In the best-selling “Harry Potter” novels intimidated magicians refer to the central villain, Voldemort, as “He Who Must Not Be Named.” Tribune Newspapers—including The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and Baltimore Sun—seemed equally intimidated in coverage of French riots last summer. They did not print journalism’s first “w”.

Without who, what, when, where, why and how journalism is less than gossip. Yet a Tribune Newspapers article headlined “French president pledges public security focus after riots” on The Los Angeles Times Web site August 14, linked from The Chicago Tribune site and appearing in the August 15 print edition of The Baltimore Sun under the head “French president vows crackdown after rioting” never really said who shot at police.

More than a dozen police were injured and several buildings damaged or destroyed, The Los Angeles Times’ Kim Willsher reported from Paris.

“French police said rioting youths opened fire on them amid violent clashes … on the outskirts of Amiens, which is troubled by high rates of unemployment and crime.” The disturbance, “apparently sparked by police spot checks on residents, followed outbreaks of violence last week in the southern city of Toulouse, when about 150 police and riot squad officers were sent to suburban housing estates [public housing projects] after reports of fighting between gangs of youths and bursts of gunfire.”

In Amiens, cars were stolen from their occupants and police and fire personnel obstructed “by barricades of burning cars and garbage cans ….”

Readers were told that “disaffected youth” live in “gritty suburbs” called banlieue. The banlieue “are often home to families with immigrant roots, where the number of failing schools and jobless young is especially high.”

“Disaffected youths,” “rioting youths” and “gangs of youths.” But no specific identification. “Families with immigrant backgrounds.” Immigrants from where? This too apparently must not be mentioned.

However, a reference to “more widespread rioting in 2005” in projects near Paris and to neighborhoods that “have become almost no-go areas for police” might tip off readers with decent memories. The 2005 rioters reportedly were mostly young Muslim men whose families had emigrated from Arab countries, former French possessions, in North Africa.

Another hushed clue was the mention of previous violence in Toulouse. Again, unassisted by Tribune papers, readers might recall that in March a French Muslim of Algerian descent with reported jihadist and anti-Israel motives murdered three children and a teacher at a Jewish school and, separately, two French soldiers.

The Tribune dispatch said that according to Interior Minister Maneul Valls, Amiens and 14 other “security priority zones” had been targeted for increased patrols because “acts of incivility were structurally deep-rooted” and the zones “had become havens for the ‘black market economy, the trafficking of drugs and arms’ as well as violence, thefts and gangs.”

It’s one thing for a political appointee in a country with difficulty absorbing large numbers of Muslim immigrants (an estimated five million or more, eight to nine percent of France’s 65 million people) to talk about “structurally deep-rooted acts of incivility.” It’s another for major news media to refuse—while referring to socio-economic causes—to simply identify who did what to whom.

The New York Times continues to reveal its unreliability in reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, omitting crucial information in its coverage of the verdict in the civil case of activist Rachel Corrie’s death.

The Times piece, “Court Rules Israel is Not at Fault in the 2003 Death of an American Activist” on Aug. 29, 2012 by correspondents Jodi Rudoren and Danielle Ziri spans six columns, yet mentions just once in passing that Corrie had “joined the International Solidarity Movement in January 2003,” without providing any further information on the organization’s politics, goals and activities.

According to NGO Monitor, a group that monitors non-governmental organizations active in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM)

encourages activists to take “direct action” that often places them in danger and in direct confrontations with Israeli Defense Forces during military operations. An article in Mother Jones described ISM as, “Embracing Palestinian militants, even suicide bombers, as freedom fighters,” and “entering military zones to interfere with the operations of Israeli soldiers.”

NGO Monitor quotes statements made by ISM leaders revealing their ruthlessness. For example,

in response to Corrie’s death, ISM co-founder Thom Saffold said, “It’s possible they [the protesters] were not as disciplined as we would have liked. But we’re like a peace army. Generals send young men and women off to operations, and some die.”

ISM bills itself as a “a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles.” But according to NGO monitor,

in a 2002 article, ISM co-founders Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf wrote, “The Palestinian resistance must take on a variety of characteristics, both non-violent and violent…In actuality, nonviolence is not enough…Yes, people will get killed and injured,” but these deaths are “no less noble than carrying out a suicide operation. And we are certain that if these men were killed during such an action, they would be considered shaheed Allah.”

