For the BBC, why is this Israeli planning decision different from others ?

...Now we see another example of the disturbing fact that the BBC’s issues with Israeli construction actually do not depend on the project’s location – or even on the topic of building itself – but upon the faith and ethnicity of the people it assumes will be moving into newly built apartments and houses in specific areas. There’s a word for that.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
04 April '15..

Whenever an Israeli planning body makes an announcement concerning some stage or other of the construction of apartments and houses in certain neighbourhoods of Jerusalem or towns and villages in Judea and Samaria, the BBC is usually very quick off the mark in producing a report which typically includes condemnation from PA officials, comment from at least one political NGO and the standard BBC insert designed to impress upon audiences that “settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this”.

Last week, however, the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee approved the construction of 2,200 new apartments in a neighbourhood on the ‘wrong’ side of the 1949 Armistice Lines and yet not a word on that decision appeared on the BBC News website.

(Continue Reading)

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. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
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Plosker - BBC Bias Alert: Justifying and Humanizing Terrorist Murderers

Simon Plosker..
02 February '12..






When is murder not murder? According to the BBC, when Jews or Israelis are the victims.

In a feature on Palestinians prisoners released and exiled as part of the Gilad Shalit deal , the BBC states:

The releases were enormously controversial in Israel, where some of the prisoners were seen as mass murderers.

When terrorists deliberately kill innocent Israeli civilians, that’s murder. Period.

As for freed terrorist, Ibrahim Shammasina, profiled by the BBC, his involvement in the murders of teenagers Ronen Karamani and Lior Tubul, taxi driver Rafi Doron and IDF soldier Yehoshua Friedberg, warrants but one sentence in the BBC report, which even omits one of those murders:

“A minute of freedom is worth more than all the possessions in the world,” says Shammasina. “Prison, it’s a grave – as if you’re in a grave but still alive.”

Shammasina was sentenced to 23 years in jail for his role in the 1990 murder of three Israelis and a further 20 years for planning a kidnapping. Despite spending almost half his life in prison, he does not regret his actions.

“When there is an occupation, you’re forced to,” he says. “It’s your duty, the duty of every Palestinian, to resist the occupation. If I didn’t resist, I would just have surrendered.”

What the BBC didn’t tell you

While the murder of two teenagers didn’t even warrant more than a passing reference by the BBC, here’s what the LA Times reported on a terrorist outrage that shocked Israelis back in August 1990:

CAMERA - BBC Derails on Jerusalem Tram Story

Ricki Hollander/Tamar Sternthal
CAMERA Media Analysis
07 November '11

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=4&x_outlet=12&x_article=2146

Writing for the BBC, freelance travel writer Matthew Teller veered sharply off-course in his article, "Jerusalem Tram Offers View of Other Side of Tracks," about Jerusalem's light railway.

The author demonstrates his shocking ignorance about the history of Jerusalem, about international law, and about present-day Jerusalem with passages that alternately suggest that Israel seized, settled and segregated Jerusalem.

Distorting History

Teller implies that Israel wrongfully seized the city from its Arab rulers, with his reference to the "western part of Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1948," and eastern Jerusalem which was" under Jordanian rule from 1948 until 1967 — when it, too, was captured by Israel."

But this is a complete distortion of history. Jerusalem — whose Jewish presence dates back long before Arab rule and whose Jewish community has, since 1820, constituted a plurality of the population – was divided as a result of the 1948 war, in which Arab nations invaded the nascent State of Israel and the Arab Legion attempted to capture the entire city, both east and west.

If anything, the description of wrongfully "capturing" Jerusalem more aptly applies to Transjordan's Arab Legion, which shelled and besieged the city, cutting off its Jewish residents from the coastal plain. It was the Arab Legion that seized eastern Jerusalem, expelling its Jewish residents, destroying Jewish property and religious sites, and creating a Judenrein area for the first time in over 1000 years.

In fact, Western portions of the city came under Israel's control only as a result of Israel's attempt to repel the Arab army and break the siege of the city. In the first four weeks of Arab attacks, 200 Jewish civilians were killed and over 1,000 were wounded in Jerusalem. Eventually, Israeli forces managed to force back the Arab army from some areas and gained control of suburbs and villages from the Arabs.

