A recent Leadership Statement published in the Tufts University student newspaper, The Tufts Daily, has upset some Tufts students, especially several members of Students for Justice in Palestine.

The statement, sponsored by the Tufts America Israel Alliance and the Tufts Friends of Israel, declared, “As a student leader at Tufts I support the U.S.-Israel Relationship.” The statement included the names and organizations of the student-leader signatories.

Apparently, this degree of open expression was too much for some members of SJP, who, according to an article in the Daily, have protested against the ad on the basis that the inclusion of student senators as signatories violates a the Senate bylaw forbidding the Senate to advance a political position unless it is previously voted on.

This complaint comes despite the fact that the Statement features a prominent disclaimer, which specifically notes that the signatories do not represent their organizations: “The views expressed are my own and do not represent the positions of my stated leadership role or organization.”

Recently, The Daily published a letter to the editor by a Tufts student, criticizing the paper’s coverage of the controversy. The student cited the paper’s use of biased quotes by the disgruntled SJP member as a staple of any article concerning Israel, pointing to the article about the Leadership Statement as an example of the paper’s M.O.

On March 12, 2012, the Arab Affairs Committee of the newly-elected Egyptian parliament issued a report declaring Israel Egypt’s “number one enemy.”

According to the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the committee’s statement also called for Egypt to, among other things:

· “Reconsider its entire relationship and agreements with this enemy”
· Expel the Israeli ambassador and recall the Egyptian ambassador from Israel
· Support the armed Palestinian struggle against Israel (remember, the Muslim Brotherhood is the parent of Hamas)
· Re-adopt the total Arab boycott of Israel

The house then voted unanimously to support the report. The Egyptian parliament is dominated by leftist parties, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (note the Orwellian terminology), and their even more reactionary allies, the Salafi party.

Last month, U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified on Capitol Hill that the Muslim Brotherhood has “pursued social ends” and a “betterment of the political order,” and added:

The term “Muslim Brotherhood” … is an umbrella term for a variety of movements, in the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence…

Clapper later clarified that “he is well aware that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a secular organization.” Is he also aware that they are not working to “pursue social ends” or a “betterment of the political order” and have not “eschewed violence”?

For now, Egyptian policy is set by the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, however the military has said it will hand over power after presidential elections scheduled for May 23-24. This does not bode well for the future of Egypt’s relationship with its #1 enemy, Israel, or for the U.S.-brokered Camp David Peace Accord.

Have you heard much about this in the U.S. press?
Has this been on the front page of the New York Times?
Where’s the coverage?

In a Jerusalem Post story entitled “MK slams J Street for statement on Gaza,” a J Street spokesperson attempts to explain her organization’s false claim that Israel “killed over a dozen civilians” when in fact almost all the Gaza casualties were terrorists.

The story notes:

J Street subsequently revised the statement on their website by removing the reference to the “dozen Palestinian civilians.” By Tuesday afternoon, the organization had also added a brief apology saying, “Please note the original statement misstated the number of civilian casualties. We regret the error.”

On Tuesday night, a spokeswoman for J Street told The Jerusalem Post that the organization regrets the error and had misreported the number of civilian casualties “based on an unfounded report.”

Mistakes happen. But the spokesperson apparently did not explain what “unfounded report” J Street president Jeremy Ben Ami deemed more reliable than Israeli assessments and reports from all the major news outlets.

Irish artist and film-maker Nicky Larkin – who in the past frequently assailed Israel – now sees shades of grey regarding the Arab-Israeli Conflict.

In his remarkable article, Larkin describes his change of heart and his interview with a former Palestinian government member, “the Palestinian mantra was one of ‘non-violent resistance'”.

Larkin continues:

Yet when I interviewed Hind Khoury, a former Palestinian government member, she sat forward angrily in her chair as she refused to condemn the actions of the suicide bombers. She was all aggression.

Read the article here.

Bassam Eid, the founder of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, has become an outspoken critic of the Palestinian Authority. In an article appearing in the South African Jewish Report (March 9-16, 2012) he bluntly states, “There are no Palestinian leaders capable of conducting peace talks.”

The article describes Eid as “a former anti-Israel activist turned critic of the violation of Palestinian human rights by his own leaders.” He is a sharp critic of “the Palestinian Solidarity Committee around the world, for fomenting a hatred between Palestinians and Jews that does not exist in Israel or in the territories.”

The article on Eid serves as a reminder that both Jewish and Arab communities in Israel and the Palestinian Authority territories are victimized by self-serving international activists.

Note: The link to the edition of the South African Jewish Report appears to be disabled. Please contact the editor of the South African Jewish Report directly to let him know that you would like a copy of the article and that he should fix the link.

A second more detailed piece ran in an article published by the Voice of the Cape.

AFP: Nayef Qarmut likely died while carrying explosives

Despite the fact that the AFP agrees with the Israeli army that an Israeli airstrike did not kill 15-year-old Nayef Qarmut in northern Gaza yesterday, the International Herald Tribune blames his death on Israel without any qualification.

The International Herald Tribune, published by the New York Times, nevertheless reports that Qarmut was killed in an Israeli airstrike. The Tribune‘s problematic coverage is particularly inexplicable given the Times‘ longer version of the very same story by Isabel Kershner details the AFP’s confirmation of Israel’s denial.

Thus, the Tribune‘s Kershner article reports today: “Israeli airstrikes killed five Palestinians on Monday, bringing the overall toll to 23, with 3 out of the 5 killed on Monday civilians.”

Yet, the longer Times version of the very same piece details:

More than 150 rockets have fallen in Israeli territory since Friday, and Gaza officials said at least six Palestinians died on Monday, bringing the overall toll to 24. Though most of those killed have been militants, at least two of those who died in airstrikes on Monday were civilians.

