Historical Amnesia at the Financial Times

Steven Stotsky
CAMERA
10 May '10

Public perception of the Arab-Israeli conflict is shaped by competing narratives. The Arabist narrative dismisses the compelling story of Jews as an indigenous people returning to their homeland, instead casting Israel as a foreign implant occupying Arab land. It employs the terminology of Western imperialism in order to reverse the historical roles of aggressor and victim. Vivid examples of the Arabist account frequent the opinion columns and editorials of the Financial Times of London. Examinations by media monitoring groups, CAMERA and Just Journalism revealed its commentary pieces to be heavily weighted against Israel. The paper's bias also seeps into its news coverage. An April 12, 2010 analysis piece about current tensions between the United States and Israel by correspondents Tobias Buck and Daniel Dombey provides an instructive example.

In U.S. and Israel: An unsettled alliance, Buck and Dombey present Israel's claim to east Jerusalem as resting only on the fact that it occupies the area now. He leaves no doubt it rightfully belongs to the Palestinian Arabs. Describing the controversy over a planned Jewish neighborhood in Ramat Shlomo, Buck and Dombey state,

To most Israelis, it is no more than a suburb of Jerusalem. To the rest of the world, however, it is an illegal Jewish settlement built on occupied Palestinian land. That is why a plan, revealed last month, to build an additional 1,600 homes there for settlers sparked a global outcry, as well as a crisis in US-Israeli relations yet to be resolved.

The premise that eastern Jerusalem belongs to the Palestinian Arabs deserves scrutiny.

(Read full report)

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