The omission is especially surprising because just a few days ago, the American Jewish Committee released a study showing the PA’s schoolbooks characterize Jews in “hateful” and “derogatory” language, cite the Protocols of Elders of Zion as a legitimate source of historical information, and omit any mention of the Holocaust. (State’s report did contain one vague mention of the fact that in the 1990s, Holocaust denial “became commonplace in popular media in the Middle East, particularly in the Palestinian Authority” — without any acknowledgment that most of that so-called “popular media” is government-controlled).
The State Department’s report defined anti-Semitism as including “allegations about Jews such as . . . Jews controlling the media” and “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to the Nazis” (pp. 6-7). Yet among the numerous anti-Semitic cartoons that the report reprints, one did not find, for example, the August 13, 2007 cartoon in the official PA newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, of a hook-nosed Jew with prominent side-curls controlling the Arab media, or the March 4 cartoon, titled “Gaza’s Holocaust,” featuring an Israeli attack helicopter with its propeller in the shape of a swastika. (Expanding on that theme, a new Holocaust Exhibit has just opened in Gaza, featuring depictions of Israel throwing Arab babies into crematoria.
I've seen so many fawning interviews with Palestinian terrorists that I was jolted by Sky News. Tim Marshall had tough questions -- quite a few, in fact -- for Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. A great example of what the MSM is capable of when it sets its mind. Click below to watch.
Tel Aviv served as Israel’s temporary capital until the Knesset relocated to Jerusalem in December, 1949. This development apparently never reached Scotland On Sunday:
Abbas Attacks Tel Aviv and Urges Arabs to Send Peacekeepers
Haaretz: A Qassam rocket exploded directly between a children's house and nursery school this morning. No injuries -- children and caregivers managed to reach shelter first.
Marash said he felt that attitude more from British administrators than Arabs at the Qatar-based network.
Marash was the highest-profile American TV personality hired when the English language affiliate to Al-Jazeera was started two years ago in an attempt to compete with CNN and the BBC. He said there was a "reflexive adversarial editorial stance" against Americans at Al-Jazeera English.
"Given the global feelings about the Bush administration, it's not surprising," Marash said.
But he found it "became so stereotypical, so reflexive" that he got angry.
Marash, who previously worked for Nightline, plans to write a book and teach.
Palestinians in Silwan, adjacent to the Temple Mount, are protesting archeological work by the Israeli Antiquities Authority. Although the IAA digging is taking place south of the Temple Mount and outside the Old City walls, this file photo accompanying AFP coverage suggests something different:
File photo shows a trench being dug as part of an archaeological dig in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound. A tunnel that is being dug to access a Jewish temple and which passes under many Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem is causing new conflict in the city. (AFP/File/Ahmed Gharabli)
The implication is that the nasty Israelis are digging up the Temple Mount itself. Moreover, the caption omits that the excavation shown here was actually carried out by the Islamic Waqf when it dug a massive trench last August.
Trevor Asserson's newest report (pdf format) is an analysis of BBC Arabic's radio programming. The report points out various examples of Israel's demonization, dangerous and absurd comments, plus hostility to the USA and generally providing a respectable platform for terror organizations.
The BBC Arabic radio appears to be out of control . . . .
The relative lack of Arabic speakers amongst those who pay for the BBC means that the BBC does not benefit from the criticisms of the general listening public as it does for its English speaking programmes. The corrective influence which those complaints normally provide is necessarily absent.
Having rejected the Independent Panel's reccomendation to appoint a "guiding hand" to monitor its own Middle East output, the BBC has no systems in place to know what its own journalists think. We are not aware of any systematic method it has for monitoring programme content. It seems that the BBC has less control of its Arabic programmes than of any others, because it appears that relatively few of its senior staff speak Arabic.
Sounds similar in some ways to last year's problems at the US-funded Arabic channel Al-Hurra TV. Al-Hurra's former director was recognized as 2007's Worst News Director.
Scars Mohammed al-Dura's father claims were from IDF gunfire really came from an operation several years earlier. So says Dr. Yehuda David who operated on Jamal al-Dura in 1994 at Tel Aviv's Tel-HaShomer Hospital.
One reason to be concerned about media bias: news services skewing coverage of Israel are just as capable of botching coverage of other places in the world. Like Tibet, as Ira Rifkin points out:
It took Jews almost two millennia to re-establish an independent state in their homeland. During that time, later-arriving Arabs settled in the land and claimed it as their own. Despite Judaism's numerous ritual reminders of Zion's centrality, Jewish historical ties to the land were conveniently forgotten by most of the world, which came to view modern Jews as having no connection to the ancient Israelites who once populated the same land. As a result, returning Jews were regarded as colonialist interlopers and Arabs were seen as indigenous innocents suffering at the hands of Jewish pretenders.
