James M. Wall meeting with Martin Luther King in 1967. (Screenshot from The Link.)

James M. Wall, former editor of The Christian Century, is notorious for his hostility toward Israel and its supporters in the United States.

On his blog, Wall has referred to Israel’s supporters in the United States as a “fifth column” and for a while, he was associate editor for a website called Veterans News Now, a publication that promotes hostility toward Jews throughout the world and has promoted the work of David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan. His behavior is a huge embarrassment for his former employer, The Christian Century, the flagship publication of mainline Protestantism in the United States.

CAMERA has written extensively about Wall’s descent into the netherworld of antisemitism on a number of occasions, including articles that can be seen here and here. Articles on the failure of Christian Century and the United Methodist Church to hold Wall accountable for his hateful writings about Israel and its Jewish supporters can be seen here and here.

All this is worth recounting because a few weeks ago, a well-known historian, Randall Bytwerk, who taught for many years at Calvin College in Grand Rapids Michigan, apparently wrote an article about Wall at Wikipedia.

The article, which can be read here, is a pretty straightforward text, detailing his career as a journalist, movie critic and Democratic politician and activist. The documentation demonstrating that Bytwerk wrote the Wikipedia article in question can be seen here and here.

What is amazing is that the text makes no mention whatsoever of Wall’s affiliation with Veterans News Now, which was so embarrassing to Christian Century that it was forced to issue a statement about the controversy here.
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The Washington Post not only failed to offer a full-length report on the June 16, 2017 terror attack in which a 23-year old Israeli Border Policewoman, Hadas Malka, was murdered, it also made misleading changes to an AP dispatch on the attack.

Malka was stabbed to death by a Palestinian assailant in a coordinated terrorist attack in Jerusalem’s Old City. She was attacked while responding to the scene of another terrorist attack in which two Palestinian attackers opened fire on an Israeli Border Police patrol at Zedekiah’s Cave in the Muslim Quarter. Israeli authorities killed all three Palestinian terrorists.

The initial AP report on the attack was titled “Palestinian attackers killed after killing Israeli officer.” This headline made clear to AP readers the important chain of events and noted the death of the Israeli officer.

The Washington Post, however, made questionable edits to the AP brief it republished in the print version of its June 18, 2017 edition. The headline chosen by The Post was “3 Palestinians killed after attacks on police”—omitting the death of the Israeli officer and failing to mention that the Palestinians killed were terrorists carrying out an attack. As CAMERA pointed out to Post staff, this violates the ethics code of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). SPJ calls for journalists to “Make certain that headlines, news teases and promotional material, photos, video, audio, graphics, sound bites and quotations do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context.”

As CAMERA has highlighted, the BBC, after considerable public outcry, changed a similarly misleading headline of a report about the June 16, 2017 terror attack. The BBC’s statement acknowledged, ““We accept that our original headline did not appropriately reflect the nature of the events and subsequently changed it. Whilst there was no intention to mislead our audiences, we regret any offense caused.”

The Post made other questionable changes to its print version of the AP dispatch. The original stated: “Since September 2015, Palestinian assailants have killed 43 Israelis, two visiting Americans and a British student, mainly in stabbing, shooting and vehicular attacks. In that time, some 250 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire. Israel identified most of them as attackers.” Yet, The Post’s print version omitted this last, crucial sentence—possibly leaving readers to conclude that Israel is using “disproportionate force” and killing Palestinians without cause. By contrast, the online version republished by The Post included this important information.

CAMERA contacted The Post requesting a correction and a clarification to their print version of the AP dispatch. The paper declined to do so, claiming that it faced “space constraints” and the headline “accurately conveyed the story, within the constraints of space.”

This is risible; the paper failed to offer a detailed report, on its own, on a coordinated terrorist attack—an occurrence that refutes previous Post coverage of “lone-wolf” attacks against Israelis. Further, Hamas, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), all sought to claim credit for the assault—a fact which also makes the event newsworthy, to say nothing of a young Israeli woman being murdered.

