Benson - CBS Exposed: Bob Simon’s “Theatrical Outrage”

Pesach Benson..
Honest Reporting..
30 April '12..





When reporter Bob Simon interviewed Ambassador Michael Oren, Simon’s outrage — that the ambassador sought to intervene in the 60 Minutes piece on Christians in the Holy Land — was sharp.

Turns out Simon was more theatrical than we realized. BuzzFeed obtained a copy of a letter Simon sent Oren politely inviting Oren to share his views on the status of Christians in the Holy Land — was courteously acknowledged by the ambassador.

“We didn’t realize it would become so controversial,” Simon said in his introduction to the story, which featured an on-air clash between him and Oren. “I’ve never gotten a reaction before from a story that hasn’t been broadcast yet,” Simon told the ambassador during the segment.

But Simon’s apparent shock — and high dudgeon — at Oren’s conduct were nowhere to be found in a letter he wrote the ambassador before the taping, and which was provided to BuzzFeed by a political operative not party to the dispute who said he shared it because he thought it illustrated CBS doubletalk.

ACLU Leaders Are Supporting Censorship of Israeli Speakers

Alan M. Dershowitz
Hudson New York
25 February '11

http://www.hudson-ny.org/1917/aclu-leaders-are-supporting-censorship-of-israeli

The international campaign to prevent speakers from delivering pro-Israel talks at universities has been assisted by leaders of the American Civil Liberties Union—an organization that is supposed to protect freedom of speech for all. The method used to silence these speakers and preclude their audiences from hearing their message is exemplified by a now infamous event at the University of California at Irvine.

Michael Oren—a distinguished scholar and writer, a moderate supporter of the two-state solution, and now Israel's Ambassador to the United States—was invited to speak. The Muslim Student Union set out to prevent him from delivering his talk Here is the way Erwin Chemerinksy, Dean of the law school, described what the students did:

"The Muslim Student Union orchestrated a concerted effort to disrupt the speech. One student after another stood and shouted so that the ambassador could not be heard. Each student was taken away only to be replaced by another doing the same thing."

Chemerinsky understates what happened, as anyone can see by watching a video of the event, available online (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfLs_ptJzQA).



This was more than a "concerted effort to disrupt the speech." It was a concerted effort to stop it completely—to censor Oren's right to speak and his audience's right to hear him. The efforts to disrupt succeeded; the effort to stop ultimately failed. Moreover, Chemerinsky fails to mention what happened both before and after the concerted effort. There is undisputed evidence that there was a well-planned conspiracy to censor Oren's talk, and then to lie about it, which the students did after the event.

The students were disciplined by the university for their actions, though the nature and degree of the discipline has been kept confidential. Campus sources have characterized it as a "slap on the wrist." Since the students were arrested, the District Attorney, quite understandably, commenced a criminal investigation. After learning of the careful planning that went into the concerted effort to prevent Oren from speaking and the subsequent cover-up, the DA filed misdemeanor charges against those who were involved.

UC Irvine Students Will Be Prosecuted for Disrupting Oren Speech

Alana Goodman
Commentary/Contentions
08 February '11

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/alana-goodman/389250

Last year’s controversy at the University of California, Irvine — where members of the Muslim Student Union attempted to shut down a speech by Ambassador Michael Oren — looks like it’s finally headed toward some sort of resolution. The Los Angeles Times is reporting that authorities are charging the students who heckled and disrupted Oren with “conspiring to disrupt a meeting.”

The move comes after about 50 protesters rallied in front of the Orange County district attorney’s office Tuesday. Though some have criticized the students’ method of protest, many said that university punishment was sufficient enough for the “Irvine 11,” as the students came to be known.

In a statement, Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas said the case was filed because of an “organized attempted to squelch the speaker.” He also said the students “meant to stop this speech and stop anyone else from hearing his ideas, and they did so by disrupting a lawful meeting.”

UC Irvine already punished the Muslim Student Association for violating university policy, but the district attorney believes that legal action is also necessary. Evidence has emerged indicating that the MSA had established a premeditated plan to disrupt the speech, and members were allegedly instructed to deny the coordination if questioned.

(From Standwithus: Demonstrators for "Free Speech"
 Gather to Deny Free Speech to Others -Yosef)


Similar free-speech violations happen regularly at universities across the country, and they are rarely, if ever, prosecuted. Left-wing student groups often attempt to shout down speakers they disagree with, and they do so knowing that they probably won’t have to deal with any consequences.

But the Orange County district attorney has made it clear that these acts won’t be tolerated any longer.

