The ‘peace agenda’ of Israel’s media - by Yisrael Medad and Eli Pollak

...The evening television news round-up programs of the three major channels also devoted time to the flotilla effort, even, on Channel One, bringing us a short clip of Al-Jazeera’s report as “news.” However, no independent reporting was presented. Who are these women? What is their political background? Who is funding them? Their being “pro-peace” was enough to earn them friendly, non-informative coverage. There is no real mystery here.

Yisrael Medad/Eli Pollak..
Media Comment/JPost Opinion..
12 October '16..
Link: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Media-Comment-The-peace-agenda-of-Israels-media-469961

On Wednesday morning, last week, the day after Rosh Hashana, Aryeh Golan, anchor of Kol Yisrael radio’s morning news digest, opened the 8 a.m. broadcast with several minutes devoted to the Gaza flotilla and a march by a new NGO, Women Wage Peace.

The flotilla was an effort by 13 women. The march was supposedly by 2,000 women or, according to Haaretz, “roughly 2,000 women.” Golan awarded precious air time to a fairly insignificant number of people involved in political activity aimed at “achieving peace” or “furthering peace” or “contributing to peace.” Such phrases are favorites of a core group of media personalities who, as editors, directors, interviewers and commentators do not know how to or do not want to distinguish between their personal ideological outlook and their professional duties.

According to a news report, the march was to start from the Lebanese border at Rosh Hanikra and end in Jerusalem. Its aim was “pressuring the nation’s leaders to resume peace talks with the Palestinians.”

During each day of an expected two-week march there would be “5-10 kilometer walks.” Since the distance between those two locations is over 180 kilometers, it would seem that the marchers expected to enjoy the well-known Hassidic “contraction of the way.” Of course, the group’s self-description is “a non-partisan organization.”

Golan generously allowed the spokeswoman more than an uninterrupted minute to literally read out her group’s statement, but never asked her at that point, or informed his listening audience, just who this group was. Even the simple, but crucial element of who funds it was absent. A quick online search revealed these two charities: The Middle East Peace Dialogue Network and Ameinu – both radical and progressive entities.

At a March 5, 2015, demonstration by the group, the foreign press was informed, as Delphine Matthieussent of APF reported, that “Women Wage Peace has condemned the ‘militarization of society’ in Israel.” That is quite a different message than seeking peace, placing the group under the heading of “extremist.” That is, if Israel’s media could ever apply that adjective to any activist group other than those on the Right.

The evening television news round-up programs of the three major channels also devoted time to the flotilla effort, even, on Channel One, bringing us a short clip of Al-Jazeera’s report as “news.” However, no independent reporting was presented. Who are these women? What is their political background? Who is funding them? Their being “pro-peace” was enough to earn them friendly, non-informative coverage.

There is no real mystery here.

In Israel, when the ‘fringe’ becomes mainstream

In Israel, the problem is not in the “fringe” but the mainstream. Here is a recent example of how those who possess a radio microphone or who stare at you from the television screen control and slant the news we receive.

Yisrael Medad/Eli Pollak..
Media Comment/JPost..
08 June '16..
Link: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Media-Comment-When-the-fringe-becomes-mainstream-456282

Paul Farhi, the Washington Post’s media reporter, wrote two months back about “a kind of self-reinforcing information loop” that affects the media. He sees this as a problem found in the “fringe,” which is “the murky swamp of rightwing, libertarian and flat-out paranoid sources” of the social media’s “alternative information ecosystem.”

In Israel, the problem is not in the “fringe” but the mainstream.

Here is a recent example of how those who possess a radio microphone or who stare at you from the television screen control and slant the news we receive.

On the morning of May 26, Kol Yisrael’s veteran news anchor Aryeh Golan referred almost a half-dozen times in three different items and interviews to what he claimed was the US State Department’s opinion on the result of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s negotiations to form a new government, which was that it was “the most right-wing coalition in Israel’s history.”

Golan is surely aware of the makeup of Yitzhak Shamir’s government, Israel’s 24th, from June 1990 to July 1992.

It included the Likud, the National Religious Party, Shas and Techiya. And when Techiya bolted, Tzomet and Moledet filled in. But more importantly, he misquoted the State Department spokesman. What Mark Toner actually said was, “We’ve also seen reports from Israel describing it as the most right-wing coalition in Israel’s history.” Golan first misquoted his source, then, based on that, asked the politicians he was interviewing for their opinion. Their statements then provided further headlines.

Golan seems to be a good student of strategic communication adviser Ben Rhodes, who did the same for the White House, pushing the Iran Nuclear deal. Golan impugned Israel’s government without any factual base.

This is a corollary of what we termed the “media boomerang effect” in our December 21, 2011 column, where we related to local media figures who exploit their connections with the foreign press to impact Israeli society.

Golan, we presume, was convinced no one had actually read or listened to Toner’s statement and felt free to “interpret” it to suit his own personal world view.

This was a prime example of a media “misquotation maneuver.” The main difference between this and the phenomenon Farhi spoke of is that Golan is not a “fringe” character but firmly in the mainstream of Israel’s media.

As is Roni Daniel.

Guess what? No one has a monopoly on values - by Boaz Bismuth

...The media must always remember that here, the people are sovereign. We should remember that the chosen people (I suppose that this makes me a condescending fascist) is also the people that chooses, and its vote counts for more than ratings.

Boaz Bismuth..
Israel Hayom..
22 May '16..

No one has a monopoly on values, including the Left and the media. Nearly 40 years ago, in May 1977, the media witnessed the victory of Menachem Begin's Likud, the fulfillment of what was for it an apocalyptic prophecy. Almost 40 years have passed, the Likud is still in power (and an "unimportant" peace deal was signed with Egypt on the way), and the media still doesn't understand how the people can choose differently. Since the media is never wrong, it takes care to create an imaginary reality for us in which the citizens of Israel are dying of hunger in the streets, the survivors are fascist occupiers, and those who believe in the sanctity of the land of Israel are messianic or right-wing extremists. There is no other option.

