Jeffrey Goldberg calls out the New York Times’ Ethan Bronner on his acceptance of Hamas’ party line regarding Nakba Day events:

Ethan Bronner, writing in the Times, states:

(T)his is the first year that Palestinian refugees in Syria and Lebanon tried to breach the Israeli military border in marches inspired by recent popular protests around the Arab world. Here too, word about the rallies was spread on social media sites. “The Palestinians are not less rebellious than other Arab peoples,” said Ali Baraka, a Hamas representative in Lebanon.

Ethan Bronner is a very smart person, so I’m not sure why he’s accepting the Hamas/Assad/Iran line on these protests. Consider: These borders, in particular the Syria-Israel border, have seldom, if ever, seen demonstrations like this. The Syria-Israel border is a notably quiet place; Hafez al-Assad, the late dictator, and his son, Bashar, the current dictator, have kept the border quiet for decades. But now there is widespread revolt in Syria, which threatens not only the Syrian regime, but its ally, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah. So far, Bashar’s security forces have slaughtered almost a thousand Syrian citizens. So what would you do if you were a cynical Syrian dictator, or a cynical ally of the cynical Syrian dictator? Change the subject. To what, you might ask? Well, Israel, of course.

For an overview analysis of “Nakba Day” coverage (including Time Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor and the Washington Post, among others), see here.

In a hardline speech to thousands of Muslim worshippers to mark “Nakba Day,” Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh affirmed the right to “resist” Israeli “occupation and said Palestinians mark the occasion this year “with great hope of bringing to an end the Zionist project in Palestine.”

So much for Jimmy Carter’s confidence that the reconciliation between “Fatah and Hamas will “increase the likelihood of a two-state solution and a peaceful outcome”…

Polls of American Jewish opinion on Israel demonstrate that American Jews continue to strongly support Israel. The surveys, conducted under the auspices of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and published in March and October 2010, also highlight the disagreement most American Jews have with the positions taken by organizations like J Street who advocate increased American pressure on Israel to make concessions. The fact that self-identifying Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 3 to 1 among the survey respondents refutes any notion that support for Israel has softened among Jewish Democrats.

The American Jewish Committee’s Survey of American Jewish Opinion is usually conducted annually to gauge American Jewish attitudes towards Israel. The surveys refute claims disseminated by some in the media that Jewish support for Israel is waning in America. 3 out of 4 respondents felt very close or somewhat close to Israel, a figure slightly up from ten years ago. Responses to most questions produced similar results as prior years.

By over 2 to 1 (62 to 27 percent) American Jews surveyed for the October poll approve of the way Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is handling Israeli-American relations. Some 49 percent approve of President Barack Obama’s handling of Israeli-American relations with a disapproval figure of 45 percent. President Obama’s approval numbers have declined since the March 2010 survey (55 percent in March) and his disapproval numbers have risen (37 percent in March).

By large majorities, American Jews oppose any division of Jerusalem (60 to 35 percent), believe that the real Arab goal is to destroy Israel (76 to 20 percent) and are convinced that no peace agreement is possible with Hamas (82 to 14 percent).

These results repudiate the political stance championed by J Street and contradict the group’s claim to represent the views of mainstream American Jews. J Street supports the division of Jerusalem, welcomes the new Fatah-Hamas unity government because it believes it is necessary to bring Hamas into the process and is highly critical of Prime Minister Netanyahu. All of these positions are rejected by the majority of respondents.

J Street has repeatedly pointed to the settlements as a crucial obstacle to a peace settlement with the Palestinians. While J Street does support retaining some settlements, it is strongly critical of efforts to sustain them and Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, opposing even measures to accomodate natural growth and believes that Israel should make up for any land it keeps in the West Bank by ceding an equal amount of Israeli territory. The AJC survey indicates that 93 percent of the respondents think that Israel should either keep all the settlements or dismantle just some.

Most significantly, American Jews attach great importance to Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state (95 percent). Clearly any political platform that seeks to brush aside this requirement is out of step with the American Jewish public.

The AJC survey, and others like it, are important to disseminate in order to provide the public with an accurate portrayal of mainstream American Jewry’s opinions about Israel and the peace process.

