A Washington Post report on U.S. comedian Conan O’Brien’s recent trip to Israel initially cited an antisemitic Twitter user. Following contact from CAMERA, The Post removed the offensive tweet from the online article (“How Conan’s Israel episode confronted the ‘polarizing’ political issues,” Sept. 20, 2017).

Post reporter Bethonie Butler detailed O’Brien’s trip, noting comedic moments as well as the entertainers’ encounters with “activists near the separation barrier in the West Bank [Judea and Samaria].”

Quoting O’Brien’s televised show, The Post’s dispatch informed readers that the security barrier is “a measure built to protect against terrorist attacks and has resulted in a dramatic drop in Israeli deaths.”

Bizarrely, the article also initially included a tweet ostensibly meant to show negative reaction to O’Brien’s show. Twitter user “MagSec” said, “Conan O’Brien’s trip to Israel is the most shameless bit of propaganda that I’ve ever seen. He even has an Israeli doctor treating a Syrian.” Of course, Israeli doctors have been treating victims of the Syrian civil war—a fact that is seldom noted by many media outlets. It’s hard to see how this qualifies as “shameless propaganda”—unless one is an antisemite.

Screenshots taken by CAMERA Senior Research Analyst Gilead Ini show that the same Twitter user also thinks “The Jews at CNN are trying to get blacks to murder whites again” and “Never forget that CNN anchor Rick Sanchez said CNN & all the news networks were run by Jews.” In addition to being a purveyor of antisemitic tropes, the individual’s bigotry extends elsewhere, and includes attacking transgender people and praising assaults against journalists.

Following contact from CAMERA, The Washington Post commendably removed the tweet from its online report and noted that the post “has been updated.” Nonetheless, its initial inclusion does raise the question of why this particular Twitter user was cited in the first place.

The dispatch also presented information in a manner that could mislead readers, stating that O’Brien listened to activists who “described attending the funeral of an eight-year old Palestinian girl, who was run over by an Israeli settler in the West Bank.” In fact, as CAMERA affiliate UK Media Watch has noted, the girl who is likely being described, Aseel Abu Oun, was killed in what police described as a “regular road accident.” However, The Post presented her death in a manner that could lead readers to think that the death was intentional.

By using a questionable source and ambiguous phrasing—even if unintentional—The Post’s story could misinform readers.

Brian Schrauger, editor and publisher of The Jerusalem Journal. (Photo: Dexter Van Zile)

Brian Schrauger, editor of a pro-Israel website The Jerusalem Journal, has, along with a number of his friends and supporters, been placed in Facebook’s equivalent of jail, blocked from posting articles to groups on the social media giant’s network. Details are a bit sketchy, but Schrauger, along with a number of other pro-Israel bloggers who have attempted to post articles from Schrauger’s Chaim Report, a news aggregation section on The Jerusalem Journal.

“The Chaim Report is a kind of Israel-centered version of the Drudge Report,” Schrauger says. “Like Drudge, it provides a daily aggregation of third party stories from mainstream news and government sources.”

Folks who have tried to post articles from The Chaim Report into Facebook groups have gotten messages that state “Action Blocked.” The messages go onto state that the writers in question have been “temporarily restricted from joining and posting to groups.” The restrictions or punishments appear to be about 10 days in length.

“Eleven of us have been put in prison,” Schrauger says. “So far the release date is from 3-6 October.”

Schrauger has his suspicions as to what’s happening.
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A Washington Post report on a Sept. 26, 2017 Palestinian terror attack pushed the narrative that “despair” and “frustration” over the lack of a Palestinian state was a motivating factor in anti-Jewish violence (“Palestinian shoots dead 3 Israelis at settlement near Jerusalem”).

The dispatch, by Post reporter Ruth Eglash and Jerusalem bureau chief Loveday Morris, provided details about the attack in which a 37-year-old Palestinian named Nimr Mahmoud al-Jamal murdered an Israeli policeman and two security guards at the entrance to Har Adar in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). Al-Jamal, who worked in Har Adar, opened fire shortly after 7 a.m., murdering the three men and wounding another Israeli.

In an otherwise informative article, The Post uncritically repeated the claim that “Palestinians say such attacks are caused by frustration stemming from 50 years of occupation.” However, as CAMERA has frequently noted, Arab anti-Jewish violence—including terrorist attacks—predates Israel’s acquisition of disputed territories in the 1967 Six Day War (for example, see “Anti-Jewish Violence in Pre-State Palestine,” Aug 23, 2009).

