Mossad head to push comprehensive peace agreement? - by Dr. Aaron Lerner

The Mossad's ultimate goal is insuring the survival of the State of Israel. Regional understanding could most definitely contribute to achieving this goal. But truly pushing for a "comprehensive peace agreement" is more likely to contribute to instability in the region to the detriment of Israel. If that's Yossi Cohen's goal I suggest he joins a political party and leave his organization out of this.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
03 July '19..
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=73533

Mossad head Yossi Cohen told the Herzliya Conference this week that "the Mossad sees a rare opportunity to reach a regional understanding that would lead to a comprehensive peace agreement" and that "It’s the Mossad's role to lead this effort.”

Let's be clear about the situation.

We share a common enemy with many of our Sunni neighbors.

And these neighbors are willing to collaborate with us in facing the challenges created by our common enemy.

Beyond that, rhetoric notwithstanding, our neighbors share other interests with us that are of greater importance or interest than the Palestinian cause is to them.

So this most certainly creates opportunities for both clandestine and open relations and cooperation.

Mossad vs. Netanyahu. Why the Fake Story? Why Now?

...Thus at this moment, damaging Netanyahu’s credibility, even if it means shading the truth or inventing a contradiction when there is none, has become vital for those who believe confronting Iran over its nuclear program is a mistake. No matter how many brickbats are hurled at him by the media or how many tactical mistakes he and his staff may make as they are being outmaneuvered in Washington by the White House, the fact remains that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are a deadly threat to the security of the West and the moderate Arab nations as well as an existential challenge to Israel’s existence. But the president’s apologists will have to do better than a misleading Mossad story if they are to succeed in silencing the critics of Obama’s Iran appeasement.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
25 February '15..

Yesterday the headlines in the Guardian and Al Jazeera trumpeted what seemed like a very juicy story. According to leaked South African intelligence cables obtained by Al Jazeera and shared with the Guardian, the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad had come to conclusions that “contradicted” Prime Minister Netanyahu’s assertions about Iran’s nuclear program in his 2012 speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations. The charge was repeated today in a story published by the New York Times. If true, then Netanyahu’s speech, best remembered for the cartoon bomb illustration he brandished, would be exposed as political hyperbole. But a closer look at the speech and the leaked cable shows that the headlines aren’t justified. In fact, they are downright false. That leads us to ask the question why major media outlets are seeking to discredit Netanyahu with misleading stories just at the moment when details about President Obama’s latest nuclear offer to Iran has become public. The answer reveals a great deal about both the bias of the press and the stakes in the Iran nuclear debate.

Unpacking the assertions in the Al Jazeera/Guardian story isn’t difficult. As Mitch Ginsburg points out today in the Times of Israel, the crux of that story is that the leaked documents say that in 2012, the Mossad told its South African counterparts that, “Iran at this time is not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons.” That led both papers (dutifully echoed by the Times a day later) to claim that Netanyahu’s “inflammatory rhetoric” and “alarmist tone” about the prospect of an Iranian bomb was not only unjustified but a lie made out of whole cloth.

That is damning stuff indeed. But what exactly did Netanyahu say in September 2012 while brandishing a picture of a Wile E. Coyote-style bomb?

By next spring, at most by next summer, at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move[d] on to the final stage. From there, it’s only a few months, possibly a few weeks, before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb.

Let’s be clear about this. Netanyahu did not say that Iran would have a bomb in a few months. He just said they were enriching enough uranium to create a bomb. That is not a minor distinction. And on that point, there was no disagreement between the Mossad and the prime minister. Which is to say this big story is no story at all. But the much-ballyhooed “contradiction” which was not actually a contradiction is still being reported throughout the world and on cable news networks as a flaw in Netanyahu’s arguments and a blow to his credibility.

