The Financial Times Skewing of Khan al-Ahmar Every Which Way - by Simon Plosker

The Khan al-Ahmar issue has become a significant international story that deserves to be covered with the nuance that such a complicated case deserves. The Financial Times fails on all counts.

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
08 November '18..

The case of the Bedouin encampment Khan al-Ahmar has become a cause célèbre for many foreign media outlets as well as European governments and non-governmental organizations.

After a decade-long legal battle, Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled in September that the Bedouins failed to demonstrate ownership of the land, clearing the way for the government to demolish the ramshackle collection of structures located right next to a main highway east of Jerusalem between the Israeli settlements of Ma’ale Adumim and Kfar Adumim. Currently, the demolition order has been frozen on orders of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in order to continue the search for a solution that avoids removing the Bedouin residents by force.

That the case has been framed almost entirely as a ‘human rights’ issue has skewed the coverage. After all, cold facts and legal arguments carry little weight when confronted with images of Israeli soldiers and bulldozers ranged against screaming Bedouin women and children fighting for their homes.

It’s these scenes that dominate a five and a half minute video report from the Financial Times that deliberately frames the dispute against Israel with scant regard for Israel’s side of the argument. (And yes, it is an argument with two sides as demonstrated by the exhaustive legal battle that has taken place.)

Let’s look at the language that the FT’s Mehul Srivastava uses to frame the dispute:

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