The peace talks are at a standstill, with President Abbas refusing to enter into negotiations, but that hasn’t prevented the AP from coming up with its own solution for the disputed Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan. The predominantly Arab neighborhood sits within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, and yet the AP describes it as “the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan.” As if the neighborhood lies within the boundaries of the Palestinian Authority, and not within Israeli territory.

More balanced language would be “the predominantly Arab neighborhood of Silwan, which Palestinians hope to have as part of their future capital.”

The southern wall and steps of the Temple Mount, like the Western Wall, are remaining remnants of the Temple Mount compound

An AFP article about an archeological find which challenges apparently erroneous “accepted wisdom” about the Western Wall ironically contains some separate misconceptions of its own about the holy site (“Coins show Herod build only part of Second Temple Walls,” Nov. 23).

The article wrongly refers to the site as “the western wall of the Second Temple,” and also incorrectly notes that it is “revered as the last remaining remnant of the Second Temple.” The wall is not the western wall of the Second Temple itself, nor is it a remnant of the Temple. The Western Wall is the western retaining wall for the Temple Mount plaza, upon which the Temple itself stood, a fact that archeologists Eli Shukrun or Ronny Reich, both quoted in the story (AFP spells it “Shakoun”), can confirm.

Moreover, the Western Wall is not the only remaining remnant from the Temple Mount compound. The southern, eastern, and northern retaining walls are also still extant. Surviving features abutting the southern walls include a broad stairway leading up to the Temple Mount’s entrance and two gates, known as the Huldah Gates, which provided access to the Temple Mount (Hershel Shanks, Jerusalem: An Archaeological Biography, p. 143). Some of the interior part of the Herodian Double Gate (which is one of the Huldah Gates) is also still intact. There are also surviving underground remnants of the Temple complex, including the area known as Solomon’s Stables. In addition, an area called “Robinson’s Arch,” in the south-western corner of the Temple complex, still remains. In his book, Shanks provides details concerning numerous other remnants.

In the past, the AFP itself has made reference to some of these other surviving remnants. For instance, a Nov. 21, 2005 AFP article reported: “The area in most need of work is a section flanking the southern supporting wall of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam, the reports said.”

It remains to be seen whether AFP will correct the error, as has the Los Angeles Times.

American columnist Mona Eltahawy suffered injuries at the hands of Egyptian police

In the last few days, at least two more female journalists were sexually assaulted in Cairo while covering Tahrir square protests. American-Egyptian columnist Mona Elthaway, from New York, accused the Egyptian police of beating and groping her, and of detaining her for 12 hours.

The same day, French television journalist Caroline Sinz reported that she had been sexually assaulted in a way that “would be considered rape” by a mob of teenagers and adults. A short clip of the attack on Sinz was posted on YouTube:

The Guardian reports:

An organisation campaigning for press freedom and the safety of journalists has been forced to withdraw a statement saying that the international news media should not send women reporters to Cairo following two cases of sexual assault in the past few days.

The French branch of Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) had said: “For the time being [media should] stop sending female journalists to cover the situation in Egypt. It is unfortunate that we have come to this but, given the violence of these assaults, there is no other solution.”

The advice triggered a wave of objections from journalists. Within hours, RSF had amended its website to urge media organisations “to make the security of their reporters and local correspondents their priority”. It added: “It is more dangerous for a woman than a man to cover the demonstrations in Tahrir Square. That is the reality and the media must face it.”

Sarah Irving’s “10 Highlights of Palestine” in the Guardian, which has a subheadline of “…10 things to see and do in the West Bank” includes Akko in the list. Akko is within Israel’s 1948 boundaries, and Israeli sovereignty is undisputed. While the section on Akko recognizes that it is in Israel, the title and subheadline are misleading.

The article also incorrectly states that “Israeli border authorities…control all routes into the West Bank and Gaza.” Israel, however, has had no control over the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza since the 2005 disengagement.

— Post by Matthew Mainen

Update: CIF Watch has more on Sarah Irving and the Bradt Guide to Palestine.

Update (Dec. 18, 2011): The Guardian corrects the mistaken assertion that Israel controls all of Gaza’s borders, but does nothing to amend the headline and subhead placing Akko in the West Bank, Palestine.

I’m proud that Israel is a tolerant place for gays. And I condemn radical anti-Israel activists who care more about promoting hatred of the Jewish homeland than they do promoting tolerance elsewhere in the Middle East, where homosexuals are persecuted, prosecuted or even executed.

So I guess, according to those same fringe activists, I’m now officially guilty of “pinkwashing.” So be it.

MEMRI has posted an article detailing various accusations appearing in the Arab media of an Israeli plot to foment unrest and undermine the stability of Egypt. The target of these fabrications is former Israeli Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin. The MEMRI article titled “Fabricated Statements Attributed to Former Israeli Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin Cited as Proof Israel Is Behind Tensions between Egypt’s Copts, Muslims; Antisemitic Cartoons Portray Jews as Being Behind Bombing of Coptic Church” describes alleged Israeli machinations including bombing a church in Egypt.

