The Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) is a top-tier military command that oversees the United States’ largest intergovernmental military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO’s composed of 28 independent member countries and an additional 22 countries who participate in the associate Partnership for Peace program.

NATO’s first commander was World War II hero and future President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1950. Among his successors can be found a future secretary of state, a national security adviser, and a presidential candidate. Yet, when former SACEUR U.S. Navy Admiral James Stavridis recently expressed quotable concerns over a topic receiving considerable news media coverage, the Iran nuclear deal, hardly any major media outlets reported them.

In an interview with MSNBC’s Morning Joe talk show on July 29, 2015, Stavridis—who served as SACEUR under President Obama from 2009 to 2013—commented on the agreement concluded July 14 between the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Islamic Republic of Iran over the latter’s purported nuclear program violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Stavridis said the deal as structured may allow for Iranian cheating to go undetected. He found the proposed verification procedures particularly troubling:

“I think the top [issue] is the verification regime, which is starting to roughly resemble Swiss cheese,” Stavridis charged that “you can drive a truck through some of the holes. I am very concerned about that.”

The retired U.S. military commander said Iran’s side deal with the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA) over inspections also posed problems. “Reportedly, it [the side deal] puts Iran in the position of actually procuring samples as opposed to having them taken by the IAEA.”

His biggest worries, however, were over what he called “the teeth of the alligator”—the $100 to $150 billion in sanctions relief that the proposed arrangement would give to Tehran. These are funds other military leaders like out-going U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey have stated are likely to be used by the mullahs to fund terrorism and Shiite militias currently fueling instability in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria.

The admiral’s comments—including his dismissal of assertions by President Obama and others that the only option besides the proposed deal was war—were nowhere to be found in most major media outlets such as USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and others.

However, both The Jerusalem Post (“Top US general distances himself from choice of Iran deal,” July 29) and The Washington Free Beacon (“Ret. Admiral Stavridis: ‘You Can Drive a Truck Through’ Holes in Iran Deal,” July 29) covered Stavridis’ comments and in the case of The Post—recent remarks by Gen. Dempsey also dismissing the assertion war with Iran or this deal were the only options.

With a former head of NATO offering serious criticism of the widely-reported Iran deal, now being considered by Congress, where was the coverage?

A clip of the Admiral’s remarks can be found here.—Sean Durns

In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, retired Harvard professor Ruth Wisse draws a clear connection between anti-Semitism and oppression, writing, “Anti-Jewish aggression is always aimed at the self-accountable way of life that the Jews represent. ‘Death to the Jews!’ is a call to arms against Western liberal democracies; that is why in Iran the cry is often accompanied by ‘Death to America!’”

On the proposed nuclear deal with Iran, Wisse writes:

The Iranian regime is currently the world’s leading exponent of anti-Jewish racism. Comparisons to Nazi Germany are always a last resort, since even with all the evidence before us it is hard to fathom the evil the Nazis perpetrated. Yet Iran’s frank genocidal ambition dwarfs its predecessor’s. Whereas Adolf Hitler and Reinhard Heydrich had to plot the “Final Solution” in secrecy, using euphemisms for their intended annihilation of the Jews of Europe, Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweets that Israel “has no cure but to be annihilated.” Iran’s leaders, relishing how small Israel is, call it a “one bomb state,” and until the time arrives to deliver that bomb, they sponsor anti-Israel terrorism through Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militias.

[…]

Yet when it comes to the world’s most widespread and ideologically driven racism, President Obama seems to have a blind spot, initiating a nuclear deal with the fanatical anti-Jewish regime in Tehran, despite what he calls Iran’s “bad behavior.” The euphemism this time is his, not that of the perpetrators, and it camouflages their intentions even if they won’t.

Wisse cuts to the bottom line on the agreement, “This is the first time the U.S. will have deliberately entered into a pact with a country committed to annihilating another people—a pact that doesn’t even require formal repudiation of the country’s genocidal aims.”

A page-one headline on Haaretz‘s English edition today, “Cuts to higher education to hurt Arabs, ultra-Orthodox Jews most,” is not at all substantiated by the accompanying article. Although the proposed amounts to be slashed from various educational programs are “unknown,” according to the article, Haaretz headline writers have nevertheless determined that Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews will be “most” hurt.

