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March 31, 2008
Why Is Britain the "Center Point" of Anti-Semitism?
"Britain has become the center point for the meeting of anti-Semitic trends in Europe," says Hebrew University historian Prof. Robert S. Wistrich.
Why? Wistrich cites a number of reasons, which are discussed in a recent Jerusalem Post article. Not surprisingly, one of the causes mentioned is the British media's notorious hostility toward Israel:
British media had taken an almost universally anti-Israel bias, especially but not exclusively on the BBC, with context removed from description of Israeli military actions, and Islamic jihadist activity such as suicide bombing never connected to ideology.
"Under no circumstance will a Palestinian act of terrorism be referred to as terrorist, They are militants similar to the floor-shop dispute in Liverpool whose workers have decided to go on strike," he said.
"Palestinian terrorism is portrayed as a minor pin-prick compared to 'massive' retaliation of this 'rogue' state [Israel]," he said.
"You cannot read a British newspaper without encountering a variant of the libel that Zionism is racism or Zionism is Nazism," he said, describing a culture of "barely disguised hatred" when the subject of Zionism of British Jewry or Anglo-Israel relations is broached, unless they are "the good anti-Zionists."
With the media and the elites skewed against Israel - aided by former Israeli academics who routinely condemn the Jewish state and who have attained "historic dissident status and are listened to as the authentic voice of Israel" - the whole discussion of anti-Semitism had become distorted in Britain, with the accuser becoming the accused, he said.
Posted by at 08:58 PM | Comments (2)
The Campaign to Equate Israel with the Nazis: Enter Richard Falk, UN Special Investigator
Veteran anti-Israel activist Richard Falk has been named by the UN Human Rights Council as Special Investigator of Israeli Actions, replacing veteran anti-Israel rapporteur John Dugard. Falk has equated Israel with the Nazis, stating, "Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not." He is also an apologist for Hamas, writing in the same piece where he accused Israel of "genocidal potential" towards the Palestinians, that
Hamas was castigated as a terrorist organization that had not renounced violence against Israel and had refused to recognize the Jewish state as a legitimate political entity. In fact, the behavior and outlook of Hamas is quite different.
The shameless Falk recently plugged the Palestinian propaganda film "Occupation 101," in which he was prominently featured, asserting,
What I was particularly struck by was that there was not a false note in the entire film.
He apparently missed his own wildly inaccurate statements including the false claim that Israel "receives as much foreign economic assistance as all the countries combined in the world" from the US. In truth, as CAMERA documented in its review of the film, "Occupation 101" is a compendium of falsehoods and canards that incite hatred of Israel and Jews in general.
With his long record of gross misjudgement, the professor will be an ideal choice for the committee which spends nearly all its time condemning Israel while ignoring massive human rights violations in places like Sudan and Tibet. In 1979, he published a piece in the New York Times titled "Trusting Khomeini," extolling Ayatollah Khomeini, and ridiculing the notion that the Ayatollah was a religious reactionary. On the very day his piece appeared as an op-ed in the New York Times (Feb. 16, 1979), the first batch of officials from the prior Iranian government were sentenced to death by the new Islamist regime.
Falk possesses impeccable bonafides as the rapporteur for the anti-Israel organization. In February 2002, as the Palestinian suicide bombing campaign was approaching its apex, he published an article with the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Research condemning the
asymmetric war being waged by Israel under Sharon's militant leadership against an essentially defenseless Palestinian society.
Falk's appointment may be a signal that the UN Human Rights Commission is kicking into high gear in its campaign to demonize the state of Israel. After all, the next Durban conference is only a year away. The media, thus far, has not given this appointment the attention it deserves.
Posted by SS at 11:00 AM | Comments (3)
March 30, 2008
The BBC's Arabic Opiate
In a new study, BBC Watch warns about the hazardous composition of BBC's opiate for its Arabic radio listeners.
The findings regarding the station's main news program during the period of the 2006 Lebanon war are troubling:
The airtime given by BBC Arabic to the pro Hizbollah position outweighed that given to the pro Israel position by a ratio of some 4.5 to 1.
What was more surprising was the very marked anti-American sentiment which we detected. Many programme guests expressed blatantly and viciously anti-American positions . . . . While this unto itself may be acceptable and even desirable in a free press, the latitude afforded to these guests in sharing their sentiments, the highly evident disproportion in the representation of such views and the relative absence of challenge of these views in a manner which would conform with journalistic principles of impartiality and balance prompt serious concern. . .
