Dear Caroline, Martin and the Jerusalem Post

LOTL..
06 August '13..

For those who follow Love of the Land postings on a regular basis it may have been noticed the absence of both Caroline Glick's and Martin Sherman's most recent pieces. While posting pieces at times that I don't necessarily agree with, if they contribute to a more informed discourse, that will often suffice. However, as with our good friend, neighbor and well-known letter writer, Ken, over-the-top does need to be addressed:

Letter to today's Jerusalem Post,

Sir, – I felt that both Martin Sherman’s “Resign, just resign!” (Into the Fray, August 2) and Caroline B. Glick’s “Bibi and the true believers” (Column One, August 2) employed needless abusive rhetoric
in referring to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and tasteless and vulgar language in referring to Israelis who do not share their political opinions.

I realize that the issues under discussion are deeply provocative and sensitive, but nonetheless this sort of language is unworthy of both of these writers, and of The Jerusalem Post.

I believe that both Sherman and Glick are well-informed and knowledgeable political pundits, and well-versed in Middle East diplomacy and, of course, the Arab-Israeli conflict. This is why it is so hard for me to understand how both of them fail to understand that our prime minister is trying to deal with an almost impossible diplomatic situation.

Linde - Editor's Notes: Caging the tiger

Steve Linde
JPost Editor-in Chief
01 September '11

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=236366

Larry Derfner crossed the line into territory of hate speech when in a personal blog last week he sought to justify Palestinian terrorism.

In one of my first columns as editor-in-chief (“Halting the hatred,” July 22), I urged The Jerusalem Post’s journalists and contributors to be more sensitive when it comes to reporting and commenting on potentially inflammatory topics in the news.

“We at the Post believe that hate speech harms the civil discourse in Israel, and in my opinion, it poses a real danger to the country’s very existence as a democratic Jewish state,” I wrote.

Larry Derfner, a veteran journalist who penned a weekly column and reported for our Magazine, crossed the line into the territory of hate speech when in a personal blog last week he sought to justify Palestinian terrorism against Israelis.

His egregious posting came in response to the August 18 terrorist murder of Israeli citizens on the Egyptian border.

“Whoever the Palestinians were who killed the eight Israelis near Eilat last week, however vile their ideology was, they were justified to attack,” Derfner wrote. “Palestinians have the right to resist – to use violence against Israelis, even to kill Israelis.”

These comments are exceptionally offensive to most Israelis, and especially hurtful to those who have been victims of terror. They endorse and encourage, if not incite and inflame, terrorism against Israel.

When Derfner asked that we run the piece in the Post, we rejected it and dissociated ourselves completely from his comments, to which we object in the strongest possible terms.

Even though his column did not appear in the paper, we came to the conclusion that we could no longer provide a stage to someone who openly promulgates such venomous views.

Tobin - Derfner’s No Martyr to Free Speech

Jonathan S. Tobin
Commentary/Contentions
31 August '11

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/08/31/derfner-terror-free-speech/

I wrote last week, Jerusalem Post columnist Larry Derfner’s defense of the right of Palestinians to murder Israelis “was beyond the pale of civil debate and that he would deserve every bit of the abuse that comes his way from fellow Israelis.” If anything, I underestimated the opprobrium that rained down on Derfner, who subsequently gave a non-apology apology and took down the controversial post from his personal blog. But his evasions were of no use, and he wound up losing his job at the Post this week.

While Derfner’s critics are celebrating his demise, his firing generated a predictable wave of sympathy from liberals who are claiming he is a martyr to freedom of speech. In particular, New York Times blogger Rocker Mackey takes up Derfner’s talking point about the use of terror during Israel’s struggle for independence in a specious attempt to portray the writer as doing nothing more than telling the truth. Such absurd arguments miss the main point about Derfner’s piece. There’s nothing new about treating Palestinian terror as morally equivalent to Israeli self-defense. Derfner’s main fault was his claim Israelis deserved to be killed because they were the only party at fault in the conflict.