After claiming a monopoly on values (just like the Left, and sometimes part of the Right), the media consistently tries to bring the latest person to leave the Likud into its ranks. In the past, it was Roni Milo, Ariel Sharon (both before the disengagement from Gaza and after it), and Gideon Sa'ar, and now outgoing Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon. Things must be really dreary on the Left if the media needs to pick on the Right time after time.

The desire to present current events (the Hebron shooting of an immobilized Palestinian, the speech by the deputy IDF chief) as watershed events in the history of relations between the military and the state is factually incorrect. Unpleasant to say, it's even nonsense. We've known much harder periods in terms of the military's relations with the country as a whole -- after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, for example, or the disengagement in 2005 -- but memories are short.

Do you remember that war more than four decades ago, in which 2,600 soldiers were killed due to a serious intelligence failure? Back then, people really did leave the country. They didn't just threaten to, they simply left. "A fallout of weakings," the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin called them. The schism was immense. The darkest scenario had come to pass: Society lost faith in the army. Is that the situation today?

Today, they are trying to create a new reality, like in 1973 after the war, but the opposite -- the upper military echelon has lost faith in the people. Yes, you read that correctly. The Middle East is so quiet that those in uniform have free time for a new pedagogical role -- handing out grades to society. The media, of course, welcomes it, because this conduct fits in with its own agenda.

Let's suppose for a minute that the Left was in power, and senior officers were to take matters of value and morality into their own hands, but in the other direction: to the right. Would the media embrace them in that case, too?

In the reality in which we live, a senior officer (major general) who compares processes taking place here to the Germans in the 1930s is a man of values, but an officer who invites his soldiers to pray before an action in Gaza? That's darker, even reminiscent of Iran. It's a shame that Albert Einstein isn't here to test the theory of moral relativism in our country. Perhaps we should recall Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's command prior to the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, when he called on all Allied soldiers to "beseech the blessing of Almighty God" before the operation?

The Rabin Finger-Pointing Fest by Sarah Honig

...Rabin’s yahrzeit is a stipulated fixture of this time of year but it increasingly necessitates intensive hype to resuscitate waning public interest. Inevitably our prescheduled fall polemics are kicked off with Yom Kippur War flagellations and end with Rabin’s Memorial Day faultfinding. No season is as crowded in terms of politically-loaded dates as is the Israeli autumn. And for good measure it’s all staged in duplicates – both according to the Hebrew and Gregorian timetables.

Rabin in the Knesset (c. 1976)- He
was hardly the dove that leftist
historiographers posthumously portray
for propaganda purposes.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
21 October '15..

We had recently been informed in rather dramatic headlines that during his first stint as prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin had denigrated settlement movement ideologues “a cancer.” No less.

This supposedly startling revelation came from a hitherto never-broadcast 1976 interview granted by Rabin to an unnamed Channel 2 reporter. The segment features in a documentary Rabin: in his own words, which was aired at the Haifa Film Festival. There – how unsurprisingly – it was crowned best in its category.

Presumably Rabin’s antiquated aspersion should have sent us all dutifully reeling with shock.

But it isn’t as if Rabin’s vocabulary choices were ever restrained. After all, post-Oslo he denounced those who disagreed with him as “Hamas collaborators.” For all he cares, he hectored abrasively back in the day, his critics can spin like propellers. That, Rabin proclaimed in his far-from-minced words, was the only outcome which undesirable sorts could conceivably expect of democratic dissent.

Incongruously, though, Rabin’s mid-Seventies government actively aided and expanded settlements. It even initiated the establishment of some, most notably those in Gush Katif at Gaza’s gates. What was odious in Rabin’s eyes weren’t settlements per se but organizations like Gush Emunim, in which he detected stirrings of political opposition to himself. He, in fact, directly singles Gush Emunim out for excoriation in the unaccountably sensationalized interview.

Its reveal-date was hardly inadvertent. The aim was that it would coincide with the 20th anniversary of Rabin’s assassination and spark renewed controversy, recriminations and those abusive accusations that pass in our milieu for coherent civilized debate.

Rabin’s yahrzeit is a stipulated fixture of this time of year but it increasingly necessitates intensive hype to resuscitate waning public interest.

Inevitably our prescheduled fall polemics are kicked off with Yom Kippur War flagellations and end with Rabin’s Memorial Day faultfinding. No season is as crowded in terms of politically-loaded dates as is the Israeli autumn. And for good measure it’s all staged in duplicates – both according to the Hebrew and Gregorian timetables.

It’s not hard to predict which anniversaries will get played up to the hilt by our professedly objective media. It’s likewise obvious which milestones in our collective annals will be shoved ever deeper into dark oblivion by the same sect of snooty spinmeisters who presume to parade as impartial news-purveyors.

The one common denominator is a devil-may-care attitude to the truth. The self-issued license to skew is resorted to both regarding what’s tendentiously amplified or what’s tendentiously repressed. Annually the same supercilious clique decrees how we ought to remember what or what we need to put entirely out of our minds.

The bestial lynching of two Israeli reservists in Ramallah 15 years ago and the terrorist execution of government minister Rehav’am Ze’evi 14 years ago don’t feature among the omniscients’ commemoration priorities.

Dates they ballyhoo will be given reverberating promotion and just as surely the dismal birthday of the Oslo folly will get no mention. Indeed, dwelling on the latter is deemed heresy by our infallible high priests of political correctness.

Israel’s democratic crisis by Caroline Glick

...Israel faces a daunting threat environment. The good news is that we have the tools to handle the threats we face. The bad news is that so long as unelected officials in and out of government are able to subvert governing authority, these tools will never be used.

Caroline Glick..
Column One/JPost..
24 September '15..

On Wednesday night Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu touched on the most critical threat to Israeli democracy. Following Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan’s announcement that he was canceling Brig.-Gen. (res.) Gal Hirsch’s appointment as inspector-general of the police due to Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein’s refusal to approve it in a timely manner, Netanyahu said, “Our appointments process is harsh, prolonged, harmful, and without a doubt worthy of review.”

