“The fact is that the United States dodged a bullet in Syria—and, it’s worth stressing, all courtesy of the Israelis.” So writes John Hannah, former national security advisor to Vice President Richard Cheney and now a senior counselor at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington, D.C. think tank.

In “It’s the Proliferation, Stupid,” an April 25, 2016 article for Foreign Policy online, Hannah notes North Korea’s preparation for a possible fifth nuclear weapons test. His country cash, food and fuel-starved, Kim Jong Un might sell “part of his ever-expanding nuclear arsenal to other rogue actors that mean us harm.”

Given that “North Korea has for decades sold missiles and missile technology to any state willing to pay,” nuclear weapons proliferation could be next, according to Hannah. He notes that Pyongyang’s “military relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran, in particular, has been longstanding and deep.”

He adds that “Iran’s most deadly terrorist proxy, Lebanese Hezbollah, has also been an important recipient of North Korean military assistance. The North provided critical support to help Hezbollah build a massive network of underground military installations, tunnels, bunkers, depots and storage facilities in southern Lebanon,” while helping Hezbollah, via Iran, build its huge missile arsenal aimed at Israel.

So imagine if Israel had not destroyed Syria’s Al-Kibar reactor in 2007 and it now was producing nuclear material for either dictator Bashar al-Assad or one of his enemies in the Syrian civil wars, perhaps the Islamic State.

‘Chilling’ evidence

Hannah recalls the day in 2007 that the director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, the late Meir Dagan, briefed President George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney. Dagan revealed “chilling” evidence that in the desert east of Damascus, “North Korea was covertly building a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor” more or less a replica of its own “at Yongbyon, which formed the centerpiece of its weapons program.

“Making matters worse, Al-Kibar was perilously close to completition.” Once the reactor became operational, attempting to destroy it “would run a high risk of dispersing deadly radioactive materials that could poison thousands of innocent civilians,” Hannah writes.

“The U.S. intelligence community had totally missed Al-Kibar. It was completely taken aback by Dagan’s stunning revelations,” he adds. Israel’s discovery and attack “was almost certainly the only means of ensuring the reactor never went hot.”

Now, “the North is seeking to perfect precisely those elements of its military nuclear arsenal that Iran has yet to develop: the testing of an actual bomb; warhead miniaturization; reentry technology; and a functional ICBM [intercontinental ballisitic missile],” Hannah says. “The potential for synergy between these two rogue states and longtime proliferation partners is more than obvious.”

Meanwhile, “no doubt less likely—but who’s to say impossible?—is the risk that North Korea, for the right price and perhaps in cahoots with the Russian mafia or another anti-Western power, might be tempted to share some of its nuclear know-how with the likes of the Islamic State or some other jihadist non-state actor that’s focused on staging a terrorist spectacular against the West.”

Given his country’s proliferation record and anti-American rhetoric from Kim Jong Un that parallels Islamic State declarations, “one hopes that the American intelligence community is focused like a laser on this element of the North Korean threat,” including the link to Iran, Hannah says.

The Harvard Law Record explains why it protected the identity of Husam El-Qoulaq, who hurled an anti-Semitic insult at Tzipi Livni, former Foreign Minister of Israel and current member of the Knesset. Livni appeared as a guest at the school earlier this month when El-Qoulaq insulted her.(Screenshot.)

Journalists are supposed to find out what happened and tell their readers what they have learned. Historically, there have been five questions that reporters are expected to answer, or at least try to answer, when writing about public events. The questions are:

1. Who?
2. What?
3. When?
4. Where?
5. Why?

Apparently, the student journalists at The Harvard Law Record did not get the memo.

When Husam El-Qoulaq, a student at Harvard Law School insulted Tzipi Livni, former Israeli Foreign Minister and current member of the Israeli Knesset, at a public event on Thursday April 14, 2016, (he called her “smelly”), the newspaper initially concealed the El-Qoulaq’s identity.

When, on April 18, 2016, Jewish students who attended the event condemned the statement as antisemitic in a letter to The Record, they did El-Qoulaq the undeserved and unwarranted courtesy of withholding his name from their complaint.

