That Arabs in Haifa faced mass expulsion by Israeli forces is categorically untrue, but it's the Guardian - by Adam Levick

...Despite a truce offer by the Hagana, personal reassurances from their chief liaison officer in Haifa that Arabs who stayed in the city “would enjoy equality and peace”, and a personal appeal by the city’s Jewish mayor asking them to remain, the Arab leadership chose to reject these overtures and facilitated, instead, a final evacuation.

Adam Levick..
UK Media Watch..
07 March '18..

We recently posted about an Evening Standard review of a play being performed at Finborough Theatre in London called Returning to Haifa. Though the review noted that the play was based on a novel by a Palestinian named Ghassan Kanafani, who they refer to as an “acclaimed Palestinian writer” killed by the Mossad, it failed to mention that Kanafni was a high-ranking member of the PFLP terror group – a fact which would help readers understand why the “writer” was targeted by Israel.

Though we complained to editors about the omission, the piece has not been amended.

A Guardian review of the play published the same day similarly fails acknowledge Kanafni’s terror background, and, more importantly, misleads on the historical context of the play.

Here’s the sentence in question by Guardian theatre critic Michael Billington:

The play shows a Palestinian couple returning to Haifa in 1967 in search of the house and son they were forced to abandon 20 years previously during mass evictions by Israeli forces.

Were their “mass evictions” of Haifa’s Arabs by “Israeli forces”, as the Guardian suggests?

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Singer - Palestine: Abbas gets Lost in the Translation

David Singer
J-Wire
19 October '11
H/T Daphne Anson


http://www.jwire.com.au/featured-articles/palestine-abbas-gets-lost-in-the-translation/19765#more-19765

PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has been often criticised for making statements in English that are contradicted by other statements made by him in Arabic. Abbas has continued this art of doublespeak first perfected by his predecessor Yasser Arafat - tailoring his views to the audience that he is addressing…writes David Singer.

What is equally as sinister – and indeed should perhaps be regarded with even more alarm – is the apparent attempt by some sections of the media to put Abbas in a favorable light by deliberately mistranslating into English what he says in Arabic.

This is illustrated by considering two differing versions of remarks made by Abbas – when greeting some of the convicted terrorists released in exchange for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

The Guardian reported Mr Abbas as saying:

“Your efforts have not been in vain,” he told a crowd of thousands, which included 133 of the freed prisoners. “You have sacrificed, fought and paid the price.”

This identical quote was also carried by such media outlets as UTV News and NewsRack

Sky News however reported Mr Abbas’s speech in different terms:

“Your sacrifices and your efforts and your work has not been in vain. You have sacrificed and fought,”

This version was also carried by Lebanon News and The Australian Newspaper.

The discrepancy between both reports is glaring .

Plosker - Guardian’s Israel Correspondent Still Clueless

Harriet Sherwood

Simon Plosker
Honest Reporting/Backspin
24 August '11

http://honestreporting.com/guardians-israel-correspondent-still-clueless/


The Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood just keeps demonstrating her gross ignorance of the region that she is meant to be covering. In May we caught her mistakenly claiming that Israel’s Knesset and other national buildings were located on Palestinian-owned land.

Prior to that, Sherwood was critiqued by HonestReporting for referring to the Western Wall as Judaism’s most holy site while promoting the Palestinian narrative of the Temple Mount as a primarily Muslim site.

This, despite the incontrovertable fact that the Temple Mount is Judaism’s holiest site.

Evidently, Sherwood doesn’t learn from her mistakes. In an article concerning US broadcaster Glenn Beck holding rallies in Jerusalem, Sherwood writes:

Reinforcing his point, the rally is to be staged in the shadows of the Old City, close to both the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism, and the Haram al-Sharif, also known by Jews as the Temple Mount, which is revered by Muslims.

We don’t deny the attachment of Muslims to their holy sites but Sherwood not only gets her facts wrong but peddles a false historical narrative that denies and delegitimizes Jewish roots in Jerusalem.

See our previous expose of Sherwood’s error and why the Temple Mount is Judaism’s holiest site here.

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CAMERA - People (aka Israelis) Die, Palestinians Killed

TS
CAMERA/Snapshots
18 August '11

http://blog.camera.org/archives/2011/08/people_aka_israelis_die_palest_1.html

At the Guardian, Israeli victims of terrorism are "people" who "died"; Palestinian militant victims of Israeli counter-strikes are killed. The Guardian reports:

Israel has launched airstrikes on Gaza after blaming militants in the Palestinian territory for deadly attacks near Eilat earlier in the day.

Militants said five Palestinians were killed in the strikes.