Report Slams BBC Arabic For Supporting Iran, Hezbollah
A soon-to-be-released report by Trevor Asserson slams BBC-Arabic's radio for biased commentary during the Second Lebanon War. YNet News explains:
The research team observed the station's main commentary program "Hadith al-sa'a" (Talk of the Hour) during the Second Lebanon War, and concluded that commentators supporting Iran and its views were given preference.
The station's commentators, the report said, did not even try to hide their clear sympathy for the Lebanese side and Hizbullah fighters.
Asserson's previous studies of the BBC are impressively thorough and online at his web site, BBCWatch.
Time magazine takes a startling glimpse into the world of Hezbollah recruiting:
The two phases in the development of a Hizballah fighter are like Boy Scouts and Boot Camp. During the first phase, Hizballah recruiters keep an eye out for young Shia Muslim students in both Hizballah-run schools and the national school system. They look for energetic kids, violent kids, and smart kids, from the age of seven into the late teens, and begin taking them on field trips and workshops where they are given a through ideological indoctrination, and then as they get older, a brief introduction to the AK-47 assault rifle.
Dennis Prager enumerates a few reasons why the Palestinians get more attention than the Tibetans. Here’s one reason directly relevant to the MSM:
Aside from its leftist tilt, television news reports only what it can video. And almost no country is televised as much as Israel, while video reports in Tibet are forbidden, as they are almost anywhere in China except where strictly monitored by the Chinese authorities. No video, no TV news. And no TV, no concern. So while grieving Palestinians and the accidental killings of Palestinians during morally necessary Israeli retaliations against terrorists are routinely televised, the slaughter of over a million Tibetans and the extinguishing of Tibetan Buddhism and culture are non-events as far as television news is concerned.
Battles are now fought not only in the military field but in the arena of public opinion. With all the ingenuity and resources available within Israel and the Jewish world, and expertise in hi-tech and communications, isn't it possible to fund and produce a credible, serious TV channel presenting an Israeli viewpoint? Without it, we will remain preoccupied with scrounging around for fair coverage on other people's media outlets, and Israel's global image will deteriorate further, with negative consequences for the country's future security and prosperity.
Is an Israeli satellite news channel worth the investment? Post your comments below.
You have to read the article to find out that the so-called activist died in an explosion "in a camp of the armed wing of Hamas." What kind of "activist training" goes on at these camps? Telemarketing?
John Shaffner, chairman and CEO of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences said Amanpour and other winners exemplified "television with a conscience."
Without conscience would be more apropos for Amanpour.
It can be revealed that British editors are maintaining a self-imposed conspiracy of silence over the fact that Prince William volunteers for the IDF in the spokesman's unit.
Prince Harry, who just returned from 10 weeks in Afghanistan, exclusively told Backspin that his older brother gives regular press briefings under the pseudonym, Capt. Benjamin Rutland.
Senior IDF spokesman Charles Philip Arthur George Wales would neither confirm nor deny speculation that Prince William also authored an article in the New Statesman defending the IDF's Marva and Gadna programs.
HonestReporting launched a new initiative called HR-VIP Services. For $5,500 a night, friends of Israel can discreetly shmooze with HR's USA director Gary Kenzer about media bias and hasbara issues. Kenzer says:
"Most of our clients view themselves as moderate-to-liberal, but they also have right-wing fantasies they don't want to share with their wives."
But according to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics and the Jerusalem Institute of Israel Studies, Jerusalem's Arab population skyrocketed 266 percent between 1967, when Israel annexed east Jerusalem, and 2006 (the last year for which figures are available). That is almost double the Jewish population's growth during those years (143 percent); consequently, the city's ratio of Jews to Arabs shrank from 74:26 in 1967 to 66:34 in 2006.
Even during the intifada, which prompted the fence and the closed institutions that Abbas decries, the Arab population continued ballooning: It rose from 208,700 at the end of 2000 to 252,400 at the end of 2006, an increase of 21 percent in six years, or 3.5 percent a year. Jerusalem's Jewish population grew by only 4.7 percent during those years, or less than 1 percent a year. In absolute terms, the Arab increase (43,700 people) was double the Jewish increase (21,100).
Do the Palestinians really want peace? The NY Times picked up on a survey whose results shocked even veteran pollster Dr. Khalil Shikaki (pictured):
A new poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians support the attack this month on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem that killed eight young men, most of them teenagers, an indication of the alarming level of Israeli-Palestinian tension in recent weeks.
