Who cares if 50,000 young Gazans spend their summer getting paramilitary training and a large dose of radical politics? Not the New York Times! Or most any other news outlet.

AFP (Agence France Presse) was unique in covering the story. But reporter Adel Zaanoun should have dug a little deeper, instead of repeating the benign claims of the organizers. Zaanoun reported:

“These camps have no military or political dimension; they are held outdoors, with sports, cultural, educational, social and recreational activities,” said Saleh Hamdan, a member of the central committee for summer camps.

As the Terrorism and Information Center documents, the “recreational activities” definitely do have a military dimension! The report notes:

[A]s in previous years, in addition to the diverse social activities (soccer, swimming, entertainment), the summer camps also included three major themes reflecting Hamas’ agenda: paramilitary training, dissemination of Hamas’ political messages, and religious indoctrination in the spirit of radical Islam.

Hamas’ political messages include such statements as:

“The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,’ except for the Gharqad tree, for it is the tree of the Jews.” (Hamas Charter, Article Seven)

If Hamas’ ongoing indoctrination were on the front pages of a few newspapers or on CNN Hamas might have a harder time educating new generations of Israel-haters! But first there needs to be a new generation of journalists — that understands filling young minds with hate is an obstacle to peace — and worth reporting.

A fearless and outspoken former president of the National Institutes of Health and the American Red Cross, Dr. Bernadine Healy died August 6, 2011 of brain cancer. At the helm of the Red Cross, Dr. Healy championed efforts to end the exclusion of Israel’s Magen David Adom from membership in the International Red Cross, cutting US funding to the international body.

Two months after assuming command of the American Red Cross in September 1999, Healy flew to Geneva to address a large assembly of the International Red Cross movement. And, in the eyes of international officials, she charged in like a bull in a china shop.

”She comes in and makes a speech in which she harangues the assembled membership about the inequity of the exclusion of M.D.A. and how the American Red Cross is going to make inclusion happen now, whether we liked it or not,” said Christopher Lamb, an executive of the international federation. ”She spoke about the movement, describing everyone as cowards and failures and people who didn’t understand.”

Lawrence Eagleburger wrote in a Washington Post op-ed column

that Healy simply refused to turn ”a blind eye on a moral wrong.” And persuaded by her passion, the American Red Cross board went right along with her. It agreed to start withholding its $4.5 million annual dues to the international federation; that money is 25 percent of the federation headquarters’ budget.

On June 21, 2006, Israel was finally admitted as a full member to the ICRC. Dr. Healy’s unequivocal leadership years earlier gave crucial impetus to that outcome.

She will be remembered for many achievements, among them her moral clarity and courage.

Even — or especially — in an era of information-overload, new, solid sources on Israel are welcome. The emergence of a daily newspaper, Israel Hayom, in Hebrew has had a dramatic impact within Israel, offering a counterweight to Ha’aretz and Yediot. Now the same publication is providing some of its content in English.

A featured story on the successful testing of a component of the Arrow 3 anti-missile system by reporter Lilach Shoval was a reminder of the threats Israel faces — and has to confront:

…Arrow 3 is slated to be Israel’s next-generation missile interceptor, built to collide “metal-to-metal” with long-range ballistic missiles before they re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. The Arrow 3 was designed as a response to longer range ballistic missile threats.

But it will take time:

Defense officials speculate that the Arrow 3 will not be operational before 2015. The missile is considered unique, and is planned to provide Israel with the needed defense from unconventional missile bombardment. Israel currently deploys the improved Arrow 2, which can shoot down long-range ballistic missiles. The Magic Wand and Iron Dome anti-missile systems were developed to shoot down shorter range projectiles.

Incendiary falsehoods about Israel are one thing at The Independent; that is, not a problem. But Johann Hari’s reckless plagiarizing of myriad authors and fellow reporters has brought painful professional repercussions for the paper’s well-known columnist. Off he goes for two months of suspension while a committee reviews the evidence and decides how to proceed.

Additional infractions have been uncovered, as The Guardian noted (July 12, 2011):

The latest allegations to surface in the past week relate to claims that Hari used a pseudonym to make unflattering edits to the Wikipedia entries for journalists including Nick Cohen, the Observer and Spectator columnist, and Daily Telegraph writer and novelist Cristina Odone.

Among the questions about Hari’s future is whether he’ll be stripped of the prestigious Orwell Prize, awarded for journalistic excellence. The Media Standards Trust, funder of the prize immediately called for an investigation of the columnist when the story broke. The Trust

addressed three specific questions to the council regarding its inquiry:

“Does the Orwell Prize have full confidence in the articles submitted by Johann Hari for which the prize was awarded?

