Wilkerson on Al Jazeera’s Current TV: ‘I think we’ve got a basically geostrategically, geopolitical inept regime in Tel Aviv right now’

Not for the first time, Ha’aretz displays questionable judgment in selecting the most newsworthy items to place on the front-page.

Today’s page one of the English edition (see below) features an article headlined “Former Bush official: Israel may have used chemical arms in Syria.”

According to the article, by Chemi Shalev:

Retired U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who once served as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff, believes that the chemical weapons used in Syria may have been an Israeli “false flag” operation aimed at implicating Bashar Assad’s regime.

Wilkerson made his astounding assertion in an interview on Current TV, the network once owned by former Vice President Al Gore and recently purchased by Al-Jazeera.

Wilkerson said that the evidence that it was Assad’s regime that had used the chemical weapons was “flaky” and that it could very well have been the rebels or Israel who were the perpetrators. Asked why Israel would do such a thing, Wilkerson said: “I think we’ve got a basically geostrategically, geopolitical inept regime in Tel Aviv right now.”

At approximately 2 PM EST yesterday, the story was the top item on Ha’aretz‘s web site, above a story about attacks on Iranian missiles in Syria. So who exactly is this Colonel Wilkerson, an ex-official whose unsubstantiated (some might say “flaky”) claims about Israel using chemical weapons in Syria warrants front-page coverage at Ha’aretz? Those who bother to read to the seventh paragraph of the story learn:

Wilkerson, 63, a former Army helicopter pilot who flew combat missions in Vietnam, served as Colin Powell’s chief of staff in 2002-2005. He was responsible for reviewing the intelligence information used by Powell in his by now infamous February 2003 United Nations Security Council appearance on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

After his retirement, Wilkerson described this presentation as “a hoax” and became an outspoken critic of the Bush Administration’s handling of the Iraq war.

So, one of the U.S. officials who apparently flubbed American intelligence on Iraq warrants front-page coverage for his outlandish allegations about alleged Israeli weaponry in Syria? And Wilkerson’s record on Israel is no more reassuring. For instance, he has endorsed the discredited Walt-Measheimer study on “The Israel Lobby” as containing “blinding flashes of the obvious.”

In another indication of Wilkerson’s credibility problem with respect to Israel, on Jan. 31, 2011, he addressed American policy with respect to the Egyptian uprising, saying on MSNBC:

. . . our growing affection and bonding to a state that provides us no real strategic value at all, Israel, and being perceived in that world of so many millions of Arabs and others of Muslim faith, who don`t look on Israel the same way we do, including 70 million Iranians, is not necessarily the best security policy to be pursuing.

If Wilkerson really believes that Israel is of no strategic value to the United States whatsoever, maybe he also genuinely believes that Israel is behind the chemical attacks in Syria. That’s his right. And it’s not surprising that Current TV, owned by Al Jazeera, gives him air time. But why do Ha’aretz editors feel compelled to upgrade his twisted, unfounded charges to front-page news?

Salam Fayyad denied giving any interviews since his resignation

Khaled Abu Toameh of the Jerusalem Post reports today:

Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad on Saturday denied statements attributed to him by The New York Times that criticized the Palestinian leadership and Fatah.

Fayyad said that he did not grant an interview to the Times or any other other newspaper or news agency since he submitted his resignation to PA President Mahmoud Abbas last month.

At the request of Abbas, Fayyad continues to head a caretaker cabinet until the formation of a new government.

Abbas was quoted last week as saying that he did not rule out the possibility that he would ask Fayyad to stay in his position and form a new government.

Fayyad was quoted by the Times over the weekend as saying “Our story is a story of failed leadership, from way early on. It is incredible that the fate of the Palestinian people has been in the hands of leaders so entirely casual, so guided by spur-of-themoment decisions, without seriousness. We don’t strategize, we cut deals in a tactical way and we hold ourselves hostage to our own rhetoric.” . . .

The attack on the PA leadership and Fatah clearly embarrassed Fayyad, who said in a statement that the Time‘s Roger Cohen had published an op-ed and not an interview.

(Cohen’s piece reportedly citing Fayyad appears in today’s print edition of the International Herald Tribune.) This bizarre episode raises at least two points for consideration. First, either the Times or Fayyad is not being truthful about an interview taking place. Second, if Fayyad gave an interview which provoked Fatah’s wrath, resulting in the prime minister’s subsequent denial, then this is yet another reminder about sources and journalists self–censoring when it comes to unflattering information about the Palestinian Authority.

