People have advanced the notion that ignorance is the root cause of global hatred, racism and antisemitism. The unfortunate reality is that much of it is because of bad education.

Consider the Qatari-run news site Al Jazeera. It does not simply support an anti-Israel point of view in its stories nor simply supply a collection of alternative facts; it delivers its readership complete fabrications.

Palestinian Territories and the 1967 “Border”

Consider the “in depth” work about “The Naksa,” the terms some Arabs use to describe the 1967 Six Day War. The article led with:

“More than 50 years ago, the state of Israel shocked the world when it seized the remaining Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip,”

A map of the area included a caption which read “In the 1967 War, Israel took control of the shaded areas of the Egyptian Sinai, Syrian Golan Heights, and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.”

This is a work of complete fiction. Between 1948 and 1967 THERE WERE NO “PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES.” The “West Bank” and East Jerusalem were annexed and folded into Jordan. By the 1967 War, the United Nations had even stopped referring to the area as distinct from Jordan on the eastern bank of the Jordan River. Further, the Gaza Strip was run by Egypt.

Al Jazeera continues versions of this lie to this day when it refers to Palestine’s 1967 borders, even though “Palestine” had no lands whatsoever, and the Israeli “borders” were specifically declared to not be viewed as such in the 1949 Armistice Agreements that Israel had with Egypt and with Jordan. The reality is that Palestinians only got land to administer for the first time when Israel handed the Palestinian Authority land in 1995 as part of the Oslo Accords.

Inverted Claim of Ethnic Cleansing

Al Jazeera’s piece continued with accusations that were not just lies but the inversion of the reality of what Arabs did to Jews, using the notion that the best defense is a good offense.

“in 1948, the state of Israel came into being in a violent process that entailed the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Zionist forces, in their mission to create a “Jewish state”, expelled some 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland and destroyed their villages in the process.”

The reality is that it was the Jordanians who ethnically cleansed the Jews from the region – and continue to try to do so to this day.

When the British separated the eastern bank of the Jordan River as they were allowed to do under Article 25 of the Palestine Mandate, they failed to uphold the condition of Article 15 which stated that “no person shall be excluded from Palestine on the sole ground of his religious belief.” But the Jordanians did just that, invading Israel in 1948, expelling every Jew in Jordan’s illegally seized lands including the Old City of Jerusalem, and then enacted the antisemitic citizenship law of 1954 which specifically excluded Jews (Article 3).

For its part, the State of Israel specifically welcomed all non-Jews to become “full and equal” citizens when it declared statehood in May 1948. That the Arabs left the fighting scene while they waited for their “saviors” from five invading Arab armies to wipe the Jews into the sea can hardly be called an “expulsion” the way Al Jazeera pretends.

The Reasons Behind the 1967 War

Al Jazeera may have felt a bit soft on the Arab belligerence leading up to the 1967 War as it offered that “the motives behind the war are a point of contention among various historians and analysts,” but then wrote this preposterous rationale:

“Some believed that Israel had “unfinished business” for failing to seize the whole of historic Palestine in the 1948 war. On the eve of the 1967 attack, Israeli minister Yigal Allon wrote: “In … a new war, we must avoid the historic mistake of the War of Independence [1948] … and must not cease fighting until we achieve total victory, the territorial fulfillment of the Land of Israel”.”

Absent from the AJ background were the statements of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser who said on a number of occasions in May 1967:

• “We are not only confronting Israel but also those who created Israel and who are behind Israel. We are confronting Israel and the West as well”
• “Preparations have already been made. We are now ready to confront Israel.”
• “Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight . . . The mining of Sharm el Sheikh is a confrontation with Israel. Adopting this measure obligates us to be ready to embark on a general war with Israel.”
• “We will not accept any … coexistence with Israel. … Today the issue is not the establishment of peace between the Arab states and Israel …. The war with Israel is in effect since 1948.”
• “The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel . . . . to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not declarations.”

None of these calls for war were mentioned by Al Jazeera nor the statements from Cairo radio which included:

• “This is our chance Arabs, to deal Israel a mortal blow of annihilation, to blot out its entire presence in our holy land” ; and
• “The Arab people is firmly resolved to wipe Israel off the map”

Instead, AJ continued to invert historical fact by making Israel the attacker.

The bad education continues throughout the article in outright lies and complete omissions, such as the Arab world’s infamous “Three No’s” it issued in September 1967 that there would be “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it,” opting instead to make Israel appear as the aggressor acting unilaterally.

Blind hatred including racism, anti-Zionism and antisemitism do not arise from ignorance; it comes from bad education such as that transmitted by Qatar’s Al Jazeera. And this venom is now found in U.S. homes thanks to former Vice President Al Gore selling his Current TV to Al Jazeera in 2013 for millions of dollars.

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Related First One Through articles:

Al Jazeera’s Lies Call for Jihad Against the Jewish State

An Easy Boycott: Al Jazeera (Qatar)

The Jordan Valley in 1930 and 2020

Al Jazeera (Qatar) Evicts Jews and Judaism from Jerusalem. Time to Return the Favor

The Jews of Jerusalem In Situ

Antisemitism Includes the Denial of Jewish History

Abbas’s Speech and the Window into Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism

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