AP’s flawed ‘Factbox’ about Golan

Who compiles this stuff, anyway? As a supposed aid to people seeking to understand the background to the latest news about the proximity talks between Syria and Israel in Turkey, the Associated Press has produced this ‘factbox’ about the Golan, the terrain at the heart of the territorial dispute between the two countries.
Of the five ‘bulleted’ items there, the first is generally okay.
The second starts off with: “Soldiers shelled northern Israel from the Golan Heights between 1948 and 1967…” It contains zero reference to the actions the Israeli military were taking in that period, when they were systematically advancing into the “demilitarized zone” that had been declared by the United Nations along the seam-line between the Israeli and Syrian armies in 1949, and the associated attacks the IDF maintained throughout that period against Syrian farmers, the Syrian military, and even UNTSO peacekeepers.
According to the AP version, the Syrians forces in Golan were just gratuitously shelling Israeli positions?
Excuse me?
In the third bulleted item in the ‘factbox’ it states,

    Most of the 100,000 Syrian residents of the Golan Heights fled during the 1967 war and were not allowed to return. A few of the roughly 17,000 left have accepted Israeli citizenship. About 18,000 Israelis live in 32 settlements built since 1967.

Zero mention of the fact that these Israeli settlements are completely illegal under international law.
It’s when we get to the fourth bulleted item that the level of “spin” sinks to the level of simple mendacity:

    Israel-Syria peace talks broke down in 2000. Israel offered to withdraw from all of the Golan Heights down to the international border in exchange for full peace. Syria insisted on recovering land across the border.

That is quite simply not true. The reason the peace bid that Israeli PM belatedly made in 2000 got absolutely nowhere was precisely because he pulled back on assurances PM Yitzhak Rabin had earlier given that Israel would withdraw to the international border. Barak was not prepared to do that, but Pres. Hafez al-Asad insisted as always that that was the only basis on which he would conclude a peace deal.
Asad did not ask for– far less insist on– a single inch of land that was not Syria’s under international law.
Where does AP get this nonsense, anyway? (Why does the name Barry Schweid come to mind?)
Finally, the fifth bulleted item seems completely Israelo-centric. How about we have some mention of the plight of Syrian families split up by Israel’s continued occupation of Golan and of the dire human-rights situation of the indigenous Golanis?
I wonder how many US newspapers editors, eager to inform their readers, will be running this ‘fact’-box without even being aware of the degree of spin and simple mendacity that have gone into its composition?
Editors and others interested in a more richly textured (and certainly, more fact-based) description of the human dimensions of the Golan issue would do well to go back to the vintage 1998 series I wrote about the question.

15 thoughts on “AP’s flawed ‘Factbox’ about Golan”

  2. Saying that most of the residents fled is also misleading. Actually, the Golan Heights is Israel’s most successful ethnic cleansing operation to date. They systematically – and selectively – expelled some 95-96% of the population, and destroyed 95% of the towns and villages in which they had lived.

  3. I’m not sure you have a valid point about bullets three and five. The world “settlement” alone should be enough to indicate its illegality. And I don’t see the fifth bullet as Israel centric. It said that Syria fought in three wars, and it did fight in three wars. No Israel-biased sentence like, “Syria aggressively attacked Israel in three wars”. The point also notes that the U.S. said that the attacked Syrian site was a nuclear reactor, not something like “In September Israel destroyed a nuclear reactor site.”

  4. Helena is wrong again. Her main complaint seems to be that the AP sticks to actual facts and does accompany it with sneering and bitter commentary a la Hateful Helena.
    Israel did, of course, offer to withdraw to the international border, although such a claim is by nature nebulous, because since the parties have a border dispute, there is no necessary “a priori” line that the sides are required to revert to. Despite Helena’s misinformation, the Arabs are not entitled to a “do over” after they lost the 1967 war.
    Nevertheless, Israel did agree to withdraw to what was recognized as the border before Syria, along with the other Arab states, engaged in unprovoked aggression in their attempt to annihilate the state of Israel. That accurately reflects the term “international border” as well as anything. Syria demanded that Israel go back further, allowing it sovereignty over land that it acquired in the 1948 war.
    Helena routinely squawks about “inadmissibility of territory acquired by force” whenever it applies to Israel, but seems to think that Arab conquest is a natural phenomenon that should be condoned. What she really means, I guess, is “inadmissibility of territory acquired by Jews.”
    It’s just sad that her racism and hate prevent her not only from rationally analyzing a situation, but cause her to engage in immature tirades when someone else does.

  5. Joshua, are people in Israel enthusiastic about this seeming advance forward in resolving these really very minor issues?