Former Egyptian Interior Minister Mansour al-Essawy told the independent Egyptian daily newspaper al-Masry al-Youm that Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists killed Egyptian anti-regime protesters in Tahrir Square and were instrumental in breaking Muslim Brothers out of prison during the so-called Arab Spring. According to The Times of Israel:

Hamas and Hezbollah activists were involved in killing Egyptian protesters in Tahrir Square, as well as storming Egyptian jails and releasing political prisoners, during the early days of the Egyptian revolution, a former Egyptian minister said on Tuesday.

[…]

Hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood prisoners broke out of jail just four days after protests began across Egypt in January 2011, aided by anti-government activists who engaged Egyptian security forces in gun battles. Eight prisoners were reported killed.

“Hamas certainly had a large role in storming the prisons,” Essawy said. “All information indicates that members of the movement and members of the Lebanese movement Hezbollah attacked the prisons where political activists were held, smuggled them out, and then opened other prisons by breaking down their doors using trucks, as happened in the Abu-Z’ubul and Marj prisons,” he continued.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah are designated terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department. Egypt, now and under the previous, Mubarak, regime, is an American ally. The upheaval in North Africa and throughout the Arab Middle East is having a profound impact on American interests. And yet, CAMERA could find not one major American news outlet that has covered this story. Not one.

When the protests that eventually led to the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood were taking place in Tahrir Square, the media were falling over themselves to report on the “Facebook revolution” and the “Twitter activists”. Time Magazine named “The Protester” its 2011 “Person of the Year”.

Yet, now that the unpleasant underside of those uprisings comes to light and the results –Egypt’s faltering economy and violence against Christians, not to mention Syria’s civil war and the tens of thousands killed and displaced– are proving to be anything but spring-like, the media are silent. Now that word emerges that known terrorist groups murdered the very “Person of the Year” once celebrated… nothing. Where’s the journalistic curiosity? Where’s the drive to uncover the truth? Where’s the Coverage?

Robert Mackey, The New York Times’ “Lede” blogger often utilizes the blog as a platform to promote propaganda against Israel. In fact, he is frequently celebrated and joined by anti-Israel activists. A case in point: when Evyatar Borovsky, a 31-year-old Israeli Jewish civilian and father of five, was slain yesterday by a Palestinian terrorist, Mackey managed to twist this into a condemnation of Israelis.

How does one do this?

A) Find anti-Israel activists to whom to attribute the justification of Palestinian terrorism against Israelis.

B) Make a pretense of condemning the murder while justifying the cause.

C) Quickly turn the focus to the supposed misdeeds of Israelis (using as sources unverified posts and tweets by anti-Israel activists ) and make this the focus of the article.

Following the above formula, Mackey put forth the blog posting’s “thesis statement” on the murder of Evyatar Borovsky:

From Palestinians and Israelis who oppose the occupation, though, condemnations of the killing were mixed with calls to pay attention to the broader context — that an Arab community of 2.5 million, living under military rule for 46 years, has been forced to accommodate itself to an influx of hundreds of thousands of Israeli migrants to expanding Jewish-only settlements, which are defended by armed soldiers, officers and civilian guards.

He then turned the column into a prolonged indictment of Israel. Talk about moral inversion.

But try commenting about such moral inversion on The Lede, or for that matter, try posting a supportive comment about Israel on that blog, and see whether your comments are posted or censored.

Covering the murder of Israeli Eviatar Borovsky, and Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the aftermath, CNN’s Sara Sidner incorrectly reports today (“Settler killed, Palestinians fear reprisals“):

It was the first fatal attack on a settler since March 2011, when Udi and Ruth Fogel and three of their children were killed in the West Bank.

In fact, Palestinians killed three other Israelis in the West Bank after March 2011. On Sept. 23, 2011, Palestinians threw rocks at Asher Palmer’s vehicle as he drove near Hebron, killing him and his one-year-old son Yonaton. CNN reported on those killings at the time:

One of Palmer’s killers was convicted of manslaughter a few days ago.

In addition, Jerusalem resident Ben Yosef Livnat was killed April 24, 2011 by Palestinian police officers when he entered the area of Joseph’s Tomb, near Nablus, without prior coordination with Palestinian officials. Again, CNN reported on that incident:

Unfortunately, not only does Sidner err on the facts, but she also resorts to facile — and false — platitutudes about violence between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank, writing:

Retaliation for harm done by one community to another is a fixture of life. It is almost as certain as Newton’s law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. (Emphasis added.)