The article, by Yarden Skop, details proposed budgetary cuts for higher education which “will include an across-the-board cut to university and college budgets, including a freeze on hiring new faculty members; cuts to budgets for preacademic preparatory programs; programs designed to attract more Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jewish to higher education; ‘excellence centers’ aimed at reversing the ‘brain drain’; students assistance programs; projects conducted in conjunction with the defense establishment; collaboration with China and India and a reduction in academic activity in Eilat.”

Nowhere does the article claim that out of all the programs facing potential cuts, those involving Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews stand the most to lose. To the contrary, Skop makes clear that the proposed amounts to be slashed from each program are unknown. She states: “The exact amounts to be cut from each line item have not been determined yet.”

As is often the case, the English edition coverage differs from the Hebrew edition coverage. The latter is accurate while the former is not. Thus, the Hebrew edition headline (page 6, today) accurately states:

It means (CAMERA’s translation):

The cuts in higher education will harm access for Haredim and Arabs to academia

Unlike the English edition, the Hebrew edition does not claim that Arabs and Haredim will be “most” hurt by the cuts. The subheadline adds:

In a Knesset emergency session, the head of the planning and budget committee in the Council for Higher Education noted the areas to be harmed by the cut

Moreover, the online Hebrew headline also singles out returning researchers to be harmed by the cut:

It states (CAMERA’s translation):

The higher education cuts will harm access for Haredim and Arabs and return for researchers

See also “Haaretz, Lost in Translation” and listen to CAMERA’s Tamar Sternthal on Voice of Israel last week discussing repeated mistranslations in Haaretz‘s English edition.

This piece was updated to correctly reflect the gender of Ms. Skop.

In The Wall Street Journal, columnist Bret Stephens draws parallels between the failed international deal to eliminate Syria’s vast store of chemical weapons and the current deal on the table regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

In “The Syria Sham and the Iran Deal,” Stephens writes:

Note the Journal’s Adam Entous and Naftali Bendavid in a deeply reported July 23 exposé that reveals as much about the sham disarmament process in Syria as it foretells about the sham we are getting with Iran.

Start with the formal terms under which inspectors were forced to operate. The deal specified that Syria would give inspectors access to its “declared” chemical-weapons sites, much as Iran is expected to give U.N. inspectors unfettered access to its own declared sites. As for any undeclared sites, inspectors could request access provided they furnish evidence of their suspicions, giving the regime plenty of time to move, hide and deceive—yet another similarity with the Iran deal.

The agreement meant that inspectors were always playing by the regime’s rules, even as Washington pretended to dictate terms.

[…]

The CIA now admits that Syria retains significant quantities of its deadliest chemical weapons. When Mr. Obama announced the Syria deal, he warned that he would use military force in the event that Mr. Assad failed to honor his promises. The threat was hollow then. It is laughable now. What ties the Syrian sham to the Iranian one is an American president bent on conjuring political illusions at home at the expense of strategic facts abroad, his weakness apparent to everyone but himself.

Former long-time Democratic Manhattan district attorney Robert M. Morgenthau spoke at the Stop Iran Now rally in New York’s Times Square July 22. The Wall Street Journal ran an excerpt from his remarks:

The proposal would give Iran access to $150 billion in frozen assets. That provision is particularly galling. Over the years, survivors of Americans murdered in Iran’s terrorist acts have sued Iran, and often won large judgments. The problem is, Iran refused to pay. I fail to see the logic in returning those embargoed funds without first requiring Iran to make good on the debts it owes to those survivors.

Although the proposal was negotiated in good faith, even the administration worries that some of those billions would go toward sponsoring terrorism—what the State Department euphemistically calls “destabilizing actions.” This is not only a strategic issue, but a moral one. We simply cannot give terrorists the means to destroy innocent lives. Until Iran renounces terrorism, we cannot release those funds. And make no mistake: Neither side to this deal predicts that it will reduce Iranian terrorism. An Iranian newspaper that serves as a mouthpiece for the Iranian supreme leader put it this way: “In spite of various pretensions and fantasies, this agreement will not lead to cooperation between Iran and America on regional issues.” And even President Obama, at his recent press conference, conceded that try as we might to curb Iran’s destructive policies, he’s “not betting on it.”

With respect to Iran, an effective international sanctions regime is the only real alternative the world has to war. We must not dismantle those sanctions until we are assured that Iran’s hostile intentions have been thwarted.

As district attorney, some of my most important cases were those in which we ensured that the sanctions against Iran were obeyed. I took on those cases because I believed the sanctions were crucial to prevent Iran from spreading even wider mayhem. We should keep those sanctions in place so long as Iran threatens the survival of its neighbors, and sponsors terror around the world. Near the end of his life, President John Kennedy delivered a speech in which he told Americans of the peace he hoped to bring to the world. He called it “genuine peace . . . not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women, not merely peace in our time, but peace in all time.”