“We must decide whether we are a country of laws or a country of anarchy,” said Rackauckas in a statement. “We cannot tolerate a pre-planned violation of the law, even if the crime takes place on a school campus and even if the defendants are college students. In our democratic society, we cannot tolerate a deliberate, organized, repetitive and collective effort to significantly disrupt a speaker who hundreds assembled to hear.”

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Time For Israel To Stop Telling Abbas He Doesn't Have To Prove He Is Willing To Make Peace

Daled Amos
05 December '10

In this interview with Eliot Spitzer, Michael Oren gives a great explanation of the Israeli position on why it will not extend the moratorium on the settlements.

Nevertheless, there is one part of Oren's explanation, one which he proudly gives, which I find frustrating. Here is the video, starting at the spot where Oren explains how open-minded Israel is at the negotiating table:



Ambassador Michael Oren practically brags:

We don't say to the Palestinians: listen, you have to prove to us you are willing to do peace. We don't say to them that Hamas is ruling half of the Palestinian people--why don't you get your house in order first before you sit down and negotiate with us. We don't say to them you have to stop naming squares in downtown Ramallah after terrorists--the leading Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat this week wrote a letter praising a Palestiian terrorist who killed an Israeli minister in cold blood and praising him as a great martyr. We don't say you have to stop all that or we won't talk to you.

The obvious question is: why not?

The result of Israel's 'righteousness' in making no preconditions is that Abbas gets a free ride while he wipes up the floor with Israel.

(Read full post)

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The Confused Special Envoy on Anti-Semitism

Gregg Rickman
The Cutting Edge
05 July '10

Cutting Edge human rights analyst Gregg J. Rickman served as the first U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism from 2006–2009.

Last December, the Obama Administration's Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat anti-Semitism Hannah Rosenthal attacked Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren for not toeing the J-Street line regarding his own country thereby taking J-Street's soft approach to terrorism against Israel. In March, in London at the Community Security Trust Dinner, while ostensibly discussing her work on anti-Semitism, she called for more effort in the fight against Islamaphobia. And most recently, in Kazakhstan at a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), she again called for increased work to fight the problem. I am confused. Is she the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism or Islamaphobia?

In Kazakhstan for the OSCE's Conference on Intolerance, our envoy Hannah Rosenthal said the following, according to JTA, “In the OSCE region, for example, the free practice of Islam is severely constrained in different ways—from overt prejudices to non-support for structures that allow religious observance. In some participating States, Muslim communities have great difficulty operating mosques not controlled or sanctioned by the state, sometimes resulting in problematic penalties for this activity. In some states, in fact, one can't even build a mosque. In some states, registration systems often disproportionately burden small Muslim religious communities, and some countries' legal systems ban personal religious expression—restrictions which inevitably limit freedoms we all hold dear.”

In a compliment to Rosenthal's speech, Farah Pandith, the State Deparment's talented emissary to Muslim communities delivered the speech Rosenthal should have. Again according to JTA, Pandith said, “In addition to an increased number of violent attacks against Jews and synagogues in Europe and elsewhere, 2009 saw growing incidents of harassment of Jewish children in their schools; desecration of Jewish institutions; and increasingly violent and virulent rhetoric in graffiti, as well as in various media. In recent weeks, we have seen legitimate criticism of Israeli government policies cross the line into anti-Semitism. Natan Sharansky teaches us that anti-Israel sentiment crosses the line into anti-Semitism if Israel is demonized, delegitimized or held to a different standard than any other country.”

(Read full article)

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Israels Ambassador to D.C. undermines credibility - repeats decades old lie about Pollard operation in WTOP interview

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
21 June '10

Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA

(Update: Netanyahu: Pollard acted as Israel agent
By GIL HOFFMAN The Jerusalem Post 06/22/2010 22:01
www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=179209

Michael Oren claims Pollard didn't act as Israeli agent.

Jonathan Pollard acted as an agent of the State of Israel, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Tuesday, in reaction to a comment from Israeli ambassador to Washington Michael Oren that was interpreted as suggesting otherwise.

Pollard is in the 25th year of a life sentence for passing classified information to an ally. While Israeli governments initially made a point of distancing themselves from Pollard, in Netanyahu's first term, the government formally recognized him as an Israeli agent in May 1998.

Oren appeared to backtrack from this in an interview with Washington radio station WTOP that was interpreted by American and Israeli media as suggesting that Pollard was merely part of a rogue operation.

"Jonathan Pollard occurred in the mid-1980's" Oren told the station. "Now, we're talking about an event that was run by a rogue organization in the Israeli intelligence community. That was, what, 25 years ago?"

