The New York Times gave the attack front page coverage and addressed the religious angle in a forthright manner. In an article published on March 11, 2010, reporter Adam Nossiter stated unequivocally that the attack was "an especially vicious expression of long-running hostilities between Christians and Muslims." He even included a quote from a Christian in Nigeria who stated that "Some peole want to be rulers every where. It's the Muslims. They said they are born to rule."

America magazine, published by the Jesuits in the U.S., has taken a different tack. The magazine published an article (subscription required) that acknowledged that the attack was an instance of "interreligious violence," but downplayed the religious enmity that motivated the attack:

“East Jerusalem has had a presence of Jews and Arabs for centuries. It is the site of ancient Temple Mount and Western Wall, built well before the time of Jesus Christ and is Judaism’s holiest spot. It is also the site of the 8th-century Al-Aqsa mosque, revered by Muslims as holy.

“Today the area is roughly 57 percent Arab and 43 percent Jewish, according to surveys. Occupied by Jordanians for 20 years, East Jerusalem was captured by Israel in 1967 in its war against the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan.”

In two paragraphs, five sentences total USA Today included much of the context essential for readers to begin to understand the clash between Arabs and Israelis, Muslims and Jews over Jerusalem, in particular over Temple Mount and eastern Jerusalem. This includes the antiquity and sanctity of Jewish claims, the multi-state threat Israel faced in 1967, and the sizeable Jewish minority in east Jerusalem neighborhoods today. Such context is conspicuous by its absence from much news media coverage of the topic.

Kudos to USA Today.

Walter Russell Mead

As we noted in an early Snapshots blog post, Danny Seaman wonders "why ... the media adopt such vastly different approaches" when reporting on Israel, as compared to the rest of the conflict-filled world.

Walter Russell Mead has similar questions about the world's treatment of Israel. In his blog at The American Interest Online, Mead writes that he is "genuinely puzzled why people who in other contexts have quite interesting things to say manage to trip up in such foolish and self-defeating ways when the I-word comes up."

But he seems to have some theories.

I am always nervous around people who stridently insist that racism has disappeared in mainstream American life and only lingers on in weirdo subcultures; I feel the same way about people who say that anti-Semitism is no longer a significant feature of western culture. I am especially leery when people who loudly and implausibly assert that anti-Semitism isn’t a problem anymore make harsh and unbalanced criticisms about the world’s only Jewish state.

I’m not trying to grade the incommensurable suffering of people around the world, but if we compare the attention and care that the international community has extended to the Palestinians with our attention and support for other victims in other places, a disturbing pattern emerges. Whatever the wrongs of Israel’s occupation policy — and I agree that there are some — the Palestinians, especially in the West Bank but even in Gaza, live much better than many people in the world whose suffering attracts far less world attention — and whose oppressors get far less criticism. I would much rather be a Palestinian, even in Gaza, than a member of a minority tribe in the hills of Myanmar, or almost anyone in the Eastern Congo or Darfur. Millions of children in Pakistan and Indonesia have less food security, less educational opportunity and less access to health services than Palestinians who benefit from UN services (to which the United States is historically the largest single contributor) that poor people in other countries can only dream of.

The disproportionate reactions to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians constitutes a genuine scandal and pretty much proves that anti-Semitism did not die when Hitler shot himself underneath Berlin. Russia treats its Chechens much worse than Israel treats its Arabs yet there are plenty of self righteous German leftists who want to disinvest from Israel but favor closer relations with Putin’s Russia.

Mead has promised a series of posts about the issue, and more specifically about mythologizing on the "Israel Lobby," and is delivering.

It was therefore disappointing to see this wildly inflated figure for Palestinian civilian casualties given in a photo caption on the site.

While the number of Palestinian civilians killed in Operation Cast Lead last year is disputed, not even Palestinian sources put the number at 1,400. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights, whose statistics on Palestinian civilian casualties are grossly inflated, placed the figure at 1,167. A report by the Arab League on the Gaza Strip violence stated that at least 850 of those killed were civilian.

Hamas claims that the total number of Palestinian casualties from Operation Cast Lead, including combatants and civilians, was 1,444. Israel says the total number of Palestinian casualties, civilian and combatant, is 1,166, of which 709 were identified terrorists belonging to Hamas and other terror groups. Israel's figure for the number of civilian Palestinian casualties is 295.

In September, the International Herald Tribune corrected a nearly identical error. Will EUobserver now likewise correct? The good news is that the site promises that it "promptly corrects factual errors and welcomes comments and information that may call for correction." The bad news is that there are only two posted corrections, the most recent one dated April 23, 2008.

Why are headlines of war crimes and editorials on UN resolutions run-of the-mill during Israel’s military operations to defend its citizens, yet when other countries’ forces unintentionally kill civilians it is a case of “apology accepted”? The reality of war is brutal anywhere – so why does the media adopt such vastly different approaches?

Check out the rest of his piece here.