This proposal does just the opposite.

Wednesday evening, July 22, 2015, roughly 12,000 people gathered in Times Square in New York City to demonstrate against the proposed nuclear deal struck between the Obama administration, European powers, Russia, China and Iran. Congress is in a 60-day review process after which it will vote on the deal. Protesters want their Senators and Representatives to vote against the agreement.

Though the Associate Press coverage was largely accurate, the story –picked up by media around the world– contained a number of unsettling elements. The article begins:

NEW YORK (AP) — Thousands of protesters packed into Times Square Wednesday evening to demand that Congress vote down the proposed U.S. deal with Iran.

As the crowd loomed behind police barricades, chants of “Kill the deal!” could be heard for blocks. The event, billed as the “Stop Iran Rally” consisted mainly of pro-Israel supporters, though organizers said it represents Americans of all faiths and political convictions.

Note the last sentence in the second paragraph reporting that the rally “consisted mainly of pro-Israel supporters, though organizers said it represents Americans of all faiths and political convictions.” Can’t “Americans of all faiths and political convictions” actually be “pro-Israel supporters”? There is no conflict. What is the AP implying?

Indeed, not only attendees but also speakers were drawn from all faiths and political convictions. James Woolsey served as Undersecretary of the Navy for Jimmy Carter and CIA Director for Bill Clinton. He’s a Democrat. George Pataki was the Governor of New York and is currently running for the Republican nomination for President. Kassim Hafeez is a British Muslim of Pakistani descent. Allen West is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army and a former Republican Congressman. Richard Kemp is a retired British Army Colonel who was Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan. All of them spoke at the rally. None of them is Jewish.

But, the AP chose to mention only one of the rally’s speakers by name:

Alan Dershowitz, a prominent Jewish attorney, said he was “opposing the deal as a liberal Democrat.” He said he believed democracy was “ignored” because the Obama administration negotiated the deal without congressional input.

Why is it necessary to identify Dershowitz’ religion? And, even though he is Jewish, couldn’t he actually be opposing the deal because he is a liberal Democrat? Again, the implication is disturbing.

As you can see from the photographs below, the rally was extremely well attended by thousands of people, young and old, black and white, veterans, students, and others, all united by their opposition to a deal they believe endangers American interests. Whatever the AP aims to imply, the pictures tell the story…

The July 16, 2015 murder of four United States Marines and a sailor at two different military sites in Tennessee by Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, which the FBI is reportedly investigating as an act of terrorism, has attracted considerable media coverage. Yet, in reporting the shooter’s background and self-proclaimed “search for answers”, The Washington Post failed to note specifically what may be an important aspect: prior investigations of links between Abdulazeez’s father and U.S. listed-terror organization Hamas.

The New York Times (“Inquiry Focusing on Chattanooga Gunman’s Trip to Jordan in 2014,” July 17) reported that Abdulazeez’s father, Youssuf “had been investigated about seven years ago” for “giving money to an organization that apparently had ties to Hamas, the Islamic militant group in Gaza that the United States and other Western nations consider a terrorist organization.” The Times also noted “a similar investigation was conducted in the 1990s” into Abdulazeez’s father and — although neither investigation led to charges — he was placed on a watch list for a time.

The Washington Post failed in print to note the purported connection to Hamas—the virulently Islamist organization ruling the Gaza Strip. In an article exploring the Chattanooga gunman’s background and more specifically his family, (“Chattanooga Gunman came from a middle class Muslim Family,” July 17) the newspaper states without further details that the father “was investigated by the FBI several years ago and put on the terrorism watch list but was later removed.”

Other printed articles by the newspaper offer a bit more specifics, noting that the investigation was for “donating to Palestinian groups suspected of having ties to terrorism” (“Marine’s killer set off no red flags,” July 18) and a “radical Palestinian terror group.” (Chattanooga Shooter’s real, online lives seem to take divergent paths,” July 18). But neither identified the group as Hamas.

A Lexis Nexis search reveals that the paper did identify the group—but only online in a blog piece that appeared shortly after the shooting (“As investigators probe motive in Chattanooga rampage, a portrait of the shooter emerges,” July 17).