Rudoren and Ziri went into detail describing Corrie’s protest activities and quoted her lawyer that “It’s a black day for activists of human rights and people who believe in values of dignity.” But they couldn’t find any space among the hundreds of words to inform readers of what the ISM actually stands for and that it intentionally places young impressionable Westerners like Rachel Corrie in harm’s way, sacrificing their lives to serve a radical agenda.

National Public Radio’s widely syndicated program, On Point, hosted by Tom Ashbrook, continues its tradition of tolerating egregious anti-Israel distortions in Middle East segments. (examples –– here, here, here, here, here and here).

The Aug. 20, 2012 discussion, “October Surprise?,” was balanced and free of anti-Israel propaganda until about midway through the discussion, when Ashbrook accepted, with unwarranted respect, a caller’s anti-Israel rant. The three guest panelists, who should have known better, ignored the remarks as if they heard nothing untoward. The panel consisted of David Rothkopf (CEO of an international advisory firm, author of a recent Foreign Policy magazine article, “The Drums of August: Israel is not bluffing.”); R. Nicholas Burns (former under secretary of state for political affairs and ambassador to NATO); Roger Cohen (New York Times columnist whose most recent commentary prior to the program was headlined: “Israel’s Iran Itch.”).

The wording of Ashbrook’s introduction, “Talk again of an Israeli strike against Iran, the U.S. pulled in quick and a big October surprise in campaign season. We’ll ask what’s bluster and what’s real,” obviously was intended to arouse the interest and concern of listeners as to the impact upon America of Israel’s potential actions to thwart Iran’s nuclear weapons program. While reiterating this theme throughout the discussion, Ashbrook occasionally conceded that a nuclear-armed Iran might pose an existential threat to Israel.

The inflammatory, irrational charge of the day, only mildly questioned by Ashbrook, occurred at about 22 Minutes (per the audio player – see below), and was made by “Richard from Groton, Connecticut”:

“The mere fact that you could be having a serious conversation about Israel taking an action knowing that it would have an affect on our presidential election is just remarkable. It just goes to show how much Israel does or at least leaves the impression that they can control American foreign policy. I think it’s time for us to stand up and say, ‘No. We are a country, we are sovereign, they can’t control us.’ If they do something like this and create that situation where they are effectively holding the American election hostage – that we are going to say, ‘forget it – you are no friend to us.’”
(more…)

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a release on August 9, 2012, “Freshwater from the sun,” detailing a new development in nanotechnology paired with the use of solar energy that could help solve water shortages in under-developed and under-resourced regions including Africa. The research was undertaken at the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research at Ben Gurion University of the Negev and central Arava R&D.

Ynet News covered the subject as did The Algemeiner, writing:

The new innovation uses solar energy panels to power the pumps of a desalination unit that generates clean water for crops. More importantly, the technology utilizes unique nanofiltration membranes that enable farmers to decide which minerals should be retained from the water to feed various types of crops, a method which requires much less energy.

According to experts, water is going to be an increasingly scarce resource. Bloomberg quotes Dow Chemical Chief Executive Officer Andrew Liveris saying “Water right now is a strain on this planet more than carbon. We mismanage water terribly. It’s going to be a big issue.”

Even so, few in the media have seen fit to report on Israel’s breakthrough technology. A Google News search for “Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research” turned up only five mentions — and none of them in a mainstream media outlet.

Though criticism of Israel is ubiquitous in the media, including on the front pages of America’s leading newspapers, when it comes to good news about Israel… Where’s the coverage?

On Tuesday, August 28, 2012, The New York Times ran an editorial, “Iran’s Nuclear Quest,” that begins, “Iran appears to have installed a few hundred more centrifuges at its deep underground site known as Fordow, thus enhancing its ability to produce uranium enriched to 20 percent, a purity that can be converted relatively quickly to bomb-grade fuel.”

Though noting, “Tehran’s nuclear ambitions are clearly dangerous to Israel and the region,” editors quote one official as saying Iran’s nuclear enrichment, in violation of numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions, is “not a game-changer.”

So who is singled out for the lion’s share of scorn from The Times? You guessed it — Israel:

…The [American] administration argues that Iran is not on the verge of producing a weapon and that the United Nations inspectors will provide warning before it gets to that point.

