Spinning Away Israel ‘Gaffes’

NPR said Chris Christie’s use of the accurate description “Occupied Territories” was “poorly chosen.” (cc photo: Bob Jagendorf )

In recent months, media consumers have received a heavy dose of spin masking the reality of Israeli policy as journalists rushed to cover Chris Christie’s and John Kerry’s utterances on the country.

New Jersey Governor Christie jetted to Las Vegas in late March to vie for the backing of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a right-wing pro-Israel billionaire who has become the Republican Party’s No. 1 backer. Speaking to a Republican Jewish Coalition conference, Christie tried to impress the man he hopes could help him win the White House.

“I took a helicopter ride from the Occupied Territories across and just felt personally how extraordinary that was to understand, the military risk that Israel faces,” Christie said, with Adelson in the audience. But instead of burnishing his foreign policy credentials, Christie’s use of the term “Occupied Territories” set off an uproar among a crowd that doesn’t consider Israel’s military presence in Palestine to be an occupation.

Many outlets treated the question of whether Israel occupies land as one with no right answer. NPR‘s Charles Mahtesian (3/31/14) said that the phrase was “poorly chosen” because it was a “loaded term that is rejected by Zionists.” The Associated Press (3/30/14) wrote that Christie’s use of the term drew “murmurs” because “most of Israel’s supporters in the US don’t consider the West Bank and East Jerusalem to be occupied territory.” Washington Post blogger Katie Zezima (4/1/14) wrote that “the Israeli government and many of its supporters believe Israel has a right to the land,” though the United Nations disagrees—a formulation that avoids telling readers what is true.

But using the term “Occupied Territories” to refer to Palestinian enclaves teeming with Israeli forces is entirely accurate. Since the 1967 War, Israeli soldiers have been deployed to the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem. (In 2005, Israeli soldiers pulled out of Gaza, but they still retain control over its air and sea space and border with Israel.) “Occupation” is an accepted term that has legal pedigree, applying to any situation where a military exercises effective control over a territory that it has no title to. Even the US State Department, no bastion of anti-Israel sentiment, uses the term.

Secretary of State John Kerry could have more accurately described Israel as a current apartheid state, rather than a potential one. (photo: State Department)

Coverage of Secretary of State Kerry one month later was no better. Kerry spoke to the Trilateral Commission, a discussion group for members of the global elite, in the aftermath of a failed effort to get the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority to come to an agreement. The secretary had a warning for Israel if it didn’t allow a Palestinian state to be created. “A unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens—or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state,” said Kerry, in remarks secretly recorded by the Daily Beast‘s Josh Rogin (4/27/14).

Journalists from across the political spectrum agreed: Kerry shouldn’t have used the word “apartheid,” even if he was describing some far-off day. It was a “bizarre comparison” to South Africa, Fox News‘ Eric Bolling (4/29/14) said, while MSNBC.com journalist Beth Fouhy (4/29/14) chimed in to say that “the word was unfortunate.” What was ignored by most of the media—and by Kerry—is that credible observers like South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu (The Guardian, 4/28/02, Haaretz, 3/10/14) have said Israel is today an apartheid state, complete with separate systems of law and roads in the West Bank, where Israeli Jewish settlers are accorded privileges denied to Palestinians. Gaza remains under blockade, while inside Israel there is systemic discrimination against Palestinian citizens, like laws that prevent non-Jews from living in small communities and bar family reunification if a spouse lives in the Occupied Territories.

CNN also muddied up what the discussion around Israel and apartheid is actually about. Reporters Tom Cohen and Elise Labott wrote (CNN.com, 4/30/14) that the word has been used by Israeli leaders to describe “the eventual result if a Jewish state had a Palestinian majority in some areas.” Rogin told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer (4/29/14) that “John Kerry believes that Israel’s facing an existential threat from the demography of Palestinians living in Israeli territory.”

While it’s telling that Israel sees a threat from Palestinian babies lest it ruin its Jewish majority, demographics have little to do with apartheid. The term has been defined in the Rome Statute—the treaty that established the International Criminal Court—as a system where inhumane acts by one racial group targeting another racial group are “committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination.”

Alex Kane, an assistant editor at Mondoweiss.net and the World editor at AlterNet, is a former FAIR intern.