The power to appoint is the power to govern.

Without the power to appoint public servants, governments cannot develop patronage networks.

Although patronage has developed a bad reputation, all it really amounts to is the ability to ensure that officials appointed by a government are loyal to the government and as a result can be depended on to faithfully execute the policies of the government.

When appointments are controlled by unelected forces, elected officials cannot trust that public servants will implement their policies. Indeed, it is almost a given that they won’t.

In recent weeks various unelected forces have conspired to scuttle two senior governmental appointments.

In the first case, retired far-left Foreign Ministry officials sabotaged the government’s appointment of Dani Dayan to serve as ambassador to Brazil.

Alon Liel, a former director-general of the Foreign Ministry, and former ambassadors Ilan Baruch and Eli Bar Navi met with the Brazilian ambassadors to Israel and the Palestinian Authority and petitioned the Brazilian government to reject Dayan’s appointment.

Like the government that appointed him, Dayan does not support these former officials’ goal of surrendering full control over eastern, southern and northern Jerusalem, and Judea and Samaria. His position made him a target for Liel and his colleagues.

In an interview with Army Radio on Monday, Liel bragged that he’s been working for years to undermine the government’s ability to determine Israel’s foreign policy. Liel explained that as he and his friends see things, since the public doesn’t agree with them, Israeli democracy is illegitimate, and it is therefore legitimate for them to subvert it.

In his words, “I don’t expect my camp to control the government. If I thought my camp could win an election I would work within the Israeli system. My ideology won’t be able to win an election for the foreseeable future.”

So far their initiative has been a raving success.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff informed Netanyahu that she opposes Dayan’s appointment. If Netanyahu and the government insist on sending him to Brazil, they risk harming Israel’s bilateral relations with that key South American country.

And if Dayan is sent to Brazil now, he will likely be treated as persona non grata from the moment he lands in Brasilia.

For all their destructive power, Liel and his associates are small potatoes when compared to the legal fraternity.

With Hirsch’s scalp hanging from his wall, Attorney- General Yehuda Weinstein can take pride in the fact that he has blocked the government’s appointments to Israel’s two most powerful national security posts. In 2011 he forced the government to cancel Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant’s appointment to serve as IDF chief of General Staff.

Back then, Weinstein forced the government to cancel Galant’s appointment by refusing to defend it before the High Court of Justice when it was challenged by an environmental group. At the time, Weinstein acknowledged that there was no legal basis for his position, but he held it all the same, due to his (legally irrelevant) “ethical” concerns.

By forcing the government to abandon Galant – and now Hirsch – Weinstein has done more than simply undermine government authority.

He has sent the clear message to Israel’s security brass that they needn’t be beholden to the lawful orders they receive from the government. His is the only opinion that matters. He is their lord and master.

Not only is this a perversion of democratic norms, it is corrupt.

The World of Haaretz Headlines, From Rock-Throwing 'Incidents' to Water-Pouring 'Attacks'

...Why is dumping water on someone's head, an act which did not cause any bodily harm, described as an "attack," but the hurling of rocks at a vehicle, which left a little girl permanently, seriously disabled labeled an "incident"?

Tamar Sternthal..
CAMERA Snapshots..
03 March '15..

When a Haaretz English edition page-one headline last month referred to the rock-throwing attack which left a toddler permanently, gravely disabled as a "stone-throwing incident," Jerusalem Post Op-Ed editor Seth Frantzman tweeted:

The online headline for the same article was: "Toddler dies two years after stone-throwing incident left her critically injured." (Only the subheadline online refers to the "attack which also left her mother and two sisters wounded." Emphasis added.)

The article itself also adopts the term "incident" to describe the attack which left Adele Biton permanently wounded and which apparently led to her death. It began: "Adele Biton, the 4-year-old who was critically injured in a stone-throwing incident . . ."

Frantzman's criticism is particularly relevant again in light of the front-page headline in Haaretz's English edition today about an event yesterday in which right-wing protesters dumped a cup of water on the head of MK Haneen Zoabi. The headline is: "MK Haneen Zoabi attacked by right-wingers at political panel." (Emphasis added.)

And the Winner of 'The Most Miserable People in Israel Are....

...The amount of self-loathing shown here is off the charts. But at Haaretz, this is pretty much par for the course. To be fair, the writers for +972 Magazine are just as filled with self-hate as those at Haaretz.

Elder of Ziyon..
Algemeiner.com..
18 February '15..

A poll in 2013 showed that Israelis were the 11th happiest people in the world.

Another survey in 2014 showed that among the 10 countries with advanced economies polled, Israel ranked second in satisfaction with how things were going.

Yet another survey last August showed that 86% of Israelis were satisfied (or very satisfied) with their lives.

But not 100%.

There are some Israelis, a tiny minority, who are miserable, and they spend every waking hour telling the world how awful things are.

Arabs? Mizrahi Jews? Haredim? No, no, and no – their happiness numbers are all better than world averages.

(Continue) 

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 as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
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Israeli Media, the Met and the Murder of Leon Klinghoffer

...Attempts to rewrite history are ubiquitous, but here arguably the most important opera house in the world is participating in this anti-Semitic distortion...At the end of the day, though, perhaps we should thank the Met. Its actions serve as another warning bell to all as to what we should be doing to defend our country and our people.

Eli Pollak/Yisrael Medad..
Media Comment/JPost..
25 June '14..

On May 30, 2014, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA), informed us of a rather disturbing story – disturbing, that is, for anyone who worries about the resurrection of blatant anti-Semitism.

It was based on an open letter published on the JNS website written by Myron Kaplan, a CAMERA senior research analyst.

The Achille Lauro, a Greek cruise ship, was hijacked on October 7, 1985, by terrorists, members of the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Reem al-Nimer, widow of PLF leader Muhammed Zaidan, testified in 2013 that the hijacking was planned 11 months in advance. The goal was to hijack the ship, run it to Ashdod port and then kill Israelis.

