As churches and Christian institutions burn across the Middle East and Christians flee Muslim countries, novelist Noah Beck cites Western media complicity in this disturbing phenomenon. In an article about Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s War on Christians by Raymond Ibrahim, Beck, author of The Last Israelis, a novel about Iranian nukes and an Israeli submarine with a crew including a Christian Israeli, writes:

Ibrahim shows how the Western media, academia, and the Obama administration have all whitewashed Muslim oppression of Christians and/or supported Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood to the point of enabling anti-Christian persecution and obscuring it from the public. Indeed, of Ibrahim’s 680+ cited news sources reporting on Muslim abuse of Christians, only about 6% were from the mainstream media. Biased media coverage of the Middle East deserves a book of its own, but to cite one powerful example (not mentioned in Crucified Again), consider how CBS’s “news” program, Sixty Minutes, defamed the only Mideast country where Christians are actually safe (Israel) while missing the real story of Mideast Christian persecution so thoroughly documented in Crucified Again.

Here Beck links to CAMERA’s work on the misleading 60 Minutes story of April 2012. CAMERA has not forgotten this biased story, with Christian Media Analyst Dexter Van Zile confronting Executive Producer Jeffrey Fager, a follow-up campaign, and an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal.

Watch a CAMERA-produced video on the subject:

It’s time to update to our post from last January, “More Artists Call Out BDS Bullying“:

Italian author Umberto Eco called their ideas “absolutely crazy” and “fundamentally racist.”

Irish writer Gerard Donovan referred to them as “idiots” who try to bully and cajole and are guilty of “outright intimidation.”

The band Dervish was on the receiving end of their “avalanche of negativity”, “venom” and “hatred.” (Irish justice minister Alan Shatter described it as “cyberbullying.”)

The manager of Jazz musician Jack Terrasson condemned their “obnoxious” comments, “sheer harassment” and “blatant denigration,” calling them “intellectually dishonest” and saying their intolerance is “abominable” and their hatred “pathological.”

And now, Salif Keita, along with his wife Coumba Makalou, have torn into the BDS movement, which seems to have successfully bullied the Malian singer and songwriter into cancelling or postponing a performance in Israel.

Their statement, which appears on Keita’s Facebook page, notes that

the cancellation is not one which was made by Mr. Keita, but by his agents who were bombarded with hundreds of threats, blackmail attempts, intimidation, social media harrassment and slander stating that Mr Keita was to perform in Israel, “not for peace, but for apartheid.”

These threats were made by a group named BDS, who also threatened to keep increasing an anti-Salif Keita campaign, which they had already started on social media, and to work diligently at ruining the reputation and career that Mr. Keita has worked 40 years to achieve not only professionally, but for human rights and albinism.

Of course, we do not agree with any of these tactics or false propaganda, but management’s concern is to protect the artist from being harmed personally and professionally. Although, we love Israel and all his fans here, and the fantastic spirit of unity of the Sacred Music Festival, as well as the important work your hospital is doing for albinism, we did not agree with the scare tactics and bullying used by BDS; therefore management decided to act cautiously when faced with an extremist group, as we believe BDS to be.

In addition, Mr. Keita is not a politician who plays for governments, but a musician who performs for his fans who are of all faiths and origins in Jerusalem. It is unfortunate that artists like him are threatened by this group who falsely claim to defend human rights, when they should take their concerns to governments or ask for support of their cause in a lawful way, and not by endangering the freedom of expression of artists, or using harassment and intimidation of artists who play for peace and for all people, in order to bring some kind of justice to the Palestinians they claim to represent.

Keita, the statement explains, is following through on a planned donation to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, and his management is seeking to “determine a future time to be able to perform in Israel.”

It may be that the proper response to such extremism is to criticize BDS without backing down in the face of their intimidation. But Israel can certainly withstand the unfortunate cancellation. The question is, can the BDS movement withstand many more “victories” like this one?

Hat tip Elder of Ziyon.

When speaking to a group of students in Israel last week, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon reportedly admitted that, “Unfortunately because of the conflict, Israel has been weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias – sometimes even discrimination” at the U.N.

