During his visit to Israel, Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird left no doubt about his government’s friendship with Israel. Repudiating anti-Israel sentiment popular in Western diplomatic circles, Baird emphasized that it is important “to stand for what is principled and just, regardless of whether it is popular, convenient or expedient.”

According to the Jerusalem Post, Baird explained,

Joining the anti-Israel sentiment would be the “easy thing to do” and it would be much simpler to just “pretend that engaging in anti- Israeli rhetoric is being somehow even-handed” … But Canada would not “go along to get along,” and would not remain silent while “the Jewish state is attacked for defending its territory or people.”

Baird’s stance mirrors the views of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has instructed his government to stand with the Jewish state when it came under assault in the United Nations, even while other Western states equivocated.

Previous Canadian governments have not been as friendly or as outspoken in support of Israel. The strong principled stance by the current Canadian government is all the more striking because Harper’s and Baird’s Conservative Party has not traditionally been the beneficiary of Canadian Jewish political support, although that is changing.

It will be interesting to see how much coverage Baird’s statement receives in the Canadian, British or the American media that are often quick to cover criticism of Israel by senior Western officials.

A CAMERA Op-Ed discusses an award granted by Carnegie Mellon University to a bigoted essay that describes Judaism as a religion that encourages elitism and supremacy, and Israel as engaged in genocide. The essay also argues that being oblivious to the outside world is part of “the whole essence of” the Jewish religion.

An excerpt from CAMERA’s Op-Ed, which was distributed by JNS and published in The Jewish Advocate, follows:

Earlier this month, a young Jewish boy won the Martin Luther King, Jr. Writing Award for best high school prose. The contest, held by Carnegie Mellon University and sponsored by the school’s Office of the President, is said to “celebrate excellence in creative writing and the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”

Far from celebrating Dr. King’s spirit, though, the winning essay profaned his legacy by promoting the very bigotry he fought so hard to eliminate.

The writer announced that Jews consider themselves better and smarter than everyone else. “I once belonged to a wonderful religion,” the piece begins. “I belonged to a religion that allows those of us who believe in it to feel that we are the greatest people in the world—and feel sorry for ourselves at the same time. Once, I thought that I truly belonged in this world of security, self-pity, self-proclaimed intelligence, and perfect moral aesthetic.” But he would no longer remain a part of such an ill-willed “Self-Chosen People.” …

It should go without saying that such noxious rhetoric, which would blend in seamlessly on a white nationalist hate site, will fuel anti-Semitic views in readers who trust the piece deserves its accolade. That such an essay would be submitted for a contest named after Martin Luther King, and, more disturbingly, that a professor would select it as an award-winning entry, underscores how dramatically Dr. King’s legacy, 44 years after his death, is being warped.

You can read the whole thing here.

Carnegie Mellon, by the way, isn’t the only party guilty of endorsing anti-Semitic writings. An editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called the anti-Jewish screed a “searingly honest” piece.

Ha’aretz reports today:

The pro-Palestinian hackers that took responsibility for bringing down Haaretz’s Hebrew website posted an apology on their Twitter account on Friday.

“@haaretzprint we are sorry , we didn’t know that haaretz is a good newspaper,we sorry about this , and be sure no one will attack u again,” @AnonPS posted.

@AnonPS has said all that needs to be said on this point.

Hat tip for image to Backspin

The Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) has issued a report about a mob attack on Copts in the village of Kobry-el-Sharbat (el-Ameriya), Alexandria. Three people were injured. The property damage appears to be extensive. AINA reports:

The violence started after a rumor was spread that a Coptic man had an allegedly intimate photo of a Muslim woman on his mobile phone. The Coptic man, Mourad Samy Guirgis, surrendered to the police this morning morning for his protection.

According to eyewitnesses, the perpetrators were bearded men in white gowns. “They were Salafists, and some of were from the Muslim Brotherhood,” according to one witness. It was reported that terrorized women and children who lost their homes were in the streets without any place to go.

Further down in the story, AINA quotes a Coptic priest who states the attack was not perpetrated by “Islamists” but by ordinary Muslims. The priest could not explain “why people who have lived together amicably for years could commit such violence.” His answer: “Maybe because of lack of security, they think that they can do as they please.”

On January 21, 2012, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) hosted a conference “The Persecuted Church: Christian Believers in Peril in the Middle East.” At this conference, Raymond Ibrahim, author of The Al Qaeda Reader (Doubleday 2007), spoke about the history of forced conversions in the Middle East and Islamic doctrines that contribute to violence against Christians and other minorities in the region. Here is a portion of his talk which addresses the history of forced conversions under Islam in the Middle East.

The New York Times website and the International Herald Tribune are reporting that the Middle East “is on the cusp of creating its own Silicon Valley experience.”

The story, “Entrepreneurial Spirit Awaits Its Moment in the Middle East” by Dania Saadi, states that “International investor interest in start-ups in the Middle East came to the fore in 2009 when Yahoo spent $164 million to buy Maktoob.com, an Arabic content portal based in Jordan.”

This is exciting news. Maybe one day the Middle East will resemble the geographic region where Israel can be found.

