Journalistic sophistries chipping away at the legitimacy of Israel within its internationally recognized territory come in a variety of forms. Sometimes communities in undisputed Israeli territory are dubbed “settlements.” In other scenarios, they are “Palestinian.” Either way, the erosive effect is the same: delegitimizing Israel within any boundaries.
The Arab town of Kfar Yasif is located in northern Israel (image from Google Maps)
The settlement references — most abundant in Arabic discourse but also in English-language mainstream media including CBS, MSNBC and Agence France Presse — stigmatize communities within internationally recognized Israeli territory with a pejorative term meant to delegitimize.
The misleading references to Arab towns or even mixed Arab-Jewish towns in Israel as “Palestinian” blurs geographic and political boundaries, erasing Israel from the map.
In 2020, National Public Radio refused to correct after Palestinian celebrity chef Sami Tamimi cited Nazareth, Haifa and Acre — all well within internationally recognized Israeli territory — as within “modern time Palestine.” The following year, a New York Times piece by cookbook author Reem Kassis referred to the Arab town of Rameh in northern Israeli, as “a Palestinian town surrounded by olive groves, has long had a reputation for producing especially good oil.”
The Associated Press is the latest to cook up a slick story about a “Palestinian” town in Israel. Unfortunately, this time the subject matter — deadly crime afflicting the Arab community in Israel — shares none of the lightness of its culinary predecessors. In their article yesterday, “Besieged by gang violence, Palestinian citizens in Israel demand more security,” AP’s Sam Metz and Areej Hazboun wrongly refer to Kfar Yasif, within Israel’s internationally recognized territory, as “Palestinian,” stating:
The shooting — which police later said was a case of mistaken identity — stunned his hometown of Kafr Yasif, long besieged, like many Palestinian towns in Israel, by a wave of gang violence and family feuds.
Referring to “Palestinian” towns in Israel is both inaccurate and confusing. Kfar Yasif is internationally recognized as part of the State of Israel. Does AP oppose the international community on this point?
At every opportunity, the AP piece labels people, political parties and locations in Israel as Palestinian. Among the 18 references (including in the headline), are the following statements:
One out of every five citizens in Israel is Palestinian
Lod, a mixed city with a large Palestinian population
Some Palestinian citizens have reached the highest echelons of business and politics in Israel
Nabil was one of a record 252 Palestinian citizens to be killed in Israel
The violence has stifled the rhythm of life in many Palestinian communities. In Kafr Yasif, a northern Israel town of 10,000
Last year, only 8% of killings of Palestinian citizens
The killings have become a rallying cry for Palestinian-led political parties after successive governments pledged to curb the bloodshed with little results
Israeli soldier Sgt. Tamer Othman of Kfar Yasif, killed fighting Hamas in Gaza in November 2024. He fought to defend Israel’s people and land. AP journalists chip away at Israeli territory, calling his hometown in northern Israel ‘Palestinian’ (Photo from IDF)
This inappropriate terminology confuses readers by conflating the significant political, legal, and social differences between Israel’s Arab citizens and Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza.
For example, Palestinians living in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip do not hold Israeli citizenship and therefore cannot vote in Israeli elections. Arab citizens of Israel, in contrast, have full Israeli voting rights. When media outlets call Arab Israeli citizens “Palestinians,” and also report that Palestinians (meaning West Bank Palestinians) can’t vote in Israel, readers will naturally and wrongly conclude that Arab citizens of Israel may not vote.
Such confusion is both extraneous and avoidable, because the population’s self-identification includes and even favors their Arab identity. Kfar Yasif, the northern Arab town AP described as “Palestinian,” lost one of its young men, Sgt. Tamer Othman, an Israel Defense Forces soldier killed November 2024 as he fought Hamas in the Gaza Strip. His profile, for one, does not exactly suggest that the young Arab Israeli soldier would have rejected his Israeli identity, or prioritized Palestinian over Israeli identity.
Notably, AP has rightfully been careful in the past to identify Arab towns in Israel and their residents as Israeli (ex, “the small Arab-Israeli city of Tamra, in northern Israel,” June 16, 2025; “an Israeli Arab man was killed” in Istanbul, Aug. 19, 2024; “Arab Israeli lawmaker” Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi, May 22, 2022).
As recently as June 2025, AP did not mislead by calling Arab towns in Israel “Palestinian”
This new slippage is a worrying sign of anti-Israel discourse gaining ground in the effort to undermine Israel’s sovereignty and internationally recognized territory.