(an earlier version incorrectly described the survey as having been conducted in 2011)

Yitzhak Shamir

There is a vast literature of bogus Zionist quotes. Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Beast is the latest to fall for one. Read here about Sullivan’s attribution of a bogus Palestinian-are-cockroaches quote to Yitzhak Shamir, and his subsequent acknowledgment of the truncated original quote. (But he claims his point still stands.)

The photo which had been altered

The AP reports:

An American Orthodox Jewish newspaper apologized on Monday for digitally deleting Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton from a photo of President Barack Obama and his staff monitoring the raid by Navy SEALs that killed Osama bin Laden.

The Brooklyn weekly Di Tzeitung, which says it doesn’t publish images of women, printed the doctored photo Friday. It issued a statement saying its photo editor hadn’t read the fine print accompanying the White House photo that forbade any changes. The newspaper said it has sent its regrets and apologies to the White House and the Department of State.

Not quite a year ago, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar explicitly told Future TV that his organization is pursuing a “phased plan” to destroy all of Israel and replace it with a Palestinian state.

MEMRI translated:

We have liberated Gaza, but have we recognized Israel? Have we given up our lands occupied in 1948? We demand the liberation of the West Bank, and the establishment of a state in the West Bank and Gaza, with Jerusalem as its capital – but without recognizing [Israel]. This is the key – without recognizing the Israeli enemy on a single inch of land.

This is our plan for this stage – to liberate the West Bank and Gaza, without recognizing Israel’s right to a single inch of land, and without giving up the Right of Return for a single Palestinian refugee. …

Our plan for this stage is to liberate any inch of Palestinian land, and to establish a state on it. Our ultimate plan is [to have] Palestine in its entirety. I say this loud and clear so that nobody will accuse me of employing political tactics. We will not recognize the Israeli enemy.

As for the issue of a referendum – [the Palestinian Authority] is ready to impose its position on people by force. Whoever wants to hold a referendum, and believes that he can get all of Palestine for the Palestinians, can hold a referendum, but will not give up the platform of resistance, and the plan to liberate Palestine in its entirety. This is unequivocal. …

If we could liberate the Negev now, we would continue [our military activity], but our capabilities dictate that after we got rid of the Israeli presence in Gaza, we must finish off the remnants of that occupation, and move on to the West Bank.

Lately, Hamas leaders have been emphasizing one aspect of this plan: that they will accept a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

As long as these more recent, and vaguer, pronouncements by Hamas leaders are compatible with the policy enunciated by Zahar during the June 15, 2010 television program — and until they explicitly announce in Arabic to their public that they recognize Israel’s right to exist and are willing to live in peace alongside the Jewish state — any sensational media claims that the group is seeking a two-state solution or implications that it is “steering away” from its desire to replace Israel with an Islamic Palestinian state, can only be seen as wishful thinking, if not intentional obfuscation.

Given his position as editor-in-chief and publisher of Technology Review, a magazine published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), it would seem reasonable that Jason Pontin would bring a journalist’s sensibility and curiosity to a panel about Egypt that he moderated at the school’s Center for International Studies (CIS) on April 29, 2011.

He didn’t.

Pontin had an opportunity to ask some important questions about the direction Egypt is headed because he was moderating a panel with Ahmed Maher and Waleed Rashed, both part of the April 6th Youth Movement which played a crucial role in the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The internet played a crucial role in their strategy. (Video of the 90-minute event can be seen online here.)

With his obsession on how activists used Facebook and Twitter to achieve Mubarak’s ouster, Pontin failed to ask some of the most basic questions about where the revolution is headed.

For example, Pontin failed to ask how Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood are using the technologies the April 6th Youth Movement used to achieve Mubarak’s ouster.

It’s not pretty.

Even a cursory examination of Facebook, You Tube, and Twitter will reveal that these technologies are being used to foment hostility toward Christians in Egypt – and the rest of the Middle East. For example, if you search Twitter with the hashtag #freemysister, you will see numerous postings about the alleged kidnapping of Coptic converts to Islam by the Coptic church in Egypt. These accusations are, by most accounts, ridiculous. Nevertheless, these accusations have been used to incite anti-Coptic violence in Egypt. Churches are set on fire because of these accusations – broadcast on the very same technology used to initiate Mubarak’s ouster. This is a crucial issue, but it didn’t come up at all during the panel discussion.