Washington’s caution is well-placed, especially when set against the overheated statements of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, that time is running out. He has never warmed to the idea of negotiations between Iran and the United States and other major powers. The speculation now is that he is escalating his warnings before the United States election in a cynical gambit to get President Obama’s agreement to act against Iran soon.

The most Times editors have to say about Iran’s activities is that the fruitlessness of sanctions and negotiations is “disappointing.”

Contrast this with an Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal on the same day, “Nuclear-Weapon States Aren’t Created Equal,” written by Warren Kozak. Kozak has this to say about Iran’s nuclear ambitions:

So as the debate continues this August on how to contain an Iran run by a totalitarian theocracy, the world also notes that the regime in Tehran doesn’t just threaten its opponents but has repeatedly acted on those threats — taking over embassies (1979-81), killing hundreds of American Marines in Lebanon (1983) and Jews in Argentina (1992 and 1994), killing even more Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan (2003 to the present), and killing its own citizens who dared to protest a fraudulent presidential election (2009).

Iran’s response to sanctions? It turns up the speed of its nuclear accelerators, test-fires its rockets and raises the volume of its threats.

[…]

People rightly grow anxious when the irrational mind with greater and greater global ambitions takes control of this deadly weaponry. And this anxiety increases further when those irrational minds have proven time and again their determination to create havoc.

And, about Israel, he writes:

In spite of a world-wide chorus of detractors accusing Israel of everything from apartheid to genocide, the sound mind understands that this nation, the only stable democracy in the Middle East, is also one its few rational actors.

Israel has never threatened the existence of its neighbors or threatened to wipe another country off the map. It has never slaughtered its own population. It has never held large “Death to (fill in the country) rallies” in its public squares. In fact, Israel’s public demonstrations have consisted of peace rallies, musical concerts, gay-pride rallies and public mourning of its victims of terror.

As CAMERA has noted in the past:

Despite the unbalanced editorials, many people continue to subscribe to The New York Times — sometimes because of the popular crossword puzzles! For anyone in this category, there are New York Times crossword puzzle books. Buy one of those.

In his farewell New York Times column (Sunday Review section, Aug. 26), Public Editor Arthur Brisbane admitted to the open secret of The Times’ “progressivism” that makes news developments look “more like causes than news subjects”:

Across the paper’s many departments, though, so many share a kind of political and cultural progressivism — for lack of a better term — that this world view virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times.

Although Brisbane doesn’t mention the newspaper’s reporting on Israel, it’s clear that the prevailing bias has colored Times’ coverage of Israel as has been repeatedly reported by CAMERA.

Hopefully, Brisbane’s replacement will also have the courage of his convictions to write the truth and editors will listen and promote objective coverage.

The Brisbane column is online.

In the early hours of Sunday, August 26th, Michigan State University Sophomore Zachary Tennen, 19, was beaten unconscious at a party, ClickOnItDetroit reports.

According to a piece in MSU’s The State News, Zach was approached by two college-aged men, who asked him if he was Jewish. When Zach answered their question in the affirmative, the men attacked him. Zach released a statement to the East Lansing Police Department in which he described the severity of the attack: When he awoke from his beating, his jaw was broken and his lips had been stapled shut.

Recounting the incident to Franklin, Michigan’s Local 4 reporter Roger Weber, Zack explained that his attackers “were making Nazi and Hitler symbols and they said they were part of the KKK.”

The Algemeiner reports that the men pointedly delivered the traditional Nazi salute and said “Heil Hitler” before launching their attack.

Almost more disturbing than the attack itself is Zach’s claim that approximately 20 other college-aged party-goers stood by and watched the scene unfold without interfering or contacting law enforcement. After regaining consciousness, Zach took a cab to the hospital, where he was treated for his injuries, and filed a police report.

Outraged, Zach and his parents plan to involve the Anti-Defamation League and the FBI in the case, and have been working with the university.

The Michigan State University’s Office of Student Affairs and Services has released a statement, saying:

Michigan State University’s Student Affairs and Services office has reached out to the family of the student assaulted in East Lansing to provide the academic and other support the student needs. MSU will work with the student and his professors to ensure he can fulfill his academic requirements, as we would with any student in need. As the incident occurred off campus in East Lansing, all questions about the police investigation need to go the East Lansing Police Department.