What emerges is a BBC which is providing a solid and respectable platform for anti-Western ideologues. . .
Any questions?
Posted by TS at 06:05 AM | Comments (0)
This Is Your Brain on the BBC
At the March 11 daily press briefing by the Office of the Spokesman for the U.N. Secretary General, the press corps demonstrated the damaging side effects of exposure to the BBC.
The following is a real-life exchange between an unidentified (for good reason!) journalist and spokeswoman Michele Montas:
Journalist: Do you consider the demolition of houses of the Palestinians as terrorist acts?
Montas: We're not going to discuss that again. As I said earlier, the United Nations as a body of 192 countries, has not reached a conclusion on the definition. . .
Journalist: I'm talking about the act, not the definition. Is it a terrrorist act to demolish somebody's home and make him homeless?
Montas: I can't go into specifics on this.
Journalist: But we're talking about specific acts. The Speaker of the Knesset yesterday called for demolition of houses. She's a district judge. She's a judge and she's supposed to be a lawmaker. What do you say about that?
Montas: We don't say anything about what people say in hypothetical situations.
Journalist: No, they already demolished the house of the [Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva] attacker.
Montas: As far as I could confirm this morning, the house was not destroyed.
Journalist: It was destroyed Thursday.
Montas: I checked this morning. Before I came here, I checked with our Mission over there. The house is not destroyed.
Journalist: But yesterday, she asked the General Attorney to destroy the house, and it was done this morning.
Montas: Whatever she asked is irrelevant. I'm just telling you the facts that I got from the field. As far as I know, and this is the last information we got from the field, the house was not destroyed.
On March 7, BBC's World News falsely reported: "In the hours after the attack, Israeli bulldozers destroyed his [the Merkaz HaRav terrorist’s] family home." The report included footage filmed at a different demolition. On March 13, the network aired a correction, and to this day the house has not been demolished.
Any questions?
Posted by TS at 04:43 AM | Comments (2)
Just Journalism Just Launched
The Jewish Chronicle reports
A veteran reporter who has covered some of the major events of the Middle East has been appointed head of a new organisation monitoring media coverage of Israel.
Egyptian-born Adel Darwish, a regular analyst on British, North American and Arabic-language TV, is the first director of the newly operational Just Journalism organisation.
Although its official launch is not until May, its website is due to become publicly accessible today.
The new venture, which has been nearly a year in the planning, was founded by a group of young professionals, Jewish and non-Jewish, with backgrounds in the media, law, public relations and academia. They were motivated by a belief that skewed reporting was increasingly contributing to the delegitimisation of Israel. . . .
Just Journalism stresses that it is “not a lobby group�. Its plans to evaluate press and broadcast reports on Israel in terms of the editorial standards and commitments to fairness set out in various codes of practice published, for example, by the BBC, Ofcom or the Press Complaints Commission.
An example of “lack of context� is reporting on the current hardship of the Palestinians in Gaza without mentioning that the Israeli blockade was imposed in response to rocket attacks, Mr Darwish said.
On the Web: Just Journalism
Posted by TS at 04:21 AM | Comments (0)
Prominent Anchor Leaves Al Jazeera, Citing Anti-Americanism
Ynet reports:
Former 'Nightline' reporter Dave Marash has quit al-Jazeera English, saying Thursday his exit was due in part to an anti-American bias at a network that is little seen in this country. . . he found it "became so stereotypical, so reflexive" that he got angry.
Marash, who's being replaced by former CNN International host Shihab Rattansi, said he was the last American-accented anchor at the network, which broadcasts from Washington, London, Kuala Lumpur and Doha, Qatar. He said there are more Canadians than Americans working at the Washington office.
Marash's observations don't come as a shock to many observers, including Judea Pearl.
Marash's resignation comes two weeks after both Israel and Fatah criticized the network as being pro-Hamas, and after Israel imposed sanctions on Al-Jazeera.
Posted by TS at 04:01 AM | Comments (0)
March 28, 2008
Magdi Allam: Media Discriminate Against Israel
Magdi Allam, an Egyptian-born Italian intellectual who earlier this month made waves with his public conversion from Islam to Christianity — he was baptized at Saint Peter's Basilica on Easter eve by the Pope — has weighed in on the media's (mis)treatment of Israel.