It is true that the heads of Israel’s intelligence agencies have at times clashed with Netanyahu. That was particularly true in 2012 when rumors were rife that the prime minister and his former rival and then coalition partner Ehud Barak, serving as defense minister at that time, were thinking seriously about ordering a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The spooks were worried that such a plan couldn’t work, would alienate the United States and, more to the point, might be rendered unnecessary by covert activities such as cyber attacks on the Iranian program and assassinations of scientists. As it turns out, the spy agency and its American counterparts overestimated the damage that their Stuxnet attack on the Iranian computer systems could do. Though Tehran experienced a setback, all indications are that covert action conclusively failed to halt the Iranian program.

A review of the case of "Prisoner X"

Isi Leibler..
Candidly Speaking From Jerusalem..
17 February '13..

As former head of the Australian Jewish community and now resident in Israel, I was bombarded over the past week with endless calls from the Israeli and global media soliciting comment on Ben Zygier, the Australian who committed suicide whilst in solitary confinement in an Israeli prison.

I declined to respond because I am not privy to secret information from the Mossad nor ASIO (the Australian Intelligence Agency) and I had nothing constructive to contribute.

Now, having had time to mull over the events and with the ebbing of the sensationalist media coverage of conspiratorial theories based on imaginary scenarios concocted by creative journalists, I feel more inclined to express a few observations.

At the outset, I feel impelled to state that although I consider that there was every justification to initially retain media silence on such a sensitive security issue, once the misleading exposé of the affair was released to the world by the Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC), the continuing Israeli gag order was regrettable and counterproductive.

It would have been preferable for Israel to have responded immediately with a brief statement to the effect that there had been a security breach and that the accused had committed suicide whilst in prison. In all likelihood, this would have substantially staunched the flood of damaging speculation and hysteria which ensued, such as comparing Israel to Argentina in the 1970s, wild allegations of torture and even questioning whether Ben Zygier had been murdered.

By the time the authorities officially released details of the incident, it was too late because the distorted initial reports and the John le Carré like speculation in the global media had already caused enormous damage to Israel’s reputation.

In the light of media speculation relating to the suicide, there is now an obligation on the part of the Israeli government to release the findings of the judicial inquiry which had already taken place to ascertain whether the accused was under adequate supervision in the prison in which he was being held. We live in a democracy and are entitled to be reassured that if there was a breakdown or negligence on the part of the prison authorities, those responsible will be held to task and that every effort will be made to ensure that such a tragedy is averted in the future. On the other hand, it is a harsh reality that prisoners determined to end their lives usually succeed.

Whilst reiterating that I have absolutely no insight into the details of the charges against Zygier, there are grounds for concern that the Mossad should employ stricter criteria in their enlistment process, ensuring their recruits possess the necessary sophistication and psychological makeup required to engage in sensitive national security issues.

However, notwithstanding these reservations – and without relating to the guilt or otherwise of Ben Zygier – it must be stressed that on the basis of the limited information available, there is no evidence to suggest that either the State authorities or Mossad acted irresponsibly or breached the law. The rule of law applied throughout the entire proceedings. The hearings were carried out in camera due to security requirements, senior judges were involved, three lawyers were engaged in Zygier’s defense and he was allowed access to his family. That Zygier was being tried and held in custody under an assumed name was with his approval and that of his family. It was his tragic suicide that provoked the media frenzy and proliferation of wild conspiracy theories.

“60 Minutes”, Liberal Bias and Interviews Without Current News Value

Jonathan M. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
24 September '12..

As I wrote earlier, the headline coming out of the dueling interviews of President Obama and Mitt Romney on CBS’s “60 Minutes” last night was the president’s assertion that he wasn’t going to be diverted from defending the interests of the American people by any “noise” coming from Israel about Iran. This was a clear statement that the administration didn’t have the honesty to admit that its Iran policies have failed and that a course correction was needed. But the show’s producers weren’t content with merely contrasting the president’s position with that of Romney, who strongly criticized Obama for his decision to distance the U.S. from Israel. Instead, seeking to capitalize on the increasing tension between the two countries, they dug up an interview with former Mossad chief Meir Dagan out of their archive.

