In the polonium poisoning case of a former Russian spy murdered in London in 2006, British authorities ruled that the perpetrator was Russian special services. The fictionalized adaptation for the “30” episode of the “ripped from the headlines” TV drama, Law & Order (aired by NBC and its Bravo and USA cable TV affiliates) altered the true scenario and turned Israel into the villainous suspect in the fatal polonium poisoning of an American investigative journalist.

Underscoring the presentation of Israel as villain, the episode also depicted Israeli brutality towards Palestinians and a New York police detective repeatedly hectoring his Jewish captain with the dual-loyalty canard accusation, which included covering up for Israel.

CAMERA’s article documenting this episode (which originally aired on February 27, 2007) was cited as the source of a March 11, 2007 Jerusalem Post article by Michael Freund . Mr. Freund wrote that NBC “declined to respond to questions concerning allegations of anti-Semitism in the show’s dialogue and plot” when contacted by the Post.

The most recent airings of the episode were by Bravo Network on July 5, 2009 (twice on that day) with a previous repeat on USA Network on Oct. 24, 2008.

While there is much media coverage condemning Israeli settlements, almost nothing is heard about Palestinian settlements in Jerusalem. But a new book by journalist Aaron Klein, entitled “The Late Great State of Israel: How Enemies Within and Without Threaten the Jewish Nation’s Survival” documents the illegal occupation by Palestinian Arabs of Jewish-owned land in Jerusalem. Dr. Phyllis Chesler reviewed the book in the June 26 issue of Jewish Press. She wrote:

Over the years, Israelis have allowed more than “100,000 Palestinian Arabs to occupy tens of thousands of illegally constructed housing units in eastern and northern Jerusalem.” Criminals, mercenaries, soldiers dressed as civilians, human bombs and their terrorist handlers, may all live among them. This illegal occupation or settlement activity began long after the 1967 Six-Day War. These Palestinian Arab immigrants were not living in these places before 1948 or 1967. Indeed, Klein documents that under Jordanian rule, one of these Jerusalem neighborhoods, Shoafat, was actually a forest.

These crowded Palestinian housing complexes, schools and villas are filled with weapons and fighters. Worse still: According to Klein, these Palestinian Arabs have built illegal settlements on land owned by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), which was entrusted to buy land for Jews in the Holy Land.

An earlier CAMERA monograph documented illegal Arab building in Jerusalem over 30 years since 1967 and human rights lawyer Justus Reid Weiner, a scholar-in-residence at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, wrote a book in 2003 on illegal construction in Jerusalem (172 pp. including a fold-out map, charts, tables, documents, and aerial photographs). That study, Illegal Construction in Jerusalem, was reviewed by CAMERA Associate Director Alex Safian in Middle East Quarterly (Fall 2003). CAMERA has frequently tackled errors regarding illegal Arab construction.

On the Eternal Word Television Network May 15 broadcast of The World Over , hosted by Raymond Arroyo, Br. Aloysius Florio (of Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in Wash., D.C.) provided unbalanced, inaccurate commentary pertaining to Israel during a review of the Pope’s May 8-15 Holy Land trip. EWTN is the pre-eminent Roman Catholic TV network but it doesn’t speak for the hierarchy of the U.S. Roman Catholic Church since it is not under the authority of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The Pope had held an inter-religious dialogue meeting in Jerusalem on May 11 that was seriously marred by an anti-Israel outburst by Sheik Tamimi, Chief Islamic Judge of the Palestinian Authority, who falsely accused Israel of several crimes against the Palestinians. Br. Florio, commenting on Tamimi’s diatribe, credulously accepted what Tamimi claimed “Israelis are doing to Palestinians”:

He criticized, of course, very strongly, in strong language, not diplomatically, what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians – depriving them of their rights, tortured, imprisoned, etcetera, etcetera.

Viewers would have been better served if counter commentary had been provided to balance Br. Florio’s claim. Likewise, viewers should have been informed of the disapproving reaction to Tamimi’s statements by Catholic and Jewish religious leaders. According to a May12 Jerusalem Post article, the director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, condemned Tamimi’s diatribe as “a direct negation of what dialogue should be” and the Chief Rabbi of Haifa, Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen, the only Jewish representative on the stage with the pope, condemned Tamimi for “cynically exploiting the media opportunity to incite and disparage the State of Israel.” Rabbi Cohen, who is also the cochairman of a joint Chief Rabbinate-Holy See interreligious committee, said he would refuse to meet with Tamimi again.

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Imagine a film about the hardships endured by ordinary Germans subjected to heavy bombardment during World War II – and, for example, the heroism of those coming to the rescue of injured victims buried in the ruins of collapsed buildings. But imagine, as well, that this film provides no context dealing with the problem that led to the bombardment – which was the leadership that the German people followed, one whose brutal aggression caused enormous and widespread suffering and led to World War II. Lacking this context, an uninformed audience might not realize that the German people largely brought on their own suffering. Such a film would almost certainly be dismissed as propaganda.

Yet what wouldn’t be acceptable in a film about the suffering of ordinary Germans is indeed acceptable to the mainstream media when the film deals with the suffering of ordinary Palestinians (this is not to say that Nazi Germany is equivalent to the Palestinian Authority). Generally praised by reviewers, the film at issue is Lemon Tree, by the Israeli writer/director Eran Riklis, which premiered in New York in April followed by showings in other venues across America. European audiences (the film was the “Audience Award Winner” at the Berlin Film Festival) and American audiences (the May 24 Boston Globe rated the film at three stars as compared to Hannah Montana with two stars) have been subjected to a skillfully made propaganda film containing nothing about the fact that current Palestinian suffering has been largely brought on by the Palestinians themselves in generating and supporting horrific terrorism against Israelis.