Earlier at least seven people died when squads of gunmen armed with heavy weapons and explosives crossed into southern Israel from Egypt and attacked buses, cars and an army patrol, officials said.

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Harriet Sherwood’s ugly Israeli caricature

Adam Levick
CiF Watch
10 March '11


Harriet Sherwood’s latest offering on Israel, “The new Israeli barrier: a fence that splits a Jewish nursery in two“, brought to mind a penetrating quote from Jonathan Spyer’s new book, The Transforming Fire. Spyer, noted that a purely “mythical Israel” has gained traction beyond Islamist circles, a narrative which he characterized as one which simply has no resemblance to the country for those who actually live there.

He describes the mythical Israel as:

“a place of uninterrupted darkness and horror, in which every human interaction is ugly, crude, racist, brutal.”

This “mythical” Israel has indeed taken hold among the UK intelligentsia, and is a dynamic which informs much of the reporting, and commentary, about the Jewish state at the Guardian.

The story Sherwood reports on involves a dispute between secular and orthodox Jews at Jerusalem nursery school – specifically the objections by the orthodox parents regarding what they feel are immodestly dressed female non-orthodox staff, which the administrators solved by erecting a partition (Mechitza) in the building to separate the two communities.

While it of course would have been preferable if the partition wasn’t needed, Sherwood’s desire to frame the issue as another indication of Israeli intolerance, even characterizing the dispute in terms of “a new Israeli barrier” – meant to evoke the specter of the state’s anti-terrorist separation barrier - says more about Sherwood and the ugly caricature of Israel that she so uncritically accepts than it does about the nation she’s reporting on.

(Read full "Harriet Sherwood’s ugly Israeli caricature")

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Justice for Jewish Refugees from Arab lands: Controversial? Only at the Guardian

CiF Watch
Guest Post
19 January '11

http://cifwatch.com/2011/01/19/justice-for-jewish-refugees-from-arab-lands-controversial-only-at-the-guardian/

This is cross posted by David Matas, and was originally published on the website of the group, Justice for Jews from Arab Countries. It is a response to Rachel Shabi’s article: ‘The problem with Israel’s Jewish ‘refugee’ initiative‘ in the December 16th edition of the Guardian. (See our post on Shabi’s piece, here.)

Justice for Jewish refugees from Arab countries should, it seems, be an uncontroversial position. Who, after all, favours injustice?

Yet, Rachel Shabi in an opinion piece in the Guardian on December 16th, 2010 under the title “The problem with Israel’s Jewish ‘refugee’ initiative” labelled the call for justice as “cheap political point-scoring.” That is an odd response to a call for justice. Shabi does not claim that there was no injustice, no history of mistreatment of Jews from Arab countries. She acknowledges that Jewish properties and possessions in Arab countries were impounded, that Arab governments sacrificed Jewish communities for short term political expediency.

Shabi does not claim that the call for justice arose recently. She dates it from the 1970s, though, in fact, it existed long before that. Shabi questions the sincerity of those who call for justice, Israeli deputy foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and the organization Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC), arguing that neither is “genuinely concerned” with justice for Jews form Arab countries because they have not proposed “setting up heritage centres to commemorate Jewish life in Arab lands”. Yet, JJAC has proposed exactly that for many years. For instance, in November 2004, JJAC issued a statement calling for “Building a Museum to preserve and portray the vibrant, 2,300 year heritage and history of the Jewish Community of Libya”.

Shabi also charges the advocates with insincerity because of their attempt “to corral the subject into the frame of Palestinian refugee claims”. Yet, equality is an element of justice. When there are two victims, both similarly victimized, then both should receive justice. When one does and the other does not, the victim without redress is doubly victimized, the first time by the original injustice, the second time by the inequality of treatment.

Shabi argues that there is a difference between Palestinian and Jewish refugees because some Jewish refugees do not like being called refugees but rather would prefer to be described as being “uprooted” from Arab lands. This argument is terminological flim flam. Moreover, it ignores the history of Palestinian refugees. For decades, Palestinians rejected the refugee label. The PLO objected as late as 1974, to the component of the 1967 UN Resolution 242 which calls for “a just settlement of the refugee problem” not because it recognizes, by implication, that Jews from Arab countries were also refugees, but rather because, so the PLO said it “deals with their (the PLO’S) cause as a refugee problem”. Palestinian refugee rights did not arise for the first time when Palestinians, relatively late in their history, embraced the refugee label. Nor do Jewish refugee rights cease to exist for those Jewish refugees who reject the refugee label. Human rights are inalienable.