Dagan is a bitter critic of Netanyahu, and in the piece first broadcast in March he disparaged the prime minister’s sense of urgency about the threat from Iran, claiming more covert operations as well as efforts to promote regime change in Tehran would be smarter than a direct attack on its nuclear facilities. While Dagan is someone whose views on the subject deserve a hearing, the re-rerun of his interview is problematic for several reasons. As I first wrote after the original broadcast back in March, Dagan has personal motives for his public vendetta against Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak that are not referred to in the segment. But the real problem is that as shaky as Dagan’s case was in March, it is barely relevant today.

The release of the latest reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency about Iran’s progress in the last year makes his belief that Israel has “more time” than Netanyahu believed then sound foolish. So, too, does the fact that another round of Western diplomacy with Iran flopped in the intervening months. But the network ran the interview anyway, juxtaposed with those of Obama and Romney in order to make the president look wise and the prime minister and Romney look foolish.

CAMERA - Ex-Arafat Advisor Mark Perry and the 'False Flag' Story

TS..
CAMERA/Snapshots..
15 January '12..

Mark Perry, the former advisor for Yasir Arafat and an advocate of U.S. engagement with Hamas and Hezbollah whose interpretation of General David Petraus' statements concerning U.S.-Israeli relations were discredited by Petraus himself, is at it again. Ha'aretz reports:

A senior Israeli government official rushed to denounce a report Friday which alleged Mossad agents had posed as CIA officers in order to recruit members of a Pakistan-based terror group to commit assassinations and attacks in Iran.

The Israeli official called the Foreign Policy article "absolute nonsense." Quoting U.S. intelligence memos, journalist Mark Perry's story reported that the Mossad operation was carried out in 2007-2008, behind the back of the U.S. government and infuriated then U.S. President George W. Bush.

Ha'aretz's description of Perry, the former advisor to Arafat whose foray into the Petraus affair was discredited, as simply a "journalist" is as unconscionable as Ynet referring to anti-Israel activist Richard Silverstein as simply a "U.S. blogger." (And Ynet was back in the act on this last week.)

Link: http://blog.camera.org/archives/2012/01/exarafat_advisor_mark_perry_sp.html

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Fine British hypocrisy: where would the world be without it?

Arnold/Frimet Roth
This Ongoing War
08 March '11

http://thisongoingwar.blogspot.com/2011/03/8-mar-11-fine-british-hypocrisy-where.html

Her Majesty's government expelled a diplomat in Israel's London embassy about a year ago for what the Brits complained was illicit use of British passports by the government of Israel via its secret service. The story went that the passports were part of an elaborate plot, entirely successful as it turned out, to permanently end the career of a very high profile Hamas terrorist with a great deal of blood on his hands. Australia expelled an Israeli diplomat too in the same connection.

The British Foreign Office through its minister, David Milliband at the time, said the government of the UK "takes this matter extremely seriously. Such misuse of British passports is intolerable. It presents a hazard for the safety of British nationals in the region. It also represents a profound disregard for the sovereignty of the United Kingdom. The fact that this was done by a country which is a friend, with significant diplomatic, cultural, business and personal ties to the UK, only adds insult to injury. No country or Government could stand by in such a situation."

Such nice round vowels.

We're visiting the UK briefly today for our work. The news media here are reporting on a slightly embarrassing chapter in which "a British diplomatic team, including six soldiers believed to be SAS, have been freed two days after being detained in eastern Libya... [though] this was no covert military mission. Its aim instead was to reach out to opposition groups in the east and gain a better understanding of what was happening on the ground. The role of the soldiers was to protect the diplomat involved - a regular practice in war zones and hostile environments."

So the mission was friendly, not at all covert, certainly not military, and just ignore those SAS men over there.

But here's the more interesting part. According to the BBC, "They were held after going to an agricultural compound when Libyan security guards found they were carrying arms, ammunition, explosives, maps and passports from at least four different nationalities, witnesses told the BBC. The witnesses said the men had denied they were carrying weapons."

Passports? Four different nationalities? The British? Surely not.

