On December 8, MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, translated a sermon given in a New Jersey mosque. The organization summarized as follows:

Sheikh Aymen Elkasaby, imam of the Islamic Center of Jersey City, dedicated his Friday sermon on December 8 to U.S. President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Imam Elkasaby defied the assumption that Israel is invincible, quoting from the Quran to demonstrate that the Jews “are the most cowardly of nations.” “So long as the Al-Aqsa Mosque remains prisoner in the hands of the Jews… So long as the Al-Aqsa Mosque remains under the feet of the apes and pigs, this nation will remain humiliated,” he said. Towards the end of the sermon, Imam Elkasaby prayed for Allah to grant him “martyrdom on the threshold of the Al-Aqsa Mosque” and to annihilate “the plunderer oppressors” down to the very last one.

The video with subtitles is available for viewing here.

While one local news outlet originally reported on the antisemitic comments, the AP and several other local news outlets covered the story only after the Imam was suspended, over a week later.

By waiting until the Imam was suspended, these news outlets are able to turn the focus of the story away from the Imam’s call to “kill them down to the very last one.”

Instead of being a story about a call to genocide issued from within the US, the story is now about a mosque that is making amends for its misstep. Further, one wonders whether, if the Imam had not been suspended, these news organizations would have covered the story at all.

Other than local news and the brief AP story, Sheikh Aymen Elkasaby’s comments have been prominently reported only in Jewish, Middle East, and right-of-center news organizations.

Another sermon with similar themes, given last summer in a Northern California mosque, was prominently covered by mainstream media after that Imam apologized – again, after the focus was turned away from the original, hateful, content.

Meanwhile, similar comments made by Sheikh Raed Saleh Al-Rousan of the Tajweed Institute in Houston, Texas have also come to light. Al-Rousan recited the prediction that “the Muslims will kill the Jews, and the Jews will hide behind the stones and the trees, and the stones and the trees will say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.” He then said “”All these games in the Muslim and Arab countries are from them. They do not want a Muslim leader.”

Will the media do better this time?

Media bias can manifest in a variety of ways. Selective omissions, lack of balance, and errors that seem to favor one side are common. In television news, journalists can, in addition, betray their bias with their voices, facial expressions, and gestures. Erin Burnett’s December 6 interview with Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer, following President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, was a case study in a journalist’s expression of personal bias.

None of Burnett’s questions to Dermer were, in terms of content, out of line. It’s reasonable to ask about the Arab response to the announcement, the effect on the peace process, and even a video clip in which Dermer appeared to be reacting to a gaffe made by the US President. Throughout the interview, however, her tone, and at times her language, is hostile and accusatory.

My interview tonight with @ErinBurnett on @OutFrontCNNhttps://t.co/fcpFytaWCB

— Amb. Ron Dermer (@AmbDermer) December 7, 2017

(You can also watch it here.)

In her first question to Dermer, Burnett begins:

Look I know this is a day you have wanted for a very long time and I know it matters a lot to you. That is important. But, of course, the situation that we’re seeing now is crucial, the State Department warning of violence because of the move, leaders of countries throughout the region, across Europe, warning of violence, Palestinians calling for three days of rage. A crucial question for you tonight, Ambassador: are you willing to accept violence and the possible death of Israelis in exchange for getting what you have so long desired?

Burnett announces that Palestinians have called for “three days of rage” as though national leaders calling for violence is the most natural thing in the world. She doesn’t seem bothered by it, nor does she ask whether they should call for peaceful protests instead of “rage.” Instead, both her language and the accusatory tone directed at Ambassador Dermer imply that any violence that occurs is the fault of the government that the Ambassador represents. Similarly, her facial expressions during his response betrays her skepticism of anything he said.

After Dermer responds, Burnett continues with her second question:

Two senior US White House officials are telling CNN that this decision has temporarily derailed the peace process. And as you know, Ambassador, the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas saying Trump’s announcement means the United States has completely withdrawn – completely withdrawn – its role in mediating the Middle East peace process.

