The Los Angeles Times published the following brief today in its print edition:

A deadly Israeli aristrike in the Gaza Strip and rocket and mortar fire from the Palestinian territory marred a fragile truce that took hold late last week.

Gaza health official Ashraf Kidra said one strike killed a Palestinian man and wounded another. . . .

The wire story was apparently based on an AP story that was published early yesterday, which reported the following about the slain Palestinian man:

The identity of the dead Palestinian wasn’t immediately known. The Israeli military said it targeted a militant squad that had fired a rocket at Israel.

Yet, shortly later, and long before the LA Times went to press last night, the casualty’s identity was known. Many online news outlets reported throughout the day that the killed Palestinian man was a Hamas fighter. As Reuters reported in a story posted yesterday on the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency Web site (“Israel kills Hamas fighter in south Gaza”):

An Israeli air strike before dawn on Sunday struck two gunmen from Hamas’ military wing as they rode a motorcycle near the central town of Khan Younis, local officials said.

The Al-Qassam Brigades said Suleiman Qarra, 27, from Bani Suheila, was killed, and another fighter wounded.

An Israeli military spokesman said the air force had targeted a squad preparing to fire a rocket into Israel.

And there were pictures of the Hamas fighter’s funeral, also available yesterday, long before Times editors went to press:

Palestinian mourners carry the body of Hamas militant Suleiman al-Qarra during his funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012. A deadly Israeli airstrike and rocket and mortar fire from Gaza on Sunday marred a fragile truce that took hold late last week. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

Given that the Times had all the information it needed to identify yesterday’s casualty as a Hamas fighter, why did it call him just “a Palestinian man,” as if he may have been an innocent bystander?

Journalist Ben-Dror Yemini

Writing in Times of Israel, Ma’ariv‘s Ben-Dror Yemini has a terrific piece take down of Gideon Levy and his editors for the recent distorted coverage of a poll which Levy says proves Israelis favor apartheid.

Beyond reiterating many of the points raised by the CAMERA/Presspectiva analysis concerning Levy’s manipulation of the statistics (and Yemini cites Presspectiva), he also points to a number of recent surveys whose results contradict those which Levy alleged appeared in the September Dialog poll. Yemini writes:

A survey conducted by the “SIKUY” association, which no one can accuse of harboring any right-wing inclinations, found that “60% of [Israeli] Jews believe that promoting the equality of Arab citizens is in the interest of the state.” Sixty percent! In addition, the survey found that “53% of the Jewish population in Israel is bothered by the inequality of Israeli Arabs,” and that “40% of Jews are willing to pay a personal price in order to achieve the goal of civil equality in Israel.” Indeed, a personal price for equality, for a sense of partnership.

This survey was more comprehensive and thorough than the survey ordered by a political organization that probably marked its goal on advance.

The other leftistsA survey conducted by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies just last year found that 48% of the Jews in Israel support (vs. 43% who oppose) a “package deal,” including a mobilization of citizenry and government, to improve the situation of the Israeli Arabs within the framework of “inclusive citizenship.” But this survey received no front-page headlines.

On Oct. 18, at a celebration marking the one-year anniversary of the release of over a thousand Palestinian terrorists and criminals in exchange for kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh vowed to kidnap more Israeli soldiers in the future. He said the Shalit abduction, detention and eventual prisoner swap “should serve as a road map to free Palestinian prisoners in the future.”

As a reminder, Shalit was held in violation of international law, out of contact with his family and out of reach of Red Cross representatives for five years. At the time of the release, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal vowed that Shalit “will not be the last soldier kidnapped by Hamas.”

Now, a year later, Hamas still intends to kidnap more Israeli soldiers. And does this merit attention from major media outlets? Well, no.

While these menacing declarations have been covered by Jewish and Israeli media, neither USA Today nor The New York Times bothered to report them, though they covered other stories related to Israel. In fact, CAMERA could find no national or mainstream media outlets that reported these blatant threats to violate international law.

Abu Obeida, the spokesman for the military wing of Hamas, brazenly declared that Israeli “soldiers can at any moment be killed, or captured, or made disabled,” and yet… Where’s the coverage?

Palestinians in the destroyed synagogue of the former Israeli settlement of Neve Dekalim, after Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 (EPA Photo by Mohammed Saber)

Don’t say you weren’t warned about crib notes. ABC News’ online “Cheat Sheet” on foreign policy issues posted before Monday night’s presidential debate states:

Of course, Israel fully uprooted all Gaza Strip settlements years before President Obama came into office. The Obama-Netanyahu settlement spat concerned West Bank settlements. Before publishing a “cheat sheet” for the vast American public, it’s recommended to first review the ABC’s of the issue at hand.

