The Palestine Liberation Organization’s representative to Washington, Maen Areikat, told American reporters that a future West Bank and Gaza Strip “Palestine” would ban Jews. USA Today reported that “such a state would be the first to officially prohibit Jews or any other faith since Nazi Germany, which sought a country that was judenrein, or cleansed of Jews, said Elliott Abrams, a former U.S. National Security Council official” (“PLO Ambassador says no Jews in future Palestine; Cites need for national identity,” September 14).

USA Today correspondent Oren Dorell, in a full-length article accompanied by a two-column black-and-white picture of Areikat, added that “Israel has often complained of anti-Semitic views in Palestinian discourse. Palestinian media frequently publish and broadcast anti-Semitic sermons by Islamic religious leaders, while the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV shows programming for preschoolers that extolls hatred of Jews and suicide bombings, according to a 2009 State Department human rights report.”

The newspaper reminded readers that “Israel has 1.3 million Muslims who are Israeli citizens.” (Israel’s 1.6 million Arabs – Muslim, Christian, and Druze – comprise 20.5 percent of the total population.)

Also highlighting Areikat’s declaration was The Washington Times. In his “Embassy Row” column for September 14, under the subhead “Palestinian Tolerance,” James Morrison reported that “the Palestinian envoy in Washington assured reporters on Tuesday that a Palestinian state would be a secular nation that would be tolerant of minorities — except Jews and homosexuals.”

Morrison noted that The Weekly Standard magazine and The Daily Caller Web site asked the questions about homosexuals and Jews that elicited the PLO envoy’s remarks. He pointed out that their identification of Areikat as “the Palestinian ambassador to the United States” was erroneous. “There is no such position because there is no Palestinian nation.”

Neither The Washington Post nor New York Times’ September 14 print editions reported Areikat’s “Palestine: No Jews Allowed” statement.

Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has released a new YouTube video, which demonstrates, in historical detail, that the essence of the Arab-Israeli conflict is the ongoing rejection of Jewish sovereignty and self-determination in the land of Israel.

A Reuters story today refers to several UN “experts” who disagreed with the conclusions of the UN Palmer Report, which found that Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip is legal and a reasonable military necessity.

What the reporter doesn’t tell you is that the expert quoted in the piece, Richard Falk, a radical anti-Israel activist and 9/11 conspiracy theorist, has had his integrity and credibility questioned by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, the U.S. representative to the Human Rights Council, the former UN ambassador to the UN, the UK and the NGO UN Watch, among others. (Details here.)

Reuters doesn’t bother to alert readers about these questions — not even with the understated word “controversial.” He is, supposedly, just an “expert.”

Today, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad taught his* version of history to The Washington Post‘s Lally Weymouth:

The United States has a population of 300 million and the whole population is going to be sacrificed for the interests of a few hundred Zionists. A dreadful party, a feared party, the party that was behind the first World War and the second World War. Whenever there is a conflict or war — this party is behind it.

What will Columbia University students learn when they break bread with him later this month?

* Of course, Ahmadinejad is hardly only one who promotes such anti-Jewish conspiracy theories. Here is almost the same exact line, but from a different group of extremists (guess who):

They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.

It was all hugs and kisses at the end of the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s General Assembly that took place last year in Minneapolis. After years of debate and controversy over the Arab-Israeli conflict, pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel activists within the denomination came to a mutual understanding about how to address the conflict as Presbyterians in the future. People on both sides of the debate within the church hailed the understanding as “a new way of being a church” and said that they were providing a model on how to end the conflict.

Sadly, it was not to be.

Apparently, for the pro-Palestinian folks (who are really more anti-Israel than they are pro-Palestinian), what happened at least year’s General Assembly was not the beginning of peace, but a hudna, a brief respite before another round of fighting.

In particular, the Israel-Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (USA), has for the past few months been engaged in a pretty ugly campaign of defamation.

Evidence of this campaign can be seen on the organization’s Facebook page where its supporters have posted ugly anti-Israel invective that undermines the entire denomination’s credibility as a peacemaking organization. For example, in one Facebook comment published in June (screenshot below), Noushin Framke, a prominent member of IPMN, declared that Israeli soldiers in the West Bank “are not human beings.”

One can condemn the actions of Israeli soldiers, but to deny their humanity, which is what Framke did in her comment, is another thing altogether. What is even more troubling is that Framke was at, at one time, involved withthe PC(USA) committee that deals with the denomination’s investments that called for the church to divest from Catterpillar.

Sadly enough, the denomination’s staffers in Louisville, Kentucky, seem reluctant to publically admonish the IPMN — which was created by a vote at the PC(USA)’s 2004 General Assembly — about its ugly anti-Zionism.