Once again, Burnett’s accusatory tone suggests that the Palestinian reaction to the US President complying with US law is the fault of Ambassador Dermer and the government he represents.

Ambassador Dermer, to his credit, ignored Burnett’s animus, and simply made the points he wanted to make. Burnett’s antipathy, however, is conveyed to viewers, who will come away from the segment with the subtle message that Israel, again, is to blame for the violence against it, and Israeli government officials are not to be trusted.

Jasbir Puar is the Rutgers University professor who first coined the term “pinkwashing” to denigrate Israel’s progressive record on LGBTQ rights, and who made the baseless claim at a 2016 lecture at Vassar College that Israel harvests organs from the bodies of dead Palestinians, a modern day blood libel.

Despite being called a “raving crackpot” by the editorial board of the liberal-leaning New York Daily News, Puar has a new book out this month from Duke University Press. The book has generated a firestorm of controversy for the publisher as well as for Duke and Rutgers.

In an Op-Ed published in the Durham, North Carolina paper the Herald-Sun, Peter Reitzes writes,

In “The Right to Maim,” Puar continues what appear to be thinly veiled comparisons of Israelis to Nazis. Puar wonders if Gaza is “not a death camp but a debilitation camp,” asks, “Is Gaza an experimental lab for the production, maintenance, and profitability of biopolitical debilitation?” and states, “The understanding of maiming as a specific aim of biopolitics tests the framing of settler colonialism as a project of elimination of the indigenous through either genocide or assimilation.”

Poor scholarship – what one historian called “academic garbage” – plagues “The Right to Maim.” For example, Puar quotes a professor of psychiatry from Al Jazeera America (not from a peer reviewed study) saying, “Palestinian children in Gaza are exposed to more violence in their lifetime than any other people, any other children, anywhere in the world.” Puar attempts to support this allegation by citing the study, “Effect of Trauma on the Mental Health of Palestinian Children and Mothers in the Gaza Strip” published in the Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal. I took the time to obtain and read this study and was surprised to see that it appears to conclude the opposite: “Compared to other types of conflict in war zones, events [in Gaza] were not as acute,” it reports, and “The most common type of traumatic event was seeing victims’ pictures on television.”

Why would DUP publish a book like Puar’s with such poor scholarship and obvious anti-Semitic overtones? Why, in fact, has DUP brought Puar aboard as an editor?

Perhaps the problem lies within bias in DUP’s own staff and policies. …

[T]here are a large number of personnel involved with DUP who appear to selectively attack Israel and advocate for positions that delegitimize, demonize, and utilize double standards against Israel. Does DUP staff treat other countries in this manner, or is it just Israel, the only Jewish majority country in the world, which receives such treatment?

Moreover, Asaf Romirowsky, Executive Director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, has told the Duke Chronicle that he “considered the book’s thesis of ‘maiming individuals in order to dehumanize’ a ‘total fallacy.’… Romirowsky added that in conflict areas, violence exists on both sides, but Israel abides by rules of engagement.”

For a certain segment of the population, there is simply no right way that Israel can defend itself from attack. Unfortunately, such individuals are increasingly finding comfortable homes in academia.

A recent review of Reem’s Bakery in the New York Times‘ travel section referred to convicted terrorist Rasmeah Odeh, featured in a mural on the bakery’s wall, as an “activist,” and failed to provide any information about Odeh’s crimes.

The Times subsequently appended an Editors’ Note acknowledging that the story had “lacked context,” and added to the review, “In 1970, Ms. Odeh was convicted by Israeli courts for her role in the murder of two students. In 2014, she was convicted of immigration fraud in U.S. federal court and deported to Jordan in 2017.” However, the paper continued to refer to her as an “activist,” and refused to run a correction in the print edition.

Letter-writer Sara Miller wrote to the paper:

Editor: Thank you for adding the information that Rasmeah Odeh is a convicted terrorist. However, it doesn’t ever make sense to call someone who targeted and killed civilians an “activist.” Would you call anyone who targeted civilians in another country “a controversial activist”? Shouldn’t you reserve the term “activist” for people like me, who contact you repeatedly with (surely annoying) letters but would never hurt anyone?

