext for accusing the Jewish state of being responsible for the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians.<\/span><\/p>\n

To readers of\u00a0The Washington Post\u2019<\/em>s July 11 opinion piece by Jeremy Ben-Ami, founder and president of J Street, it\u2019s as if the ceaseless Palestinian incitement and chronic rejection of Israeli peace overtures by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) simply don\u2019t exist.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Titled,\u00a0\u201cBiden needs to address the coming crisis between Israel and Palestine<\/a>,\u201d Ben-Ami\u2019s\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0piece cites Israel 77 times. Although he does mention the word \u2018Palestinian\u2019 48 times, neither the Palestinian Authority or Hamas are referenced at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Such glaring omissions make it possible for Ben-Ami to suggest that Israel is to blame for the Palestinian terrorism that was unleashed against innocent civilians:<\/span><\/p>\n

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On the ground, settlements are expanding at a steady pace, demolitions and evictions of Palestinians are increasing, and settler violence is growing bolder \u2014 with almost no effective action by Israeli authorities to restrain it. Palestinian terrorism is on the rise, and the status quo on the Temple Mount is cracking\u2026[Israel\u2019s] policy and actions continue to push inexorably toward de facto annexation of large swaths of the West Bank. These steps violate international law and in many cases seem deliberately designed to obstruct the achievement of a two-state solution.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

By not being informed of the frequent Palestinian incitement that precipitated the latest wave of terror,\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0readers are likely to come away with a mistaken impression that Israeli policies are the root cause for the outbreak of violence.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

For example, in the days leading up to last year\u2019s Hamas-initiated conflict that saw thousands of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip at Israeli towns and cities,\u00a0Palestinian incitement sparked waves of mob violence<\/a>\u00a0perpetrated by Muslims at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem during the religious period of Ramadan.<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, there is almost\u00a0always<\/i>\u00a0an uptick in violence during the Muslim holy month, with historical data indicating a\u00a0200 percent increase<\/a>\u00a0in terrorist attacks around the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Apparently, Ben-Ami missed that salient fact.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile in Ramallah, the incentivizing of violence against Israelis forms official Palestinian Authority policy. The Palestinian Budget Book states that payments must be made to killed or imprisoned Palestinian terrorists and their families from the\u00a0Martyrs Fund<\/a>\u00a0because the recipients constitute a \u201cfighting sector.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Notably, the amount paid out increases in proportion to the severity of the crime.<\/span><\/p>\n

Paying no heed to these grim realities, Ben-Ami doubles down on Israeli culpability:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Over one-tenth of Israel\u2019s Jewish population now lives in occupied territory, governed by different laws and with greater rights than the millions of Palestinians who live next to them in the same territory. The seeming irreversibility of this situation is fueling instability in Palestinian politics and society.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

First, there\u2019s the issue of sourcing. The statistic Ben-Ami cites is taken from\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/em>, a worldwide media organization endowed by a Qatari government that has a long history of attempting to create\u00a0an anti-Israel narrative<\/a>\u00a0within its coverage of the Jewish state.<\/span><\/p>\n

More significant is Ben-Ami\u2019s claim that the existence of Jewish communities in the West Bank has led to a \u201cseeming irreversibility\u201d that is \u201cfueling instability in Palestinian politics and society.\u201d He fails to even reference the Israeli government\u2019s repeated good-faith efforts to jump-start the peace process or the Palestinian leadership\u2019s ceaseless intransigence.<\/span><\/p>\n

The truth is that it has been the PA\u2019s rejection of repeated Israeli attempts to revive peace talks and\u00a0non-stop incitement to violence<\/a>\u00a0that have led to countless rounds of war, as well as the prolonged suffering of the Palestinian people.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Jeremy Ben-Ami is entitled to his opinions. However,\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>, by not checking Ben-Ami\u2019s facts, is allowing its vast readership to be misled by J Street \u2014 a group with an evident anti-Israel agenda.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, this \u201cpro-Israel, pro-peace advocacy group\u201d\u00a0came out in favor<\/a>\u00a0of Ben & Jerry\u2019s decision last year to\u00a0boycott Jewish communities in the West Bank<\/a>. J Street even started a petition to\u00a0Protect Ben & Jerry\u2019s Right to Oppose the Occupation.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

In June, J Street was one of a handful of pro-boycott organizations, including Jewish Voice for Peace and the\u00a0Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)<\/a>, to\u00a0speak out against<\/a>\u00a0a Federal appeals court decision to uphold an Arkansas state law that requires all public contractors to promise they won\u2019t target Israel via Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS).<\/span><\/p>\n

And as recently as July 12, J Street expressed its support for the decision of nine member states of the European Union to continue\u00a0working with the six Palestinian groups\u00a0<\/a>that Israel\u00a0designated as terrorist organizations<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0October of last year.<\/span><\/p>\n

If Jeremy Ben-Ami is serious about addressing the conflict between Israel and \u201cPalestine,\u201d he may want to consider that there is already a clear path to Palestinian self-rule.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Oslo Accords forged in 1993 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority the following year. The agreement was based on a\u00a0promise by the Palestinian leadership to renounce terrorism<\/a>\u00a0and resolve all outstanding issues with Israel via bilateral negotiations.<\/span><\/p>\n

To date, the Palestinian leadership has failed to live up to its obligations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Either way,\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0has a responsibility to get the facts right on a topic as complex and nuanced as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As things stand, the paper is effectively normalizing sometimes violent unilateral Palestinian efforts to achieve statehood.<\/span><\/p>\n

For there to be any chance of restarting peace talks during Joe Biden\u2019s visit to the Middle East, prominent media outlets such as\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0should refrain from uncritically pushing the agendas of known anti-Israel groups and activists.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The author<\/strong> is a contributor to HonestReporting<\/strong>, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias \u2014 where a version of this article\u00a0first appeared.<\/a><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n
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The Washington Post Publishes Op-Ed by J Street Founder That Manipulates Facts as Biden Visits Israel Gidon Ben-Zvi The former Washington Post building. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. The arrival of US President Joe Biden in Israel is being used by an ostensibly \u201cpro-Israel, pro-peace advocacy group\u201d as a pretext for accusing the Jewish state of being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96785"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96785"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96799,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96785\/revisions\/96799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}