Abstract arguments about the utilization of terror are one thing, even if they are premised, as the Times attempted to say, on a false analogy between those striving to create the sole Jewish state and those attempting to destroy it in order to create one more Arab nation. But Derfner’s astonishing assertion that Israelis are asking for it by refusing to give in to Palestinian demands is quite another. As fellow Jerusalem Post columnist Isi Leibler argued, such statements are actually actionable as an incitement to terror under Israeli law, because there is no absolute First Amendment protection of speech there (or in just about any other democracy) as there is in the United States.

But even if we apply American standards to this situation, there is nothing in any law that obligates a newspaper to employ a writer or an editor who espouses beliefs utterly repugnant to that publication and its readers. That was the case with the Jerusalem Post, and Derfner was a fool if he expected this episode to end any other way but with his dismissal.

I take no pleasure in the idea of a working journalist, even one whose ideas I despise, being given a pink slip. But as much as I sympathize with Derfner’s family, I have a lot more sympathy for Israelis who live under the threat of terror from killers who will use his arguments to justify their atrocities. As for Derfner, I doubt he will starve. The left-wing press in Israel is alive and well and given the millions being poured into the country by left-wing and anti-Zionist NGOs, it would be surprising if he didn’t soon find a more congenial home for his odious writing than the centrist Post.

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Fresnozionism - JPost apologizes for telling it like it is

Fresnozionism.org
05 August '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/08/jpost-apologizes-for-telling-it-like-it-is/

It is distressing when an honest person, or newspaper, speaks the truth and is bullied into taking it back.

On July 25, the Jerusalem Post published an editorial (“Norway’s challenge“) about the terrorist attacks in Oslo and Utøya, Norway.

The editorial — which at least for now still exists on the Web, but is no longer linked from the Post’s editorial pages — was quite clear in denouncing the murderous actions of Anders Breivik. But it included this:

While it is still too early to determine definitively Breivik’s precise motives, it could very well be that the attack was more pernicious – and more widespread – than the isolated act of a lunatic. Perhaps Brievik’s inexcusable act of vicious terror should serve not only as a warning that there may be more elements on the extreme Right willing to use violence to further their goals, but also as an opportunity to seriously reevaluate policies for immigrant integration in Norway and elsewhere. While there is absolutely no justification for the sort of heinous act perpetrated this weekend in Norway, discontent with multiculturalism’s failure must not be delegitimatized or mistakenly portrayed as an opinion held by only the most extremist elements of the Right…

The challenge for Norway in particular and for Europe as a whole, where the Muslim population is expected to account for 8% of the population by 2030 according to a Pew Research Center, is to strike the right balance. Fostering an open society untainted by xenophobia or racism should go hand in hand with protection of unique European culture and values.

Europe’s fringe right-wing extremists present a real danger to society. But Oslo’s devastating tragedy should not be allowed to be manipulated by those who would cover up the abject failure of multiculturalism. [my emphasis]

Negative reactions were immediate, with many accusing the paper of supporting Breivik’s goals or providing a “justification” for Breivik’s terrorist act.

Judge for yourself. It seems to me that the editorial makes a valid point: here you have a despicable individual committing a despicable act, who irrationally believed that his action would solve a problem. Does this imply that there is no problem, or, worse, that no one is allowed to mention the problem lest they inspire similarly deranged individuals to terrorism?

Let’s turn it around. There is Arab terrorism against Israel, supposedly because ‘Palestinian’ land is ‘occupied’. Are those who believe this and say it publicly therefore responsible for Arab terrorism? There are quite a few Norwegians that would fall into this category.

