Update, October 13: After this article was posted, Rolling Stone corrected the paragraph that initially read, “Lovato immediately received backlash from fans and critics of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, many of whom called her a Zionist for partaking in the trip and ignoring the significant political implications.” It now says only that, “Lovato immediately received backlash from fans and critics.”
Dear Mr. Fine,
I found substantial bias in the Rolling Stones article titled, “Demi Lovato Apologizes for Accepting Controversial Trip to Israel” (updated October 7, 2019). One sentence in the article spawned as many as four misconceptions, all of which discriminated against Israel.
The regrettable text stated that:
[Singer Demi] Lovato immediately received backlash from fans and critics of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, many of whom called her a Zionist for partaking in the trip and ignoring the significant political implications.
The word “backlash” vastly downplayed the hostility of the anti-Israel “BDS” movement. BDS activists viciously harass and threaten entertainers worldwide to stop them from performing in Israel. Rolling Stone should have disclosed this fact. In addition, it should have noted that a September 23, 2019 UN report titled “Elimination of all Forms of Religious Intolerance” categorized BDS as a form of antisemitism.
Furthermore, there is no “Israeli occupation of Palestine” because there is no state of Palestine. In 1922 the League of Nations unanimously approved the designation of a pre-state “mandatory district” called Palestine to establish the state now called Israel. An adjoining state may someday emerge, but only when Israel and the Palestinians finish negotiating certain “final status” issues, as they contractually committed to do when they signed the Oslo Accords in the 1990’s.
Just as Israel does not occupy “Palestine,” it does not occupy Palestinians. The Palestinians of Gaza are governed by Hamas, and nearly all Palestinians in the West Bank are ruled by the Palestinian Authority. The remaining Palestinians (in East Jerusalem and West Bank Area C) live under Israeli administration by virtue of Palestinian consent under the Oslo Accords. That consensual arrangement mooted the preexisting claims of “belligerent occupation” that had invoked occupation law. The United States and Japan undertook a similar transition. In World War II the US occupied the Japanese, but after the parties signed the 1960 U.S-Japan Status of Forces Agreement, no one continued to regard the American military bases in Japan as evidence of an occupation.
The faulty remark about Demi Lovato also said many of the BDS protesters who criticized her “called her a Zionist,” as if Zionists were inherently evil. A Zionist is someone who supports the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. The article should have noted that using the word Zionist as an insult is evidence of antisemitism.
Finally, the questionable sentence displayed the BDS view that Lovato ignored “the political implications” of her trip to Israel, but the reporter failed to mention that the trip was devoid of political implications. Lovato said she felt drawn to Israel for spiritual reasons. Consequently, the report left the impression that any trip to Israel, even one lacking political intent, is somehow politically controversial.
The Rolling Stone purports to publish high-quality journalism. However, the article on Demi Lovato contained a flagrant journalistic bias.
Truly,
Joel M. Margolis