This week, Ban contradicted that statement saying, “I don’t think there is discrimination against Israel at the United Nations.”

Yes, you heard that right. He added:

The Israeli government maybe raised this issue that there’s some bias against Israel, but Israel is one of the 193 member states. Thus, Israel should have equal rights and opportunities without having any bias, any discrimination. That’s a fundamental principle of the United Nations charter. And thus, Israel should be fully given such rights.

Obviously Israel should be given equal rights but the fact remains that Israel suffers from pervasive and systemic bias within the world body. Beginning in the 1960’s, according to the watchdog UN Watch:

The campaign to demonize and delegitimize Israel in every UN and international forum was initiated by the Arab states together with the Soviet Union, and supported by what has become known as an “automatic majority” of Third World member states.

In 1975, […] the majority of the General Assembly adopted the “Zionism is Racism” resolution. At the same time, it instituted a series of related measures that together installed an infrastructure of anti-Israel propaganda throughout the UN. Years later, after strenuous efforts by democratic forces, the infamous resolution was repealed.

However, the legacy of 1975 remains fully intact: UN committees, annual UN resolutions, an entire UN bureaucratic division, permanent UN exhibits in New York and Geneva headquarters – all dedicated to a relentless and virulent propaganda war against the Jewish state. Together, they have made the UN into Ground Zero for today’s new anti-Semitism, which is the irrational scapegoating of Israel with the true intended target being Jews. Not only do these anti-Israel measures incite hatred against Israelis and Jews everywhere, but they have done not a thing to help the Palestinian situation. On the contrary: they give strength and succor to extremists.

The U.N. Commission on Human Rights was so biased and, frankly, ridiculous that it had to be disbanded. It was replaced in 2006 with the U.N. Human Rights Council. UN Watch observes:

Obsessed with condemning Israel, the Council in its first year failed to condemn human rights violations occurring in any of the world’s 191 other countries. In its second year, the Council finally criticized one other country when it “deplored” the situation in Burma, but only after it censored out initial language containing the word “condemn.” It even praised Sudan for its “cooperation.”

In 2007, the Council added a special, permanent agenda item targeting only one country, Israel. Around the globe, countries commit human rights abuses –Syria, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, China, Sudan and Saudi Arabia spring to mind immediately– yet only Israel, a democracy, is singled out for consistent examination and censure.

In 2001, the U.N. sponsored the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance which quickly became a conference to condemn Israel. Now known as the infamous Durban Conference, the Conference Draft declaration contained so much anti-Jewish and anti-Israel language that the United States and Israel walked out of the conference. Israeli ambassador Mordechai Yedid delivered a statement on behalf of Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior saying “Can there be a greater irony than the fact that a conference convened to combat the scourge of racism should give rise to the most racist declaration in a major international organization since the Second World War?”

The statement continues:

Despite the vicious anti-Semitism we have heard here, I do not fear for the Jewish people, which has learned to be resilient and to hold fast to its faith.

Despite the virulent incitement against my country, I do not fear for Israel, which has the strength not just of courage, but also of conviction.

But I do fear, deeply, for the victims of racism. For the slaves, the disenfranchised, the oppressed, the inexplicably hated, the impoverished, the despised, the millions who turn their eyes to this hall, in the frail hope that it may address their suffering. Who see instead that a blind and venal hatred of the Jews has turned their hopes into a farce. For them I fear.

And indeed that is the cost of the pervasive anti-Israel bias: any potentially good work of the United Nations is left undone while its twisted and perverted anti-Israel mission is doggedly pursued.

In the years since the 2001 conference, there have been two more similar conferences. At a counter-conference sponsored by Eye on the UN in September of 2011, Simon Deng, a former South Sudanese slave, declared:

So, yes… I came here today to tell you that the people who suffer most from the UN anti-Israel policy are not the Israelis but all those people who the UN ignores in order to tell its big lie against Israel: we, the victims of Arab/Muslim abuse: women, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, homosexuals, in the Arab/Muslim world. These are the biggest victims of UN Israel hatred.

