Iranian-backed proxies in Iraq have “vowed to start killing Americans again once the Islamic State is expelled,” The Washington Times has reported (“Ruthless Iranian militia vows to turn against U.S. troops once Islamic State is defeated in Iraq,” Sept. 7, 2017). However, many major U.S. news outlets have failed to cover this story.

Jafar al-Hosseini, a spokesman for Kata’ib Hezbollah (KH), told Iran’s Fars News Agency that the U.S. must leave Iraq or be confronted with a new war. Washington Times correspondent Rowan Scarbarough observed that al-Hosseini’s “scripted messages on Beirut’s al-Mayadeen Arab-language TV station suggest” that Kata’ib Hezbollah “is not bluffing.”

Scarbarough detailed that the group has about 5,000 operatives and was organized in 2007 by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, which trained them in the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and other tactics. IEDs were used to kill approximately 500 U.S. personnel.

KH was designated a terrorist organization in 2009 by the U.S. State Department, which noted:

“KH has ideological ties to Lebanese [Hezbollah] and may have received support from that group. KH gained notoriety in 2007 with attacks on U.S. and coalition forces designed to undermine the establishment of a democratic, viable Iraqi state. KH has been responsible for numerous violent terrorist attacks since 2007, including improvised explosive device bombings, rocket propelled grenade attacks and sniper operations. In addition, KH has threatened the lives of Iraqi politicians and civilians that support the legitimate political process in Iraq.”

Iran uses proxies, many of them Quds Force-trained, in Tehran’s quest for regional domination. As Scarbarough pointed out, the U.S. presence in Iraq stands in the way of the mullah’s desire to turn Iraq into a vassal state.

Many Iranian-backed militias, also known as Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs) have strong ties to, or even already hold positions in, the Iraqi Government. Indeed, as the Middle East analyst Ali Khedery noted on Twitter, KH operative Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis—a U.S.-designated terrorist—has been photographed chairing a meeting of Iraqi generals.

Jafar al-Hosseini’s exhortations are but the most recent threats against the U.S. by Iranian-supported groups. As CAMERA highlighted, in April 2015, PMUs threatened to target “the American interests in Iraq—even abroad,” if the U.S. House Armed Services Committee voted to arm Kurdish Peshmerga forces (“Where’s the Coverage? Iran Threatens U.S. Troops,” Dec. 11, 2015). Al-Hosseini issued a similar sort of threat against U.S. troops in March 2017, Scarbarough noted.

Yet, the media has routinely failed to cover either the atrocities committed by PMU’s or their threats against U.S. forces, as CAMERA detailed in a Sept. 16, 2016 report (“The Washington Times Covers Underreported Iran-Backed Shi’ite Militias”).

Michael Pregent, an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, and a former intelligence adviser to U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus (ret.) told CAMERA that some news outlets don’t know who many of the militias are. Further, the coverage that does occur often obfuscates the reality of what is happening in Iraq. For example, he noted that it’s common to hear media reporting “Iraqi security forces retook an area today,” but omit that, in fact, those forces often are PMUs—some of which are led by U.S.-designated terrorists like al-Muhandis.

KH’s most recent threats went unreported by USA Today, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Post, and other major U.S. news outlets.

In an article about the possible loss of state funding for Jaffa Theater, Haaretz‘s Judy Maltz conjures up “Palestinian political prisoners.” Online and in print (Thursday, page 1), Judy Maltz wrote that a June production included the reading of letters penned by Palestinian “political prisoners”:

Finance Ministry’s legal adviser, Asi Messing, said representatives of the Jaffa Theatre would be summoned to a hearing in connection with two specific events held on their premises: a performance in June based on the recital of letters written by Palestinian political prisoners . . . (Emphasis added)

According to the U.S. State Department 2016 Human Rights Report for Israel: “There were no reports of civilian political prisoners or detainees” (page 16).

On what basis does Haaretz identify the prisoners in question as “political prisoners”? Political prisoners are (see, for example, the definition by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly) are imprisoned “for purely political reasons without connection to any offence.” (Emphasis added.)

The play does not identify the prisoners by name or their offenses. If Haaretz editors knows the identity and specifics of these prisoners allegedly held only the basis of their political activity, they haven’t said so.