Surprised by a crew member, the terrorists were forced to alter their plans. They then set out for Syria, demanding the release of 50 Arab terrorists held in Israeli prisons in exchange for the hostages held on the Achille Lauro. The Syrians did not allow them to take refuge in the Syrian harbor in Tartus. The hijackers then murdered an American citizen: wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer.

He was shot twice and the ship’s crew were forced to throw the body and the wheelchair overboard.

The PLO’s Faruq Qadummi denied responsibility and claimed that Klinghoffer’s widow, Marilyn, killed her husband in order to collect life insurance payments. It took over 10 years until Muhammad Zaidan, who eventually died in 2003 in American custody, finally admitted responsibility and the PLO reached a financial settlement with the family.

But this is only the background to our “story.”

In 1991, the librettist Alice Goodman, together with musician John Adams, created an opera titled The Death of Klinghoffer. It was backed by theater director Peter Sellars and choreographer Mark Morris. One of its five commissioners was the Brooklyn Academy of Music. John Rockwell, in a special report to The New York Times on March 21, 1991, gave it a rather positive review, predicting that the opera might reach greatness.

Indeed, the opera has finally reached the world scene. The New York Metropolitan Opera decided to present it to the public, not only as an opera at the Met but also to simulcast it in high definition to over 2,000 locations in 66 countries, all over the world.

So, what is so disturbing? The title of the Opera already says it all – the “death” of Klinghoffer. He did not “die,” he was murdered in cold blood. Adams’ libretto portrays the terrorists in a positive light, as idealistic freedom fighters. The opera includes blatant anti-Semitic statements as detailed by the Zionist Organization of America on its website.

It is an inglorious attempt to rewrite history, portraying the “bad guys” as the “good guys.”

The World According to Shimon Shiffer and Others

...Only at Yedioth Ahronoth and Haaretz is Israel considered a foreign country in its own homeland -- the cradle of Jewish people. But if only "for the sake of fairness," at least read the data.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
05 March '14..

He doesn't understand. How did Obama embrace Netanyahu? Why, we were promised a cold shower and contempt in the interview with Jeffrey Goldberg. I am talking about Shimon Shiffer, the tireless analyst of Yedioth Ahronoth, the paper that once had a country. The only explanation he had for the hug was that Obama was "troubled by the situation in Ukraine" and so "left Netanyahu alone." What a shame. Shiffer is not alone. Zehava Gal-On, head of the Meretz party, released a statement complaining about the applause Netanyahu received at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference. It's not enough they didn't crucify the prime minister, they even applauded him. They've gone mad.

This was not enough for Shiffer. In his column, he strengthened the Palestinian (and left-wing) narrative: Whatever happens, Israel is to blame for the absence of peace. It doesn’t matter that for 100 years we have been ready for a compromise or that over the last 20 years we have agreed to measures that any rational examination would see as a recipe for political and security suicide. And still, Shiffer's favorite moderate, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, fled in horror from agreements, even the most reckless of them, presented by former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Just this week Gal-On heard those same songs of defiance in Ramallah. So what?

Because why isn’t there peace? Why has Abbas refused for 20 years to concede anything for the sake of his people? Here is Shiffer: "At the same time, the Central Bureau of Statistics released data that showed an increase in construction in the territory of the future Palestinian state." And therefore "so long as this is the situation, it is comprehensible why Abu Mazen [Abbas] and his people refuse to join the dancing." And his conclusion: "As long as there is there is no leader in Israel who can threaten the stability of Netanyahu's seat," there is doubt the two-state solution will ever happen. And this is the disgraceful reason of the paper's existence, a paper dedicated to one purpose: to wage war against the global threat named Benjamin Netanyahu.

But that already happened, Shiffer. Your beloved Olmert, who is currently spending time in the courts offered Abbas everything, and nothing changed. The only thing the left wing can do -- if it ascends to power -- is a unilateral withdrawal. Like in Gaza. God forbid.

It is worth noting the storyline Shiffer uses to rationalize the Palestinian defiance and which is hashed out in the media: The jump in construction in Judea and Samaria by 123 percent in 2013, compared to the rate in other areas in country. Had the certified analyst peaked at the charts provided by the CBS, he would have discovered the bluff.

Life is Triumph, not Death - Choose Life

“I would like to ask Channel 2 to create a sequel to their show on the heroes who choose life; an op-ed film on the triumph of living one more day to its fullest; on those people who do not surrender to death,” I said in the Knesset... The Channel 2 film did not even consider the possibility that the real heroism - the true triumph - is the choice of life over death. I doubt that they will listen to me; that they will find a few of the tens of thousands of these true heroes in our midst and will tell their story. After all, the choice to live is the proper and natural choice – but it is boring. Who cares about these heroes? How much rating will their stories produce?

MK Moshe Feiglin..
Manhigut Yehudit..
8 Tevet, 5774/11 December '13..





Translated from the Makor Rishon newspaper

“Thank you,” an anonymous friend wrote me on Facebook. “Today I received another notification, for the umpteenth time, that I must once again receive chemotherapy. I have no more strength and I really needed your speech.”

Since I posted my Knesset speech on choosing life over assisted suicide, I have received many similar responses.

Tuesday night was an “all-nighter” at the Knesset. Deliberations on the Infiltrators Law wore on well past midnight. So my wife, Tzippy, watched the popular television show “Uvdah” by herself. Wednesday morning, Tzippy called me, extremely upset. “How could it be that Channel 2 presents a Parkinson’s patient who chose to end his life as a hero, a victor?”

It’s been over ten years since Parkinson’s moved into our home. Tzippy’s first symptoms appeared when she was in her mid-thirties. For years, we ran from doctor to doctor, unsuccessfully trying to figure out what was wrong. Parkinson’s? Who even considers Parkinson’s at such a young age?

