No sooner does Israel forcefully defend itself from attacks on its civilians coming from Gaza, than the Israel haters crawl out of the woodwork to spew their condemnation. Witness some of the recent political cartoons that have appeared in various media outlets.

As CAMERA’s sister organization CIF-Watch pointed out:

Though the evocation of the ‘shooting fish in a barrel’ meme is the most obvious element of the narrative, even more telling is the more focused depiction of the Israeli soldier’s deranged war lust (note the soldier’s face) in contrast with the helpless Palestinians (fish and other small creatures). The latter can be seen in the drop of water spit by the fish, representing it seems the benign, harmless nature of Hamas attacks.

Israel, according Turner, isn’t merely the aggressor in the war (note the ceasefire agreement in the soldier’s hand which he presumably has ignored), but is represented as bloodthirsty, vengeful, and merciless.

In the US, the Cleveland Plain Dealer too published vitriolic cartoons against Israel. Editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich portrayed a Israel driving a car over a cliff, with Uncle Sam sitting helplessly in the back seat. The driver labeled “Israel” says, “Just because you provide the car and gas doesn’t mean you get to be a backseat driver!”

The implication that the US completely supports Israel and therefore should call the shots, that Israel is driving off a cliff and plunging the region into turmoil, that Israel is defying U.S. orders, belongs squarely in the realm of anti-Israel activists who advocate stopping all US aid and blame Israel for everything wrong in the region. These Israel haters do not see the country as an ally of the U.S., do not value the strong, historical bilateral relations between the two countries and their shared strategic goals in the region. They discount the vigorous domestic U.S. support for Israel and its security. Thus the facts do not matter to them, only the feeling that Israel should be blamed.

It is immaterial to them that 3.1 billion dollars of US aid, which is almost all military assistance accounts for only 23-25% of Israel’s military funding. Nor does it matter that much of this aid benefits the U.S.. The fact that every country has the right to protect itself from attacks on its civilians, that Hamas has been raining rockets and missiles down on Israeli cities, that Israel is the lone democratic, moral nation in a region that is unravelling in violence is of no matter.

What is disturbing is that a newspaper like the Plain Dealer willingly publishes such tripe. Perhaps even more disturbing, however, is the other political cartoon, penned by Andy Marlette, that was published by the Plain Dealer on the same day, July 16, 2014.

In this cartoon, Moses labeled “Israel” holds the tablets in his hand with the commandments “Thou Shalt Not Kill… …Kidnap & Torture Children.” The cartoon seems to suggest that “kidnapping and torturing children” is a regular action by the Israelites. Never mind that condemnation, excoriation, revulsion and unprecendented calls to severely punish the Jewish perpetrators of the abductors and murderers of an Arab child have poured in from Israeli politicians across the political spectrum, from rabbis of all stripe, representing all sectors of the Jewish community in Israel and from every segment of Israeli society. Never mind that Palestinian media, broadcasts are filled with invocations to murder Jews and Israelis wherever they may be. The singling out of Israel with the false implication that Israeli society as a whole promotes and tolerates the abduction and torture of children reeks not only of anti-Israel bias but, with the inclusion of Moses and the tablets given to the Jews, of anti-Jewish bias as well .

On CBS This Morning, Holly Williams reported today from Gaza City that Hamas appeared to reject an Egyptian-proposed ceasefire agreement because it did not include the removal of the security-based naval blockade imposed on Gaza since 2007. She says (at around 1:40 into the video, posted above) that the blockade has disrupted the economy “and deprived Palestinians of necessities like fuel and medical supplies.” (The text of the segment can be found here.)

However, it is Williams’ assertion that is deprived of accuracy. According to a recent report from COGAT, the Israeli authority responsible for the coordination of humanitarian affairs with Gaza, in the first several days of Operation Protective Edge, “some two hundred truckloads of food and essential supplies were delivered into the Gaza Strip” through the Kerem Shalom crossing, including 187,000 liters of gasoline, 526 tons of gas and 12 medical equipment trucks. And on Sunday and Monday, approximately 140 truckloads of general supplies and over 240 tons of gas were delivered into Gaza. While Hamas and other groups sent thousands of rockets into Israel, including the crossing itself, Israel continued to send goods into the coastal territory.

Such deliveries are not only made in times of crisis. From the start of 2014 through July 5, 21,704 trucks carried 536,481 tons of goods into Gaza.
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An article appearing in Ynet on July 15 by Doron Peskin reveals how leaders of Hamas have become fabulously wealthy at the same time that the Gaza Strip has fallen deeper into poverty and disrepair.

Israel vacated the Gaza Strip in 2005, the Palestinians elected a Hamas government, which in 2007 completed the take-over of the Gaza Strip by violently ejecting the remaining Fatah officials. At the time, many explained popular support for Hamas as unrelated to its hardline stance against Israel. Instead, the conventional wisdom attributed Hamas’s electoral victory to its reputation as untainted by corruption in contrast to the corrupt practices of the ruling Fatah party.

