"In two sequential sentences, this article reads as follows:'Israel captured east Jerusalem in a 1967 war and later annexed it in a move not internationally recognized. [Paragraph break.] There are roughly 15,000 Christians in Jerusalem today, the majority of them Palestinians who consider themselves living under occupation'. This is inaccurate: the status of Jerusalem is not a matter of subjective Palestinian opinion."
October 4, 2023
To:
Donovan Vincent, Public Editor, Toronto Star
Josef Federman, News Director, Associated Press
Isabel Debre, Reporter, Associated Press
Dear Donovan Vincent, Josef Federman, and Isabel Debre,
I am writing on behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME, cjpme.org) to insist on correction of your October 3 article, “Jews spitting on the ground beside Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land sparks outrage.”
Your language on the status of Jerusalem needs to be corrected for accuracy.
In two sequential sentences, this article reads as follows:
“Israel captured east Jerusalem in a 1967 war and later annexed it in a move not internationally recognized. [Paragraph break.] There are roughly 15,000 Christians in Jerusalem today, the majority of them Palestinians who consider themselves living under occupation.”
This is inaccurate: the status of Jerusalem is not a matter of subjective Palestinian opinion.
You need to replace the inaccurate description above with the following description, or with alternative words that accurately convey the factual details that your readers deserve:
“Israel occupied and illegally annexed East Jerusalem in 1967. There are roughly 15,000 Christians in Jerusalem today, the majority of them Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem, the site of the Old City. These Palestinians live under a regime of Israeli annexation that the United Nations has consistently called illegitimate.”
To corroborate the most crucial factual details in turn:
- World leaders and the United Nations use the phrase Occupied Palestinian Territories rather than captured Palestinian territories because occupied has an established meaning in international law while captured does not. The use of “occupied” rather than “captured” is therefore a basic matter of accuracy.
- The fact that East and West Jerusalem are distinct is crucial, and the fact that Palestinian Christians overwhelmingly live in East and not in West Jerusalem is universally agreed and contested by no one.
- As for the illegitimacy of the Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem, the Canadian government joins governments across the world in maintaining, and I quote, that “Canada does not recognize permanent Israeli control over territories occupied in 1967 (the Golan Heights, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip).”
Your readers deserve language that takes into account these settled matters of fact.
If you wish to discuss this matter or for more information on any of the above points, feel free to reach me by phone at 438-380-5410.
Sincerely,
Dan Freeman-Maloy
PhD, University of Exeter
Director of Strategic Operations
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East/
Canadiens pour la Justice et la Paix au Moyen-Orient