This is a matter of some consquence. The IPMN is not merely a rogue element within the PC(USA), but as Framke’s involvment with the PC(USA)’s investment deliberations indicates, a nexus of influence that will play a significant role in framing debate about the Arab-Israeli conflict at the denomination’s 2012 General Assembly.
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CAMERA has occasionally drawn attention to Robert Mackey’s anti-Israel tilt. For the past few years, Mackey blogged for The Lede, a New York Times blog.

Apparently he’s shown himself to be sufficiently hostile to the Jewish state: The Guardian has hired Mackey to be its reporter and blogger.

Oct. 6 Update — According to a New York Times tweet, Robert Mackey is returning to the Times as the lead blogger at The Lede.

Mahmoud Abbas: Refused Talks (Photo: Mohammed Salem/Reuters)

The New York Times is at it again. Today’s editorial blames Israel (first and foremost) for the lack of peace talks over the last couple of years, despite the fact that it is Mahmoud Abbas who has consistently refused to partake, while Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly called for face-to-face talks. The editorial states:

Since President Obama took office, the only direct negotiations between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Mr. Abbas lasted a mere two weeks in September 2010.

Both sides share the blame with Mr. Obama and Arab leaders (we put the greater onus on Mr. Netanyahu, who has used any excuse to thwart peace efforts).

Yossi Sarid wrote much the same in Ha’aretz last year, and as Yishai Goldflam of Presspectiva (CAMERA’s Israeli site), wrote in a published letter at the time:

Benjamin Netanyahu’s publicly declared to the entire world, in opposition to his party’s platform and to the will of the majority of his voters, his support for a two state solution. Immediately afterwards, unprecedentedly, he froze construction in the West Bank and called upon Mahmoud Abbas to join him at the negotiating table. Only one month before the end of the moratorium, Abbas so kindly acquiesced as to meet Netanyahu as a result of American pressure, and a month later cancelled the talks because the moratorium had expired.

Photo by AP

CNN describes a brutal attack on CNN and other journalists in the aftermath of the embassy siege:

An angry crowd lingering near the Israeli embassy in Cairo after an attack on the building a day earlier turned on journalists reporting the incident Saturday, accusing at least one of being an Israeli spy.

As a CNN crew filmed the embassy from across the street, another crew from American public television — led by Egyptian television producer Dina Amer — approached the building. The crew’s Russian cameraman was preparing to film the embassy when a woman in the crowd began hurling insults at the TV team, Amer said.

“There was this older lady who decided to follow me and rally people against me,” Amer recalled. “She said ‘you’re a spy working with the Americans.’ Then they swarmed me and I was a target.” A growing crowd surrounded Amer and her colleagues, as they tried to leave the scene.

Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, a producer working for CNN, rushed to help escort Amer through the angry crowd. But suddenly the two reporters were pinned against the railing of an overpass by young men who were accusing Amer of being an Israeli spy.

Yelling “I’m Egyptian,” Fahmy managed to pull Amer another 10 meters down the road, until the pressure from the mob overwhelmed the pair.

Amer screamed as she and Fahmy were knocked to the ground and the crowd started to trample them. Other CNN journalists tried to reach in to help, but were pushed back by a wall of angry men. Fahmy lay on top of Amer, shielding her with his body.

“I was thinking, how powerless I was because there was no police to save us,” Fahmy said. “I was worried that they were going to rape her.”

(Hat tip: Elder of Ziyon)

Regarding the attack this weekend on the Israeli embassy in Cairo, the New York Times’ Robert Mackey blogs on The Lede:

The wall [surrounding the embassy] was constructed recently by Egyptian authorities following protests calling for the expulsion of Israel’s ambassador over the killing of Egyptian security officers by Israeli forces last month. The officers were killed as Israel hunted for militants who carried out deadly attacks near the border between the two countries in the Sinai desert. (Emphasis added)

That’s an odd way of describing an attack on Israeli civilians and soldiers within Israeli territory, close to the border with Egypt.

Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

An excellent video produced by Eye on the UN explains why the reconvening of another “Durban” event — dubbed Durban III — is nothing more than the continuation of efforts in the international arena by Israel’s enemies to defame and undermine the Jewish state.

A short video of the first 2001 Durban conference is a reminder of the libelous, hypocritical attacks on Israel.

UN officials, such as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay who has pushed the Durban campaign, are thus far unswayed by the growing number of nations boycotting the event. These include: Canada, Israel, United States, Czech Republic, Italy, The Netherlands, Australia, Austria and Germany.

According to Anne Bayefsky, Pillay said she was “disappointed” with these pullouts, labeling them a “political distraction.”

Yet the biased assault on Israel — and neglect of focus on truly oppressive nations — may trigger congressional action. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has introduced the United Nations Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act (H.R. 2829) to cut funding if the U.N. fails to reform.