Dec. 17 Update: NY Times Corrects: Israel Didn’t Block Installation of Scanner

The New York Times incorrectly reported that Israel blocked the installation of a scanner donated by the Netherlands

In The New York Times yesterday, Jodi Rudoren reports:

. . . Israel on Sunday blocked the installation of a high-tech cargo scanner donated by the Netherlands at the commercial crossing from Gaza into Israel, citing security concerns. The scanner was intended to increase Gaza exports to the West Bank.

According to Ha’aretz coverage on this issue, Israel did not block the installation of the scanner. Rather Israel refused to let the machine be used to scan Gaza exports to the West Bank, and the Dutch had hoped it would be used for this purpose. As a result, the Dutch were angry and cancelled the inaugural gala for the scanner.

Moreover, in a conversation with CAMERA, Guy Inbar, the spokesman of COGAT (Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories) reported that the scanner has been installed for the last three weeks and that for the last week or two it has been used for strawberries and flowers exports to Europe.

CAMERA has contacted The New York Times to request a correction.
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Israel’s Security Key to a Stable Middle East
CAMERA Fellow at Drexel publishes a piece about the Palestinian terrorists released by Israel. (in Focus)

Hamas erases Israel from Gaza text books
Hamas has erased the term “Israel” from Gaza’s text books in most of the schools of the strip and has substitute it for the words “Zionist entity”. (ReVista de Medio Oriente)

Walla and the Strange Case of the “International Media”
Walla reports that a story is being covered by the “International Media.” In fact only the Iranian propaganda agency “Press TV” was reporting it. (Presspectiva)

BBC amplification of organised anti-Israel delegitimising campaign
A BBC report on protests against the Prawer Plan conceals – and amplifies – their political agenda. (BBC Watch)

Examining the BBC’s track record on Jewish refugees from Arab lands
The subject of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is under-reported by the BBC. (BBC Watch)

Future Leaders of Israel
Students are ready to fight back with a new, innovative advocacy tool, of which CAMERA is a sponsor. Rena Nasar, former president of the CAMERA Campus Activist Group YOFI at Baruch College explains: (in Focus)

Why let the facts ruin a good headline?
Ha’aretz claimed all of the former heads of military intelligence supported the deal with Iran. We checked. They didn’t. (Presspectiva)

Harriet Sherwood refers to future Israeli cities in the Negev as “Jewish settlements”
New Israeli cities which are going to be built in the Negev – as part of a broader plan to settle land disputes with Israeli Bedouins – was characterized by the Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood as “Jewish settlements”, despite the fact that these communities will be within the state’s 1949 boundaries and will be open to citizens of all faiths. (CiF Watch)

Wrong and brief
Colombian newspaper El Universal reported about the alleged Palestinians houses demolition in the West Bank by Israel without quoting any Israeli statement on the subject; and stated that the “Bedouin land” in the Negev is “Palestinian land”. (ReVista de Medio Oriente)

Just one week ago, The New York Times correctly reported that, according to human rights groups opposed to the Prawer-Begin plan to regulate settlement in the Negev, 30,000 to 40,000 Bedouins will be relocated as a result of the controversial initiative. This figure is consistent with the number provided by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which notes that 30,000 Bedouin living in unrecognized communities will have to move a short distance, while 60,000 more also living in unrecognized locations will be permitted to stay where they are.

Indeed, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which opposes the plan, reports: “The plan will lead to the uprooting and forcible eviction of dozens of villages and 30-40,000 Bedouin residents.” Rabbis for Human Rights, which also opposes the plan, writes that it “could potentially cause the demolition of 34 ‘unrecognized’ Bedouin villages in the Negev and the forced expulsion to urban areas of 40,000 Israeli Bedouin.”

According to the Prawer-Begin Plan itself, there are 70,000-90,000 Bedouin who currently live in unrecognized communities, and “the vast majority of residents who reside in locations that today are not regulated will be able to continue to live there in the future within formalized settlements.”

So, why then, does a New York Times caption currently featured on the paper’s site state the plan will “forcibly relocate about 70,000 residents from 35 unrecognized villages”?

How did the figure of 30,000 to 40,000 jump to 70,000 in the space of one week? What has changed? Has the government introduced a more draconian plan? In fact, nothing has changed.
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As Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in Israel to heat up negotiations with the Palestinian Arabs, his visit is being heavily covered by the media, understandably. Some reports describe Kerry bringing a proposed plan to address Israel’s security concerns. But none in the mainstream press have covered the very real and immediate security concerns of Israelis in Jerusalem today.

The Times of Israel reported:

According to figures released by the Shin Bet, November marked a 65% rise in terrorist attacks in Jerusalem compared to the previous month, Channel 10 reported. The security services documented 32 attacks in October, and 53 in November, of which 47 involved Molotov cocktails.

Even when attacks don’t involve explosives, they can cause casualties. Last week, two-year-old Avigail Ben-Tzion suffered a head injury when the car she was riding in was pelted with stones. Her family was returning from a day at the zoo. She has now been released from the hospital. This incident was covered by the Jewish and Israeli press, but the mainstream media have been mum.

