Daily Telegraph: Jerusalem’s Old City ‘Under Threat’

Israel’s doing a very fine job of caring for its UNESCO Heritage Sites, thank you very much.

There’s no reason for a Daily Telegraph slide show to include Jerusalem’s Old City in a slide show of heritage sites under threat.

The Telegraph will likely defend itself by saying the under threat label follows UNESCO’s lead: the Old City is on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger. (I’ll come back to this point.)

Whatever urban development issues supposedly threaten Jerusalem’s Old City don’t remotely compare with Islamic State’s looting and destruction of Syrian, Iraqi and Libyan, sites and antiquities. Or Saudi airstrikes damaging the Old City of Sa’na (Yemen). Or the Lord’s Resistance Army poaching elephants on a wide scale in Garamba National Park (Congo).

At least the Telegraph didn’t spin its slide show as extreme as CNN. Back in July, CNN included Jerusalem’s Old City in a slide show with the more provocative title, “25 Magnificent Structures on the Verge of Extinction.” CNN editors heard from readers responding to our critique; the slide show is now called “Last chance to see: 25 magnificent and endangered structures.”

That’s a modest walk-back for CNN in that Jerusalem’s Old City went from verge of extinction to just threatened. Draw your own conclusions about the words last chance.

CNN argued that the Old City’s on UNESCO’s list of endangered sites. But as with many UN agencies, that status reflects anti-Israel politics, not reality.

How about a slideshow reflecting the truth?

Featured image: CC BY-NC-ND Surfing the Nations;

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