According to a study by Professor Sammy Smooha of the University of Haifa, 63.5% of Israeli Arabs consider Israel to be a good place to live. The study, titled “The Index of Arab-Jewish Relations in Israel,” draws on 700 face-to-face interviews with a national representative sample of Israeli Arabs and 700 phone interviews with Israeli Jews. It has been conducted annually since 2003.

The Tower reports that, not only did nearly two-thirds of Israeli Arabs say Israel is a good place to live in 2013, this is an increase from 2012’s figure of 58.5%.

And that is not the only number that is up. The percentage of Israeli Arabs who accepted Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state rose to 52.8% from 47.4% the year before. That is a majority.

Further, the number of Israeli-Arabs who accept their identity as such without identifying as Palestinians increased from 32.5% in 2012 to 42.5% in 2013. That is a nearly 33% jump.

While the Israeli press in Hebrew and English has reported this news, no mainstream news outlets have deemed it worthy of coverage.

The fact that Israeli Arabs like Israel is an important element for news consumers to understand, yet it does not fit with the narrative promoted by the majority of the mainstream media so they don’t cover it. In fact, when there is just about anything positive to say about Israel… Where’s the coverage?

An Associated Press news story early today about Temple Mount disturbances failed to adequately address the basic five questions that news stories are supposed to cover: who, what, where, when and how. The article reported:

Who were the masked protesters? Arabs? Jews? The article doesn’t say.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld tweeted earlier today:

Haaretz clearly identifies the protesters (“Israeli police clash with Arab protesters”):

The Israeli police officer was lightly wounded by a rock thrown by masked Arab protesters at the Temple Mount.

(Also, the Haaretz story, which was published after the AP story, reports on injuries among the demonstrators and police.)

Following communication from CAMERA’s Israel office, AP editors commendably refiled the story, and included the key piece of information about who was involved in this incident:

By contacting wire services during the very same news cycle in which a flawed story first appears, CAMERA proactively works to ensure more accurate and informative coverage in newspapers around the world.

For AP corrections prompted by CAMERA, please see here.

Newly released footage of the May 15 disputed fatal shootings of two Palestinian teenagers during “Nakba Day” clashes in Betunia contradicts the account that emerged from a heavily-edited video released by Defence for Children International – Palestine, which alleged that the two were killed after the violent clash had died down.

As The Los Angeles Times put it:

But questions arose after rights organizations circulated videos Tuesday that purport to show the incident. The videos, released by the Palestinian branch of Defense for Children International and the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, or B’Tselem, appear to show the boys were unarmed and not engaged in confrontation with soldiers or close to them when they were shot.

Indeed, Fakher Zayed, a Palestinian interviewed in the DCI video, (see video below) claims:

At the moment of the killings, nothing was going on and no stone-throwing was taking place.

Based on the heavily-edited DCI-P footage, The New York Times reported:

Neither of the teenagers appeared to be engaged in provocative behavior at the time they were shot, though a photograph shows one wearing a black ski mask, and the video shows another individual hurling stones from the same spot seven minutes before the first shooting.

The 11 hours of footage that B’Tselem released today shows hours of rock-throwing before Nadim Nawareh and Muhammad Salameh were shot.

It also shows that Nawareh was part of a group of youth who continued to throw stones up until one minute before he was shot, not seven minutes. DCI-Palestine’s deceptive editing made it appear that the stone-throwing ended fully seven minutes before the shooting, and this is what The Times reported. (See 39:22 minutes into the video below.)

The difference between one minute and seven minutes is significant. Was Nawareh shot in the midst of an ongoing violent conflict, or after the violence had dissipated?

The second fatality, occured only 2.5 minutes after rocks were thrown. However, at this point Salameh had been throwing rocks for hours. (View from 21:54 minutes from the video below.)

That the media was misled by DCI-Palestine is not particularly surprising. NGO Monitor documents, for instance, how DCI-Palestine Section promotes the “Jenin massacre” myth and advocates BDS, and its director, Rifat Odeh Kassis is also the coordinator and spokesman for the vitriolic Kairos Palestine document.

