Tamar Sternthal outside CAMERA’s new Jerusalem office.

This week’s Philadelphia Jewish Exponent includes an interview with the Director of CAMERA’s Israel office, Tamar Sternthal, about CAMERA’s newly opened Jerusalem office.

The interview states:

Tamar Sternthal credits a 1994 internship at the Jewish Exponent with instilling in her a love of journalism, a knack for gathering and checking facts, and a desire to pursue larger truths.

Sternthal states the following about CAMERA’s new Jerusalem hub:

This is part of our growth and expansion,

Read the entire interview here.

The Jerusalem Post reported:

Palestinian Authority police on Sunday arrested Bethlehem journalist and broadcaster George Canawati on suspicion of “slander” and “insults.”

Canawati, director of Radio Bethlehem 2000, appeared on Monday in court with a black eye and torn shirt. He announced that he had gone on a hunger-strike in protest against his arrest and beating.

He complained that PA policemen physically assaulted him before and during his interrogation.

The court ordered him remanded into custody for 48 hours.

Canawati was arrested at his home in Beit Sahur late Sunday.

Eyewitnesses described the arrest as “violent.” Policemen also searched his home before leading him away.

Web site WorldTribune.com offered this context:

Canawati has angered the PA as well as officials in Bethlehem with his reports on corruption and inefficiency. Over the last year, Canawati used his weekly radio program to target everybody from Bethlehem Mayor Vera Baboun, Bethelehem Gov. Abdul Fatah Hemayel to Bethlehem police commander Col. Omar Shalabi.

In his latest arrest, the sources said Canawati was denied access to his attorney and ordered by a court to remain in detention until at least Nov. 13. Neither the United States or the European Union, which finance PA security forces, has responded publicly to the detention of Canawati.

And the Christian news outlet CBN noted, “The Palestinian Authority has a ways to go with freedom of the press if it wants to become a democracy.”

So what did the major media outlets report about this? CAMERA could find not a word. One would think that the arrest of a journalist for reporting – to say nothing of the alleged physical abuse he received – would be of great concern to his colleagues in the press. Imagine how many stories would be written if Israeli soldiers were accused of abusing journalists. No need to imagine, the answer is thousands.

But when Israel cannot be made to look like the bad guy… Where’s the coverage?

In a separate incident last year, another Palestinian journalist, Mohammed Jaradat, alleged that PA forces arrested him for covering a protest. Jaradat claimed he was taken to the police station and, “After that they brutally attacked me, despite me showing my press identification. They took me to the upper floor and continued to beat me with a stick, causing bleeding in my nose. Then they arrested me, with six other people. While they beat me, I asked to see the Director of Police who is a relative of mine and he came after an hour of detention and beatings. He apologized to me and I was released.”

Scholastic, a publisher of children’s books, will revise and reprint a book with a map of the Middle East that did not include Israel, the West Bank or Gaza Strip.

The Times of Israel, which broke the story, reported that “While Sudan, Libya and Saudi Arabia appear clearly on the map, the territory of Israel is completely covered by Jordan, painted red.”

The publisher today expressed regret for the omission and announced that it is “immediately stopping shipment on this title, revising the map, and going back to reprint.”

Although it is disturbing that a publisher focused on educating children would miss the glaring geographical error, it deserves credit for admitting and rectifying the mistake.

CNN and CBS should take note. Although their corrections to recent falsehoods would be much simpler — they don’t have to stop shipment or republish anything, but merely broadcast straightforward corrections online and on the air — editors at each of the networks have inexplicably chosen to stand by the errors.

In an excellent Op-Ed in the Times of Israel, Ma’ariv’s Ben-Dror Yemini writes (“Ha’aretz: Rabidly Wrong on Holocaust Studies“):

Over the past few weeks, we have been witness to a campaign on the pages of Haaretz condemning Holocaust education in Israel. A visitor from another planet would think that someone was conducting massive brainwashing via the Israel school system, in order to teach Jews how to hate foreigners in the name of the supremacy of the Jewish race. That stranger from outer space would think that because of this Spartan-like brainwashing, thousands of Israeli children are going through some kind of exercise, towards yet a more lofty goal: to conduct suicide attacks against multiple enemies, beginning with Germans, continuing with the Poles and finishing off with Arabs.

The renewed debate over the nature of Holocaust studies began with a news item which reported that The Minister of Education, Shai Peron, had announced his intention to launch Holocaust studies from the first grade. This half truth was worse than a lie. The initiative came from Yad Vashem, which wanted to reorganize the time devoted to discussions on the holocaust, also in the first grade, during the annual memorial ceremony on Holocaust Remembrance Day. After all, you have to explain to children why there is a siren, and what the ceremony is all about. Nursery School teachers and grade school teachers have complained for years that they do not know how to deal with this. What should they be saying? How should they explain what happened? The problem was that no one gave them answers. The Israel State Comptroller dealt with this in the past. . . .