Nov. 4 Update: CAMERA Prompts ABC Correction on Gaza Settlements

The propensity to hector and criticize Israel seems bred in the bone at The New York Times, as commentary by Paris Bureau Chief Steven Erlanger underscores in a telling passage on October 23, 2012. A News Analysis column entitled “Foreign Policy Debate’s Omissions Highlight Skewed World View” deplores the various world issues overlooked in the October 22 presidential debate on foreign affairs.

But Erlanger’s own skewed world view is what’s on display. In reviewing the neglected world hotspots, he touches on the Palestinians and Israelis, writing:

There was a glancing reference to the Palestinians, but no discussion of their divisions, of the role of Hamas, of the separate status of Gaza, of the weakening grip of Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah movement, of what might happen if and when Mr. Abbas, the Palestinian president and leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, leaves the scene.

And there was no criticism of Israel, its settlements or its occupation of the West Bank. Mr. Romney did say that Mr. Obama had not visited Israel as president even after his 2009 visit to Cairo in which he pledged a new era in relations with the Muslim world.

Get that?

Regarding the Palestinians, Erlanger faults omission of “discussion” of internal “divisions” among the factions.

Regarding the Israelis, he faults omission of “criticism of Israel, its settlements or its occupation of the West Bank.”

This discrepancy in treatment of Israel, with the Jewish state cast as warranting serious criticism for activity related to the Palestinians while the Palestinians warrant only benign reference — in this case discussion concerning internal, factional issues with no onus on them related to Israel — is a pattern in the paper.

Equally notable and related to the distorted emphasis on blaming Israel is the omission of deplorable Palestinian conduct. The veteran Times correspondent, formerly the bureau chief in Jerusalem, previously had similar difficulty expressing criticism of Palestinian actions, in particular of their denigration of Jewish presence in the land of Israel, their glorification of terrorism against Jews and their calls to destroy Israel.

The saga of Erlanger’s avoidance of coverage of anti-Israel incitement until he’d left Israel was noted by CAMERA in 2008. That bout of candor by the Times writer seems to have long passed.

And, as they say in Paris, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!

Mohammad Salim Al-Awa has accused Coptic Churches in Egypt of storing weapons and preparing for war against Egypt’s Muslim majority.

Michael Armanious, who blogs at The New Egypt, has detailed how three Egyptians — Muhammad Salim Al- Awa, Salafist Mohammed Hassa, and TV broadcaster Rasha Magdy — have helped undermine the safety of the Coptic Christians in their homeland. He did this in a blog post about efforts to memorialize the deaths of two dozen Coptic Christians in Maspero Oct. 9, 2011. Armanious reports:

The Maspero Massacre did not take place in a vacuum. It was preceded by an ongoing campaign of anti-Christian incitement perpetrated by Egyptian elites of all stripes. In the months and weeks prior to the massacre, religious and political leaders and journalists spewed invective clearly intended to cause violence against Copts in their homeland.

Many of these acts of incitement have been ignored or swept under the carpet, but they are not forgotten. We must remember and document these acts of incitement in order to keep faith with the victims of the Maspero Massacre.

Armanious suggests that someday, “Al-Awa, Hassan, Magdy and many, many others may have to answer for their acts of incitement.”
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Franklin Lamb, right, poses with child murderer Samir Kuntar. Lamb’s bogus intelligence report is the basis of Ha’aretz‘s heading “U.S. intel cries ‘apartheid'”

Last week we described how Ha’aretz‘s Akiva Eldar manipulated an erroneous, unsubstantiated figure and falsely attributed it to the Israeli government in order to make the charge that even the government has acknowledged that – in the words of the online subheadline – “apartheid is here.” As we wrote:

Why did Eldar invest so much effort into manipulating this data? The answer appears in the online subheadline, which posits that even the Israeli government acknowledges that “apartheid is here.” Appealing to the most rabid anti-Israel activists, Ha’aretz pulls the “apartheid” genie out of the bottle, all by relying on an incorrect, unsubstantiated figure falsely attributed to the government. Ha’aretz knows precisely for whom they are writing overseas, and Eldar knows how to deliver.

