In an article today, Agence France Presse whitewashes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial, stating:

Ahmadinejad has earned the wrath of Israel and Western powers for repeatedly refusing to acknowledge the scale of the Holocaust . . . (“Iran hails Mauritania’s decision to cut ties with Israel,” emphasis added)

Ahmadinejad has not merely questioned the “scale” of the Holocaust. Rather, the Iranian president has repeatedly declared the World War II genocide of the Jews a “myth.” Consider the following articles from AFP’s very own archives:

Ahmedinejad [sic] used the Quds Day rally in Tehran, an annual display of solidarity with the Palestinians, to once again lay into arch-foe Israel.

“The very existence of this regime is an insult to the dignity of the people. They (Western powers) launched the myth of the Holocaust. They lied, they put on a shoe and then they support the Jews,” he said. . . (“US slams Iran leader’s ‘hateful’ remarks on Holocaust,” Sept. 18, 2009)

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeated his view on Saturday that the Holocaust of Jews under Nazi Germany was a “myth” and argued that Palestinians and Iraqis were suffering from “the real Holocaust.”

“Questioning the myth of the Holocaust and the creation of the phoney regime of Zionism has haunted them,” the president said in a speech marking the 27th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic revolution.

“For more than 60 years, this myth has enabled the Zionists to blackmail the Western countries, justify the killing of women and children and make them refugees in occupied land,” he said.

“The real Holocaust is happening today in Palestine and Iraq. If you are looking for the real Holocaust, look at the poor Iraqi people,” he said. . . (“Ahmadinejad repeates Holocaust is a ‘myth,'” Feb. 11, 2006)

Israel’s firebrand President Mahmoud Admadinejad launched a fresh attack against Israel on Wednesday, dismissing the Holocaust as a “myth” and saying the Jewish state should be moved as far away as Alaska. . . .

“They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets,” the right-winger declared in a speech carried live on state television.

“If somebody in their country questions God, nobody says anything, but if somebody denies the myth of the massacre of Jews, the Zionist loudspeakers and the governments in the pay of Zionism will start to scream,” he said. (“Iran’s Ahmadinejad says Holocaust a ‘myth,'” Dec. 14, 2005)

Yair Lapid, a popular and influential Israeli journalist, praises The Case For Israel, a documentary with Alan Dershowitz, (produced by DocEmet with support from CAMERA). In his weekend column in the Yediot Achronot magazine “Shiva Yamim,” he wrote:

I finally saw this week the movie “The Case for Israel”, about the famous American lawyer, Alan Dershowitz.

“I am pro-Israel,” opens Dershowitz the movie, “I am also pro-Palestinian. I support the two state solution but…”

Dershowitz isn’t a philosopher or a filmmaker; he’s not even from the political right. We got used to the fact that defense statements on Zionism come only from the right, but Dershowitz supports us precisely because he’s a left-wing law professor from Harvard, who deals with human rights.

How do they dare call Israel an apartheid state? he asks with genuine astonishment. In the Arab society there’s apartheid of women, apartheid of homosexuals, apartheid of Christians, of Jews, of democracy. In Saudi Arabia, they hang gays; in Sudan, genocide is taking place; women all over the Arab world get murdered if they don’t wear the hijab or if they fall in love with the wrong man. And still, eight out of the last eight UN resolutions that deal with human rights are about Israel – the only country in the region in which minorities have the right to vote, and in whose parliament Arabs served almost from day one.

Does the global left – and the Israeli left too – not care about the horror regime of the Taliban, of the terrible oppression of women in the Gulf States, of the mass hangings in Iran? Is it not clear to them that all the roadblocks in the West Bank – which are, no doubt, causing a lasting human tragedy – would be dismantled in 24 hours if the Palestinians would be so kind as to stop killing Jews?

And how did it happen that they constantly talk about the 750,000 Palestinian refugees, and forget the 800,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries? Why does no one remember that the Palestinians already had four chances to create a state for themselves, and every time they preferred to go back to terrorism? Who dares calls the separation fence an “apartheid wall” while ignoring the fact that it was built – strictly with accordance of international law – only after more than 1000 Israelis were killed in less than three years?