Yet according to the vicious campaign generated by Haaretz, a group of dangerous nationalists were plotting an educational program concerning the horrors of the Holocaust in order to infuse little children with hatred of foreigners. Instead of a public discussion, what we have here is a festival of demagoguery. The facts at hand did not prevent Haaretz from launching a campaign that the “government minister has lost his mind” and the “wicked attack” of this initiative which will cause “an outbreak of hatred and violence”, while their campaign is laced with code words like
nationalism, aggression, victimization, along with hatred of foreigners and the other. One participant in the campaign most recently compared Israeli soldiers with the Nazis. People who are in love with lies tend to stick to their lies.

Yemini then cites CAMERA’s Hebrew site, Presspectiva, which has just opened a Jerusalem office together with CAMERA and another affiliate CiF Watch:

There is a web site in Israel known as “Presspectiva”, which uncovers mistakes, lies and purposeful distortion which occur in the news media in Israel, not only in Haaretz, Numerous mistakes occur in the translation of Haaretz that appear in their English language edition. Yet all of the mistakes were in one direction: Incitement against Israel. This is not just “a mistake”, but rather a matter of systematic bias to one side.

BBC correspondent compares anti-terrorist fence to Berlin wall, fails to mention terrorism
The BBC’s ‘From our own Correspondent’ presents a one-sided and inaccurate view of Israel’s anti-terrorist fence (BBC Watch)

NYT goes where BBC declines to tread
The BBC systematically fails to address the subject of incitement and glorification of terrorism, either by Hamas or the Palestinian Authority (BBC Watch)

Declare Your Freedom Pro-Israel Rally Planned for New Orleans
Our CAMERA supported student group at the University of New Orleans, Allies for Israel, is planning a Declare Your Freedom 2.0 rally this March. Watch the video created by students at Allies for Israel to learn about the planned pro-Israel rally. (in Focus)

Jelen’s Big Slip
Our first CAMERA Fellow in Uruguay publishes his response to an anti-Israel article in two papers. Read the translation here.(in Focus)

Arafat, when rumors replace the news
Some of the Spanish speaking press hurried to publish rumors about Arafat’s death. (ReVista de Medio Oriente)

Faulty education system to blame for unrest in Middle East
“It is important to challenge what you believe, so that you know why you believe it. That’s why I decided to backpack around Jordan, the West Bank and Israel this past summer. I have been to refugee camps and through checkpoints. I have experienced the terror that accompanies a rocket attack, and the heartbreak that comes from talking to a Holocaust survivor.” (in Focus)

Who ever heard of The Washington Post
Why did all the Israeli media report on the scathing New York Times editorial against Netanyahu, but ignore the Washington Post? (Presspectiva)

RT, the Beduin community and the Prawer Plan
Russia Today only quotes sources that oppose the Prawer Plan, while the Plan’s benefits and supporters are disregarded. (ReVista de Medio Oriente)

Exploring Veterans Day and the End of World War I Through a Zionist Lens
The lead-up to the end of World War I signified a turning point for Zionism. Below, we explore Veterans day through the Zionist lens. (in Focus)

In the past, we have noted that the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence proclaims that it ” demands accountability regarding Israel’s military actions in the Occupied territories perpetrated by us and in our name,” and yet it refuses “to report the alleged incidents to the proper authorities, and hide[s] behind a cloak of anonymity, withholding their own identities, the identities of other individuals involved, and the specifics that would enable authorities to corroborate their testimonies.”

A Ha’aretz article last week unwittingly made painfully obvious yet another contradiction between Breaking the Silence’s stated goals and its actual activity. About a lecture given by two Breaking the Silence members at Harvard Law School, Dina Kraft reported:

. . . two young men, Avner Gvaryahu and Dotan Greenvald, members of Breaking the Silence, veterans who served in combat units of the Israeli army who have now taken on a new mission: to expose the Israeli public to the ugly underside of what their service as soldiers in the Israeli army interacting with Palestinians looks like, in hopes of sparking a public debate and change.

The pair were speaking towards the end of the East Coast leg of a North American tour to promote the group’s book of soldier testimonies, “Our Harsh Logic,” a plainspoken but often harrowing recounting of their experiences as soldiers. A West Coast tour starts next week. (Emphases added.)

The pair hope to spark debate in the Israeli public, so they visit American college campuses? Israelis hoping to find the pairs’ book in Hebrew should not waste their time. If the book, Our Harsh Logic, published by the American publisher Picador, exists in Hebrew, it has not left so much as a trace on the Internet. So much for sparking public debate among the Israeli public.

Albert Russo writes in English and French, his two “mother tongues.” He also speaks five languages fluently, has won numerous awards for his writing, and has lived in Africa, the United States and Europe. In a Times of Israel blog, the novelist and poet reflects on a trip to Israel:

In 2011 I went there on a humble ‘Peace Mission’ with 50 other travelers, 50% of whom were Christians, 30% Jews and the rest, Muslims, atheists and agnostics (like myself). 80% of these ‘pilgrims’ had never been to the Holy Land and when they came back they were totally dumbfounded and positively enthralled, especially during their stay in Israel, for what they had experienced and seen there didn’t correspond at all to the news they had been used to listening to or viewing in Europe, and especially in the Islamic countries.

