Clueless in Danbury
By Diana Muir

The Danbury News-Times recently published a disturbingly inaccurate and one-sided article about Israel in its Perspectives pages. (Aug. 28)  "One Summer in Gaza," a news story by a member of the paper's staff, violated the newspaper's basic covenant with its readers: to insure that apparent statements of fact are really true.   As readers objected, the paper's response was, in many ways, even more disconcerting than the original article.
The story featured a young man named Chris Towne who had just returned from four weeks in the Palestinian territories under the auspices of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), in a program called the Palestine Summer Encounter. But the News- Times' failed to meet journalistic standards when it described the ISM program as providing an opportunity to "work with Palestinian non-profit organizations." 
 In fact, Palestine Summer Encounter participants are political activists in an organization that endorses terrorism and the destruction of the Jewish State.  They spend their time in aggressive demonstrations involving such "actions" as dismantling security barriers and impeding police searches for bomb factories and the arrest of known terrorists.   
Young Mr. Towne returned from his summer experience imbued with hatred for Israel, and "unabashed" in his enthusiasm for the Palestinian cause.   The News-Times printed the Palestinian propaganda Towne gave them as straight news, even though it included many half-truths and a number of outright untruths.
For example, the reporter wrote, "There are roads where only Jewish settlers can travel, and those who travel on them illegally go to jail."   In fact, there are no Jews-only roads.  The bypass roads that protect drivers from terrorists are used freely by any car with Israeli license plates, including the vehicles of Israel's 1 million Muslim citizens.
The article also quotes Towne as saying, "In one settlement in Jerusalem, called the ‘City of David,' there are 88 families that have received word that their homes will be destroyed in the future… As the Arab homes are destroyed, the Israeli homes are built in their place…" But this assertion too is untrue.
In fact, the homes in question are to be replaced by an archaeological park on the location of the Biblical city of Jerusalem dating to the era of David and Solomon.  Archaeologists digging there this summer found the massive walls of an official building dating from the tenth century BCE, the era of King David's reign.   Most of the 88 houses were built without permits on land that was already designated as an archaeological preserve by the British Mandatory government in the 1930s.
The list of misstatements goes on. The News-Times quotes Towne alleging that America gives Israel "something like $6 billion a year from our tax money."  The 2005 figure in combined civilian and military aid is just over half that much. But what's a few billion dollars here or there?
"Arabs in Jerusalem also pay rates and taxes as residents, but cannot vote in national elections, Towne said."   All citizens of Israel have the vote, Muslims, Christians and Jews alike, and Arab Jerusalemites with Israeli citizenship are eligible to vote in national elections. All Jerusalem Arabs who came under Israeli rule as a result of the 1967 war can vote in municipal elections and are eligible for Israeli citizenship, although by their own choice only a small number have applied.
Contrary to the assertion in the article, the Presbyterian Church does not have "a policy against investing in companies that operate in Israel."   The highly controversial policy of the Presbyterian Church is to implement a phased, selective divestment from a small handful of companies.   
Readers who addressed the News-Times editor in good faith, expecting that the paper would follow standard industry policy by correcting inaccuracies in its reporting, received a shocking response.  Challenged on his paper's accepting unsubstantiated anti-Israel assertions as fact, Editor Paul Sussman wrote that he does not believe that verifiable facts exist.  "Some of the ‘facts' you cite might be disputed by the other side... About the only thing beyond dispute is that learned people on both sides of this epic conflict have wildly different views of the facts and of reality."
In the Palestinian Authority's official view of the facts and of reality, for example, "Jews never had any connection to Jerusalem."  "There is no tangible evidence of any Jewish traces/remains in the old city of Jerusalem and its immediate vicinity."  "The Western Wall is not a Jewish holy site."    The distinction between such "facts" and the objectively verifiable existence of an ancient Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount is made by examing the evidence.  A huge body of artifacts from archaeological sites, literary evidence from ancient texts, carved inscriptions, and, of course, the massive Herodian walls of the Temple Mount, prove beyond doubt that the Jewish Temple stood on this site.   The Palestinian Authority's "facts" are nothing more than assertions, as ungrounded in evidence as the several inaccurate "facts" cited by Mr. Towne.  
Ever since Galileo, the West has distinguished itself by relying on an evidence-based method of ascertaining facts.  We do not accept that the Western Wall was built by a Muslim ruler simply because the Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ikrama Sabri, tells us that it is so.  And we do not accept that Israel has built roads where only Jews can travel merely because a young political activist from Danbury says that it is so.  We examine the evidence.  And the evidence makes it possible for the diligent to separate fact from propaganda.
Objectively verifiable facts exist, even in the Middle East. And it is the responsibility of newspapers to verify the facts that they print. Failing that, responsible newspapers print corrections. In the case of the News-Times, we are still waiting.

Diana Muir, winner of the Massachusetts Book Award for "Bullough's Pond," is writing a book about nations and nationalism.