Update: Just before its May 13 ceremony, the Newseum issued a statement saying it was reevaluating the status of the two Hamas TV staffers slated to be added to its Journalists Memorial. Their names were on the complete list headed “Honoring Fallen Journalists” that appeared in the morning’s print edition of USA Today.

CAMERA’s Eric Rozenman writes in the Washington Examiner today:

Located on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and U.S. Capitol, the Newseum claims it “educates the public about the value of a free press in a free society.”

Then why does it plan to honor propagandists for terrorist organizations and governments today?

The Newseum’s Journalists Memorial pays tribute to journalists fallen in the line of duty. Yet among those whose names are to be added to the memorial as news-people who died under fire in 2012 are staffers of Hamas’ television station, designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist outlet; a representative of Syrian state television, the video face of Bashar Assad’s bloody dictatorship; and a “reporter” for Press TV, the Iranian government’s English-language propaganda channel.

There is nothing journalistic about them, their activities or their employers. Hamas is designated a terrorist organization by the governments of the United States, Israel, Canada, the United Kingdom and others.

Hamas, Syria and Iran are in the business of propaganda and censorship.

“A free press in a free society,” the Newseum’s proclaimed desideratum, is an enemy they routinely suppress, murderously when necessary. . .

Responding to critics, the Newseum, echoing Hamas claims parroted by some human rights and putative journalists’ organizations, noted that al-Kumi and Salama’s vehicle “was clearly marked ‘TV’.”

Given that Palestinian and Hezbollah terrorists have used ambulances to conceal gunmen and weapons and Hamas has a reputation for staged “news” events, that was a little like labeling a machine gun “For Deer Season Only.”

See also “Salama, Shalamah, Shamalah, Shamallakh… and Why David Carr is Wrong Regardless“

Willis (right) poses next to Avi Lerner, the Israeli-American chairman and founder of Millennium Films, which produced “The Expendables 2” (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

In reporting on Stephen Hawking’s boycott of the Israeli Presidential Conference, Raveena Aulakh of the Toronto Star alleges that Bruce Willis supports the cultural boycott of Israel. The environment reporter writes:

Celebrities from around the world have refused to perform in Israel in recent years as part of an effort to promote the Palestinian cause, including musicians Elvis Costello and Stevie Wonder, and Hollywood actors Bruce Willis and Meg Ryan.

Aulakh is apparently relying on the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) as her source, and that’s her mistake. Indeed, according to PACBI, in July 2012:

Anti-apartheid fans of Hollywood actors Bruce Willis and Jean Claude Van Damme were relieved the two stars cancelled their planned visit to Tel Aviv, where they were scheduled to attend a local premiere screening of their latest film Expendables.

Reports indicate that Mr. Willis, Mr. Van Damme and Mr. Stallone, along with Avi Lerner, the Israeli-born chairman and founder of Millennium Films, canceled their trip to Israel in which they had planned to promote their film “Expendables II” due to the untimely death of Mr. Stallone’s son — and not due to any cultural boycott of Israel in support of Palestinians. As reported in the Algemeiner:

In an email, a spokesman from the film’s production company explained the cancellation of the premiere.

“I’m sure you heard about the Stallone family’s tragedy that happened in recent weeks,” he wrote. “In response to the unfortunate event we are forced to cancel our Israel premiere, because Sly will not be able to attend, as well as the other actors, due to changes in schedule.”

“Please accept our apologies for cancelling at such short notice,” he added, noting a promise to make it up to Israeli fans. “We will do our best to bring the actors to Israel at a later date in the future.”

And, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, Stallone canceled all of his public appearances following the July 2010 untimely death of his son Sage.

Finally, given the fact that Mr. Willis has come out in the past publicly expressing strong support for Israel, by signing, for instance a 2006 ad (below) in the Los Angeles Times condemning Hamas and Hezbollah, on what basis does the Star allege that his 2012 cancellation was intended to promote the anti-Israel boycott?

In response to a reader complaint, the Globe and Mail has already commendably corrected the unfounded assertion that Bruce Willis is a supporter of the anti-Israel boycott. The Globe clarification follows:

Editor’s Note: This story has been edited to reflect the fact that although Bruce Willis postponed a promotional trip to Israel, there is no evidence he is boycotting the country.

CAMERA has contacted Toronto Star editors to request a correction. Stay tuned for an update.