No one has yet been charged with a crime.

UPDATE: On August 28th, Cindy Hughey, Executive Director of MSU Hillel, sent an e-mail update to Hillel’s listserv:

Dear Friends of MSU Hillel,

As you are all aware, an incident occurred last Saturday night regarding one of our Jewish students being assaulted at a house party off campus. Reports and stories have been flying around and we have been trying our best to respond to the situation in an appropriate and responsible manner. At this point in time, the East Lansing Police do not believe that this terrible incident was in fact a hate crime. Witnesses have identified a suspect, who is not an MSU student and lives in the Detroit area. This suspect is being sought by the police for questioning. The FBI and ADL has also been involved. The story that the students mouth was stapled shut has been confirmed untrue by Sparrow Hospital.

There are many conflicting stories and we are trying our best to support Zach, our students and community during this difficult time. I believe the East Lansing Police Department and the MSU Administration has been very responsive to Zach and his family and I could not be more pleased. We hope to hear more about the investigation in the next few days.

Thank you for your continued support of Hillel and our Jewish community at The Michigan State University.”

Following an Israeli court ruling that the 2003 death of activist Rachel Corrie, who was crushed by a bulldozer, was accidental, Brendan O’Neill analyses the troubling mindset of comfortable Westerners who travel to Gaza and the West Bank to interfere with Israeli military operations. In The secular beatification of Rachel Corrie sums up everything that is wrong with modern solidarity with Palestine O’Neill observes that “Palestinian solidarity has become creepily anthropological.”

Decked out in Arafat-style keffiyehs (a PC form of blacking up), and possessed of a conviction that it falls to white-skinned, iPhone-armed westerners to expose Israel’s “genocidal” crimes to the world media, solidarity activists who travel to Palestinian territories are becoming more and more like secular versions of the crusaders of old. They are effectively going to Palestine to find themselves, to try to give meaning to their potentially shallow lives through imagining that they can “save” an entire people and halt a “genocide” by standing in front of a tank or writing some blog posts about how tragic are the lives of cute Palestinian children. It is a peculiar form of solidarity that reduces an entire foreign people to the level of child-like victims who need the likes of St Rachel to save them.

On August 20, 2012, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman wrote a letter to officials of the Quartet of Mideast mediators — the U.S., the U.N., the EU and Russia. This was widely covered by the media.

The independent Palestinian Ma’an News Agency reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “rebuked” Lieberman and “swiftly distanced himself from Lieberman’s comments.”

This was corroborated by an AP story which appeared in The Washington Post saying Netanyahu “sought to quickly disassociate himself from the letter.” That article also noted:

Abbas’ spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdeneh, rejected Lieberman’s statement, calling it an “incitement to violence” that “doesn’t contribute in any way to an atmosphere of peace.” He urged Israel and the international community to condemn the letter.

In addition, according to Ma’an:

Senior PLO official Hanan Ashrawi on Wednesday said the Israeli government was waging a campaign of “distortion, hatred and incitement” which created “a culture of impunity, racism and exclusivity.”

Incitement, distortion, hatred, racism, violence. That letter must have been horrible. Terrible. Outrageous. Let’s see… After four pages that outline steps Israel has taken to promote peace, Lieberman gets to the most controversial part of the letter:

In recent years, we have seen that Mr. Abbas speaks with a moderate and pleasant voice to the international community, but in fact, has been personally acting to undermine attempts to renew the peace process, despite Israeli gestures and confidence building measures. He has continued in damaging behavior towards Israel, including extreme cases of encouraging a culture of hatred, praising terrorists, encouraging sanctions and boycotts, and calling into question the legitimacy of the existence of the state, as can be seen for example in his last speech at the General Assembly of the U.N. In my view, in his deeds and his behavior, Mr. Abbas does not represent the general Palestinian interest (for example, he has repeatedly postponed the democratic process of elections in the PA), nor even the interest of his constituents in the West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority is a despotic government riddled with corruption. This pattern of behavior has led to criticism even within his own constituency. Due to Abbas’ weak standing, and his policy of not renewing the negotiations, which is an obstacle to peace, the time has come to consider a creative solution, to think “outside the box,” in order to strengthen the Palestinian leadership. This is crucial, so that the Israeli gestures to strengthen the economy, stability and strength of the PA will not be turned into a boomerang against Israel.

