Agence France Presse offers up a unique and misleading Arabic description of the mixed Arab-Jewish city of Haifa, dubbing it “the Arab mixed city in the north” (“An anti-occupation billboard targeting Eurovision visitors is making Israel angry,” May 13). The northern city is over 75 percent Jewish, according to 2017 data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, but the wire service’s Arabic report completely omits mention of the majority Jewish population in the so-called “Arab mixed city.”
The news agency’s parallel English report, in contrast, accurately refers to “the mixed Arab-Jewish city of Haifa in northern Israel.”
CAMERA Arabic contacted editors from AFP as well as at France24, which had published AFP’s Arabic and English articles, to request that Arabic editors amend the article to reflect the fact that the mixed city of Haifa includes Jews.