The article reveals the rapid accumulation of wealth by the top-echelon of Hamas since taking power. The wealth was acquired both in the old fashioned manner of robber barons, by taxing goods coming into Gaza through the smuggling tunnels, and in the relatively new way by investing in enterprises utilizing funds they secretly control. The article does not explore how much of this wealth indirectly derives from Western aid. The Palestinian economy is heavily subsidized by Western nations and money is fungible.

The accumulation of wealth by those in power at the expense of the general population is an oft-repeated story, but in the case of Hamas and the Gaza Strip there is the additional factor of the constant imploring of the Western world to provide aid to the Gazan population. Such revelations should undermine the credibility of those who blame the Gaza Strip’s impoverishment on Israel and contend that if only harsh Israeli restrictions were removed, Gaza would flourish.

The article provides a glimpse of a more cynical reality. While the Hamas government encourages the Palestinian population to dedicate itself to the cause of “resistance,” accept self-sacrifice, even to the point of welcoming “martyrdom,” Hamas leaders busily conduct real estate deals and shuffle vast sums from one bank account to another for the purpose of enriching themselves and their families.

Margaret Sullivan, public editor for New York Times, today addresses the “deluge” of complaints that her office has received concerning its coverage of Israel and the Palestinians (“A Deluge of Reader Complaints on Israel-Palestine Coverage“). Addressing some of the very points that CAMERA has highlighted, including a false claim in an editorial which required correction, she writes:

My office has received more than 1,000 emails from readers on this topic recently, with protests on both sides, and, in some cases, charges of bias coming from both sides. (The Times is far from alone among major news organizations in receiving strong complaints in this area. Here are treatments of the subject at The Guardian and at National Public Radio.)

Without delving into any larger issues, I will review here some of what I heard the most about from readers, with the intention of returning to this subject in a more substantial way.

1. An article and an editorial that included an error. An editorial picked up on a factual error in a news article, stating that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel had not responded immediately to the killing of a Palestinian teenager, and that “days of silence” had followed. The Times corrected the error, both on the news pages and the opinion pages. Many readers also objected to The Times’s interpretation of a poem quoted in the editorial, saying that its intended meaning was the opposite of that interpretation. . . .

3. Headlines. Readers objected to this headline: “Palestinian Death Toll Nears 100 as Hamas Promises More Attacks on Israel,” saying that its construction made it appear that Hamas was responsible for the Palestinian deaths. The headline was later changed to make its meaning clearer, as was another headline that originally appeared as “Missile at Beachside Gaza Cafe Finds Patrons Poised for World Cup.” Many readers complained, and I think reasonably, that the headline had the effect of trivializing the attack. Other readers objected to Times headlines that described Israel’s military attacks; these readers said that such attacks were responding to rockets launched by Hamas, and that headlines should clearly reflect that. Along with headlines, the display and choice of photographs is a constant source of complaint, on both sides.

CAMERA’s critiques of New York Times coverage in recent days include an Op-Ed in The Times of Israel which addressed the editorial’s falsehood about Netanyahu and its distorted interpretation of a Hebrew poem (“Faux Fairness at The New York Times“) and numerous analyses on CAMERA’s Web site: “New York Times Double Standard Strikes Again,” “As Hamas Targets Israel, Erlanger and the NY Times Join In,” “NY Times Corrects: Netanyahu Immediately Denounced Murder,” “NYT Corrects: There Were Jerusalem Clashes,” and “NY Times’ Page-One Anti-Israel Bias.”

The latter addressed this distorted page-one headline (“Israel presses air barrage and Hamas strikes back”), which completely inverted reality:

CAMERA’s campaign to combat The New York Times’ anti-Israel bias continues through Operation Protective Edge. A comprehensive list of Times corrections prompted by CAMERA is available here.

In an interview with Times of Israel, Andrea Levin, CAMERA’s Executive Director, emphasizes how critical it is for Israel’s supporters to advocate for accurate news media coverage, especially now:

From the perspective of CAMERA executive director Andrea Levin, Israel supporters should “actually redouble our work in the information battle,” she said.

“Israel’s adversaries aren’t resting a moment from their efforts to mislead the public and defame the Jewish state,” said Levin, whose group frequently blows the whistle on distorted coverage in news agencies including The New York Times and BBC.

“The many voices speaking out on the facts are an invaluable asset in correcting the record continuously and making clear, for instance, that Israel is defending its civilian population in the face of an aggressor that exploits its own women and children as defensive shields,” said Levin.

The New York Times and other major American media outlets have completely ignored attacks this past weekend on three Paris-area synagogues, one involving a firebomb and another which left hundreds of Jews trapped for hours and several injured. According to a JTA report posted on Times of Israel:

A firebomb was hurled at a synagogue near Paris, part of a string of anti-Semitic incidents in Western Europe coinciding with Israel’s assault on Hamas in Gaza.

The firebomb went off Friday night at the entrance to the synagogue of Aulnay-sous-Bois, a northeastern suburb of the French capital, according to the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA. No one was hurt and the fire resulted in minor damage, Le Monde reported.

On July 8, the day that Israel launched Operation Protective Edge against Hamas in Gaza, a man described as having a Middle Eastern appearance assaulted a Jewish 17-year-old girl on a Paris street near the Gare du Nord train station by spraying pepper-spray on her face, BNVCA also reported.

