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January 31, 2018
Echoes of the Past: German Tanks and the Turkish Government Assaulting Minorities
An article in the German newspaper Deutsche Welle reports on the consternation of members of the German government over the use of German Leopard tanks by the Turkish army in its cross-border invasion of the Kurdish enclave in Syria.
The Germans should be concerned, not only because of the use of German tanks for an act of aggression, but also because of the disturbing imagery and historical resonance associated with this aggression.
In World War I, the Ottoman Turk's longstanding military ties with the Germans paved the way for the entrance of the Ottomans into the war against the Allies. Under the the pretext of the war, the Turkish government proceded to conduct a genocide against its Armenian minority.
Today, the Kurds are the target of the Turkish regime's wrath.
Furthermore, the imagery of the Leopard tank, which bears a striking resemblance to the infamous World War II Tiger tank, may not be lost on German politicians concerned with Germany's image; nor does the fact that the Kurds have the moral (and wavering military) support of the United States and fellow democratic coalition members.
Posted by SS at 01:01 PM | Comments (1)
January 30, 2018
President of Bethlehem Bible College Expresses Thanks for Antisemitic Comment
Jack Sara, president of Bethlehem Bible College, either can’t recognize antisemitism when he sees it or is OK with it.
In a Facebook discussion underneath one of his articles at The Christian Post, a website that caters to English-speaking Evangelical Christians in England and the U.S., Sara express warm words of thanks to an anti-Israel commentator who called Christian supporters of Israel “shabbos goys� and hurled the epithet “Zio-supremacists� at supporters of Israel who take issue with the narrative put forth by Bethlehem Bible College. These phrases are decidedly antisemitic and most responsible Christian leaders would condemn their use.
Not Jack Sara.
In response to the ugly comments, which were issued in defense of one of his articles at The Christian Post, Sara wrote, “Mic P J Fletch Thank you so much for your affirming words, this is just a sample of what we have to keep up with such people!� (Warning: Do not click on Mic P J Fletch’s Facebook page unless you are willing to go down a deep rabbit hole of antisemitic conspiracy theories.)
Here is a screenshot of the discussion in question, with the relevant portions highlighted:
For some more background about Sara’s ugly attacks on Evangelical Protestants who support Israel, read this article in The Times of Israel.
Posted by dvz at 02:52 PM | Comments (0)
January 29, 2018
Civilian Bounties, Quartz, Haaretz & Lousy Translations
Quartz, which describes itself as "a digitally native news outlet, born in 2012, for business people in the new global economy. We publish bracingly creative and intelligent journalism with a broad worldview," today took heat on Twitter for inaccurate headline about a new recruitment plan for the inspectors at Israel's Population and Immigration Authority.
The erroneous Jan. 27 headline in question reads: "Israel will pay civilians $9000 to capture African immigrants."
But as Yair Rosenberg, a senior writer at Tablet, tweeted:
This is completely false. The Hebrew advertisement used as the source for this report is for hiring immigration and customs enforcement officers. Nothing to do with bounties for civilians. I guess the author of this can't read Hebrew, or is relying on readers not being able to.
Perhaps Quartz, with its broad worldview and apparent lack of Hebrew skills, relied on Haaretz's English edition for the story. Haaretz's English edition, whose masthead boasts that it is "Israel's leading daily newspaper," originally ran the following erroneous headline: "Israel to Pay $9,000 to Any Civilian Willing to Help Deport Asylum Seekers by Force" (Jan. 12).
Notably, the original headline in Haaretz's Hebrew edition was accurate. It did not falsely allege that civilians would be receiving bounties for rounding up asylum seekers. It states (CAMERA's translation): "The state recruits inspectors for the deportation of asylum seekers, offers 30,000 shekel bonus." (For more examples of "Haaretz, Lost in Translation," or instances when misinformation about Israel appears in Haaretz's English edition, but not the Hebrew edition, see here.)
The English edition's false headline remained in place until January 28, at which point editors commendably corrected it. The amended Haaretz headline now states: "Israel Recruiting Inspectors to Deport Asylum Seekers by Force, Promising $9,000 Bonus."
Haaretz editors commendably appended the following note to the bottom of the article alerting readers to the change:
Now will Quartz exercise its intelligent journalism to likewise correct its headline?
Last updated, 12:30 pm EST: Jerusalem Post , Quartz Correct False Headline About Bounty for Civilians Who Catch Asylum Seekers
Posted by TS at 04:06 AM | Comments (0)
January 27, 2018
Where’s the Coverage? Arab Enrollment in Israeli Universities Grows 78%
The number of Arab students in Israeli universities has grown an astonishing 78.5% over the last seven years, according to Israel’s Council for Higher Education (CHE). Although several Israeli outlets noted this new statistic, many major U.S. newspapers—including some which routinely publish commentaries labeling Israel an apartheid state—failed to do so.
