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Original Entry:

The New York Times reported matter-of-factly the story of a Palestinian motorist who tried to run down Israeli policemen standing guard near the demolition of the house of a terrorist. Correspondent Isabel Kirshner quoted Israeli spokesman Micky Rosenfeld saying the Palestinian motorist “attempted to run over” three officers.

But the headline-writer seemingly had his/her own ideas about who was responsible for the violence and removed any hint the Palestinian had attacked and the Israelis had acted in self-defense, declaring:

“Israeli Police Kill Palestinian Motorist in East Jerusalem”

The AP did better, writing: “Israeli police shoot would-be attacker”

So did the Jerusalem Post: “Arab killed ramming car into J’lem cops”

And even Ha’aretz: “Police kill Palestinian assailant at demolition of terrorist’s home”.

The New York Times has come under criticism from a number of sources (including CAMERA) for the way it mishandled rumors of misconduct by Israeli troops in Gaza. But the source of the most recent round of criticism is likely to raise some eyebrows.

Danny Zamir, the head of the pre-military academy who brought together some of his graduates for the now infamous chat about the Gaza fighting, slammed the New York Times and other news outlets for twisting the soldiers’ conversation in order to make “mendacious claims of policies that involve so-called war crimes.”

He wrote Tuesday in the Jerusalem Post:

A number of articles published recently in The New York Times quoted or were based on words spoken by myself and by graduates of the pre-army leadership development program which I head (the “Rabin Mechina”) – graduates who participated as combat soldiers in Operation Cast Lead and who met recently to process personal experiences from the battlefield.

Both explicitly and by insinuation, the articles claim a decline in the IDF’s commitment to its moral code of conduct in combat, and moreover, that this decline stems from a specific increase in the prominence of religious soldiers and commanders in the IDF in general, and from the strengthening of the position of IDF Chief Rabbi Avichai Ronsky in particular.

It was as if the media were altogether so eager to find reason to criticize the IDF that they pounced on one discussion by nine soldiers who met after returning from the battlefield to share their experiences and subjective feelings with each other, using that one episode to draw conclusions that felt more like an indictment. Dogma replaced balance and led to a dangerous misunderstanding of the depth and complexity of Israeli reality. The individual accounts were never intended to serve as a basis for broad generalizations and summary conclusions by the media; they were published internally, intended for program graduates and their parents as a tool to be used in the process of educating and guiding the next generation.

You can read the rest of the column here.

The Los Angeles Times’ Nicholas Goldberg, deputy editorial page editor, was a correspondent in Jerusalem from 1995 to 1998, during Bibi Netanyahu’s first term as prime minister. But that experience didn’t seem to help him much when it came to putting together this backgrounder yesterday. The headline: “Is this a new Benjamin Netanyahu?” A good question, but if you’re looking for an answer in Goldberg’s piece, beware of key inaccuracies:

1) Goldberg incorrectly writes that Netanyahu’s earlier government “opened an ancient tunnel to tourists beneath the Western Wall and the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.” He did no such thing. The controversial tunnel runs along the retaining wall of the Temple Mount — it is beneath neither the Western Wall nor the Al Aqsa Mosque. It is right next to the Western Wall (which is the compound’s western retaining wall), and some 200 meters away from the Al Aqsa Mosque, which sits in the southern end of the compound.

As the Times’ own Rebecca Trounson wrote at the time of the controversial opening:

Palestinians threw stones and bottles at Israeli police Tuesday to protest Israel’s opening of a controversial tunnel near several of the holiest sites in this disputed city. . .

The tunnel, which traces an ancient roadway, stretches 500 yards beside the Western Wall, all that remains of the Second Temple [sic — there are other temple remains] destroyed by the Romans in AD 70, and alongside the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Arabs as Haram al Sharif, the “Noble Sanctuary.” The compound houses the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa mosque and is the third-holiest site of Islam. (“Tunnel Opening in Jerusalem Sparks Protests,” Sept. 25, 1996)

The fact that the tunnel runs along the outside of the compound’s retaining wall (which is the Western Wall) and does not go under the Al Aqsa mosque, is plainly visible from this CNN map:

Roger Cohen picks up the mantle today in the International Herald Tribune on advocating engaging Hamas. And here’s what Shlomo Avineri has to say about it:

The question is what to talk to Hamas about. . . .Most Israelis, as well as the Europeans and Americans, know that Hamas espouses the destruction of Israel. What most of them do not know is that Hamas’ founding document includes a much more comprehensive attitude, not merely to Israel and Zionism, but to the Jews.

The prologue to the covenant states that Hamas’ aim is a war – not against Israel or Zionism but against the Jewish people at large, since the Jews, and not merely Israel and Zionism, are the enemies of Islam.

And in order to remove any doubt, the entire chapter 22 is devoted to detailing the iniquities of the Jews . . .

Don’t tell me that these are merely words and Hamas must not be judged only on the basis of its covenant. Would anyone dare say that if a similar movement were to arise in Europe or America and, in addition to statements like these, was busy killing Jews?

Here’s more on Hamas’ founding charter. And here’s more Roger Cohen folly.

Yoav Sivan spells out in English the problem of Spanish bias, especially at El Pais, where Tel Aviv is always named Israel’s capital. Visit CAMERA’s Spanish site, ReVista de Medio Oriente, for detailed analyses on El Pais and others.

Here’s a BBC report highlights claims of violence and torture between rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas.

A CAMERA column in the Jerusalem Post reveals a dramatic New York Times double standard in the way it treats American and Israeli issues.

This unfair overemphasis on allegations of Israeli misdeeds relative to similar, and sometimes more credible, stories about Americans is, simply put, discrimination against the Jewish state.

Read it here.

Incoming Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman

Blogger Ami Isseroff flags Reuters and BBC claims that Avigdor Lieberman stated in his inauguration speech that his government is not bound by the “Annapolis accords.” Isseroff rightly notes that there is no such accord, and cites the August 2008 AP article “Palestinians reject partial peace accord offered by Israelis.”

So, who’s the rejectionist?