Arabs have been attacked also, when they are mistaken for Jews. Ynet News reported a Muslim family was victimized by three Arab youths, as described by the father, Rashuan Salman:

“They tried to pull us out of the car and hit us, it seemed they were intent on lynching us. They tried opening the doors and my wife begged them to leave us alone. She spoke to them in Arabic and only then did they understand that we ourselves are Arabs, and left us alone. I hit the gas and drove away as fast as possible.”

According to him, the youth clearly mistook them for Jews: “Me and my wife look Jewish, even the police officer who arrived said ‘at first sight I was sure you were Jews.’ He told us that these types of things happen all the time.”

Jews sympathetic to the Arab cause are not immune from violent attack either. Daniel Seideman, an attorney who founded several pro-Palestinian NGOs was recently victimized. He wrote on his Facebook on Saturday, November 23:

This afternoon, I paid a working visit to a friend in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sur Bahir, barely a kilometer from my home. When we took leave of one another, I headed home in my car. I had the misfortune of ending up in a traffic jam in the center of the village, just as school was getting out. I didn’t see it coming, but should have: I was a sitting duck. The rock was probably thrown at point blank range; it smashed the side window with enough force to leave a deep gash in the back of my head. I was fortunate: I did not lose consciousness, nor my sense of orientation. Thankfully, the traffic jam loosened up a bit. Within a minute or so I was out of danger and on my way to get treatment. This ended with a few stitches and no serious damage (confirmed by a CT).

Seideman blames “the occupation” for the violence, writing:

The rock that hit me yesterday was not directed at me, personally. Most likely, it was hurled because I am an Israeli – the occupier. It’s also possible that it’s because I am a Jew, irrespective of the occupation. We will never know.

Actually, we do know. Police have arrested five teens in the stoning of Avigail Ben-Tzion and according to police:

“We have five suspects in our hands,” said Superintendent Yigal Elmaliach, head of investigations in the Special Operations Squad in the Jerusalem District Police’s Central Unit. “Four of them were interrogated and admitted to the act and also implicated the others in the event. Some of them are still being questioned. We are talking about a planned attack. They met beforehand and planned to arrive in the evening in order to throw rocks. In the interrogation they said that the reason was hatred of Jews.”

CAMERA has long reported on the seriousness of these attacks, another toddler who was seriously injured in the spring, Adele Bitton, and other victims of stoning attacks. But the popular press ignores this issue, or worse. In August, The New York Times ran a front-page, above-the-fold story romanticizing such attacks.

Now these attacks are on the rise and they are demonstrably motivated by ethnic hatred. It’s time for the media to open their eyes… Where’s the coverage?

(Related: Believe it or not, Seideman’s attack was falsely characterized in the Toronto’s The Globe and Mail as perpetrated by “ultra-nationalist members of the settler movement.” Read CAMERA’s coverage here.)

The Globe and Mail introduces its posted editorial code of conduct as follows::

The credibility of the reporting, analysis and opinion in The Globe and Mail rests on solid research, clear, intelligent writing, and maintaining a reputation
for honesty, accuracy, objectivity and balance.

Perhaps the newspaper’s editors are unaware of their code of conduct, because they certainly made no attempt to fact-check an opinion column condemning Israeli settlers for a crime they did not commit. The Dec. 2nd column, entitled “Israel faces a political conundrum” was premised on the false assumption that Israeli settlers have perpetrated violent crimes against civilians. It was penned by Michael Bell, who served in Canada’s Foreign Service as Ambassador to Jordan, Cypress, Egypt and Israel before taking on his present position as Professor of Middle East studies at the University of Windsor. Bell began his article with what he thought was a revealing anecdote:

Two weeks ago, a friend of mine, Danny Seideman, a Jerusalem lawyer who works pro bono on settlement issues respecting Palestinians threatened by displacement, had his car stoned in East Jerusalem. He himself suffered a concussion. No suspects have been identified. Given established patterns, however, the likely perpetrators are ultra-nationalist members of the settler movement, the fulfillment of whose goals would be the displacement of Palestinians and the incorporation of the entire West Bank into a greater Israel.

This anecdote becomes the linchpin of Bell’s attack on nationalist Israelis as he discusses what he calls”the problem, illustrated by the ‘Seideman incident’.”

The author goes on:

That problem is the willingness of the ultras increasingly to violate Israeli law in pursuit of their vision of a Greater Israel. A kind of theological fervor governs their behavior, albeit a common and pervasive phenomenon elsewhere in the region. For, as they believe, one cannot ignore the will of the Deity?

But, in fact, Seideman was attacked by Palestinian stone throwers, who regularly stone Israelis travelling in eastern Jerusalem. So the professor exposes himself not only as ignorant of the subject about which he rants, but also as extremely biased and unreliable about the situation of which he purports to inform others.

Elder of Ziyon exposed Bell’s biased column and Israeli media-watcher, Yisrael Medad, after confirming that Seideman was indeed stoned by Arab perpetrators, contacted Bell about his erroneous column. The author responded that the initial information he received was “incorrect’ and that “corrective action” was taken..

Of course, this excuse is ludicrous. To pen an entire column premised on unconfirmed information is certainly unprofessorial, not to say, unjournalistic. It remains to be seen whether or not The Globe and Mail will publish a correction and apology to its readers, or whether it will continue to flout its own editorial guidelines.