The Revocation Policy: A History and A Story

On March 22, 2017, Times of Israel’s Arab affairs correspondent Dov Lieber published an article entitled, “Dramatic ruling paves way for thousands of East Jerusalemites to regain residency rights.” A rare legal case was brought to the attention of Israel’s High Court of Justice: Akhram Abdalhak tried to regain legal citizenship status after being deemed ‘illegal’ upon returning to East Jerusalem after a long absence. The High Court unanimously voted in favor of Abdalhak, an unexpected yet momentous outcome. The revocation policy and its growth is explained in further detail as well as more information regarding the recent revocation of permanent residency statuses.

The Times of Israel’s Arab affairs correspondent, Dov Lieber, studied English literature and History of the Middle East at University of Maryland – College Park. He runs a blog with all of his writings in addition to what he refers to as his “non-fictional narrative journalism” for The Times of Israel.

Lieber offers sources for some pieces of provided data. Generally when he mentions statistics, he will have a source for those numbers. However, there are several times in his article where he will just state a general opinion of a group without a direct source. This can also be seen at the very beginning of the article when he mentions the number of revoked residency statuses. While it is an important figure to know, it would be more helpful and seem more reliable if Lieber included his source.

Justice Adi Lustigman

Lieber includes many quotes in his article, especially from the three justices involved with the case. He will begin to explain the situation and then finish it with a direct quote from one of the justices. The justices are incredibly relevant authorities to quote because they are responsible for the outcome of this case. It is important to hear what they had to say directly as opposed to paraphrasing their statements.

Lieber fills his article with details regarding not only Abdalhak’s case, but also a detailed history of the revocation policy. Lieber took the readers into consideration when writing about this because he was able to fill in any gaps. For example, he would offer a few sentences about what occurred in the trial and follow that with several sentences regarding the history of the specific residency rights mentioned. Lieber highlights the concerns of the East Jerusalemites regarding the potential loss of their residency status. He provided his source of human rights groups and also included that they were well versed on the subject, allowing his statement to be more reliable.

Any objectivity regarding tensions in this case were not from Lieber; rather he provides statements of other people’s objectivity. It allows readers to see the various attitudes attributed to the situation in the article. There is no sense of Lieber’s personal objectivity in the article.

Lieber presents the idea that Abdalhak was an extremely rare case – one in which there was an incredibly small chance of the court ruling in his favor. The justices made statements that both support Lieber’s data and also highlight the rarity of the situation. The statements don’t seem to be critical of Lieber’s presented data.

The overall feeling of the article is one of satisfaction. The author uses the title “Dramatic ruling paves way for thousands of East Jerusalemites to regain residency rights” which can draw a reader in to want to know more. His sub header also acts as a hook because it gives just enough information on the background of the article but not enough to know everything. Lieber uses this hook in an appropriate way which is to get people to want to read the article, not try to convince them to agree with one side or another.

Haaretz provides their own article that discusses the ruling entitled, “In Precedent-setting Ruling, Israel’s Top Court Recognizes EastJerusalem Arabs as ‘Native-born Residents’ ”. Haaretz correspondent Nir Hasson offers very much of the same information as Lieber. However, Hasson’s article differs from Lieber’s in that it has a much more neutral tone. Lieber does not include his opinion in his article, but he does write with a bit more “excitement” regarding the significance of the situation. Overall, both articles provide the same numbers which increases Lieber’s reliability.  

Lieber includes relevant voices in his article. In this case, the reader needs to know what the justices have said and get an idea of what the reactions have been. He does not add any superfluous information that could detract from his neutral, yet excited tone.

The author ends his article with a link to another article in the Times of Israel, "Israel almost entirely halts citizenship approvals for East Jerusalemites." It provides the reader with the timeline of citizenship applications being processed. He does not end his article with any kind of opinion – he links the other article to let the reader see and decide for themselves what the significance of this case is.

Lieber includes three different pictures in his article: one that shows a group of Palestinian children on top of big cement blocks (right); one of Justice Adi Lustigman (above); and one of a school in East Jerusalem (left). The pictures don’t necessarily support the author’s points, but they do give the reader a better visualization of life in East Jerusalem and they are able to put a name to a face of Justice Lustigman. This is quite different than the photo of a Palestinian woman being searched by security at an East Jerusalem checkpoint. While both articles provide a visualization of life in East Jerusalem, Haaretz only portrays the security found in East Jerusalem. With this case, it is important to see why Akhram Abdalhak wanted to regain his citizenship and those pictures help readers better understand.

School in East Jerusalem

Palestinian children on top of cement blocks

Elor Azarya's Sentence: Too Long or Too Short?

Elor Azarya

On September 3,2017, the Palestinian online newspaper Ma’an reported on the court trial of Elor Azarya, an Israeli military soldier convicted of the manslaughter of soldier Abd al-Fattah al-Sharif. The article, entitled, “Israeli military court postpones Elor Azarya’s prison sentence”, covers recent events related to Elor Azarya’s court case as well as statements from the judge and Azarya’s lawyer. Before discussing the article, I will share some undisputed facts about the original event.

