Dear HonestReporting Subscriber,
While the Palestinian and Israel Prime Ministers visit Washington
to pursue high-level diplomatic discussions, a simple yet
extraordinary humanitarian event occurred in the Mideast on Friday.
Six elderly Iraqi Jews — remainders of what was once a vibrant and
ancient community — were flown to safety in Israel, reuniting with
long-lost family.
The touching event was broadly covered by Western media, but when
addressing the historical background of this story, the news
outlets were remarkably vague:
-- Associated Press: "Iraq once had a community of 130,000 Jews,
but about 120,000 made their way to Israel between 1949 and 1952,
with smaller numbers of Jews leaving the country in subsequent
years."
-- Reuters: "More than 129,000 Iraqi Jews immigrated to Israel
after its establishment in 1948."
-- New York Times: "Friday's charter was believed to have been the
first direct flight between the countries since an airlift in 1950-
51 that brought thousands of Iraqi Jews to Israel."
Absent from these reports is the reason why 99% of the Iraqi
Jewish community departed following Israel's independence — they
(like Jews in Syria, Libya, Egypt and other Arab nations) were
systematically expelled by the Iraqi government. Iraqi legislation
in 1948-51 first outlawed Zionist "behavior," then deprived Jews of
their Iraqi nationality, access to education, and finally, of all
their property. President Truman helped organize a massive airlift
in 1951 to bring the desperate Iraqi Jewish community to Israel.
Read exposes of the persecution suffered by the Iraqi Jewish
community:
- Denver's Rocky Mountain News
- The Middle East Quarterly
It is a glaring case of selective omission that these articles
profile the remnants of the Iraqi Jewish community — yet fail to
mention these key historic facts. The same media outlets that
typically describe Palestinian refugees as having been "driven out"
or "evicted" in 1948 are curiously silent when describing the
genuine persecutory context of Jewish refugees.
Comment to Associated Press: feedback@ap.org
Comment to Reuters: editor@reuters.com
Comment to The New York Times: letters@nytimes.com
Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media
bias.
HonestReporting.com
--- BRUTALITY ABOUT-FACE ---
As reported by Ha'aretz, a Palestinian man who claimed that he was
held and beaten for 30 hours at an Israel Defense Forces checkpoint
now admits that it was actually the Palestinian security services
which held him and beat him, for alleged collaboration with Israel.
Ha'aretz themselves were duped, having published the man's
original version the previous day — without the requisite
background check — under the title "Whoever Walked By, Kicked."
It is noteworthy that no major Western media outlet joined
Ha'aretz in prematurely indicting the IDF in this event. Perhaps
the media (with some prodding from HonestReporting subscribers)
have begun to internalize the lesson of Jenin, and no longer grant
immediate credence to unsubstantiated Palestinian claims of Israeli
"brutality."
--- SAN DIEGO LETTERS ---
HonestReporting subscribers positively flooded the inbox of the
San Diego Union-Tribune, which had compared the death of an
innocent terror victim to Rachel Corrie's.
The Union-Tribune posted a number of well-written letters to the
editor, available online here.