CHE’s survey reported that in 2017, 16.1% of students in Israeli universities were Arab—up from 10.2% in 2010. Israeli graduate programs also witnessed an increase in Arab enrollment, from 6.2% to 13% over seven years. Similarly, Arab attendance in postgraduate programs rose “60% from 3.9% to 6.3%,� according to a Jan. 25, 2018 Times of Israel dispatch (“Number of Arab Students in Israeli Universities Grows 78% in 7 Years�).
Times of Israel reporter Dov Lieber noted that 26,000 Israeli Arabs were enrolled in higher education in 2010. By 2017, the figure was 47,000.
The CHE report was created in order to track the success of governmental programs aimed at better integrating Arab Israelis into higher education. The equivalent of eighty-eight million U.S. dollars was spent on the program from 2012-16. Its success has prompted the government to extend the program to 2022.
CHE’s survey noted that, while the program has made great strides, Israeli Arabs, as well as the Bedouin, remain underrepresented in higher education. Citing CHE, Lieber highlighted that “the only subjects in which Arab students were represented in proportion to their percentage of the population were education and medical professions.� However, fields in which Arab enrollment was previously low, such as engineering, mathematics, business administration, hard sciences and humanities, all experienced significant increases since 2010.
The Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post, Ha’aretz, and others detailed the study’s findings. But no major U.S. news outlets did, according to a Lexis-Nexis search.
Western press outlets frequently run stories slandering Israel as an apartheid state—failing to note that Israel, like all liberal democracies, might not be perfect but nonetheless strives—under difficult circumstances—to provide a level of equality and opportunity that is unique to the region. As CAMERA has highlighted, Israeli Arabs have a vastly greater standard of living and quality of life when compared to the Arabs residing elsewhere in the Middle East. Nonetheless, many in the media fail to provide essential context, and often parrot the talking point of Israel’s critics, which single out the Jewish state for opprobrium—holding it to standards that aren’t applied to other nations.
The Washington Post (“Is Israel An ‘Apartheid State?’ This U.N. Report Says Yes,� March 16, 2017) and The New York Times (“Tempest at U.N. Over Report That Says Israel Practices Apartheid,� March 15, 2017), among others, have published reports and commentaries that often uncritically repeat claims that Israel is an apartheid state akin to pre-1991 South Africa. Both papers failed, however, to highlight Israel's success in increasing Arab enrollment in higher education.
Posted by SD at 04:12 PM | Comments (2)
January 25, 2018
Is The U.S. State Department Hiding a ‘Game Changer’ Report on Palestinian Refugees?
The United Nations Refugee and Works Agency (UNRWA) provides aid to approximately 5.3 million Palestinians which they categorize as “refugees�—but the actual number may be as low as 20,000, according to a Washington Free Beacon report by Adam Kredo (“State Department Hiding ‘Game Changer’ Report on Myth of Palestinian Refugees,� Jan. 18, 2018). The paper cited a still unreleased U.S. State Department report.
Kredo noted that:
“Multiple sources with knowledge of the situation told the Washington Free Beacon that the State Department first classified the report under the Obama administration and still refuses to provide U.S. officials with the information despite laws mandating its release.�
As CAMERA has highlighted, UNRWA has come under growing criticism by U.S. policymakers over its politicized nature, dissemination of antisemitic material, and its employee’s ties to terror groups. The U.S., UNRWA’s principal benefactor, has chosen to withhold $65 of the $125 million dollars in aid to the organization. Future installments might be conditional on UNRWA’s reform, according to the Trump administration.
The State Department report on UNRWA was commissioned in 2015, at the request of then-Senator Mark Kirk (R-Ill). However, the department did not release the report upon its completion—choosing instead to classify it. Indeed, Kredo noted that “the State Department never acknowledged having completed the report.�
Sources told The Washington Free Beacon that “there is no justification for classifying the report,� but State Department officials “do not want this information out as it could and would lead to a call to reform UNRWA.� In lieu of the recent U.S. cuts to UNRWA—and the attention that it has received from press and policymakers—keeping the report classified may be an “effort to suppress this information from Congress and the public,� according to the paper. In 2017, the U.S. Congress requested that the report be released—only to be rebuffed by the State Department.
U.S. news outlets are doing their part to suppress the information, as well.
The Free Beacon’s report was filed on Jan. 18, 2018. Fully a week later, few major U.S. news outlets have covered it. The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun and others—all of whom have offered recent reports highlighting Palestinian complaints about the U.S. funding cuts—have failed to either note Kredo’s report, or to follow up on it.
Ben Bradlee, who served as The Post’s editor when it won a Pulitzer Prize for its Watergate reporting, once remarked: “If an investigative reporter finds out that someone has been robbing the store, that may be ‘gotcha’ journalism, but its also good journalism.� Apparently, it's also rare journalism.