After 10 months of fighting, an armistice agreement was signed on April 3, 1949, dividing Jerusalem along the November 1948 ceasefire lines of Israeli and Transjordanian forces, with several areas of no-man's land. The armistice line served as a temporary border between what had formerly been two mixed communities. Western Jerusalem became Israel's capital city, while eastern Jerusalem, including the holy sites, was occupied by Transjordan, which in 1949 became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The city was essentially divided between two armed camps separated by barbed wire, concrete walls, minefields and bunkers.

Daphne Anson - The Absent Phrase That Speaks Volumes About BBC Bias

Daphne Anson
29 August '11

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/08/absent-phrasethat-speaks-volumes-about.html


Spot the difference between these two reports regarding today's terrorist attack in Tel Aviv. There's the BBC's blatant refusal to use the T-word, of course. But can you spot another difference? Clue: it concerns something the attacker said. The BBC's censorship of the phrase in question typifies the way in which Al Beeb downplays the jihadist threat against the only democracy in the Middle East and the world's only Jewish State. The BBC is deliberately withholding information that sheds light on the true situation confronting Israel. This is as unethical as it is propagandistic. It is also typical of the BBC.

Is it any wonder that so many viewers and listeners who rely upon the BBC for news are prejudiced against Israel? Is it any wonder that so many people who realise the tricks that the BBC plays despise and deride the Corporation for being the Great Whore of Leftism and Islamofascism that it has become?

Jerusalem Post:

Eight people were injured in south Tel Aviv early Monday morning, when a terrorist from the West Bank carjacked a taxi and rammed it into a police road block protecting a Tel Aviv nightclub, before going on a stabbing spree.

Police said the terrorist, a 20-year-old Nablus resident, entered a taxi near the beginning of Salameh Street, and hijacked the vehicle, stabbing the driver in the hand. He then drove for approximately a kilometer down Salameh Street towards the Haoman 17 nightclub, which was filled with high school children at an end-of-summer party. At the time of the attack, almost all of the teenagers were inside the club.

Border Police had set up a precautionary road block ahead of time at the entrance to the club on Abarbanel Street, in Tel Aviv's Florentine neighborhood. The terrorist rammed the road block, and struck a number of civilians and a border policeman.

"He then got out of the car, screamed Allah Akbar [God is Great], and went on a knife attack," a police spokeswoman said.

The suspect was tackled to the ground by Border Police officers and taken into custody. He was taken to the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon after being lightly injured. He was later released and was taken in for questioning under heavy security.

CAMERA - BBC Bias on Display Again

SS
CAMERA/Snapshots
17 August '11

http://blog.camera.org/archives/2011/08/post_74.html

The entrenched bias of the BBC is evident once again in its guide to the Palestinian plan to ask the UN to recognize its statehood. The guide, titled "Q & A: Palestinian Statehood Bid at the UN", selectively omits key historical facts in order to portray Israel as the obstacle to peace.

The following examples expose the BBC's evasive presentation of the circumstances that led to the Palestinian decision to pursue a UN General Assembly vote:

1) The guide states that

The Palestinians ... have long sought to establish an independent, sovereign state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem - occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six Day War. Although the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has said he would prefer to achieve this through negotiations, two decades of on-and-off peace talks have failed to produce a deal.

The statement implicitly connects the Israeli control of these territories since 1967 with the failure to establish a sovereign Palestinian state. This ignores the central fact that a sovereign Palestinian state does not exist because Arab leaders rejected the UN resolution to establish it in 1947 since this would have required them to accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state as well. The statement also ignores Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and offer to cede as much as 95 percent of the West Bank.

By claiming that Abbas would like to negotiate a solution while making no mention of Israeli efforts, the guide leaves the impression that Israel is responsible for the failure of negotiations. BBC should have clarified that Abbas, not Netanyahu, has refused to negotiate despite Israel's agreeing to a ten month freeze on building on the West Bank in 2009.