In a Hebrew article published the same day as Maltz’s piece, Yair Asheknazi refers to the letter of a “security prisoner”:

Ashkenazi’s Hebrew article stated (CAMERA’s translation):

In the production “Prisoners of the Occupation,” produced by Einat Weizman, in early June at the Jaffa Theater, letters recited included correspondence between a security prisoner and his childhood friend, in which he described the daily life of prisoners.

Haaretz‘s English version of Ashkenazi’s article omits mention of the security prisoner.

See also “Haaretz, Lost in Translation“

On May 10, Students for Justice in Palestine disrupted a pro-Israel event at UC Irvine with hateful shouting and vitriolic chants, preventing IDF reservists from continuing with the panel until the group left. As a result, the campus administration slapped SJP with a two-year probation and affirmed the university’s commitment to “protect everyone’s right to express themselves without disruption.”

Meanwhile, a Los Angeles Times article about the university’s decision to sanction the group for its attempts to drown out others’ voices in violation of university policy gave voice to only one side: Students for Justice in Palestine.

The one-sided Sept. 4 article (online only) entitled “Pro-Palestinian UCI students appeal sanctions after Israeli event protest” dedicated three out of seven paragraphs to statements provided by SJP. It reported:

In a statement, representatives for the group said that their clapping and chanting at the event — sponsored by Students Supporting Israel — was in response to aggressive behavior by a member of the soldiers’ group.

“It’s outrageous that the university is punishing us, students, instead of protecting us from aggressive foreign military agents on campus,” Daniel Carnie, a Jewish UCI students, said in a statement. “We’re a diverse group of Palestinian, black, Latino and Jewish students who attended the soldiers’ speaking event and asked critical questions.” . . .

Students for Justice in Palestine said its members have been harassed and cyber-bullied since the event; the group said it has filed a discrimination complaint.

In contrast, Los Angeles Times reporter Hillary Davis devoted not one sentence to panelists representing Reservists on Duty, or to representatives from Students Supporting Israel, which hosted the event. Nor did she convey the views of pro-Israel students who attended. Had she done so, she might have spoken with panelist Jonathan Elkhoury, an Israeli Arab from Reservists on Duty, who reported to CAMERA:

We were yelled and cursed at, and one of our female delegation participants was spat on by an SJP member. They came to our event to shut it down, an SJP representative said it herself while yelling into a microphone the next day. We had to have them escort us off campus because the SJP students made it impossible for us to leave the class safely.

[Full disclosure: CAMERA has brought Elkhoury on campus tours in the past. Also, CAMERA joined up with other several other organizations to urge the university to take action against SJP.]

Moreover, Davis failed to give readers any information about the nature of the vitriolic chanting by SJP members. Plenty of video documentation of the disruption is available exposing the ugliness of the SJP’s chants (“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?”)

CAMERA has contacted The Times, urging editors to add comment from representatives from Reservists on Duty, from Students Supporting Israel and/or pro-Israel students who were subjected to the hateful SJP demonstration. CAMERA also called on The Los Angeles Times to add video of the demonstration, enabling readers to decide for themselves who exactly engaged in “aggressive behavior.”

Sept. 10: LA Times Runs One-Sided Article in Print Publication

As of this writing, The Los Angeles Times has failed to add in any comment or information from the pro-Israel side and has not added video of the disruption to the Web article. Moreover, on Friday, The Los Angeles Times ran the one-sided article in the print paper, once again completely omitting any comment from the pro-Israel groups or students. The incredibly misleading print headline was: “UCI group fights discipline; University punished students who spoke out at event featuring Israeli veterans.”

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S. designated terrorist group, is “campaigning as a political party in the September general election to the Bundestag,” according to a Jerusalem Post report by Benjamin Weinthal (“Germany to Permit Palestinian Terror Group to Run for Parliament,” Aug. 31, 2017). The European Union also considers the PFLP to be a terrorist organization.

A spokeswoman for Germany’s Interior Ministry told Weinthal “candidates from parties and candidates in Germany cannot be banned or allowed by the Interior Ministry in Germany.” The PFLP is running on a joint list with the Marxist-Leninist Party.

The Interior Ministry noted that Article 21 of Germany’s constitutional law prevents the PFLP from being considered a political party—accordingly the group cannot campaign independently.