This is their right, but The Record to assist in the effort to protect Husam El-Qoulaq’s identity is simply disgraceful and runs counter to the demands of journalism. It’s a betrayal of the publication’s loyalty to the reader.

It’s a decision that makes a mockery of The Harvard Law Record’s credibility as a journalistic enterprise. Rather than do their job and inform their readers who said what to whom, the staffers at the newspaper withheld this information from their readers. And when students identified El-Qoulaq in the comments section of the article, they deleted these comments. (Eventually, Noah Pollak confirmed El-Qoulaq’s identity and posted it on Twitter.)
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The Huffington Post frequently features anti-Israel pieces. Now it is accusing Israel of abusing social media rights with an article headlined “Israel-Palestine: Social Media As a Tool Of Oppression.” The article opens:

Late last year, Israeli police arrested and detained 15-year-old Tamara Abu Laban after storming her house. Tamara’s crime? Updating her Facebook status with the words “forgive me” in Arabic. In most places in the world, a cryptic, if not slightly dramatic post written by a teenage girl seeking “likes” from her friends would hardly be cause for reaction. But if you are a Palestinian growing up in Occupied East Jerusalem like Tamara, even a vague and “angsty” personal Facebook status may become grounds for arrest.

Israeli authorities interpreted the post as expressing intent to carry out a violent act of resistance.

No context is provided for why Israeli security would interpret the social media post that way. In fact, deadly attacks have been carried out by terrorists who post about them in advance.

When the article tackles the issue of online incitement to violence, it quickly dismisses the idea that social media activity is connected to Palestinian terror:

Israel alleges that the sharing of online videos played a critical role in the rise of violence in the final months of 2015. However, journalists and human rights organizations have spoken out against policies of censorship that violate freedom of speech.

If HuffPo readers are concerned with freedom of speech on social media, the site should publish articles about the fact that the Palestinian Authority has jailed journalists and others for insulting PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

The article also promotes the meme that Israel is unfairly blocking Palestinian entrance to al-Aqsa mosque:

In 2015 online activists saw their hashtags, photos and videos being shared worldwide and often getting picked up by mainstream foreign media. For example, one of the hashtags trending on Palestinian social media in the months before the October uprising was #it_will_not_be_divided, which aimed to bring attention to Israeli policies preventing Palestinian men and women from entering al-Aqsa Mosque during August and September.

Such measures are matters of security. CAMERA described how organized groups of Palestinian men and women were harassing tourists and visitors to the Temple Mount. As Haaretz reported, “The activity is inflammatory and endangers tourists, visitors and worshippers at the site, leading to violence that could harm human life. The goal of [these groups] is to undermine Israeli authority on Temple Mount, alter reality and existing arrangements and restrict freedom of worship, and it is tied to the activity of hostile Islamist organizations and even directed by them.”

Unfortunately, incitement by Palestinian political, religious and cultural leaders –particularly regarding the Temple Mount– has indeed been a factor in the ongoing wave of terror attacks on Jews and others being carried out in Israel.

Multiple times, the Huffington Post article provides links to reports by the International Middle East Media Center –a source that CAMERA has exposed as not credible– which refer to Israel’s detentions of suspicious persons as “kidnappings.” HuffPo allows this blatantly unbalanced outlet to be cited as a legitimate source. The article also references the anti-Israel NGO Addameer, which the article describes as “a Palestinian human rights NGO that works to support political prisoners.” In fact, as NGO Monitor reveals, Addameer has frequently contributed to the wholesale demonization and delegitimization of Israel on the world stage.

The article is penned by Nadim Nashif, a frequent contributor of anti-Israel articles to Huffington Post and a regular writer for The Electronic Intifada, a “news site” whose anti-Israel rhetoric and propagation of falsehoods has been extensively documented by CAMERA.

Nashif’s Huffington Post bio describes him as an educator of Arab youth and the founder/director of Baladna which, according to the Huffington Post, “aims to give Arab Palestinian youth in Israel the skills and resources to effect positive changes in their communities and society.”

