Yesterday’s editorial in the New York Times praised the Palestinian Authority for clamping down on incitement:

Palestinian authorities have clamped down on incitement, including removing imams and teachers who encourage attacks against Israelis. More can still be done.

Times readers would be forgiven for not knowing what “more can be done.” The newspaper, after all, completely ignored the glorification earlier this month of a Palestinian terrorist involved in the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Palestinian Authority leaders Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad participated in that event.

Nor does the Times tend to take note of official indoctrination such as Palestinian Authority television’s repeated references, during programing aimed at children, to Israeli cities actually being occupied Palestinian cities.

Fareed Zakaria concludes a recent essay in Newsweek with the admonition : “Admitting an error is a small price to pay to regain a reputation.”

Good point. Although he was talking about a Jewish organization, he might apply that same advice to himself.

Mondoweiss is not the place most people go for accurate information about the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Nevertheless CAMERA is forced to address an erroneous report posted on that site by Jeff Klein.

In a post dated Aug. 23, 2010, Klein reports that CAMERA was involved in the controversy related to a mosque in Boston. Klein reported that court documents revealed that a campaign about the mosque in Roxbury “was organized by activists with the far-right pro-Israel David Project and CAMERA spearheaded by founder Charles Jacobs, who now heads […] “Americans for Peace and Tolerance.”

CAMERA had no involvement with any mosque-related protests. Like many other organizations and individuals, CAMERA was served with a subpoena from the mosque’s lawyers who demanded all communications it had concerning the mosque. Emails were collected and they amounted to CAMERA receiving blast emails, which were sent to hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

The mosque’s lawyers had expressed a desire to depose CAMERA officials, but the case was settled before the depositions could took place.

In sum, there was no involvement on CAMERA’s part whatsoever regarding the Roxbury Mosque and in particular regarding the protests that Klein condemns.

Moreover, Charles Jacobs is not, as Klein indicates, a founder of CAMERA. As CAMERA’s website clearly states, the organization was founded in Washington, DC in 1982 by Winifred Meiselman, a teacher and social worker.

Jacobs was deputy director of the Boston Chapter of CAMERA, not CAMERA itself, for approximately two years in the late 1980s – but has had no affiliation with the organization since then.

The Finnish head of Amnesty International called Israel a “scum state,” the Jewish Chronicle reports. The Chronicle adds:

In April Amnesty International came under criticism for holding a meeting about Israel’s policy in east Jerusalem under the title of “Capital Murder” and featuring the author of a book on Israeli “apartheid”.

The organisation also had to issue an apology in January for alleging that the co-chairs of the Northern Ireland Friends of Israel had committed “war crimes” by defending Israel.

New Yorker fact-checker Virginia Heffernan reflects on the state of fact-checking, both in the old days, as well as in the present day era of Google. She concludes:

In short, fact-checking has assumed radically new forms in the past 15 years. Only fact-checkers from legacy media probably miss the quaint old procedures. But if the Web has changed what qualifies as fact-checking, has it also changed what qualifies as a fact? I suspect that facts on the Web are now more rhetorical devices than identifiable objects. But I can’t verify that.

CAMERA has long speculated on the impact of the new media’s looser guidelines on the old media’s more rigorous fact-checking process. Could this blending of old and new account for the New Yorker‘s failure to issue corrections on this 2009 story?

One wonders if Robert F. Worth of the New York Times even read his own newspaper before he wrote this analysis, which appears today in the International Herald Tribune. He writes:

Earlier this month, Israeli soldiers were pruning a tree on their country’s northern border when a firefight broke out with Lebanese soldiers across the fence, leaving one Israeli and four Lebanese dead.

The skirmish seems to have been accidental.

1) The “firefight broke out”? That is a pretty lame and euphemistic way of describing Lebanese firing on Israeli troops trimming a tree on their side of the border in a pre-coordinated move with the United Nations. In a news analysis in the supposed paper of record, you would hope for a tad more precision.

2) The skirmish seems to have been accidental? Really? Based on what? Not the United Nations, which “largely vindicat[ed] Israel’s account of how the fighting started,” in the words of the New York Times.

In another worrisome indication about Worth’s analytical skills, he writes that for some Lebanese, having the Lebanese army back on the border with Israel “was a possible first step toward disarming Hezbollah.”