According to MEMRI the source of the fabrications is the Lebanese weekly Al-Thabat, which is associated with Hezbollah. From there the conspiracy rumor mill spread the story to other Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian and Egyptian publications and internet sites. It has also spread to Western-based Arabic internet sites.

Media-driven conspiracy mongering is endemic in the Middle East. The image of Israel as a nefarious conspirator working against the interests of the region’s peoples is strongly promoted by the Iranian regime, its agents and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Ha’aretz journalists — with Akiva Eldar frequently leading the pack — are so eager to publicize controversial stories about Israel that they often rush to press without thoroughly checking out the facts or bothering to get the full story. The mainstream media could not be happier to let the Israeli daily do its dirty work for them. After all, what can be better than using an Israeli source to dig up dirt on Israelis?

Last Friday, Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz‘s chief political correspondent, wrote an article alleging that, for the first time, Palestinian land was absorbed by Kibbutz Meirav, an Israeli kibbutz within the country’s 1967 borders. The message was clear: Palestinian land was being grabbed not only by so-called “settlers” but by Israelis within the 1949 armistice boundaries.

AP’s Diaa Hadid eagerly jumped on Eldar’s story, and enhanced it with quotations by anti-settlement activists and Palestinians with an axe to grind against their Israeli neighbors. No one from the Kibbutz was interviewed or cited, because they “weren’t immediately available for comment because of the Jewish Sabbath.” And obviously Hadid couldn’t let a juicy anti-Israel story possibly elude her by taking the time to hear both sides of the controversy or take the risk that the story might be debunked. So she ran with the unsubstantiated claims. And many mainstream media outlets ran her story.

Had she actually bothered to adhere to journalistic norms and get the other side of the story, AP’s Hadid would have been told that “the land in question has a long-term lease and actually belonged to neighboring Kibbutz Maaleh Gilboa (not Palestinians)for 25 years.” No one is asking the journalist to judge whose claim is better, just to present both sides of the picture objectively. But of course, giving weight to both sides of the controversy would weaken Hadid’s defamation of Israel.

To those who are curious about the other side’s point of view, see here.

Is it any wonder, with so many journalists more concerned about being the first to expose dirt than about doing their job, that the public is increasingly distrustful of what they read in the mainstream press?

At the LA Times blog World Now, Batsheva Sobelman writes about east Jerusalem Arab Ibrahim Husseini, a reporter for Iran’s Press TV. The post begins:

Is he a journalist providing Iranians with news, or an agent transmitting information to the enemy?

Regarding the former option (and we have no information about the latter), an example of Husseini’s work that appears on the blog post makes clear that his definition of “news” is rather flexible. (Let’s not forget, it’s Ahmadinejad’s Press TV he works for, a network whose slant the Los Angeles Times once described.)

Sobelman provides no comment about the accuracy, or lack thereof, of Husseini’s Aug. 5 broadcast about Palestinians visiting the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem on Ramadan (available also directly from Press TV), and so we will.
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Not only is Ha’aretz assigning Israel a new capital, the Israeli paper is also passing new laws in the newly-minted capital of Tel Aviv. Thus, in a page-two news story about an order to shut down the Kol Hashalom radio station, dubbed “pirate,” Nir Hasson writes:

The station provided a platform for left-wing groups that are now under attack by a new law that would curb their overseas funding.

Of course, the “law” in question has not been passed, and is nothing more than a bill. And, as made plainly clear on Ha’aretz‘s very own home page, as I type, Prime Minister Netanyahu has now indefinitely frozen the law, I mean bill. Oops.

Now you may have heard about the “State of Tel Aviv,” but Ha’aretz took matters in a slightly different direction today. Taking the lead from foreign publications like the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, the Israeli daily today relocated Israel’s capital to Tel Aviv.

In an Op-Ed, Amir Oren writes:

The bottom line shows that the U.S. is pulling away from Israel, that Washington is making a greater effort to deter Tel Aviv than Tehran.

While Israel’s Defense Ministry is located in Tel Aviv, the seat of government is still, at last check, in Jerusalem. Journalists use “Washington” as a shorthand for the U.S. government, as Oren does here, obviously because it is the American capital. (The Pentagon, the headquarters of the American Department of Defense in located in Arlington, Va., and yet Oren correctly refers to Washington, not Arlington, as shorthand for the U.S.)

The Boston Globe commendably corrected this point. Will Ha’aretz? The Globe error and correction follow:

Error (Boston Globe, 7/14/03): The refugees and many other Palestinians publicly say there can be no peace with Israel until Tel Aviv recognizes the refugees’ right to return.

Correction (7/17/03): Because of an editing error, a story on a Palestinian protest in Monday’s World pages incorrectly suggested that Tel Aviv is the capital of Israel. The capital is Jerusalem.