An Exclusive Interview with the New Chair of Americans For A Safe Israel
For many years, readers of The Jewish Press have been following the good work of Americans For A Safe Israel (AFSI), a pro-Israel activist group that has more impact than some of the better-funded or more prestigious Jewish and Zionist organizations. Many of us still have not forgotten how the devastating research by AFSI’s Dr. Rael Jean Isaac almost single handedly brought down the Jewish anti-Israel groups Breira and New Jewish Agenda years ago.
Today AFSI has a new, younger leadership, headed by the activist and author Moshe Phillips. Although on the job less than three months, Phillips and his team have already scored a notable victory – over the New York Times. The Jewish Press interviewed Phillips about the latest developments.
The Jewish Press: It’s not often that a publication known for its slant against Israel changes its tune following protests by supporters of Israel. How did you get the New York Times to stop claiming that “three million Palestinians live under Israel military occupation” in Judea-Samaria?
Phillips: The Times didn’t previously use that language. Then, this past summer, different Times reporters suddenly began using that identical phrase again and again. In August and September alone, that exact same phrase appeared in no less than six news articles in eight days. Since reporters ordinarily don’t blatantly copy each other’s language, this indicated that they were all instructed by an editor or style guide change to use it.
What exactly is inaccurate about the phrase?
Two things. First, 97% of the Palestinian Arabs in Judea-Samaria live under the rule of the Palestinian Authority, not Israel. Israel’s rule ended back in 1995. That was one of the main features of the Oslo accords. Second, the widely accepted figure for the Arab population there is 2.7-million, and that’s what the Times had been using for years. So here, the Times was artificially inflating the size of the population by more than 10%.
Why are these kinds of falsehoods harmful?
Falsely claiming that they live under “Israeli military rule” makes Israel look like some cruel tyrant. Also, it implicitly justifies Arab violence as “resistance” to the “unjust occupation.” As for inflating the numbers, it’s a way of trying to make it seem as if the Arabs have a stronger claim to the territory than the Jews do.
So what did AFSI do?
First, we wrote directly to the editors of the Times. That’s the appropriate procedure. It’s the proper courtesy to give someone the opportunity to correct a mistake before challenging them in public. But the editors didn’t respond, so finally we went public with a report exposing the inaccuracy of the Times’s language.
Within days after the AFSI report was released, the Times’s language suddenly changed. The Times went from using that false sentence in every article about Judea-Samaria, to never using it. Between September 13 and November 5, the Times published five news articles, plus a video report, about those territories. Not one of those reports claimed that “three million Palestinians live under Israeli military occupation.” In addition, the video report revised the Arab population downward to the original figure of 2.7-million.
You’re confident it was your organization’s actions that forced the Times editors to change the language – even if they were not willing to publicly admit they were wrong?
Large institutions have a lot of trouble admitting their mistakes. But the facts speak for themselves. Whether or not the Times’s editors ever acknowledge what happened, the reality is that they stopped using the inaccurate language and revised the population statistic downward.
Some people might wonder, though, how important this correction is, compared to all the anti-Israel reporting that appears in the Times.
It’s important for several reasons. First, the fight against anti-Israel media bias is never going to be won in one fell swoop. We have to chip away at the falsehoods, patiently, one by one. Second, this kind of episode puts the editors of the Times on notice that somebody is watching – and it will make them be more careful in the future.
The most important lesson is this: the way bad ideas move from the realm of theory to the realm of government or public policy is through constant repetition. The reason most people today say “West Bank” instead of “Judea and Samaria” is because “West Bank” has been repeated endlessly in the news media for years, so politicians and commentators picked it up, and then it became an established part of the lexicon, even though it’s geographically inaccurate and is an attempt to strip the territory of its Jewish identity.
The same thing is true concerning the idea of creating a Palestinian state. For many decades, nobody thought that was a good idea. But Arab propagandists and their Jewish anti-Israel allies pushed the idea endlessly, repeated it anywhere and everywhere, until gradually it became part of the mainstream conversation and then became U.S. policy during the Obama and Biden administrations. So, it’s important for friends of Israel to actively combat every inaccurate phrase or allegation, no matter how seemingly small, because otherwise it will one day become part of the conventional wisdom and will be used to hurt Israel.
So you would say that for pro-Israel activists, persistence is the key?
Absolutely. Friends of Israel have to remain strong. We can’t ever get tired or surrender. We have to be persistent, and patient, and this development with the Times shows that persistence really can force biased editors and reporters to correct their misstatements.
I suppose you can say that AFSI is starting to get a reputation as “American Jewry’s Fact Checker.”
We’ll continue doing our best to deserve that title.