I don’t know anybody more heroic than my wife. For her, every day is a battle for life and its meaning. It is very difficult for her to walk – but she runs to cook for lone soldiers in Ra’anana, to arrange for neighbors to visit with the local ill who have no one to look after them, lends an empathetic ear to whoever needs to unload an emotional burden and fills her days with endless acts of kindness. She and tens of thousands of others who suffer debilitating disease fight for their lives – and the meaning in their lives – from morning to night, 24/7, all year around. There are no vacations from this cursed disease and others like it.

Along comes Ilana Dayan on Channel 2 and dedicates an entire episode to Mati Milo, z”l, the person who decided to surrender to Parkinson’s and end his life in the only place in the world that has legalized mercy killing – Switzerland. In other words, the rest of the world also understands that humanity cannot officially sanction suicide.

I cannot judge Mati Milo, z”l. Our Sages tell us never to judge a person until we are in his shoes. I do not judge him and I certainly do not wish his circumstances on anybody. I will not interfere in any person’s ethical dilemmas. The problem is not Mati Milo and his decision. The problem is the glorification that Channel 2 lent to his act of desperation.

“Do you not understand that you are encouraging more ill people to commit suicide?” I asked in the Knesset. “Is there no limit to lowly populism? To the drive for rating at any price?”

Provocation at the Wall - An Agenda, But Unclear About Who It Serves

...During the years when Israel was negotiating with the Palestinians and ceding territory unilaterally, the left-wing media had no need for Women of the Wall, and consequently had no interest in it. But for the past few years, not only were there no negotiations or withdrawals, there wasn’t even any public pressure for them: Most Israelis attributed the lack of negotiations to Palestinian intransigence and thought unilaterally withdrawing from the West Bank would simply create another Gaza-style rocket base.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
September '13..

(Excellent! Y.)

In an interview with Haaretz shortly before finishing his term as Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Michael Oren said he had been devoting considerable effort to convincing Israeli leaders that the battle over the attempt by a women’s group to hold prayer services at Jerusalem’s Western Wall “could have strategic implications.” In Israel, Oren explained, the controversy over Women of the Wall “is perceived as a marginal question,” but “Americans see it as an issue of human rights and women’s status and freedom of worship.”

This divergence of views between Jews of the diaspora and Jews in Israel has a simple explanation. Americans see the struggle of Women of the Wall as a crucial battle for human rights and women’s status because they believe both are under threat in Israel. Israelis see the struggle as a marginal issue because they believe neither is under threat. The story of how that perceptual gulf has developed, and how a 25-year-old organization exploited it to catapult itself from relative obscurity to worldwide fame, is indeed a story with “strategic implications.” It’s the story of how Israelis opposed to their countrymen’s choices at the ballot box have sought to generate outside pressure to overturn those choices by creating a false narrative of an Israeli slide into fundamentalism and fascism.

Women of the Wall held its first monthly prayer service at the Wall in 1988. A year later, in response to what it termed “verbal and physical assaults” from Haredi worshipers, WOW petitioned the High Court of Justice to demand recognition of, and police protection for, its right to pray at the Wall in its own fashion—that is, with women wearing prayer shawls and reading the Torah aloud. Religious practice at the Wall is largely controlled by the Haredi-dominated rabbinate, which does not view such practices as legitimate. A 14-year legal battle ensued. The battle ended in 2003 with the court ruling that WOW did have a right to hold services at the Wall, but “such right was not without boundaries” (to quote the summary on WOW’s website). Therefore, its services should be held at Robinson’s Arch, a portion of the Wall adjacent to the Western Wall Plaza (the area where tourists gather). This was designed to avoid friction with the overwhelmingly Orthodox worshipers who pray at the Wall daily.

As time passed, WOW began disregarding that verdict with growing frequency and resumed praying in the plaza. This resulted in periodic arrests for violating the court’s ruling, most of which attracted relatively little attention. Nor was this terribly surprising: In both Orthodox and non-Orthodox communities, men and women prefer to pray together (albeit separated physically in Orthodox practice). Women-only services are a fringe phenomenon everywhere.

But last year, WOW suddenly became front-page news—first in Israeli dailies such as Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post, both of which are widely read abroad via the Internet, and then, as Oren noted in his interview, on the front page of the New York Times. What had changed was that WOW’s struggle now fit neatly into a narrative that began sweeping the Israeli media in mid-2011 and was swiftly picked up overseas: the growing “exclusion of women” from Israel’s public square.

For months, the Israeli media gave front-page headlines to incidents that seemed to back this narrative. A group of Orthodox IDF cadets walked out of an army event because it featured women vocalists; women on bus lines serving Haredi neighborhoods were told to sit at the back of the bus; a public bus company refused to run advertisements featuring pictures of women on Jerusalem buses for fear of Haredi vandalism. Various groups responded by organizing demonstrations against the exclusion of women. Lawmakers submitted bills to make such exclusion a criminal offense. As the sponsor of one such bill, the centrist parliamentarian Nachman Shai, argued, “The Knesset cannot close its eyes and ignore this key issue in Israel of 2012.” President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued public condemnations. “There is no room for the exclusion of any person in the State of Israel—especially not of half of the population,” Netanyahu said. And left-wing pundits insisted this was just one symptom of a broader problem: “Israel is not democratic, nor is it liberal,” as Haaretz columnist Rachel Neeman asserted.

The furor soon spread abroad. Numerous American Jewish groups condemned attempts “to segregate and discriminate against women in public spaces in Israel,” as Hadassah’s statement put it. The mainstream American press chimed in as well: In December 2011, Ruth Marcus wrote a column for the Washington Post titled “In Israel, Women’s Rights Come Under Siege.” A few days later, even then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got into the act, telling a closed session of the Saban Forum in Washington that the exclusion of women from Israel’s public square reminded her of both fundamentalist Iran and the Jim Crow era of the American South.

And the many more Israelis who consider Haaretz an albatross around their necks.

Its professional shortcomings, such as its publisher’s narrow focus and the clique-like character of the editorial staff, have turned Haaretz into an organ injurious to free, open and pluralistic thinking.

