We were struck by three separate references in Canadian newspapers today which described "Arab East Jerusalem" as a proper place. The wire reports by Reuters and Getty Images appeared in the Toronto Star, Vancouver Sun, and Saskatoon Star Phoenix.
As Media Backspin notes:
"The term ‘Arab’ implies that parts of Jerusalem are inherently ‘Arab.’ And East with a capital E makes the term a proper noun, suggesting two officially separate municipalities. Since when is the word ‘east’ anything but a descriptive reference when it comes to Jerusalem?"
Up to 1948, Arabs and Jews lived in a unified city that made no distinctions between ‘East’ and ‘West.’ The concept of East and West only came about in 1948, when the Jordanian army captured Jerusalem?s eastern neighbourhoods and the Old City. Except for a Jewish enclave on Mount Scopus, Jordan occupied what became known as East Jerusalem, expelling Jewish residents, destroying numerous synagogues and other Jewish institutions. Mitch Bard points out, ‘The only time that the eastern part of Jerusalem was exclusively Arab was between 1949 and 1967, and that was because Jordan occupied the area and forcibly expelled all the Jews.’?