Posted by SD at 03:34 PM | Comments (0)
Where’s the Coverage? Palestinian Leader Buys $50 Million Private Jet
The President of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas, has bought a private jet worth an estimated $50 million. The purchase comes after widely reported “major funding cuts from the U.S.,� as The Times of Israel detailed in a Jan. 24, 2018 dispatch (“Amid funding cut fears, PA purchases $50 million private jet for Abbas�). Yet, many major U.S. news outlets have failed to report Abbas’ latest acquisition.
The jet will reportedly be delivered to Amman, Jordan within the coming weeks, where it will be kept for Abbas’ use. The Times of Israel said that funding for the plane was “said to have been provided both from the PA budget ($20 million) and from the Palestinian National Fund ($30 million).�
Yet, PA officials have recently complained about cuts in funding. The U.S. has recently withheld $65 million from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), although $60 million will still be given to the organization from the United States. As CAMERA has recently highlighted, UNRWA was established in order to settle Arab refugees created from Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, in which Arab armies sought to destroy the Jewish state. However, the organization’s staff have been caught promoting anti-Jewish violence, its facilities have been used as storage depots by terror groups, and UNRWA uses a politicized, multi-generational definition of “refugee (for more, see “The Washington Post Whitewashes UNRWA,� Jan. 5, 2018).�
UNRWA’s failures prompted the Trump administration to call for a “fundamental reexamination� of the agency, in addition to funding cuts (“Trump cuts UNRWA funding amid Abbas Assault,� The Jerusalem Post, Jan. 18, 2018).
PA officials responded to the cuts with hyperbolic language, some of which was detailed in a Washington Post reported headlined “‘A death sentence’: Palestinians slam U.S. decision to cut aid as U.N. pleads for new donors (Jan. 17, 2018).� Hanan Ashwari, a a high-ranking Palestine Liberation Organization (PL0) member and long-time media favorite, told The Post that withholding some UNRWA funds was “targeting the most vulnerable of the Palestinian people and depriving the refugees of the right to education, health, shelter and a dignified life.� Ashwari—whose history of exaggerations and falsehoods have been documented by CAMERA—also claimed that the cuts “will generate further instability in the region.�
Other major U.S. news outlets, such as The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, and USA Today, all highlighted Palestinian complaints about the funding cuts. As of this writing, however, none of these newspapers have informed readers about the PA’s $50 million private jet purchase.
As CAMERA has frequently noted, Palestinian politics and corruption are widely underreported topics (see, for example, "For Palestinians, It's Lights Out at The Washington Post," The Algemeiner, June 22, 2017). No major U.S. news outlet, it seems, is interested in pointing out that if the PA was truly worried about the impact of the U.S. withholding $65 million in UNRWA aid, it could simply not buy a private jet for its kleptocratic leadership. That, or it could encourage UNRWA to reform. But that would be out of character—both for the media and for the Palestinian Authority.
Posted by SD at 11:28 AM | Comments (1)
January 22, 2018
NBC's Andrea Mitchell Takes Heat for Inaccurate Knesset Tweet
After NBC anchor Andrea Mitchell posted an inaccurate and inflammatory comment on Twitter about the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, she was quickly corrected by Israeli journalists.
In her Monday morning tweet, Mitchell asserted that “the 13 Israel-Arab members� of parliament were removed from the Knesset floor after a disruption, and suggested this should be seen through the lense of American racism:
The 13 Israeli-Arab members of Israel's Parliament held up signs saying "Jerusalem is the Capital of Palestine" and were forcibly removed by security as Pence started to speak. Can you imagine Capitol Police dragging members of the congressional black caucus off the House floor?
— Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) January 22, 2018
Lahav Harkov, Knesset reporter for the Jerusalem Post, responded:
Hi, I’m an expert on the Knesset and I was in the room during this incident. You have several points wrong here. I’d be happy to explain them to you.
— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) January 22, 2018
Harkov elaborated,
Wrong on several points. 1, they are not “THE 13 Israeli-Arab members� - there are others. 2, it is always against the Knesset rules to hold up signs or use props and there are examples spanning decades of ppl being removed bc of it. 3, ushers, not security guards led them out https://t.co/JgIGkUFpda
— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) January 22, 2018
Indeed, a page on the Knesset website lists 18 current Arab MKs: Talab Abu Arar, Saeed Alkharumi, Hamad Amar, Youssef Atauna, Joumah Azbarga, Zouheir Bahloul, Esawi Frej, Masud Ganaim, Abd Al Hakeem Haj Yahya, Akram Hasoon, Yousef Jabareen, Ayoob Kara, Ayman Odeh, Saleh Saad, Ahmad Tibi, Aida Touma-Sliman, Jamal Zahalka, and Hanin Zoabi.