CAMERA’s Christian Media Analyst Dexter Van Zile’s article “Christianity in the Middle East Must Be Safeguarded”, published in The Algemeiner, discusses the continued violence against Christians in the Middle East and CAMERA’s recent conference The Persecuted church: Christian Believers in Peril in the Middle East .

The message coming from the conference was a simple one: “It’s time for journalists, human rights activists and church leaders in the U.S. to confront the prospect of Christianity’s destruction in the region of its birth.”

Read the article here.

In a page two article this week, Ha’aretz whitewashes two Israeli personalities who have promoted BDS efforts, turning them into victims of an alleged “McCarthyist” campaign while ignoring their own calls to boycott Israel. Talila Nesher reports:

Three self-proclaimed watchdog organizations have labeled about 10 percent of Israeli academics as anti-Zionist, according to a recent study by a group of academics, artists and university students who aim to counter the categorizations. The organizations, which are open about their activities, are Im Tirtzu, IsraCampus and Israel Academia Monitor.

The group’s survey came up with the names of more than 1,000 Israelis, 800 of whom are academics but also including authors, journalists, public intellectuals, and past and present cabinet ministers, that appear on a list maintained by the trio of organizations.

Members of the group include political scientist Prof. Neve Gordon of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Israeli Film Directors Guild chairman Rani Blair; and the chairman of the Israeli Documentary Filmmakers Forum, Uri Rosenwaks. They recently created the Blacklist website (blacklist.co.il), which invites visitors to check whether they themselves appear on the lists.

“There is a real concern for the future of Israeli democracy and about McCarthyism against anyone who criticizes the government’s policies in the occupied territories or social aspects,” Gordon said. “Every week new names appear on these sites, and we wanted to examine the extent of the phenomenon. The people who will be hurt most are junior faculty members who are trying for university positions and are wary of being ‘marked out,'” Gordon said. . . .

The article is accompanied by a screen grab from Gordon’s “blacklist” site which says (in Hebrew): “Did you demand social justice? Join the blacklist today.”

But Gordon and Blair have not been called “anti-Zionist” because they fought for social justice or “criticize[d] the government’s policies in the occupied territories.” Rather, the “anti-Israel” label linked to Gordon and Blair is more likely related to the fact that both called for an international boycott of Israel, including academia and culture.

Ha’aretz‘s cover up the two’s BDS activities is itself justification for watchdog groups which call attention to extremists’ statements and actions.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter misrepresented a key Middle East issue yet again, this time in a CNN appearance. He has done this often in the past regarding Israel (examples – here and here). This time the ex-President erroneously blamed Israel for the flight of Palestinian Arab Christians from “Palestine.”

Carter told CNN interviewer Piers Morgan on Jan. 18. 2012:

When I first went to Israel, about 15 percent of the Palestinians were Christians and they were my friends and they were my soul mates in the worship of the same god in the same way. Now they’ve almost been removed from Palestine because of some pressures and encouragement from the Israelis.

Carter, unchallenged by Morgan, offers no substantiation for this allegation. But in blaming Israel for the flight of Palestinian Arab Christians, he is wrong again about Israel and the Middle East.

A Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) report, Christians Flee Growing Islamic Fundamentalism in the Holy Land, documents the central cause of the flight. Muslim intimidation of Christian Arabs includes assaults by Muslim men upon Christian women, demands for “protection” money and illegitimate land seizures.

Carter’s false claim is also contradicted by the facts about Israel’s growing Christian population (in absolute numbers).

Morgan could have shed light on Carter’s persistent Israel-bashing by asking him about his connections to Arab oil money. But Carter, like so many other severe critics of Israel, once again sailed through with a free pass from the mainstream media.

CAMERA refutes the contention by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s ombudsman, seconded by a former National Public Radio staffer now reviewing the network’s Arab-Israeli coverage, that the committee is not really interested in upholding journalistic standards. CAMERA’s reply to Ombudsman Joel Kaplan’s Web posting, headlined “Candid CAMERA,” can be found here on the CPB Web site, www.cpb.org.

Last October, CAMERA wrote to CPB Chair Bruce Ramer and his colleagues on the corporation board. It pointed out that their decisions to consolidate the ombudsman’s office and hire Kaplan, associate dean of the graduate program at Newhouse School of Communications Syracuse University, did not satisfy the CPB Inspector-General’s 2005 recommendation to conduct regular reviews of national programming. The reviews are necessary to ensure that CPB-funded shows on NPR and television’s Public Broadcasting Service meet the statutory requirement of “strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature.”

Ramer referred CAMERA’s letter, which had been copied to interested members of Congress, to Kaplan. The ombudsman courteously posted CAMERA’s reply.

It must be noted that CPB, which receives approximately $450 million annually from Congress, much of which eventually ends up supporting NPR and PBS, has a) never found a single program segment or program to have violated the objectivity and balance standards in nearly 45 years of public broadcasting — a statistical, not to mention journalistic impossibility and b) despite the ombudsman’s function as an address for complaints and as an independent advisor, still has no mechanism to conduct regular objectivity and balance reviews of national programming.