British outlet dismisses our complaint, doubles down on its misinformation

(We sent a similar email to Western Daily Press about the same issue, and they admirably printed a correction in today’s print edition.)

A staffer at i news replied, informing us that our email was forwarded to the relevant editors and that they’d soon respond.  However, instead of a prompt response, they published an op-ed by their foreign correspondent, Michael Day (“Israeli settlements: more illegal homes means little hope for Palestinians even with Trump and Netanyahu gone”, Oct. 26) attacking Israel whilst seemingly mocking our complaint.

Here’s the relevant section mentioning us:

Well, here’s some more context.

The Palestinians seek the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem — areas Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war — to build a state they don’t have. The presence of 700,000 Israeli settlers is the main obstacle to peace.

First, CAMERA is not a “lobbying” group, as the term refers to organisations which try to influence government decisions – something we don’t do.  Rather, CAMERA is a non-profit media-monitoring, research and membership organisation devoted to promoting accurate and balanced coverage of Israel.  Our focus is on media outlets, and we attempt to hold them accountable to their own standards of accuracy and professionalism.

Moving to the substance of Day’s argument, he seems to forget that the antisemitic extremist group Hamas, which is at odds with the PA and rejects the continued existence of Israel within any borders, rules Gaza, making any peaceful two-state solution which would include the coastal strip impossible to achieve.

Day also reiterates the media mantra that Israeli homes across the green line represent the “main obstacle to peace”, an ahistorical claim which ignores the injurious impact of the 2nd Intifada, the PA’s rejection of several peace offers, and the Palestinian culture of incitement and antisemitism, all of which eroded Israeli trust in the intentions of Palestinian leaders.

As with so many journalists, the i news correspondent fails to impute agency to Palestinians, insisting that Israel is the only party in the conflict that matters.

Further in the piece, Day writes the following:

However, data by the Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics contradicts this claim, concluding that “West Bank settler growth rate dropped to an all-time low of 2.3% in 2020, the last year of…both former president Donald Trump and…Benjamin Netanyahu”.  The Jerusalem Post’s analysis of the data noted that there’s “a big gap between the high rate by which the IDF’s Civil Administration advanced building projects compared to the low rate of actual construction”.

Moreover, CAMERA’s analysis showed that there were 6764 constructions starts in Trump’s four years, yielding a 1691 yearly average, vs 14,722 construction starts in Obama’s eight years, for an annual average of 1840 starts” – nearly 150 more than the average number of starts under Trump.

Day then writes:

After this year’s one-sided mini-war with the Hamas thugs in Gaza, in which 67 Palestinian children died, there was an outcry among many US Democrats.

Soon after, Israeli defence minister Benny Gantz arrived in Washington, cap in hand, in search of $1bn in emergency military aid in order to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome defences and restock its bomb supplies.

However, the $1bn was only for Iron Dome defence rockets, not for offensive “bomb supplies”.

Some Democrats questioned why billion-dollar military handouts should be given to a wealthy country like Israel, whose per capita income ranks 19th in the world. Those Democrats were clearly in a minority, however,

A month ago, with overwhelming bipartisan support, US Congress agreed to hand Israel the $1bn it wanted. Even with Trump and Netanyahu gone, it seems very little has changed.

Day’s disgust with US aid towards the Iron Dome system is as palpable as it is incomprehensible.

The reason why only a handful of House members voted against the bill is because it’s hard to justify opposition to a system which protects innocent civilians from rockets launched by religious fanatics who oppose, in principle, the very idea of ever living in peace with the Jewish state.

Also, as some observers have argued, Iron Dome actually serves to protect Palestinian lives (as well as Israeli lives), as, without such a system knocking down deadly projectiles, Israel would be far more likely launch large-scale wars and initiate ground invasions of the territory in response to such attacks.

Moreover, as the House of Representatives noted in announcing the bill’s passage, the funding “is consistent with the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding” between then President Obama and Israel, “which commits the United States to providing additional assistance to replenish the Iron Dome after periods of fighting to allow Israel to continue to defend itself from attack.”