UPDATE
Following HonestReporting’s complaint, the History Channel has corrected the first part of its error, which has been amended to read:
“The matter of Israel’s capital city has long been a source of dispute. Although all foreign embassies in Israel are located in Tel Aviv, the country considers Jerusalem to be its capital.”
The second part of the error is, as yet, uncorrected. We will continue to press for a further correction.
For years, the Palestinians and their enablers have sought to rewrite Jerusalem’s history.
Among the claims we’ve seen over the years: there was never a Temple atop the Temple Mount, that Jews have no ties to Jerusalem, that the eastern half of the city was “traditionally Arab,” all come to mind.
Now the History Channel adds a new claim: While Tel Aviv is Israel’s “official capital,” Jerusalem is merely the “unofficial capital.”
If the History Channel wanted to only avoid reality, it could have politely noted that the world doesn’t accept Jerusalem’s capital status and left it at that.
But Tel Aviv is no more the “official” or “unofficial” capital of Israel than Haifa, Holon, Hebron, or even the History Channel’s hometown New York City.
Tel Aviv’s own Mayor Ron Huldai insisted to HonestReporting that Tel Aviv is not Israel’s capital city.
And in 2012, The Guardian was forced by HonestReporting’s threat of legal action against it and the UK Press Complaints Commission to retract a reference to Tel Aviv as Israel’s capital and make a change in the paper’s style guide.
Furthermore, the description of the city’s division also flunks Jerusalem History 101.
Jerusalem, which is one of the oldest cities in the world, has been formally divided between Israel and Palestine for nearly 70 years, yet changed hands many other times throughout the course of its over 5,000-year history.
Wrong.
Before 1948, Jerusalem was undivided under British control. When the dust settled after the 1948 War of Independence, Jordan had captured Jerusalem’s eastern neighborhoods while Israel held the western neighborhoods. The de facto border was simply a no man’s land featuring barbed wire and concrete barriers outside the Old City walls running along what is today Road One and a light rail line. Jordan annexed eastern Jerusalem in a move that was not internationally recognized. The city was reunited in 1967, during the Six Day War, and the rest, as they say, is history.
So in Israel’s 70 years of existence, Jerusalem was only divided during the first 19. And despite the History Channel’s description, there was absolutely no formal agreement between Israel and a non-existent state of Palestine. (Learn more about Jerusalem issues on our Jerusalem resource page).
If journalism is history’s proverbial first draft, what are we to make of the History Channel’s distorted take on Jerusalem?
We contacted the History Channel with an official complaint. Watch this space.
