On June 12, USA Today published an article entitled, “Alicia
Keys urged to cancel concert in Israel,” which was presented as an
original news story covering the Grammy-winning singer’s upcoming
performance in Israel. In reality, nearly all of the content was
copied-and-pasted from a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
(BDS) organization’s press release, resulting in a biased, subjective
and misleading report. In response, the Israel Action Network penned the
following letter to the editor, which we share with you in its entirety
below.
To the Editor:
In response to the June 12 article, "Alicia Keys urged to cancel concert in Israel":
As an organization committed to achieving a two
state solution and promoting peace and reconciliation among Israelis and
Palestinians, we find your recent coverage of Alicia Keys’ upcoming
performance in Israel troubling on many levels.
For starters, the story, which is printed as an
original piece by the reporter Steve Jones, is actually cut and pasted nearly verbatim from a
press release from the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural
Boycott of Israel. This is a group which supports the Boycott,
Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement, a global network of individuals
and organizations seeking to isolate Israel politically,
economically and culturally. Under the guise of seeking “peace,” the
BDS movement instead seeks to undermine the “two states for two peoples”
solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the commonly accepted goal of
the United States, European Union and United
Nations. In fact, Omar Barghouti, a BDS Movement founder,
publically stated, “Good riddance! The two-state solution for the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict is finally dead. But someone has to issue
an official death certificate before the rotting corpse is given a
proper burial and we can all move on ...” In short,
the BDS movement seeks to delegitimize Israel by securing a one-state
solution that dissolves Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic
state.
In addition to the blatant use of a press release
by an advocacy organization as a news story, the content is nothing more
than a one-sided attack on Israel that is both biased and misstates the
facts. Painting Israel as an apartheid state
is factually and morally incorrect. The story only presents one side
of the issue and chronicles the self-described achievements of the BDS
movement, rather than presenting facts and including a list of all the
artists and intellectual leaders who are performing
and working and presenting in Israel. It is irresponsible for your
news outlet to not only to attempt to influence Ms. Keys, but to fail
your readers with faulty reporting. To be clear, apartheid-era South
Africa was a state-sanctioned system of racial segregation
which dominated nearly every aspect of daily life between 1948 and
1994. This is not even remotely the case in Israel, where there is one
law for all citizens and minorities have full political rights under
Israel’s Declaration of Independence. The situation
in the West Bank is not comparable and must be viewed within the
context of the ongoing Israel-Palestinian conflict.
More so, the allegations of human rights abuse are
also misguided and unfounded. Both the article and press release claim
Israel is guilty of denying Palestinians health care and education, yet
there is no mention of the fact that Israeli
hospitals regularly take in hundreds of Arabs and Palestinians. In
fact, the Israeli Defense Forces
just released statistics revealing they treated over 1,500 patients
in the West Bank in 2012. Additionally, Israel sends approximately 6,000
tons of goods into the Gaza Strip every day including medical supplies,
food and constructions materials.
Finally, Alicia Keys has already rebuked BDS activists herself. In a
statement to The New York Times she said, “I look forward to
my first visit to Israel. Music is a universal language that is meant to
unify audiences in peace and love, and that is the spirit of our show.”
We call on the editor of USA Today to
correct the story. Further, we urge everyone concerned about a
resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to take a note from Ms.
Keys’ and echo her sentiments, which promote peace and reconciliation
over divisiveness.
Israel Action Network
0 comments:
Post a Comment