WaPo Articles Omit Arab Provocations for 1948 and 1967 Wars with Israel

In the June 5 Washington Post article, "Palestinian Protesters Attempt to Cross at Golan Heights, Israeli Troops Open Fire," co-writers Samuel Sockol and Joel Greenberg managed not to fill in viewers on significant background from the Six-Day War from 1967, namely that Egypt, Syria and Jordan provoked an attack from Israel by amassing troops next to the tiny Jewish state along the 1949 armistice lines, as if they were about to strike. Referring to the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, Sockol and Greenberg vaguely noted that Israel "captured those territories" during the 1967 war: "The protest near the Golan Heights and other demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip marked the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1967 Middle East war, in which Israel captured those territories."

Similar to Greenberg's May 15 piece in which he neglected to inform readers that several Arab countries had driven most Palestinian refugees from Israel by simultaneously attacking the Jewish state in 1948, the June 5 article also avoided such details as it referred to the "establishment of Israel in 1948 and the Palestinians' displacement in the war that followed": "Despite the reported casualty toll, the scope of Sunday’s protests was more modest than the coordinated marches May 15, when thousands of Palestinians converged on Israel’s borders from Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to mark the anniversary of the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the Palestinians’ displacement in the war that followed."

In the May 15 article, "Israeli Troops Fire at Palestinian Protesters on Borders, Killing at Least 12," Greenberg had vaguely recounted that a war "followed Israel’s declaration of independence." Greenberg: "Palestinians commemorate Israel’s founding as al-Naqba, or the catastrophe, marking the displacement of hundreds of thousands in the war that followed Israel’s declaration of independence."