(Hat tip: Joseph)

May 18 Update: Toronto Star Corrects: Bruce Willis Never Boycotted Israel

The Jerusalem Post reports:

Not only was 12-year-old Gazan Muhammad al-Dura not killed by IDF fire in 2000 – he was not even hurt.

That was the preliminary finding of a special commit- tee formed several years ago by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and headed by Brig.- Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, the former head of the Research and Analysis Division of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate, and the current director-general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry. . .

A few days ago, MK Nachman Shai met with Ya’alon to give him a copy of his new book, Media War Reaching for Hearts and Minds , which deals with the role of media in cur- rent military conflicts, including the Dura affair. Ya’alon then surprised Shai by saying that an investigation carried out by Israel shows that Dura was never hurt.

This theory has been circulating on the Internet for a few years already, but this was the first time that an Israeli defense minister was stating so publicly.

Today, Dura should be about 25-years-old, alive and kicking somewhere (unless he was killed later in a separate incident).

Kuperwasser confirmed the committee’s conclusion that that Dura had not been hurt at all and that the video clip, which was filmed by France 2 TV and aired around the world, had indeed been staged. This means that the France 2 TV channel report was erroneous, perhaps even knowingly.

Kuperwasser added that the full results of the investigation would be ready in the near future, and that most of the work had already been completed.

See CAMERA’s detailed timeline of the Mohammad Al Dura, as well as our backgrounder.

It’s been two months since multiple Western media outlets, including the AP, New York Times and Washington Post corrected earlier coverage which wrongly blamed the November 2012 death of 11-month-old Gazan Omar Masharawi on an Israeli strike, when in fact he was most likely by an errant Palestinian rocket. Yet, just last week, Ynet perpetuates the lie.

On Thursday (May 9), the English-language Israeli news site reported on a B’Tselem report regarding civilian casualties in last November’s “Pillar of Defense” operation. (For a moment, we will set aside B’Tselem’s reported findings that most killed were civilians. B’Tselem has a troubled record regarding civilian casualties, and others have already raised questions about the organization’s report.)

To illustrate the report about Gaza civilian casualties inflicted by Israel, Ynet chose to post a screen shot from the Washington Post featuring the infamous image of Jihad Masharawi cradling his son’s corpse. Ynet labeled the image “Washington Post reports on year-old Gaza casualty during operation Pillar of Defense,” and provided no indication that the baby, Omar Masharawi, was killed by a Hamas rocket, and NOT an Israeli air strike. Here is a screen shot of the page as it appeared for some time last week:

And here’s an enlarged image:

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The Economist is the latest media organization to misinform its readers by whitewashing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The British weekly stated in a recent article that BDS “wants Israel ostracised until it withdraws to its pre-1967 borders.”

As we and others have noted before, BDS calls for much more than an Israeli withdrawal to the boundaries that existed before Jordan attacked the country in 1967. It seeks the end of Israel.

But don’t take our word for it. Take it from Omar Barghouti, a BDS spokesperson quoted in the Economist’s article. Barghouti has admitted that his goal is not for Israel to change its borders, but for it to be replaced with a “unitary state, where, by definition, Jews will be a minority.”

He has also explained, in so many words, that BDS wants the same thing:

BDS unambiguously de?nes the three basic Palestinian rights that constitute the minimal requirements of a just peace and calls for ending Israel’s corresponding injustices against all three main segments of the Palestinian people. Speci?cally, BDS calls for ending Israel’s 1967 military occupation of Gaza, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), and other Arab territories in Lebanon and Syria; ending its system of racial discrimination against its Palestinian citizens; and ending its persistent denial of the UN-sanctioned rights of Palestine refugees, particularly their right to return to their homes and to receive reparations.

Got that? While The Economist claims BDS has one demand, its own source has admitted to three demands. And the two demands ignored by the magazine are tied to BDS’s dream of a world without Israel. Demand two, in misleadingly noble-sounding language, actually relates to the demand that the Jewish state no longer be the national home in which the Jewish people exercise their UN-guaranteed right to self-determination. Equally euphemistic is demand three, which envisions the influx into Israel of millions of Palestinians born abroad, the descendents Palestinian refugees from 1948. This would lead to Barghouti’s dream of rewinding history so that the Jewish people are forced back to the dark era in which being a Jew meant everywhere being an ethnic minority.

If the BDS movement’s leaders are willing to tell the truth about the movement, why does The Economist insist on hiding that truth?

