Sara Netanyahu (above) receives apology from NYT Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Ruderon

On Oct. 23, The New York Times published the following correction:

Barak Ravid reports in Ha’aretz today:

Sources close to the prime minister leaked to Israel Hayom that the New York Times bureau chief in Jerusalem, Jodi Rudoren, who had written the article, had sent a letter of apology to Sara Netanyahu. Netanyahu’s people also leaked excerpts from the letter implying that she was “deeply apologetic,” citing “an embarrassing editorial flaw,” describing the piece as “outrageous.” . . .

Rudoren declined to disclose the contents of the letter, saying, “I consider its contents to be personal, so I will not address them. The paper’s published correction speaks for itself — there was an editing error that led to the criticism being described improperly…”

For New York Times corrections prompted by CAMERA, see here. See also CAMERA’s Monograph, “Indicting Israel: New York Times Coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.”

Howard Jacobson, Man Booker Prize winner and author of such novels as “The Finkler Question,” delivered this year’s Jerusalem Address at the B’Nai Brith World Center in Jerusalem:

The question “When will Jews be forgiven the Holocaust,” and its implied answer, “never,” have political implications right enough, but there’s an important nonpolitical lesson to be drawn from them. If it’s not for anything they have done, but for what’s been done to them, that Jews cannot be forgiven, then it’s in vain for Jews to strive to alter the way the world sees them. In vain that they try to improve their public relations image, adopt a sweeter demeanor, or hang their heads in embarrassment.

It is vain to suppose we can thereby undo the twisted logic of being unforgiven for the Holocaust, unforgiven for who we are perceived to be, unforgiven for what has been visited on us — a perpetuity of being unforgiven, which, whatever its political effect, has a psychological cause, and so would not vanish tomorrow if Israel gave to its neighbors every blade of contested grass, and every wealthy Jew turned himself overnight into a pauper. For don’t forget that being a light unto nations itself incurs the charge of spiritual arrogance.

He took on the subject of anti-Zionism, what many see as the “new” anti-Semitism:

The syllogism goes like this:

Not all critics of Israel are anti-Semites.

I am a critic of Israel.

Therefore I am not an anti-Semite.

In this way has anti-Zionism become an inviolable space. Question it and you are deemed to have cried anti-Semitism (this, whether you have or you haven’t), and since to cry anti-Semitism is a foul, no position from which it is rational to question anti-Zionism remains allowable. By the infernal logic of this magic circle, the anti-Zionist is doubly indemnified, firstly against any criticism of his position whatsoever, since the status of such criticism has been reduced to that of “tactic,” and secondly against the original accusation of anti-Semitism, which anti-Zionism cancels out.

I don’t myself argue that anti-Zionism is a method for circumventing Jew-hating while indulging it, but were that to have been the intention, it could not have been better planned.

Criticism of Israel functions as a sort of antiseptic bath, or mikveh — no matter how mired in the impurities of anti-Semitism you might be when you go in, you come out as fragrant as a bride awaiting her groom.

Where’s the coverage? Jewish cemeteries defaced in Israel
Why does the Israeli media treat the defacing of Jewish cemeteries in Israel differently, (Presspectiva)

Letter to the Editor: “In Response to Nadine Aly”
SJP at FAU spreads inaccuracies. A CAMERA Fellow speaks up with a letter to the editor, and is published in his campus paper. (in Focus)

A Testimonial from a Cedarville University Alumna
CAMERA has had an enormous impact on my past two years in college, my current occupation, and my future career goals. As a Christian . . . (in Focus)

CAMERA Helps Bring Dr. Anat Berko to USF
As part of the Less Hamas More Hummus Campaign, Dr. Anat Berko spoke at the University of South Florida about her first hand research on suicide bombers and their handlers. (in Focus)

Accuracy and impartiality failures in BBC report on Jerusalem elections
The BBC misleads readers by suggesting that Arab Jerusalemites cannot be Israeli citizens and conceals the campaign of intimidation to stop them voting. (BBC Watch)

BBC terms bus bomb planner claimed as a member by 2 terror groups ‘militant’
How many internationally recognized terror organisations have to claim a person as one of their members before the BBC will stop euphemistically describing him as a “militant”? (BBC Watch)

