Do the following descriptions of Jerusalem betray a whiff of bias towards Palestinian claims on the city?
AFP writes:
The Western Wall, where Peres gave his speech, lies in Arab east Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967 but which the Palestinians want to make the capital of their promised state.
Even worse is Reuters, which capitalizes the word “east,” improperly elevating “Arab East Jerusalem” to the status of a proper noun:
Abbas wants Arab East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its capital, but this is not recognised internationally.
Arabs and Jews always lived in a unified city that made no distinctions between “East” and “West.” No area was viewed as inherently “Jewish” or “Arab.” until 1948, when the Jordanian army captured the city’s eastern neighborhoods and the Old City. With the exception of a Jewish enclave on Mount Scopus, Jordan occupied eastern Jerusalem, expelling Jewish residents, destroying numerous synagogues and other Jewish institutions.