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) recently reported that Mehdi Taeb, who is close to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and heads Khamenei’s Ammar Base think tank, spoke to students at a religious seminary in Ahwaz, Iran on April 20, 2013, saying:

The Jews are currently subjecting us to an unprecedented trial. As you read in the Koran, [King] Solomon ruled the world… and God ordered a group of sorcerers to come out against him. The Jews have the greatest powers of sorcery, and they make use of this tool.

All the measures that have been brought against us originate with the Zionists. The U.S. is a tool in their hands. So far, they have not used the full [scope of] their sorcery against us.

Just because one Iranian nut accuses Jews of using witchcraft, doesn’t make this a story worth reporting by major media, right? So what if he is a highly placed, influential advisor to the absolute ruler of a country attempting to acquire nuclear weapons with the sworn aim of wiping the Jewish state off the face of the earth? After all, doesn’t one need two points to draw a line? Okay, here’s point number two.

In March, according to MEMRI’s translation, an Iranian Web site associated with the religious seminaries in Qom, posted an article about Jewish use of sorcery and numerology:

The [Jewish] people think that ruling over man, nature, and divine traditions can be achieved only by means of sorcery. They believe that it is possible to conquer nature and control the world, and even to control God’s decisions, by using sorcery methods…

Sorcery is known to be a practice of which the divine books [i.e., the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Koran and] and the monotheistic religions disapprove. But Jewish mysticism regards it as a [legitimate] means to uncover the secrets of the holy book [the Old Testament].

Only Israeli media and the Jewish press covered this story. And it’s not as if The New York Times is above writing articles about sorcery. During this same time period, “the newspaper of record” covered candidates reportedly using witchcraft in Iraqi elections, theme weddings based on Harry Potter, and even witchy fashions including pointy-toed boots and peaked hats.

But in case major media outlets did want to keep it serious, they might take into consideration the fact that Iran is sending sophisticated and dangerous weapons to the Hezbollah terrorist group, committed to the destruction of Israel, and arming and sending fighters to prop up the brutal Assad regime in Syria, a sworn enemy of the Jewish state. So, when Iranian official sources make troubling accusations about Jews, one must ask… Where’s the Coverage?

What is it with some journalists and their exaggerated reports of Palestinian deprivation?

In 2008, Ha’aretz Gideon Levy falsely claimed that there is just one swimming pool for Palestinians in all of the West Bank. In fact, there is at least one pool in every city, and Ramallah has at least 10.

In 2009, Noam Ben-Zeev of Ha’aretz wrongly claimed there was not open movie theater in Nablus. In fact, there was the then-brand new Cinema City, with 175 seats.

More recently, last month Carol J. Williams falsely wrote in the Los Angeles Times that “locally made olive oil has disappeared,” and that Gaza residents are also deprived of semolina and tehina. In reality, Palestinian statistics show that the number of local olive presses have increased over the last few years, as have their output, and that consumption of tehina and semolina is steady.

West Bank luxury hotels are the latest item to take a hit — but only in the minds of misinformed NBC reporters. Covering a Palestinian reality TV show, called “The President,” NBC claims that there is just one luxury hotel in the West Bank.

Lawahez Jabari, Ranna Khalil and Dave Copeland, the authors of the May 6 piece, did not do their homework.

According to Travel Palestine, which bills itself as “The Official Site for Tourism in Palestine,” there are three five-star hotels in the West Bank: the Mövenpick Hotel in Ramallah, the Intercontinental in Jericho, and Bethlehem Jacir Palace.

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Those who can get through the Jerusalem Post paywall to read Jerusalem Report content can find an interesting review of the book “The Sons of Pigs and Apes: Muslim Antisemitism and the Conspiracy of Silence.”

Tibor Krausz writes:

In his new book, “The Sons of Pigs and Apes,” Neil J. Kressel, who directs the Honors Program in the Social Sciences at William Patterson University in New Jersey, cites … videos in tackling what he sees as a blind spot — “a conspiracy of silence” — among Western academics, policymakers and journalists about the extent of Muslim anti-Semitism. In Arab societies, he notes, the very words “Jew” and “Zionist” have become generic slurs. “For many [Muslims], Israel has become a central element in a collective obsessional delusion,” Kressel writes.

Yet many Western opinion formers, Jews included, remain willfully blind to the issue, Kressel argues. “Otherwise reliable opponents of bigotry too often duck when confronted with massive evidence of Jew-hatred in Arab and Islamic countries,” he notes. “They offer either dismissive interpretations or complex justifications in lieu of plainspoken opposition. Those who don’t ignore the subject outright prefer to downplay it, dismiss it as a peripheral cultural phenominon, or justify it as a righteous response to Israel’s maltreatment of the Palestinians.