Seth Franzman, a Jerusalem Post editor, offered another challenge to Mitchell's numbers:
Where did you get the number 13? The 13 members of the Joint List are not all Arab. Dov Khenin is Jewish. Isn’t he still in the Knesset and a member of the Joint List? #think
— Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) January 22, 2018
Responding to the reference to black members of congress, political analyst Omri Ceren noted that this isn’t quite as unimaginable as Mitchell wanted her readers to think:
Oh for crying out loud Andrea. A member of the congressional black caucus was removed from the House floor just a few years ago just for a dress code violation, let alone for disrupting a session, which is what these clowns were doing.
— Omri Ceren (@omriceren) January 22, 2018
So yeah I think I can imagine it happening. https://t.co/QISJv1XHYM
As Harkov suggested, it is certainly not unimaginable for people to be removed from the Knesset floor when violating the chamber’s rules. Jewish Knesset member Moshe Gafni, for example, was escorted off the floor in response to his loud protest.
Ze’ev Elkin was not merely a member of Knesset, but also a government minister, when he was forced from the floor — at the behest of Ahmad Tibi, an Arab MK and a deputy speaker of the Knesset.
In the U.S., Janet Nguyen, the country's first Vietnamese-American woman state legislator, was removed from the floor of the California state senate just last year.
According to the policies and guidelines of NBC News, Twitter posts "should meet the journalistic standards of NBC News." CAMERA has contacted NBC editors. We will update this space if Mitchell corrects her tweet.
Posted by at 10:55 AM | Comments (5)
January 17, 2018
Updated: AFP Photo Captions Mislead on Gaza 'Smuggling Tunnels'
Update Appended to Bottom of Post: AFP Removes Misleading Reference to 'Smuggling' Tunnels
A series of Agence France Presse photo captions earlier this week misleadingly identified the tunnel discovered under the Kerem Shalom crossing, extending from Gaza into Israeli territory, as "smuggling tunnels" [sic], despite the fact that the Israeli army has said it is an offensive attack tunnel.
According to Haaretz:
In contrast to Hamas' claims that the tunnel was used for smuggling goods, the IDF unequivocally stated that it was an attack tunnel used to smuggle in weapons, terrorists and other operatives into Israel in order to carry out terror attacks.
A sampling of the captions with the misleading reference to "smuggling tunnels," as if the tunnel was intended to illegally move flour, livestock or other harmless goods across the border, follows.
But as AFP itself reported ("Israel destroys tunnel from Gaza it says intended for attacks"):
Israel said Sunday it used a combination of air strikes and other means to destroy a tunnel stretching from the Gaza Strip into the country and continuing into Egypt.
Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus said the tunnel belonged to Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, and was intended for attacks as opposed to smuggling.
Such tunnels have been used to carry out attacks in the past.
In particular, in 2014, Hamas used a similar tunnel to infiltrate into Israeli territory and kill five soldiers.
As of this writing, AFP has failed to clarify its captions which echo Hamas' dubious claim that the tunnel's purpose was to smuggle goods.
See also: AFP Last to Correct Its Own Arabic Mistranslation
Update, 6:20 a.m. EST: AFP Removes Misleading Reference to 'Smuggling' Tunnels
AFP has amended all of the captions, removing the misleading reference to "smuggling tunnels." The captions still erroneously refer to the discovery of tunnels (in plural), though the discovery of just one tunnel was announced this week.
Posted by TS at 02:11 AM | Comments (0)
January 14, 2018
AFP Last To Correct Its Own Arabic Mistranslation
BBC and The Guardian, clients of Agence France Presse photo service, along with Getty Images, a distribution partner of AFP, have all corrected an AFP photo caption which mistranslated an Arabic sign about the boycott of Israeli good. Only AFP has failed to answer CAMERA's call to correct.
Though the inaccurate captions in question date to 2015, last week they again appeared on numerous news sites due to the Israeli Strategic Affairs Ministry publication of a list of 20 BDS organizations whose key activists will be denied entry into Israel. The captions wrongly state that the pictured sign is "calling to boycott Israeli products coming from Jewish settlements." In fact, the Arabic writing on that sign makes no reference whatsoever to a selective boycott of "Israeli products coming from Jewish settlements." The sign actually states: "Boycott your occupation...support your country's produce."
Moreover, the sign is credited to "the national campaign for boycott of the occupation and its goods" along with two other groups.
In response to communication from CAMERA's BBC Watch, BBC commendably corrected the caption on its site, which now accurately says the sign is "calling for a boycott of Israeli products."
Also as a result of BBC Watch's communication, Getty Images, which is a distribution partner with AFP, also amended its caption to accurately refers to a "boycott of Israeli boycotts."
In addition, in response to communication from CAMERA's UK Media Watch, The Guardian also corrected the AFP caption which it had used. The Guardian also commendably appended a note alerting readers that on January 12 "the picture caption which contained a mistranslation" was amended.
