Is the BBC Buying into Arab Propaganda with its Stance on East Jerusalem?
Posted: Sunday, January 24, 2010
by Joel Kontinen
http://joelkontinen.blogspot.com/
Recently, BBC's Panorama presented a 30-minute documentary on East Jerusalem. In the program, Jane Corbin takes a walk around Jerusalem and laments the callousness of Jewish settlers who have come to take over Arab property.
Ms. Corbin gives the impression that East Jerusalem never was a Jewish city and that the Jews are trying to re-write history.
Jerusalem's Jewish roots go back to the time of King David some 3,000 years ago. Since then, conquerors - from the Babylonians and Romans to Turks and Arabs - have come and gone but some Jews have always stayed in the city.
The Arab occupation of Jerusalem, beginning in the 7th century A. D., brought hardship and misery to the Jews. The conquerors often built their mosques near synagogues or churches to demonstrate the superiority of Islam. Moreover, they deliberately insulted the Jews by building slaughter houses close to holy sites.
Yet, even during the Ottoman period there were more Jews than Arabs in Jerusalem. In 1845 the population consisted of 7,120 Jews, 5,000 Muslims and 3,390 Christians. Nine years later, The New York Daily Tribune published an article that stated,"The sedentary population of Jerusalem numbers about 15,500 souls, of whom 4,000 are Mussulmans and 8,000 Jews."
We should remember that until 1865 "Jerusalem" consisted of what is now known as East Jerusalem. The other parts of the city were built later. The only time when East Jerusalem was an Arab city was from 1949 to 1967 after the Jordanians took over the old city and drove out the Jews from dwellings that had been theirs for decades if not centuries.
In 1949 there were 58 synagogues in the Jewish Quarter of Old Jerusalem. The Jordanians either destroyed or vandalised most of them. Flagrantly breaking the terms of the Armistice Agreement of June 1949, the Jordanians did not allow the Jews to visit the Western Wall ("the Wailing Wall") or their other holy sites or cemeteries, such as the tomb of Rachel.
Yet in her walks around Jerusalem, BBC's Jane Corbin never once suggests that Arabs could in any way be responsible for what has happened or is happening in Jerusalem. Truth, it seems, is one of the earliest victims in the propaganda war.
Sources:
Bard, Mitchell G. Myths & Facts Online. Jerusalem. Jewish Virtual Libary.
Gilbert, Martin. Jerusalem: A Tale of One City. The New Republic, 14 November 1994.
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Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)Joel,What a great response to an obvious overmisrepresentation by BBC. Does that really surprise you, though?I have yet to find any mainstream media that actually reports the news from an objective point of view. Journalists have forgotten their purpose for writing: to report the news fairly...not to give their opinion or to slant it in their favor. (Isn't that called fiction writing?)Thanks for a good history lesson.Thanks, Nancy. It indeed seems that honest reporting in the MSM is fast becoming extinct.Regards,Joel
Europe in general and England in particular seem to have bought into the propaganda that the Arabs can do (and have done) no wrong. As an Arab-American, it is something that is happening over here as well and something that is despicable. If it looks like a duck and quacks, it sure isn't a whale. Truth is something that is getting harder and harder to find, it seems.Thanks for sharing this. Well done.Thanks, Michael. I wonder whether Britain's colonial past has anything to do with the issue, so that now they're trying to be very nice to Arabs, to compensate for past deeds.Regards, Joel
Thank you for writing another eye opener. According to the last chapter in the Book it will go like this until He comes back to rule and reign. We can still pray for the peace of Jerusalem. MarijoThanks, Marijo. Jerusalem brings Zechariah 12:3 to my mind. God bless you.Joel
I like the way you have presented this and used references to back up what you say. Too many times only one side of a story is told and it's nice to know the other side. I'd like to see more articles written in this way on subjects similar to this one.Thanks, incliner. Yes, it's true that we often only hear one side of a story.Regards,Joel
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