— With research by Gidon Shaviv

Downplaying the significance of a Palestinian photomontage exhibit in Bethlehem’s Manger Square, erected in time for Pope Francis’ visit there yesterday, The New York Times reports:

The pope offered a spirited Mass in a crowded Manger Square, which was bedecked with photomontages blending Christian iconography with images of Palestinians’ difficult daily reality.

Palestinian Media Watch provides more information on the art exhibit commissioned by the Palestinian Authority:

The exhibit consists of visual displays merging classical paintings of biblical scenes with photos of Palestinians and have been “designed by the Palestinian Museum at the request of the Presidential Higher Committee for Church Affairs.” [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 20, 2014]

As Palestinian Media Watch has documented, the PA has misrepresented Jesus for years, claiming he was not a Judean as in Christian tradition, but rather a “Palestinian,” thereby claiming a Palestinian history dating back to the time of Jesus. Mahmoud Abbas recently said Jesus was “a Palestinian messenger.” This exhibit reinforces the pretense that Jesus was a Palestinian by visually merging the image of Jesus in classical art with pictures of Palestinians.

Some of the displays at the exhibit also reiterate another PA message – that Palestinians suffer as Jesus did.

Moreover, as our colleagues at CiF Watch, a CAMERA affiliate, noted:

. . . .one work in the exhibit even evokes the decide charge (that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus) by using Raphael’s The Deposition (1507) which shows the dead Jesus being carried to his tomb.

Here’s the original by Raphael:

Here’s the Palestinian version from the current Palestine Museum exhibit:

As you can see, “Jesus’ legs have been replaced by a photo of the wounded legs of a Palestinian, which are being carried away by a man as an Israeli soldier looks on”. This image likely represents an attempt to draw a historical line from the crucifixion of the ‘Palestinian’ Christ two thousand years ago to the violence committed today against modern day Palestinians by Israeli Jews.

Of course, the Roman Catholic Church repudiated the deicide charge in the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Pope John XXIII, who initiated the first session of the Council, declared more broadly that “the sacred events of the Bible and, in particular, its account of the crucifixion, cannot give rise to disdain or hatred or persecution of the Jews”.

As CAMERA’s Christian Media Analysis Dexter Van Zile argued, in the context of Christian-Jewish relations, visual language which plays upon the decide charge (which has preceded and justified the killing of Jews for nearly two millennia) “is the [moral] equivalent of a noose hanging from a tree in the Old South”.

But, then again, only those journalists who take modern-day antisemitism seriously would consider addressing the moral and political significance of such supremely cynical efforts by Palestinian leaders to undermine Christian-Jewish relations by evoking such historically toxic themes within the long history of Christian anti-Judaism.

Did this bullet enter and exit a young man’s torso? An Israeli ballistics expert says no. (CNN screenshot)

The deaths of two young Palestinian rock throwers in Betunia in the West Bank on May 15, 2014, has generated a huge amount of attention in part because their deaths were apparently caught on tape.

One video, which was distributed by the Palestinian branch of Defence for Children International (and which has gotten more than 466,000 views on Youtube), shows the two young men falling to the ground.

Brad Parker, a representative of the Defence for Children International Palestine declared that the videos “clearly show two kids being hit directly with something other than a rubber bullet.”

It’s tough to know how Parker can discern what hit the young men, but it is pretty clear that he’s accusing Israeli soldiers of using “live” ammunition against the rock throwers.

This accusation gained further momentum when CNN aired a segment that showed Israeli soldiers shooting in the direction of one of the young men at the time he fell and then pans to a crowd putting him into an ambulance. During the segment the anchorwoman boiled the controversy down as follows:
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Earlier this year, the Israel Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church USA, an organization with a well-documented history of demonizing Israel and American Jews, issued a text called Zionism Unsettled. True to form, the IPMN’s booklet includes a chapter that accuses American Jews of “living in a bubble.”

Who is living in a bubble, really? American Jews who support Israel or IPMN leaders?

It’s a reasonable question to ask after watching one of the videos on a DVD that accompanies Zionism Unsettled. In an on-camera interview, Irving Wesley Hall (pictured above in a screenshot from the video) reports that prior to the Six Day War, Israelis and Jews did not care too much about Jerusalem.