Following reports about Oren's interview on Army Radio, both Netanyahu and Oren issued clarifications. "Pollard worked as an agent of the State of Israel, and no one is trying to deny this" Netanyahu said in closed conversations.)

In a stunning move, Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren told the Washington radio station WTOP, that the spy operation involving Jonathan Pollard was "rogue organization in the Israeli intelligence community" - a variant of the very same lie (that it was a "rogue" operation) that infuriated America 25 years ago when Israel first made it. A lie that has long ago been dropped as Israel officially acknowledged that Pollard was an Israeli agent.

The move by Oren - allowing himself to be caught on a lie - with the bizarre situation that he said it when clearly he should be aware that his audience knows he isnot telling the truth - undermines the credibility of Israel's point man in Washington.

To make matters worse, Oren made the remark within the context of assuring that Israel is not spying on America today.

How can Ambassador Oren do damage control? He can issue an apology and correction, explaining that the correction is in the wake of a briefing he has just received - thus explaining his previous claim as reflecting a lack of information on his part rather than any intention to deceive.

Israeli spy in U.S. part of 'rogue operation'
June 21, 2010 - 9:14am

Jonathan Pollard, once thought to have been an Israeli spy, may have been part of a rogue operation. (AP) J.J. Green, wtop.com

WASHINGTON - Twenty-five years after his arrest, the truth about for whom Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard was working is still in doubt.

The former civilian intelligence analyst, sentenced to life in prison on charges of spying on the U.S. in 1987, was allegedly not working for official Israeli intelligence, as previously thought.

(Read full article)

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If This is Our Future

Daniel Gordis
danielgordis.org
07 May '10
Posted before Shabbat

Imagine this, if you can. A prestigious university in the United States, with deep roots in the American Jewish community, invites Israel’s ambassador to deliver its annual commencement address. But instead of expressing pride in the choice of speaker and in the country that he represents, the university’s students, many of them Jewish, protest. They don’t want to hear from the ambassador. (See this Facebook page.) He’s a “divisive” figure, the student newspaper argues, and the students deserved better.

Tragically, of course, there’s nothing hypothetical about the scenario. Brandeis University recently decided to award honorary degrees to Michael Oren, Dennis Ross and Paul Simon, among others, at its May 23 commencement, and Ambassador Oren, an extraordinary orator among his many other qualities, was invited to deliver the commencement address.

But the days in which Jewish students on an American campus would have been thrilled to have the Israeli ambassador honored by their school are apparently long since gone. Brandeis’s student newspaper, The Justice (how’s that for irony?), deplored the choice, writing that “Mr. Oren is a divisive and inappropriate choice for keynote speaker at commencement, and we disapprove of the university’s decision to grant someone of his polarity on this campus that honor.”

The ambassador is a polarizing figure? Why is that? Because, the editorial continues, “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a hotly contested political issue, one that inspires students with serious positions on the topic to fervently defend and promote their views.”

This is where we are today. For many young American Jews, the only association they have with Israel is the conflict with the Palestinians. Israel is the country that oppresses Palestinians, and nothing more.

No longer is Israel the country that managed to forge a future for the Jewish people when it was left in tatters after the Holocaust. Israel is not, in their minds, the country that gave refuge to hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled from North Africa when they had nowhere else to go, granting them all citizenship, in a policy dramatically different from the cynical decisions of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan to turn their Palestinian refugees into pawns in what they (correctly) assumed would be a lengthy battle with Israel.

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Convenient moral blindness

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
05 May '10

Moral blindness in the face of evil is depravity. But in the upside-down moral universe of our world today, moral blindness has become a badge of honor. If you refuse to call evil by its name, then you are a moderate. And if you stand up to evil, you are yourself an extremist.

The embrace of moral blindness as an emblem of sophistication is nowhere more apparent than among American Jews. Take recent events on US college campuses. This week the Washington Times reported that a large and vocal group of Brandeis University students are organizing to protest the university's decision to invite Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren to give this year's commencement address.

In a Facebook initiative led by a student named Jonathan Sussman, several hundred students have joined the demand to disinvite Oren. Sussman claims that by inviting him, Brandeis is siding with "a rogue state apologist, a defender of (among other things) the war crimes and human rights abuses of the war on Gaza."

Sussman gained notoriety earlier this year when he sought to organize students to disrupt former UN ambassador Dore Gold in a debate the university hosted between Gold and Richard Goldstone. Sussman, a self-proclaimed Communist is a member of the anti-American Students for Democratic Society.