According to CAMERA’s BBC Watch, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) encourages the media to push the narrative that “despair” and “frustration” over the lack of a Palestinian state are the motivating factor behind terror attacks. (see “Reviewing BBC compliance with PLO media guidance,” Dec. 8, 2015). The Post, and others, frequently seem to follow these PLO-approved talking points.

Some Palestinian leaders, however, have refuted the idea that frustration over a “military occupation” is the motivating factor behind anti-Jewish violence. For example, Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, declared in a speech at a rally on Jan. 19, 2016, at the very height of the so-called “stabbing intifada”:

“This intifada [violent uprising] is not the result of despair. This intifada is a jihad, a holy war…only a holy war will drive the occupier out of Palestine.”

Indeed, if “despair” over the lack of state is to blame, than Palestinians should be attacking their leadership, which has rejected U.S. and Israeli offers for a state in exchange for peace with the Jewish nation in 2000 at Camp David, 2001 at Taba and 2008 after the Annapolis Conference, among other occasions.

Both Fatah, the movement that dominates the Palestinian Authority (PA), and Hamas, the U.S.-designated terror group that controls the Gaza Strip, praised the September 26th attack. Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), a non-profit organization that monitors Arab media in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and eastern Jerusalem, noted that Fatah called the attack “an operation” and al-Jamal a “Shahid” (martyr) on its official Facebook page. As PMW pointed out:

“Fatah’s referring to the terrorist murderer as a Shahid is the highest praise that Fatah could give…[it] means that he ‘died for Allah.’ Fatah is telling Palestinians that murdering Israelis is something that their god, Allah, desires, and for which the ‘Martyr’ will be rewarded in Heaven.”

In other words, it’s not “despair,” but a twisted idea of the divine, that helps motivate anti-Jewish violence.

Indeed, PA President Mahmoud Abbas—who is frequently called a “moderate” by the press and policymakers—has praised such acts. His advisor on religious affairs, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, stated on official PA TV “there is no status Allah has exalted more than Shahada (Martyrdom),” in a 2013 sermon translated by PMW.

As with other Palestinian terrorists who have murdered Jews, the family of al-Jamal will receive payments from the PA—a practice enshrined in law as CAMERA noted in a recent Op-Ed in The Hill. Unsurprisingly, this also went unmentioned by the Palestinian leadership—and The Post that often uncritically quotes them.

The United States has established a new base in Israel. And many major U.S. news outlets have failed to report the event.

On Sept. 18, 2017, the U.S. announced that it was creating a permanent U.S. Army base to be co-located at the Israel Defense Forces Air Defense School near Beersheba. The base will have dozens of American soldiers and will be operating under an American flag.

A dispatch by Defense News reporter Barbara Opall-Rome (“U.S. breaks ground for new permanent base in Israel,” September 18) noted that the location will “house U.S. operational systems to identify and intercept a spectrum of aerial threats, along with barracks, recreational and other facilities required to support several dozen American air defenders.”

The IDF’s air commander, Israeli Air Force Brig. Gen. Zvika Haimovich, stated that the U.S. presence would be permanent and was part of “an American task force that will be stationed here.”

“The purpose of their presence is not for training or for exercises, but rather as part of a joint Israeli and American effort to sustain and enhance our defensive capabilities,” Haimovich said.

U.S. Maj. General John Gronski took part in the September 18 ceremonies to announce the base. In his remarks, Gronski—who is the deputy commanding General of the Army National Guard in U.S. Army Europe—pointed out that the base “signifies the strong bond that exists between the U.S. and Israel.”

Plans to open the base have been in the works for two years. It’s not the first U.S. military presence in the area; an independent facility has been operating in the same area of Israel’s Negev desert for almost a decade. That facility, however, is not a joint U.S.-Israeli one. Rather, it is U.S. only but with Israeli search and track radars to provide an early warning in the event of a missile attack from Iran.

By contrast, the new facility, referred to as Site 883 Life Support Area, “represents the first ever stationing of a U.S. Army unit on Israeli soil,” Gronski noted. The U.S. General stated:

“The U.S. and Israel have long planned together, exercised together, trained together. And now, with the opening of this site, these crucial interactions will occur every day. We’ll have Israeli airmen, US soldiers living and working side by side.”