A step toward disarming Hezbollah? In fact, the opposite has happened. But don’t hold your breath for our worthy analyst to share the facts with you. Nevermind that since UN Resolution 1701 was passed after the 2006 Lebanon war, placing the Lebanese army in the south of the country, Hezbollah’s missile supply has skyrocketed to 40,000, far beyond the quantity it had in 2006.

A day in the life of New York Times news analyses. For whatever it’s worth.

Can you find the two separate standards in this passage from Reuters?

Israel insists it is ready for direct talks provided there are no preconditions. The Palestinians are ready provided there is a clear agenda.

If you said the news service uses language to casts doubt on Israel’s sincerity (“Israel insists…”), while accepting as fact the Palestinian assertion that they are ready to meet (“Palestinians are ready…”), then you’re right.

Speaking of “Israel says,” here’s the next line from Reuters: “Israel says an agenda means preconditions.” In truth, it is hardly only Israel that recognizes Palestinian preconditions as preconditions.

This skewed language comes not long after an earlier Reuters report told readers that the attack by pro-Palestinian activists on Israeli troops boarding the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara was nothing more than an Israeli claim, in effect suggesting, despite clear video evidence, that Israeli soldiers might not have been attacked.

Aug. 23 update: Reuters has acknowledged in communications with CAMERA that their language about negotiations was not appropriate.

In her statement announcing a resumption of direct talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, Hillary Clinton asserted, “These negotiations should take place without preconditions and be characterised by good faith and a commitment to their success, which will bring a better future to all of the people of the region.”

So will the Associated Press call the Secretary of State’s stance “hard line,” as it did when describing Israel’s call for negotiations without preconditions?

News reports about Israel by the Associated Press and Reuters on August 16 indirectly highlighted The Washington Post’s chronic failure to cover the Jewish state as something other than the accused party in Palestinian narratives.

An AP dispatch (headlined “Israel lifts barrier to West Bank; Neighborhood more secure from gunfire” in The Washington Times) reported that Israel began removing a 600-yard long concrete wall erected in 2001. The barrier had protected residents of the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo from Arab gunfire from Beit Jala, an adjacent West Bank town, during the second intifada. AP reported that the Israeli military said “the barrier is being taken down … because of a reduced security threat and improved coordination between Israeli and West Bank security forces.”

Though AP erroneously described the Palestinian terror war as “against Israeli occupation” when it in fact followed Palestinian rejection of a two-state solution in exchange for peace offered at Camp David in 2000, the article correctly termed Gilo a “neighborhood in southern Jerusalem,” not a West Bank settlement as some news media have done.

The Washington Post’s August 16 print edition did not mention commencement of the barrier removal.
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Photo by Marc Israel Sellem

Every visitor to the Western Wall is familiar with the long staircase, situated next to the Aish HaTorah Yeshiva, down to the Kotel plaza from the Jewish Quarter. It’s certainly memorable for those pushing a stroller or nursing an injury, and impassable for the wheelchair bound.

There’s good news then for the very young, the very old, and the mobility-impaired. The Jerusalem Post reports that a proposal for an elevator is being considered:

The elevator, proposed by the Company for the Reconstruction and Development of the Jewish Quarter, would start at Misgav Ledach Street and descend 21 meters to a new pedestrian tunnel. It would greatly improve access for visitors in wheelchairs or those with other disabilities, who now have to contend with several flights of stairs. The pedestrian tunnel would be 60-70 meters in length and pass underneath the stairs near the Aish HaTorah Yeshiva.

At present, the only way for visitors in wheelchairs to reach the Kotel is through the road leading to Dung Gate, which is very steep and has no sidewalks.

As with numerous earlier cases involving harmless projects in the Jewish Quarter and the surrounding areas, certain radical Muslim elements are clamoring about false threats to the Temple Mount and the Al Aqsa Mosque itself. Palestinian Maan News Agency reports:

The Al-Aqsa Foundation says the plans are a threat to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is adjacent to the Western Wall. . . .

In a statement, the foundation said the project intended to divide the mosque and prevent worshipers from reaching it, citing the plan as an attempt by Israeli forces to increase the presence of Jews in the area.

The statement warned that the square in front of the wall could be used as a base to attack the compound.