If that were really the case, an innocent Palestinian family — mother, father, and three sleeping children, including an infant — would have been brutally murdered in their home. Of course, that hasn’t happened. While some settlers have undertaken so-called “price tag” attacks against Palestinians, as happened yesterday, Sidner’s claim that “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” is a gross misrepresentation.

In a 2011 analysis of B’Tselem’s statistics for Israeli and Palestinian casualties in the West Bank, CAMERA’s Steve Stotsky found that nine times more Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians in the West Bank than Palestinians were killed by Israeli settlers in the previous 11 years. So much for Newton’s law.

Update, 4:30 PM EST: CNN Removes the Error

Following communication from CAMERA, CNN promptly removed the factual error. The text now states:

In March 2011, Udi and Ruth Fogel and three of their children were killed in the West Bank.

Palestinian Media Watch reports that Fatah’s Facebook page celebrates the murderer of Evyatar Borovsky, who was stabbed to death yesterday near Ariel, praising the killer as “The hero, the released prisoner, Salam Al-Zaghal.” Lexis-Nexis searches do not turn up a single Western mainstream media outlet which has covered this information, despite the fact that Fatah is Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ party.

Imagine if the Facebook page of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party praised the murderer of a Palestinian civilian. Would the media be silent? Unlikely.

The media was hardly silent two years ago when a couple dozen municipal rabbis called on Jews not to rent their apartments to Arabs. For example, the New York Times covered it repeatedly, including this Oct. 6, 2011 article:

Last year, Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of Safed, an ancient Jewish town about five miles west of Tuba-Zangariya, urged Jewish residents to refrain from renting or selling apartments to non-Jews.

Despite calls for the removal of the rabbi, who has been accused of incitement against Arabs in the past, he remains in his position on the public payroll.

Rabbi Eliyahu’s anti-Arab campaign was also covered by the Globe and Mail, the Australian, the Christian Science Monitor, the Guardian, and many more.

Where’s the consistency? Where’s the coverage?

Yesterday, BBC Watch, affiliated with CAMERA, flagged a BBC report on yesterday’s fatal stabbing of Israeli Evyatar Borovsky which wrongly stated that “attacks on settlers are rare.” A screen shot of that version of the report yesterday follows:

BBC Watch reported:

That, of course, is a complete BBC fabrication.

The article also expands that theme later on:

“Tuesday’s attack is the first time a settler has been killed by a Palestinian in the West Bank since 2011.”

Indeed, since September 2011 there have, fortunately, been no fatalities as a result of terror attacks in Judea and Samaria, but that is not through want of trying, as the family of Adele Biton – who is still fighting for her life after the stone-throwing attack on her mother’s car in March – is only too aware.

In March 2013 the Israel Security Agency reported 101 terror attacks in Judea and Samaria. In February, 100 attacks – 84 of those fire-bombings. January 2013 saw 56 terror attacks in Judea and Samaria, including the stabbing of a teenager at the same Tapuach Junction. In December 2012 eighty-one terror attacks took place in Judea and Samaria and in November 2012 there were 122 attacks.

That means that in the one hundred and fifty-one days from the beginning of November 2012 until the end of March 2013, four hundred and sixty terror attacks took place in Judea and Samaria. That is an average of over three a day.

Judea and Samaria are 125 kilometers in length and between 25 and 50 kilometers wide, with a total area of 5,860 km2, and with the areas under the control of the Palestinian Authority off limit to Israelis. The English county of Cumbria is 907 km2 larger than the whole of Judea and Samaria. If the residents of Cumbria were to suffer an average of three daily terrorist stabbings, shootings, fire-bombings, IED attacks or attempted murder with rocks thrown at moving vehicles, we can be pretty confident that the BBC would not describe such attacks as “rare” – even if they did not end in fatalities.

The BBC has since improved the wording so that the sentence now reads:

Palestinians and Israeli troops have clashed recently in the West Bank, but fatal attacks on settlers are rare. (Emphasis added.)

BBC Watch notes:

Whilst the amendment is welcome, it contributes nothing towards accurately informing BBC audiences of the scale of terrorism against Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria and still airbrushes the intentions of those perpetrating the daily attacks out of the picture. “Fatal attacks” – i.e. murder – may not be a quotidian event, but attempted murder certainly is and the BBC’s whitewashing of that fact continues to compromise its reputation for accuracy and impartiality.