The “Settler” from West Jerusalem

(The following op-ed piece appeared on HonestReporting.com.)

Picture that appeared on the front page of the Sunday Chronicle

For the past three years, I have been writing a decidedly non-political blog called “This Normal Life.” My goal has been to present slices of what passes for “normal” life in today’s troubled Israel.

I have very deliberately avoided presenting any particular religious or political point of view and have turned down a number of offers for interviews with the international media, always afraid that my neutral stance as an author would be compromised; detracting from the broad appeal this blog holds for the many people who read it regularly.

So it was with no small amount of trepidation that I agreed to be profiled in an article in this Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle. The reporter actually found me through this blog and said he was writing a series of articles about the real people behind the headlines living their normal lives in the Middle East. As a former San Franciscan, I would be perfect, he assured me.

With a pick up line like that, how could I say no?

Imagine then my shock when I read the headline of the article about me that appeared in the Sunday July 24 issue of the SF Chronicle: “Settler Hopes for Peace to Take Root.”

The last time I checked, we residents of western Jerusalem were not considered “settlers.” Which got me seriously wondering: had the Chronicle come to consider all of Israel a controversial “settlement?”

Now, as a writer and a reporter myself, I know what happens in the editing process, and I know that the reporter who interviewed me, Matt Stannard, was not responsible for the headline.

Indeed he sent me an apologetic email shortly after the article came out expressing his outrage and how he feels “terrible” and “sabotaged” by whoever made what he said was a “last minute overnight change” without his approval.

Still, it highlights a general problem with “balance” when it comes to media reporting in this part of the world.

When I first started writing “This Normal Life” in 2002, I approached the very same Chronicle, as my hometown paper, and suggested that they print my blog as a weekly column. The editor I spoke with at the time said the only way they could do that is if they gave equal time and space to a contrasting Palestinian viewpoint.

I argued, to no avail, that my writing was not political; it was just charming little stories about daily life from an expatriate San Franciscan.

So when I see a headline describing me as a “settler,” I can’t help ask – was that the result of a complete lack of awareness by the headline writer as to what the term “settler” connotes? A deliberate attempt to spice up the story – to say “look, here’s a settler who supports peace, isn’t that special?”

Or something even worse: a not-so-hidden political agenda?

Any way you look at it, someone had to have given some thought to the matter, since there had been a perfectly acceptable headline that was consciously changed.

In the end, though, does it really matter? Whatever the intention, the words are loaded and the result tarnishes Stanndard’s well written and moving portrayal of my life.

After the article appeared, Stanndard intervened and ensured that the headline was changed – several times in fact.

Within hours of its original appearance on the web, “Settler” changed to “Resident”…

…then switched to “Man from Berkeley” hopes for peace…

…before settling (no pun intended) on “resident” again.

The Chronicle’s Deputy Managing Editor for News, Steve Proctor, has since written to me and apologized for the error. A correction was printed in Monday’s newspaper reading:

“The headline on a Sunday Story about Israel’s disengagement from parts of the occupied territories misidentified the subject of the story as a settler. He is a resident of Jerusalem, as the story states.”

Unfortunately, there’s not much that could be done for the newspaper that hundreds of thousands of San Francisco Bay Area readers opened with their morning coffee on Sunday. It had already gone to print – with me cast as “settler.”

Looks like I’ll be avoiding the press for a little while longer.

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Click here to view the cover of the SF Chronicle.
Click here to read the article itself in the Chronicle.