As CAMERA has reported Baladna encourages its Arab youth to segregate themselves from the Israeli population, in campaigns that, for example, urge Arab teens to spurn volunteering for the IDF because it is “a branch of the occupation army, which has always acted against the Arab-Israeli population and the Palestinian people in general.”

The article’s blatant lack of balance and rejection of the irrefutable evidence that terrorism is incited and encouraged by Palestinian leaders and lay people through social media is nothing new, as CAMERA has covered numerous times (for example, here and here).

Why doesn’t HuffPo insist that their journalists report facts, not fictions?

–Rachel Frommer, CAMERA Intern

Illustrative image of journalists from Wikimedia Commons

Reporting on the findings of a study by the Media Insight Project, AP writes:

Trust in the news media is being eroded by perceptions of inaccuracy and bias, fueled in part by Americans’ skepticism about what they read on social media.

Just 6 percent of people say they have a lot of confidence in the media, putting the news industry about equal to Congress and well below the public’s view of other institutions. . . .

Nearly 90 percent of Americans say it’s extremely or very important that the media get their facts correct, according to the study. About 4 in 10 say they can remember a specific incident that eroded their confidence in the media, most often one that dealt with accuracy or a perception that it was one-sided.

The news media have been hit by a series of blunders on high-profile stories ranging from the Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling on President Barack Obama’s health care law to the Boston Marathon bombing that have helped feed negative perceptions of the media.

In 2014, Rolling Stone had to retract a vivid report about an alleged gang rape at a fraternity party at the University of Virginia. The Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, asked by Rolling Stone to investigate after questions were raised about the veracity of the story, called it an avoidable journalistic failure and “another shock to journalism’s credibility amid head-swiveling change in the media industry.”

“The most important thing that news organizations can do is be accurate, and while we know that is a high value, this study reinforces that,” said Margaret Sullivan, public editor of The New York Times.

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For years now, CAMERA has been documenting Haaretz biased mistranslations for its English-language readers in a feature called “Haaretz, Lost in Translation.” An article by CAMERA Israel Director Tamar Sternthal, entitled “Distorted Haaretz English Translations on the Israeli Political Agenda.” explains how CAMERA and its Israeli branch, Presspectiva, have brought the problem to the Israeli public’s attention.

Presspectiva Editor Hanan Amiur exposes the extent of Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken’s anti-Zionist bias in an article published on “MIDA”, an Israeli news magazine focusing on the media. In the article, “Haaretz Publisher Amos Schoken: If Palestinian Stabber is a Terrorist, IDF Soldier is a Murderer,” available both in Hebrew and in English. Amior writes about his own communication with Schocken:

Presspectiva asked Amos Schocken, publisher of Ha’aretz, to explain why the paper has systematically concealed from readers of the English edition the fact that the Palestinian who was shot was a terrorist. In response, he referred us to two news items published in the English edition in which the Palestinian was, in fact, described as an “attacker.” He also added a more comprehensive explanation: “In many cases, the raw information in Hebrew reaches the editorial staff of the Hebrew and English editions at the same time, and then, the English edition translates it, and each edition edits the item separately. The result is that there are differences in both the wording of the item and the headlines.”

Schocken also added a surprising comment, noting that if he has an issue, it is with the editors of the Hebrew edition, who he believes are not sufficiently even-handed in their reporting. “Perhaps the presumption of innocence makes it necessary to be careful about reporting in this way: If they write ‘soldier,’ then they must write ‘Palestinian.’ If we ignore the presumption of innocence and write ‘terrorist,’ then we should write ‘murderer.’”

USA Today omitted essential context in its print coverage by correspondent Shira Rubin of the March 24 shooting of a Palestinian terrorist who attacked Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in Hebron (“Israeli soldier to be charged in shooting,” April 14, 2016). This failure allowed readers to draw the false conclusion that IDF soldiers murdered, without any cause or explanation, an innocent man.

