Ethnic Cleansing in the West Bank
Reporters Greg Myre and Larry Kaplow of NRP
in the US begin a recent report by claiming:
“When Israel captured the West Bank in the
1967 Six-Day War, no Israeli citizens lived in the territory.”
This stunning lack of context ignores that
Jews had indeed lived in Hebron, Bethlehem and many other towns in the land
historically called “Judea and Samaria,” until 19 years earlier – when
Jordanian forces (with the help of local Palestinians) expelled or killed all
of the indigenous Jews, and then re-named the entire area “The West Bank.”
The only reason the population of the West
Bank was entirely Palestinian by 1967 was because they expelled the indigenous
Jews in 1948.
Doesn’t the ethnic cleansing of an entire
indigenous Jewish population deserve a mention from NPR?
Kaplow and Myre further distort history in
the very same sentence by saying “Israel captured the West Bank…” yet covering
up the reason why: Jordan had turned those lands into a launching point for a
massive assault against Israel, with the intent to destroy the entire country.
Israel was forced to capture the West Bank
in order to prevent Jordan’s advance, save Israel’s very existence, and save
all the Jews in Israel from the same fate suffered by those Jews referenced
above: total and complete ethnic cleansing.
Again, not even a mention?
Ethnic Cleansing in Jerusalem
In an encore of ignorance, Kaplow and Myre
claim:
“Shortly after the 1967 war, Israel annexed
East Jerusalem, which is part of the West Bank and had a population that was
then entirely Palestinian.”
First of all, there was never any such
entity as “East Jerusalem.” Jerusalem was one united city for several thousand
years until Jordan invaded its eastern part in 1948. At that point, Jordan’s
military (with the assistance of local Palestinians) expelled or killed all the
Jews living in the areas it captured. Again: total and complete ethnic
cleansing.
Kaplow and Myre also cover up from their
readers that the area they call “East Jerusalem” includes the Temple Mount (the
holiest site in Judaism) along with its famous Western Wall, the Old City, and
Jerusalem’s ancient Jewish Quarter.
Yet all the authors have to say is “…a
population that was then entirely Palestinian.”
Journalistic Failures
Kaplow and Myre indulge in a number of
other misleading falsehoods, such as the claim:
“While the Israelis tend to speak of East
Jerusalem and the West Bank as two separate entities, the Palestinians regard
them as a single body — the occupied West Bank.”
In fact, Palestinians do not typically use
the term “occupied West Bank,” but rather “occupied Palestine,” which they
clearly define as being all of Israel.
When discussing Israel’s withdrawal from
Gaza NPR selectively omitted the thousands of rockets fired at Israel from the
Strip. Kaplow and Myre also criticize Israel’s military presence in the West
Bank but fail to acknowledge that Palestinian terrorism forces Israel to
maintain that military presence.
A journalist may explore complex topics and
present varying viewpoints, but journalistic ethics do not allow the omission
of critical context nor the distortion of objective historical facts, as Kaplow
and Myre have done here.
NPR has covered up the massive scale ethnic
cleansing of Jews in their own historic homeland. The result is not only
offensive to the Israeli victims of these attacks and misleading to NPR
readers, but also an embarrassment to the very profession of journalism.