Only AFP has failed to correct its own caption in violation of the news agency's Editorial Standards and Best Practices, which states:
Particular vigilance is needed during translation and proofreading of graphics, with regard to both the text and graphic elements. Good proof reading comprises three phases: the coherence and general relevance of the graphic, the text content (form and shape, spelling, font,) and the graphic content (accuracy, choice of colours).
Posted by TS at 06:27 AM | Comments (0)
In English, Haaretz Misleads on Ibrahim Abu Thuraya
Update, 8:10 am EST: For Second Time, Haaretz English Edition Corrects on Abu Thuraya's Leg Injury
Despite the fact that Haaretz's earlier this month corrected a photo caption which inaccurately reported on the unclear circumstances regarding the death of double amputee Ibrahim Abu Thuraya, along with the circumstances in which he lost his legs, the Israeli daily's English edition continues to get the facts wrong.
Thus, in the English edition, Amira Hass' Jan. 8 Op-Ed ("One Palestinian More or Less, What Does It Matter to the Israeli Army?"), misleadingly refers to "Abu Thuraya, whose legs had been amputated after an Israeli air strike nine years ago."
Abu Thuraya injured his legs in a clash with soldiers, and not in an air strike. Haaretz ran this AP story last month stating:
While relatives have claimed Abu Thraya lost his legs in an Israeli airstrike while trying to rescue people, AP records show that he was wounded on April 11, 2008, in a clash between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. AP television footage from that day shows Abu Thraya identifying himself as he is taken away on the back of a pickup truck. He is also seen being taken on a stretcher.
The Hebrew version of Hass' Op-Ed does not claim that Abu Thuraya lost his legs in an Israeli air strike. It states (CAMERA's translation):
Less than two weeks after he wrote this, the army's criminal investigation unit announced that it would investigate the circumstances of the death of Ibrahim Abu Thuraya, a double amputee.
But that wasn't the only instance in which Haaretz's English edition inaccurately reported on Ibrahim on Abu Thuraya while the Hebrew edition was more careful. Thus, in Thursday's English print edition, a page one, top of the fold, story ("IDF surrounds Nablus in hunt for rabbi's killers") reports on a statement by Joint List MK Ahmad Tibi reacting to the condemnation by U.S. Ambassador David Friedman regarding the killing of Rabbi Raziel Shevach:
"Friedman is horrified? I didn't hear him say a word when an Israeli sniper shot a double amputee in Gaza or when young Mohammad Tamimi was shot in his head," he said referring to recent shootings of Palestinians by the IDF in Gaza and the West Bank.
As previously reported, and as Haaretz itself earlier acknowledged in a previous correction, the circumstances regarding the death of Abu Thuraya are unclear. The Israeli army, for its part, said no live fire was directed in Abu Thuraya's direction and so far has been "unable to conclude whether he was killed by Israeli forces or what caused his death," as Haaretz previously reported.
Thus, while it's legitimate to report Tibi's accusation that an Israeli sniper shot Abu Thuraya, Haaretz failed readers by adding, as a statement of fact, that Tibi's statement was "referring to recent shootings of Palestinians by the IDF in Gaza and the West Bank."
The equivalent article in Haaretz's Hebrew print edition, in contrast, did not repeat as fact Tibi's unproven charge that an Israeli sniper shot Abu Thuraya.
For additional instances of
"Haaretz, Lost in Translation," or when the English edition contains inaccurate charges against Israel that don't appear in the parallel Hebrew item, please see here.
Posted by TS at 03:25 AM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2018
Where’s the Coverage? Israel Prevented ‘Several Dozen’ Terror Attacks in Europe
The nation of Israel prevented ‘mass’ terror attacks on the continent of Europe, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Jan. 9, 2018. This admission—made at a meeting of Israel-based Ambassadors to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)—was widely ignored by major U.S. news outlets.
According to The Times of Israel, Netanyahu told the foreign diplomats:
“We have, through our intelligence services, provided information that has stopped several dozen major terrorist attacks, many of them in European countries. Some of these could have been mass attacks, of the worst kind that you have experienced on the soil of Europe and even worse, because they involve civil aviation. Israel has prevented that, and thereby helped save many European lives (“Netanyahu hints Israel has stopped hijacked planes crashing into European cities,� Jan. 9, 2018).�
The Israeli leader declined to provide specific examples, but noted that the Jewish state has contributed to the safety of Europe, both by preventing attacks in European cities and by thwarting attempts by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria to set up a base in Egypt. He also highlighted Israel’s efforts to pushback against Iranian attempts to establish a “military base in Syria,� noting that battles between the Shi’ite theocracy and Sunni Muslims would result in a “spillover� of refugees fleeing to Europe.
Times of Israel correspondent Raphael Aren pointed out that “Israel and NATO have cooperated on security matters for decades but recently upgraded their ties significantly,� with Jerusalem opening its first office in NATO headquarters in 2017.