“Should Johann Hari continue to be allowed to be known as a winner of the prize?

“What more can the prize do to ensure that its winners now and in the future uphold the highest possible standards?”

Shurat haDin’s Nitsana Darshan Leitner

Melanie Phillips provides an excellent summary of the legal race led by Shurat haDin to thwart the flotilla, writing:

Is a bunch of young Israeli lawyers working round the clock sustained only by Diet Coke, falafel and cigarettes about to pull off the legal equivalent of the Six-Day War?

Israel famously won that war before it even started by destroying the Egyptian air force on the ground. Now it’s beginning to look as if the Gaza flotilla of fools and fanatics may be holed below the waterline before it even sets off on its cynical and potentially murderous stunt.

She includes a damning section on flotilla organizer and International Solidarity Movement leader Adam Shapiro in which he spells out the purpose of the campaign as one of total assault on Israel — not humanitarian aid to the Palestinians:

Our ground is the whole world. And that’s where our resistance has to be. The whole world… We already have a third intifada. It’s going on right now. It’s going on all over the world.

Read it all.

NGO Monitor has translated a Dutch news story about a number of its journalists gathered on Corfu to participate in the flotilla who have decided the project is not for them. Under the headline “Pers vertrouwt Gazaboot niet” (“The Press Doesn’t Trust Gaza Boat”) the story recounts tensions between organizers and journalists seeking information about flotilla participants, funding and other issues. The account notes:

Eric Beauchemin (47), a journalist for the ‘Wereldomroep’ (Dutch World Broadcast station): “I’ve been doing this work for 25 years, but never have I seen a more closed organization. When we would ask critical questions they would accuse us of being unprofessional. Restrictions were imposed on us that hadn’t been agreed upon beforehand. We were prohibited from telling which island we were on, even though they had promised we could.

The same reporter said of the activist participants: “Their gullibility is shocking. They are blinded by idealism.”

There was also reportedly dismay at the appearance of an operative with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, Amin Abou Rashed, though assurances had been given there would be no such Hamas connections.

The Guido Fawkes’ blog stamps “Fraud” on Johann Hari for fabricating large parts of interviews

Those “interviews” conducted by Johann Hari, journalist at the UK’s Independent, continue to unravel. CAMERA has had long-running concerns about grossly biased articles by Hari about Israel and about the indifference of the newspaper to errors and distortions in coverage.

As the Guido Fawkes blog observes

Guido is fairly sure Johann Hari has breached Article 1 of the PCC Code. He has admitted misleading his readers. Despite the desperate attempts by his editor, Simon Kelner, to spin that his favorite son is being attacked for political reasons, the Hari-wagon is coming off of the tracks.

He adds:

The Telegraph are coming down on him heavily. Firstly there is Brenden O’Neil rightly pointing out that “the notion that one can reach “the truth” by manipulating reality should be anathema to anyone who calls himself a journalist.”

In The New Statesman, Guy Walters cautions against accepting Hari’s self-exculpatory apology for his inventions, citing outright plagiarizing of an interview with Hugo Chavez:

It now appears that Mr Hari has made quite a habit of pinching quotes given to other interviewers, and claiming that they were given to him.

It also appears that that Independent editor Simon Kelner is eager to forgive:

“What Johann did was wrong. He accepts and we believe it,” Kelner told The Media Show presenter Steve Hewlett.

“It was born from an honest ambition to give the clearest possible representation of what the interviewee was saying. In the grand scheme of things it is not a great scandal – it’s a naive error which we recognise.”

Kelner suggested Hari would not face any disciplinary action – other than being “spoken to at great length” – and said the young columnist had suffered punishment enough with the vilification he’s had on Twitter

Not only bureau chief Karl Vick’s biased polemics mislead readers on the facts about Israel. Even short bits in the magazine’s “Briefing” section can’t (won’t) get the story straight. A June 13, 2011 brief reads:

Egypt Opens the Door to Gaza

ISRAEL Since 2006 the Gaza Strip has been sealed off from the world–its borders tightly controlled by an Israeli government wary of Gaza’s rulers, the Islamist outfit Hamas. But on May 29, Egypt loosened Israel’s grip on Gaza by lifting the restrictions on Palestinians seeking to cross from Gaza to Egypt. Though only a small number have gained entry so far, Egypt’s willingness to aid Gazans signals a diplomatic shift since the popular uprising that ousted its longtime dictator (and ally of Israel) Hosni Mubarak. Gaza’s other borders remain shut, but a new “freedom flotilla” carrying humanitarian aid will set sail soon to test Israel’s ongoing blockade.