In a March 1 column in Italy's best-selling Corriere della Sera, Allam asserted that "If a comparison is made between the way the media have covered the battle Turkey has conducted against the PKK in Iraq, on the one hand, and the battle that Israel has conducted against Hamas in Gaza, on the other, one can see the clear discrimination against the Jewish state."
The translation is according to Ha'aretz, which has published an interview with Allam. You can read it here.
Posted by at 10:37 AM | Comments (2)
March 25, 2008
On Gaza, LA Times Corrects, Contorts
After seven weeks, the Los Angeles Times today extracted itself out of its Gaza electricity dilemma by printing a correction.
Unfortunately, though, the paper twisted itself Sunday into another new-old pretzel, with Ashraf Khalil reporting:
Israel sealed Gaza's borders after the Hamas takeover, and one of the scenarios floated in the Yemeni talks would reopen the borders under the control of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.
The problems in this contortion are two-fold:
1) "Seal" means:
a. to close hermetically: to seal off a jar. b. to block (an entrance, area, etc.) completely so as to prevent escape or entrance: The police sealed off the area after the bomb threat was received.
But Israel has not hermetically closed the Gaza Strip. Here is a list, for example, of the truckloads of supplies brought from Israel to the Gaza Strip in the last few days. In addition, in 2007, more than 7000 Gazans entered Israel and the West Bank for medical treatment.
2) Even had Israel wanted to, it could not "seal Gaza's borders," because the strip shares a border with Egypt, where, as the recent mass breach attests, Israel has no control.
Posted by TS at 06:09 AM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2008
Kids Newspaper Quiz Fosters Anti-Israel Views
(Thanks to the Daily Hampshire Gazette of Northampton, Mass. for providing on-line links to “The Quiz� columns)
Would an innocent-looking weekly syndicated children’s quiz column - often found in the comics section - be used to inculcate anti-Israel views?
Yes - when it’s "The Quiz" produced by Judith Laitman whose public utterances (see below) habitually condemn Israel for alleged mistreatment of the Palestinians, whom she holds blameless. Ms. Laitman is owner and president of “Knowledge Unlimited Inc� of Madison, Wisconsin which distributes “The Quiz� weekly to newspapers across the U.S. including the Dallas Morning News. "The Quiz" is also frequently distributed free to schools by the schools' local newspapers. Nearly every reference in “The Quiz� to Palestinians is benign or supportive while nearly every mention of Israel is very negative.
In the March 3, 2008 Quiz column ( above), the Newsname section asks the child to name the man pictured who is “president of the Palestinian National Authority ...[and who is] often seen as the Palestinian voice of moderation by Israel and the West.� While failing to mention the daily Palestinian firing of barrages of rockets from Gaza at civilians in the Israeli cities of Sderot and Ashkelon precipitating Israeli actions, the Newsname text goes onto say, “In the past few days, Israeli attacks on Gaza killed more than 110 Palestinians, including 22 children.�
This assertion regarding casualties disregarded Israel’s side of the story. It also misleads, in that a 17-year-old Palestinian combatant launching rockets at Israel may be listed as a "child" by some. The more sober New York Times description said,
“At least 10 Palestinians were killed on Sunday by Israeli fire, local hospital officials said, bringing the number of Palestinians killed since Wednesday, when the latest surge in hostilities began, to more than 100. Israel says that most of those killed were armed militants, but Palestinian officials say that more than half were civilians, including several children." (March 3 by Kershner, Erlanger and El-Khodary).
Another report - a syndicated article by Middle East correspondent Gwynne Dyer - said:
“Israel says 90 per cent of the Palestinian casualties were fighters; Palestinian sources say half were civilians, including 22 children. Given the crowded living conditions of the Gaza Strip, the latter estimate is more plausible, although it would make no sense for Israeli forces to target civilians deliberately.�
A fill-in-the-blank question in the February 25, 2008 Quiz Worldscope section, “Thousands of Palestinians have formed a “human chain� in ..??.. in protest at Israel’s blockade of the territory,� characteristically omitted any mention that it was a partial blockade of non-essentials and was in response to daily rocket attacks against Israeli civilians from “the territory� (Gaza).