2) The guide discusses how

The Palestinians and their supporters are also looking at ways to press for UN General Assembly resolution 181 of 1947 to be enforced. The resolution calls for the partition of British Mandate Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab one.
The BBC fails to inform that it was the Arabs who rejected the resolution and are responsible for it not being enforced.

3) In discussing UN Security Council Resolution 242, the BBC asserts,

Although Israel disputes the precise meaning of this, there is wide international acceptance that the pre-1967 frontiers should form the basis of a peace settlement.

In fact, as CAMERA has amply documented, the framers of the resolution, including British diplomats Lord Caradon and Baron George Brown, clearly established that the resolution does not require Israel to return to the pre-1967 boundaries. It is not, as the BBC contends, an Israeli dispute over the "precise meaning."

4) While mentioning Hamas's commitment to the destruction of Israel, the BBC emphasizes that "the main opposition comes from Israel." The phrasing emphasizes Israeli opposition to the UN plan in order to portray Israel as unreasonable in demanding negotiations, while presenting Hamas as acting reasonable for going along with the plan even though it has not modified it's eliminationist stance.

The guide is a striking example of the unwillingness of the BBC to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict objectively even in what is purportedly an objective information piece.

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(video) Is It Time To Free Palestine?

Daphne Anson
23 June '11


http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/06/is-it-time-to-free-palestine-video.html


Brought to you courtesy of Al Beeb, from its Glasgow studio. Participants Sam Westrop and Raymond Mann get it right.





And see http://www.raymondcook.net/blog/index.php/2011/06/21/bbcs-the-big-question-asks-the-wrong-question/

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Guardian Places Knesset on Arab Farmland

Simon Plosker
Honest Reporting/Backspin
30 May '11

http://honestreporting.com/guardian-places-knesset-on-arab-farmland/

Only yesterday I blogged the BBC’s video report on the Arab village of Lifta, located at the western entrance to Jerusalem and abandoned since 1948. Within 48 hours of the BBC’s report, the Guardian has also published its own story and video.

Is this an amazing coincidence or is this an obvious demonstration of the similarity in the agendas of both the BBC and Guardian?

Both media outlets seem determined to bring the focus of the Arab-Israeli conflict back to the events of 1947/8 – a tactic employed by the Palestinians to present Israel as being “born in sin” and responsible for the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians and the creation of the refugee problem.

The fact that one Yacoub Odeh is the former Lifta resident guiding the BBC’s Wyre Davies and the Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood separately would suggest that this “tour” was a well-organized effort offered to the international media and eagerly picked up by those outlets sympathetic to the Palestinian narrative from 1948.

But where does Sherwood get her information from? She states:

Out of sight of Lifta’s ruins, but built on its former farmlands are the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), the supreme court, the Hadassah hospital, the Hebrew University and the city’s central bus station.

In fact, the Knesset was built on land leased from the Greek Orthodox Church and not Lifta’s farmlands. The Knesset, Supreme Court and Hebrew University are located in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Ram, which prior to the 1948 war, was known as the village of Sheikh Badr and not Lifta’s farmland.

As for Hadassah Hospital, is Sherwood referring to Hadassah Mount Scopus in the north of Jerusalem or Hadassah Ein Kerem in the south west of the city? Either way, both are located a considerable distance from Lifta and could not possibly have been part of its farmland prior to 1948.

According to Sherwood then, it appears that entire swathes of Jerusalem were actually built on Lifta’s farmland.

Looks like Sherwood’s lack of fact checking has been caught out.

But this isn’t surprising as Yacoub Odeh is given carte blanche to push the Naqba narrative and both the Guardian and BBC are prepared to accept this at face value.

So is this a story that pits development against the preservation of historical memory or is it really all about the right of Jews to build in Jerusalem, even in the western part of the city?

Considering that the BBC and Guardian both refer to Arab East Jerusalem and make no secret of their opinion that Jews should not be a part of the landscape there, it’s no surprise that even the western “Jewish” side of Jerusalem is now apparently part of the discussion.