Israel’s prime minister telling foreign diplomats that his nation prevented ‘mass’ terror attacks on European cities is newsworthy. Yet, most U.S. and U.K. news outlets failed to cover it. The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, USA Today, and others didn’t provide readers with any original reporting on Netanyahu’s comments.
By contrast, The Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post (“Benjamin Netanyahu: Israel thwarted ‘major’ terror attacks in Europe involving planes�), The Telegraph (“Netanyahu:Israel helped stop terror attacks on plans in Europe�), and Business Insider( “Israel claims it has prevented ‘several dozen major terrorist attacks�) all highlighted the prime minister’s remarks.
Instead of reporting on Israel foiling “several dozen major terrorist attacks� on European cities, The Washington Post chose to attack Israel’s leader. The Post’s World Views columnist Ishaan Tharoor offered a skewed Jan. 10, 2018 “analysis,� entitled “Trump and Netanyahu are playing the same game.� That report claimed that the Israeli prime minister and the U.S. president have “echoed each others illiberal agendas.�
Tharoor asserted: “In a year when much of the international community has held Trump at arm’s length, Netanyahu went in for a full embrace.� Yet, much of the “international community,� including the European Union (EU), and its leading member states of Germany, France, the United Kingdom, among others, have failed to fully condemn Iran’s violent repression of its citizens, who, since late-December 2017, have been protesting in the streets. Tharoor omitted this fact, instead he argued that by “celebrating their nationalism and defiance� of political opponents, Netanayahu and Trump were promoting “illiberal� agendas.
Those who promote the illiberal agendas of Islamic terrorism—such as the Islamic Republic of Iran and ISIS—were not mentioned in The Post’s analysis.
Posted by SD at 02:05 PM | Comments (0)
January 09, 2018
The Palestinian Authority Paid Terrorists $347 Million in 2017
The Palestinian Authority (PA) paid imprisoned terrorists and their families 347 million USD in 2017, Israel’s defense ministry reported on Jan. 9, 2018. The PA is dominated by the Fatah movement, which rules the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). Both entities are led by Mahmoud Abbas, who is routinely described by media outlets as a “moderate.�
The Jerusalem Post highlighted the defense ministry’s report, noting that it was submitted to the Israeli Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee (“Palestinian Authority Paid Terrorists Nearly $350 Million in 2017,� Jan. 9, 2018). The paper noted that the payments are greater for those with higher prison sentences—“in other words, those who committed more severe crimes and likely were involved in killing Israelis� are financially rewarded.
Married terrorists and those with children receive “bonuses,� as do those with Israeli citizenship and those who live in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Post provided a breakdown of how payments are rewarded, allowing readers to calculate how much a Palestinian terrorist could make for murdering Jews.
As CAMERA pointed out in a May 17, 2017 Op-Ed in The Hill, the PA’s decision to pay terrorists and their families is enshrined in the authority’s own laws, passed in 2004 and amended in 2013 ("How the Palestinian Authority's 'Social Safety Net' Encourages Terrorism"). The PA even treats the payments as salaries by withholding tax on them. Indeed as Doug Feith, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, and Sander Gerber, a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, have noted, the authority has created the Prisoners and Released Prisoners Ministry and the Institution for the Care for the Families of Martyrs to manage these payments, which comprise an estimated 7 percent of the PA’s budget.
Payments to terrorists violate the Oslo accords, which created the PA and provided the basis for its funding. Although Fatah and PA head Abbas is routinely portrayed as a “moderate� and a “peace partner,� he has refused to stop paying terrorists.
After an August 2017 meeting with U.S. officials—who demanded that he cease providing a financial reward for terror—Abbas issued a statement: ““I will never stop [paying] the allowances to the families of the prisoners and released prisoners.� The PA head—who marked his thirteenth year in power on Jan. 9, 2018—added: “I will pay them until my dying day.�
As CAMERA noted at the time, Abbas’ decision to resist demands from his chief benefactor went widely underreported by major U.S. media outlets that frequently report on the “peace process ("Palestinian Leader Promises to Pay Terrorists 'Until My Dying Day," Aug. 28, 2017).�
The Knesset will soon be considering legislation that will “deduct the equivalent amount to what the PA pays terrorists and their families, from taxes and tariffs Israel collects for the PA,� The Jerusalem Post reported. The legislation is proposed by Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern and is modeled on a similar U.S. bill, The Taylor Force Act, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in December 2017 and is awaiting approval in the U.S. Senate.
Posted by SD at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)
Foreign Policy Fails To Tell The Truth About UNRWA
As its headline illustrates, a Jan. 5, 2018 Foreign Policy article, “Nikki Haley’s Diplomacy of Revenge Targets U.N. Relief Agency,� substituted editorializing for reporting, while omitting key facts about the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). The dispatch, by reporter Colum Lynch, ostensibly detailed U.S. warnings that it would cut aid to UNRWA.
