It’s no secret that Israeli settlement activity has surged during the Trump presidency. During the Obama administration, every advance in bureaucratic planning, building tenders and actual construction within settlements led to censure and sour feelings.
The Associated Press examined the numbers, based on figures from Peace Now, an Israeli left-wing anti-settlement organization. Whatever your views on settlements may be, bureau chief Josef Federman’s dispatch is flawed in three ways.
[The AP story was republished in The Independent – see below for update.]
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
1. Within Current Boundaries
AP doesn’t clarify that the plans, tenders and construction are all taking place on land already belonging to the settlements.
This trend, highlighted last week when an Israeli committee advanced plans for thousands more settlement homes on war-won lands, has only deepened Palestinian mistrust of the Trump administration as it says it is preparing to roll out a Mideast peace plan. Each new settlement expansion further diminishes the chances of setting up a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
If you didn’t know better, you’d think “expansion” means extending the boundaries of settlements, which imply unfair encroachment on the Palestinians. But that’s not the case. The Jewish communities of the West Bank are certainly growing, but not outwards.
2. Tarnished Halo
It’s worth noting that Federman didn’t independently verify Peace Now’s numbers.
That’s a fact-checking flaw you can attribute to the Halo Effect, a misplaced trust placed in a person or organization based on an idealized impression of that individual or group. It’s important for the foreign press to seek out the insights of academics, non-governmental organizations and other experts. However, journalists are responsible to fact-check the info, be transparent about the biases of their sources, and be responsible to balance out the coverage.
Even if its numbers are accurate and its methodology sound, Peace Now is a political advocacy organization and not a neutral observer. Peace Now describes itself as “the largest and longest-standing Israeli movement advocating for peace through public pressure,” later adding “Peace Now’s activities are meant to ensure that issues related to Israeli Palestinian peace remain on top of the political agenda and the public discourse.”
Yet AP didn’t disclose Peace Now’s advocacy goals.
3. The Prejudiced Picture
There’s a common theme among wire service photographers of images depicting Palestinians behind bars. So much so that our 2010 study of biased photography (see the full Shattered Lens report) included an entire section on this phenomenon (see Shattered Lens: Part 3 – Putting Palestinians Behind Bars).
Indeed, a five-photo slideshow accompanying Federman’s dispatch includes this image. Every photo had the same caption. What could be more unfairly symbolic?
* * *
Was this story idea the result of a Peace Now pitch to AP, or did it come from the news service’s own initiative? While we’re all free to share story ideas with journalists, AP missed the mark by relying on a single questionable source for key facts and not disclosing the nature of Peace Now. The photo added insult to injury.
I’d like to think the Associated Press is better than that.
AP is the most-read wire service. Please share this critique.
UPDATE: HR PROMPTS THE INDEPENDENT TO CORRECT SETTLEMENT HEADLINE
The AP story critiqued above was also republished in The Independent under the following headline:
Nowhere in the story does it claim that “new settlements” are being constructed. Building, particularly of apartment blocks, is taking place within existing settlement communities.
We contacted The Independent, which amended its headline in response to our complaint. The headline now refers to “settlement homes” rather than “new settlements.”
Before you comment on this article, please note our Comments Policy. Any comments deemed to be in breach of the policy will be removed at the editor’s discretion.