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BBC Fights For an Arab West Jerusalem

Simon Plosker
Honest Reporting/Backspin
29 May '11

http://honestreporting.com/bbc-fights-for-an-arab-west-jerusalem/

The BBC is so fond of referring to “Arab East Jerusalem” to make the point that this part of the city should be a homogenous demographic that doesn’t include Jews. But what happens when the BBC visits the western part of Jerusalem?

In this video, the BBC reports from Lifta, an Arab village abandoned in 1948. Many Jerusalem residents will be familiar with the area in question as it is located at the western entrance to the city and is visible from some of the main highways in the area. The BBC report refers to Lifta’s “exquisite mosque”, a subtle ploy to imply some deep spiritual and living breathing connection to the village as well as to presumably induce negative feelings towards anyone who might interfere with a house of worship.

However, any observer can see that all that is left of this village are tumbling down stone structures that have been left untouched for decades and what may have been a mosque is nothing more than an empty edifice. Lifta is also known as an area whose crumbling structures are used by criminals and drug users seeking somewhere quiet and off the beaten track to engage in unsavory pursuits.

It also happens to be within a few minutes walk from Jerusalem’s Central Bus Station, International Convention Center and many Jewish neighborhoods and is clearly within the 1949 Armistice Lines and part of Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty before the reunification of the city in 1967.

Does the BBC reporter not see the gross hypocrisy of promoting the opinions of a former Lifta resident who complains that he is unable to live in his former home while complaining that Jews from around the world could live there instead? After all, the BBC is so quick to parrot the line that the eastern part of Jerusalem belongs to the Arabs.

So if the BBC recognizes “Arab East Jerusalem”, why does it not recognize a “Jewish West Jerusalem”? The BBC isn’t prepared to recognize a united, undivided city but it still tries to have its cake and eat it.

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BBC Ethics Unveiled: Lies About Jerusalem, Lies About Guidelines

Ricki Hollander, Gilead Ini
CAMERA Media Analysis
31 March '11

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=4&x_outlet=12&x_article=2019

The BBC revealed its complete disregard of its own Editorial Guidelines when it defended an egregiously one-sided and inaccurate documentary about Jerusalem.

This video investigates the flouting of these guidelines by Panorama and the disingenuous ruling of the BBC Trust's Editorial Standards Committee in support of the January 2010 segment. For more background, see CAMERA's original analysis and the BBC Editorial Standards Committee ruling.



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Israel responsible for breaking Gaza cease-fire BBC suggests

Just Journalism
The Wire
Mon. 28 Mar. 2011 @ 13.49 –

http://justjournalism.com/the-wire/bbc-suggests-israel-responsible-for-breaking-gaza-cease-fire/

Israeli air strike on Islamic Jihad members allegedly preparing to launch rockets described by BBC as ‘blow to those calling for calm’.

Following a week of continuing violence along the Israel-Gaza border, which has seen both rocket fire from Islamist militants as well as retaliatory strikes from Israel, the British media reported on Sunday that Israel had killed two members of Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

The BBC News website’s coverage of the death of the two militants emphasised that the strike threatened to escalate the violence in the region – despite Israel stating that it had targeted the Islamic Jihad members as they prepared to fire rockets, itself a breach of any ceasefire.

‘Israeli air strike kills two militants in northern Gaza’ noted that the attack came a day after ‘militant groups in Hamas-run Gaza’ were reported to have offered Israel a truce. Despite acknowledging Israel’s claim that ‘its strike targeted militants attempting to fire rockets into Israel’, the article nonetheless implied that it was the Israeli strike which had broken the truce:

‘It was not immediately clear whether if Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza would now renege on their pledge [following Israel’s strike].’

The argument that Israel was responsible for any continuation in violence, rather than the Islamic Jihad squad, was made explicit by the BBC’s Jon Donnison:

‘…Sunday’s air strike is a blow to those calling for calm after the recent escalation in violence, the BBC’s Jon Donnison in Gaza reports.’