But Foreign Policy—which pitched the article as an “exclusive� report—failed to explain UNRWA’s curious mission and history.
As CAMERA has highlighted, UNRWA is the only U.N. organization whose stated mission is to assist a specific group of refugees, Palestinian Arabs. All other refugee populations in the world fall under the jurisdiction of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (“The Washington Post Whitewashes UNRWA,� Jan. 5, 2018).
UNRWA was established after Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, which occurred when Arab states rejected the U.N. partition plan and declared war on the fledgling Jewish state. Although the agency was created to resettle Palestinian Arab refugees from the conflict, it soon changed course—beginning with changing the definition of what constitutes a “refugee.�
Unlike UNHCR, UNRWA considers people generations removed from the 1948 War and people who are citizens of other countries to be “Palestinian refugees.� This definition is exclusive to Palestinian “refugees� and, as CAMERA has noted, enables people like the twenty-year-old Los Angeles-born fashion model, Bella Hadid, to be classed as a “refugee� to a war that occurred seventy years ago.
The result of UNRWA’s policies? More “refugees.� Although there were an estimated 700,000 refugees in 1950, there will be a projected 6.4 million in 2020—2 million of whom are Jordanian citizens, according to the publication Middle East Quarterly ("Why a Special Issue on UNRWA?"). Created to resettle refugees, UNRWA instead manufactures them. All for the purpose of “right of return,� a novel legal claim that asserts that generations of Palestinians have a “right� to return to a country their forefathers sought to destroy.
Yet, Foreign Policy omitted UNRWA’s history while noting that the U.S. State Department “decided to put on hold more than $100 million in funding to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that was scheduled to be paid on the first working day of January, according to two diplomatic sources.� UNRWA is almost entirely reliant on the donations of individual member states, with the U.S. being the chief donor country, donating $360 million dollars in 2017—40 percent of the organization’s budget.
As The Washington Post detailed, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to cut aid since “the Palestinians [are] no longer willing to talk peace,� asking “why should we make massive future payments to them?� Instead of highlighting this aspect—that the U.S. is using aid as leverage in pursuit of a policy goal—Foreign Policy portrayed the funding halt as largely one of “revenge� against Palestinians for introducing U.N. resolutions condemning the United States for implementing the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act.
The magazine failed to inform readers that Palestinian leaders have, on a number of occasions, rejected U.S. and Israeli offers for statehood in exchange for peace with the Jewish state.
Lynch also omitted that Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has refused to participate in bilateral negotiations with Israel—violating the very terms of the Oslo Accords, which created the authority and which remains its source of funding. Oslo stipulates that all “outstanding issues� must be resolved “bilaterally,� yet Palestinian leadership has sought to internationalize the conflict and rejected talks with Israel. Put simply: The U.S. is seeking to use aid as soft power to achieve goals that are, in part, the reason for the aid in the first place.
Foreign Policy noted that Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour claimed that the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital “disqualifies� the United States from a role as a neutral arbitrator. This, Foreign Policy argued, is purportedly the main reason for possibly cutting aid. But Lynch failed to tell readers that the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was mandated by the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act, which was reaffirmed by a bipartisan majority of 90-0 in the U.S. Senate seven months ago. The Dec. 6, 2017 decision by the United States to belatedly implement this piece of legislation explicitly does not commit the US to a position “on any final status issues, including the specific boundaries of the Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, or the resolution of the contested borders ("Days of Rage and Bad Reporting," The Times of Israel, Dec. 7, 2017).�
Mansour’s history of antisemitism is also omitted. As CAMERA has highlighted, Mansour has previously accused Israelis of harvesting Palestinian organs; regurgitating the age-old, antisemitic blood libel ("Palestinian T.V. Favorite Accuses Israel of 'Harvesting' Terrorists' Organs," Nov. 11, 2015).
Mansour’s sentiments would be at home with UNRWA’s curriculum. A 2015 by the U.N. investigation found that Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist group, used UNRWA schools as arsenals and launch pads for missiles fired indiscriminately at Israeli civilians during the 2014 Israel-Hamas war (“U.N. Report Confirms Stored and Fired Weapons From UN Schools,� The Tower, April 28, 2015). UNRWA employees have publicly advocated anti-Jewish violence and used antisemitic motifs. As the Jewish Virtual Library has noted, UNRWA unions have even included members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, U.S.-designated terror groups.
Yet Foreign Policy did not deem UNRWA’s terror ties to be worth noting in an “exclusive� report about the agency. Instead, the self-proclaimed “global magazine of news and ideas,� provided commentary masked as reporting and peppered with omissions.
Posted by SD at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)
January 02, 2018
Where’s the Coverage? Palestinian Leaders Spend Christmas Celebrating a Terrorist
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and head of the Fatah movement, spent Dec. 25, 2017 meeting with a recently released terrorist named Rafat Al-Jawabra, according to a report by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). Major U.S. news outlets failed to report that a Palestinian leader they frequently label a “moderate,� met with a commander of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.
