Dear AFP, Jerusalem is Still the Capital of Israel

...Unfortunately for the French wire service, this is no scoop. Rather, it's an erroneous identification of Israel's capital. Journalists frequently use the capital as shorthand to refer to a nation's government.

Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai,
a closet advocate of
settlement expansion?

Tamar Sternthal..
CAMERA Snapshots..
26 January '14..

Is the secular, liberal city of Tel Aviv, and Mayor Ron Huldai of the leftist Labor Party, secretly advocating settlement expansion? If so, Agence France Presse has a scoop!

According to an AFP article last week ("Israel PM urges European 'fairness' in Mideast," Jan. 23):

Netanyahu's comments came after a diplomatic row sparked by four EU states lodging a formal protest against Tel Aviv's drive to expand settlements on the West Bank.

Unfortunately for the French wire service, this is no scoop. Rather, it's an erroneous identification of Israel's capital. Journalists frequently use the capital as shorthand to refer to a nation's government.

The seat of Israel's government, its capital, is Jerusalem. The Prime Minister's bureau is located in Jerusalem, next to the Foreign Ministry, the Bank of Israel, and across the street from the Supreme Court and the Knesset.


Other media outlets which erroneously referred to Tel Aviv as Israel's capital have corrected. For instance, The Washington Post commendably corrected on March 30, 2012:

A March 21 A-section article about President Obama's annual message to the Iranian people incorrectly referred to Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel. Israel designated Jerusalem as its capital in 1950, although many countries maintain embassies and other diplomatic missions in Tel Aviv because of the Palestinians' competing claim on Jerusalem as their capital.

Link: http://blog.camera.org/archives/2014/01/afp_tel_aviv_pushes_settlement.html

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Check-it out! 
.