Not exactly. Egypt didn’t loosen “Israel’s grip on Gaza” — it loosened Egypt’s grip on Gaza. Since 2007 Egypt has had full control of the border.

A February 2008 breach of that border saw Palestinians storm through the Egyptian-policed lines. The UK’s Telegraph noted “Without an airport or a sea port, the border with Egypt is Gaza’s only link to the outside world not directly controlled by Israel.”

That “Islamist outfit” Time refers to is, of course, the terrorist regime that long used the Egypt-Gaza border as a massive smuggling route, bringing weaponry into the Strip to attack Israel — despite the withdrawal of all Israelis in 2005.

As for the so-called freedom flotilla ostensibly planning another landing in Gaza, Time tips its biased hand here too, casting the project as focused on delivering “humanitarian aid.” The previous, 2010 flotilla was a propaganda stunt with the largest vessel, the Mavi Marmara, and several others carrying no aid at all.

Machsom Watch spokeswoman Raya Yaron comforts the mother of one of the Fogel family murderers

Even the murders of Jewish children in their beds in the community of Itamar weren’t enough to deter extreme Israeli left-wingers from offering expressions of solidarity with families of the suspected perpetrators. Members of Machsom Watch visited the Palestinian town of Awarta to comfort those whose relatives were under arrest. Spokeswoman Raya Yaron is seen above in what may come to be an iconic image of the far-left alliance with Palestinians against Israel. Israeli media and blogs have taken up the subject. Blogger Yaacov Lozowick observes he’d previously been tolerant of far-left activities but has drawn a line. He writes:

For years I’ve believed – and have said in print – that for all my disagreements with far-left Israelis, they were a legitimate voice and deserved respect for criticizing from inside the war zone: if proven wrong, they’d be here to pay the price; when Palestinian or Hisballah murderers do their best to kill random Israeli Jews, the far-left Israelis are here along with all the rest of us. This creates a qualitative distinction between them and their foreign fellows in malice.

I’m no longer convinced. As I’ve long been documenting in this blog, the contribution Israel’s radicals make to the Big Lie against Israel is immense; sometimes the entire anti-Israeli argumentation comes from them. Absent them and the hatred of the Jewish State wouldn’t go away, but its purveyors could present far fewer arguments.

This week we’ve had a further example which to my mind crosses all the lines of simple human decency. The Hebrew part of the Internet has been all a-buzz about the story of the Israeli radicals who went to the West Bank town of Awarta to give succor to the families of the murderers of the Fogel family, while disseminating unforgivable slander against the IDF and the law enforcement agencies.

As Arutz 7 notes, the actions of Machsom Watch raise questions about the group’s funding. NGO Monitor points out there are financial links to the New Israel Fund.

Trond Andresen

Professor Alan Dershowitz’s recent Wall Street Journal column about the academic cold shoulder he encountered in Norway when all three of the nation’s major universities refused his offer to speak on the subject of Israel and International Law included reference to the strikingly bigoted statements of academic Trond Andresen. This assistant professor at NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology), who’d previously led an attempted boycott of Israel, was evidently stung by exposure in the Journal and wanted to clarify his opinion of Jews.

He insists in a column in Norway’s Aftenposten newspaper that “I’m not an anti-Semite, Dershowitz” and writes:

I was attacked by Alan M. Dershowitz because I publicly expressed my attitude about the problems of the global Jewish community.

The quote that AMD used from me included two distinct fragments that were taken out of context, from a post I wrote during Israel’s Gaza bombing. But such criticism is – whether correct or not – taboo. It is met with shouting “anti-Semitism.” But I have no racist attitudes towards Jews, and reject such a label.

Let me use another group, the Muslims, as an example. For years they have been subjected to public and persistent criticism of not only Islamic terrorism, but with regard to the large (and peaceful) majority of Muslims, of the attitudes towards women, gays, religion and more. Public opinion is that Muslims as a group must work to address their attitudes. I agree. Criticism is warranted and should be repeated in public. Many Muslims also take this criticism seriously.

Then it is reasonable that a similar debate about Jews as a cultural group (whether religious or secular, those who identify with his background) must be allowed. And I think that a prominent concern is their “tribal mentality” believing “we are worth the most, we are the best.”

My assessment is shared by many Jewish dissidents, such as the late Israel Shahak (survivor of Bergen-Belsen), who wrote books on the subject. And writer and musician Gilad Atzmon. None of us are racists!

Israel is heading for the cliff with its policies today. Self-reflection in the global Jewish community can help to change course. Therefore, such criticism is useful for the Jews themselves.

It seems Norwegian academia is heading off the cliff and, like Andresen, needs a lot of self-reflection.