Unmentioned by either newspaper is whether the investigation into Youssef was related to the biggest U.S. terrorism funding trial to date. At that trial’s conclusion in 2009, U.S. Treasury officials connected what was once the nation’s largest Muslim charity—The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development—to fund raising for Hamas. Evidence introduced at trial also indicated that the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was, like Hamas, a Muslim Brotherhood derivative.

Although The Post failed to publish the purported Hamas connection, it noted that the murderer himself had no such compunction in mentioning the terror group. Abdulazeez reportedly “talked about…battles between Israel and Hamas in Gaza” with friends and even “blamed some of the bloodshed on U.S. foreign policy.” (“Tenn. Shooter struggled with clash of faith, drugs,” July 19).

The motives of the gunman are still being investigated, but The Post should have clarified in print the father’s apparent Holy Land Foundation-Hamas link.—Sean Durns

Both Iran and terrorism have received considerable news coverage. The attack in Chattanooga, Tennessee that killed four United States Marines and one sailor on July 16, 2015 and the conclusion of U.S.-led nuclear negotiations over the Islamic Republic of Iran’s purported nuclear program two day previously kept both subjects in the headlines. FBI officials reportedly were investigating the Tennessee murders as terrorism, but a connection to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, if only inspirational, has not been confirmed.

The July 21 Pentagon announcement of a July 8 U.S drone strike in northwestern Syria killing Muhsin al-Fadhli—leader of an al-Qaeda group dubbed by some D.C. analysts the Khorasan Group—provided the press with another opportunity to cover the ongoing threat of terror. Yet, while noting al-Fadhli’s death, some major media outlets omitted his connections to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism: The Islamic Republic of Iran.

According to previously disclosed classified U.S. intelligence estimates, the Khorasan Group had been planning attacks on the U.S. homeland and had “been working with bomb makers from al-Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate to test new ways to slip nonmetallic explosives past airport security. Officials fear that the Khorasan militants could provide these sophisticated explosives to their Western recruits, who could sneak them onto United States-bound flights.”

The New York Times reported (“Qaeda Leader in Syria, a Bin Laden Ally, Is Killed in Strike, U.S. Says,” July 22, 2015) Muhsin al-Fadhli was identified in 2012 by the U.S. State Department as al-Qaeda’s “leader in Iran” where he directed “the movement of funds and operatives.” The Times observed that prior to arriving in Syria and working with al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front, the terrorist leader had been living in Iran where he was one of a number of al-Qaeda operatives who had fled into the country from Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. The newspaper noted that Iranian officials have since claimed that Fadhli and other al-Qaeda terrorists were under house arrest while there, but have failed to provide any proof of that or an explanation of how they managed to escape to Syria. The Baltimore Sun (“Drone kills al-Qaeda leader,” July 21) similarly detailed that not only was Fadhli “head of the network’s [Al-Qaeda] operations in Iran” but that the word “Khorasan”—a Persian word—is the name of an 8th century province in “an early Islamic caliphate that spanned what is now northern Iran and part of Afghanistan.”

Yet, other publications did not note the terrorist’s Iranian connection at all when providing an overview of his background.

Reporting Fadhli’s history as being among the “few trusted” senior al-Qaeda leaders who were given advance notice of the 9/11 terror attacks, The Los Angeles Times (“U.S. strike kills Al Qaeda ‘facilitator’; drone over Syria hits the leader of the Khorasan Group,” July 22) failed to mention Fadhli’s Iran tie. The Washington Post (“Airstrike killed a senior al-Qaeda figure in Syria, Pentagon says,” July 22, 2015) similarly omitted the role of Iran in allowing a base for the al-Qaeda leader and his compatriots.

Reporting the death of a terrorist leader—particularly one mentioned by name in a 2005 speech by President George W. Bush in Brussels—is newsworthy. However, with the debate surrounding the nuclear deal with Iran and the Islamic Republic’s role as a leading state sponsor of terrorism, readers of The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times would perhaps have been better served by more detailed coverage noting the deceased al-Qaeda leaders’ time in Iran.

Where’s the coverage? —Sean Durns

The map of security fences shown above is a slightly modified version of what appeared in an article published by Bloomberg News.

Israel has been vilified for building a security barrier (mostly fence, with walls in urban areas) to keep terrorists emanating from Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank and Gaza from infiltrating into Israeli communities to carry out attacks.

Anti-Israel activists on university campuses, in church conclaves and in the media refer to Israel’s barrier as the “apartheid wall” pretending that its main purpose is to keep Palestinians penned in to so-called “bantustans”, when in reality it was a last-choice solution to stem escalating terrorism against Israeli civilians.