The Lemon Tree, released by IFC Films, portrays a fictional Palestinian heroine protecting her lemon trees from Israeli soldiers who are ordered to severely prune the trees because it is feared that they are likely to be used as cover by Palestinian terrorists. The 106-minute film is in Arabic and Hebrew, with English subtitles (with only a few scenes spoken in English).

One message the film sends is that the Palestinians are likable, noble, straight-forward and peaceful, while Israelis are generally abusive, arrogant, ruthless and sometimes physically brutal. The only sympathetic Israelis seem to be those who support the Palestinian heroine.

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“We stand by our film and do not intend to make any changes.”

With these words (in an August 16, 2007 letter), National Geographic Television’s President, Michael Rosenfeld, dismissed CAMERA’s recommendations for changes to the network’s “Secrets of Jerusalem’s Holiest Sites.” The recommendations were related to inaccuracies and distortions pointed out in a July 2007 CAMERA letter to Mr. Rosenfeld and later posted on-line in an October 3, 2007 CAMERA article. The film’s serious flaws remain in the recent re-broadcasts on Sunday, April 12, 2009 (5PM Eastern) and Tuesday, April 14 (5PM).

The basic problem is that this film favors key Muslim and Arab viewpoints regarding Israel that are either inaccurate or distorted.

National Geographic Television would be taking a major step toward accuracy and fairness if Mr. Rosenfeld and his associates in Washington D.C. were to honestly scrutinize and then, accordingly, revise this seriously flawed film. However, this appears to be unlikely since NGT, like its parent, the enormously prosperous “non-profit” National Geographic Society, has been able thus far to view itself as impervious to criticism. Such changes would also require overcoming National Geographic’s traditional anti-Israel bias.

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Two of the many photos comprising the Palestinian Human Rights Week exhibit at the Law Building. At left, a letter purportedly sent from Gaza Strip, entitled “The war in which I was killed and Gaza survived,” alleging Israeli atrocities. At right, a picture of two dead Palestinian children. (Digital photos courtesy of Gregory Harris).

At Montreal’s prestigious McGill University, the demonizing of Israel, attendant to Apartheid Week activities, was extended for another week to March 11-18 with
Palestinian Human Rights Week (PHRW), comprised of lectures and an exhibit. Among other alleged human rights violations, the exhibit depicted the suffering of Gazans during the recent conflict.

An audience for an anti-Israel exhibit might be aware that the decades-long history of the Arab-Israel conflict has been full of terrible accusations of Israeli atrocities and human rights violations. But these audiences tend to be either unaware or unconcerned that the overwhelming majority of these accusations were subsequently shown to be either completely false or grossly exaggerated. A recent example are the false charges of Israeli atrocities in Gaza.

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Going beyond the mainstream media’s thinking about politically acceptable usage of certain terminology, a March 2 edict of the Voice of America (VOA) directed its Urdu service to avoid or drastically modify its usage of the terms “terrorism,” “terrorist,” “Islamic terrorists,” “Islamic fundamentalism,” “Muslim fundamentalists,” “Islamist,” and “Muslim extremists.” Will the mainstream media, obsessively using the term “militant” in place of “terrorist” especially “Palestinian terrorist,” catch up soon with the VOA?

The media has failed (at least yet) to report about this VOA directive but we know about it thanks to the distinguished academician Dr. Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum.

The directive discourages identifying the religion of a terrorist:

A terrorist is a terrorist—he/she may belong to any particular religion, but if one adds Islamic/Christian/Hindu/ Jewish—-it creates the perception of a bias.

The directive might soon be in effect throughout the entire VOA which serves an estimated worldwide audience of 134 million people.

The Feb. 20 report – about U.S. Senator John Kerry’s trip to the Gaza Strip – by NY Times correspondent Taghreed El-Khodary was unbalanced and unfair to Israel due to at least one important omission. This statement made by Senator Kerry speaking to a Palestinian lawyer is not found in the El-Khodary article, “Congressmen and Kerry Visit Gaza”:

“Your political leadership needs to understand that any nation that has rockets coming into it over many years, threatening its citizens, is going to respond.”

Some television newscasts of Feb. 19 showed Kerry making this statement and Reuters news dispatches carried the statement.

Not surprisingly, the Boston Globe edited version of the El-Khodary article (also omitting the Kerry statement) is at least as slanted as the Times story.

“These European Jews – they are pretended Jews. They are the scum of the planet Earth and they are just like their father, the Devil.”

These hateful words concluded the uninterrupted tirade of a Dec. 30, 2008 7:53 AM phone call aired by C-SPAN (aka Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network) on the Washington Journal broadcast hosted by Robb Harleston. Washington Journal continues to air calls containing hateful, slanderous messages about Jews and Israel – and the hosts routinely indicate tacit approval of these messages by simply continuing on without disassociating themselves – either verbally or through body language – from these tirades. Because no condemnation is heard or sensed, it tends, for numbers of viewers, to make anti-Semitism seem normal and acceptable discourse. CAMERA’s C-SPAN report cited shocking instances from the period Nov. 29 to Dec. 30, 2008. One cannot reasonably imagine that such hateful views would be tacitly accepted if the target was say, African-Americans, Asians, Muslims or Arabs.

The February 8, 2009 Washington Journal broadcast, hosted by Steven Scully, asked viewers for comments on the topic, “Obama administration’s foreign policy.” The “comment” supplied at 7:49 AM by a caller from Gardner, Kansas consisted of a slanderous attack on Jews and Israel. As is the usual case, the host allowed the caller to proceed uninterrupted and neither the host nor guest (a White House correspondent) condemned the anti-Semitic nature of the call or pointed out any of the wild inaccuracies. This call can be viewed on the C-SPAN Web site.

Here is this rant in its entirety:

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