We’ve been warned since childhood not to judge a book by its cover. But we can probably be forgiven if we judge a book by its title, especially when it includes a factual error.

Yes, it happened. An American book publisher, Beacon Press, located in Boston, Mass. (and a department of the Unitarian and Universalist Association), has published a book that includes a factual error in its title.

The book in question is Light Without Fire: The Making of America’s First Muslim College written by Scott Korb.

The book is about Zaytuna College, which CAMERA has written about here.

Zaytuna College, located in Berkley, California, is not, as the book’s title states, “America’s First Muslim College.” That honor belongs to another school, American Islamic College, located in Chicago, Illinois.
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For C-SPAN’s popular Washington Journal, a daily three-hour public affairs call-in broadcast, deception is generally in the air when comment is made about Israel (which is often). CAMERA has documented this chronic problem for several years in the feature C-SPAN Watch at CAMERA’s Website. Millions of viewers (C-SPAN claims 28 million weekly viewers) are subjected to a steady dose of anti-Israel distortions and falsehoods which are rarely challenged. Recent examples:

• Guest Said Arikat (March 24 broadcast), Washington bureau chief for the Palestinian Arab daily newspaper al-Quds, blamed others for Hamas’ belligerency (such as firing thousands of mortar shells and rockets into the Jewish state), saying that after coming to power in Gaza, Hamas was “immediately … isolated. That is not a situation which is conducive to good governance and begot the hostility between Israel and Hamas.”

No mention was made of Hamas’ pledge in its charter to the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people or the hundreds of Israelis murdered by Hamas terrorists, which “begot” Israeli hostility. Likewise, no mention of Hamas’ rejection of “the quartet’s” (the United States, Russia, United Nations and European Union) requirement for diplomatic contact: recognition of Israel’s legitimacy, ending anti-Israeli terrorism, and agreeing to uphold previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements. Typically, the Washington Journal host failed to point out either fundamental omission. Likewise, the host should have properly identified guest’s newspaper as being associated with the Palestinian Authority so that viewers would have context to interpret his allegations.

• Complaining about Israeli security measures in the West Bank (which are aimed at protecting the civilian population from terrorists intent on murder and mayhem), guest Arikat claimed that there are “something like 700 checkpoints.” However, the U.N. OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs occupied Palestinian territory) report (page 32) indicates that there are 86 permanent Israeli checkpoints (June 2012). But apparently on C-SPAN there’s no need to quibble about the difference between 700 and 86 when Israel is targeted for negative comment. Likewise, there’s no need to show the obvious parallel to security checkpoints in the United States at airports, government installations and border crossings which, while causing inconvenience or even discomfort, also are aimed in large part at protecting the civilian population against terrorists.

• A caller’s (March 21) inflammatory claim “I think we spend more money per capita on the citizens of Israel than we do on American citizens” is unchallenged although it is clearly, and wildly, exaggerated. In fact, federal domestic per capita spending aimed at benefiting Americans is many times greater than per capita foreign aid to all nations combined.

Israel is the only country defamed on a regular basis on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal broadcasts where Jews and other supporters of Israel are the only groups routinely targeted on air by bigots and conspiracy theorists. Cable television viewers should e-mail, call or write cable service providers and urge them to call for an end to indulgence of anti-Jewish, anti-Israel prejudice by Washington Journal. Keep in mind that a portion of your cable fees supports C-SPAN. For details, visit C-SPAN Watch.

Last week, journalist Amira Hass authored an opinion piece in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz condoning and even encouraging violent Palestinian stone-throwing. In the editorial, Hass wrote that “throwing stones is the birthright and duty” of Palestinians and that it “is an action as well as a metaphor of resistance.” Hass received quite a bit of criticism in Israel, and that criticism was covered by British newspaper, The Guardian:

A prominent Israeli journalist, Amira Hass, has been subjected to a wave of hate mail and calls for prosecution for incitement to violence since writing an article defending the throwing of stones by Palestinian youths at Israeli soldiers.

In paragraph six of the story, The Guardian finally got around to mentioning Adele Bitton, a toddler who remains in intensive care in Israel after the car in which she was riding was involved in an accident caused by a non-metaphorical stone.

Adele’s mother, Adva Bitton, responded to Hass’ article with an open letter published on the Hebrew Web site, NRG, translated here:

Amira, come to the intensive care unit, and see my Adele, a 3-year-old girl, attached to tubes. Experience with me the difficult trial with which I am coping. Amira, a rock does not distinguish between blood and blood, or between an adult and a 3-year-old girl. A rock kills. A rock is a deadly weapon in every way. Three weeks ago, I experienced on my own flesh how a single rock has caused the life of an entire family to be turned upside down.