Yisrael Medad/Eli Pollak..
Media Comment/JPost..
12 June '13..

It is no secret that the printed media is in financial trouble across the globe; what is referred to as a probable “collapse of daily print journalism.” Newspapers are as much (if not more) an economic enterprise as sacred institutions defending and campaigning for freedom of expression and the public’s right to know. Is there a danger that a lack of money will severely curtail the ability of newspapers to continue to serve as platforms for honest reporting? The dire prophecies that appeared four years ago in The Atlantic magazine’s “End Times” piece by Michael Hirschorn, who wrote that “it’s certainly plausible” that The New York Times could go “out of business,” have proven very wrong. But other journals have fallen, filing for bankruptcy, and others have drastically altered their business models while trimming staff to reduce expenditures. And, of course, there is the “pay wall.”

Even journalists think of money; it’s their livelihood.

Haaretz, which presents itself as providing “extensive and in-depth coverage,” distributed a letter last week from its publisher Amos Schocken, who wrote: “We have maintained our commitment to provide our readers in Israel and abroad with the most relevant and professional news, opinion and analyses. We have enlisted top-notch reporters, editors and writers and have significantly expanded our unique, English-language coverage.... We have continued to serve, we believe, as an indispensable cornerstone of Israeli liberalism and democracy and to stand firm against shortsighted and often dangerous winds of the day.”

We have, in several of our previous columns, noted the dismal record of Haaretz with regard to professional standards of reporting and principles of media ethics. To claim to be providing relevant news, rather than, say, disproportionately highlighting supposed facts that bear on the far-left agenda of Schocken and his crew, is pure chutzpah.

Haaretz is not so much a newspaper as an ideological tract. Its professional shortcomings, such as its publisher’s narrow focus and the clique-like character of the editorial staff, have turned Haaretz into an organ injurious to free, open and pluralistic thinking.

Gideon Levy trumpets his non- Zionism. Amira Haas was quoted saying to The New Yorker “my tribe is leftists, not liberal Zionists.” Regular columnist and Israel Prize laureate Prof. Ze’ev Sternhell in 2001 wrote in Haaretz’s pages “There is no doubt about the legitimacy of [Palestinian] armed resistance”.

The same is true of Haaretz’s former columnist Akiva Eldar, an uncritical propagandist for Peace Now, B’tselem and Yesh Din, the most egregious of pro-Palestinian Israeli NGOs. His pro- Palestinian stance led him into legal entanglements which compelled him to apologize.

Amir Oren’s columns on the military are colored by antipathy. The English-language edition of Haaretz literally misrepresents and corrupts news items appearing in the Hebrew version. If there is any shortsightedness and danger in Israel’s press today, it is in Haaretz.

The poor track record of the doomsayers

Passover is a festival of hope, optimism and freedom. The Israeli public can continue to sleep at night without fear of the doomsayers. Actually, it would sleep better if it did what should be done, namely hold the doomsayers who dominate our media accountable for their unjustified fear-mongering.

Yisrael Medad/Eli Pollak..
Media Comments/JPost..
27 March '13..

One of the outstanding aspects of last week’s visit by President Barack Obama was the demonstration of the depth of our media’s misconception and lack of understanding with regard to the international scene. Let’s review some of our media gurus’ pronouncements prior to the visit with respect to the relationship between the United States and Israel and between Barack Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Amos Harel of Haaretz, back on September 4, 2012, had this to say: “The negative scenario is that Obama resorts to a general, foggy statement about Iran, but remembers to close his account with Netanyahu in response to the happenings of the past few months, right after his election victory (if he is victorious). It is difficult to discount the huge damage incurred to the strategic relations between Israel and the United States resulting from the wave of Israeli pronunciations.”

Barak Ravid, on January 15, 2013, reports that Jeffrey Goldberg, supposedly an Obama administration insider, cites Obama as saying that Netanyahu “does not understand Israel’s interests” and that furthermore, “Netanyahu’s actions will lead Israel towards serious international isolation.” Ravid goes on to remind us that Goldberg’s Bloomberg column is “very similar to Peter Beinart’s recent column which described the White House’s lack of trust in and frustration with Binyamin Netanyahu.”

Ynet’s Washington correspondent Yitzchak Ben-Chorin wrote an article on January 25, 2011, headlined “Obama-Netanyahu relations are worse than ever,” in which he wrote: “The level of personal relationships between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama is tending towards zero... During Thanksgiving, the attitude has changed due to the refusal to continue a building freeze in Judea and Samaria.”

Thomas Friedman, the darling of Israel’s Left, whose political analyses with regard to the Middle East have been more often off the mark than on it, wrote in The New York Times last November 10: “Israeli friends have been asking me whether a re-elected President Obama will take revenge on Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu for the way he and Sheldon Adelson, his foolhardy financier, openly backed Mitt Romney. My answer to Israelis is this: You should be so lucky.”

Not all journalists got it all so wrong. For example, in the aftermath of Obama’s re-election, Tal Shalev, on the Walla website, had a much more sober and realistic description of the Netanyahu-Obama relationship. He correctly predicted President Obama would visit Israel to mend his tarnished image in the eyes of the Israeli public. He noted that Obama is a pragmatist motivated by goals, not personal feelings.

Need irresponsibility, lack of factual information, or unfair ethical biases be tolerated?

Discussion and debate in Israel are robust and free-wheeling, as they should be in a democracy. On the other hand, irresponsibility, lack of factual information or unfair ethical biases practiced by journalists, especially those in our public broadcasting system, need not be tolerated.

Yisrael Medad, Eli Pollak..
Media Comment/JPost..
20 March '13..

Rino Tzror is a much-admired journalist. He has been an editor and has also directed award winning documentary films. He is currently the moderator of the Army Radio station (Galatz) Thursday news show Ma Boer? (What’s Burning?).