Why won’t Harriet Sherwood tell readers about the suspected terror affiliation of Shawan Jabarin?
It seems reasonable to expect journalists who take their professional duties seriously would inform their readers when a so-called “human rights” organization they’re covering is led by a suspected terrorist, which explains why the Guardian failed to do so in a report about the radical Palestinian NGO, Al Haq. (CiF Watch)

Inside The Mind of a Bomber
Our speaker is met with a few protesters at UF. CAMERA Fellow Avia Gridi has the final word when she writes about it for her school paper. (In Focus)

The “P5+1” talks proceed, meaning Iran is negotiating on the issue of its nuclear program with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the United States, Great Britain, France, China, Russia) plus Germany. The next round will take place early next month in Geneva and the media are tripping over themselves to cover differences between the United States and Israel on the matter. And there are differences. According to Bloomberg:

In Moscow yesterday, Russia’s chief negotiator at the talks said Iran and world powers may strike an accord allowing the Islamic republic to continue enriching uranium up to 5 percent purity. That level would require more time to turn into weapons-grade material than the 20 percent enriched uranium Iran is also producing.

[…]

Netanyahu has urged the U.S. and five other powers taking part in talks with Iran in Geneva to reject any proposal that would not ensure a halt to all uranium enrichment. Iran must also stop building a plutonium-producing reactor and curtail other capabilities to make sure it can’t build a nuclear weapon, the Israeli leader says.

Iran is already in violation of a number of Security Council resolutions demanding it cease all uranium enrichment and heavy water activity – a process used to create weapons-grade plutonium. Furthermore, none of this activity is even remotely necessary if Iran, as it claims, only wants a peaceful nuclear program.

There are many countries that have nuclear power that do not have the capability to enrich their own fuel. They buy it from abroad and that’s what Iran could do. And that’s what the media are neglecting to tell you.

There are over thirty countries around the world that have nuclear power programs but according to the World Nuclear Association, only eleven have the capacity to enrich their own fuel.

Here are some of the countries that have nuclear energy but don’t enrich their own nuclear fuel:

• Argentina

• Armenia

• Belgium

• Bulgaria

• Canada

• Czech Republic

• Finland

• Hungary

• South Korea

• Lithuania

• Mexico

• Romania

• Slovakia

• Slovenia

• South Africa

• Spain

• Sweden

• Switzerland

• Ukraine

The fact is that, of countries that have enrichment capabilities, the majority also possess nuclear weapons. Countries that enrich nuclear materials but do not have nuclear weapons include Germany, Japan and the Netherlands. Countries that enrich and do have nuclear weapons include Pakistan, Russia and China.

When you think of Iran, do you think it fits in with Germany, Japan and the Netherlands? Or, does it fit better with Pakistan, Russia and China?

If that isn’t enough to make you uncomfortable, in a speech to the Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council in 2005, Rouhani himself said:

A county that could enrich uranium to about 3.5 percent will also have the capability to enrich it to about 90 percent. Having fuel cycle capability virtually means that a country that possesses this capability is able to produce nuclear weapons.

Since Argentina, Armenia, Sweden and Spain can buy nuclear fuel from abroad, why can’t Iran? Since our neighbors Canada and Mexico can pursue this policy, why can’t Iran? And since numerous countries have nuclear energy without any enrichment capabilities, why don’t the media include this in their reporting? Where’s the context? Where’s the background? Where’s the coverage?

A nuclear power plant in Spain, a country that does not have nuclear enrichment capability.
Notice it is not underground.

In an October 15 article entitled, “Four Good Reasons Why Iran Doesn’t Trust America,” TIME Magazine seems rather sympathetic to Iran’s point of view:

As Iran and Western negotiators sit down in Geneva today, it’s worth considering some of the reasons why Iran bears such animus toward America, and why cutting a deal with the U.S. won’t be easy for Tehran either. Many of those reasons have to do with the basic Islamic fundamentalist philosophy of Iran’s clerical leaders, to be sure. But as the nuclear talks move forward, it’s worth remembering that the U.S. bears some blame for the poisoned state of the relationship between the two countries.