Up until the 1967 conquest of Jerusalem, it was not regarded by any element of Israeli society or any of the streams of Judaism as somehow central to God’s plan for the Jews.

But that all changed in 1967.

The notion that the city was unimportant to Israel and to all of the “streams of Judaism” prior to the Six Day War is, to put it politely, an outrageous misstatement of fact.
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CAMERA Analyst Tricia Aven, Ph.D., has exposed the ugly rhetoric used by Palestinian Christian leaders in an article published on First Things’ website. The piece is valuable because it highlights some of the ugly statements made by Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb and retired Melkite Archbishop Elias Chacour, who have both spoken at events organized by the Telos Group.

In the piece, titled, “Check Your Speaker List,” Aven reports that Chacour (pictured above), “argues that Jesus and his disciples were not Jews at all. He identifies the people of Galilee as distinct from the Jews when he talks about the gathering of the disciples in Jerusalem after the death of Jesus. He states that “the men from Galilee” were in an Upper Room and ‘the doors were locked out of fear from the Jews. I don’t know why the Jews frighten everybody with whom they live. Is that a problem I think?’”

Chacour is author of Blood Brothers, a text regularly invoked by pro-Palestinian activists.

Read the whole thing here.

Newsweek was once a leading news magazine. It fell on hard times, stopped publishing its hardcover editions and now has only an internet edition. Unfortunately, if its May 6, 2014 article on alleged Israeli spying is any indicator, its standards have declined in parallel to its importance. The writer of the piece, Jeff Stein, is a self-styled commentator on issues involving the intelligence community. For his piece on Israeli spying, Stein mostly relies upon anonymous sources, always a red flag. But one of the sources he does identify is Paul Pillar, who recently appeared in a March 2014 convocation, called the National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel Special Relationship, featuring a who’s who of promoters of conspiracy theories alleging nefarious Zionist influence over the United States government. This is not surprising, as Stein himself is no stranger to vitriol against Israel. In his blog Spytalk, commenting on speculation that former Senator Jane Harman might be appointed to head the CIA, Stein wrote, “Congress is already Israeli-occupied territory. The last thing Washington needs is to cede another settlement in Langley.”

As for Pillar, he is a former CIA analyst, who has built a second career condemning Israel at every turn. He is a frequent contributor to National Interest, an online magazine that claims to offer an alternative point of view on American foreign policy. Pillar often writes about Israel and his positions are automatic; they are always opposed to whatever the Israeli position is, whether it be on Iran, the Peace Process, or American-Israeli relations. He even weighed in on the recent American Studies Association boycott of Israel, describing it as a “righteous action.”

A review of Pillar’s writing on Israel and its supporters in America should cause any serious journalist to hesitate before accepting his accusations. Pillar displays a willingness to falsify the historical record by playing fast and loose with the facts. In an article published by National Interest, he wrote,

Less than five years from now will be the 50th anniversary of the war that Israel launched and used to seize the West Bank and other Arab territory…

In reality, the facts about who started the Six-Day War are well-documented. Egypt imposed a naval blockade of Israeli shipping through the straits of Tiran. It ordered the removal of the UN buffer force in the Sinai, and then moved its army there in an aggressive pose. These were unmistakable acts of belligerency. Furthermore, it was the ill-advised decision by Jordan’s King Hussein to strike at Israel that resulted in the Israeli capture of the West Bank. But apparently for this former intelligence analyst, when the facts conflict with the narrative, it’s the facts that must go.

Pillar sees no distinction between Israel and South Africa. In an article published by the internet site Occupied Palestine, Pillar wrote, “the Israeli system of apartheid warrants just as much active international opposition as the South African system did.”