A Case Study in Propaganda: A day in the life of the BBC campaign against Israel

Robin Shepherd
robinshepherdonline.com
09 April '10
Posted before Shabbat

Here is a list of all of the headlines about Israel which are up on the BBC website’s MidEast section right now:

“Netanyahu cancels US nuclear trip” [A developing story about the ongoing spat between Israel and the Obama administration]
“Israel lifts espionage gag order” [A story about failed Israeli attempts to silence a former soldier who leaked documents to the press about "assassinations"]
“Israel is a ‘threat’ says Turkey” [A story about how Israel ruined its relationship with a former "ally" after Cast Lead]
“Jail for Israeli Arab ‘gym spy’” [A story about an Israeli Arab sentenced to six years for spying on an Israeli general at the gym where they both worked]
“Israel blames troops for deaths” [A story about the Israeli military admitting its soldiers unnecessarily killed four Palestinian demonstrators]

There are also two features about Israel on the same page. Here are the headlines:

“Thais labouring on Israel’s farms” [A story about how Israel now uses Thais as cheap labour since the Palestinians are stuck behind the "wall".]
“Jerusalem Diary: Cairo views” [A diary piece ostensibly about life in Cairo which quickly descends into the publication of Holocaust denial and a reader comment saying that denying the Holocaust should not be regarded as anti-Semitic".]

(Read full post)
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'Post' stops Chazan column after threat

Jerusalem Post Staff
07 February '10

(Even though New Israel Fund continues to fund numerous organizations who conduct lawfare against Israel, it's elected officials, it's soldiers and citizens, this week it failed in it's efforts to intimidate at least, one newspaper.)

The Jerusalem Post has canceled Naomi Chazan’s biweekly column, after she and the New Israel Fund of which she is president threatened legal action against the paper over a recent advertisement.

The decision was taken by Jerusalem Post management after a legal threat was received at the paper from the NIF and Chazan’s lawyers.

Along with other publications, the Post last Sunday carried an advertisement criticizing Chazan and the New Israel Fund in the context of the Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead.

In Friday’s paper, the Post carried an advertisement defending the NIF and Chazan against their critics.
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Nobody Here but Us Moderates

Noah Pollak

Contentions

13 August 09

Who to believe in reportage of the Fatah conference: the New York Times’s Isabel Kershner or Khaled Abu Toameh, the Jerusalem Post’s veteran reporter on the Palestinians, himself an Arab Muslim?

Kershner:

The new leaders [elected at the conference] are considered more pragmatic than their predecessors and grew up locally, in contrast to the exile-dominated leadership they are replacing. . . . By the end, many of the participants seemed buoyant. They said that Fatah, led by the Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, had emerged from the conference energized and more unified than it had been in years.

The rest of her report is a litany of mostly self-serving quotes from Fatah leaders, interspersed with Kershner’s own credulous analysis.

Reading Toameh, one wonders if they attended the same event:

The assumption that [the newly-elected] Muhammad Dahlan, Jibril Rajoub, Marwan Barghouti and Tawfik Tirawi are more moderate than old-timers like Ahmed Qurei, Nabil Sha’ath and Hani al-Hassan is completely mistaken. . . .

In fact, all the newly-elected Central Committee members voted during the Fatah convention in Bethlehem last week in favor of a political platform that does not rule out the armed struggle option against Israel.

The kind of thing that might have been useful for Kershner to point out, no?

The young guard members also voted in favor of a series of hard-line resolutions that were brought before the conference, including one that endorses Fatah’s armed militia, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, as an official organ of the faction, and another that states that the Palestinians will never relinquish the “right of return” for refugees to Israel proper and that they are willing to make “sacrifices” to liberate Jerusalem. . . .

During the Fatah meetings in Bethlehem, most of the young guard activists appeared to be more radical than their older colleagues, especially with regards to the peace process with Israel.

The power struggle between the old and new guards in Fatah has never been over ideology or the future of the peace process. On these issues, there’s almost no difference between Barghouti’s views and those of Sha’ath and Qurei.

Rather, it’s a power struggle between a camp that for two decades denied young guard activists a larger say in decision-making and access to public funds and jobs, and those younger activists.

You’d know none of this reading the Times’s coverage. But that sort of might be the point.

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