As CAMERA has noted (“Vox’s April Fools’ Day ‘Reporting’ on Palestinian Terror Attacks,” April 7) on March 24, 2016 two Palestinian terrorists, armed with knives, attacked an IDF checkpoint in Hebron. During the attack, an IDF soldier was stabbed before both terrorists were shot, one of them fatally. Shortly thereafter, the wounded terrorist, Abed al-Fatah al-Sharif, was again shot, this time fatally in the head, by an IDF soldier named Elor Azaria. Azaria later claimed he thought al-Sharif was armed with a vest of explosives that he was attempting to detonate. The incident was filmed by B’Tselem, an anti-government group, and the IDF is investigating.

In its print edition, USA Today reported that Azaria was being charged with manslaughter after he was, “caught on video fatally shooting a Palestinian in the head.” Later the paper said, “Video shows the soldier firing on the wounded Palestinian man, Abd al Fattah Yusri al Sharif.”

However, the paper failed to explain why al-Sharif was wounded in the first place. No mention was made of the attack that preceded the incident, that another Palestinian assailant was involved and that an Israeli soldier was stabbed before the two perpetrators were shot. Instead, readers were left with the impression that a Palestinian Arab was inexplicably murdered by an Israeli soldier.

USA Today’s online version (“Israeli soldier who shot Palestinian to face manslaughter charges,” April 14) did note these essential details. It clearly stated, “The military initially said two Palestinians stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier before troops shot and killed the pair.” Unlike the print version, the online article also detailed statements by Israeli officials who criticized Azaria’s actions. While not perfect—the online version failed to note B’Tselem’s history of anti-Israel distortions (see, for example “B’Tselem Casualty Count Doesn’t Add Up,” CAMERA, Nov. 2, 2008)—it did offer a more nuanced and detailed accounting of the Hebron shooting as it was understood at the time than the print version.

On April 15, 2016 CAMERA contacted USA Today requesting a correction to the misleading print article, noting that other outlets such as the Times of Israel (“IDF: Enough evidence to charge Hebron solider in killing,” April 5) and The Los Angeles Times (“Israeli military battles public furor,” April 8), among others, reported that two armed Palestinian Arab men had precipitated their shooting by initiating an attack on IDF soldiers.

In an email response to CAMERA, USA Today refused to correct, although it implicitly acknowledged that the print version of the article did not provide the context that could be found online. The paper claimed, “there is limited space in print to elaborate on all the context of what is often a complicated story, however, we did run a longer version online with further context as you suggested.”

USA Today’s explanation did not pass muster. The same day that USA Today published its misleading article on Hebron, The Washington Post ran a four paragraph Associated Press brief (“Soldier to be charged in death of Palestinian”) on the same topic. Unlike USA Today’s print version, it managed to provide the “who” and the “why” that basic journalistic standards require.

Twenty-nine former German Army soldiers have joined the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a U.S.-designated terrorist group, according to a German military intelligence report.

Legal Insurrection, an online blog that focuses on antisemitism, legal and political issues, reported that the German military also is investigating “65 suspected jihadists serving as active duty German soldiers (“German Army alarmed at growing Islamist infiltration, as 29 ex-soldiers join ISIS,” April 14, 2016).”

Legal Insurrection noted that according to the German newspaper Handelsblatt, “since 2007 German Military Counter-Intelligence Agency (MAD) has investigated 320 active duty soldiers for having suspected links to Jihadist circles. The newspaper also confirmed that until recently no background checks were done on soldiers handling combat equipment. The screening was only limited to soldiers accessing classified materials.”

An estimated 700 Germans have left to join ISIS, 100 of them women. Legal Insurrection said that approximately 800 jihadists have returned or attempted to return to Germany from the battlefields of Iraq and Syria. Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, has claimed that there has been a “sharp increase” in the number of women under 25 leaving the country to join ISIS.

The reports of members of the German military joining ISIS come after an increase in terrorist attacks on the European continent.

Yet, major U.S. print news outlets largely failed to note reports of German soldiers either defecting or deceiving a country that is a key American ally and NATO leader—after receiving advanced military training from that ally.

A Lexis-Nexis search of USA Today, The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times showed no mention of the report of jihadist infiltration of the Germany military.

However, in a three paragraph brief, The Washington Times (“Military proposes ways to weed out jihadis,” April 18, 2016) informed its print readers that “German counterintelligence officials believe at least 29 former soldiers from the country have left to join the Islamic State…Since 2007, as many as 22 German soldiers have been identified as Islamists and 17 have been fired, the DPA [German news agency] report said.”

Legal Insurrection said, “The infiltration of German and other NATO militaries is part of a well laid out plan by the Islamic State. Islamic State has been urging potential recruits in Europe to get military training before heading to Iran and Syria.”

Islamist terror groups previously have used knowledge and skills they picked up from the U.S. military. Ali Mohamed, one of the founding members of al-Qaeda, the U.S.-designated terror group that among other acts perpetrated the Sept. 11 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon and Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, was a member of the U.S. Army stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. In his 2006 book, The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, author Lawrence Wright noted that Mohamed wrote terrorist training guides for al-Qaeda, imparting skills he learned from the U.S. Army and elsewhere [Mohamed was a member of the Egyptian Army prior to serving in the U.S. Army] to al-Qaeda. Mohamed’s influence extended to the top of the terror network, including its founder Osama bin Laden. Former FBI Special Agent Jack Cloonan called Mohamed “[Osama] bin Laden’s first trainer…He taught bin Laden (“The Torture Question: Interview with Jack Cloonan,” PBS Frontline, Oct. 18, 2005).”

Whether the ISIS members who defected from the German army will have the sort of influence of Ali Mohamed is an open question—one that many in the news media are failing to ask or even report. Where’s the coverage?

The Los Angeles Times, which earlier this year entirely ignored the fatal stabbing of Israeli mother Dafna Meir, and also ignored the Palestinian stabbing attack of Michal Froman, a pregnant Israeli woman who suffered wounds, ignores yesterday’s bus bombing in Jerusalem.

According to Lexis-Nexis searches, the print edition has mentioned not a word about the bus bombing in which over 20 Israelis were injured.

It’s not that the paper’s attention is focused on other regions. In fact, The Times is very much focused on Israel. Today’s print edition carries this story about Israel on page 3: “Israeli soldier charged with manslaughter in shooting of wounded Palestinian knife attacker.”

And the Israeli government’s cabinet meeting on the Golan Heights got over 1,0000 words on yesterday’s page 3. On April 3, an Associated Press article about Palestinian clowns working in Gaza hospitals appeared on page 9. But the bombing of a bus in Israel’s capital, injuring more than 20? According to Lexis-Nexis, it gets not one word in the print edition.

The Middle East section of the The Times website carries an AP story about the bombing. As of this writing, the Mideast section leads off with the story about the Israeli soldier facing manslaughter charges, prioritizing it over the Islamic State’s take over of 70 percent of Syria’s Yarmouk refugee camp, which places over 10,000 civilians in danger of starvation.

The Los Angeles Times, which just received a Pullitzer Prize for its coverage of terrorism of San Bernardino , falls short in its coverage of terrorism in Israel.

CNN has corrected a headline which hours after Israeli police confirmed that a bomb was responsible for the explosion on a Jerusalem bus continued to refer to a “bus fire.”

As CAMERA’s Dexter Van Zile tweeted yesterday, the original headline, “Bus fire in Jerusalem injures at least 21, police say,” remained unchanged on CNN’s site for hours after the police reported on the bomb.

The Algemeiner reported yesterday (“Watchdog Groups Blast CNN for ‘Bus Fire’ Headline Following Major Terrorist Bombing in Jerusalem“):

Dexter Van Zile, a researcher for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), added, “It’s universally understood that this was a terrorist attack. CNN needs to get on the shtick and change the headline.”

In the wake of the uproar over yet another skewed CNN headline, editors have commendably amended the headline. It now reads: “Bus attack in Jerusalem injures at least 21, police say.”