Indeed, as CAMERA has noted, the paper has previously run lengthy stories on Chinese tourists being overcharged at Israeli restaurants, the used car market among Palestinians, and the Israeli Prime Ministers’ dog nipping someone at a dinner party.

The Post should have spared some “space” for this terror attack—and the little bit afforded to readers should have carried the important context that other news providers managed to print.

In a Feb. 11, 2017 tweet, Post Jerusalem bureau chief William Booth claimed that “every major attack in Israel & West Bank gets covered in Wapo NYT etc and we dig deeper.” That, however, is demonstrably false.

In an article about Hamas banning dog-walking in the Gaza Strip, NBC News believes it’s important for readers to know that Israel blockades the Gaza Strip. On the other hand, NBC would prefer that readers not know that Egypt also blockades the Gaza Strip, even though the Egyptian blockade is much more restrictive than the Israeli blockade by any measure (“Hamas bans dog-walking in the Gaza Strip“).

The article, a collaborative effort by NBC’s Wajjeh Abu Zarifa , Dave Copeland , Lawahez Jabari and F. Brinley Bruton reported:

Hamas — the militant group that runs the poor, Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip — recently decreed dogs can’t be walked in markets, roads and along beaches.

Israel allows in virtually all products aside from weapons and items defined as dual-use items (ie can be used for military purposes), a fact confirmed by the Israeli NGO Gisha, which is highly critical of Israel’s policies with respect to Gaza. Both goods and people can much more easily pass through the Israeli blockade of Gaza than through the strict Egyptian blockade.

That Egypt’s blockade, ignored by NBC, is significantly more restrictive than the Israeli blockade (which NBC singled out), is confirmed by recent UN data. The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that this past May, for example, (the most recent UN data available), the Israeli crossing for people (Erez Crossing), was open for 25 days, enabling 6,328 times in which people crossed from Gaza to Israel. In contrast, the Egyptian crossing for people (Rafah Crossing), was open for just four days, enabling just 3,068 times in which people crossed in either direction (Egypt to Gaza and the reverse). (Graphic below from OCHA’s report.)

More than 200 trucks exited Gaza into Israel via the Kerem Shalom crossing over the course of 17 days in May. Zero trucks exit Gaza for Egypt.

As for the entry of goods into Gaza, the Kerem Shalom Crossing from Israel operated for 19 days in May, enabling over 10,000 trucks carrying goods to enter from Israel. In contrast, Egypt’s “Rafah crossing exceptionally opened on four days, allowing 381 truckloads of goods to enter Gaza, the largest volume through this crossing since June 2015.”

In 2015 Reuters, which had likewise initially ignored the Egyptian-blockade in a graphic entitled “Gaza blockade,” commendably added the information when the omission was pointed out.

CAMERA has contacted NBC to request that they likewise amend their report to include the more severe Egyptian blockade. Stay tuned for an update.

A screenshot of an image posted on Yusef Daher’s Facebook page.

Yusef Daher, the Executive Secretary of the Jerusalem Inter-Church Center, has posted some ugly stuff on his Facebook page and on his Twitter timeline. Daher is supposed to promote peace at the JICC — which is supported by the World Council of Churches — but for one reason or another, the licensed tour guide has posted a number of images that legitimize, promote or downplay the horror of Palestinian violence against Israelis.

It’s something that CAMERA has written about on a number of occasions, including here, here, and here.

But yesterday, June 26, 2017, Daher hit a new low, posting an image of a young girl holding a plastic water bottle as if to throw at a target off in the distance. She’s standing in front of a stenciled image of a young girl — with a pigtail just like hers — throwing a Molotov cocktail.

The comments posted in response praise the young girl, calling her “precious” and “spontaneous” and “humble.”