Two week ago he dealt with the question of the new bus service for Palestinians who are permitted to enter Israel. The Transportation Ministry claims that to alleviate the problem of Arabs resident in Judea and Samaria who wish to wish to work in Israel having to pay exorbitant prices to taxi drivers or other “transporters,” as well for security reasons, it decided to take action. The assistance was in the form of providing bus service into Israel, for a reduced fee of five to 10 shekels, depending on the destination.

Haim Levinson claimed in Haaretz on March 4 that the true motivation for these bus lines was complaints by Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria against the presence of Palestinians on their buses. The residents were afraid of the security consequences of such mingling. The Transportation Ministry heeded their request, according to Levinson, and created the new bus service. Levinson did note, though, that the new service is a “hit” and that thousands of Palestinians are using it.

Ido Benbaggi, the “territories” correspondent for Galatz, provided the background to Tzror’s program. He interviewed some Palestinians who were upset with the new bus lines.

Benbaggi did not provide any information about Palestinians who were actually thankful for the savings in time and money. In fact, the service, which initially had only 12 weekly buses, was increased by the Transportation Ministry to 40-60 buses per week. The ministry spokesperson claimed that neither Benbaggi nor the editors of the Ma Boer program had requested any ministry response.

Tzror continued the item with a long interview with Prof. Yedidya Stern of the Israel Democracy Institute.

Stern had only very sharp criticism for these new bus lines. Tzror not only did not even attempt to ask tough questions, or act as a “devil’s advocate,” as a professional journalist would, he “helped” Stern by repeatedly referring to the new bus lines as “apartheid lines.”

The highly selective use of "Israeli" and "Racism" together

Hagai Segal..
Middle East and Terrorism..
20 March '13..

During the month of February, 138 terror attacks were recorded throughout Judea and Samaria. The monthly report of the Shabak [Israeli Security Agency] notes 15 bomb explosions, an incident of fire from light firearms, two stabbings, a single incident of a driver targeting and running into a person or persons and 119 petrol bombs. By the way, this impressive list of attacks does not include stone throwing, perhaps because the Shabak was not able to keep tracking this very common phenomenon statistically. Who can keep track of stone throwing in the "territories"? The Israeli media certainly don't. And they don't use the term "racist" or "racism" when describing attacks carried out by Palestinians. Since the establishment of the state, no independent Hebrew radio station or newspaper has reported about a "racist attack" of Jews by Arabs. This blatantly derogatory term is reserved only for attacks of the opposite sort. When an Arab attacks a Jew he attacks for nationalistic reasons; when a Jew attacks an Arab he is first and foremost a racist.

The meticulous verbal distinction between the two situations is intended to stain us all as racists, not just the attackers themselves, and this is part of the ongoing leftist campaign of "look what the occupation has done to us". A few of unrelated incidents of recent attacks, no more than a few, has been getting media attention lately as if it were on the scale of an organized mass attack. The wall-to-wall condemnations of the attacks didn't help, and neither did the cracks that were discovered here and there in the version of those who were attacked. Someone wanted, and succeeded, to create an impression that the State of Israel is experiencing a tremendous wave of racism in the spirit of the famous warnings of Yishayahu Leibowitz, obm.

The Israeli media’s "third intifada"

The bottom line is that Israel’s media set an agenda this past week – “the third intifada.” The most troubling aspect of this “documentary production” is that when it becomes clear that it presents the facts just as accurately as in the Five Broken Cameras and The Gatekeepers, no one in the media will have to pay for their irresponsibility.

Yisrael Medad/Eli Pollak..
Media Comment/JPost..
27 February '13..

To many Israelis, the news coming out of Los Angeles at the beginning of this week that the two nominated Israeli films did not win Oscar awards was received with more than a sigh of relief.

The two Israeli-produced candidates in the Documentary Feature category, the films 5 Broken Cameras and The Gatekeepers are a prime example of how Israel successfully manages to subvert its national ethos and Zionist raison d’être; the two films were funded not only by left-wing sources but also by official state bodies. The question debated, and our local media did reflect it, was how is it that the Israeli candidates for the Oscar/Hollywood professional recognition in recent years all presented a one-sided, less-than-positive view of Israel, its life style and its politics? Or, as one observer noted, “Israel’s domestic films... have long been much more self-critical” than those Hollywood has produced.”

Documentaries are the result of an extended period of filming and creative investment. They are directed, edited and produced and benefit from hindsight.

Funding usually comes from ideological sources, interested in promoting a message. These films are more opinion column than news. Yet they possess the potential to inflict immense damage, since they try to present themselves as “objective” truth. Newspapers, which are published day in and day out, are perceived by the public as having biases. Such bias is much tougher to discern in a one-time “documentary” production. Perhaps it is high time a rating agency for documentaries is created, which would provide the viewer with some indication as to the reliability of the content being presented.

But sometimes agenda-setting by the media is even more damaging. The media can create the material which is the basis for the documentary of tomorrow.

Perhaps the so-called third intifada is a prime example.

Ynet and the power of the media to malign

Calev..
LOTL..
18 February '13


There are times when one is struck by the lowliness of how the media covers events in Israel, Israeli publications included, and today happens to be one of those times.

Whether the following item in today's Ynet is true , half-true, or lacking any credence is irrelevant in terms of the photo used to illustrate this story.

Police suspect 'modesty squad' terrorized Beitar Illit
Two ultra-Orthodox men harass city's female residents for what they claim is unchaste behavior
Eli Senyor
Published:
02.18.13, 14:50 / Israel News

Two ultra-Orthodox men were arrested Monday for allegedly heading a "modesty squad" that terrorized the female residents of Beitar Illit over what they deemed their "immodest behavior."

The two, both in their 30s, are believed to be responsible for what the police called "a reign or terror."

(full article)

For those who are interested in the further details of the story, follow the link above, however a simple question might be in order here. How did they come to choose the following illustrative photo and what would they like the viewer to derive from it? What aspect of the story does the picture below illustrate?