You should also run an editor’s note in this Sunday’s paper to make your addition/correction clear. The note should clearly state that Odeh was convicted of murdering two students and trying to kill other civilians, that she was a member of PFLP, and that she was deported from the U.S. for lying about her record. A lot of people may not realize that you added the information to the article about her terrorism, so it should be clearly stated that you did.

Thank you.

Sara Miller

This past Tuesday, on his Fox News television show Tucker Carlson Tonight, host Tucker Carlson interviewed Max Blumenthal about the Russian government-funded cable network RT and the Trump administration’s attempt to have that station register as a foreign agent. For those familiar with Blumenthal and his anti-Israel vitriol, there was nothing surprising in what he said. What was surprising, though, was that Carlson let Blumenthal’s false and toxic allegations go unchallenged.

Responding to Carlson’s question about why some journalists seem unconcerned about the administration’s request, Blumenthal asserted that he enjoys his appearances on RT because “they let me talk about, for example, what the real sources of foreign influence are in this town, including the Israel lobby, and organizations like AIPAC, which have been promoting a humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza strip, war on Lebanon, war on Iran, and which is not required for some reason to register as a foreign agent, and I don’t know why that is.”

Of course, AIPAC does not promote any of these things, and the reason it is not required to register as a foreign agent is that its leadership and members are U.S. citizens, and it doesn’t take money or direction from foreign governments. Similar claims about an all-powerful “Israel lobby” have been debunked many times over. Carlson, however, did not challenge any of these assertions. After a few more softball questions, he simply replied, “Max, thank you, appreciate that analysis.”

This was not the first time that Max Blumenthal (who is the son of Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal) has appeared on Carlson’s show. After Blumenthal’s July appearance, several conservative commentators criticized Carlson’s decision to host him. Yet, this week, Carlson brought Blumenthal back.

Carlson might not have been so appreciative of Blumenthal’s comments if he were more familiar with his guest’s shaky track record. CAMERA has documented Blumenthal’s falsehoods going back years. As we’ve written before, “Max Blumenthal has demonstrated a willingness to spread fabricated, distorted, and disavowed quotes.” The Simon Wiesenthal Center included his book Goliath in its list of “Top Ten 2013 Anti-Semitic, Anti-Israel Slurs.” One German newspaper even referred to Blumenthal and compatriot David Sheen as “lunatic Israel-haters” after they pursued a German politician into a bathroom.

Carlson frequently brings guests of various political persuasions to his program. He is known, however, for challenging them when he disagrees. In this case, Carlson invited onto his show a guest who is known for slandering Israel, but he was unprepared to dispute him and instead allowed his baseless comments to stand.

Earlier this month, the online news site Al-Monitor wrote about two Palestinian human rights organizations’ reporting on complaints of torture in Gaza prisons. (“Gaza activists decry rise in torture within prisons,” October 1, 2017.) Al-Monitor wrote:

Human rights organizations operating in the Gaza Strip have monitored many cases of torture in Gaza prisons in 2016-17, which were described as “recurring.”

After he was severely tortured, detainee Khalil Abu Harb, from Gaza City, committed suicide on Sept. 19. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) demanded in a Sept. 20 statement that the attorney general and decision-makers in the Gaza Strip stop what the PCHR described as a state of decay in detention centers. The PCHR demanded that they put an end to torture in prisons and abide by Palestinian law.

The Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) issued its monthly report for July on Sept. 20. The ICHR noted that during July, it received 38 complaints of torture and ill-treatment in the Palestinian territories, 26 of which were in Gaza, and they included 22 complaints against the police and four against the Internal Security Service.

In its annual report for 2016, the ICHR revealed that it documented hundreds of complaints submitted by victims of torture in detention centers and prisons in the Gaza Strip that year.

PCHR’s legal researcher Mohammed Abu Hashim told Al-Monitor that there is a lack of comprehensive and accurate statistics on cases of torture in prisons and detention centers, because the victims of torture are reluctant to confront the authorities. They do not trust in their ability to protect them or provide some form of compensation either by the judiciary or human rights centers.