Both the image and the comments are indicative of a thoughtlessness and contempt for the victims of Palestinian violence on the part of both Daher and his friends on Facebook.
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June 28 Update: DPA Corrects: Jerusalem in Israel, Not Palestinian Territories

DPA, the German news agency, has relocated Jerusalem to the Palestinian territories. Today’s photo caption, which appears on the photo sites of leading news agencies Associated Press and Agence France-Presse, states:

Gilad Grossman, spokesman of the human rights organisation Jesch Din, in Jerusalem, Palestinian Territories, 26 June 2017. The Israeli government has approved the first state-sanctioned settlement in the occupied West Bank since the beginning of the Oslo peace process. The settlements are widely regarded as illegal under international law. Jesch Din is one of the organisations contesting the move. Photo by: Stefanie J’rkel

In addition, a second DPA caption refers to a future Israeli settlement to be built in “Palestinian territories.” The land slated for the future settlement of Amichai is in disputed West Bank land, Area C, not under Palestinian control, and is therefore not part of the “Palestinian territories.” The final status of this land is to be determined in negotiations, and has not yet been resolved.

This caption also appears on the AP and AFP photo sites:

Avichai Boaron, a spokesman for the illegal West Bank settlement of Amona, stands in front of the site upon which the Israeli government has approved the first state-sanctioned settlement in the occupied territories since the beginning of the Oslo peace process in ‘Amichai’, Palestinian Territories, 26 June 2017. The settlements are widely regarded as illegal under international law. Photo by: Stefanie J’rkel

CAMERA has reached out to DPA, AP and AFP for corrections. Stay tuned for updates.

See also: “DPA, AP Correct: Lebanon, Not Libya, Borders Israel“

A University of Delaware professor who said that student Otto Warmbier, a victim of the North Korean regime, “got exactly what he deserved,” after he was held and possibly murdered by North Korea, is a supporter of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) effort which seeks to delegitimize Israel.

Kathy Dettwyler, an adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of Delaware, wrote on her personal Facebook page that Warmbier was “typical of the mindset of a lot of the young, white, rich, clueless males who come into my class.”

Warmbier was a University of Virginia student visiting North Korea on a January 2016 trip. Accused by North Korean authorities of stealing a propaganda poster from his hotel, he was subsequently arrested and sentenced to 15 years hard labor. On June 13, 2017—to his parents’ shock and horror—Warmbier was returned to U.S. soil, unresponsive and in a coma. Six days later, Warmbier—who was reportedly in good health at the time of his trip—died from his injuries, having been in a coma for at least 15 months.

Gordan Chang, a foreign affairs analyst who specializes in North Korea and China, pointed out that although Pyongyang claims Warmbier had contracted botulism, doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, which examined the student upon his return, “found no traces of botulism but did find dead brain tissue”—likely the result of severe trauma.

In her Facebook post, Dettwyler justified the young man’s death at the hands of a brutal, authoritarian regime. Writing for the News Journal, reporter Jessica Bies noted some of the professor’s troubling remarks:

“These are the same kids who cry about their grades because they didn’t think they’d really have to read and study the material to get a good grade … His parents ultimately are to blame for his growing up thinking he could get away with whatever he wanted. Maybe in the US, where young, white, rich, clueless white males routinely get away with raping women. Not so much in North Korea. And of course, it’s Ottos’ parents who will pay the price for the rest of their lives.”

Dettwyler is also a BDS supporter, according to research by CAMERA that found that she was a signatory for the “Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions.”

The movement’s co-founder, Omar Barghouti, has stated that the purpose of BDS is to permanently end Jewish self-rule in the region; he advocates a Palestinian Arab state to replace the Jewish one, not a “two-state solution.” (“BDS, Academic/Cultural Boycott of Israel, and Omar Barghouti,” Feb. 24, 2010, CAMERA).

As CAMERA has noted (“J Street’s Unreported Pro-BDS Partner—‘Jewish Voice for Peace,’” June 18, 2015), the “Palestinian civil society groups” behind the founding of the BDS movement include U.S.-designated terrorist organizations Hamas and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of Fatah and non-Palestinian Syrian extremist movements. The charter of Hamas calls for the destruction of Israel and genocide of the Jews.