Well, it turns out that while Israel’s barrier may be an unforgivable offense to those whose vantage point is hundreds or thousands of miles away from the danger, in the region itself, security fences have become commonplace, stretching thousands of miles along insecure borders.

An article appearing on Bloomberg News Web site, provides maps and a chronology of fence building in the region. It turns out that the first and still longest security fence was built by Morocco. After 9-11-2001, Saudi Arabia and others followed suit. Even terrorist-flagship Iran has built a fence to keep out unwanted visitors from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

At the UN and among activists in the West, only Israel’s fence is seen as a problem though. For the others, protecting oneself from terrorist infiltration is ample justification.

Earlier this month, CAMERA’s BBC Watch and UK Media Watch ran interesting pieces discussing mistranslations by the BBC and The Guardian, respectively.

It’s worth comparing those two posts, looking at the way the British news organizations handled complaints about their mistranslations, in part because The Guardian, which is generally one of the more anti-Israel English-language newspapers around, in this case bested the BBC when it came to grasping the importance of precise translations and of correcting errors.

The Guardian

The Guardian initially claimed in an editorial that

In a small but perhaps encouraging sign, President Rouhani, in his statement welcoming the deal, referred to Israel by its name, rather than as “the Zionist entity”.

After UK Media Watch informed The Guardian that this was not true, the newspaper quickly and commendably fixed its mistake and published a correction explaining that

This article was amended on 15 July 2015. An earlier version said President Rouhani, in his statement welcoming the deal, referred to Israel by its name, rather than as “the Zionist entity.” In fact he did not refer to Israel by its name, but as “the Zionist usurper regime.”

The BBC

Like the Guardian, the BBC also plugged the word “Israel” into a translation of a statement that didn’t actually include the word. Likewise, what was actually said was telling.

As reported in Britain’s The Jewish Chronicle,

A BBC documentary has substituted the word “Israelis” for “Jews” in its translation of interviews with Palestinians, its maker has admitted.

Lyse Doucet has stood by the decision to translate “yahud” as “Israeli” in subtitles on her hour-long documentary Children of the Gaza War, which airs on BBC Two tonight.

The correct translation for “yahud” from Arabic to English is “Jew.”

The BBC’s chief international correspondent said that Gazan translators had advised her that Palestinian children interviewed on the programme who refer to “the Jews” actually meant Israelis.

In one instance, a Gazan child says the “yahud” are massacring Palestinians. However the subtitles read: “Israel is massacring us.”

Canada-born Ms Doucet said: “We talked to people in Gaza, we talked to translators. When [the children] say ‘Jews,’ they mean ‘Israelis.’

BBC Watch explained that this was not the first time the media giant replaced Palestinian “Jews” with “Israelis,” and recounted that, after a complaint about the switch, the BBC Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee in 2013 did not correct the mistranslation, and in fact went so far as to justify the practice, saying that “Israel” is what the speaker was “most likely referring to.”

Let’s assume the very best case: That the Palestinians who said “yahud” really did mean Israelis, notwithstanding the many examples of straightforwardly, explicitly anti-Jewish rhetoric in Palestinian society and the wider Arab world.

Even in this case, words matter. (Look again at the idea behind The Guardian‘s erroneous claim: “In a small but perhaps encouraging sign, President Rouhani…referred to Israel by its name, rather than as ‘the Zionist entity.'” Words matter.)

If its true that Palestinian children conflate “the Jews” and “Israel” in their language, this matters — and news consumers seeking to understand the Arab-Israeli conflict should know about it. If Palestinian parents and educators generally don’t teach that “Jew” means something broader than “Israeli,” then again, this matters, and BBC viewers should understand this reality.

And the truth is, reporters don’t generally assume the very best case. When an Israeli rabbi used terribly ugly language in reference to “the Arabs,” the BBC (and others) didn’t look into the rabbi’s mind, determine what he “most likely” meant, and tell readers that he was slurring “terrorists,” which is what the rabbi later insisted he was speaking about. Or to take a more recent example, the BBC (and others) has no problem referring to Donald Trump’s “disparaging remarks made about Mexicans” — not about Mexican immigrants, which is who he was referring to, or “bad” Mexican immigrants, which one might argue is what he meant. Trump’s comments are controversial because what people say, the form their words take, and the potential effect of the words on those listening, are thought to matter.

At least in this case, The Guardian understood that, and the BBC did not.