An October 15, 2007 Quiz Worldscope question asks "Visiting the Middle East in advance of an upcoming peace conference, who[ Condoleeza Rice] said that 'it's time for the establishment of a Palestinian state. '"What Rice actually said, according to the State Department transcript, was: "frankly it's time for the establishment of a Palestinian state and it's time for Israel to live in the security that is going to come with a peaceful and democratic neighbor."
A January 29, 2007 Quiz Worldscope question refers to the president of Israel who faces “charges of rape and other crimes.� However, no Quiz column contains mention of any Palestinian leader as having been accused of any crime, even though many are responsible for indiscriminate terror and violence against Israeli civilians, which is a war crime.
The January 1, 2007 Quiz Newsplace section - providing an unlabeled map with a question mark pointing to a tiny Israel - asks for the name of the Middle East nation that "has drawn international criticism for plans to build a new settlement in the West Bank," in violation of the “roadmap to peace� agreement. Naturally, insufficient context is provided, such as the violations of the "roadmap" by the Palestinians which have been much more numerous and serious, and which preceded the announcement of the settlement.
Another distortion included at the end: "This country also said it will resume bombing raids in the Gaza Strip to retaliate for rocket attacks." While it's notable that rocket attacks against Israel were finally mentioned, no explanation is given that Palestinian rockets are aimed at Israeli civilians (which is a war crime), or that Israeli bombing raids target Palestinian terrorists and their infrastructure - not civilians.
The December 4, 2006 Quiz Newsname section asks for the name of the smiling man pictured, the 39th president of the U.S., who has written a new book “harshly critical of Israel’s policies towards Palestinians, saying 'Israel's control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace in the Holy Land.'" While noting that he has been "stirring controversy with [his] new book", the Quiz column makes no mention of any point of view criticizing the accuracy and fairness of the smiling man's words, and certainly doesn't mention the Arab terror war or incitement against Jews as being "primary obstacles".
[CAMERA details Carter's errors here , as does CAMERA's book, “Bearing False Witness� (paperback), available at Amazon Books].
A November 13, 2006 Quiz Worldscope question asked which country “was heavily criticized for killing 18 civilians, mostly women and children, in a bombing attack in Gaza.� Characteristically, no mention is made of Palestinian civilians used as shields by Hamas or terrorists (“militants�) successfully targeted by Israel or rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip upon Israeli civilians.
Ms. Laitman’s complete lack of objectivity about Israel has been demonstrated in her writings in the Capital Times newspaper (Madison, Wisconsin), including:
A 300 word letter-to-the-Editor, March 6, 2008, in which Ms. Laitman, identifying herself “As a Jew and a member of the Madison chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace,� praised the Rachel Corrie Play and bashed Israel for the alleged "atrocities being perpetrated under the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories.� Laitman, unashamedly likening Corrie to the famous 1940s Holocaust victim, Anne Frank, ignored the other side of the Corrie story. It should be remembered that Jewish Voice for Peace supports what the group terms "divestment from the Israeli occupation" and it supports those mainline Christian groups pushing such campaigns.
An April 28, 2007 guest commentary column provided a litany of inaccurate statistics regarding Israel's history and Palestinian land claims. Also: "Sadly for the Israelis, they have now become the oppressors. And the policies of their government have become the greatest obstacle to the peace."
A December 25, 2006 letter praises Jimmy Carter and his book while condemning Israel on many counts. She also expresses her frustration with a press that she sees as "largely silent about these outrages." "Over the years, the Palestinian people have suffered from a long list of depredations and violations at the hands of their Israeli occupiers...Human rights simply don't exist for Palestinians in the occupied territories. Not only has the press been largely silent about these outrages, but our politicians, in their fear of criticizing Israel and their eagerness to vilify anyone who does, have been complicit in the unnecessary and tragic suffering of the Palestinians....In his book, Mr. Carter strives for balance. We should be thanking Mr. Carter, not criticizing him..."
(Hat tip: C. Gelfand)
Posted by MK at 03:36 PM | Comments (0)
March 23, 2008
JPost: BBC Apologizes Again, and Again
This demolition of an Islamic Jihad leader's Bethlehem home apparently stood in for BBC footage of a Jerusalem demolition that never happened/Maan photo
The Jerusalem Post today reports on BBC's fabricated demolition report, which was corrected after CAMERA exposed it.