However, many major U.S. news outlets failed to cover this significant event. The Washington Post, for example, only carried an AP dispatch (“Israel and U.S. open first American military base in Israel,” September 18). USA Today and The Baltimore Sun didn’t report it at all.

The Post’s failure to provide original coverage of a development that might have huge ramifications for the United States, Israel and the rest of the Middle East, stands in stark contrast to other items that they choose to prioritize. As CAMERA has highlighted, in recent months the paper has run dispatches on Palestinian pigeon ownership (“An old pastime thrives in a Palestinian enclave,” August 13) and a school trip for Gazan Arab school children (“Children from Gaza visit Jerusalem for the first time,” August 20).

Oct. 15 Update: AFP Corrects Number of IDF Fatalities in Jenin

Agence France Presse, an influential news agency, on Sunday understated the number of 13 Israeli soldiers killed in Jenin in April 2002. The Sept. 24 article (“Israel minister wants probe of Arab filmmaker over Lebanon remarks“) erred, stating that Israeli filmmaker Mohammed

Bakri enraged the Israeli establishment and Jewish public with his documentary film “Jenin, Jenin” about April 2002 clashes in which 52 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers were killed.

As AFP itself repeatedly reported at the time, 23 Israeli soldiers were killed during those battles. An April 24, 2002 article, for example, accurately reported (“Israeli president tells world to stop using ‘double standards'”):

Israel lost 23 soldiers in the nine-day battle which broke out on April 3 when the army invaded the camp in search of hardline militants and suicide bombers.

CAMERA notified AFP editors of the error yesterday. As of this writing the wire service has yet to issue a correction despite the fact that the first of the agency’s “Ten guiding principles” states:

AFP journalists are expected to provide accurate, balanced and impartial news coverage, and to correct errors quickly and transparently.

Jeopardy! — the popular television quiz show that began in the 1960’s — is premised upon contestants formulating a question to a clue presented by the host in the form of a statement/answer. The clues are chosen from a variety of categories (within history, geography, literature, science) that tests contestants’ general knowledge.

The term “Palestine” to ostensibly describe a modern-day entity has recently been the subject of Jeopardy! clues. For example, the September 13th show included the following clue and answer:

Clue: A land divided by Jordan, Egypt & Israel, or the seat of Anderson County, Texas.
Answer: “What is Palestine?”

The implication seems to be that “Palestine” is also the current name of a modern country in the Middle East (referring to disputed territories).

In the November 18, 2016 show, there was a similar clue:

Clue: It’s a small New Hampshire town as well as an ancient name for Palestine.
Answer: What is Canaan?

The implication again seems to be that Palestine is the modern-day name of the country. But references to a current “Palestine” in the West Bank and Gaza are incorrect. Those areas should accurately be referred to as “Palestinian” or “disputed” territories, depending on which areas are being discussed, or as the West Bank and Gaza. If Jeopardy! clues are trying to suggest that Palestine is a modern-day state, the program should take a cue from the numerous media outlets that have corrected this error. For example:

Correction (National Geographic,12/15/16): A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to a barrier between Israel and Palestine. The barrier is between Israel and the West Bank.

Correction (Washington Post, 9/25/14): The Sept. 23 obituary for religious scholar Gerald A. Larue inaccurately reported that he participated in archaeological digs in Egypt, Palestine and other parts of the Middle East. He took part in digs in Egypt, Israel and the West Bank, not Palestine.

Correction (Wall Street Journal, 7/11/08): Salam Fayyad is the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority. An item in Thursday’s World Watch column incorrectly gave his name as Falam Fayyad and indicated he was prime minister of Palestine.

Correction (LA Times, 5/5/2007) An article in Friday’s California section included a subhead saying former President Carter urged students to travel to Palestine. The area referred to is the Palestinian territories.

Correction (LA Times, 12/23/2005) An article in the Dec. 11 Calendar section about an international art exhibition included Palestine in a list of nations from which artists had contributed works. It should have said the Palestinian territories.

On our main site yesterday, we wrote about Vox’s false claim that West Bank settlements are dotted with world-class hospitals that Palestinians can’t go into.

While looking into that, we noticed something else. Across multiple articles, Vox reporter Zack Beauchamp has championed the argument that use of the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” is problematic in that, even with the qualifier “radical,” it broadbrushes all Muslims.

