Max Blumenthal doesn’t seem to care too much about the facts.

The anti-Israel blogger flatly lied to the readers of his blog when, in a headline, he announced that Benjamin Netanyahu called the September 11 attacks a “very good” thing. And today he lies again, writing that “CAMERA claimed … all media reports suggesting that the Border Police killed [Abir Aramin] were categorically false.”

On what basis does Blumenthal rest his allegation that we called the reports “categorically false”? An article in which we wrote that “the Israeli border police are not necessarily to blame,” and that Palestinian stone throwers “may very well have been responsible for the death of Aramin.”

Blumenthal is a writer. He knows that his term — “categorical” — and our phrasing — “not necessarily” and “may very well have been” — have completely opposite meanings. That is, anyone who hears “not necessarily true” but reports instead “categorically false” is being flagrantly dishonest.

On one narrow point, Blumenthal is right. Our piece about the death of Abir Aramin, written over five years ago, needed an update. It’s been updated.

On the larger point, he’s well off the mark. He apparently thinks news reporters in a fog should report what they want to believe, as opposed to what the available information allows them to conclude. If there is an incomplete picture, the journalist gets to complete it based on their own partisan leanings.

Our piece, which Blumenthal so hysterically attacked, argued the opposite: If information is hazy and contradictory, then reporters should tell their readers that information is hazy and contradictory, and explain why. Only when the fog lifts should news reports relay categorical information.

In the Aramin case, the fog has lifted. Israeli courts accepted the results of an autopsy that concluded she was indeed struck by a rubber bullet. That much is clear today. But based on what was known (and not known) at the time, reporters were unable to reach that conclusion, and so should not have done so in their news copy.

Blumenthal disagrees. But what else would you expect from someone who tries to sell the idea that Netanyahu supported the 9/11 attacks, and who claims that “not necessarily” means the same as “categorically not”?

In a September 23, 2011, interview, Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki declares goals that echo the 1974 resolution of the Palestinian National Council [PNC], known as the “Phased Plan” for Israel’s destruction. In this plan, it was resolved to take any land gained from Israel as a step towards destroying all of Israel.

Last year, a Turkish boat engaged in an act of war by trying to break Israel’s legal blockade on Gaza. Its occupants violently attacked Israeli soldiers who attempted to stop it. The soldiers tried to defend themselves from being lynched and in the ensuing battle, nine attackers were killed. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan demanded an apology from Israel. But after Israel’s refusal to apologize for what it saw as a result of Turkey’s own wrongdoing, and a UN report that found Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza legal, a furious Erdogan threatened Israel with warships, leaving even the New York Times to wonder whether he was dangerously out of control.

Now Erdogan is throwing his weight around again… this time at the UN and this time literally. The New York Times reports about a scuffle that ensued when Erdogan tried to push his way into an overcrowded gallery to cheer the Palestinian leader’s speech on Friday. After a guard tried to stop him, Erdogan disregarded him and pressed forward. The guard pushed him and “a fracas erupted that was audible four flours below.” And while it was the guard who in the process of doing his job ended up in hospital with a rib injury, it is the Turkish prime minister who has demanded an apology. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, however, unlike Israel, has acceded to Erdogan’s requests and appeased him with an apology and the firing of several UN guards.

But is appeasement really the best way forward with a bully who has clearly lost control?

The Jerusalem Post reports that Samer Allawi, Al Jazeera’s former Afghanistan bureau chief admitted during an investigation with the Shin Bet that he was a Hamas operative. Allawi was arrested by Israeli security officers last month on the border of the West Bank and Jordan.

During an investigation with The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) Allawi said he was recruited into Hamas in 1993 and he served there till 2004 in a senior committee that overseas Hamas operations abroad and is responsible for fundraising.

In 2001 and 2003 he traveled to Syria where he reported on his activities to Mousa Aba Marzook, deputy to Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Damascus.

Aba Marzook offered Allawi to become an official Hamas represtive in Iran, but he rejected the offer.

During the interrogation with The Shin Bet, Allawi said he attended a meeting in 2000 in Saudi Arabia in which he said he would be part of a terror operation on behalf of Hamas. He also offered to use his position as a reporter to promote Hamas interests.

In 2006, Allawi traveled to Qatar and met with additional Al Jazeera reporters, who the Shin Bet said were Hamas operatives, and discuused the possibility of using their position to advance Hamas by critizing the US military in Afghanistan.

The question is how many more Hamas operatives are part not only of Al Jazeera but of other media as well?

On the CAMERA website last week, we parsed the “debate” over whether the PLO representative to the U.S. called for the future state of Palestine to be ethnically cleansed of Jews.

The article includes embedded audio of a journalist’s question and Maen Areikat’s answer, all of which makes quite clear that Areikat was, yet again, calling for the transfer of Jews from a future Palestine, denials by journalists notwithstanding.

Blogger Challah Hu Akbar discussed the issue this weekend, and makes some additional noteworthy points. Check out his post here.

