Introducing its February 15 report about “the latest cycle of violence [sic] and protests” in Israel and the West Bank, ABC News highlighted foreign correspondent James Longman’s conversations with “families on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide.”
However, throughout the 10-minute ABC segment, entitled “Tensions rise in Israel amid growing protests and violence,” Longman eschews even the pretense of journalistic objectivity, shamelessly promoting a pro-Palestinian version of events in which the facts are clearly subordinate to the narrative.
Longman’s bias is apparent from the get-go when he introduces a Palestinian family from eastern Jerusalem whose house was demolished by Israeli authorities because it lacked the proper building permits:
I mean, look, there’s some of their toys. And you can see up there, in what was their room, you can see posters of the kids, she’s got school photographs up there. And the Israelis say they want to speed up this process. There are 800 homes in just this area of east Jerusalem alone which don’t have the right permits. So this could just be the beginning.”
While Longman attributes the demolitions to the rise of Israel’s “most hardline [government] in the country’s history,” it is crucial to note that virtually all modern locales in the world require government approval before building, and governments around the globe commonly demolish non-permitted construction.
Even if one, like Longman, considers part of Israel’s capital city “occupied territory,” the Jewish state is permitted to undertake activities generally undertaken by state authorities, whether it be in the social, economic, or commercial sphere, as a French Court of Appeals recognized in a 2013 ruling. Furthermore, Palestinians living in eastern Jerusalem have the right to petition Israel’s High Court, which often freezes demolition orders for years while the parties negotiate a compromise.
Longman also fails to inform the public of the context surrounding recent events in the holy city. Even as his interview subject explicitly threatens more “resistance” in response to purported Israeli “escalations” — a Palestinian euphemism for terror attacks against civilians — the ABC correspondent only mentions Palestinian violence after the three-minute mark.
Let's set the scene with a child's toy conveniently located on the rubble of an illegally built Palestinian house, guaranteed to provoke a sympathetic and emotional response from the audience. pic.twitter.com/TSDv7T6dQA
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 16, 2023
After wading into the entirely unrelated Israeli domestic debate over proposed reforms to the judicial system, Longman moves on to what he describes as “the hills of the occupied West Bank”:
All over this area, you can see settlements like this everywhere. There’s another one there — that’s actually an illegal Jewish settlement, even illegal under Israeli law, not just international law… The new Israeli right-wing government wants more Jews to move into the West Bank. They’re making it easier for them to do it. They’re giving them more and more benefits. And illegal Jewish settlements like that; they’re going to make them legal.”
In an evident attempt to mislead viewers, Longman then transitions to an interview with residents of Eli, a Jewish community that was legally established through a decision by the Israeli cabinet over thirty years ago. The long-standing community is home to around 1,000 families, and nearly all buildings in Eli have been regulated under Israeli law.
Indeed, erroneously referring to Eli mayor Ariel Elmaliach as “Elimelech” and grossly miscalculating the number of Jews living in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem (there are some 500,000 in the West Bank and a further 200,000 in eastern Jerusalem) are among Longman’s more minor journalistic failures.
"Illegal Jewish settlements like that? They're going to make them illegal."
Cue a visit to Eli – a longtime legal & recognized settlement. While Longman points out that there are legal & illegal settlements under Israeli law, he allows the viewer to think Eli is an illegal one. pic.twitter.com/TozjEmB318
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 16, 2023
The video also includes other omissions and distortions. For example, although ABC makes clear that the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas has been “president for 18 years,” Longman overlooks that he was only elected to serve a four-year term. And while Israel’s newly-formed government is consistently described as “right-wing” and “hardline,” terror inciter and Holocaust denier Abbas gets no modifier of any kind.
As Longman walks towards the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Judaism’s second-holiest city after Jerusalem, he labels it “a Palestinian city which Jewish settlers have made one of the most volatile areas” — flat-out ignoring thousands of years of Jewish history.
Throughout his report, James Longman’s tone makes it patently obvious which side he has chosen. And by doing so, he deceives thousands of viewers by, once again, presenting a one-sided, pro-Palestinian narrative.
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