Each one of TIME’s “good reasons” for Iran not to trust America is actually a reason America should not trust Iran. According to TIME, these include:

1. “The Coup and the Shah”

The Shah began his reign after a 1953 coup, which the CIA has recently acknowledged supporting. TIME reports:

“It it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs,” Secretary of State Madeleine Albright conceded in a 2000 address, which also acknowledged that the U.S. gave “sustained backing” to the Shah’s regime, which, she admitted, “brutally repressed political dissent.”

The Shah may have brutally repressed political dissent, but the current regime of the ayatollahs puts it to shame in the brutal repression department. Iran incarcerates political and religious dissenters, executes untold numbers in secret prisons and, after the rigged re-election of Ahmadinejad in 2009, sent thugs into the streets to beat and murder peaceful demonstrators. This repression goes back to the early days of the regime when thousands of political opponents were murdered.

2. “Iraq and Chemical Weapons”

TIME argues that during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988, the U.S. supported Iraq, which used chemical weapons against Iran. Ironically, Iran supports the Assad regime in Syria which has repeatedly used chemical weapons against civilians, including women and children.

3. “Iran Air 655”

In July of 1988, American forces patrolling the Straits of Hormuz came under fire from Iranian patrol boats. At the same time, an Iranian passenger jet, Iran Air flight 655, flew nearby and was mistaken by a Navy vessel for a hostile fighter. It was shot down killing 274 Iranian passengers and 16 crew members. This was clearly an accident.

On the other hand, Iran is the world’s most active state-sponsor of terrorism. Thirty years ago today, Iran’s proxy Hezbollah set off a truck bomb in Beirut, killing 241 American marines, sailors and soldiers. A court found Iran responsible with a U.S. judge ordering Iran to pay more than $7 billion to the families of victims. As of yet, they have not been paid. Iran continues to support terrorism around the world, even planning to kill a Saudi ambassador by blowing up a Washington, D.C., restaurant.

4. “The ‘Axis of Evil’ and Regime Change”

TIME cites President George W. Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address, in which he described Iran as a member of the “axis of evil.” Furthermore, the magazine claims that Iran believes the U.S. wants regime change in Tehran.

Meanwhile, at virtually every regime-sponsored demonstration in Iran, speakers repeatedly call the U.S. “The Great Satan” and lead chants of “Death to America!”

If Iran has “good” reasons not to trust America, then America has great reasons not to trust Iran. And the four above don’t even scratch the surface. The Iranian regime has been hiding, lying about and violating international law regarding its nuclear program for decades. That sounds like a pretty darn good reason not to trust the regime as negotiations resume next month in Geneva.

As to why TIME Magazine would act as the public relations arm of the Iranian regime, there doesn’t seem to be any good reason for that.

Iranian protesters burn the American flag in Tehran.

In the Oct. 17, 2013 print edition of The Washington Post, syndicated columnist Anne Applebaum (“A New Iran? Hardly.”) highlights the fundamental issue when it comes to negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programs.

“We [the United States] oppose Iran’s nuclear ambitions for one reason: because we object to the Islamic Republic of Iran, a quasi-totalitarian state that since 1979 has been led by brutal, volatile men with no respect for the rule of law.” Exactly. And in their brutality and volatility, these quasi-totalitarian leaders have called for the destruction of Israel.

Applebaum provides one of the few relatively detailed analyses in mainstream media that calls for more caution than optimism following October 16 talks between the United States, Britain, Russia, France, China, and Germany (the “P5+1” countries) and Iran.

The columnist notes that President Hassan Rouhani does not “represent a new radical strand of Iranian thinking about nuclear power. After all”, she writes, “he was Iran’s nuclear negotiator from 2003 to 2005…. Nor does Rouhani’s new cabinet mark a profound break from those who have run the Islamic Republic since its inception. As his justice minister, Rouhani has appointed Mostafa Pourmohammadi, a former high official in the Ministry of Information during the bloody and violent 1980s.”

Moreover, among Pourmohammadi’s greatest “achievements,” says Applebaum, were “the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988…. the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires and the assassination of dissidents in Iran and around the world.” And during the week of September 23, “when Rouhani was at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, more than 30 Iranians were reportedly executed without due process of law”.