  6. KDJ:
    HI KDJ, I’m not Israeli and have never purported to be, though I find it a truly inspiring and fascinating place.
    I do have friends and somewhat distant relatives there. From what I have heard, and I make no claims that what I’ve heard is comprehensive or representative, there is generally such a level of cynicism so that people aren’t really engaging on the issue. I find that unfortunate, because it could be a potential breakthrough. But I do understand the attitude. Israelis are all too often tantalized with peace deals that did not come to fruition and arguably (just arguably) led to a situation that inflamed the tensions even MORE.
    On top of that, there is a small but vocal outside constituency that, whenever peace talks break down, will rush to blame and lambaste Israel. So the attitude that comes from this is “There’s probably not going to be a peace deal, and when it fails we’ll be blamed for the intransigence even though we were the ones offering almost everything the other side demanded. So who cares?”
    By the way, I read a really, really sad news item today. The Egypt-Israel friendship society was organizing a “roots tour” for Israelis of Egyptian descent. A television presenter in Egypt learned of the tour and aired a vicious, nasty piece of hate propaganda denouncing the Israelis and making the claiming that the Israelis were returning to make claims on outstanding property that was taken from them. He also announced the name of the hotel where the tour goers were to stay. As a result the Egyptian security services have cancelled the trip on the ground that they can’t guarantee the security of the tour goers.
    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3547073,00.html
    This, of course, is supposed to be the peace treaty that DID work. But with news items like this, I cannot criticize Israelis for being less than enthusiastic about the prospects of peace with their neighbors.

  7. HI Joshua:
    To me, as I see it-there are so many conflicts across the globe that are so incredibly complex-these conflicts btw Israel/Syria/Leb/Pal are minor and easily resolved-really. If one were to make a check list of what to resolve and how to resolve them, it would not take very much to do so. Of course I am not trying to underplay the complexities of some aspects of the remaining issues, yet places such as DRC, etc. are far more complex, yet yield so little of our attention and concern.
    Alas, the violence persists and good and bad people lose their lives, exist in states of psychological trauma, for what? Very tragic.

  8. KDJ,
    I tend to agree that, at least from a theoretical perspective, the Israel/Palestinian conflict lends itself to a solution.
    In contrast, I really don’t see, for example, how Northern Ireland can be resolved. There are two peoples who just want the status of their land to be irreconcilably different.
    Nevertheless, I think one would say that the situation in the latter is much more stable than the former.
    What does this mean? I’m not sure. Except to say that, ultimately that there are factors involved other than the outstanding issues needed to resolve the conflict itself.
    I agree, it is tragic. Both the tangible suffering as well as the cynicism and distrust it engenders. I have, for years, believed that the sides must compromise, and the Israeli side must significantly compromise. I still do. The difference is, in the past I felt that if Israel were to give what I and others felt it should, that the danger and the hate would go away. I no longer can say that with any conviction.

  9. Joshua:
    Northern Ireland has been politically resolved…the Good Friday Agreements have held for quite some time. Dublin is booming! Of course, militants still seek to rupture the agreement…although at a much lower scale than in the past-(i.e. the emergent “Army of Ireland”).
    As for this issue with I/E, I do not know. Many Israelis study at AUC, so I am also surprised by this. Ehud Barak is regularly consulting with Hosni Mubarak, so this makes such an incident more surprising.
    I just read where the Saudi owner of a major Egyptian hotel has decided to ban the sale of alcohol-much to the chagrin of many. Egypt has long had its own battle with Islamist radicals and extremists. Perhaps this has something to do with the tour you describe.

  10. KDJ,
    Perhaps I was not clearer in my last post. I agree that the Good Friday agreement has held quite well and has essentially brought peace. But it did NOT resolve the ultimate issue, the status of Northern Ireland vis a vis Ireland and the United Kingdom. That is left to a future political process.
    And I don’t see HOW that ultimate issue can be resolved. The bottom line is that there are two groups of people with a lot in common but who simply see their national identity in very different ways. And neither one of them can realize that without the either losing.
    But as you point out, the parties seem to be getting along nicely, and violence is largely a thing of the past.
    By contrast, the Israel-Arab dispute is for the most part a question of borders and where refugees resettle. These are tangible issues that can be resolved and are open to compromise. But peace seems so far away.
    As to what happened in Egypt. I don’t think it’s Islamism. The tv personality in question is not a religious fundamentalist and in fact is known for discussing taboo subjects on the air. Much of the rejection of Israel does not come from the Islamists but from the trade unions and intelligentsia that are still caught in a Nasser like vision of the Middle East.
    Islamists are a new threat to peace in the region. A very, very dangerous one. But remember that the conflict went on for several decades without Islam playing a major role in it.

  11. Yes, Joshua you are right. Nasser/Nasserists were a powerful force-perhaps they still are. We can see that Nasser was hardly a brilliant strategist. My brief and very unhappy time at AUC (classist par excellance!) was rather informative in terms of how far along Israelis and Egyptians had come in terms of relations-I met many, many young Jewish Americans and some Israeli scholars who studied/taught there. It is rather surprising that this incident has taken place.
    Ultimately, people have decide they want to live together, or die together.
    Individuals cultivate peace, leaders in fact hold such processes hostage, it seems.

  13. Joshua, you are very clever, but not that clever…I said Dublin was booming, and you did not even catch that error-I ought to have said Belfast-what kind of Geographer am I?!
    ;0)

  15. As a follow up, here’s another example of the results of Israel Egypt “peace.” Now, a group of Egyptian DIPLOMATS (You know, the people who are supposed to be, well, diplomatic) have announced they will boycott a soccer tournament in Italy because their team was scheduled to play an Israeli team.
    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3547051,00.html
    If this is the result of a peace treaty where Isreal gave EVERYTHING back to it’s belligerent neighbor, then it’s really hard to see the point of it all.
    Surprising that Helena has not picked up on any of these horrible anti-peace incidents.
    But I guess she’s too busy spitting out her bile against Israel again.

Comments are closed.