Despite Mr. Abbas’ delays, general elections in the PA should be held, and a new, legitimate, hopefully realistic Palestinian leadership should be elected. The PA elections were due to be held in 2010 and have since been postponed several times. As of today, no new date has been set for elections.

Is this letter unnecessary, ill-advised meddling? Probably so. Is it helpful? Probably not. But, does it create “a culture of impunity, racism and exclusivity”? Is it an “incitement to violence”?

By contrast, the PA frequently honors terrorists. Israel National News reported:

The Palestinian Authority, which has said it honors its Oslo Accords commitment to stamp out terror and incitement, is building a mausoleum in Ramallah to honor 11 terrorists who killed eight civilian hostages and three IDF soldiers in the 1975 attack on Tel Aviv’s Savoy Hotel. Israel recently transferred their bodies to the PA as a “good will” measure.

[…]

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas told Washington officials earlier this year that the PA has ceased incitement and does not encourage terror, despite hundreds of documents that have exposed an escalation in incitement and terror in the school system and in official PA events.

The terrorists in the Savoy Hotel attack reached a Tel Aviv beach by boat from Lebanon and took eight hostages in the hotel before soldiers carried out a counterterrorist operation the following morning, killing seven of the terrorists.

As a “good will measure” to bolster the standing of Abbas and encourage cooperation with Israel, the Israeli government two months ago transferred the bodies of 91 terrorists, including the Savoy Hotel terrorist cell, to the Palestinian Authority. In return, the PA now is honoring them.

Palestinian Media Watch regularly documents instances where Palestinian leadership honors terrorists. Recently:

– Abbas’ party, Fatah, recently held a youth soccer tournament named after three terrorists who murdered a 45-year-old father of seven in a drive by shooting in 2009.

– Official Palestinian television broadcast a performance by the Dalal Mughrabi dance group, named after the terrorist who led a bus-hijacking in 1978 that killed 37 civilians, including 12 children.

– A PA summer camp for children divided its campers into three groups named after the terrorists Dalal Mughrabi, Salah Khalaf (who planned many terror attacks including the murders of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics) and Abu Ali Mustafa (who planned numerous terror attacks as part of the “Intifada”).

Palestinian Media Watch has further documented numerous instances of PA dehumanization and vilification of Jews and Israelis:

Using media, education, and cultural structures that it controls, the PA has actively promoted religious hatred, demonization, conspiracy libels, etc. These are packaged to present Israelis and Jews as endangering Palestinians, Arabs, and all humanity. This ongoing campaign has so successfully instilled hatred that fighting, murder and even suicide terror against Israelis and Jews are seen by the majority of Palestinians as justified self-defense and as Allah’s will.

On July 23, PMW posted an article about a Palestinian Authority TV show where the host asked an artist to discuss one of his paintings “dealing with the Palestinian nation’s problems such as the Gaza massacres.” The painting shows an ogre impaling children on his bayonet and eating them. Two baby ogres are also shown eating children. The three monsters wear yarmulkes with Stars of David.

There are many similar examples. Are they part of a campaign of “distortion, hatred and incitement”? Do they create “a culture of impunity, racism and exclusivity”? Is this an “incitement to violence”? And if so… Where’s the coverage?

Professor Efraim Karsh

In a powerful essay in the July 2012 edition of Israel Affairs, Professor Efraim Karsh lays out the political landscape in which Israel today finds itself. The Jewish nation-state was reconstituted with the aim of putting the past behind, with all its irrational bigotries directed at the individual Jew, of creating normal inter-national relationships. But the world’s “millenarian obsession” with the Jews has, in Karsh’s unflinching review, continued. That obsession is reflected on the one hand in grossly unwarranted U.N. scrutiny and censure of Israel, in irrational linkages of Israel to Nazis and apartheid racism, and on the other in global indifference to the perpetrators of slaughter in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

He offers no answers to the onslaught, but his essay stands as a reminder that myopic media focus on everything Israel does and says — as well as media bias and falsification of the realities — are an enormous part of the problem.

Karsh’s account, for instance, runs directly counter to the overarching message of New York Times coverage which is that, but for myriad Israeli shortcomings, the lambs would lie down with the lions.