So here's how we see it. A successful and elaborate effort to eliminate an abhorrent killer of children was accomplished with no loss of life other than the life of the jihadist himself, through - according to various unconfirmed reports - foreign passports were abused, and Israel which is presumed to have been behind it all, was publicly disgraced via the expulsion of its diplomats from two civilized and friendly countries.

Britain, by contrast, is now exposed as having engaged in a form of back-channel diplomacy with parties in a country (Libya) where, for years, it and members of its royal family and the leadership of one of its most vaunted educational institutions have humiliated themselves for years through forelock-tugging and incomprehensible steps like releasing a convicted terrorist airplane bomber. The effort comprehensively failed, and is now revealed to have included abusing the passports of, we presume, friendly countries. Melanie Phillips expresses the hopes of all right-thinking people when she comments: "We trust most earnestly that none of those was an Israeli one."

We say, so where are the cries for political resignations, self-examination, apology? If it's reasonable for the UK to do this, then should not the same courtesy, or at least the benefit of the doubt (there was not the slightest shred of published evidence connecting Israel to last year's passport story) be extended to countries whose battle with the terrorists is conducted at a far more intense and existential level?

Or should we just learn to live with double-standards of this kind? From our friends.

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Mote, meet beam

Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
06 March '11

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/6758839/mote-meet-beam.thtml

Following claims in March 2010 that Israeli Mossad agents had used cloned British passports on a clandestine mission, the then foreign Secretary David Miliband raged:

Such misuse of British passports is intolerable

and that Israel had displayed

a profound disregard for the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.

Today we learn that the six SAS soldiers detained (and now released) in Libya

were held after going to an agricultural compound when Libyan security guards found they were carrying arms, ammunition, explosives, maps and passports from at least four different nationalities (my emphasis).

We trust most earnestly that none of those was an Israeli one.

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This Week in History: The capture of Eli Cohen

Michael Omer-Man
Jerusalem Post
01/28/2011 08:56

http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=205609

On January 24, 1965, Syrian secret police raided the home of Damascus businessman Kamel Amin Tha’abet, arrested, tortured, hanged him.

On January 24, 1965, Syrian secret police raided an upscale apartment in Damascus and arrested businessman Kamel Amin Tha’abet. Accused of being an Israeli spy who had revealed some of Syria’s most closely guarded secrets, Tha’abet was tortured, quickly tried and publicly hanged several months later.

Eliahu Cohen was born in Egypt in 1924 to a Syrian father and Egyptian mother. Being a Jew in Egypt at the time, Cohen was denied many opportunities and faced discrimination. As he entered adulthood, Cohen became involved in Zionist organizations and was recruited by the Hagana, helping provide forged papers to Egyptian Jews to enable their escape to the newly-founded Jewish state of Israel. These first years of involvement with the Israeli security services would eventually serve as a forewarning to his final days in Syria.

According to an interview with Cohen’s brother, Maurice, Eli was involved in dangerous covert operations from his early days in Egypt. In the mid-1950s, the arrest of a dozen Jews in Egypt uncovered what would become known as the Lavon Affair. Among those swept up by the Egyptian secret police was Eli Cohen. The Egyptians, citing a lack of evidence, eventually released him. Maurice, nonetheless, claims he was involved in the sabotage operation aimed at disrupting Egypt’s relations with the US and European countries. Israeli sources familiar with the affair have, however, denied his involvement, saying that he was merely familiar with some of the operatives.

Eventually expelled by Egypt, Cohen made aliya at the end of 1956. Having been denied a translator position with the state’s early intelligence services because of his lack of proficiency in Hebrew, Eli began work as an accountant for an Israeli retail chain, according to interviews with his brother. During what may have been the most normal years of his life, Eli met his wife-to-be Nadia. The two were wed in 1959. However, the normalcy would not last.

By then fluent in Modern Hebrew, Cohen was recruited by Military Intelligence a few years after marrying. Realizing his obvious potential, considering Eli’s fluent Arabic and Syrian heritage, the IDF transferred him to the newly-formed Mossad where he underwent training and was quickly dispatched to Argentina, according to his brother Maurice.