The reviewer goes on to cite an Egyptian cleric who admitted that anti-Semitism is not about the Palestinians. “If the Jews left Palestine to us, would we start loving them? Of course not,” Muhammad Hussein Ya’qub said, shortly before adding: “They would be our enemies even if they had not occupied anything.”

The Israeli air strike on Iranian missiles intended for Hezbollah on May 2 and May 3, 2013, highlights the increasing role of Iran and Hezbollah in the Syrian conflict. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs published a report on May 2, 2013, by retired Israeli general Shimon Shapira describing Iranian plans to take over Syria. Two days earlier, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah pledged that the Syrian regime’s friends would not allow it “to fall into the hands” of America, Israel and Islamic extremists.

Arab commentators too are increasingly blunt about how they view Hezbollah. Abdulrahman Al-Rashed, general manager of Al Arabiya News Channel, wrote,

Hezbollah is merely an Iranian brigade which has been founded for more than 30 years to serve the aims of the Ayatollah’s regime in Tehran.

In this new spirit of refreshing openness about the Iranian-backed group, it is worth recalling the praise heaped on it by Western intellectuals when its main target was Israel.

There’s former U.S. ambassador and Gaza flotilla spokesman, Edward Peck, who was effusive in his praise for Hezbollah and its current leader Hassan Nasrallah. In a July 2006 interview with Fox News, Peck equated Hezbollah fighters with American soldiers parachuting into Germany during World War II.

Former professor Norman Finkelstein told a Lebanese Future TV “I do want to express solidarity with them…I am going to honor Hezbollah… they show discipline, I respect that…”

But no one tops radical icon Noam Chomsky, who, with his wife in tow, paid a visit to Hezbollah in 2005. Chomsky has long been comfortable embracing genocidal groups; he was a defender of the Khmer Rouge during their brief murderous reign in the 1970s. Hezbollah leaders warmly embraced the beaming Chomsky. He in turn made a point of exclaiming that he didn’t care what his fellow American citizens thought of his visit and support for Hezbollah.

One wonders what the Syrians facing the Hezbollah onslaught would have to say to professor Chomsky.

The International Herald Tribune ran the following photograph and caption across four columns at the top of page 7 on Friday:

The caption reads:

A military training zone Thursday in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 war. Mr. Netanyahu rejects any mention of the 1967 lines as the basis for talks.

The iconic signs indicating the distances to Baghdad, Amman, Damascus, and Jerusalem, among other Middle Eastern cities, is situated at a lookout point on Mount (or Har) Bental in the Golan Heights. The Mount Bental lookout is a tourist destination, not a military training zone.

The original Reuters caption got it right:

A sign post near Kibbutz Merom Golan in the Golan Heights shows the distance from Israel’s northern border to other destinations May 2, 2013. Israel’s military said on Tuesday it had called up hundreds of reservists for a drill in northern Israel where tensions are high with neighbours Syria and Lebanon, but a military spokesman said there was no change in the overall security situation. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed the territory in 1981, a move not recognised internationally. REUTERS/Nir Elias

Here are photographs of tourists by the famous Mount Bental signs:

Israelis visit on Mount Bental on August 23 2009 in the Golan Heights, Israel.Israel captured it in 1967 war and annexed it in 1981 in a move not recognized internationally.Photo by Rafael Ben-Ari/Chameleons Eye

A tourist takes a photo of a sign showing different distances, including Damascus, near an old army outpost on Mount Bental in the Golan Heights, Israel, July 27, 2012. Israelis and tourists are visiting the sight to look into Syria from Mount Bental. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has warned that he could use chemical weapons if Syria is attacked by an external force. UPI/Debbie Hill

The Tribune ought to correct this factual error, which is at least as substantive as the error which was corrected in today’s paper:

An article on Friday about charges that have been filed against three friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon Bombings, described incorrectly a visit between Mrs. Tsarnaev and another friend who was charged, Dias Kadyrbayev. When the two chatted outside Mr. Tsarnaev’s dormitory two days after the explosions, it was Mr. Kadyrbayev who smoked a cigarrete, not Mr. Tsarnaev.

Stay tuned for news of a correction.

May 9 Update: CAMERA Prompts Correction on Golan Heights