Huffington Post Blogger Calls Out Activists for Ignoring Incitement
Rabbi Kenneth Cohen
The Huffington Post has not been one of the most reliable sources of information about the Arab-Israeli conflict, but every once in a while a HuffPo contributor writes something useful.
For example, Rabbi Kenneth Cohen, founder and Executive Director of the Vine and Fig Project, an interfaith educational venture, has written a piece condemning human rights organizations for failing to address anti-Semitic incitement in Arab media. The most recent example is Khaybar, an anti-semitic television that will be broadcast in the Middle East during the celebration of Ramadan. He writes:
Extreme anti-Semitism has become pervasive in the popular culture. Jews-as-villains themes are found on the local equivalents of Dallas, Hardball, and The 700 Club. They even appear on the equivalent of Sesame Street: wicked Zionists killed off a Mickey Mouse look-alike star on a Gaza children’s program. Talk shows are saturated with anti-Semitic rants and conspiracy theories. Holocaust denial is the norm, but Friday sermons calling for the slaughter of all Jews everywhere are not uncommon. The depiction of evil, blood thirsty Jews plotting to control the world — extremist stuff that exists only in disreputable margins of society in the West — is shown to hundreds of millions of people. Yusri Al-Jindy, the writer of Khaybar, minces no words about the program’s anti-Semitic intent. “The goal of the series is to expose the naked truth about the Jews and stress that they cannot be trusted,” he said an in interview with the daily Al-Youm. “The charge of anti-Semitism is an outdated trend and, in fact, is a lie that the Jews use against anyone who tries to expose their naked truth and conspiracies.”
More from SNAPSHOTS
AP Avoids Calling Farrakhan Comments “Anti-Semitic”
November 9, 2018
For some mysterious reason, the Associated Press felt Louis Farrakhan's mutterings on international relations deserve close attention. "Louis Farrakhan, in Iran, warns Trump a Mideast war possible," a Associated Press headline announced, as if the [...]
Israeli Peace Offers, Palestinian Rock Throwing Are M.I.A in Post Report
July 26, 2018
A June 28, 2018 Washington Post report, “Prince William visit Jerusalem’s holy sites, concluding historic visit,” omitted key context and details about the Duke of Cambridge’s trip to Israel and areas controlled by the Palestinian [...]
Media Story About Ultra-Orthodox Responsibility for Lengthy El Al Delay Disputed
July 11, 2018
Israeli journalist Sivan Rahav Meir reports in The Times of Israel today ("That Ultra-Orthodox flight delay? It didn't happen") that media claims, based on a Facebook post by Israeli rapper Chen Rotem, that a group [...]
One Haaretz Page-One Sentence, Lots of Errors
July 11, 2018
One sentence in a page-one article of Haaretz's's English print edition yesterday packed in multiple errors. Headlined "Netanyahu: Israel to close commercial Gaza crossing over airborne firebombs," the article erred: Palestinians began flying the devices [...]
Media Largely Ignore Alleged Hamas Payment to Dead Baby’s Family
June 25, 2018
A New York Times caption which definitively claims that Layla Ghandour "fell ill after inhaling tear gas," despite the fact that the accompanying article itself acknowledges that the story involving tear gas was disputed Western [...]
PCUSA Stands By While Palestinian Activist Harassed by Extremist
June 20, 2018
Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid walks away from an aggressive and hostile “intersectionality” activist Bassem Masri outside the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s General Assembly taking place in St. Louis. (Screenshot from Twitter.) Palestinian human rights [...]
AFP Whitewashes Gaza’s Serial Arsonists as ‘Activists’
June 19, 2018
June 20 Update: Multiple Media Outlets Amend Captions Calling Gaza Arsonists 'Activists' Numerous Agence France-Presse photo captions in the last couple of days misidentify Gazans responsible for airborne arson attacks which destroyed 28,000 dunums of [...]
Newsweek Headline Fail on Israeli Attacks in Syria
June 18, 2018
A grossly misleading Newsweek headline ("Israel Bombs Syria to Stop Refugees Fleeing to Europe, Netanyahu Says," June 14) falsely suggests that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel is bombing Syria in order to [...]