Overnight, Eli Cohen became Kamel Amin Tha’abet, a wealthy Syrian businessman in Argentina who longed to return to his homeland. Emersing himself into the sizable Syrian expatriate community in Argentina, Tha’abet threw extravagant parties and built a reputation as a man who wanted nothing more than to move back to Syria and contribute to the country’s success, including the destruction of its new neighbor, Israel. With a cover story built, it was not long before he moved to Damascus.

Uncloaked

Meir Dagan, recently retired as chief of the Mossad, wanted to reestablish the agency as a powerful deterrent to Israel’s enemies. With a string of daring operations, he succeeded.

Yossi Melman
Tablet Magazine
13 January '11

Meir Dagan, the recently retired chief of the Mossad, is enjoying a festive season in the limelight of public recognition and adoration. He is making his farewell rounds after nearly 100 months—eight years and three months—of service clouded in darkness and secrecy. Dagan is the second-longest-serving director of Israel’s famous and feared foreign espionage agency. Only the legendary Isser Harel, who grabbed worldwide headlines when his agents caught the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960, served a lengthier tenure, three years more than Dagan.

Wherever Dagan goes, he gets standing ovations for his achievements. Two Sundays ago, Israeli cabinet ministers clapped their hands in appreciation. Four days later, Mossad employees shed tears when Dagan said goodbye and drove his gray 4-wheel-drive car through the gates of Mossad headquarters. Israeli journalists and commentators known for their unflattering, bitter, and cynical approach to nearly everything and everyone—journalists who, it should also be said, rarely had a chance to talk to him, not to mention to know him—are going out of their way to praise him.

“He is one of the best directors, if not the best one, Mossad has had in our 60 years or so of existence,” Ilan Mizrahi, a veteran case officer, told me last week. Mizrahi, who served as former Mossad Director Ephraim Halevy’s deputy, found himself vying with Dagan in 2002 for the top job. He lost but now admits that “Meir restored Mossad’s reputation and brought the organization to new levels.”

(Read full "Uncloaked")

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Don’t Ignore the Politics of Mossad’s Iran Assessment

Evelyn Gordon
Commentary/Contentions
10 January '11

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is clearly doing her best to defuse the bombshell dropped last week by Israel’s outgoing Mossad chief, Meir Dagan. During a visit to the Gulf states yesterday, she stressed that Dagan’s assertion that Iran will not go nuclear before 2015 is no excuse for not keeping up the pressure on Tehran.

In their posts last week, Jonathan Tobin and J.E. Dyer both offered good reasons not to be reassured by Dagan’s prediction. But Clinton also alluded to a very different reason. “We don’t want anyone to be misled by anyone’s intelligence analysis,” she said.

That’s a diplomatic way of saying what two respected Israeli military analysts said openly that same day: Dagan’s public assessment must be evaluated in the light of its clear political purpose — to thwart any possibility of an Israeli military strike on Iran, which he is known to oppose.

As Haaretz columnist Amir Oren put it, “Dagan didn’t provide a pure intelligence assessment, but rather a political statement designed to influence government policy.” And Haaretz military correspondent Amos Harel, noting that Dagan avoided the media like the plague for the previous eight years of his tenure, termed the decision to go public with this assessment “a Bibi-bypass maneuver” — a way of constraining Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu by publicly asserting that military action against Iran is unnecessary.

Nobody is suggesting that Dagan deliberately falsified the evidence to reach this conclusion. But when intelligence is evaluated with a particular desired outcome in mind, it is human nature to magnify the importance of information that supports this outcome and downplay the importance of information that contradicts it.

(Read full "Don’t Ignore the Politics of Mossad’s Iran Assessment")

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Egypt: Why Muslim Terrorists Should Not Be Worried

Khaled Abu Toameh
Hudson New York
07 January '11
Posted before Shabbat

The Muslim terrorists behind the New Year church massacre in Alexandria, Egypt, must be laughing their heads off as they see and hear an increasing number of Egyptians and Arabs point an accusing finger at the Mossad and Jews.