(Illustration Photo: AFP)

I suspect many of you can answer that, but it is indicative of our lowered expectations of media coverage of those groups who enjoy less favor in the eyes of those who have the power to malign. And that they can malign entire groups without any accountability.

If anyone should feel moved to address this, your comments may be directed to:
Ynetnews Editorial Department: news@ynetnews.com or Editor-in-chief, Ynet: editor-in-chief@y-i.co.il

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.

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When an Israeli shares information that could compromise our nation's most sensitive operations

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
14 February '13..





[Dr. Aaron Lerner: While the commentary below relates to Israelis who provide sensitive material to foreign reporters, it should be noted with regard to the oversight role of the Knesset that with the exception of the
Arab parties, the opposition parties are represented in the special Foreign Affairs subcommittee that has essentially complete knowledge of State secrets so that it can perform its oversight function.

Put simply: if an MK from Meretz really wants to get to the bottom of a story within the framework of the oversight role of the Knesset, then the Knesset can indeed get to the very bottom of the story behind closed doors. But it will remain behind closed doors. No photo op. No 20 seconds of glory on the evening news.]

We live in a world with tremendous dangers.

And there are people who put their lives on the line addressing them.

By the same token, failures in the addressing of these dangers can lead to situations that could put hundreds, thousands and even more of us in mortal danger.

As far as I am concerned, an Israeli who shares information that could compromise our nation's most sensitive operations with reporters or simply passes it around the internet is no better than a terrorist.

On second thought, they aren't terrorists, they are traitors.

I don't care how big their egos may be or their ideological motives, when it comes to this kind of information, no one has the right to take the law into their own hands.

And please don't tell me that in the age of internet that there are no secrets as long as two people know.

Protecting Israel's real security interests -- Rudoren and the NY Times notwithstanding.

In Rudoren's weird world -- and one assumes also of the filmmakers -- Gaza withdrawal serves as a model for pulling out from East Jerusalem and the West Bank, not as a cautionary nightmarish reality at Israel's southern doorstep resulting from Ariel Sharon's ill-fated decision to leave Gaza.

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
28 January '13..

Sunday's New York Times carried a lengthy, laudatory piece about an Israeli documentary nominated for an Oscar. It's The Gatekeepers, consisting of interviews with six former Shin Beth internal security chiefs who are squarely at odds with the security policies of their government.

Jodi Rudoren, the Times' Jerusalem bureau chief, calls the film about the former Shin Beth chiefs a "disturbing narrative of their country's occupation of the Palestinian territories since 1967." Which immediately explains why she admires the film, since it assumes, as she seems to, that East Jerusalem, including the Jewish section of the Old City, the Western Wall, and the entire West Bank, are all stolen Palestinian property -- not, mind you, if one were objective, actually "disputed" territory awaiting a negotiated final peace settlement.

The message of the film, Rudoren writes, is that the "occupation is immoral and, perhaps more important, ineffective and that Israel should withdraw from the West Bank as it did from the Gaza Strip in 2005." The film also warns that the prospect of a two-state solution diminishes daily, "threatening the future of Israel as a Jewish democracy."

Which is why it tallies nicely with Rudoren's personal views.

First, because it matches her own didactic insistence on "occupation" -- as if Israel has no business being on previously sovereign Palestinian land. Except that there never existed a Palestinian state that subsequently was deprived of its sovereign rights.

Second, even more telling is a total absence in Rudoren's article of what happened after Israel withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip in 2005: the advent of Hamas "occupation," with its attendant thousands of rockets launched against civilian populations in Israel. Yet, in the face of this history, she and the filmmakers still tout Gaza as a worthy precedent for further peace initiatives, when Gaza actually teaches the opposite.

In Rudoren's weird world -- and one assumes also of the filmmakers -- Gaza withdrawal serves as a model for pulling out from East Jerusalem and the West Bank, not as a cautionary nightmarish reality at Israel's southern doorstep resulting from Ariel Sharon's ill-fated decision to leave Gaza.

Israel’s Voters and Media Bias Israeli Style

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
07 January '13..

The liberal bias of the mainstream media played a not inconsiderable role in helping Barack Obama skate to what turned out to be an easy victory last November. But as his longtime antagonist Benjamin Netanyahu coasts toward his own re-election, one of the interesting sidebars in the story of that vote is the way a largely left-wing media has proved unable to do much damage to the prime minister. The leftist cast of most Israeli news outlets is so widely recognized, few even on the left bother to deny it. As Akiva Eldar, the longtime columnist for Haaretz once told me in an interview, the bias of most Israeli journalists is not in doubt but since the right has won most of the elections in the last 30 years, it didn’t matter. It’s certainly true that the tilt against Netanyahu in the media won’t help the dismal chances of Israel’s left-wing parties. But the willingness of some of the leading outlets to hype the complaints of a former security official about the PM has raised the eyebrows of one of Eldar’s colleagues on the self-styled New York Times of Israel.

Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz’s current lead political columnist, wrote today about the way the Yediot Aharonot newspaper has tried to inflate a filmed interview with former Mossad chief Yuval Diskin in which he blasts Netanyahu into a cause célèbre. That a paper whose own longstanding left-wing bias is as blatant as that of Haaretz would consider this absurd tells you a lot about how off-the-charts the prejudice of the mass market daily Yediot about Netanyahu has become. While the foreign press has picked up this narrative about Netanyahu’s alleged failings, it’s fairly obvious even to Haaretz that there’s nothing particularly noteworthy about the story.

As Pfeffer notes, Diskin’s charges about what he believes are Netanyahu’s irresponsible attempts to push the security services to agree with him about the nuclear threat from Iran and the need for potential action on the issue have already been fully aired and largely ignored by the Israeli public. That’s because they know something that most foreign readers don’t about the political nature of the old boy network that runs the security services. The willingness of Diskin and his colleagues to go public with their carping about Netanyahu’s handling of an issue on which there is a pretty strong consensus within Israel—the need to take the Iranian nuclear threat seriously—tells us more about the way Diskin and his friends feel about the prime minister than anything else.