The reality that Pontin seemed to miss altogether is that extremists can use the internet too. It’s not as if access to the internet is limited to charismatic young activists intent on ousting a dictator. Just to drive the point home, an offshoot of Al Qaeda recently posted the names, addresses, phone numbers and photos of Coptic Christians living in Canada in a clear effort to intimidate this community into silence.

This reality was not addressed in any way shape or form during the panel. In fact, in nearly 90 minutes of discussion, the Muslim Brotherhood was not even mentioned, nor was their any mention of the Salafists who recently took over a mosque in Cairo and have been attacking Christian churches and Christian residences in Egypt.

To make matters worse, when an American Copt raised four substantive questions about the rights of Coptic Christians in Egypt and the prospects for continued peace between Egypt and Israel, (at about 1 hour and 10 minutes into the panel) Pontin narrowed the discussion down to two of the four questions. Why?

A careful viewer with even a passing knowledge of what’s going on in Egypt would come away from the panel with some very troubling questions about exactly what is going on in Egypt these days.
(more…)

Back in late February and early March, several articles appeared (AP, Philadelphia Inquirer) reporting on meetings between Al Jazeera representatives and executives from several Cable providers. Comcast was mentioned in both stories as a potential entrypoint for Al Jazeera into the American television market.

According to a piece published by Accuracy in Media, Comcast has decided not to carry Al Jazeera. The piece quotes David A. Jensen, Vice President for Content Acquisition at Comcast

We do not have an agreement with this service that would permit us to carry Al Jazeera English on our cable systems and Comcast is not currently in active talks to complete such an agreement

The article cites the efforts of Jeffrey Smith.

In contrast to the Comcast decision, the Accuracy in Media article reveals that the Columbia School of Journalism has decided to team up with Al Jazeera. Nicholas Lemann, Dean of the Columbia Journalism School, has worked out a deal where Columbia fellows will work in the Al Jazeera English newsroom for 12 weeks and will apparently be paid by the Qatar government that finances Al Jazeera itself.

CAMERA published a piece about Al Jazeera in March. While Al Jazeera does in-depth coverage of the Middle East, its reporting tends to reflect sympathy for the positions of the Muslim Brotherhood, and is almost uniformly negative towards Israel and American involvement in the region. Its English language opinion pieces present the monotonal viewpoint of veteran anti-Israel radicals.

Its Arabic language news service is worse, featuring Muslim Brotherhood icon Yusuf Qaradawi, who exhorts his audience to “Kill the Jewish Zionists, every last one of them.” MEMRI exposed a birthday party for released terrorist and child murderer, Samir Kuntar, thrown by Al Jazeera’s Lebanon affiliate. Apparently this hasn’t dissuaded Dean Lemann and others at the Columbia School of Journalism.

The New Republic has published a probing profile of Egypt’s leading presidential contender, Amr Moussa. In “The Throwback” Eric Trager describes a candidate whose views would, at face-value, return Egypt’s political culture to the openly anti-Israel attitudes it flaunted prior to the Camp David Accords and the Peace Treaty.

According to Trager, Moussa

— gratuitously sparked outrage by indicating that he would refuse to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.
— opposed re-signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)—unless Israel signed it first.
— backed Yasser Arafat’s refusal to compromise on Jerusalem
— called on the Arab world to support the Palestinian Intifada
— declared the Palestinians’ “right of return” to Israel a “sacred right”
— told a group of Egyptian youths that the Camp David Accords had “expired”
— called for a “no-fly zone” over Gaza
— seeks to strengthen Arab-Iranian ties

Moussa is 75 years old, so he is likely to be a transition figure. But his popularity among the Egyptian public can only heighten concern over what will follow.

The piece, a brief excerpt of which is below, can be read here.

Readers should take note that, importantly, [BBC Panorama editor Tom] Giles does not directly refute even one of the points we made in the video, evidently seeking instead to distract readers with incoherent and incongruous commentary. He says nothing about BBC’s out-of-context statistics. There is not a word of explanation for why the BBC twice relayed unsubstantiated and false accusations that Jerusalem is being ethnically cleansed of Arabs when, in fact, the city’s Arab population is growing faster than its Jewish population. Nor does he attempt to explain why the BBC does not refer to acts of Palestinian terrorism even while it charges Jews with acts of violence.