I sat in front of Dershowitz’s movie and instead of feeling happy I felt a bit stupid. Indeed, the facts were known to me before, as they are known to every Israeli, so why is it that we are constantly defending, constantly apologizing, constantly losing the battle on public opinion? Of course, millions of petro-dollars flow into anti-Israel propaganda (oops! I’m buying their version again, it’s not anti-Israel, it’s pure antisemitism), but how the hell did it come to a situation where truth – basic, factual, simple truth – is out of fashion? [Translation by CAMERA]

— Post by YG

BBC Watch has completed a study evaluating Jeremy Bowen’s coverage last year during Operation Cast Lead. The report can be requested by filling in the form found here. The executive summary states:

1. Of 58 reports by Mr. Bowen, 38 were unbalanced. Of those, a staggering 98% portrayed Israel in a negative light;

2. Of the civilian human interest interviews selected by Mr. Bowen, 82% portrayed Palestinians in a positive light — a remarkable feat when, for most of the conflict, Mr. Bowen complained that he was not allowed into Gaza and so principally only had access to Israelis.

3. Of Mr. Bowen’s 22 diary entries, all posted on the BBC website under the title of “The Bowen Diary,” 20 were unbalanced. All of them portrayed Israel in a negative light.

4. The Bowen Dieary frequently included personal opinion of Mr. Bowen in clear breach of BBC guidelines; . . .

BBC Watch is submitting a formal complaint. In a significant ruling last spring, the BBC’s highest bodysubstantially upheld CAMERA’s complaint Jeremy Bowen violated the broadcaster’s guidelines that require impartiality and accuracy. See here for a detailed account of that complaint and ruling.

Dry Bones weighs in on Haiti, Israel and the media:

See also this related article in the Marker today.

Reuters reports:

The United States told Palestinian leaders on Friday they must resume talks with Israel if they want U.S. help to achieve a peace treaty that ends Israeli occupation and creates a Palestinian state.

Putting the ball squarely in the Palestinian court, U.S. envoy George Mitchell told President Mahmoud Abbas that returning to the table was paramount, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said.

Mitchell’s reported position that ongoing American involvement is conditioned on the Palestinians’ resumption of negotiations was picked up by the Palestinian Maan News Agency and the (Lebanon) Daily Star, but not by Ha’aretz, the Los Angeles Times, nor the Washington Post. The New York Times did run the Reuters report as a news brief.

Reuven Pedatzur revisits the Mohammed Al Dura case today in Ha’aretz, and slams the Israeli Foreign Ministry for failing to challenge the widely reported version of events. He reminds readers of the holes in France 2’s story:

The cameraman’s testimony is full of contradictions. He says that “the soldiers shot the two in cold blood for 45 minutes.” However, if the IDF soldiers wanted to hit Mohammed and his father in “cold blood” they could have killed them in less than a minute. Regarding the question of how many bullets were fired toward the two, Abu Rahma said “at least 400.” The wall at the site of the incident clearly shows eight holes.

Karsenty managed to acquire the raw footage of Abu Rahma, including the 10 seconds of film after Enderlin declares that “Mohammed is dead,” which shows the child raising his hand and peering toward the camera. Nowhere in the footage are bullets seen hitting the bodies of father and son, even though the father claims he was hit by 12 bullets and his son by three. No blood was found at the site of the incident.

Mohammed al-Dura was buried in a funeral attended by masses. However, the child who was buried was brought to Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip at 10 A.M., according to the testimony of a doctor who admitted him. The shots at the Netzarim junction began only at 2 P.M., and Mohammed was taken away from the site at 3 P.M. In the photographs shown by a Gaza pathologist, a child who had been hit by bullets is seen, but his injuries are not the sort that Jamal spoke of. While the father says that Mohammed was hit in his right leg, the boy at Shifa was hit in his left leg. A biometric identification expert compared the photograph of the child who was buried and the child at the Netzarim junction, and found that they are different.

The father, Jamal, claims that 12 bullets hit his body, and he proudly shows off the scars on his arms. However, Shapira found Dr. Yehuda David, who says that he operated on him six years before the incident and that the scars are the result of knife wounds.