Like most dedicated enemies of the Jewish state, he ignores reality when it doesn’t suit his views. Israel’s Arab citizens possess full legal rights. As for the West Bank, Pillar will not recognize the dissimilarity between the circumstances of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that of apartheid-era South Africa. Israeli measures that impose restrictions on the Palestinian Arabs were a reaction to non-stop terrorism against Israeli citizens. Furthermore, the Palestinians were offered a state in 1947 and rejected it. Since then, the Palestinian Authority has repeatedly rejected Israeli offers of a self-governing state because it would entail recognition of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and require the Arabs to formally end their conflict with Israel. Arab demands that are incompatible with the continuing viability of a secure Jewish life in Israel has no parallel in the demands by opponents of apartheid in South Africa.

Pillar reveals a darker side to his sentiments, seeing disloyalty among American Jews who express support for Israel. In National Interest Pillar wrote of the influence of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson: “the Republican party isn’t even his first love among political parties. That would be the Likud party [of Israel].

What really gets Pillar incensed is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserting that Hamas is “dedicated to the destruction of Israel.” Pillar positions himself as an apologist for Hamas by casting Israel as the guilty party. Praising the Islamist group for its supposed willingness to make a “Hudna,” a temporary peace with Israel, he then asserts, “It would be more accurate to say that Israel is dedicated to the destruction of Hamas.” (Antiwar blog 4-29-2014)

Consistent with his reliance on unsubstantiated partisan sources, in a follow up story on May 8, Newsweek’s Stein offers a fantastic story of an Israeli spy infiltrating through an air conditioning vent into the hotel room of Al Gore during the former Vice President’s visit to Israel. Stein writes,

“So the room was all quiet, he was just meditating on his toes, and he hears a noise in the vent. And he sees the vent clips being moved from the inside. And then he sees a guy starting to exit the vent into the room.”

On May 12, the internet newspaper Algemeiner carried an interview with the manager of the King David Hotel, Dannino-Forsyth, who stated,

I can confirm that the story is ridiculous. There is a small pipe that brings some fresh air into the room, and it is so small that even a cat cannot walk in it.

Since the Newsweek story’s publication, American Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has gone on record dismissing the allegations contained within it stating, “I’m not aware of the facts that would substantiate the report.”

In August of 1947, a Middle Eastern leader wrote a letter to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). It read in part:

It is an incontestable historical fact that Palestine was the home of the Jew and of the first Christians. None of them was of Arab origin. By the brutal force of conquest they were forced to become converts to the Moslem religion. That is the origin of the Arabs in that country. Can one deduce from that that Palestine is Arab or that it ever was Arab?

[…]

The Holy Places, the temples, the Wailing Wall, the churches and the tombs of the prophets and saints, in short, all the relics of the two religions, are living symbols, which alone invalidate the statements now made by those who have little interest in making Palestine an Arab country. To include Palestine and the Lebanon within the group of Arab countries is to deny history and to destroy the social balance in the Near East.

Who wrote this?

The Maronite Archbishop of Beirut, Ignace (Ignatius) Moubarak (sometimes spelled Mobarac, Mobarak, Moubaraque and otherwise).

UNSCOP was engaged in dividing the mandatory territories and, as Bashir Assad’s grandfather feared for his Alawite minority in Syria, the Archbishop feared for the Christians of Lebanon.

The letter continued:

What has the role of the Jews been in Palestine? Considered from this angle, the Palestine of 1918 appears to us a barren country, poor, denuded of all resources, the least developed of all the Turkish vilayets. The Moslem-Arab colony there lived on the borderline of poverty. Jewish immigration began, colonies were formed and established, and in less than twenty years the country was transformed: agriculture flourished, large industries were established, wealth came to the country. The presence of such a well-developed and industrious nation, next to the Lebanon could not but contribute to the welfare of all – the Jew is a man of practical executive ability, the Lebanese is highly adaptable and, for that reason, their proximity could only serve to better the living conditions of the inhabitants.

THE LEBANON DEMANDS FREEDOM FOR THE JEWS IN PALESTINE AS IT DESIRES ITS OWN FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE.

The letter is documented in United Nations records as part of Annex 9, “List of principal documents and written statements submitted to the Special Committee,” Section V, “Other Documents,” Number 45, “Memorandum submitted by the Maronite Archbishop of Beirut. Beirut, August 1945.”

The Archbishop had reason to fear. As Christians fear today across the Middle East… except in Israel. And yet… Where’s the coverage?