Toned down BBC reporting on Iranian, Syrian threats against Israel
Despite its intensive coverage of the Syria crisis, the BBC is barely reporting threats against Israel coming out of Tehran and Damascus. (BBC Watch)

Filmed reports on the BBC News website’s Middle East page in August
Over half the Israel-related filmed reports appearing on the BBC News website during August promoted the theme of Israeli building as an obstacle to peace . (BBC Watch)

Our Pro-Israel groups are starting the new year with information booths on campus
Our students are showing up at activity fairs and campus centers, teaching others about Israel and letting them know how they can get involved. (In Focus)

Parallel Manual of Style
The Spanish news agency Europa Press labels Israeli police raids “reprisals” instead of peresenting them as law enforcement operations against suspected criminals. (ReVista de Medio Oriente)

Anti-Israel Professors at Northeastern
A new documentary will examine the problem of students studying in the biased and anti-Israel climate created by their professors at Northeastern University. (In Focus)

Ma’ariv Proves It Can Be Haaretz
Maariv gives a one sided (and erroneus) summary of the case of Firezone 918 (Presspectiva)

Middle East in the Spanish speaking press
The press points out the possibility of a chemical attack on Israel from Syria while at the same time emphasizing Syria’s decision to deliver their chemical arsenal to the UN. (ReVista de Medio Oriente)

The Guardian again promotes myth that Ariel Sharon started 2nd Intifada
One of the more common false narratives regarding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict advanced by the Guardian is that Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount in 2001 “sparked” the 2nd Intifada – a lie repeated so often that casual observers could be forgiven for believing it.. (CiF Watch)

The Washington Post’s “As U.S. allies weigh strike on Syria, Israelis rush for gas masks” (Aug. 29, 2013) was informative and current. The 17-paragraph article, by Post Jerusalem Bureau Chief William Booth and Ruth Eglash, explained how Israeli officials were distributing, and citizens lining up for gas masks in preparation for a possible Syrian attack. The regime of Bashar al-Assad had threatened Israel if the United States struck Syria for using poison gas against its own people as part of that country’s civil war.

The Post report, on page A-9, recalled Israelis’ use of “safe rooms” during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein fired missiles at the Jewish state in response to the U.S.-led campaign to evict his troops from Kuwait. It quoted Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister for international affairs, strategy and intelligence, that Syrian leaders “have no barriers, no moral inhibitions.” And it was illustrated with a two column by 2-½ inch color photograph of Israelis picking up free gas masks at a distribution point.

Nevertheless, USA Today scooped The Post with its lead front-page article, “Syrian crisis sparks worry across globe; Israelis, caught in the cross hairs, are busy stocking up on gas masks” (August 28). A day earlier than The Post’s coverage, USA Today’s Michele Chabin, Kate Shuttleworth and Oren Dorell went into greater depth, quoted more officials sources, including a member of Assad’s Ba’ath Party who threatened Israeli directly, and more average Israelis.

Two large photographs in the print edition illustrated USA Today’s 38-paragraph news-feature. A two column (over three) by five-inch color picture showing a mother helping her young daughter wear a gas mask dominated the front page. A three and a-half column by five inches deep black-and-white, portraying Israelis in line for gas masks, highlighted the continuation on page two. An American analyst was paraphrased as saying “the threats by Iran and Syria [to attack Israel in response to a U.S. strike against Damascus] are not idle ones, and could have drastic repercussions.”

USA Today lacks The Post’s resources for foreign news coverage. But in this case, it got there first with more column inches, giving readers a more comprehensive picture of Israel’s neighborhood.

BBC defence correspondent: Al Kibar was a ‘suspected’ nuclear facility
The International Atomic Energy Agency says it was. US intelligence says it was. The BBC, however, is apparently not convinced. (BBC Watch)

BBC ESC: ‘lack of due accuracy’ on Davies Tweet from Operation Pillar of Cloud
Twitter – being fast-moving ‘instant’ messaging and cutting out the editorial ‘middle-man’ between the journalist and the public – is particularly susceptible to breaches of BBC editorial guidelines. (BBC Watch)

Robert Fisk finds Zionist smoking gun in likely U.S. attack against Syria
Before the U.S. has launched even one cruise missile against Syria in response to the regime’s use of deadly chemical weapons, the Indy’s Robert Fisk has already concluded that such an attack would be motivated by Zionist interests. (CiF Watch)

Haaretz Translators Are Back in the Habit
A Haaretz mistranslation turns a visiting Syrian nun from an Israeli fan to an Israeli critic (Presspectiva)

Lets Try Sticking To Facts
Haaretz op-ed falsely claims Netanyahu has never condemned racially motivated violence. (Presspectiva)

Palestinians Support Caterpillar
The BDS campaign calls for boycotting companies such as Caterpillar, while Caterpillar dealerships do business in Gaza and Ramallah. (In Focus)

Middle East in the Spanish speaking press
The press points out that “all the alarms” have been started in the region due to Israel’s military exercise, but not because of Sirya’s internat turmoil. (ReVista de Medio Oriente)

Robin Wright, a scholar at the U.S. Institute of Peace as the Woodrow Wilson Center, is regularly called upon by the mainstream media to comment on the tumultuous Middle East. Despite her credentials, Wright is not always right.

Last month, for example, appearing on the BBC, she called convicted murderers and attempted murderers “political prisoners.”

And last week, writing in the Los Angeles Times, Wright errs (“The risk of taking on Syria“):

I lived in Beirut during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon to evict the Palestine Liberation Organization. It achieved the immediate goal, yet Operation Peace for Galilee also backfired: Iran deployed Revolutionary Guards to Lebanon and created Hezbollah, which ultimately drove out both Israeli troops and American peacekeepers. It was Israel’s first retreat — made voluntarily due to inexorable costs — in the long Arab-Israeli dispute. (Emphasis added.)

Contrary to Ms. Wright’s claim, Israel’s 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon was not the country’s first retreat in the Arab-Israeli dispute. Prior to the retreat from Lebanon, Israel had undertaken multiple withdrawals.

Following the 1956 Suez crisis, Israel withdrew from Sinai and Gaza (and later returned, in 1967). The LA Times (“Israel at 50: Decades of Conflict,” April 12, 1988) reported:

March 1957: U.N. forces are sent to keep peace in the Sinai and Gaza Strip. Israel retreats from both. . . .

As part of a 1974 armistice agreement with Syria, Israel withdrew from part of the Golan Heights, including the town of Quneitra. As the Los Angeles Times’ John Daniszewski reported on April 2, 2000:

In an armistice agreement hammered out by Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, Syria managed to obtain an Israeli withdrawal from Quneitra . . .

As the Los Angeles Times reported (“Israel at 50: Prelude to Peace,” April 12, 1998):

1978: Sadat and Begin meet with President Jimmy Carter at Camp David and agree to an Israeli withdrawal from Sinai in exchange for full diplomatic relations between the two countries. . . .

1982: Israel withdraws from Sinai.

When Israel withdrew from the entire Sinai Peninsula in 1982, relinquishing vital installations such as air bases, mountain passes and oil fields, as well as settlements, it withdrew from 91 percent of the territory that it gained in 1967.
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