What is disturbing is that these allegations have now made their way to the mainstream media in Egypt and the rest of the Arab world.

While many Arabs are now busy trying to figure out how the Mossad and Jews managed to blow up the church, the terrorists are able to safely plan their next attack on Christian targets.

Leaders of the Christians in Egypt have long been complaining about severe government restrictions on the construction or renovation of churches. Moreover, they have been complaining that the government has been doing its utmost to keep them away from senior positions in the public sector.

Christians who apply for a license to build a church often have to wait for years before their request is approved, if at all. In contrast, Muslims are building new mosques almost on a daily basis and without a permit from the government.

Last November, Egyptian authorities intervened to stop renovation work at a church, triggering a violent confrontation between angry Christians and security forces. On the other hand, no one has heard of a single case where the government stepped in to halt construction of an illegally built mosque.

The terrorists have nothing to fear because Arab leaders and media are telling their people that the identity of the culprits has already been established.

Waheed Ra'fat, one of the managing editors of the Al-Watani Al-Yom publication, which belongs to President Hosni Mubarak's ruling National Party, wrote this week: "Mossad is the accused because it stands to benefit most from distracting Egypt's attention from what is going to happen in South Sudan on January 9. The Mossad has a strategy of instigating fitna [civil war, disagreement and division within Islam]."

(Read full "Egypt: Why Muslim Terrorists Should Not Be Worried")

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The ugliest Mossad agent you have ever seen

Carl
Israel Matzav
04 January '11

First, it was Egypt, which accused the Mossad of sending sharks to harass swimmers off Sharm-el-Sheikh on the Sinai coast. Now, 'our friends the Saudis' are accusing the 'Zionist entity' of sending vultures to spy on them.

Saudi Arabian security forces have captured a vulture that was carrying a global positioning satellite (GPS) transmitter and a ring etched with the words "Tel Aviv University." They suspect the bird of spying for Israel, Maariv-NRG reported Tuesday. The GPS and ring were connected to the bird as part of an long-term project by Israeli scientists that follows vultures' location and altitude for research purposes.

...

Maariv said that the R65 was caught near the home of a sheikh in the community of Hayel in Saudi Arabia. The words "Tel Aviv University" etched in English on a ring clasped to its leg, and especially the transmitter, caused the finders to suspect espionage and alert the security forces.

(Read full "The ugliest Mossad agent you have ever seen")

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And The Land of Israel Will Be Given

Yisrael Medad
My Right Word
02 January '10



Mossad Chief Meir Dagan retired today and said, among others words, these remarks at the Cabinet meeting:

Mr. Prime Minister,


Ministers,


I hereby finish over 43 years of service to the state. I have had the honor and the privilege of leading the Mossad for the past eight years...


...I was appointed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. I worked under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and I received from them, me and my people, their encouragement, support and backing. I would like, Mr. Prime Minister, to thank you for your support and backing, and I would like to wish you and to the Government of the State of Israel the wisdom to guide the country through stormy seas, and that you will bring Israel to the safe harbors of peace and security, and will see to the needs of its citizens. Work to strengthen the ties between the Jewish Diaspora and the State of Israel so that we may uphold the verse in Ezekiel (11:17) 'I will even gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the Land of Israel.' I did the best I could. Thank you very much."

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Spies, Passports, and The Guardian

Double Standards


Michael Weiss
The Weekly Standard
17 July '10

When Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was assassinated in Dubai last January, and his cause of death later ascribed to foul play, it didn’t take long before the British press found itself the beneficiary of a troika of good copy. First, al-Mabhouh’s end had been delivered by the injection of a muscle relaxant and a suffocating pillow – so clearly the result of a “wet job” performed by well-trained agents of a foreign intelligence service. Second, that service was almost certainly the Israeli Mossad. Third, the movements of the dozen or so disguised suspects throughout the corridors of the murder scene – Dubai’s posh Al Bustan Rotana Hotel – were captured on closed circuit television, which inspires pride and paranoia in equal measure in Londoners who are typically invigilated on this form of technology whenever they venture outside their own homes.

