Virtually unreported internationally, countries ranging from Iran to Turkey to Jordan are undertaking initiatives meant to weaken Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem, the Jewish state’s capital city. Prominent news organizations have ignored this reality and instead continuously depict Israel as challenging the fragile “status quo” in the holy city (see here, here, here, and here).
By mischaracterizing Israel’s struggle to protect its citizens in Jerusalem as alleged mistreatment of local Palestinians, major news outlets are effectively giving carte blanche to groups and governments that seek to undermine Israel’s legitimate claims to the city.
And if these foreign influences — really, provocations — remain unaddressed, it could once again result in violence at flashpoint sites.
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Jordanian Meddling in Jerusalem
Israeli media reported this week that a campaign in Jordan raised several million shekels ostensibly in order to renovate homes of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem’s Old, specifically those living near the Temple Mount.
But here is how Majed Al Tabbaa, President of the Jordanian Engineers Association that is leading the initiative, explained its purpose:
‘The campaign is Jordan’s answer to the Balfour Declaration that allowed the Israeli occupation authorities to establish a national home on Palestinian land.’ He [Al Tabbaa] said the project did not only reflect the Engineers Association’s stance, but that of the ‘entire Jordanian people,’ and represented the ‘residents’ feelings towards the Al-Aqsa Mosque.'”
The world’s leading news outlets fail to report on such a problematic project, even as they reflexively continue to downplay Palestinian violence on Temple Mount. So distorted is the media’s grasp of reality, an August 24 story in The New York Times about Jewish prayer atop the Temple Mount failed to even note that the site is the holiest in Judaism.
Related Reading: Media Miss Real Story As Palestinians Riot on Temple Mount
Turkey’s Jerusalem Ambitions
Jordan’s machinations are but the tip of the iceberg. During May’s 11-day conflict initiated by Gaza Strip-based terrorist groups against Israel, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called for concrete measures to deter Israel and support Hamas. Specifically, Cavusoglu urged the Islamic world to send an international force to Jerusalem.
Indeed, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has for years been meddling in Jerusalem’s political and social affairs. These subversive activities include financing — to the tune of over $40 million — the travels of Palestinian youth groups to radical Islamic conferences in Turkey, and the bussing to Jerusalem of Palestinians who harass Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount.
As a result, Turkish flags can be seen across eastern Jerusalem. Photos of the fiercely anti-Israel and openly antisemitic Erdogan adorn shops throughout the Old City.
Related Reading: Whiff of Hypocrisy as EU Parliament Grills UNRWA Head Over Antisemitic Textbooks in Palestinian Schools
PA, Hamas Attacks on Israeli Sovereignty
During May’s conflict, the media near-uniformly and incorrectly painted Hamas’ aggression as a response to Israeli police efforts to quell massive ‘protests’ by Palestinians in Jerusalem, including on the Temple Mount. In fact, Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh and the terror group’s military commander Muhammad Deif threatened to unleash havoc in Jerusalem if the Israeli government carried out the court-mandated evictions of Arab families squatting in Jewish-owned homes in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah/Shimon HaTzadik.
As reported by HonestReporting, Haniyeh instructed Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah to reject the Israeli Supreme Court’s compromise that would have resolved the festering dispute on the basis that Israel is “an illegal entity on our [Palestinian] land.”
Related Reading: Palestinian Authority, Hamas Pressured Sheikh Jarrah/Shimon HaTzadik Residents to Reject Israeli Supreme Court Compromise
Meanwhile, the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces — a coalition that includes Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — likewise demanded that the court’s proposal be rejected.
Concurrently, the Palestinian Authority, which media constantly and inaccurately depict as a moderate entity, likely violated agreements between Ramallah and Jerusalem by engaging in political activities throughout Israel’s capital city. Left unreported in the widespread coverage of the Sheikh Jarrah story is that PA officials, who also pressured the Palestinian families to reject the compromise, are forbidden from “engaging in threats [and] intimidation” of Jerusalemites.
Moreover, domestic laws passed by the Israeli parliament require the PA to obtain permission to conduct activities of a “political or governmental nature” in sovereign Israel.
Biased Coverage Normalizes Palestinian Rejection of Coexistence
By not reporting on the undermining by external forces of stability in Jerusalem that aims to chip away at Israel’s sovereignty over the city, media outlets have erased crucial context from a complex issue.
Perhaps the most significant outcome of this journalistic malfeasance is that the PA’s rejectionism is given a pass. For while many insist that Jerusalem must be divided in the event of a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, Ramallah marks no distinction between the eastern and western parts of the city.
In 2020, one of PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ advisors, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, made clear in a television interview that “Jerusalem and Palestine” will be liberated and “will belong to us alone.”
The media’s refusal to report on any of this has effectively legitimized the assault on Israel’s sovereignty over its capital city.
The ongoing manipulation of the “status quo” by foreign actors, and the apparent cover-up by their media allies, has significantly harmed coexistence.
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Featured Image: Ri Butov from Pixabay
