The Washington Post Betrays A Bias

Right now, everyone and his dog is writing about Ahed Tamimi aka Shirley Temper™ and citing Israellycool, which is, you know, cool. But reading some of the coverage makes my blood boil. Take, for instance, this Washington Post piece which describes Arabs throwing rocks at Jews as:

The film loop of the 48-year-old military occupation of the Palestinian territory.

Bias much?

So here’s my thinking:

It’s a free world. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. But a media outlet as big as the Washington Post has an obligation to the public to present facts as facts and opinions as opinions.

Now the piece in question is a blog piece, which means it’s an opinion piece. But even here, the Post should be careful to vet the texts and materials published under its banner head, to make sure that bold statements such as this one by William Booth are factual. The editorial staff might have urged Booth to make a slight addition to his statement such as the text I’ve placed in bold here, for instance:

The film loop of what some call the 48-year-old military occupation of the Palestinian territory.

These additional words would have left room for conversation and debate. But by stating boldly that Israel “occupies” “Palestinian” territory, Booth and the Washington Post by extension, betray strong bias as regards the Arab-Israeli conflict. In what sense is this statement biased?

First of all, there is religious, historical, and archaeological proof that the territory in question is the indigenous territory of the Jews. Crack open a bible, it’s there. Look at an ancient map and you won’t see anything called “The West Bank,” but rather Jewish territory plainly marked by every cartographer before a certain era as, “Judea and Samaria.” Tour the Israel Museum and you’ll see a constantly growing treasure trove of artifacts that tell the story: Jews lived in Judea and Samaria before Mohammed was a gleam in his mama’s eyes.

Read Flavius Josephus and you’ll know to whom the land belonged before there was an Arab people.

Taken together, all this is proof that at the very least, there is an alternate narrative that states that Arabs are the real occupiers and that they occupy Jewish territory and have done so for a great deal longer than 48 years.

I don’t ask William Booth to agree with me or the bible, to acknowledge archaeological artifacts that paint an altogether different picture than the one he depicts, or to ever read a history book about the Arab Conquest. But I do expect the Washington Post to do a better job of vetting the writers they hire. I mean, MY GOODNESS, Booth runs the Jerusalem Bureau for the Post. Is it even possible to hire someone more biased against the State of Israel than this fellow?

At least give the alternate narrative, backed by so many hard facts, air to breath: space in your pages. Or put a disclaimer at the bottom of every article in which this Booth fellow spouts his (in my humble OPINION) nasty, Jew-hating convictions.