On May 13 an article with the above title was published on Al Jazeera by Showkat Shafi.

Reading the article I got more and more surprised, so I was motivated to react to the article.

We have visited Israel, the palestinian areas, and Jerusalem ourselves and are good friends with several people who travel to Israel for business on a regular basis.

The first mistake, and suggestion of a total lack of objectivity is already in the first line of the article:

Of all the places I wanted to visit, Palestine has always been at the top of the list.

There is NO Palestine. Palestine is non-existing, so to call it that way might be politically correct in some countries, but it is NOT reality, so a journalistic failure.

I had heard horror stories about Israeli security checks and intense interviews, and as a result, I was anxious about the visa application process.

Yes we read those too. But in reality it is, also for muslims, not a big deal. We travelled through a lot of security checks (of course starting on entering the country) and to our suprise they were even faster than on several European airports.

Also the checks between the different territories we visited were fast, correct and friendly. Also our muslim chauffeur was treated kindly and with respect.

The moment he left, a member of the security team ran towards me and told me to call him back.

This reporter clearly never has been to the US. The same would have happened there.

‘A flurry of questions’

I won’t copy all the text, since you can read it for yourself by following the link, but these questions are not abnormal to any other security check. We get similar and other questions when we want to leave our own country by plane in Europe, so this is nothing more than suggestive to harm Israel.

Lengthy interrogation

If you have ever watched one episode of one the “Border Security”-series, you know that this is no exception in other countries, so… nothing newswearthy here, or maybe just a reporter who feels he’s exalted above the rest of us.

occupied Palestinian territories

And here the political correct point of view surfaces again. This is no objective journalism, since the historical right to the country clearly belongs to Jews. Even the quran acknowledges that fact!

Life is segregated for Israelis and Palestinians to the extent that there are even different buses for Jews and Arabs.

This is absolutely NOT true! We’ve travelled all through Jerusalem and met Jews, Christians and Muslims. They were travelling together in the Light Rail Trains and buses. You can walk through ALL the quarters of Jerusalem without being bothered by any security check!

Comparing the situation in Israel to Apartheid is shameful. This is no journalism, but just twisted propaganda. Apartheid has NOTHING to do with the situation in Israel!

occupied West Bank

There is NO such thing as the occupied West Bank.

First the name is totally wrong, second the territory is divided in an A, B and C section. In the section controlled by palestinians there are NO Jews allowed. There are signs along the road similar to the signs the nazis used during WW II.

There are no Jews living in this area.

In the section that is controlled by the Jews, palestinians are allowed to live and travel, and they are living there.

So who is talking about segregation?

A young Palestinian carrying a baby in her arms was asked to get off the bus as her permit had expired.

As would happen in every other country.

Even though the woman kept telling them that she was leaving Jerusalem and returning to the West Bank, they took her off the bus regardless.

As would happen in every other country.

I watched from my window, growing increasingly frustrated because I could not intervene and help her.

This is not frustration, but antisemitism, since this would happen in our country too. And we’ve seen how Turkeys policemen act against people who might be a risk, and that is a whole less nice than what happened here.

So, this frustration is based on bias instead of objective journalism.

If it were a free country, people could have gone out to help her and challenge the officials.

This journalist obviously doesn’t read American newspapers, or Saudi-Arabic, Iranian, Russian for that matter.

However, this is what occupation looks like, where repressed people are forced to endure every injustice thrown their way.

If this would be true, 99% of so-called “free” countries are not free at all, and 99% of the worldpopulation is living under occupation!

An Iranian friend of mine was tortured by the Iranian police because he looked 2 seconds too long to a nice girl. On another occassion he was tortured because he was listening to musc with lyrics in his car.

After the third “incident” he fled the country.

Racial profiling is routine on the streets of Jerusalem,

This is also a problem in a lot of countries, or could it be experience? In our country 65% of yound Maroccans have been in contact with police because of criminal activities. Is it any wonder that police are more suspicious on Maroccans?

Such treatments come coupled with widespread hatred for Palestinians.

That is also crap! People are cautious with palestinians because these are the people that want them dead, killed, and preferably in the most horrific ways. Palestinians are the people that are blowing up buses, bars, checkpoints, or driving cars and trucks into crowds, stabbing people, shooting Israelites.

Is it any wonder that Israelites are a bit careful with those people?

No, this has nothing to do with hatred.

And yes, of course there might be some Israelites who really hate them. It should be your family that got slaughtered by those palestinians. The reaction the man gave is nothing but normal!

I was confounded by shock as he went on: “My life is before [that of] the Arabs”, meaning his life is worth more than an Arab’s.

No you were not! You are just making this up to put this Jewish man in a bad light. EVERY man I know in my western country would react exactly the same, muslims included, and that does in NO WAY mean, that one life is more valuable than another!

It just means that if you are in a situation where the choice is kill or get killed, every normal man would chose to kill instead of being killed himself.

I was reciting because someone with a gun was telling me to do so.

No, you were not! You were reciting because that is part of the security check. Non-muslims are NOT allowed to enter, BY MUSLIMS! (not the Israeli government!) this site.

I have thought about that moment every day since. It wasn’t normal.

The situation is not normal at all! It is ridiculous that Jews and Christians are NOT allowed to enter the Temple Mount! Who was talking about segregation? Yes that’s right, yet again it are the muslims who are discriminating and telling people they are not welcome!

I don’t need to remember you that this compound was the place where the Jewish Temple stood, so if palestinians claim they were first, how come the mosques are build on top of the Temple Mount? That just means that Jews were first there, and if palestinians were honest, they would leave this place to the Jews.

 

My conclusion: The whole article has NOTHING to do with journalistic objectivity, but is nothing more than an antisemitic rant against Israel, the country of which even the quran says it belongs to the Israelites!