Applebaum’s timely commentary comes when words and rhetoric, not actions, are welcomed by some reporters and pundits as indications of change from the aggressive style of Rouhani’s immediate predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “[A]s long as the Iranian judicial system is subverted by a politicized version of sharia [Islamic law], there will always be a limit to what can be achieved through any conversations with Tehran,” Applebaum stresses.

She implies that Iran will say anything to lift international sanctions that have been crippling its economy. But will it agree to limit what appears to be a large, secret nuclear weapons program? Applebaum summarizes: “Talking is fine. But the negotiators in Geneva should leave any optimism at the door”. — by Lee Golan Fischgrund, CAMERA Washington research intern.

WCC General Secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit

The World Council of Churches is morally, ethically and intellectually bankrupt. That is the only logical conclusion one can draw after reading Malcolm Lowe’s scathing essay published today in the Gatestone Institute. In the piece, Lowe highlights the WCC’s failure to speak up forcefully on behalf of Christians suffering persecution in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East.

Lowe, a New Testatment Scholar who resides in Jerusalem, also asks why the WCC has not set up an accompaniment program that allows human rights activists from the West to stand in solidarity with Christians suffering persecution in places like Egypt, Syria and Iraq.

Part of the answer, Lowe reports, is that the WCC has bought into “the preposterous lie … that Palestine is the central issue [in the region]” and “that solving this issue will rescue the Christians perishing elsewhere in the Middle East.” Lowe continues:

Another answer is sheer cowardice. The main task of [WCC activists in the West Bank], apart from listening to unverifiable Palestinian tales, is to watch Palestinians go through Israeli checkpoints. The number of checkpoints has been drastically reduced in recent years and the Israeli authorities are introducing quicker and surer means of identification, so not much risk there. If the EAPPI internationals want a little whiff of danger, they can go on a Friday to watch – from a safe distance of course – a ritual battle between Palestinian youths throwing stones and Israeli soldiers responding with tear gas. In Egypt or Syria, on the other hand, they would have faced a real danger from machine guns, arson or bombardment with conventional and chemical weapons.

Read the whole thing.

BBC not sure cross-border tunnel intended for terror?
The curious use of punctuation in reports on the discovery of a tunnel leading from the Gaza Strip into Israel implies that the BBC is not convinced of the project’s purpose or location. (BBC Watch)

BBC R4 presents jaundiced account of San Remo conference
The BBC’s reliance upon two activist academics to explain the San Remo Conference and the Balfour Declaration produces predictably subjective results. (BBC Watch)

Revealed: How Richard Silverstein was duped again by a phony “source”
When blogger Richard Silverstein isn’t expressing support for the end of the Jewish state, or defending terror groups like Hamas, he’s often busy peddling false “scoops“ based on little or no evidence. (CiF Watch)

Transmutation of the reality
The Paraguayan newspaper Última Hora bids farewell to context, when it reverses the roles of the players. It is now Iran which is the threatened party. (ReVista de Medio Oriente)

The Politics of a Humanitarian Fundraiser
The surprising reactions of anti-Israel groups when a pro-Israel group tries to fundraise for Syrian refugees. (in Focus)

The Loneliness of Leadership
To what period in Churchill’s life did Netanyahu compare himself? (Presspectiva)

Transforming speculation into fact
Argentinean media 26noticias.com.ar claims that Israel makes between 10 and 15 atomic bombs each year. (ReVista de Medio Oriente)

Spokesmen of an ideology
The Spanish news agency Europa Press has major problems with any fact or data that would invalidate or place in doubt its assumption of perennial Israeli guilt and evil. (ReVista de Medio Oriente)

CAMERA’s Campus Team Visits Students in Florida.
CAMERA’s Campus Director Aviva Slomich and Senior Campus Coordinator Samantha Mandeles have just returned from visits with our pro-Israel groups in Florida. Learn about the pro-Israel events happening now in Florida! (in Focus)

Melkite Archbishop Hilarion Capucci ran guns for the PLO in the 1970s. He got caught and was sentenced to 12 years in jail. He was released after serving a few years of his sentence. The Vatican, embarrassed by the presence of an Archbishop in an Israeli jail, secured his early release by promising that the Archbishop would not engage in any anti-Israel activism once he was out of jail. Capucci violated the terms of his release on a number of occasions, most recently participating in the so-called humanitarian flotilla into the Gaza Strip.