We now realize that Ha’aretz pulled the same trick – accusing Israel of apartheid based on a falsely attributed source – twice in that single item! About half-way through the article, under the heading “U.S. intel cries ‘apartheid,'” Eldar shifts gears somewhat, referring now to a different report (as opposed to the Finance Ministry memorandum he earlier cited). He writes:
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Gradye Parsons, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA), is apparently trying to make amends for his decision to sign a letter to Congress asking lawmakers to investigate Israel’s compliance with U.S. law regarding foreign aid. In a piece published in The Algemeiner, CAMERA analyst Dexter Van Zile reports that Parsons wrote a letter to the leaders of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas asking that the two groups reconcile. Parsons, however, remained silent about the escalating rocket attacks emanating from the Gaza Strip. Van Zile asks some obvious questions:
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The media has been reporting with increased frequency about allegations of Hezbollah’s role in helping the Syrian regime suppress its civil insurrection. The New York Times on Aug. 10 published an article titled, “U.S. Accuses Hezbollah of Aiding Syria’s Crackdown” alleging Hezbollah’s involvement in training Syrian troops to deal with the insurrection.

In early October, the Associated Press, Reuters, NPR and others described Hezbollah’s stepped up activity in Syria in the wake of the death of a senior Hezbollah commander. These articles suggested a more direct role in the fighting.

On October 11, CAMERA posted an item about an article in Lebanon’s The Daily Star in which a Free Syrian Army commander provided details. The New York Times reported that early this week, U.S. ambassador Susan Rice stated that Hezbollah had become part of Syrian President Assad’s “killing machine.”

The Christian Science Monitor, on Oct. 15, published an article in which a Free Syrian Army commander described the involvement of highly trained Hezbollah forces in the fighting.

In the Monitor piece, the commander states

that their most formidable foes across the border in Syria are not Syrian Army soldiers, but battle-hardened veteran Hezbollah fighters…He added that he had encountered some Hezbollah fighters on the road beside the border in Jusiyah and had approached them with bottles of water, pretending to be a supportive civilian.

The FSA commander continued:

“None of them were under 35 years old. They were very professional and tough fighters. You can tell they are superior fighters from the way they move in battle and how they fight…”

Such reports in Syria lend credence to the charge that Hezbollah has a substantial role in the Syrian regime’s efforts to suppress the civil uprising.

You may have read recently that IKEA airbrushed the women out of their catalogue pictures in Saudi Arabia. There was quite a bit of media coverage.

In fact, the airbrushing, though troubling, is just a metaphor for the way women are treated in many Arab countries. Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy wrote in her “Foreign Policy” article “Why Do They Hate Us?“:

Name me an Arab country, and I’ll recite a litany of abuses fueled by a toxic mix of culture and religion that few seem willing or able to disentangle lest they blaspheme or offend. When more than 90 percent of ever-married women in Egypt — including my mother and all but one of her six sisters — have had their genitals cut in the name of modesty, then surely we must all blaspheme. When Egyptian women are subjected to humiliating “virginity tests” merely for speaking out, it’s no time for silence. When an article in the Egyptian criminal code says that if a woman has been beaten by her husband “with good intentions” no punitive damages can be obtained, then to hell with political correctness. And what, pray tell, are “good intentions”? They are legally deemed to include any beating that is “not severe” or “directed at the face.” What all this means is that when it comes to the status of women in the Middle East, it’s not better than you think. It’s much, much worse. Even after these “[Arab spring] revolutions,” all is more or less considered well with the world as long as women are covered up, anchored to the home, denied the simple mobility of getting into their own cars, forced to get permission from men to travel, and unable to marry without a male guardian’s blessing — or divorce either.

Civil society organizations from ten Middle East and North African countries have issued the first Arab Watch Report, focused on the rights to work and to education and launched by the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND). Egypt’s New Woman Foundation member Mona Ezzat acknowledged:

The unemployment rate among females amounted to three times higher compared to males, and that, over recent years. This was a major factor of the Revolution. Although the participation of women in revolutions was high, the proportion of their presence in leadership positions and decision-making positions is still weak and ineffective. They also suffer from inequality when it comes to professional upgrading opportunities.

While you are probably aware that women fare much better in Israel, you may not have heard how much better Arab women do in Israel. For example, there has been no coverage in the popular press about Arab-Israeli scientist Amal Ayoub, whose research shows promise in enhancing the efficacy of radiation therapy for cancer.

Ayoub earned her bachelor’s degree at the Technion, a master’s degree and a doctorate in biomedical engineering at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and finished her post-doctoral studies there as well. She is Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer of her own biomedical research company. Working with two Arab-Israeli employees — a male chemical engineer and a female biologist — Ayoub’s work reveals that metal nanoparticles, especially gold, introduced into malignant tumors can enhance the effects of radiation therapy while reducing damage to neighboring healthy cells.

The only media outlet that picked up this story was the Journol do Brasil. In Brasil!

To sum up: A woman. In the sciences. Who is an Arab. In Israel. Doing research that could help treat cancer. This is not a story? Where’s the coverage?