But that's not the only error that had the Beeb apologizing in recent days. The Post reports:
In a second incident, in a news item entitled "Israel jets strike northern Gaza" on March 14 on their News Web site, the BBC reported that Israel was deliberately targeting civilians in an operation targeting Kassam rocket launch sites in Gaza, and claiming that the United Nations secretary-general had described it as an attack on civilians.
"The Israeli air force said it was targeting a rocket firing team... UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned Israel's attacks on Palestinian civilians, calling them inappropriate and disproportionate," the report said.
In a letter to the BBC, Manchester Jewish community member Jonathan Hantman wrote,
"It is one-sided for the report to describe Israel's operations as 'attacks on civilians' while not describing the Palestinian rocket attacks, to which Israel was responding, as 'attacks on civilians' or 'acts of terrorism.'"
Hantman also pointed out that Ban's attributed comments were made weeks earlier to the UN Security Council and not in reference to that particular attack. He added that it was also wrong to mention the UN secretary-general's condemnation of Israel without mentioning his condemnation of Palestinian rocket attacks in the same statement.
"Ban's statement, made some two weeks ago, did not refer to yesterday's attack and did not describe Israel's operations on Gaza as 'attacks on civilians,'" Hantman noted. "He did, however, describe Palestinian rocket attacks as 'acts of terrorism.'"
In his statement to the UN Security Council on March 1, Ban said: "While recognizing Israel's right to defend itself, I condemn the disproportionate and excessive use of force that has killed and injured so many civilians, including children... I condemn Palestinian rocket attacks and call for the immediate cessation of such acts of terrorism."
Apologizing for the error, the BBC said in its response, regarding the speech: "We accept we should have made reference to what [Ban] said about Palestinian rocket attacks as well as to the 'excessive use of force' by Israel. We have amended the report, also removing the reference to Israeli 'attacks on civilians.'"
These two apologies follow closely behind last month's mea culpa for comparing slain Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri to arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh.
Posted by TS at 02:02 PM | Comments (0)
March 19, 2008
Ominous Developments in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
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In recent weeks, three ominous developments underscored the precarious future of Israeli-Palestinian relations. On March 19, the New York Times reported on the alarming results of a poll of Palestinian attitudes toward Israel. The poll, administered this past week by Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki, shows overwhelming approval of the murder of the Jewish seminary students last week, broad support for continuing the rocket barrage on Israeli cities and a desire to end negotiations with Israel. According to Shikaki,
The anger that this poll is registering is about equal to that at the very height of the second intifada.
The increasing belligerence of the Palestinian public accompanies the ongoing efforts of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon to upgrade their rocket arsenals. The Israeli city of Ashkelon is now within range of Gazan rockets.
Meanwhile, seemingly oblivious to the portentous trends in Palestinian public opinion, the international community proceeds full speed ahead with its announced plan to expand the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank and enhance their operational capabilities.
One can see why pollster Shikaki concludes,
I am very worried about what is coming.
Posted by SS at 10:11 AM | Comments (0)
March 17, 2008
The Tibetan Case: An Occupational Foil
Dry Bones checks out the media's treatment of the Tibetan protests against Chinese occupation, and -- surprise, surprise -- it's not from the same old script about the "Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation."
His survey finds:
The BBC, so quick to inflame the public with condemnations of Israeli actions, reports the suppression of Tibetan protests with this headline and lead paragraph:
China Denies Tibet Death Reports
"Tibet's governor said the security forces did not use lethal weapons. A senior Chinese official has denied that troops used lethal force to quell protests in Tibet's main city, Lhasa.
Qiangba Puncog, the Tibetan regional governor, insisted calm was returning to Lhasa, as a deadline for protesters to hand themselves in approached." -more
Reuters News Agency's headline and lead paragraph read:
China Says Using Restraint to Quell Tibet Unrest
"BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Monday it had shown great restraint in the face of violent protests by Tibetans, which it said were orchestrated by followers of the Dalai Lama seeking to wreck the Beijing Olympics in August." -more
And Al Jazeera, in today's coverage calmly explains Chinese settlements and the movement of massive numbers of Chinese settlers into the occupied territory of Tibet this way:
"For several years government economic subsidies have brought an influx of Chinese migrants, under a policy groups like The Free Tibet Campaign group say is part of an increasingly successful ploy to make Tibetans the minority people in many areas of Tibet." -more
Posted by TS at 03:30 PM | Comments (0)
A Really Bad Headline
When it comes to misleading (but factually accurate) headlines, it doesn't get worse than this:
Border guards open fire at group of Sudanese crossing into Israel, wound one man (AP, today)
One's natural assumption, without reading the article, is that Israeli border guards fired at the Sudanese. In actuality, as the accompanying article reports:
Egyptian border guards opened fire Monday and wounded a Sudanese man who was part of a group of five men trying to illegally cross into Israel just south of the Rafah border crossing point, a security official said.