Not that anyone expects deep thoughts from Maureen Dowd on the Middle East, but her March 3 column ("Loosey, Goosey Saudi") was a notable collection of inanities about social reform in Saudi Arabia.

True, she says, King Abdullah may be "premodern" as indicated by his maintaining a harem; at the same time, he's nothing short of a "social revolutionary." What are the dazzling innovations that prompt such enthusiasm?

Well, she'll get to that, but first a detour into a few paragraphs of Israel-bashing. Yes, in a column about Saudi Arabia, why wouldn't a columnist include Prince Saud al-Faisal denigrating religious practice in Israel. He tells readers that: "The religious institutions in Israel are stymieing every effort at peace." Dowd embellishes this with her own insights about alleged flaws in the Israeli rabbinate and Jewish prayer, areas she finds wanting.

As far as the exciting social reforms underway:

The kingdom just announced a new law that will allow female lawyers to appear in court for the first time, if only for female clients on family cases. Last month, the king appointed the first woman to the council of ministers. Last year, he opened the first co-ed university. He has encouraged housing developments with architecture that allows families, and boys and girls within families, to communicate more freely.

As many of the comments posted under Dowd's column aptly observe, her enthusiasm for such meager progress is ironic, to put it politely, given the rights and social standing of women in nations throughout the world (and in Israel, of course). Saudi women remain the property of men, sequestered, covered and subject to the authority of males in much of the activity of ordinary life.

Underscoring the tragedy such oppression brings to some women a Saudi Gazette story by Adnan Shabrawi the same day Dowd's column appeared reported the prison term handed down to a Saudi woman who, having accepted a ride in a car, was taken to a house near Jeddah and gang-raped all night by five men. In addition to jail, she is also to be lashed 100 times. The charge against her is "adultery."

On February 23, 2010, Akiva Eldar, a reporter for Haaretz, emailed NGO Monitor with a number of “questions” allegedly related to compliance with Israel’s Amuta (non-profit) laws. The questions appeared to be part of a fishing expedition designed to find some mud in order to discredit NGO Monitor’s research and analysis. The fishing was the basis for Eldar’s email, including a question regarding a response received by an unnamed individual who had emailed NGO Monitor regarding a donation in the United States. The evidence shows that Mr. Eldar received the email response sent from NGO Monitor to one “Steven Levy.”

This is where the plot thickens. On December 3, 2009, “Levy” emailed NGO Monitor, inquiring about tax-deductable donations in the US, and NGO Monitor replied. The email lists an IP-address 99.57.91.90, which belongs to Ernest Ulrich. Ernest Ulrich is listed as a consultant for Human Rights Watch’s human resources department. (HRW has been caught using crude sockpuppets in the past to disguise the fact that its employees were sending letters to newspapers to attack critics.)

So now we have some more interesting questions. Who is “Steven Levy” and what is his relationship with both HRW and Akiva Eldar? What does Ernest Ulrich do at HRW? Which officials of HRW are in charge of such “dirty tricks”, and how is this bogus “investigation” related to the New Israel Fund, Haaretz, and other political NGOs? Presumably, Akiva Eldar will provide the answers when his article is published.

Here's another example of how Hamas treats journalists "with dignity." The BBC reports:

The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas has said it is extending the detention of a British journalist being held in the Gaza Strip.

It announced Paul Martin would be held for a further 15 days.

Western media report statements by Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim dealing with the new prohibition of anyone suspected of being Israeli from entering the UAE, but as blogger Elder of Ziyon points out (here and here), Tamim's remarks also included blatant Jew-hatred. Elder reports:

But his Arabic remarks went way beyond any English-language news agency that quoted him into naked Jew-hatred. From an Arabic interview in the Khaleej Times:

Dahi Khalfan Tamim, Commander in Chief of Dubai Police, said Israel is a rogue state, and that goes beyond international legitimacy and laws. Its leaders have sick mentalities, and they need psychologists, saying that its use of passports shows great arrogance and contempt for the world.

(Tamim said hat) the leaders of "Israel" have blood on their hands the blood of others throughout history, pointing out that the "Israeli" people are human beings like any other people who want to be loved and open to others but that the successive governments, the Governments of bloodshed and assassinations, and wars and the Governments of the occupation and aggression, are not interested in peace in the world at all.

He added that the vanity which haunts the "Israeli" mentality stems from the time of Pharaoh, and their hate comes up to this day and age.

He said that the entire world should study the mentality of the "Israeli" leaders throughout history. Their sick psyches needs to be analyzed by psychology professors, who need to examine why they launch crises, and why they brought on themselves hate from others, since the time of Moses, peace be upon him.

He said we will train our personnel in the passport of the forms and features of the Jewish people and their names, noting that no one can hide their features of Jewishness. He asked the appropriate departments to prepare nationality and residency sessions to familiarize the staff with [Jewish] forms and names, especially since most Jews hold dual passports [with Israel.]