Look at the situation of the Copts in Egypt, the Christians in Iraq, and Nigeria, and Iran, the Hindus and Bahais who suffer from Islamic oppression. The Sikhs. We – a rainbow coalition of victims and targets of Jihadis — all suffer. We are ignored, we are abandoned. So that the big lie against the Jews can go forward.

Here is a brief video overview of this issue from Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust:

And here is Mr. Deng’s complete speech:

BBC provides platform for claim that Palestinian terrorists are ‘political prisoners’
BBC presenter makes no attempt to correct claim by Robin Wright of US Institute of Peace . (BBC Watch)

BBC’s ‘Israeli building threatens peace talks’ meme in numbers
How many times over the last week have readers of the BBC News website been told that Israeli building tenders in Jerusalem and Judea & Samaria threaten to “sabotage” peace talks? . (BBC Watch)

Maariv’s Double Error
Maariv not only mistranslated Jeffery Goldberg’s column, they made it factually incorrect. (Presspectiva)

Iran uses its embassies in Latin America to recruit young people
Different studies in Argentina, Mexico and the US point out that Iran has recruited young Latin Americans in order to promote its interests in the region. (ReVista de Medio Oriente)

The forgotten incitement
Incitement to hatred, according to experts, creates an enabling atmosphere for violent criminal activities that may lead to genocide. (ReVista de Medio Oriente)

Subtle dual coverage
Apparently, when Israel is part of the news, the word “terrorist” – applied to those who attack it, or threatens its citizens security – has no place in the Spanish newspaper elperiodico.com. (ReVista de Medio Oriente)

Where’s the coverage?
While the peace talks continue its course, the Palestinian Authority official radio expressed its certainty that Israel – which is referred as “occupied Palestine” – will cease to exist. (ReVista de Medio Oriente)

Former Fellow Speaks at CAMERA Student Conference
Former CAMERA Fellow and IDF Veteran Abir Gitlin shares his experiences and how he tackled challenges on campus with participants at the CAMERA Student Leadership and Training Conference. (In Focus)

Peace through martyrdom: Muslim Brotherhood leader poses as a liberal at ‘Comment is Free’
The Guardian provides a platform for an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader with a record of advocating the virtues of jihad to pose as a champion of peace, democracy and non-violence. (CiF Watch)

The Economist continues to go off the rails in its treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its overt bias violates all journalistic norms. The latest article about the topic of the Palestinian prisoner release, “Why they count,”” essentially advocates for Palestinians who have violently attacked or murdered Israelis. Subtitled “The release of prisoners touches Palestinians to their core,” the article starts by complaining that the number of Palestinian prisoners released by Israel has declined and then faults Israel for allegedly detaining “eight times as many Palestinians as it has just released” — with the implication that, with some exceptions, many Palestinians are randomly detained and held in prison for no good reason.

When the two sides sat down to negotiate two decades ago, after signing the Oslo accords in 1993, Israel freed 2,000 Palestinians in a single year. For the next couple of years it released, on average, around 1,000 a year. In later years that number slumped to a few hundred. Now, to coincide with the fresh round of talks that started in Jerusalem on August 14th, Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has freed just 26.

And:

Since July 19th, when America’s secretary of state, John Kerry, announced that peace talks would restart, Israel—say human-rights campaigners—has detained eight times as many Palestinians as it has just released.

Citing Palestinian President Abbas’ “critics,” the column goes so far as to suggest that violence and kidnapping, Hamas’ tactic of choice, is most effective against Israel:

Mr Abbas’s Palestinian critics say his non-violent policy is plainly less effective than that of Hamas, the Islamist faction that runs the Gaza Strip. In 2011 Hamas got Mr Netanyahu to release more than 1,000 prisoners in exchange for a single Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who had been captured by Hamas and held for five years.

The article exudes sympathy for the Palestinian prisoners, falsely suggesting that most are innocent:

Few issues stir Palestinian emotions as fiercely as the fate of prisoners. Almost every Palestinian has a relative in jail—or has been there himself. Human-rights groups estimate that 750,000 Palestinians have passed through Israeli prisons since the West Bank and Gaza were conquered in 1967. Some 2,300 Palestinians were detained in the first six months of this year alone. Whereas Israelis generally dub them terrorists, Palestinians call them asra, or prisoners of war, and devote large chunks of their public broadcasts and budget to supporting them and their families. Some have been sentenced for complicity in the 100-plus suicide-bombings which shook Israel during the intifada (uprising) that fizzled out in 2005. But many of those that languish in 17 special Israeli jails have no such blood on their hands.