Prior to Hass’ editorial, The Guardian did not see fit to report on Adele Bitton. Neither could CAMERA locate much coverage in other major news media outlets. Though The New York Times focuses disproportionally on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and even ran an 8,000-word New York Times Magazine cover story glorifying stone-throwers, the newspaper found room for only a 94-word brief on page A-6:

An Israeli mother and three children were seriously injured in a car crash in the West Bank on Thursday after stones thrown by Palestinians apparently hit their vehicle, the police said. Several other vehicles were also hit. Tensions have increased in the West Bank recently, with Palestinians protesting against hardship and Israeli actions in Gaza, and in support of Palestinian prisoners. Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man in the Hebron area on Tuesday. Israeli authorities said the soldiers were chasing Palestinians who had thrown a firebomb when they were attacked by and opened fire.

And not one of the 94 words was the name of the beautiful, innocent baby who still struggles for life, Adele… Where’s the coverage?

CAMERA Analyst Dexter Van Zile made a $5,000 challenge to CBS News Chairman Jeff Fager during the questions and answer period after a presentation that Fager gave at his church in Connecticut, which included the airing of a controversial segment about Palestinian Christians that was shown on the CBS “60 Minutes” program in April 2012.

Van Zile states:

Jeff Fager, chairman of CBS News, has a problem. Either he doesn’t know what he’s talking about or he’s lying about the security fence that Israel built to protect its citizens from suicide bombers coming from the West Bank during the Second Intifada.

Read all about it here.

Palestinian Media Watch exposes the continued glorification of violence and terrorism against Israeli Jews on Fatah’s facebook page. Even while the media routinely casts Fatah, the movement to which President Mahmoud Abbas belongs, as the “moderate” wing of the Palestinians and a reliable peace partner for Israel, Fatah continues to memorialize the perpetrators of anti-Jewish terrorism on the anniversary of their attacks. According to Palestinian Media Watch:

17 year-old Ayyat Al-Akhras became the youngest female Palestinian suicide bomber, when she killed 3 and wounded 28 Israelis in a suicide bombing near a Jerusalem supermarket on March 29, 2002. On the 11th anniversary of the attack, Fatah chose to glorify her as a hero for Palestinians, calling her the “Bride of Palestine” on Fatah’s Facebook page.

Other suicide bombers and their actions are similarly celebrated. But the push for peace negotiations moves forward, while the less than “moderate” stance of Israel’s peace partner is ignored.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian Authority official has announced that PA President Abbas will be meeting with Hamas leader Khaled Mesha’al later this week in Doha to discuss the formation of a unity government with Hamas, a terrorist entity.

What does US Secretary of State Kerry, who is currently in the region to push the Israeli-Palestinian peace process forward, say to all of this? According to the PA official, the US appears to have softened its opposition to unity between Fatah and Hamas.

Don’t glorification of terrorism and Fatah-Hamas unity constitute obstacles to peace? Apparently not, so long as the media plays along by glossing over and ignoring the inconvenient facts that cannot be blamed on Israel.

A CAMERA monograph, Bearing False Witness,details the falsehoods and errors about Israel by former US President Jimmy Carter and discusses his quest to demonize the Jewish State. The announcement of an upcoming event (April 10) at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo Law School to honor Carter with a peace award was greeted with proposals by CAMERA for awards more accurately reflecting Carter’s animus toward the Jewish State.

The Coalition of Concerned Cardozo Alumni suggests that continued support for Yeshiva University’s Benjamin Cardozo Law School be conditioned on the cancellation of the event and urges those opposing the Carter award to contact the dean of Yeshiva University and its law school to voice their protests.

The coalition’s website, “Shame on Cardozo“, explains:

While Carter may be credited for the role he played in the Camp David Accords as President of the United States and the resultant cold peace between Israel and Egypt that ensued, that event took place close to 30 years ago. Since the end of his presidency, Jimmy Carter has exhibited extreme antipathy towards Israel – and by extension the Jewish people – that places him firmly in the camp of the likes of Walt and Mearsheimer.

It is simply unconscionable for a Jewish affiliated school to honor someone who has played such a high profile role in demonizing the Jewish state.

Students editors of the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution, a journal of Yeshiva University’s Cardozo law school, will be presenting Jimmy Carter with their International Advocate for Peace Award.

There are a few days before the award is granted, so there is still time for the students to reconsider, and instead decide on a more appropriate award to give the former president. Some suggestions:

The International Advocate for Nazis Award, for Carter’s intervention on behalf of an S.S. guard seemingly responsible for murdering at least one French Jew, Martin Bartesch, and eventually deported by the US Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations.

The International Advocate for Anti-Israel Misinformation Award, for the former president’s dozens of errors in his book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. The former field director for the Carter-Mondale campaign in Ohio described the book as a “deeply biased commentary on the Arab-Israeli conflict does a great deal of damage to the truth.”

The Downsizing Award, for the spate of Carter Center resignations that followed the publication of Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. Kenneth Stein, the Carter Center’s first permanent executive director, resigned from his position as the Center’s Middle East fellow. Fourteen members of the Center’s advisory board likewise resigned. And Melvin Konner, also disturbed by the book and the “irrevocably tarnish[ing]” of Jimmy Carter’s legacy, declined a position on the Carter Center’s advisory panel.

