We thought we saw enough botched coverage last week of President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem’s capital status to last us for awhile.
Were we ever wrong.
Between the West Bank clashes, Gaza rocket fire and international anger, there was plenty of warped news and commentary.
• We’ll start off Down Under with quotation snarks at The Australian, because, after all, headlines matter.
Why the quote marks around "launched" @australian? Did the rockets tiptoe up to the security fence around Gaza, climb over it and run to Sderot? How do you think they got there? By magic or by terrorist? https://t.co/af8F3qEhEq pic.twitter.com/DB4FQVMGm4
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 10, 2017
• The Nazi overtones in this illustration accompanying a Times of India staff editorial in the print edition made me shudder:
Star of David embedded in US eagle with its claws around the Middle East. Did @timesofindia steal this image straight from a neo-Nazi site? Disgusting. pic.twitter.com/YPWaHZQcX8
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 10, 2017
• The London-based LBC radio blew it, insisting that Tel Aviv is Israel’s capital. This weekend, it was Andrew Pierce. (Last week, it was Shelagh Fogarty.)
It’s okay to say the world refuses to recognize Jerusalem’s capital status.
But insisting that Tel Aviv is Israel’s capital denies reality. Tel Aviv is no more Israel’s capital than Tiberias, Tulsa or Tokyo. Even Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai confirmed this years ago.
• In Sweden, firebombs were thrown at a synagogue following a demonstration against Trump’s Jerusalem declaration where protesters called to kill Jews. Unfortunately, CNN’s headline needed a little help.
By the way, Swedish state TV tied Trump’s Jerusalem recognition to an “incredibly strong “Jewish lobby.”
In a broadcast Wednesday immediately following Trump’s address about Jerusalem, the broadcaster SVT asserted that the “Jewish Lobby in the US is incredibly strong,” and said the lobby “has championed this issue for a long time.”
“It was an unfortunate choice of words that immediately was corrected by our senior news commentator,” Charlotta Friborg, executive editor and publisher SVT News, told JTA in an email.
• History Channel Flunks Jerusalem 101: If journalism is history’s proverbial first draft, what are we to make of the History Channel’s distorted take on Jerusalem?
• Last, but not least, we close with the Toronto Star. Columnist Tony Burman’s entitled to his opinions about Jerusalem, Israel and the peace process, but are they so divorced from reality that he has to skew the facts and level the apartheid slur?