The girl, identified by her initials, J.L., wrote in her complaint to police that the man, who was in his 20s, shouted: “Dirty Jewess, inshallah you will die.”

Regarding a separate attack this past Sunday, Times of Israel reported:

Clashes erupted in Paris on Sunday as thousands of people protested against Israel and in support of residents in the Gaza Strip, where a six-day conflict has left 166 Palestinians dead.

Several thousand demonstrators walked calmly through the streets of Paris behind a large banner that read “Total Support for the Struggle of the Palestinian People”.

But clashes erupted at the end of the march on Bastille Square, with people throwing projectiles onto a cordon of police who responded with tear gas. The unrest was continuing early Sunday evening.

Media reports said that hundreds of Jews were trapped inside a synagogue in the area and police units were sent to rescue them.

A person in the synagogue told Israel’s Channel 2 news that protesters hurled stones and bricks at the building, “like it was an intifada.”

Riot police dispersed the group, with two members of the Jewish community and six officers slightly injured in the ensuing scuffle, the source said.

Those that did cover the attacks include the Guardian (please see analysis from CiF Watch, a CAMERA affiliate), The Independent, Agence France-Presse, and Associated Press. CNN also twice mentioned the attacks yesterday (“At this Hour with Berman and Michaela” and “Wolf”.)

BBC Watch, a CAMERA affiliate, notes that BBC failed to cover the Paris-area attacks. Why do so many giants like BBC and The New York Times, along with the rest of the major American publications, deem the string of violent attacks against Parisian Jews not newsworthy? Where’s the coverage?

Reuters has corrected an article from earlier today which grossly understated the number of Israelis in rocket range who have been forced to seek shelter during sirens warning of incoming salvoes launched from Gaza. Still visible in the cached version, the article by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Jeffrey Heller had stated:

In fact, millions of Israelis, from south to north — not hundreds — have had to race for shelter in the last week.

To its credit, Reuters has since corrected the misinformation. The article now accurately reports:

But the frequent rocket salvoes have disrupted life as air raid sirens sent people in much of the country racing to shelters.

In a stunning moment of candor,the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations Human Rights Council states that it would be folly for Palestinians to apply to the International Criminal Court given that “each and every” rocket fired by Hamas is a “crime against humanity.” Speaking July 9 on Palestinian Authority TV, Ibrahim Khreisheh also acknowledges that Israel follows proper legal procedures by giving civilians warning about impending airstrikes, while Hamas gives no warning about rocket attacks.

The rare admission, with translations by MEMRI, was reported in Israeli media outlets, and virtually ignored by the Western media, which is frequently obsessed with Palestinian accusations about alleged Israeli war crimes and which has followed the question of the Palestinians joining the ICC.

Now that the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations has exhorted “people should know more before they talk emotionally about appealing to the ICC” because the Palestinians themselves are grossly in violation of international law, the Western media is mum. As Israel continues to absorb hundreds of rocket attacks, “each and every” one of them “a crime against humanity,” and the media carries on with its blinkered discussions about the “lopsided conflict,” we ask: where is the coverage of Ibrahim Khreisheh’s candid admission?

Anti-Israel activists showed their true colors near the Israeli Consulate in Boston today. In addition to expressing their contempt for the Jewish state at an anti-Israel rally organized in part by Jewish Voice for Peace, one of the protestors assaulted CAMERA activist Chloe Valdary who was part of a counter protest attended by a number of pro-Israel activists. The woman in the video above declared that “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” and that Muslims and Christians would someday take possession of Jerusalem and that the “Jews will go to hell, inshallah [God willing.]”

She then knocked an I-phone out of Valdary’s hand.

The rockets are flying in the Middle East. Yesterday morning, NPR listeners were told that Israel had hit 160 targets. And they were informed that Hamas had fired… two missiles?

The introduction to a July 9 Morning Edition segment described the “violence that unfolded overnight” as follows:

Renee Montagne: Hamas claimed responsibility for two rockets fired at Tel Aviv. Both rockets were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

Steve Inskeep: Israel says it has struck more than 160 targets in Gaza. Officials in Gaza say at least three dozen Palestinians have been killed this week.

Not exactly. It is true that at 8:45 AM Israel time – the middle of the night in the US – Israel shot down two Palestinian rockets. But it’s also true that from midnight in Israel through the time the Morning Edition program aired on the east coast (4 PM in Israel) 48 rockets struck Israel and another 14 were intercepted by the country’s missile defense system. During the week, hundreds more were fired at Israel.

Numerical comparisons can be interesting, but can also be unhelpful if the data is divorced from the details. (What type of targets does Israel try to hit with its rockets? What type does Hamas hope to hit?) But if journalists nonetheless choose to compare numbers, they should be a representative sample, and should certainly compare apples with apples. The comparison of one minute of Hamas rocket fire with one night of Israeli strikes and one week of Palestinian casualties is, at the very least, unhelpful.

This post has been updated to note that the Morning Edition segment aired on July 9, not on July 7. As it was a typographical error, the figures remain correct.