Posted by TS at 07:47 AM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2008
Abbas' Truth Cleansing
Reuters reports:
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday accused Israel of "ethnic cleansing" in Arab East Jerusalem by banning the building of Palestinian homes and cutting the city off from the occupied West Bank. . . .
"Our people in the city (Jerusalem) are facing an ethnic cleansing campaign through a set of Israeli decisions such as imposing heavy taxes, banning construction and closing Palestinian institutions in addition to separating the city from the West Bank by the racist separation wall," Abbas said.
Abbas has a very unique understanding of "ethnic cleansing," given that the Arab population in Jerusalem continues to grow (both in absolute numbers and in relation to the city's Jewish population.)
According to the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, the Arab population has grown from 68,600 in 1967 to 252,300 in 2006, and from 26 percent to 34 percent of the total population. (See Hebrew tables on Page 12.)
But Abbas doesn't have to take the word of an Israeli outfit on this issue. He can consult with the Palestinian center PASSIA, which reports:
Jerusalem's Arab population is growing much faster -- three times -- than the Jewish population . . . . (page 344 of Facts & Figures)
PASSIA also cites Palestinian numbers for the Arab population in Jerusalem, which are higher than those given by Israelis. Some "ethnic cleansing."
Moreover, the construction of the security barrier in the Jerusalem area has prompted more -- not less -- Arabs to move into Jerusalem, including into western neighborhoods, which are predominantly Jewish. (Note that thee JIIS original document on this information has been hacked, thus the above url refers you to a cached page.)
Likewise, Abbas' claim that is Israel is "banning [Arab] construction" in Jerusalem has just as much basis in reality.
Abbas gives his colleague Saeb Erekat a run for his money when it comes to creativity with facts.
Posted by TS at 07:12 AM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2008
Palestinian Culture of Death
Kudos to Michael Goodwin of the New York Daily News on his excellent column, "Palestinian Celebration of Murder Dooms Hope for Peace." He paints a clear picture of the Palestinian culture of death, from celebrations of the Merkaz Harav Massacre to the genocidal Mickey Mouse look-alike and Jew-eating bunny rabbit on their children's television shows.
Read the column by clicking here:
At the end of the column, post a comment online!
You can also thank Goodwin by writing to: [email protected]
Posted by Elana Wenocur
Posted by LG at 05:19 PM | Comments (0)
March 12, 2008
BBC Fabricates Home Demolition Report
On March 7, 2008, the BBC aired footage purporting to show Israeli bulldozers destroying the family home of Ala Abu Dheim, the terrorist who murdered eight students and wounded nine in the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva. But, in fact, the house has not yet been demolished and, together with a nearby mourning tent erected by the family, serves as a shrine to the terrorist. So where did the BBC obtain the film clip and whose decision was it to air this as bogus "evidence" of a home demolition by Israel?
See the BBC clip and read the exposee here.
Posted by rh at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)
March 11, 2008
Elders Against Zion
Carter, Annan to lead peace delegation to Middle East next month
By The Associated Press
A council of world leaders launched by former President Nelson Mandela is sending a three-person team to try to help ease tensions in the Middle East, the organization known as The Elders said Friday.Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former Irish President Mary Robinson will visit Israel, the Palestinian territories, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia April 13-21.
The very suggestion that one could ease tensions in the Middle East by sending three people to the region who are widely viewed as unalterably hostile to Israel — including Carter and Robinson, two of the world's most prominent Israel-bashers — is simply beyond comprehension.
- Stephen Silver
Posted by LG at 03:48 AM | Comments (2)
March 09, 2008
Pie in the Sky News
The Jerusalem Post's David Horovitz details the falsehoods broadcast by Al Scardino of Sky News, and expounds on the dangers in general of superficial reporting:
Al Scardino firmly and confidently informed viewers that the Israeli targets coming under rocket attack were situated beyond Israel's sovereign borders. These were areas that the international community did not consider part of Israel, he said, but that Israel claimed nonetheless. In so staggeringly misdescribing the rocketed areas, he essentially denied Israel part of its legitimacy in hitting back against the attacks. For while he did not dispute that Israeli citizens were being targeted, he depicted them as being located in, at best, contested territory.