They include 14 members of the Palestinian parliament and hundreds of non-violent protesters who have tried in vain to stop Israel’s army and settlers from acquiring their land.

But as Elder of Ziyon points out, the article is based on deception and lies. Read his analysis here.

And read the real story about who these Palestinian prisoners are and what they have done here and here.

BBC’s Knell reports on prisoner release without mentioning their crimes
What are the millions of viewers of BBC television news being told about the recent early release of 26 Palestinian prisoners? . (BBC Watch)

BBC report on prisoner release is mostly about something else
Once again, the BBC shoehorns the subject of building tenders into a report ostensibly about another subject altogether . (BBC Watch)

Magic Carpet Ride: Yemen to Israel
Jews from Yemen continue to seek refuge in Israel. (In Focus)

The unbearable lightness of journalism
The Spanish news agency, Europa Press, has decided that the Israeli version is unnecessary. Even when reporting about the peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. (ReVista de Medio Oriente)

Collection of Corrections From Around The World
A Hebrew collection of worldwide newspaper corrections from. the previous week. (Presspectiva)

Indy’s Matt Hill engages in cynical smear about Netanyahu and the Rabin murder.
The Independent published a commentary by Matt Hill which included a completely baseless accusation against Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. (CiF Watch)

Middle East headlines in the Spanish speaking press
UN’s opinión about the peace talks and turmoil in the Sinai, Egypt, centered the attention of the press. (ReVista de Medio Oriente)

The anti-Israel hate site Electronic Intifada and its founder Ali Abunimah spent much of the past two days letting their Twitter followers know that an Israeli army blog mistakenly labeled a photo of Malaysian shopping mall as being in the Gaza Strip. Between the two, on Aug. 14 and 15, over 20 tweets and retweets shared news of the error, which was subsequently corrected by the IDF Blog.

One Twitter post by Abunimah announced that the Israeli army was caught in the act of “fakery and lying.” Another exclaimed that “shameless liars” were “caught red-handed.”

Let’s see what else we can deduce from this way of thinking:

• Because the IDF Blog posted a photo from Malaysia and mistakenly described it as being in Gaza, Abunimah called the Israeli army “shameless liars” and “fakers.”

• He believes those who publicize inaccurate information are shameless liars and fakers.

• On Electronic Intifada, Abunimah used a hoax quote, telling his readers that Israeli official Moshe Ya’alon said, “the Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.” Abunimah based an entire article on the quote, but CAMERA discovered that Ya’alon never said such a thing.

• Abunimah thinks Electronic Intifada are shameless liars and fakers.

The IDF Blog, by the way, pulled the offending photo and published a correction at the top of the blog post. Abunimah kept the offending quote in the article, relying on an editors note at the bottom of the post to inform readers that the quote was “unverified.”

And Electronic Intifada and its founder certainly didn’t tweet and retweet 22 separate times about Abunimah’s use of a hoax quote.
(more…)

BBC coverage of building tenders reaches hysterical highs
With three reports on the subject in one day, the BBC is doing its level best to persuade audiences that Israeli building plans are sabotaging peace talks . (BBC Watch)

BBC finally gets round to (briefly) reporting crimes of Palestinian prisoners
A BBC profile of some of the Palestinian prisoners scheduled for release and their crimes was rapidly demoted to the status of ‘related articles’. (BBC Watch)

Middle East headlines in the Spanish speaking press
The media focuses on Israel’s “bombing” in Gaza, but tends to ignore the provocation and the rockets fired from there. (ReVista de Medio Oriente)

CAMERA speaks at the Israel on Campus Coalition National Training
Thirty five ICC Interns attended a CAMERA Writing Workshop, where they learned how to better recognize bias in the media and practiced writing letters to the editor. (In Focus)

Minorities serving in the IDF
Christians, Muslims and Druze all serve in the Israeli Military, learn about some of their stories. (In Focus)

