Waiting for AP: Two days and counting

I sent this email to the AP two days ago:

To the editor,

Could you please explain to me why the AP uses the phrase, “traditionally Arab east Jerusalem” when discussing Jews living in the eastern section of Jerusalem? Who has designated the eastern section as “traditionally Arab”? In point of fact, that is an inaccurate portrayal of the city’s character. There was a large Jewish community in east Jerusalem until 1948, when Jordan killed or forced out all of the Jewish inhabitants of the Jewish Quarter—which was in east Jerusalem. It is only in the years from 1948 to 1967 that there were no Jews in the eastern portion of the city. Prior to 1948, the history of the Jewish community of east Jerusalem goes back thousands of years.

In your article, Envoy: US favors overall Mideast peace accord, by Josef Federman, you write:

“Some 280,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements, in addition to 180,000 residents living in Jewish neighborhoods built in traditionally Arab east Jerusalem.”

Clearly, east Jerusalem is not “traditionally” Arab, and has been Arab only for 19 of the last several thousand years. Or, if you want more recent history, out of the last sixty years, Jews were absent from the Jewish Quarter only for nineteen years, and not by their choice.

Why does the AP use such a description when the Jewish Quarter is, and always has been, in the eastern section of the city? Wouldn’t that make east Jerusalem “traditionally Jewish”?

I look forward to seeing you fix this error.

I have yet to hear back from the AP as to why east Jerusalem is “traditionally Arab.” I suspect I will not hear back at all, but that may be the cynic in me.

Update: No response, but no more “traditionally Arab” east Jerusalem, either.