A Gaza medical official and Gaza human rights groups said that one of the victims, Nayif Shaaban Qarmout, 14, was killed in an airstrike and that five other youths were wounded as they walked to school, but the Israeli military denied having carried out any attacks at that hour. An Agence France-Presse reporter at the scene confirmed that there was no sign of an airstrike.

Later, a missile killed Muhammad al-Hassumi, 65, and his daughter Fayza, 30, as they put out a fire on their land.

Israel disputes the Palestinian claim that Nayif Qarmout was killed by an Israeli airstrike, and an AFP reporter on the scene confirms Israel’s claim, so why does the Tribune count him without question or qualification among those civilians killed by Israel?

March 13, 2012 Update: Dr. Schirrmacher has posted a response in the comments below stating his comments have either been misheard or misrepresented. In response, Snapshots respectfully asks the organizers of Christ at the Checkpoint to post the video from Dr. Schirrmacher’s presentation on its website to clear up the confusion. If a correction is in order, one will be made. Alternatively, if Dr. Shirrmacher can make his recording available, that will help clear up the confusion as well.

One of the oddest moments of the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference that took place in Bethlehem last week came during a brief welcome offered by Dr. Thomas Schirrmacher from the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA).

Schirrmacher (pictured above), who serves as the executive chair of the Theological Commission of the WEA, appeared at the podium in a shirt and tie, but with no formal jacket on the opening night of the conference on Monday, March 5, 2012.

The reason he had no formal jacket, Shirrmacher explained, was that he had spent the day digging through a mound of dirt that had been excavated during construction near the Al Aqsa Mosque.

Because of this excursion, during which he got dirt on his shirt and trousers, he had no time to go back to the hotel to get his jacket before addressing the crowd.

Shirrmacher was a bit chagrined about his appearance, but he was clearly animated by the amateur archeological dig he was able to participate in. Schirrmacher was right to be animated, because in other instances, the Waqf has simply discarded the dirt from the Temple Mount, making a systematic investigation of the area’s archeology impossible.

So what did he find? Evidence of a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount? That’s not how he described it, but apparently so.

As he and his Muslim hosts dug through the dirt near the Al Aqsa Mosque, they found artifacts “from the beginning of monotheism,” Schirrmacher reported.
(more…)

NPR’s syndicated program, On Point, with Tom Ashbrook continues its tradition of tolerating at least one egregious anti-Israel distortion per Middle East segment (examples — here, here, here, here, here and here). The panel for the March 6, 2012 show (click here to listen) “Weighing The Iranian Threat” included David Sanger (chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times), Michael Makovsky (Bipartisan Policy Center) and Graham Allison (Professor of Government at Harvard University).

The inflammatory charge of the day was called in about half-way through the broadcast:

Iran is their [Israel’s] problem because they [Israel] are committing ethnic cleansing in the occupied territories and Iran will not stand for that and I don’t think we should either.

It elicited only a mild response by Ashbrook:

I appreciate your call – and your calling Israel’s relation – or handling of Palestinians as ethnic cleansing – I’m sure that many in Israel would disagree with that.

But the charge was an outright falsehood that remained uncorrected. In fact, the Muslim Arab population of Jerusalem has been growing faster than the Jewish population for decades. According to the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, Jerusalem was 25.8 percent Arab in 1967. By 2009, the city’s Arab population increased to 35.7 percent.

As for Christian Arabs, A Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) report, indicates that the central cause of the flight of Christians from Arab dominated areas is a growing Islamic fundamentalism, including Muslim intimidation of Christian Arabs. This includes assaults by Muslim men upon Christian women, demands for “protection” money and illegitimate land seizures. The Christian population of Israel is, in fact, on the increase (in absolute numbers).

Comments can be submitted to Ashbrook and On Point via: e-mail to [email protected], Twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/OnPointRadio, Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/OnPointRadio, phone 617-353-0909,
mail: On Point Radio, 890 Commonwealth Avenue, 3rd Floor, Boston, MA 02215.

The AFP reports:

The Israeli army on Monday denied it had carried out an air strike on northern Gaza which killed a teenager, with an AFP correspondent confirming there was no sign of an air raid.

Fifteen-year-old Nayef Qarmut was killed and six other teenagers injured as they were on their way to school near the northern town of Beit Lahiya, with a spokesman for the Palestinian medical services blaming an Israeli drone strike.

“A drone strike hit a group of students who were walking by empty land on their way to school,” said spokesman Adham Abu Selmiya, describing an incident which occurred at around 9:30am (0730 GMT).

But the Israeli military, after looking into the claim, denied it had conducted any air strikes in northern Gaza then, saying the last time it had struck the area was in the early hours of Monday.

“From an initial check, there were no air strikes in the northern Gaza Strip since the early hours of the morning,” a military spokesman told AFP.

According to an AFP correspondent at the scene, there were no signs of any impact on the ground which could have been caused by a missile, with the most likely cause of his death being some kind of explosive device he was carrying.

Will media outlets that dutifully reported the false charge against Israel follow up with Israel’s denial, backed by the AFP fact-checking?

(Hat tip: Elder of Ziyon)

President Obama’s address last week to AIPAC is available online, as is a word for word transcript, but still, the New York Times, misreported its contents. Helene Cooper reported March 4:

Mr. Obama, who has often lamented the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003, made reference to European and American intelligence assessments that have found no evidence that Iran has decided to pursue a nuclear weapon.

A March 6 page-one story by Mark Landler in the International Herald Tribune made the same claim (in virtually the same words). And, yet, you can watch or read the speech until Ahmadinejad is a Zionist and still you will not find a single reference to European or American intelligence assessments that have found no evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear weapon.

March 13 Update: The New York Times commendably corrects.