According to B’Tselem, the Israeli information center for human rights in the occupied territories, Azarya filmed and shot a wounded Palestinian soldier, Abd al-Fattah al-Sharif after he stabbed another soldier. B’Tselem provided video footage of the event which shows Azarya filming and shooting al-Sharif in the head. B’Tselem also provides statements from testimonies of two eyewitnesses in the area. It should be noted from B’Tselem’s article that this was not the first shooting and killing of a Palestinian that has occurred recently. However, it is one that has filmed evidence to support any allegations or charges.

Last month, 20-year-old Israeli military soldier Elor Azarya was sentenced to 18 months in prison for the manslaughter of Abd al-Fattah al-Sharif. This was Azarya’s response attack to Al-Sharif’s assault of another soldier. Controversy arises when looking more closely at Israel’s shoot-to-kill policy as well as the leniency of the Israeli military court. The policy states that any Palestinian, regardless of their threat level, shall be killed immediately if they engage in a terror attack against a Jew. The debate poses the question of whether or not this was just Azarya obeying military policy. Palestinian leadership has accused the Israeli military court of being way too lenient with their convictions and sentences of Israeli soldiers claiming that they receive sentences “less than a Palestinian child gets for throwing stones.”

Due to the fact that there was no identified author or authors, I did some further research of the Ma’an news agency as a whole. Upon reading their “About ” page, I discovered that Ma’an is partnered with several other news sources to ensure their readers are getting up-to-date information from a wide range of sources.

In the Azarya prison sentence article, Ma’an includes a quote from a similar article published through Ha’aretz  which quotes the family of al-Sharif who said that they were not shocked by the results of this “show trial” and that nothing sufficient would be accomplished. It is important to point out that by the author choosing to include this specific quote, the reader can get a better sense of their point of view. Although there is a general feeling of neutrality in the article, the author includes a quote with a heavy meaning behind it, making it hard not to see their perspective. This was a rather important statement to include because it contributes to the well-rounded nature of the article. It does, however, provide another side of this eventful court case.

The author uses various sources in the article such as Haaretz and Ynet. Haaretz provides direct quotes from al-Sharif’s family while Ynet provides quotes regarding information surrounding the case itself (i.e.: what the judge said and some of Azarya’s lawyer’s actions). The author’s opinion of the situation is not clear but their choice of direct statements and quotes can lead a reader to believe that they have offered more information from one side versus another. The article is full of statements that are not centered on opinion, rather the author uses a variety of quotes and figures that possess a neutral and strictly informative tone. However, both as a reader and “critic” of the article, I did not get a sense that Ma’an was trying to necessarily push any one opinion on its readers. It is just not as balanced as other news reports have been.

Ma’an’s article is filled with statements – both direct and quoted from other news sources. All components of the event are accounted for in some way or another. The author begins the article with information that was presented from another Israeli news website, Ynet. Ynet is known for their reports on Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world. You can find almost every sentence in the article attached to the words “according to.” It seems as though the author is offering a collection of quotes and information from a variety of sources in order to provide a well-rounded article. Ma’an has been following this case since its start and has continued with this similar written and reporting style. While the article is full of pertinent information, there is more to be seen when looking more closely. Some information is not necessarily fact. It is more of the author’s educated guess. For example, you can find several sentences in which the author claims to know what the views and ideas of the Palestinian consensus are. Due to the fact that there is no statistical or research-based evidence (or even direct quotes) of a large majority of Palestinians, it is not possible to call this fact.

The author includes relevant and direct sources to provide accurate information. There is no evidence of direct public opinion – only al-Sharif’s family’s comment regarding the sentence. It is important that readers get a sense of each party involved in the event. Ma’an provides statements from the judge, Azaraya’s lawyer, and al-Sharif’s family. This makes me confident in knowing that the author tried to include every relevant piece of information possible and did not just settle on reporting generalizations.

When looking at related articles from other news sources, Ma’an does a good job of simply providing facts. Haaretz, for example, does not go in this direction. In Haaretz’s article published three days later, author Gili Cohen seems to throw in some very small hints that can lead a reader to believe she has taken her own position and put it into her article. Instances such as “which seemed to be the lightest sentence to fit the verdict” clearly carry a personal opinion with it. Lahav Harkov from the Jerusalem Post wrote an article entitled “New scale of penalties for homicide gets ministerial approval”. In her article she mentions that the laws in Israel regarding punishment for homicide and manslaughter are originally from the British Mandate. In October of 2015, however, the Justice Ministry approved a change that would make the punishment for reckless manslaughter a maximum 12 year prison sentence.

Azarya being embraced by his mother

It is also important to point out that Ma’an’s article includes a photo that shows Azarya in a car (above) and that is it. Other articles provide photos of Azarya being embraced by his mother (left) or with a big smile on his face (bottom). Ma'an's photo provides nothing except for an image of his face, contributing to the article’s general factual and neutral tone. The author ends the article by providing information from Human Rights Watch regarding Israel’s shoot-to-kill policy. This can leave the reader with their own opinion of whether Azarya was just doing what he was told or if he took a step too far.  However, there are comments in the article that support the claim regarding how infrequent charges are brought against soldiers which can leave a reader wondering why this case differs specifically from the rest.

Azarya with a big smile

My Birthday is Next Wednesday

This is the picture from the article.

Read the title for more information. This article is not related to my birthday.