He pointed out that the number of Jews, compared with the Europeans, is nothing, and even within Palestine itself.

A former senior British army officer has said international media including the BBC are being exploited by "dark forces" who want to harm Israel.

Col Richard Kemp, who was a commander in Afghanistan, said some international criticism of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) was motivated by anti-Semitism. . . .

But he added that despite similarities between the IDF and British forces, UK soldiers did not have to deal with the same amount of criticism from the international community.

"When we go into battle we do not get the same knee-jerk, almost Pavlovian response from many, many elements of the international media and international groups, humanitarian groups and other international groups such as the United Nations which should know better... of utter automatic condemnation. We don't have to put up with that."

To see Col. Kemp's testimony before the Goldstone commission, click here.

The New York-based American Jewish Committee blasted the BBC on Sunday for airing an accusation that Jews around the world assist in supposed Mossad assassinations.

The AJC said in a statement that it was “dismayed that a guest on BBC Radio 4 was allowed to state unchallenged” that the Mossad relies on Jews for assassination plots.

“This baseless accusation crosses every red line between legitimate public discussion and bigoted fear-mongering,” said AJC executive director David Harris. “In less than a minute, the BBC has cast a shadow on the lives of Jews worldwide.”

BBC Radio 4’s PM program interviewed Gordon Thomas, author of Gideon’s Spies, a book about the Mossad, about the January 20 assassination of Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai.

It's not that the paper has ignored the controversy. To the contrary. Coverage includes two news articles (see here and here) and at least one Op-Ed condemning the alleged snub, which appeared today.

While the paper which has paid the matter substantial coverage until now, it nevertheless ignores the fact, that as reported in the Jerusalem Post today, the Foreign Ministry claims that J Street has lied about the whole affair. The Post reports:

The American “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobby group J Street made “untrue assertions” about an alleged boycott of the congressional delegation it recently brought to Israel, and about Israel allegedly apologizing to the group for the slight, a senior Foreign Ministry official told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

“[Deputy Foreign Minister Danny] Ayalon did not prevent the delegation from meeting with senior Israeli officials,” as claimed by J Street last week, said Barukh Binah, Foreign Ministry deputy director-general and head of its North America Division.

“Ayalon was never part of the delegation’s schedule and talk of boycotting meetings with congressman has no basis in fact. On the contrary, the deputy foreign minister is always willing to meet with elected officials from any friendly country, especially the United States of America, and [with] Jewish organizations which represent a range of diverse views from across the political spectrum.”

Binah also rejected the “subsequent assertion that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs apologized in hastily arranged meetings,” which he said was simply not true.

A senior Foreign Ministry official who asked to remain anonymous blasted the group for “coming to the region with the intention of creating headlines, perhaps for fund-raising purposes. The media and the congressmen became unwilling participants in a premeditated public relations circus. It is extremely disappointing that a so-called pro-Israel organization would put self-aggrandizement ahead of the interests of the State of Israel.”

Meanwhile, questions were raised in Israel about the pro-Israel credentials of the five-member congressional delegation brought by J Street, composed of California Democrats Lois Capps and Bob Filner, Massachusetts Democrat Bill Delahunt, New Jersey Democrat Donald Payne and Ohio Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy.

While J Street chairman Jeremy Ben-Ami asserted that the delegation members were “key friends of Israel in Congress,” a recent vote on House Resolution 867, which slammed the Goldstone Report and reaffirmed Israel’s right to self-defense, saw only one of the five voting in Israel’s favor.

However, a November 22, 1945 article from The Palestine Post (the pre-state name of The Jerusalem Post), which was forwarded to the Wiesenthal Center on Monday after being posted on a blog, reports Muslim plans to build directly over the cemetery.

The report states, “An area of over 450 dunams in the heart of Jerusalem, now forming the Mamilla Cemetery, is to be converted into a business centre.

“The town-plan is being completed under the supervision of the Supreme Moslem Council in conjunction with the Government Town Planning Adviser,” the article continues.

“A six-storeyed building to house the Supreme Moslem Council and other offices, a four-storeyed hotel, a bank and other buildings suitable for it, a college, a club and a factory are to be the main structures. There will also be a park to be called the Salah ed Din Park, after the Moslem warrior of Crusader times.”

The 1945 article also describes plans by the council to transfer remains buried in the cemetery to a separate, “walled reserve” and cites rulings from prominent Muslim clerics at the time allowing for the building plans to progress.

“In an interview with Al-Wih-da, the Jerusalem weekly,” the Palestine Post article continues, “a member of the Supreme Moslem Council stated that the use of Moslem cemeteries in the public interest had many precedents both in Palestine and elsewhere.

“The member added that the Supreme Moslem Council intended to publish a statement containing dispensations by Egyptian, Hijazi and Demascene clerics sanctioning the building programme. He pointed out that the work would be carried out in stages and by public tender. Several companies had already been formed in anticipation, and funds were plentiful.”