Shabi argues that there is no real parallel between Jewish and Palestinian refugees because the Jews have a homeland and the Palestinians do not. Yet, most refugees do not want to be where they are. What is unusual about the plight of Palestinians, compared to refugees generally, is the unwillingness of the governments of countries in which many of them are found to offer local integration and the virulent rejection by the Palestinian leadership of offers of resettlement.

Shabi questions why Israel should represent Jewish refugees claiming redress for injustice. One answer is that the loss for that injustice was suffered not just by individual Jews, but, for Jews from Arab countries who got refuge in Israel, also by Israel. It was Israel who had to rehabilitate Jewish refugees in Israel from Arab countries, establish them and treat them for the physical and psychological wounds they suffered before flight.

As well, the government of every country should stand up for respect for human rights. It is hardly surprising that a Jewish state would stand up for the rights of Jewish victims. The real question would arise only if Israel did not do so. Shabi asks whether the claim for justice for Jewish refugees would arise if there were no Palestinian refugees. The answer to that is certainly yes. A claim for justice arises whenever there is an injustice.

Jews from Arab countries were victims of a great wrong. Communities which existed for thousands of years, from well before the advent of Islam, were brutally expelled, 850,000 in total, their assets confiscated, and their institutions destroyed. How does one remedy that wrong? The belated Palestinian adoption of the refugee vocabulary presents an opportunity. If the wrong to Jewish refugees will not be remedied in isolation, then, maybe it will be remedied in the overall context of redress for refugee outflows sparked by the Arab invasions of Israel in 1948.

Shabi calls what Ayalon and JJAC have done “possibly the worst sort of advocacy for Middle Eastern Jews.” Yet, in reality, what we are seeing now is the Jewish NGO world – in this instance through JJAC – and the Government of Israel at its best, acting as it has done to bring Nazi war criminals to justice and pursue Holocaust compensation, standing up for Jewish victims, taking advantage of an opportunity presented by the twists and turns of history – in this case the peace negotiations and the claims of Palestinian refugees – to do so.

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Of Sheep, Kibbutz, Xmas and Spies in New Zealand

Adam Levick
CiF Watch
27 December '10

A Guest Post by AKUS

Many years ago, shortly after I joined my kibbutz, a raging feud broke out over the future of the kibbutz’s sheep “department “or “branch” – the “dir”, as it was known. The manager of the “dir” – let’s call him Yossie – had invested a large part of his life in building up this flock of about 50 or so sheep, and was convinced that he could maintain it as a profitable branch of the kibbutz. The main produce of the “dir” was sheep’s milk, plus the annual wool that was sheared, and, no doubt, some meat from the more superannuated members of the flock.

Yossie’s enthusiasm for his branch was not shared by many other members. Sheep tend to need grazing space, and there were more profitable uses of the kibbutz’s limited land. Milking sheep was hard work, done at miserable hours of the early morning, and it was hard to get kibbutz members to work in the “dir”. The price for sheep’s milk was going down – this was in the days before the PC crowd got going and would pay higher prices for sheep’s milk. The smell was awful – if you are at all familiar with the smell of a dairy farm, add-on that that a sort of sickly smell that seemed to be part and parcel of the “dir”, which would cling relentlessly to the bodies of those who worked there.

There were also dark accusations that the head of the dairy branch was trying to get the sheep milkers to join his group to milk in the growing and more profitable dairy business, and was undermining Yossie’s business.

The reality was, of course, that raising a small flock of sheep in an arid country like Israel is simply not a profitable business. It can be a hobby for those who want to make cheese from sheep (and goat’s) milk, but there is no comparison with the sheer volume of milk and the automation possible when dealing with a well-run dairy herd. The “dir” was closed down. Yossie, to this day, has never forgiven the kibbutz and reconciled himself to the economics of raising sheep.

This week we were treated to the presumably heartrending story of how the Israeli occupation of the West bank has ruined the sheep herding business there.

(Read full "Of Sheep, Kibbutz, Xmas and Spies in New Zealand")

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Hamas outraged at Gaza’s youth being educated about the Holocaust

CiF Watch
20 December '10

A Guest Post by AKUS

In a recent article, A perfect example of the Guardian’s appalling myopia, I pointed out how the Guardian overlooked a key event in a visit by a group of boys (no girls) from Gaza to the USA, and, specifically, the UN building in New York:

A Guardian video entitled, “Documentary follows 15 boys from Gaza on trip to US” contained the subtitle:

“Fifteen boys left their besieged homeland to visit America earlier this year. The moving film No Sharp Objects reveals their first experiences of snow and skyscrapers.”