International condemnation of Israel’s alleged action came swiftly, and perhaps nowhere more so than in the United Kingdom, especially after it was discovered that twelve of the assassins had used forged British passports to enter and leave Dubai. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown said at the time, “The British passport is an important document that has got to be held with care. A British passport is an important part of being British.” Brown’s foreign secretary David Miliband went a step further on March 23, calling the forgery “intolerable” in an umbrageous speech before parliament.

(Read full story)

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How the U.K. arrived at the present situation regarding Israel and Middle East issues

Douglas Murray
MERIA Journal
Volume 14, No. 2
June '10
Posted before Shabbat

This article discusses the anti-Israel campaign in the UK and its attempt to delegitimize and "demonize" Israel, pointing to radical Islamist trends in British society and political life as a central factor.

A few days in March 2010 gave a good flavor of the present standing of Israel in the United Kingdom. On March 23, then British Foreign Secretary David Miliband announced to the House of Commons that the government was expelling an Israeli diplomat. The expulsion, thought to be of the London Mossad chief, came after forged British passports were used to kill a Hamas terrorist in Dubai (an incident which Israel denies any involvement in).

The following Monday, March 29, the Jerusalem String Quartet was due to play at the Wigmore Hall, one of London's most prestigious music venues. The concert, to be broadcast live on the BBC, was repeatedly disrupted by anti-Israel protestors accusing the players of being representatives of the Israeli government. The broadcast was cancelled. On this occasion, the anti string-quartet protestors, from a branch of the "Palestine Solidarity Campaign," were Jewish-led.

These two examples are cited, because they are emblematic. If one nation wanted a range of responses to delegitimize and demonize another state, it would be hard to imagine a better, or wider, range of activities. Not being allowed to have full diplomatic representation in a city that allows the Iranian government and numerous other hostile regimes to do so is one thing. A situation in which even the performance of a Mozart string quartet by nationals of the same country becomes impossible (the Jerusalem quartet have been barracked like this in Britain before) would appear to demonstrate that the exceptional demonizing of Israel in public life is now not occasional but, rather, all-encompassing.

How did the UK arrive at this state of affairs? The number of reasons is too large to list, let alone describe, in this space. They can, however, be broadly categorized under two headings. First, there are those reasons that can be explained by circumstances. Second, and certainly equally significant, there are those reasons that have their basis not in verifiable evidence but rather in conspiracy theory and anti-reason ranging from paranoia to the misguided expression of what will be described here as "the new virtue."

(Read full article)

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NYT Public Editor on Newscasts and News Gaffes

Clark Hoyt

TS
CAMERA/Snapshots
12 April '10

New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt describes the pitfalls of fast-paced journalism in the age of social media and Web 2.0:

THE Times introduced a regular video newscast on its Web site late last month. “TimesCast” shows scenes from the morning meeting where planning starts for the next day’s paper, and it features editors and reporters discussing the top stories that are developing, often with compelling video and photography from world hot spots. . . .

But several stumbles in the past few weeks have demonstrated some of the risks for a print culture built on careful reporting, layers of editing and time for reflection as it moves onto platforms where speed is everything and attitude sometimes trumps values like accuracy and restraint.

On just the second day of “TimesCast,” Bill Keller, the executive editor, misspoke about a sensitive story involving Israel. . . .

Paul Iredale, a veteran Reuters reporter, said he watched “TimesCast” on its second day and was unhappy to see Keller say that Britain had expelled “the head of Mossad,” the Israeli intelligence service, “in retribution for the Israelis’ having assassinated a Hamas militant in Dubai.” The British had not accused Israel of the assassination. Nor had The Times established that the person sent home was the Mossad station chief.