By way of contrast, the AP’s ‘Israeli jets wipe out jihadist squad’, published today in The Independent, implied that were it correct that the militants were preparing to fire rockets, that act, rather than Israel’s response, would have constituted the initial violation of the cease-fire:

‘Gaza militants, including Islamic Jihad and the territory’s Hamas rulers, had said over the weekend they would halt their fire if Israel did. It was not clear whether they were reneging on that pledge or if the airstrike hit a rogue group of militants ignoring the ceasefire overture.’

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MP condemns BBC coverage of Itamar attacks in Telegraph

Just Journalism
The Wire
Thurs. 24. Mar. 2011 @ 14.20 –

http://justjournalism.com/the-wire/mp-condemns-bbc-coverage-of-itamar-attacks-in-telegraph/


The Daily Telegraph publishes strongly-worded criticism of BBC media coverage of the Itamar killings, accusing the corporation of ‘almost complete silence’ due to anti-Israel bias.


Louise Bagshawe MP, writing an op-ed on the BBC coverage, condemns what she perceives as the underreporting of the murder of the Fogel family on the 11th March. The article describes the brutal murders in gory detail, emphasising the barbaric nature of the attack. The Member of Parliament for Corby and Northamptonshire expresses her dismay at finding only two articles on the BBC website, both allegedly omitting important information: the first, a mere ‘cursory description of the incident’ and ‘another focusing on Israel’s decision to build more settlements, which mentioned the killings in passing’.

‘The second story, [which suggested] that the construction announcement was an act of antagonism following the massacre, also omitted key facts and failed to mention the subsequent celebrations in Gaza, and the statement by a Hamas spokesman that “five dead Israelis is not enough to punish anybody”.’

As Just Journalism reported on Monday, the BBC sought to portray the Palestinian reaction as one of shock and outrage and failed to cover reports of celebrations in Gaza where sweets had been handed out, following a tradition amongst some Palestinians of glorifying the murder of Israeli citizens.

Bagshawe questions the BBC’s prioritisation of news and suggests a double standard:

‘What if a settler had entered a Palestinian home and sawn off a baby’s head? Might we have heard about it then?’

She categorises the BBC’s ‘seeming lack of care’ as part of a habit of misleading reporting by the BBC, which has ‘long been accused of anti-Israel bias’.

‘It even commissioned the Balen report into bias in its Middle Eastern coverage, and then went to court to prevent its findings being publicised.’

Bagshawe also condemns the BBC’s ‘broadcast silence’, citing the reply for the BBC public affairs team:

‘Then they informed me that the Fogel story had not featured on television at all. Not even News 24.’

She notes her response, further questioning the rectitude of BBC broadcasting decisions.

‘I have asked the corporation to let me know why, if the story was “prominent on the website”, it was not deemed of sufficient merit to broadcast on television, and barely on radio. I have asked them to explain the inaccuracies and omissions in the reporting. And I have asked them what non-Japan, non-Libya stories made it to air, in preference. Twenty-four hours later, I have yet to receive a reply.’

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Delegitimising Israel by Delegitimising Scripture

Daphne Anson
17 March '11

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/03/delegitimising-israel-by-delegitimising.html

In 2002 the BBC’s execrably biased-against-Israel Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen, though neither historian, theologian nor archaeologist, was trotted out to present an Al Beeb documentary on Moses,who of course was the great Lawgiver of the Jewish People.

Bowen was true to his and Al Beeb’s agenda-laden form.

He loftily pronounced the biblical account of Moses and the Exodus to be “a fanciful tale ... the stuff of fairy tales”.

“If the Hebrews were never in Egypt then perhaps the whole epic was fiction, made up to give the Jewish people a history and a destiny,” he declared. And he scoffingly dismissed what he called “the religious justification of the State of Israel” – Moses’ “burning bush” encounter with the Almighty.

As the London-based Israeli journalist Douglas Davis observes of that documentary, in an essay entiled “Hatred in the Air: The BBC, Israel and Antisemitism” that appears in the book A New Antisemitism? Debating Judeophobia in 21st-Century Britain (2003):

“I have no problem with a documentary that suggests scientific explanations for seemingly miraculous events in the Jewish story, but I do object when I suspect that the purpose of the investigation is to delegitimize the basis of Judaism and to undermine the claim of the Jewish people to national expression in even a part of its ancestral home. ...[I]t is inconceivable that the BBC would devote an hour-long prime-time documentary to a critical investigation that served to delegitimize the Prophet Muhammed and undermine the basic tenets of Islam.”