Al Scardino also confidently asserted that at least 100 Palestinians civilians had been killed in the Israeli fire, and did not give figures for how many, if any, Palestinian gunmen and rocket-firing crew members had been killed. In so doing, he denied Israel still more legitimacy for its response to the rocket attacks, since he created the misconception among his viewers that the primary victims of Israel's response, indeed quite possibly the only victims, were civilians. . .
. . . . this grievous miscomprehension persists precisely when thorough understanding is so vital a precondition for grappling effectively with the bloody reality, distinguishing victimizers from victims, and enabling world opinion-leaders to formulate and support policies that thwart those victimizers and protect those victims.
Posted by TS at 03:24 AM | Comments (1)
March 07, 2008
Wash Post Blind to "Terror"
Once again, the Washington Post is belittling a Palestinian terrorist attack on Israelis.
The Post's report on the March 6th shooting at an Israeli religious school ("Gunman Kills Eight at Seminary in Jerusalem," March 7, 2008) is rife with omissions and distortions.
The headline fails to make clear either that the victims were Israelis or that a Palestinian was the perpetrator. The killer is merely called a "gunman," not a terrorist, and Hamas, which praised and "blessed" the massacre and which seeks Israel's annihilation, is sanitized as merely a "radical" group. The article also omits the full name of the group that claimed responsibility for the massacre: “Imad Mughniyeh Liberators of Galilee.� Galilee is part of pre-1967 Israel.
The article also refers to "Israel's seizure of Palestinian territories in 1967," obscuring the facts that Egypt started the war by besieging and blockading Israel with the declared aim of destroying the Jewish state, and that the territories were not "Palestinian," but rather, disputed, and at the time, part of Egypt and Jordan, and included the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, which Jordan seized and ethnically cleansed of all Jews in 1948.
Meanwhile, the story ignores two attacks earlier that day by Islamic Jihad inside Israel's border. The second attack killed an Israeli soldier who was part of a rescue crew that was responding to the earlier attack. Also, Palestinians fired 7 more missiles at Sderot on Thursday, collapsing the roof of a house and starting a fire. (The New York Times noted these events in its March 7 report.)
While the Post article omits these important points, it goes out of its way to opine that the seminary massacre was "reminiscent" not of the hundreds of similar Palestinian massacres of Israeli children in schools, buses, malls, pizzerias, a disco and an ice cream parlor, but rather, of a rare incident of terrorism by a (deranged) Israeli -- in 1994. The Post does not bother to note the distinction that virtually all Israelis condemned the 1994 tragedy, unlike the Palestinians, who celebrated Thursday's act of barbarity against innocent Israelis.
Stephen A. Silver
Posted by LG at 04:19 AM | Comments (0)
March 06, 2008
Americans View Israel Favorably
This graph, which conveys results from a recent Gallup poll, speaks for itself:
Posted by at 11:00 AM | Comments (2)
March 04, 2008
LA Times Headline Portrays Counter-Terror Strike as Provocation
In the Los Angeles Times, an odiously titled Feb. 28, 2008 article, "Israeli airstrikes answered with rockets" (p. A5) turns the facts of this conflict on their collective head.
The headline falsely portrays a deadly Palestinian terror attack on an Israeli college campus as an act of self-defense, and Israel's response in legitimate self-defense to incessant Palestinian terror as a provocation that "prompted," as reporter Richard Boudreaux put it, the latest terror attack.
The Times owes its readers an apology for this grossly biased and unfair headline.
Stephen Silver
Posted by LG at 03:48 PM | Comments (0)
March 02, 2008
French Ballistics Expert: Israel Didn't Kill Al-Dura
Ha'aretz reports that ballistics expert Jean-Claude Schlinger recently presented to a French court his findings regarding the infamous Al-Dura affair.
Schlinger's report asserted:
If Jamal [the boy's father] and Mohammed al-Dura were indeed struck by shots, then they could not have come from the Israeli position, from a technical point of view, but only from the direction of the Palestinian position.
Posted by at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)