Click here to visit CAMERA homepage.
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A portrait of the extremist mainstream in Great Britain, a man with a problem with Jewish names

Robin Shepherd
Robinshepherdonline.com
28 March '10

Back in 2003, Richard Ingrams, one of Britain’s best known columnists and a co-founder of the satirical weekly Private Eye wrote in the Observer (sister newspaper on Sunday to the Guardian) the following gem about his attitude to Israel and the Jews:

“I have developed a habit,” he said, “when confronted by letters to the editor in support of the Israeli government to look at the signature to see if the writer has a Jewish name. If so, I tend not to read it.”

As I have said on many occasions (see previous entry for example), there is now no price to be paid in mainstream Britain for such attitudes. They are taken as normal. Now consider his latest piece of writing, this time in the Independent, as an example of what happens when such “normal” attitudes are allowed to fester.

Ingrams writes his column in the form of a diary which then goes on to address other subjects. Yesterday, he opened his piece by reflecting on Britain’s decision last week to expel an Israeli diplomat over the Dubai assassination of a Hamas terrorist. Here is what he said, with my italics to highlight the tone he adopts:

“The expulsion of a Mossad man from London following the affair over the forged passports used by a gang of Israeli assassins in Dubai is welcome, if only to remind us that regardless of this single expulsion Mossad operates openly out of London with the full approval of the British Government.

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Not the White Response

The Guardian Associate Editor's weak excuses and justifications for outrageous comments against Israel.



Honest Reporting
Media Critiques
25 March '10

Frosty US-Israeli relations and a very public and direct rebuke by Britain for alleged cloning of UK passports by Israel's Mossad have created a storm of negative headlines in recent days.

Some (but not all) British media took particular glee in reporting the expulsion of a diplomat from Israel's embassy in London. The Guardian even liveblogged the event as it unfolded while an editorial referred to Israel as "an arrogant nation that has overreached itself", thus smearing more than just Israel's government but also its entire population.

Some took advantage of Israel being hauled over the coals to justify their own failings. In December 2009, The Guardian's Associate Editor Michael White made the following comment during a discussion on BBC Radio London's Breakfast Show concerning the physical vulnerability of political leaders:

In Israel they murder each other a great deal. The Israeli Defense Forces murder people because they don't like their political style and what they've got to say and it only means that people more extreme come in and take their place.

The BBC responded by arguing that White's comments were his own while The Guardian declined to comment at all, judging that White had made these remarks on the BBC and not in his newspaper. From White himself we heard nothing. Until now.

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David Miliband cries crocodile tears for 'British Passport holders'. He should invite them to tea instead

Stephanie Gutmann
Telegraph.co.uk
23 March '10

Why is David Miliband getting all huffy over the use of British passports in an alleged Mossad assassination of a Hamas leader? Is it really because he is so concerned that “British passport holders had been put at risk as a result of the operation”? Sorry, David, but that doesn’t wash.

Six of the Britons whose passports were used as cover are, for all intents and purposes, Israelis. Like many people who immigrate to Israel they have retained their old passport because there is no penalty for doing so, but most are dual citizens who have been living in Israel for many years.

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'Snarky' Dubai Top Cop Losing Luster With Media

Honest Reporting/Backspin
09 March '10

CNN's Paula Hancocks says Dubai's deliberately setting up a "drip feed" of info on the assassination to keep the MSM spotlight on Israel:

The drip feed of information from Dubai’s police chief has kept the assassination of a Hamas leader in his Dubai hotel room on the front pages for about a month and a half.

Every day, without fail, the newspapers in the United Arab Emirates reserve part of the front page for an update, an opinion – even the tiniest hint of fresh information.

This is likely the intention of Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan. By releasing a tidbit here and there, the story stays alive and the international spotlight stays on Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad, which Khalfan says he is 100 percent sure is behind the hit.

In the long run, CNN adds, this "drip feed" only benefits the Mossad mystique.

So why is Dubai's top cop doing this? A few days ago, I argued that the Gulf state's ruling elites are more interested in drawing the world's attention away from its debt crisis. And videos linked to Mossad conspiracies real or imagined are the mother of all distractions.

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