4/
Then comes Oslo.
@WIRED claims the process “was meant to lead to the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.”
Except the actual agreements created interim Palestinian self-government and explicitly left borders, Jerusalem, settlements, security and other permanent-status questions for later negotiations.
They did not predetermine the final outcome.
That’s a fairly important distinction.
1/ More than 4,000 words on Israeli checkpoints. Hundreds of movement restrictions mapped. Countless paragraphs on their impact. And virtually nothing explaining why many of these security measures exist in the first place. Palestinian terrorism barely enters the story. TheLost time. Lost jobs. Lost friends. Lost family. Lost lives. Our joint investigation reveals the system that has divided the West Bank and measures what it cost people to move through it. wired.com/story/how-isra…- 2/ Start with 1948. @WIRED tells readers: “Zionist forces expelled more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes.” That reduces a complex wartime refugee crisis to a single cause. Historical research describes a mixture of expulsions, flight from fighting and fear, and the
- 3/ Then 1967: “Israel seized the remaining Palestinian territories.” Missing from that neat formulation? The West Bank was controlled by Jordan. Gaza was controlled by Egypt. The buildup to the Six-Day War and the reasons it broke out? Simply not there. Apparently, “Israel
- 4/ Then comes Oslo. @WIRED claims the process “was meant to lead to the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.” Except the actual agreements created interim Palestinian self-government and explicitly left borders, Jerusalem, settlements, security and other permanent-status questions for later negotiations. They did not predetermine the final outcome. That’s a fairly important distinction.
- 5/ Then 2002. @WIRED tells readers Israel began building the security barrier. Why would Israel possibly do that? No mention in the timeline of the Second Intifada’s wave of suicide bombings, shootings and other attacks. Erase the attacks and the security response suddenly6/ Then 2007: “Israel has imposed a blockade on Gaza.” Again: cause deleted. Restrictions intensified following Hamas’ takeover of Gaza and amid continuing rocket fire into Israel. Egypt also controlled the Rafah crossing. Hamas disappears. Israel’s response remains. Notice7/ @WIRED repeatedly analyzes checkpoint data “since October 2023” and finds delays increased sharply after that date. Yet its historical framing gives readers remarkably little explanation of why Israeli security concerns changed so dramatically then. October 2023 apparently8/ That’s the fundamental problem with @WIRED’s “investigation.” Documenting the hardship caused by checkpoints is legitimate journalism. But if you repeatedly remove the wars, terror attacks, suicide bombings, Hamas takeover and other security events that preceded Israeli