(For more commentary on Carter’s book, see here.)

Ma’an News Agency and the Jerusalem Post report that during the current talks with US Secretary of State Kerry, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is still demanding preconditions to joining Israel for negotiations. Despite US President Obama’s urging Abbas to drop his preconditions, the PA continues to make negotiations contingent on Israeli acquiescence to prior demands, including:

a) halting all construction and renovation within the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem
b) immediately releasiing Palestinian prisoners held in Israel
c) submitting a map of the final borders
d) turning over parts of Area C, currently under Israeli security and civil control, to Palestinians
e) promising never to withhold Palestinian tax revenues for any reason in the future

According to Ma’an News Agency, the latter two conditions are “incentives” offered by US Secretary of State Kerry to the Palestinian leader to encourage him ” to return to direct negotiations with Israel.”

As President Obama stated during his recent visit to the region in March, “If the expectation is that we can only have direct negotiations when everything is settled ahead of time, then there is no point for negotiations…”

Indeed, with all the demands made of Israel prior to negotiating with Israel, what is left to negotiate? And will anyone in the mainstream take note?

An Associated Press report published on April 1 noted that at least 6000 Syrians were reported killed in the civil conflict in March, the highest single month toll yet.

During this same period, the main news item of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the death of a single Palestinian hunger striker, a convicted terrorist, in an Israeli prison.

According to a tally from a Lexis-Nexis media search, The New York Times published a total of 39 articles (news articles, editorials, on its blog) in March that were mainly focused on Israel and the Palestinian conflict, plus an additional 24 on U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel. The Nexis search turned up 59 pieces – a substantial proportion were brief blog items – focused on the conflict in Syria.

While acknowledging that The Times is not ignoring the Syrian conflict, considering the disproportionate toll in the two conflicts, 6000 to 1, it is striking that the number of articles is of a similar magnitude. However, even more significant than the number of articles is the disparity in the depth of coverage. Here the The Times continues to provide much greater amplification of the Palestinians plight in comparison to that of the Syrians.

In a month marked by accelerating slaughter in Syria, The Times chose to publish an 8000-word cover story for its Sunday magazine (“Is This Where The Third Intifada Will Start?”), by Ben Ehrenreich, who has called for an end to the Jewish state and waxes poetically about the Palestinian “resisters” from a West Bank town engaged in sometimes violent protests.

That story followed another extreme anti-Israel piece, a March 9 column by Joseph Levine arguing that “one really ought to question Israel’s right to exist…”

The Times might have noted — but of course, did not — that the tally of fatalities in the past month alone in Syria exceeds the total number of Israeli and Palestinian lives lost during the 4 most active years of the second Intifada (September 2000-2004).

Virtually on the eve of Good Friday last week, Saudi Arabia beheaded a Yemeni national, Mohammed Rashad Khairi Hussein, convicted of sodomy and murder. Then, authorities crucified his body.

Shamefully, United Press International omitted mention of the crucifixion in its coverage of the execution. Only the British newspaper The Mail ran a full article on this story while Agence France-Presse published a brief. Sadly, barely any mainstream news outlets picked it up and none that we could find in the United States.

Here is the AFP brief in its entirety:

Saudi authorities have beheaded a Yemeni man and then crucified his body after he was convicted of murdering a Pakistani national, the kingdom’s interior ministry says.

“The Yemeni citizen Mohammed Rashad Khairi Hussein killed a Pakistani, Pashteh Sayed Khan, after he committed sodomy with him,” a statement carried by state news agency SPA said on Wednesday.

The Yemeni was also convicted of carrying out a series of attacks and robberies.

The execution in the southern city of Jizan was followed by crucifixion, implemented by the ultra-conservative country for serious crimes.

The beheading brings to 28 the number of people put to death in Saudi Arabia so far this year.

In 2012, the kingdom executed 76 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. The US-based Human Rights Watch put the number at 69.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia’s strict version of sharia, or Islamic law.

That is a total of 132 words. Yet, The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, network news and others could find no space or airtime for it. Meanwhile, when a convicted terrorist dies in an Israeli prison from cancer, The New York Times devotes six columns and a picture to the ensuing protests. While we are still waiting for the Times and others to cover the death of Ayman Samarah in a Palestinian Authority prison, is it too much to ask that the news media cover an event as extreme as a crucifixion? Two days before Good Friday?

There was coverage a number of weeks ago of Saudi Arabia’s plan to crucify a jewel thief while six of his compatriots were to be executed by beheading. Even though these crimes were committed when the offenders were still minors, Saudi authorities in the end publicly executed all seven by firing squad. Some speculate the kingdom may have used a firing squad because there is a shortage of swordsmen to perform beheadings.

It seems there was one swordsman available for Hussein’s beheading. However, apparently there weren’t enough journalists available to cover his crucifixion. Crucifixion! Where’s the coverage?