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Monday, February 07, 2011

A small example of new bias from Time

Just one tiny example of bias:
Finally, there's the small matter of the occupation. Israeli troops have controlled the West Bank since 1967, when an Arab effort to eject the Jewish state ended up with the loss of even more Arab territory and opened the way to some 400,000 Jewish settlers on what the world at large recognizes as Palestinian land.
It is somewhat refreshing that Vick notes that the Six Day War was instigated by the Arabs and was meant from the Arab side to be a war to annihilate Israel.

But notice his use of "even more Arab territory." That means that Karl Vick considers Israel within the Green Line to reside on Arab territory, and the implication is that Israel itself is illegitimate as its land is inherently Arab.

This is the sort of subtle bias that reporters at large seem to hold, and one can be fairly certain that they write things that are much worse that do not get past their editors.

(It is also instructive to look at wire-service articles from the early 1970s, which consistently referred to places like Ramallah to be in "occupied Jordan," not "occupied Palestinian territory" as they are today. What the "world at large recognizes" today is of relatively recent vintage.)