Here, for example, is Beauchamp approvingly citing the view that the phrase targets “the entirety of the Muslim religion”:

And again later in the piece:

In another article, Beauchamp writes,

And here, Beauchamp treats the concept as one that should be obvious:

Okay. But if that’s what Beauchamp and Vox believe, why do they use the phrase “Jewish terrorism” with such relish?

In one article, variants of the phrase appear 18 times: in the title, in headings, approvingly in quotes, and in the reporter’s own words.

Does Beauchamp think attacks by extremist Jews speak for “the entirety of the Jewish religion”? Does he not care about “alienating Jewish allies”? Or “misidentifying the cause of the problem as one of Jewish theology”? Is it fine, in his view, to “insult mainstream Jews to boot”? That seems to be the conclusion from his language.

Diana Buttu, a lawyer and former legal advisor for the Palestine Liberation Organization who has infamously and repeatedly insisted that Palestinian rockets fired from Gaza “do not carry explosive heads,” and has repeatedly and falsely maintained that no Israelis died in suicide bombings from 1997 to 2000 inside Israel (in fact, 24 Israeli civilians were killed in six bombings during that time period), has now turned her fact-defying denials to fiction: the popular television series “Fauda.”

In a New Yorker review of “Fauda,” editor David Remnick writes (“How Do You Make a TV Show Set in the West Bank,” Sept. 4):

Diana Buttu, a lawyer who has worked as a legal adviser to the P.L.O., watched the series recently and told me that she found the experience disturbing. She did not share Shamni’s ambivalence, and when we spoke she made a compelling critique of “Fauda.” “In ‘Fauda,’ we do not see the occupation,” she said. “It is invisible, just as it is in the minds of Israelis. In fact, we never even hear the word. We don’t see a single checkpoint, settlement, settlers, or home demolitions. We don’t see any homes being taken over, or land being expropriated or anything of the sort. We see a nice brick wall, not the ugly eight-metre-high one, as the only sign that we are in the West Bank.

While Buttu’s critique may be “compelling,” it’s also false. Contrary to Buttu’s claim, the word “occupation” is heard in “Fauda” and checkpoints do appear. For instance, in the very first episode, during the key wedding scene in which undercover Israeli forces carry out a failed attempt to kill arch-terrorist Taufiq Hamed and end up killing the groom, the groom’s uncle gives a speech, stating before these dramatic events (23:06): “Despite all that the occupation has done to us, we still bear children. We’re successful, we raise families, have children and prosper.”

Likewise, in the very first episode (19:55), a checkpoint appears, not for the only time in the season.

A very dramatic scene takes place in episode 8, in which Nassrin Hamed (far right, first picture below), Taufiq’s wife, arrives at a checkpoint to cross into Israel to visit her daughter in the hospital, and is strip-searched in a small building at the checkpoint.

CAMERA has contacted The New Yorker to request clarification of Buttu’s false information about the show. Meanwhile, Haaretz has covered The New Yorker review of “Fauda,” likewise carrying Buttu’s quote without notifying readers that she fabricates. Stay tuned for an update.

Hat tip: Erika Dreifus. With research by CAMERA Fellow Natalie Segev and Lia Lands.

The Los Angeles Times gives new meaning to the term “speaking out,” extending it to students who violated university policy by loudly disrupting a pro-Israel event at the University of California Irvine last May with chants including: “These colonizers and occupiers! You should not be on our f****** campus”; . . . “F*** you!” . . . “Israel, Israel you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” . . . “Long live the intifada!” . . . “Israel, Israel what you say? How many people did you kill today?”

As Snapshots noted last week, The Times’ online article about SJP’s appeal protesting the administration’s sanctions gave voice only to those who drowned out others’ voices, dedicating three out of seven paragraphs to SJP statements, while failing to publish even one sentence reflecting the views or statements of the pro-Israel groups which ran the disrupted event or pro-Israel students who attended.

Meanwhile, The Times has compounded the problem on Friday by running the same skewed article in print and adding the egregiously misleading headline: “UCI group fights discipline; University punished students who spoke out at event featuring Israeli veterans.” (Emphasis added.)

For comparative purposes, here is how The Times used the term “spoke/speak out” in recent weeks in other contexts:
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