For their part, pro-Israel students have defended the administration's decision to invite Oren on technical grounds. In a dedicated Facebook page, Brandeis student Nathan Mizrachi wrote that protesting Oren is a "waste of time." While allowing that Oren is controversial, Mizrachi argued against protesting his speech by claiming, "anyone who is consistently contributing to our worldview in a dignified, widely respected manner - instead of idiots like Michael Moore or Fox News - is someone who merits our attention."

Mizrachi couldn't bring himself to argue that Brandeis was right to invite Oren. He couldn't be bothered to note that everything Sussman wrote is a lie. The most ringing endorsement of Oren's appearance that Mizrachi could muster in response to Sussman's latest attack was to say that it was a waste of time to protest his appearance and that it "would truly be a disgrace to our university," if protesters were to shout Oren down at commencement.

No offense to Mizrachi but his Facebook counteroffensive is not exactly what most people would call a particularly heroic defense of Oren, Brandeis or Israel.

(Read full article)

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Jews Not Wanted on Campus If They Support Israel—Not Even at Brandeis

Phyllis Chesler
Chesler Chronicles
03 May '10

The world is watching. Will Brandeis turn out to be another version of the University of California at Irvine, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco, or will it continue to model individual achievement over mob rule? Will it defend genuine free and academic speech?

Michael B. Oren, the distinguished historian and author of Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East and Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present, the co-editor of New Essays on Zionism, and Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, has been invited to deliver the keynote address at Brandeis’s 2010 commencement exercises.

It is shocking but not surprising that a number of Brandeis students and faculty have denounced this choice while others applaud it. The denouncers claim that Ambassador Oren will be “political,” and as such “divisive” and “polarizing.” According to long-time activist and professor Gordon Fellman, “His role obligates him to defend Israeli policies. … [T]hat includes defending the Israeli incursion into Gaza, housing policies of the occupation, and so on. I think for many people that’s a third rail. Why mess up a commencement with a third rail?”

I dunno. In 2006, Jordan’s Prince Hassan bin Talal delivered the keynote address at graduation. Students did not protest Jordan’s human rights record vis a vis the Palestinians both in 1970 and in 2010, or in terms of torturing its own citizens, nor its abysmal record on honor-related violence, including honor killings. Indeed, no one held Jordan accountable for its systematic past desecration of Jewish holy places and for its evacuation of Jews from the Jewish quarter in 1948. A prince who represents a country and a regime that behaves in this way is as “political” as Oren could ever be. The only difference is that one man is an Arab, Muslim prince, while the other is an intellectual Jew and an American-Israeli. Students did not create online petitions to debate the merits of choosing Jordan’s prince as a speaker.

The Justice, Brandeis’s student newspaper, has published a range of views on Ambassador Oren. In a roundup of opinion, Jackie Saffir, senator for the class of 2010, is quoted as having said she was “disappointed” (even before she heard what Oren might have to say), that his “perspective is not a fresh one….worse, allowing him to speak might actually give people the idea that Brandeis is a Jewish school.”

Imagine the shame of that!

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Oren Explains, We Translate

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
18 March '10

Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren writes in the New York Times to cool temperatures and to remind the Obama administration of where we stand. His language is diplomatic; his message, blunt. We’ll attempt to translate.

First, the explanation as to what occurred:

[A] mid-level official in the Interior Ministry announced an interim planning phase in the expansion of Ramat Shlomo, a northern Jerusalem neighborhood. While this discord was unfortunate, it was not a historic low point in United States-Israel relations; nor did I ever say that it was, contrary to some reports.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had no desire during a vice presidential visit to highlight longstanding differences between the United States and Israel on building on the other side of the 1949 armistice line that once divided Jerusalem. The prime minister repeatedly apologized for the timing of the announcement and pledged to prevent such embarrassing incidents from recurring. In reply, the Obama administration asked Israel to reaffirm its commitment to the peace process and to its bilateral relations with the United States. Israel is dedicated to both.

Undiplomatic translation: I’m not bringing up, as many news outlets reported, that Hillary Clinton is demanding a reversal of the housing announcement and some other, unnamed concessions. Because that’s not going to happen.

Then Oren sets out to put the dispute in context and disabuse Obama and other feckless lawmakers and analysts of the notion that the recent move was extraordinary. “That [Jerusalem] policy is not Mr. Netanyahu’s alone but was also that of former Prime Ministers Ehud Barak, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Golda Meir — in fact of every Israeli government going back to the city’s reunification in 1967. Consistently, Israel has held that Jerusalem should remain its undivided capital and that both Jews and Arabs have the right to build anywhere in the city.”

Undiplomatic translation: This is not unknown to the Obami, of course. They may be dim, but someone there knows this was nothing out of the ordinary and in keeping with Israeli policy and conduct for decades.

(Read full post)
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