Cross posted with updates here

Days after a New York Times arts piece about the Louvre Abu Dhabi covered up an official Emirati ban on Israeli symbols at the international Grand Slam judo tournament last month, the paper of record this week published a travel article which whitewashes convicted bomber Rasmeah Odeh as a “controversial Palestinian activist.”

The Nov. 11 “Bites” New York Times food review is all about love, community organizing and social justice (“An Arab Bakery in Oalkland Full of California Love“). Rebecca Flint Marx writes:

Reem’s is one of a handful of Arab bakeries in the Bay Area — but it is likely the only one where you’ll find the children’s book “A Is for Activist” on the shelves and an enormous mural of the controversial Palestinian activist Rasmeah Odeh on the wall.

But there is not a word about the source of Odeh’s “controversy,” as The Times delicately puts it. As The New York Times itself reported May 27, 2017, Odeh “was convicted in Israel of playing a role in the bombing of a supermarket that killed two civilians in 1969.”

Odeh was convicted of perpetrating the bombing in which Hebrew University students Leon “Arie” Kanner, 21, and Edward Joffe, 22, were murdered. That makes her a convicted terrorist, not an “activist.”

The Associated Press reported that this past September, Odeh

was deported from the United States for concealing a decades-old bombing conviction arrived in Jordan on Wednesday. . . .

Odeh didn’t disclose her criminal record when applying for a U.S. visa and later for U.S. citizenship.

The depiction of a convicted bomber responsible for the killing of two civilians who was deported from the U.S. after she concealed her criminal records from authorities as a “controversial Palestinian activist” is a complete whitewash of her crime.

At the end of the article, Flint Marx dances around Odeh’s conviction, still withholding the key information from readers:

While Ms. Assil’s food has drawn plenty of praise, the bakery’s mural has invited criticism: in late June, an online op-ed charged that Mrs. Odeh’s portrayal glorified terrorism, and the bakery’s Yelp page was besieged by a slew of one-star reviews. “It was really scary,” Ms. Assil said of the experience, but added that it won her new allies.

By concealing Odeh’s crimes and her victims, readers would have no way of knowing the reason why some might accuse restaurant owner Reem Assil of glorifying terrorism. Uninformed readers might conclude that Assil’s accusers were motivated by nothing more than bigotry at worst or differing politics at best. Ignoring the real victims in this story — Kanner and Joffe — Flint Marx casts the purportedly social minded, loving Assil as the victim who was really scared.

In September National Geographic removed a similarly misleading mischaracterization, identifying notorious hijacker Leila Khaled as a “Palestinian activist.” Khaled, like Odeh, was affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – a group designated as a terror organization by the European Union and the United States, as well as Israel and Canada.

CAMERA has contacted The Times to ask for a clarification noting that Odeh was convicted in Israel of two bombings, including one that took the life of two university students, and that she was deported from the United States for concealing her criminal record.

Oct. 31 Update: Tablet Corrects: Report of Israeli Soccer Fan Wielding Knife Unfounded

The Tablet has failed to clarify an article which claimed that an Israeli soccer fan stormed the field with a knife at a game in Jerusalem earlier this month when the Israeli national team lost to its Spanish rivals (“Spain ends Israel’s World Cup Dreams“). The subheadline stated: “And, seeking revenge, Israel fan charges the field with a knife.” In addition, the article’s final sentence stated that a fan who charged the field “was carrying a knife.”

Yet, according to AFP in Times of Israel (“Israeli police dismiss report of knife incident at Spanish match“):

Israeli police dismissed on Tuesday local media reports that a pitch invader who ran towards Spanish attacker Isco at a World Cup qualifier in Jerusalem was carrying a knife. . . .

Other Israeli media reported the allegation, but police and football officials denied it.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP no knife was found inside the stadium.

A spokesman for the Israeli Football Association confirmed a fan ran toward Isco but said “no knife has been found.”

Though The Tablet initially indicated that it would issue a correction, as of this writing, editors have yet to do so.

Meanwhile, Ynet, which appears to be the first media outlet to report the unconfirmed knife incident as fact, has amended a headline which stated as fact that a fan who charged the field was carrying a knife. The initial headline stated: “World Cup qualifiers: Israeli fan arrested with knife near Spanish national team player.”

Following communication from CAMERA, Ynet editors slightly modified the headline, qualifying the claim that the fan carried a knife as a “report.”

The article itself nevertheless still casts the unfounded knife claim as fact and ignores the police and soccer official statements that there was no knife.

Oct. 17 Update: Haaretz Prints Correction on BDS Activists That Weren’t

In his Oct. 13 column (“Exorcising an imaginary BDS demon”), Haaretz‘s David Rosenberg argues that the anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divest, sanctions) movement is an “imaginary demon.” As the subheadline puts it: “Israel isn’t under any threat from boycott movement, but fighting a phony BDS war is too tempting for many to pass up. Even, [sic] the U.S. Congress has been enlisted in the fight.”

In addition to the U.S. Congress, it seems that a Haaretz photo editor has also been taken in by the phony BDS demon, imagining BDS activists where there are none. Thus, the photo caption accompanying the article in the print edition (page 14) stated: “Israel supporters separated by a police barrier from BDS activists at a New York parade.”

But the “BDS activists” are actually anti-BDS activists, as made clear in the original Associated Press caption.

Haaretz‘s digital edition got it right, correctly identifying the demonstrators as anti-BDS activists.

CAMERA has contacted Haaretz to request a correction. Stay tuned for an update.

Hat tip: LDS

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.

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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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.”

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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Elena Zakusilo on Lie Detector

Ynet reports:

The Qatari-based Al Jazeera TV network aired an investigative report last week showing an Israeli-Ukrainian woman who alleged that she murdered civilians and children while serving in the IDF.

The woman, Elena Zakusilo, did volunteer for the IDF and served in a junior administrative position, but her testimony, which was proven to be false shortly after it came out, was taken from a Ukrainian TV show called Lie Detector and aired in November 2013. . .

The Lie Detector host follows up by asking whether she killed people. She responds “yes,” and the lie detector on the show determines she is speaking the truth.

“The first time I killed was difficult for me. I threw the weapon, and said I wasn’t going anywhere. But I went,” she elaborates.

The host then asks whether she was willing to return to service in the Israeli army and to killing its enemies, and whether she was asked to kill children. She responds in the affirmative to both questions. When asked how many people she killed, she says she doesn’t know.

Zakusilo’s story was refuted in late 2013. At the time, the story caused outrage among the Muslim community in Ukraine, leading Israel to examine the matter with the IDF, eventually learning Zakusilo was lying.

The findings were transferred to Ukrainian authorities. At the same time, the Ukrainian security services conducted their own examination of the matter, which found in December of that year that Zakusilo was in fact lying on live television.

“Elena Zakusilo did not participate in military confrontations, including between Lebanon and Israel,” the Ukranian security services said at the time. “Everything she said on Lie Detector does not conform to reality. Her answers on the show were given based on a script prepared by the main editor of the TV show.”

Then-Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor examined the matter, finding that while Zakusilo did serve in the IDF, she had a junior administrative position and was never involved in the kind of combat activities she described.

See also: Al Jazeera English Corrects: Haifa Not in ‘Northern Occupied Palestine’