[…]

Do people around the world know what the population of Israel is nowadays? About 8 million, of whom 75% are Jewish and 20% are… Muslim. How come nothing is ever mentioned about those Israeli Arabs, who benefit from the generous Jewish health service, free schooling, etc? Yes, who??? I’ve asked some of them personally – yes, yes, they can all sit around the same table, in the same restaurants, in the same parks, on the same beaches with Jews and people of all religions and colors – so much said for ‘apartheid’): “Would you like to rejoin your brethren in the Arab countries or in a new Palestine?” “Never!” they firmly responded, even if Jews and Muslims still don’t like or trust each other, for they are the freest Muslims in the world. And that is correct, for they can say whatever they want at the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament), even insult the other parties, without being harassed or sent to jail, as is the case in most Muslim countries. And where do Christians in the Middle East feel the safest and even increase in population? In Israel, in that ‘apartheid’ country!

We all know that Ha’aretz has had serious problems with translations. As CAMERA has noted, “information appearing in the Hebrew original concerning Palestinian militancy, violence and other Arab wrongdoing is downplayed or omitted entirely” in the newspaper’s English translation, while translators also “introduc[e] misinformation reflecting negatively on Israel which did not appear in the Hebrew original.”

But do editors of the Israeli newspaper’s English website also change wording around when no translation is even necessary?

The lede of a Nov. 6 Reuters story on the site emphatically and unequivocally reports that “a Swiss forensic team has found that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned to death in 2004 with radioactive polonium.” Ha’aretz‘s headline likewise announces, without even the slightest ambivalence: “Swiss team: Arafat poisoned to death with polonium.”

This is surprising. The report by Swiss scientists includes many caveats and what the authors call “critical problems” that hindered the ability to reach emphatic conclusions. That being the case, the report concludes that the study’s results “moderately support the proposition that the death was a consequence of poisoning.” The authors explicitly opted not to conclude that the results “strongly support” such a determination.

So why would Reuters brush aside the authors’ caution and report that the scientists reached a definitive conclusion that Arafat was poisoned?

It seems they didn’t. Not one of the Reuters dispatches about Arafat in Reuters’ Nov. 6 archive opened with the lede found in Ha’aretz’s version of the Reuters story. Instead, each of the five Reuters dispatches, updates, corrections and refiles open with an accurate passage attributing the certain claim of poisoning to Arafat’s widow: “Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned to death in 2004 with radioactive polonium, his widow Suha said on Wednesday after receiving the results of Swiss forensic tests on her husband’s corpse.”

Ha’aretz seems to have played with the opening sentence to transform Suha into the Swiss forensic team. As Reuters notes, though, “The Swiss scientists’ report, posted in full on Al Jazeera’s website, was more cautious” than those who presented the findings as a smoking gun proving Arafat was poisoned. (Strangely, Ha’aretz left this language in, so that the body of its article contradicts its lede.)

If we find that Reuters actually did at some point make the overstatement that “A Swiss forensic team has found that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned to death in 2004 with radioactive polonium,” we’ll be sure to correct this piece. Meanwhile, Ha’aretz should correct its headline and lede. Reuters never seemed to say, and the Swiss scientists certainly never said, what Ha’aretz makes them out to say.

A new device created in Israel aims to help the millions – including an estimated 21 million Americans – with visual impairments.

OrCam, which clips on to eyeglasses and costs about as much as a hearing aid, is able to identify thousands of objects, including faces, text, signs, pricetags and more. The wearer points at the object and the OrCam voice system reads the information into the wearer’s ear.

Yonatan Wexler, the company’s head of R&D, recalls how his team tried the device on an 18-year-old Israeli teen, blind since age five. As reported by Israel21c:

They asked him if he wanted to read the newspaper, and he said yes, sarcastically.

“He put on the device, ‘read’ the newspaper and started to cry,” Oxford-educated Wexler recalls.

[…]

The possible uses for this groundbreaking technology are almost endless. But the company founders needed to start somewhere, and so they decided to tackle an area that could benefit humanity. “We wanted to find something with real value,” Wexler says.

Every day, Israeli researchers develop technologies that save and change lives – in this case, bringing to fruition the words of the prophet Isaiah (35:5), “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened.” This is utterly remarkable. Yet… Where’s the coverage?

Watch a video about OrCam, produced by Israel21c:

Protest tourists in the West Bank. (Dexter Van Zile)

Ardie Geldman, a resident of Efrat, has written a piece for The New English Review that details the manner in which Palestinian activists have helped turn the West Bank into a theme park where privileged tourists from the United States and Europe adopt the persona of human rights heroes assailing Israel’s misdeeds. Like most theme parks, there is a huge amount of trickery and showmanship going on.

When protest tourists visit with Palestinians, they are offered a distorted narrative about the Arab-Israeli conflict that omits any mention of Arab responsibility for the refugee problem. Geldman, who talks to these groups after they’ve been exposed to Palestinian propaganda, details the ignorance protest tourists exhibit about refugee camps when they finally get around to hearing a different point of view:
(more…)