Indeed, in his April 19, 2016 testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Jonathan Schanzer, a former U.S. Treasury Department terror analyst, highlighted ties between the BDS movement and Hamas-linked charities. Schanzer testified that the U.S. Coalition to Boycott Israel (also known as the Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine) is led by a Chicago resident named Ghassan Barakat, a member of the Palestine National Council (PNC), and its coordinator is Senan Shaqdeh. Shaqdeh is a former member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S.-designated terrorist group, and a self-described founder of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a pro-BDS group.

Given her support for BDS, Dettwyler’s decision to blame the victim of an autocratic, anti-Western regime, seemingly on the grounds of his racial/ethnic makeup, is perhaps unsurprising.

Amid calls for Dettwyler’s dismissal, the University of Delaware has stated that the professor’s “distressing” comments “do not reflect the values or position” of the school.

A headline on the Newsweek website today asks why Israel is corrupt. Just how corrupt? “So corrupt,” the headline states, followed in the article by anecdotes about abuse of power by Israelis in politics and business.

“So corrupt” sounds pretty bad. But there are more thorough measures out there — for example Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, in which Israel ranks as 28th least corrupt of 176 ranked countries, which is tops in the Middle East and above a number of European countries. The index went unmentioned in the Newsweek article, as did other relevant reports.

The author — who, it should be noted, isn’t responsible for the headline’s strange wording — said on Twitter that the corruption he perceives isn’t in “the day to day doing business,” but rather at “the highest levels of business & government.”

In the wake of the recent ramming attack in London, the Huffington Post features a nearly 2 minute video on vehicle ramming attacks as a new form of terrorism. The video states “Here are the vehicle attacks that have occurred in the last year” and then it shows footage of attacks in London, Nice, Berlin and Stockholm. There is no mention of several vehicle attacks in Israel over the past year.

All told there have been over 60 ramming attacks by Palestinians against Israelis.

The Huffington Post has a long and disturbing history of anti-Israel articles, opinion pieces and on-line commenting. The failure of this featured video to even recognize the occurrence of terrorist attacks against Israel is a striking example of implicit bigotry and dehumanization of Jews. The implication is that Israeli victims of terrorism do not deserve recognition or the humanitarian empathy bestowed upon European victims.

This continues a troubling pattern where the British media does not acknowledge ramming attacks against Israelis.

A Politico report on a bipartisan group of political analysts, pundits and lobbyists visiting Israel provided readers with a look at some of the security challenges facing the Jewish state (“Israel trip calms D.C. tensions,” June 18, 2017).

Politico reporter Daniel Lippman noted that “a number of former to Trump campaign officials and prominent Democrats” went on a seven-day trip to Israel that was sponsored by the American Israel Education Foundation and organized by American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) political director Rob Bassin.

A total of 16 U.S. former officials and political operatives met with Israeli government officials and business leaders and traveled the entire country.

Bill Burton, a former Obama administration deputy press secretary, told Politico that a “stark contrast” existed between the realities and environment that Israel faces on a day-to-day basis as opposed to those present in the U.S.

J. Toscano, a partner at the Democratic ad firm GMMB, observed:

“The fact that you can drive from one border line with an area that’s controlled by Hamas to another border line with a region that’s controlled by ISIS in the same time that you can drive from D.C. to New York really gives you a deep sense of the security challenge that the country faces and that the region faces.”

A Washington D.C.-based publication that focuses on politics and policy, Politico doesn’t often report on Israel—and when it does, its coverage is frequently flawed. As CAMERA has highlighted, the paper has called convicted Palestinian terrorist Jibril Rajoub an “urbane diplomat,” erroneously claimed that Israel occupies the Gaza Strip (“Politico’s Misleading Poll on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” Jan 12, 2017), and frequently omitted Palestinian rejection of U.S. and Israeli offers for statehood and peace (“Politico’s ‘Letter from Israel’ is Marked to the Wrong Address,” Jan. 5, 2017.

Politico should be commended for providing readers with a straightforward, albeit brief, look at the dangers Israel and Israelis face.