Charles Heston starring as Judah Ben-Hur, the “Palestinian nobleman” (Photo by AFP)

The Los Angeles Times has converted Judah Ben-Hur, the fictional enslaved Jewish nobleman who serves as a protagonist in Charles Heston’s 1959 Hollywood blockbuster, into a “Palestinian nobleman.” Today’s paper reports:

Based on the novel by Lew Wallace, the period drama revolves around Judah Ben-Hur (Heston), a Palestinian nobleman who is enslaved by the Romans, engages in one of the most thrilling chariot races ever captured on screen, and even encounters Jesus Christ.

Of course, there was no such place as “Palestine” in the time of Jesus, since the Romans didn’t rename Judea as “Palestina” until a hundred years after the death of Jesus (a fact that even the New York Times had to correct).
(more…)

Writing in Ha’aretz today, Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff bolster Mahmoud Abbas’ democratic credentials, setting him up as a foil to “veteran Arab leaders . . . departing from the Middle Eastern scene” and others suspected of serving as agents of Iran (Khaled Meshal and Hassan Nasrallah). They state:

He was elected democratically – even though this happened a long time ago – in 2005, he opposes violence, and does not bend to outside pressure.

That, apparently, is a very kind way of saying that Abbas’ term expired in January 2009.

As for Abbas’ position regarding violence, his message has been inconsistent. The latest indication that Abbas winks at violence is the PA’s appointment of Latifa Abu Hmeid to kick off the official statehood bid campaign.

On Thursday we documented how a Ha’aretz headline writer transformed violent stone-throwing incidents, in which Israelis were injured, into “peaceful” protests. Friday and today, the trend continues. On Friday, a page two subheadline in the English edition states “No violent clashes.” The subheadline is contradicted by the factually accurate accompanying article by Avi Issacharoff, which reports:

Major violent clashes between the Israel Defense Forces and the Palestinians have not yet occurred. . .

As Issacharoff correctly notes, no major violent incidents occurred, though violent incidents did occur, nonetheless, as detailed in our earlier analysis.

Palestinian youths throw stones towards Israeli soldiers during clashes with at the Qalandia checkpoint between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem on September 21, 2011. AFP PHOTO/AHMAD GHARABLI

There was a time when Palestinian leaders sought to conceal their goal of overrunning the Jewish state in misleading commentary for Western audiences that implied a willingness to accept coexistence with a sovereign Israel. Now, evidently, times have changed and blunt statements are deemed safe to make. A remarkable interview in Lebanon’s Daily Star (September 15, 2011) illustrates the shift. According to Abdullah Abdullah, Palestinian ambassador to Lebanon, Palestinians would not all become automatic citizens of any future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. The story reports:

This would not only apply to refugees in countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan or the other 132 countries where Abdullah says Palestinians reside. Abdullah said that “even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens. Abdullah said that the new Palestinian state would “absolutely not” be issuing Palestinian passports to refugees.

Abdullah’s willingness to leave Palestinians stateless in camps even in territory under Palestinian authority is spelled out further for anyone who’s missed the point:

The right of return that Abdullah says is to be negotiated would not only apply to those Palestinians whose origins are within the 1967 borders of the state, he adds. “The state is the 1967 borders, but the refugees are not only from the 1967 borders. The refugees are from all over Palestine. When we have a state accepted as a member of the United Nations, this is not the end of the conflict. This is not a solution to the conflict. This is only a new framework that will change the rules of the game.”

Is that clear? “When we have a state accepted as a member of the United Nations, this is not the end of the conflict” just a change in the rules of the game. Sound like the PLO’s 1974 “phased plan” for the destruction of Israel?

Something, indeed, is changing when an “ambassador” can give an interview such as this and there’s not a ripple in the Western media.

hat tip Evelyn Gordon at Contentions

In an op-ed titled, “With Friends Like These…” appearing in Newsweek (Sept. 26, 2011), Israeli professor Fania Oz-Salzberger employs an old trick of claiming the middle ground in order to marginalize politicians she disagrees with. She writes,

This insularity comes awith a strange self-assurance that many right-wing Israelis flaunt and many center-to-left israelis loathe. … A sense of entitlement surrounds Likud and right-of-Likud politicians as they hammer on with their settlement-expansion and “no partner” mantra, in the face of Arabs, the peace-brokering international Quartet, and the global community.

Oz-Salzberger rails against Israel’s “right-wing” government and its close friendship with American evangelical Christians. She deprecates Republican Presidential candidates, who in her view spout “Bible-fed political jargon.” She disdains Texas governor Rick Perry “who doesn’t seem able to tell his Gideon from his Armageddon.”

For Ms. Oz-Sulzberger, Israel’s “way of being a light unto the nations is through high-tech innovation and this summer’s peaceful, sophisticated social reform movement.”

Unfortunately, Ms. Oz-Salzberger is trapped in a fallacy. She claims to speak for “at least half the Israelis”… the “mainstream Israel, high-tech Israel, socially aware Israel, humanist-Zionist Israel.” But the majority of Israelis voted for “Likud and right-of-Likud” politicians who to her dismay “cling to the rock offered by their evangelical-Christian friends” she so scorns.