The survey also shows unprecedented support for the shooting of rockets on Israeli towns from the Gaza Strip and for the end of the peace negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli leaders.
The pollster, Khalil Shikaki, said he was shocked because the survey, taken last week, showed greater support for violence than any other he had conducted over the past 15 years in the Palestinian areas. Never before, he said, had a majority favored an end to negotiations or the shooting of rockets at Israel . . . .
“The anger that this poll is registering is about equal to that at the very height of the second intifada,” Mr. Shikaki said, referring to the years just after 2000 when suicide attacks on Israel and Israeli strikes on Palestinian forces reached new heights. “I am very worried about what is coming.”
What kind of people approve of a massacre in overwhelming numbers?
Seeking to dispel rumors that Ali Dandanes and Amar Taha escaped from prison, the PA yesterday invited an Israeli camera crew to film the pair in custody. The Israeli footage, which the PA billed as an exclusive interview, should have quelled the escape rumors.
Well, yes and no. YNet News explains what really happened:
The Palestinian terrorists who murdered two Israeli hikers last December were granted a furlough from a Hebron prison and were asked to return a few days later.
Dandanes and Taha opened fire on a group of Israelis hiking near Hebron in December, killing two.
Even as I write this, Sid Ryan and his CUPE colleague presumably are hard at work drafting a resolution aimed at boycotting all Chinese products. Student activists are smashing their Leonovo laptops. Engineering departments at campuses all across North America are tearing up their partnership projects with colleagues in China. There will also presumably be a flurry of anti-China resolutions put forward by the United Nations assembly and the UN's various agencies -- especially the Human Rights Council. Jimmy Carter, one supposes, is hard at work on a Tibetan-themed follow-up to Peace Not Apartheid.
There's a smarmy subtext to BBC producer Hilary Salmon's comments about an upcoming Passion show the Beeb is pesenting jointly with HBO. She told The Guardian:
[HBO is] more sensitive than we are to the Jewish angle. Many of its core audience are Jewish liberals who set the cultural agenda much more than here, so we had a Jewish consultant, as well as experts on the gospels. You had to be careful not to tie yourself in knots though.
[It] startles because of the ethnic-saturated stereotypes it contains, and because it presupposes a kind of wink-and-nod agreement by the readership of the publication in which it appears . . .
AFP photographer Abbas Momani clearly put himself in harm's way to get this photo. Imagine the hollering from Reporter Without Borders had he been hit by an IDF bullet.
Question: How come we never hear about photojournalists inadvertently hit by Palestinian rocks?
A Palestinian demonstrator hurls stones at Israeli soldiers during a protest near the West Bank city of Ramallah on March 7, against Israel's separation barrier and the raids on the Gaza Strip that have killed more than 120 Palestinians. US Vice President Dick Cheney leaves for the Middle East hoping to help revive the battered peace process and get Saudi Arabia to curb Iran's influence in Iraq. (AFP/File/Abbas Momani)
Abd al-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi, wrote that the Mercaz massacre was "justified" because the seminary is responsible for "hatching Israeli extremists and fundamentalists."
Atwan (pictured) is a regular talking head for BBC and Sky News who generated outrage last year when he told Lebanese TV he would dance in Trafalgar Square if Iranian missiles hit Israel.
Send your comments to Sky News viewers' editor Paul Bromley - news@sky.com and the BBC Complaints website (direct your official complaint to News 24).
Hamas lawmaker Fathi Hammad proudly talks about the Islamist group's death industry, which includes women, children and human shields. Watch this Memri clip.
Victor Davis Hanson explains that the Mideast's so-called "cycle of violence" is really a "two step" in which the MSM is complicit:
We all now know the familiar Gaza two-step. The Israeli Defense Forces respond to Hamas rockets with air strikes against terrorist leaders or small-rocket factories. Hamas makes certain both these targets are intermingled with civilians in the hopes of televised collateral damage.
Hamas counts on the usual sympathetic European and Middle Eastern media coverage. Terrorists deliberately trying to murder Israeli civilians are seen as the moral equivalents of Israeli soldiers trying to target combatants who use civilians as shields. To the extent that the IDF kills more of the terrorists than Hamas kills Israeli civilians, sympathy goes to the "refugees" of Gaza.
A few spots for HonestReporting's upcoming Israel Spring Mission are still available. See the country for yourself and meet the newsmakers, journalists, and insiders involved in Israel's media battle (including the HonestReporting staff).
• May 28-June 3
• Study today's issues and receive training to act on Israel's behalf in your community