UPDATE
This post was updated on December 13 to reflect that the word “colonization” was actually stated by President Macron in his press conference, a fact that came to light only after the publication of this post. While it explains how the word came to be used in the Irish Times, HonestReporting still maintains that this does not excuse the way in which Lara Marlowe and the Irish Times presented it.
The Irish Times has a history of hostility towards Israel and its journalist Lara Marlowe has a history of anti-Israel articles, which has documented.
That’s why we weren’t surprised that the Irish Times’s report on a meeting between Israeli PM Netanyahu and French President Macron ran this headline along with Marlowe’s text:
It appears that Macron did actually use the French word “la colonisation” in his press conference. In itself, this is a serious issue when the leader of a supposedly friendly state employs such a loaded term to discuss issues of Jewish settlements in the disputed territories, given the diplomatic sensitivities.
Given its loaded nature, one should have expected Marlowe and the Irish Times to present the word in quotation marks to make it clear that this was Macron’s terminology.
Instead, it is presented as fact.
It’s safe to assume that President Macron wouldn’t publicly use such a loaded term as “colonization” to discuss issues of Jewish settlements in the disputed territories, given the diplomatic sensitivities.
Why would Marlowe and the Irish Times deliberately choose to appropriate that language?
Because the term, irrespective of one’s political views on settlements, implies that Jews are a foreign implant on the land and not indigenous to the region. Colonization also plays to the view of Israel itself as a product of colonialism and therefore illegitimate.
Marlowe and the Irish Times are clearly attempting to disguise their hostile opinions as news.
Please send your complaints to the Irish Times – [email protected]