Now, the BBC seems set on the delegitimising-Israel-through-undermining-Judaism course once again.

Aaqil Ahmed, a Muslim who to many Christians' astonishment and indeed consternation was appointed Head of BBC’s Religion and Ethics department a couple of years ago, commissioned Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou, an atheist university lecturer in theology and religion at Exeter University (for whom also see http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-bible-a-history/articles/abrahams-inheritance), to present a three-part series “that seeks to de-construct and sceptically critique the Holy Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity”.

Have a look at the presentation on King David, replete with much modern Israeli imagery, including a certain wall, beside which the presenter strides, and you’ll see what I mean: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8383956/Bibles-Buried-Secrets-BBC-Two-review.html

And please be sure to look at David Vance’s fine post on the Biased BBC website, which in discussing the Stavrakapoulos series shows how the BBC manages to decry the Bible as a fount of male chauvinism and to excoriate sexism in Christianity while treating the misogyny of the Quran and of Islam in a manner that I can only describe as respectful, if not reverential. http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2011/03/loving-religion-of-peace-loathing.html

The comment by Max on the following thread is of interest too: http://cifwatch.com/2011/03/15/in-the-arab-world-but-not-of-it-glaring-omission-underlines-the-anti-israel-bias-of-the-bbc/#comments

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Biased, Brazen, and Contemptible

Daphne Anson
16 March '11

Here's the BBC's online report of the massacre of the Fogel Family:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12721170

Here's a related snide report, by Jon Donnison, a Jeremy-Bowen-in-the-making, from what I've seen of him:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12725487

Here's the BBC's arrogant, dismissive response to complaints regarding the coverage – or rather lack of it – of the massacre of a family – correction – a "settler" family:

http://honestreporting.com/baby-killers-update-bbc-responds-to-hr-criticism/

Been there before, of course, and now that Lord Patten, who has a proven track record of pro-Palestinian bias, has been shoe-horned into the position of Chairman of the BBC Trust (see http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/03/lord-patten-as-chairman-of-bbc-trust.html), we will doubtless be there again. To no avail.



http://honestreporting.com/bbc-bias-an-in-depth-analysis-2/

Biased, Brazen, and Contemptible.

Those are among the more polite and printable words for the national broadcaster, whose disregard for its Charter and Producers' Guidelines, disdain for licence-payers, pimping of its own pet leftist agendas, and demonisation of Israel, is now completely out of control.

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The Promise: Political History?

Love of the Land
04 February '11

Yisrael Medad (My Right Word) recently visited the BBC4's site for Editor Lindsey Hilsum's review of "The Promise". The comments that Yisrael left there unfortunately, seemed to not find favor and are nowhere to be found. What did he have to say?

In writing "When the Jewish state was created, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee...", Ms. Hilsum is displaying not only ignorance but insidious and wilful distortion. Her sentence should have been composed so: "Upon the UN decision to seek territorial compromise by partitioning the Mandate, the Arabs refused to accept that recommendation, while the Jewish side did. The Arabs, first locally and then on May 15, 1948 from other Arab countries, engaged in an aggressive war of extinction, as they declared. Their attempts at ethnic cleansing failed and in the end, they themselves either left their towns and villages voluntarily, hoping to return after a surmised Arab victory, or in losing battles, were necessitated, as every other losing side, to re-adapt their living conditions.

Moreover, in writing "For Jews, it was the promised land. For Palestinians, it was the 'nakba' - the catastrophe" only highlights a basic problem: was this a "national homeland" for the local Arabs? Why did they not even have an Arabic name for their country but needed a Roman name? Why was it not even a recognizable administrative unit within the Ottoman Empire but rather three (or more at times)? Why does Ms. Hilsom not remind us that in 1922, the eastern section of "Palestine" was lopped off the Mandate territory for a Jewish national home and awarded to a Saudi Arabian, Abdullah the Hashemite?

Good points, yes?

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