With the help of Google Translate, CAMERA reviewed the IHCR report for July as well as the PCHR September 20 statement that Al-Monitor cited, which support the article.

The IHCR was founded in 1993 by Yasser Arafat. The PHCR has been noted for its bias against Israel and its reliance on lawfare against Israel. Yet, it has taken the step of criticizing the Hamas government of Gaza.

No mainstream American news media, however, has prominently featured this story. Palestinian suffering is only newsworthy, it seems, when Israel can be blamed.

Recently, the New Jersey Jewish News featured a flattering portrayal of Breaking the Silence, an NGO with a history of publishing unreliable information attempting to portray the IDF in a negative light. CAMERA Letter-Writer Toby Block wrote to the NJJN:

Dear Editor:

The picture painted by Breaking the Silence defames the Israel Defense Forces while doing nothing to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people. The group doesn’t report incidents of alleged abuse to Israeli military authorities who, therefore, can’t correct problems and punish wrongdoers. In addition, the group promotes an inaccurate Palestinian narrative.

The Arabs of Palestine were denied their first-ever chance at sovereignty when Arab nations went to war to prevent Israel’s rebirth. Jordan illegally held the currently-disputed land for nineteen years, ethnically cleansing it of its indigenous Jewish population but never making a move to establish a Palestinian state. Following Israel’s liberation of the land (while defending her people from intended genocide), Palestinian leaders flatly rejected Israeli proposals for the creation of a Palestinian state. Those who want to end “the occupation” should be pressuring the Palestinian leadership to negotiate with Israel and begin preparing their people to live in their new state, peaceably, beside the nation-state of the Jews.

To join CAMERA’s letter-writing team, sign up here.

When the New York Times recently printed an Op-Ed by convicted murderer Marwan Barghouti, Letter-Writer Elinor Weiss sent them the following:

The New York Times recently ran a guest editorial by Marwan Barghouti that rationalized his hunger strike in an Israeli prison. Some of Barghouti’s demands include more television channels and cell phone availability.

The Times described Barghouti as a “Palestinian leader and parliamentarian,” while Barghouti described himself as a “victim.” Left out of the editorial is the fact that Marwan Barghouti is a terrorist who has organized suicide bombings of innocent people as they went about their daily lives. To many in the civilized world, those that died at the hands of Barghouti are the real victims.

The editorial only justifies the mistrust that many have in the New York Times. By withholding pertinent information and glorifying a murderer’s credentials the Grey Lady has badly tarnished its own reputation. The Times has taken journalism to a new low.

Eventually, after contact from the Public Editor, Opinion Editors were persuaded to append an Editors’ Note to the article, which explained that the piece had “neglected to provide sufficient context” about the offenses of which Barghouti was convicted.

While the mainstream national newspapers continue push the Palestinian narrative about Israel and the Middle East, two recently-published travel articles about Israel are refreshingly honest. Harper’s Bazaar has published a photo essay full of gorgeous scenes from Israel, “30 Photos that Will Make You Want to Book a Flight to Israel ASAP.” The Hindu, an Indian publication, has provided a detailed plan for vegetarians to eat their way through the Jewish state, “Breaking Bread in Israel.”

In The Hindu, reporter Pankaja Srinivasan is relieved to report that vegetarians can, in fact, travel in Israel without fear of “starvation.” He samples laffa bread in Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market, zatar bread in Jaffa, hi-tech pita bread and chocolate rugelach in Jerusalem, and falafel everywhere.

Srinivasan’s article is yet another welcome sign of the increasingly warm ties between India and Israel. You can read the whole thing here.

In addition, Harper’s Bazaar has published 30 beautiful images of Dead Sea beaches, Jerusalem landscapes, markets, and holy sites, Tel Aviv skylines and neighborhoods, food in Jaffa, and Caesarea relics.