At the time of his trial, Capucci said he was forced into smuggling weapons for the PLO. If that was the case, then Capucci should be ashamed of his past actions.

Apparently, he isn’t. He recently accepted an award the Star of Jerusalem Award from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The award was given to him for his efforts on behalf of the Palestinian people, which according to a Google translation of an article published by WAFA, included “secret work in support of the Palestinian revolution.”

Gun-running in other words.
(more…)

Israeli minister of intelligence and international affairs Yuval Steinitz wrote an Op-Ed published in the International New York Times on October 16 headlined, “How Palestinian Hate Prevents Peace.” (As of this writing, the column has not appeared in the widely-read flagship edition of The New York Times.) In the piece, Steinitz details:

…a few of the thousands of examples of Palestinian incitement against the Jewish state and the Jewish people. There are even numerous instances of the glorification of Hitler on the Facebook pages of some government-supported Palestinian schools and in children’s publications funded by the Palestinian Authority. Such messages, propagated daily in P.A. media and classrooms, are internalized by the population at large — and children in particular.

[…]

The Palestinian Authority’s television and radio stations, public schools, summer camps, children’s magazines and Web sites are being used to drive home four core messages. First, that the existence of a Jewish state (regardless of its borders) is illegitimate because there is no Jewish people and no Jewish history in this piece of land. Second, that Jews and Zionists are horrible creatures that corrupt those in their vicinity. Third, that Palestinians must continue to struggle until the inevitable replacement of Israel by an Arab-Palestinian state. And fourth, that all forms of resistance are honorable and valid, even if some forms of violence are not always expedient.

Steinitz also explains:

The fact that this anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic indoctrination persists, despite the much-touted relaunch of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, constitutes a huge obstacle on the road to peace. It should have disappeared 20 years ago, as a result of a clear Palestinian commitment to end all forms of incitement included in the Oslo Accords. And until it ends, the current round of talks cannot hope to reach a successful outcome.

Did you catch that? “A clear Palestinian commitment to end all forms of incitement included in the Oslo Accords.” Yes, the unceasing hatemongering sanctioned and promoted by the Palestinian Authority – not to mention Hamas, the terrorist group that runs Gaza – is not only immoral and counterproductive, it is a violation of the Oslo Accords. The 1995 Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, commonly referred to as Oslo II, reads:

CHAPTER 4 – COOPERATION

ARTICLE XXII

Relations between Israel and the Council

1. Israel and the Council shall seek to foster mutual understanding and tolerance and shall accordingly abstain from incitement, including hostile propaganda, against each other and, without derogating from the principle of freedom of expression, shall take legal measures to prevent such incitement by any organizations, groups or individuals within their jurisdiction.

2. Israel and the Council will ensure that their respective educational systems contribute to the peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples and to peace in the entire region, and will refrain from the introduction of any motifs that could adversely affect the process of reconciliation.

CAMERA has been covering incitement for years. Not so the mainstream media. “Where’s the Coverage?” has asked the press to report on this odious provocation repeatedly. We haven’t seen much response.

But even as the popular press harp on every porch that gets a new roof in a Jewish neighborhood in a Jerusalem suburb, they rarely if ever report that the vicious propaganda issuing from the Palestinian Authority is a bona fide violation of the Oslo Accords. Yes, journalists have incorrectly stated that “the United States, along with most of the world, considers these settlements illegal.” But as for the actual violation of a treaty, of which the United States is a guarantor…? Crickets.

So… Where’s the coverage?

The habitual vilification of Israel and Jews in official Palestinian media and promoted by P.A. leaders and agencies is documented by Palestinian Media Watch. The watchdog organization has a well-annotated text of Steinitz’ Op-Ed that is worth seeing. It includes a link to this video which shows the P.A. giving an award to a writer whose poem contains the line “Zion is Satan with a tail”: