In Germany, Muslim students of Arab and Turkish origins refused to participate in International Holocaust Remembrance Day events—and the school applauded the students’ decision.

Benjamin Weinthal, a Jerusalem Post correspondent and fellow at the Washington D.C.-based think tank, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, covered the widely underreported story (“German Muslim Students Protest Holocaust Remembrance, Attack Israel,” Jan. 27, 2017).

Muslim students at The Weiterbildungskolleg Emscher-Lippe high school in Gelsenkirchen, Germany refused to participate in Holocaust commemoration events held at the school. Part of the event included students holding signs saying “I Remember” or “We Remember.” Instead, some Muslim students reportedly defaced the school’s blackboard, writing “F**ck Israel, Free Palestine.”

The school’s director, Günter Jahn, approved of the student’s decision, telling German newspaper Der Westen: “It is important that there is criticism. That is the basis for a discussion.” Yet, as CAMERA and others have noted, antisemitism often masks itself as anti-Zionism; unprincipled and frequently discriminatory opposition to the world’s sole Jewish state.

Antisemitism in Germany is on the rise, as Weinthal noted. Earlier in January 2017—shortly before the 75th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference in which Nazi leaders decided on the “final solution” for the so-called “Jewish problem”—German courts reaffirmed a legal decision that excused the torching of a synagogue in the city of Wuppertal by three Muslim men. The court claimed that the arson was merely an attempt to “draw attention to the blazing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.”

Antisemitic attacks in Germany doubled from 2015 to 2016, according to a World Jewish Congress report cited by Weinthal. The actual number of attacks may in fact be higher due to the “lack of standards to identify contemporary antisemitism in the Federal Republic.”

That lack of standards is readily apparent if certain German schools and courts are an indicator.

Nor is Germany alone in Europe for blaming Jews for anti-Jewish violence. In France, for example, 60 percent of French citizens believe that Jews are at least partially responsible for rising antisemitism (“Poll: Majority in France Believe Jews Responsible for Antisemitism,” CAMERA, Feb. 12, 2016).

As CAMERA has noted, many Western news media outlets routinely underreport the burgeoning antisemitism in Europe. A 2015 study by Tel Aviv University found that anti-Jewish violence went up forty percent in 2014 (“Violent antisemitic attacks up 40 percent—Where’s the Coverage?” April 21, 2015). That report went received scant mention in the press.

By contrast, The Jerusalem Post’s Weinthal frequently writes on antisemitism in Europe. His most recent report can be found here.

Yusef Daher, a Christian “peacemaker” in Jerusalem who enjoys the support of the World Council of Churches, is at it again. Daher, who serves as executive secretary of the WCC-supported Jerusalem Interchurch Center (JICC), recently posted a statement on Facebook asking for George Habash to “pray for us.”

Daher posted this entry (screenshot above) on January 25, 2017, one day before the ninth anniversary of Habash’s death in 2008. Daher’s friends on Facebook responded with variations of the phrase, “God rest his soul.”

Habash was a terrorist. He was a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which was responsible for the Lod Airport Massacre, which resulted in the death of two dozen tourists, most of them Christians, in 1972. In 2008, Time published an article declaring Habash, “Terrorism’s Christian Godfather.” Here’s a brief excerpt from the article:
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In early March, an organization called the Telos Group is going to hold its annual leadership conference in Washington, D.C. Billing itself as an activist organization that is pro-Palestinian, pro-peace and pro-Israel, the Telos Group is allegedly promoting a new understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict — an understanding that allows outsiders (Evangelical Protestants mostly) to embrace the flattering notion that they can somehow bring peace between Jew and Arab in the Holy Land.

It’s a naïve and arrogant view for people to embrace because it portrays the Israelis and the Palestinians as pawns that will do the bidding of well-meaning Christians from North America, as if the two groups of people are unable to discern for themselves the decisions they need to make for peace. Such a narrative denies the agency, intelligence and accountability of people in both Israel and in Palestinian society.

The condescension however, is mostly directed at the Palestinians. Examine the Telos Group’s website for yourself and you’ll find very little information about the antisemitic incitement in Palestinian society, nor will you see much condemnation of the corruption of Palestinian elites. By failing to hold Palestinian leaders accountable for their misdeeds, Telos Group activists reveal their underlying contempt for the Palestinians.

Noah Summers, an analyst writing in the Gatestone Institute has examined the organization and has documented some contradictions with the organization’s message. She writes that while Telos staffer Greg Khalil (pictured above) invokes UN Resolution 242 in a manner that obligates Israel to yield territory to the Palestinians, he “neglects to mention that this “land-for-peace” resolution was premised on the Palestinians halting all violence against Israelis and recognizing the State of Israel.”
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“PM’s anti-Jewish support for Trump’s anti-Muslim decree” is a front-page headline of Haaretz‘s English print edition yesterday.

Similarly, Haaretz‘s online headline states: “Netanyahu’s anti-Jewish Support for Trump’s anti-Muslim Decree.”

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not expressed any support for President Trump’s move against immigration. In fact, Netanyahu has come under criticism for keeping silentabout Trump’s executive order. The Times of Israel reported yesterday:

Former Likud party stalwart Dan Meridor on Sunday harshly criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to condemn the new US administration’s entry ban on citizens from certain Muslim states, arguing that the Jewish state should place Jewish values above political expediency. . .

In December 2015, Netanyahu himself issued a statement rejecting then-presidential candidate Trump’s vow to ban Muslims from entering the US. On Sunday, however, he did not comment on the matter, and his spokesperson refused to respond to several Times of Israel queries.

In December 2015, Netanyahu himself issued a statement rejecting then-presidential candidate Trump’s vow to ban Muslims from entering the US. On Sunday, however, he did not comment on the matter, and his spokesperson refused to respond to several Times of Israel queries.

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Death came for the Archbishop; it got a lot of press. When Hilarion Capucci, a Melkite Archbishop who spent two years in an Israeli prison for smuggling guns for the PLO, died on Dec. 31, 2016, the New York Times wrote about it.

So did the BBC, The Washington Post, and the Associated Press. Crux, the Boston Globe website dedicated to covering the Catholic Church, also covered Capucci’s death at the age of 94.

His death was lamented in a number newspapers in the Middle East as well.

The secular press covered Capucci’s death, but most, if not all, Catholic media outlets in the United States appear to have passed over the Archbishop’s passing in silence.

America Magazine didn’t cover the story. Neither did the National Catholic Reporter, nor did the National Catholic Register. And interestingly enough, the Catholic News Service made no mention of Archbishop Capucci’s death. CNS, did however, report about Capucci’s involvement in a Gaza flotilla in 2010. (Screenshots of efforts to find articles related to Capucci’s death on the websites of the outlets just listed are appended to the bottom of this entry.)
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Update: January 25, 2017

Yusef Daher has edited the Facebook post described below, deleting a link to an article from a fake news site that broadcast a lie about Israel’s President Reuvin Rivlin. Here is a screenshot of the post below.

CAMERA commends Daher for doing the right thing and calls on him to remove other hateful posts from his social media accounts. It’s what a peacemaker would do.

Here is the original post that drew attention to the fake news article on Daher’s Facebook page:

Yusef Daher just can’t help himself.

Daher, who works as executive secretary of the Jerusalem Interchurch Center, an ecumenical “peacemaking” organization supported by the World Council of Churches, has a nasty habit of posting ugly anti-Israel propaganda on his Twitter and Facebook accounts. For example, in January 2016, he posted a picture an Israeli soldier getting kicked in the rear end by Jesus who is hanging on the cross.

And on October 13, 2015, Daher posted a picture that lionized Palestinian rock throwers. (Snapshot readers can read more about Daher’s habit of posting hateful images here and here.)

Posting images like this is in direct contradiction to Daher’s status as part of the ecumenical peacemaking community in Jerusalem supported by the World Council of Churches. Instead of promoting peace, Daher posts images that incite hostility toward Israel. CAMERA has prepared two articles about Daher’s work, but the World Council of Churches has not responded publicly to Daher’s postings, nor has Daher himself refrained from posting anti-Israel propaganda.

He’s still at it.
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After CAMERA researcher Gilead Ini highlighted the New York Times’ double standard with respect to Israel in an article in The Tower, letter-writer D. Lubinsky sent the following to that newspaper:

Dear NY Times,

In recent articles you refer to “occupied Palestinian territory” rather than “disputed land” or even “occupied West Bank.” Why does the Times use such distorted terms against Israel and no other country?

You don’t talk of Kashmir as “occupied Pakistani territory” or “occupied Cyprus” or “occupied Cypriot territory” for the Turkish controlled part of the island, nor use analogous terms on Tibet, Kurdistan, Western Sahara …

How long will it take the NY Times to stop its singling out of Israel? There never was a Palestinian state in the West Bank and when Jordan controlled that land till 1967, it did not talk of it as Palestinian territory. Moreover, Israel conquered it in a war of survival, and was prepared to hand it over to Palestinian leadership, if the latter were only prepared to agree to a peace that would end the conflict and allow a permanent Israel with definite boundaries.

In no other conflict, is so much bias directed at the party that was repeatedly attacked (namely Israel) over vitally strategic land, conquered in a war of survival, and that, if handed to implacable foes, would lead not to peace, but to more attacks – as stated openly by Palestinian leaders. How long will it take the NY Times to live up to a semblance of fairness?

D. Lubinsky

In a widely underreported event, Iranian lawmakers voted on Jan. 9, 2017 to expand military spending.

Citing Iranian Tasnim news, Reuters noted that the Islamic Consultative Assmbly, also known as the Majils, voted to increase military spending to five percent of the total budget. Iran had previously allocated slightly less than two percent of its 2015-16 budget for military expenditures.

In its report, Reuters described the vote as a “boost to Iran’s military establishment (“Iran to expand military spending, develop missiles,” Jan. 9, 2017).” The increase is part of a growth plan for 2016-2021 that was announced Iran’s Supreme Ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in July 2015. That plan calls for developing long range missiles, armed drones and cyber-war potential.

One hundred seventy-three Majils members voted in favor of the increase. Only ten cast votes against the buildup.

Many U.S. news outlets failed to report the vote, despite Iran being a frequent news topic. A Lexis-Nexis search of major print media, including The Washington Post, USA Today and The Baltimore Sun, among others, turned up not a single mention of the vote.

The lack of coverage is puzzling. The day before the vote, four Iranian vessels aggressively approached an American navy ship in the Strait of Hormuz—prompting the US Navy to fire warning shots. That event, reported by The Washington Post and others, received only a few sentence brief in USA Today and The Sun. As CAMERA has noted, Iran has previously threatened U.S. ships and personnel, although the media has often failed to cover such occurrences.

Reuters also highlighted that in a recent U.N. Security Council report, the organization’s departing Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, “expressed concern that Iran may have violated” a U.N. arms embargo “by supplying weapons and missiles to Hezbollah.” Hezbollah is a Lebanese-based, Iranian-backed Shi’ite terrorist group that calls for Israel’s destruction.

Iran itself has frequently pledged to destroy the Jewish state. As it arms itself and its proxies, it’s worth asking: Where’s the coverage?

On January 15, 2017, Sky News ran a segment titled ‘Two-state solution under Trump’, focusing on concerns that Israeli settlement construction and the president-elect’s pledge to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem could “spell the end of the two-state solution”.

At roughly the two-minute mark of the roughly five-minute segment, the presenter, Sky News Middle East correspondent Alex Rossi, asserts – in an effort to contextualise construction across the green line – that the US views the settlements as “illegal”.  

This claim is not accurate.

The US position since the early 80s has been that settlements are “illegitimate”, not “illegal”. Most notably, in September, Associated Press (AP) issued a correction (following communication with CAMERA’s Jerusalem office).

UKMW alerted Sky to the error in the following tweets – which we followed up with an email to the network.

Earlier today, UKMW heard back from Sky producers that they upheld the complaint and thanked UKMW for bringing the information to their attention – particularly the AP correction.  Sky deleted the video in question, and re-published it without the false information on the US view of settlements. Sky also revised the accompanying online article, and deleted the Tweets and Facebook posts linking to the original video.

The full report on the correction can be read at:
https://ukmediawatch.org/2017/01/16/ukmw-prompts-correction-to-sky-news-claim-on-us-view-of-settlements/

On. Jan. 12, 2017, Hamas, the U.S.-designated terror group that rules the Gaza Strip, assaulted an Agence France-Press (AFP) photographer and detained—at gunpoint—an Associated Press journalist. Western media outlets largely ignored the violence against members of the press.

The unidentified photographer and journalist were covering a protest in which “thousands” of Palestinians “took to the streets…to protest chronic power cuts in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip,” the AP reported (“In Rare Demonstration, Thousands Protest Power Cuts in Gaza,” Jan. 12, 2017).

Hamas blocked journalists attempting to cover the event and the AP journalist “was briefly detained at gunpoint until he handed over his mobile phones to plainclothes security men.”

The Foreign Press Association, which represents international media, reported that an AFP photographer was severely beaten in the head by Hamas members after he refused to hand over his camera.

Iyad Bozom, a Hamas spokesperson, denied that that the assault happened and that a journalist had been detained at gunpoint.

In its statement on the incident, the FPA said it “condemns this violent behavior in the strongest terms, and finds it especially shocking in light of verbal promises we have received from the Hamas officials to respect the freedom of the press. We hope that Hamas will properly investigate this incident and provide an explanation and apology for this unacceptable behavior by their forces.”

As CAMERA has frequently noted, Hamas is a violent terror group—and similar to its rival Fatah that rules the West Bank—it has a long history of lying and intimidating and manipulating press outlets.

What is shocking isn’t that Hamas—in a despicable act—attacked members of the press, but how little press coverage the assault received. The AP, for instance, expended three sentences on this incident. Curiously, in their report on the protests, The New York Times failed to mention the attack (“With Electricity in Short Supply, 10,000 Protest in Gaza, Defying Hamas,” Jan. 13, 2017).

Other major U.S. news outlets, such as The Washington Post, USA Today and The Baltimore Sun, failed to provide their own reports on either the protests or the assault on the journalists. The Post, for example, merely carried an AP dispatch and only online. It’s hard to fathom a similar lack of coverage had Israeli officials assaulted a journalist or thousands of people protested in Israel.
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