The Guardian faces stiff competition for most sympathetic depiction of murderers
The Guardian, Independent, Irish Times, Telegraph and Times (of London) all recently published photos sympatheticallly depicting the 26 murderers (pre-Oslo prisoners) recently released by Israel, and yet didn’t mention the brutal crimes they committed, nor a word about the victims. (CiF Watch)

Erasing the victims, polishing the killers
Spanish media reported on the liberation of the first Palestinian prisoners, but they omitted to inform about their crimes and to report about the victims. (ReVista de Medio Oriente))

Last month, as preliminary negotiations were set to begin between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash delivered a Friday sermon. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was present and it was broadcast on official PA-TV on July 19, 2013.

Did he talk about peace? Did he preach about achieving a treaty? Well, yes… Sort of.

Palestinian Media Watch posted and translated a video of the sermon, in which Al-Habbash starts off well:

We hate war. We don’t want war. We don’t want bloodshed, not for ourselves, nor for others. We want peace. We say this because our culture is founded on this, and because our religion is based on this. Yes, we want peace, but not any peace. We want a peace based on justice, therefore the Palestinian leadership and the PLO have not missed any opportunity for peace…

The Palestinian leadership’s sense of responsibility towards its nation made it take political steps about 20 years ago (i.e., signing the Oslo Accords). Despite the controversy, despite much criticism and much opposition by some, it brought us to where we are today: We have a [Palestinian] Authority and the world recognizes the [Palestinian] state.

All this never would have happened through Hamas’ impulsive adventure, but only through the wisdom of the leadership, conscious action, consideration, and walking the right path, which leads to achievement, exactly like the Prophet [Muhammad] did in the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, even though some opposed it…

What is the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah? After Muhammad and his followers were driven out of Mecca by the Quraish tribe, there continued to be fighting. Muhammad and his followers wanted to return to Mecca. Rather than battle, they made a ten-year peace treaty with the Quraish.

Al-Habbash explains the rest:

The hearts of the Prophet’s companions burned with anger and fury. The Prophet said: “I’m the Messenger of Allah and I will not disobey Him.” This is not disobedience, it is politics. This is crisis management, situation management, conflict management…

Allah called this treaty a clear victory…

Omar ibn Al-Khattab said: “Messenger of Allah, is this a victory? Is this logical? Is this victory? We are giving up and going back, and not entering Mecca. Is that a victory?” The Prophet said: “Yes, it is a victory.”

In less than two years, the Prophet returned and based on this treaty, he conquered Mecca. This is the example, this is the model.

So, according to PA leadership, the “model” is to make a peace treaty and then come back and breach it through violence. This strategy is pretty newsworthy and yet only the Israeli and Jewish press reported it.

When the Israeli government publishes bids for the construction of apartments in Jerusalem, the mainstream press writes literally thousands of stories. Naturally, there was a New York Times editorial calling these potential apartments “a fresh cause for pessimism about the prospects for successful peace negotiations.” Yet, when PA leaders brag about faking their way through the peace talks… nothing. When they boast about their insincerity and malicious intent… zero.

Where’s the outrage? Where’s the New York Times editorial? Where’s the coverage?

Nidal Hasan, the psychiatrist and U.S. Army major charged with premeditated murder in the deaths of 13 people and wounding of 32 others in a 2009 shooting rampage at Ft. Hood, Texas explained himself thusly:

“My complicity was on behalf of a government that openly acknowledges that it would hate for the law of Almighty Allah to be the supreme law of the land” (“Spotlight: Fort Hood Shootings; In statement to Fox, Hasan accuses U.S. of war on Muslims,” The Baltimore Sun, July 28, 2013). For more:

Twenty years earlier, on April 4, 1993 Ibrahim Hooper, long-time spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), was quoted by The Minneapolis Star Tribune as saying “I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future,” Hooper says. “But I’m not going to do anything violent to promote that. I’m going to do it through
education.”

The former implicitly attempts to justify multiple murders. The latter speaks of a non-violent aspiration. But both point in the same direction—toward the United States governed not as a constitutional republic but rather as an Islamic theocracy under shari’a law.