Jewish News – We must be better than BBC!

Dear Richard,

I am writing about the Jewish News article headlined:

Former Israeli PM and ex-IDF chief of staff back UK sanctions on West Bank settlers involved in ‘Jewish terror’

(Linked here.)

Journalism. Good journalism. Truth. How can we expect other outlets to improve when the Jewish community’s own newspaper doesn’t set the right example?

I have no issue with the factual reporting of statements by Israel’s opposition, although I do object to the disproportionate attention your paper gives to Ehud Olmert’s nonsensical statements. This is a man who became acting prime minister after Ariel Sharon’s stroke in 2006, was forced to resign in 2008 amid corruption investigations, and was later convicted of bribery and sent to prison. Hardly the person you turn to for moral guidance.

My biggest issue is with the final part of the article, which presents itself as a factual summary of Israel’s settlement movement.

Netanyahu’s government has approved 104 new illegal settlements, since 2022, while 160 agricultural outposts have been established in the West Bank, according to Palestinian figures.

“Illegal settlements” – not according to Israel. The article itself acknowledges this disagreement further down, so this paragraph should simply say “settlements”, or even “villages”. And “Palestinian figures”? Why not use official Israeli figures, from the Central Bureau of Statistics or the government’s own published decisions? Even the Hebrew-language figures published by the Farms Association (Igud HaChavot) would be a more natural choice for a Jewish newspaper than Palestinian ones. After 7 October, is the Jewish News really quoting Palestinian figures as fact?

In the first half of 2026 alone, Israeli settlers carried out 3,488 attacks in the occupied West Bank, killing 17 Palestinians and fully or partially displacing 26 Bedouin and pastoral communities, according to the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, which also documented the establishment of 42 new illegal outposts.

Is the Jewish News really quoting the “Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission” as fact? Really? Have you lost your minds? And what about attacks on Israelis in the same region over the same period? Your reporters must be aware of the many attacks on cars and civilians in these areas every day.

Currently, around 750,000 Israeli settlers live in 194 illegal settlements and 400 illegal outposts across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to Palestinian statistics.

Palestinian statistics again? What is going on here? I have no quarrel with the figure itself, but Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics publishes these numbers. Why not use Israel’s own statistics?

The article also gives your readers no sense of where these 750,000 people actually live. Several of the major settlement blocs are widely expected to remain part of Israel even under an eventual peace agreement with the Palestinians, and some, such as Gush Etzion, date back to before the state was founded. None other than Ehud Olmert, the very man this article turns to, proposed exactly that. In his 2008 offer to Mahmoud Abbas, Israel would have kept around 6.3% of the West Bank, covering the Ariel, Ma’ale Adumim and Gush Etzion blocs, in exchange for Israeli land equal to 5.8%, while the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem would have remained part of Israel. Today, around three-quarters of the Israelis in Judea and Samaria live between the Green Line and the security barrier, and roughly 230,000 more live in East Jerusalem. That is around 600,000 of the 750,000, some four in five, living in areas broadly corresponding to what even Olmert’s plan would have kept in Israel. And once again, the word “illegal”.

Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967.

Why not give your readers some history here? (Simon Sebag Montefiore’s new book, The Cauldron, is a good place to start.) Israel has maintained military control of Judea and Samaria since defeating Jordan and the other Arab armies in the Six-Day War of 1967. Before that, from 1948 to 1967, the area was ruled by Jordan.

Once again, the article ends with a short summary of Ehud Olmert’s biography and his past statements against Netanyahu. Why do you give him such an authoritative voice? Surely this disgraced politician belongs in the dustbin of history. Just my opinion, of course.

My broader point is this. One of the most positive developments since 7 October has been the proliferation of incredible podcasts. Podcasts such as Unholy, Call Me Back, the Times of Israel’s What Matters Now, School of War and many others have pushed back against the traditional mainstream media. They have encouraged conversation, debate, history and facts, and have changed how policymakers and interested lay people understand the big issues. And these really are big issues: people desperately need help putting them into context and understanding them. This article does nothing of the sort, as my comments above show.

Let me make it very clear: I am not defending violence against innocent people. Like everyone I know (I live in a religious, right-wing village), I am disgusted by any violence or attacks on innocent people. However small the problem is (estimates I have heard put the number of Israelis involved at around 300), I want the government and the army to sort it out. But the Jewish News must not be negligent. It must not conflate one issue with another, and as a Jewish outlet, it above all must be better than the BBC, the Guardian and Al Jazeera.

English-language outlets rarely give the full picture. They do not always report every act of violence against Israelis in Judea and Samaria, and when they report Israeli attacks on Palestinians, the Israeli side is rarely presented fairly. Nor do I see much coverage of Palestinian activism in Area C and how the European Union supports Palestinian settlement in areas such as E1, or of the many layers of history and strategic importance behind Israeli settlement. This last point has become even more relevant since 7 October, and it is not understood at all. Whenever settlers and settlements are discussed, they are presented as a far-right, nationalist, messianic cult. To label 750,000 Israelis that way is simply immoral.

Your readers, even if they disagree, should be able to understand the settlement movement: the historical connection to Judea and Samaria, the strategic military importance of the highlands, and the different movements within Israel, from settlement to disengagement. The Jewish News should be helping them do that. Ultimately these are issues of deep disagreement, and who are we to say that one side is right and the other wrong? I don’t believe we have reached the point where we can make that judgement. In the meantime, your readers already live with the discomfort of being attacked as diaspora Jews for loving Israel. The Jewish News should do all it can to strengthen Jewish love for Israel and Israelis, and do less to criminalize them and breed hatred of them, to the great glee of our enemies.

Shanah Tovah.