Correctly, it should read:

Fifteen boys left their homeland to visit America earlier this year. The moving film No Sharp Objects reveals their first experiences of snow, skyscrapers and pictures and lessons from the Holocaust.

The Guardian, enthralled by the chance to show Hamas and UNRWA, which organized the trip, in a good light completely overlooked mentioning a significant portion of the clip which showed Arab-speaking guides explain to the youngsters from Gaza what the Holocaust was, and why it is so important to the Jews. Clearly, this was the first time that they these young boys had heard of the Holocaust and seen the iconic pictures that form the display.

A day later, despite the same timestamp on the article, Harriet Sherwood followed up with an article about the trip, noting briefly: “the group paused before a Holocaust exhibition at the UN headquarters.

(Read full "Hamas outraged at Gaza’s youth being educated about the Holocaust")

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Guardian editorial delegitimizes Jewish right of self-determination

Israelinurse
CiF Watch
12 October '10

The Guardian editorial from October 11th leaves the reader in absolutely no doubt as to where the loyalties of the management of that newspaper lie with regard to the existence of the Jewish state. When dissected, the strident objections raised to a proposed amendment of Israel’s Law of Citizenship reveal an ideological commitment to the creation of conditions which would promote the Palestinian ‘right of return’ as a means of bringing about Israel’s demise. They also provide evidence of an anodyne willful blindness regarding the political situation which exists under the Guardian’s own nose in the United Kingdom and much of the rest of Europe.

In typical Guardian style, the editorial declares as fact numerous putative points in order to lead the reader to the desired conclusions.

“There are two narratives at work in Israel that have a bearing on the capacity of its leaders to negotiate the creation of an independent Palestinian state next to it. The first is official and intended for external consumption. It is the one that claims Israel is ready to sit down with the Palestinians in direct talks without preconditions and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, should not have wasted so much of the 10 month partial freeze on settlement building before he did so. On Saturday, America was given another month by the Arab League to persuade Binyamin Netanyahu’s government to halt settlement building, the bare minimum required for talks to continue.”

In other words, the Guardian has decided that the Israelis have one narrative for foreign audiences and another, presumably the authentic one, for internal use. This figment of Guardian imagination has no bearing on reality and of course conveniently ignores almost 20 years of prior peace negotiations. Revealingly, it also completely overlooks the fact that for much of the last two decades, it has been the Palestinians who repeatedly put out conflicting messages for foreign and domestic audiences; a practice continuing to this day. Then there is the interesting description of a continued building freeze as a ‘bare minimum’ requirement for the continuation of talks. Taking into account that at no other time in the past 20 years has construction by Israelis prevented the Palestinians from negotiating; it is clear that this current insistence is nothing but an excuse for procrastination.

(Read full post)

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Guardian Invents Evidence Against Israel

Proud Zionist
09 February '10

Last week, the IDF released it’s report to counter Goldstone. The Guardian, in it’s desperation to find a negative angle, resorted to their own “evidence” to delegitimize Israel’s version of an incident in which a flour mill in Gaza was damaged.

The Guardian repeats the Goldstone report’s claim that the flour mill was hit by an air strike, implicating that it was deliberately targeted and therefore a possible war crime.

The IDF meanwhile, described the incidents in detail, explaining how

“Hamas had fortified this area [of the flour mill] with tunnels and booby-trapped houses, and deployed its forces to attack IDF troops operating there... IDF troops came under intense fire from different Hamas positions in the vicinity of the flour mill. The IDF forces fired back towards the sources of fire and threatening locations. As the IDF returned fire, the upper floor of the flour mill was hit by tank shells.”

They even arranged for fire engines to reach the area and extinguish the fire.
The Guardian quotes Israel’s defence as merely that “there were Hamas fighters ‘in the vicinity of the flour mill’”. But they claim that when they visited the mill just after the war last year, they “saw what appeared to be the remains of an aircraft-dropped bomb” on the first floor, stating that:

“The UN mine action team, which handles ordnance disposal in Gaza, has told the Guardian that the remains of a 500-pound Mk82 aircraft-dropped bomb were found in the ruins of the mill last January.”

(Read full post)
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Guardian Remaps Israel -- Modi'in Is a Settlement

TS
CAMERA/Snapshots
27 December 09

As if to prove our point about the Guardian, which so "frequently distorts the conflict," Rachel Shabi's article today ("Gaza ceasefire in jeopardy as six Palestinians are shot") refers to the "huge Israeli settlement at Modiin."

With some 70,000 people, Modiin can be considered huge, but it is not a settlement. It is fully situated within Israel's pre-1967 boundaries, or the Green Line.

Map source: BESA

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