Al-Jawabra was “responsible for a series of shootings and a suicide attack in the Jewish settlement of Efrat during the second intifada,� MEMRI noted. He was imprisoned in 2002 and was released at the end of 2017. While incarcerated, Al-Jawabra was elected to the local council of the village of Al-Doha in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).
Fatah held several events and receptions to celebrate his release.
At one Dec. 16, 2017 event, Abbas’ deputy, Mahmoud al-Aloul, presented Al-Jawabra with a “certificate of honor.� As CAMERA has highlighted in several Op-Eds, al-Aloul himself is an unrepentant and convicted terrorist whose February 2017 appointment has been ignored by the press (see, for example “The Media and the Missing Abu Jihad,� The Washington Jewish Week, Oct. 4, 2017). Al-Aloul, whose nickname is Abu Jihad, is a possible successor to the octogenarian Abbas.
Speaking at Al-Jawabra’s release, Al-Aloul called the terrorist “a leader of whom we are proud.�
At a rally celebrating his release, Al-Jawabra was greeted by hundreds of activists waving Palestinian and Fatah flags. MEMRI noted:
“In his own speech at the rally, Al-Jawabra mentioned the Al-Aqsa members killed during the second intifada, saying: ‘We renew our pact with the martyrs and tell them: your blood was not shed in vain.’ He added that the occupation, the prisons, the oppression and the Nakba ‘will only increase our faith, our strength and our resolve to continue the fight for Jerusalem... There will be no negotiations without Jerusalem and no solution without Jerusalem... We are united and the occupation is temporary.’ The audience responded with cries of ‘millions of martyrs are marching on Jerusalem.’�
As CAMERA has pointed out, Palestinians often refer to the existence of the Jewish state of Israel on any land as “the occupation.� Their school textbooks and official media depict a world without Israel—a direct violation of the Oslo accords that created the PA.
Fatah operatives spent ten days celebrating Al-Jawabra’s release. In addition to Abbas and Al-Aloul, other top officials, such as Fatah Central Committee Members Abbas Zaki and Jamal Muhaisen attended events, which included marches, parades, and motorcades.
It’s not unusual for Fatah to celebrate the release of convicted terrorists. However, it is unusual for the movement to spend ten days doing so—perhaps suggesting a greater role for Al-Jawabra and/or a desire to compensate for the U.S. decision to belatedly implement the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act. The latter was widely viewed as a loss for the PA and Fatah, which rejected the sovereign right of their chief benefactor, the United States, to place an embassy in Jerusalem and recognize the city as Israel’s capital.
Major press outlets provided extensive—if frequently flawed—coverage of the United States’ decision. As CAMERA noted in The Times of Israel, many in the media claimed that it hindered or destroyed the “peace process.� However, according to a Lexis-Nexis search, not a single major outlet reported the fact that top Palestinian leaders spent ten days—including Christmas—celebrating the release of a convicted terrorist and murderer. USA Today, The Baltimore Sun, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, among others, failed to inform readers.
Posted by SD at 01:37 PM | Comments (1)
Newsweek Errs on Legality of Occupation
In a Dec. 28 article ("Israeli teens refuse to serve in military, take part in occupation"), Newsweek's Jack Moore errs, stating:
The majority of the international community considers Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem to be illegal under international law.
Occupations are legal under international law and the majority of the international community has not dubbed the occupation itself illegal. Other that other leading media outlets have corrected this very error, including The New York Times (twice). A March 21, 2016 New York Times correction stated:
An article on Jan. 13 about a divestment action against Israeli banks by the United Methodist Church pension board referred incorrectly to the Palestinian territories, where, the board said, the banks help finance Israeli settlement construction. While most of the world officially considers the territories to be occupied, and the settlements illegal, there is no consensus that the occupation itself is illegal. The error was brought to the attention of editors only this week.
Previously, The New York Times had corrected on Oct. 14, 2015:
An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the Golan Heights. While most of the world officially considers it to be occupied, and the settlements there illegal, there is no consensus that the occupation itself is illegal. The same error appeared in an earlier version of a caption with the accompanying slide show.
Similarly, The Independent corrected the same point last month.
CAMERA has contacted editors. Stay tuned for an update.
Posted by TS at 04:52 AM | Comments (1)
Reuters Removes Photograph Implicating Israel in Deaths of Iranian Street Protesters
What do Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz have to do with the deaths of 10 Iranian protesters demonstrating against their regime? That's what Twitter users were wondering after Reuters TV used a photograph of the pair conspiratorially huddling to accompany a video about the Iranian deaths.
In response to Reuters TV's tweet, this writer mused:
(TheMossadIL is a satirical account.)
Reuters later pulled the photograph and tweet, which is no longer available.
Posted by TS at 03:12 AM | Comments (1)