As CAMERA has pointed out, the PFLP is responsible for dozens of terrorist attacks that target the Jewish state and its citizens. Indeed, in Nazi-like fashion, the PFLP has a history of murdering Jews worldwide, irrespective of their citizenship. In one infamous instance, on Oct. 7, 1985, PFLP terrorists hijacked a cruise ship named the Achille Lauro and murdered a 69-year-old American Jewish man, Leon Klinghoffer, who was confined to a wheelchair.

As the Middle East analyst Barry Rubin noted in his 2005 biography Yasser Arafat, one of the PFLP terrorists involved in that operation was a “British neo-Nazi skinhead” who was working for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), an umbrella group dominated by the Fatah movement. Both Fatah and the PLO are currently led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas—a man often described by media outlets as a “moderate.”

Weinthal, a research fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, asked if the Interior Ministry planned on outlawing the PFLP. He was told that the Ministry “does not, in general, comment on bans.”

Several German lawmakers and the Israeli political party Yesh Atid have sent a letter to Interior Minister Thomas de Maizere requesting that Berlin ban the PFLP and Hezbollah, another U.S.-designated terrorist group whose operatives are permitted free reign in Germany’s borders. A 2016 German intelligence report indicated that there are at least 950 active Hezbollah members operating in the country. Like the PFLP, Hezbollah, a Lebanese-based, Iranian-proxy, is responsible for murdering Jews throughout the world, including during the 1992 and 1994 bombings in Argentina of the Israeli embassy and the AMIA Jewish community center (“Hezbollah Backgrounder 2016,” CAMERA).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called it a “national duty” for Germans to remember the “Holocaust shame.” However, some Germans seem content to allow antisemitic terrorist groups to operate in their country and, like the Nazis, to mask themselves as a legitimate political party.

Many major U.S. news outlets have ignored this story. A Lexis-Nexis search showed that The Washington Post, USA Today, The Baltimore Sun, and others, failed to carry it. By contrast, in addition to Weinthal’s report in The Jerusalem Post, Fox News also detailed Germany’s decision to allow the PFLP to run for elections (“Palestinian terror group allowed to run in German parliament elections,” Sept. 2, 2017).

Well, I’ll put it on, and I will dissemble myself
in’t; and I would I were the first that ever
dissembled in such a gown. I am not tall enough to
become the function well, nor lean enough to be
thought a good student; but to be said an honest man
and a good housekeeper goes as fairly as to say a
careful man and a great scholar.

— Feste the Clown, Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”

According to Agence France Presse photo captions last week, Israel had imprisoned a Palestinian clown for 20 months for alleged involvement in a “banned leftist group.” In fact, Israel’s Shin Bet security agency accused him of being a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, designated as a terror organization by the European Union, the United States, Canada and Israel. A sampling of the numerous captions follow:

Palestinian clown Mohammad Abu Sakha poses with his mother at his family home in the West Bank city of Jenin, following his release on August 31, 2017 from administrative detention, the controversial measure under which Israel detains suspects without trial for periods of several months, renewable indefinitely. The 26-year-old circus teacher was accused by Israel of membership in a banned leftist group and held without charge for 20 months.

He had been part of the Palestinian Circus School in Bir Zeit in the occupied West Bank since 2008, first as a student and later as a clown and teacher.

Palestinian clown Mohammad Abu Sakha poses under a national flag near his family home in the West Bank city of Jenin, following his release on August 31, 2017 from administrative detention, the controversial measure under which Israel detains suspects without trial for periods of several months, renewable indefinitely. The 26-year-old circus teacher was accused by Israel of membership in a banned leftist group and held without charge for 20 months.

He had been part of the Palestinian Circus School in Bir Zeit in the occupied West Bank since 2008, first as a student and later as a clown and teacher.

Palestinian clown Mohammad Abu Sakha poses next to a banner bearing his picture at his family home in the West Bank city of Jenin, following his release on August 31, 2017 from administrative detention, the controversial measure under which Israel detains suspects without trial for periods of several months, renewable indefinitely. The 26-year-old circus teacher was accused by Israel of membership in a banned leftist group and held without charge for 20 months.

He had been part of the Palestinian Circus School in Bir Zeit in the occupied West Bank since 2008, first as a student and later as a clown and teacher.

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