Overall the article is free from the types of bias we usually see, for example, it acknowledges that Jerusalem is part of Israel, and doesn’t propagandize the Dead Sea. There is, however, one minor error: the caption in the photo of the Western Wall Plaza refers to the Kotel as “the last wall standing of the Second Jewish Temple.” In fact, the Western Wall was not part of the Temple itself, but rather a remnant of an outer retaining wall surrounding the Second Temple. On the other hand, the publication correctly noted that the Western Wall “is considered the holiest place where Jews are permitted to pray,” and that this is “due to its connection to the Temple Mount,” a point that hard news organizations have gotten wrong repeatedly.

You can see all of the photos here.

A shot of a Tel Aviv beach is accompanied by the caption, “A woman takes a dip in the Mediterranean sea off the shores of Tel Aviv. Fun fact: this could be you!” Well, yes, it could be! I’m getting my ticket now….

(Cross-posted from UK Media Watch)

Earlier in the month we examined a Feb. 13th Guardian article written by Sarah Helm, “It’s too late to stop the senseless capture of Palestinian land”, a propagandistic tour de force which amplified the prophetic anti-Zionist musings of a Palestinian “cartographer“ named Khalil Tufakji.

There were multiple errors and misleading claims in Helm’s report, but one we particularly focused on is found in the following passage:

I’ve been listening to Tufakji since the mid-1990s and everything he foresaw has so far come true. He pointed out where a tunnel would be drilled through the Mount of Olives to connect settlements – it seemed impossible but we are now driving through it.

As we noted at the time, whilst it’s unclear where precisely Helm was driving, she certainly wasn’t driving through the historic 3,000 year old Jewish cemetery adjacent to Jerusalem’s Old City – for the simple reason that there is no such tunnel at that location! We considered that Helm may have conflated the fake Mount of Olives tunnel with the real Mount Scopus tunnel (Derech Har HaTsofim Tunnel) quite a few kilometers away.

We complained to Guardian editors and, ten days later, we received a reply, implicitly acknowledging that the journalist was in fact driving through Mount Scopus, as we surmised. However, instead of correcting the grossly misleading text, editors decided to argue that though Helm was driving through Mount Scopus Tunnel, it’s not wrong to refer to Mount Scopus as Mount of Olives.

Here’s their full reply:

We understand that the tunnel known as the Mount Scopus tunnel goes through the Mount of Olives ridge.
The description here by the Jerusalem expert Eli Schiller states in part that: “The Mount [of Olives] has three prominent peaks: Mount Scopus, 826 m, A Tur (Church of the Ascension) 816m, and Mount of Corruption, 746m”.
Schiller also states: “Today Mount Scopus is part of the Mount of Olives, and there is no necessary justification to give each different terminology.”
For the purposes of the article, we think it is sufficient to leave the reference to a tunnel through the Mount of Olives as it is.

Let’s be clear about what this represents. Editors knew they couldn’t argue the facts in ordinary language (using regular maps), so they pivoted to an obscure geological justification — concerning what constitutes the broader Mount of Olives ridge — for Helm’s claim that she drove through a tunnel at Mount of Olives.

Of course, the sentence about driving through Mount of Olives would have immediately evoked, to the overwhelming majority of Guardian readers, a very specific visual of the iconic and historic Mount of Olives cemetery. They certainly wouldn’t have considered – let alone researched – the geological nature of the area in question. If they had decided to investigate the claim further, they would have more likely just consulted a regular map (like Google Maps, seen above), and seen that Mount of Olives (in the ordinary use of the term) represents a distinct and unique Jerusalem location.

Indeed, the context and aim of the passage about the tunnel “through Mount of Olives” written by the Guardian journalist seems clear: to support her Palestinian protagonist’s narrative that Israel is encroaching on and desecrating Palestinian land and historical sites in the holy city – making peace impossible and war inevitable. A tunnel through Mount Scopus simply would not have had the desired rhetorical impact as a tunnel through Mount of Olives, and certainly wouldn’t have helped support the story of Israeli malevolence she wanted to tell.

No amount of sophistry or obfuscation can change the fact that the claim by the Guardian journalist was egregiously and substantively misleading to readers, and thus in violation of the accuracy clause of the Editors’ Code.

We have appealed the Guardian decision and will update you as warranted.

— by Adam Levick