Abbas has “rejected violence” since 2005? The facts tell a different story - by Adam Levick

...Bottom line: The Economist’s claim that the Palestinian President has “rejected violence” since 2005 fails to pass even the most minimum critical scrutiny.

Adam Levick..
UK Media Watch..
07 December '17..

The Economist weighed in on the US president’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital with a Dec. 7th article titled “Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital makes peace less likely”. The piece reinforced the media’s gloom and doom narrative over the the implications for the peace process following US recognition, suggesting that Palestinians may now feel they have ‘no alternative’ than to engage in violence.

This leaves the Palestinians isolated, a sentiment palpable on the streets of East Jerusalem this week. They feel abandoned not only by America but by the Arab world and even by their own senior leaders. Jawad Siam, a local leader in Silwan, an Arab neighbourhood of Jerusalem, has harsh words for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. “Abbas is always saying there is still a chance for diplomacy and now Trump is making Abbas very small in front of his people.” Ever since his election in 2005, Mr Abbas has rejected violence and called upon his people to pursue statehood through diplomacy. Now the calls from within the Palestinian national movement for a return to intifada, ie, a violent uprising, are growing.

The claim that Abbas has “rejected violence” for the past 12 years mirrors a popular but completely erroneous media theme about the Palestinian movement since the death of Yasser Arafat – one repeated recently by former Secretary of State John Kerry.

However, the facts tell a different story.

(Continue to Full Post)

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

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It’s All Israel’s Fault?

...Cherry picking facts from another newspaper runs flagrantly afoul of normal journalistic practice. And the idea Israelis should put up with what amounts to racist bigotry because “at least they’re not being killed” wouldn’t be acceptable to any other race, religion, or ethnicity facing similar narrow-minded behavior anywhere. Not at the Olympics, and not in the pages of The Economist.

Zahava Raymond..
Honest Reporting..
17 August '16..

An article in the Economist titled Politics hogs the Olympic spotlight in the Middle East looks at Arab hostility towards Israel in the Olympics, but then becomes guilty of its own charge.

You might think an article in the sports section would reinforce the message of the Olympics and how treatment of the Israeli athletes is unsportsmanlike. But an anti-Israel agenda hogs the article, suggesting that Israel is to blame for bringing on the racism it endures.

The Economist bylines its authors by initials, so the writer is only identified as N.P.

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Referring to the Egyptian judoka who refused to shake the hand of the Israeli Bronze winner Or Sasson, The Economist callously exploits the Munich Olympics massacre, saying “Mr El Shahaby’s snub seems mere tokenism compared to the bullets that killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972,” but “nonetheless” Israel criticized his bad sportsmanship.

Does that mean Israel should just accept the Rio snub simply because it wasn’t murder?

Would The Economist say such a thing about anyone else being targeted for their race, religion or nationality?

(Continue to Full Post)

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

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The Economist chooses whitewash when contemplating Palestinian Arab lust for terror

...We're left to ponder, and not for the first time, the manifest decline in the mass media's commitment to careful, factual, non-partisan, well-researched writing and respect for the common values of democratic societies - above all the value of human life.

Villagers in Nabi Saleh prepare to celebrate the release (via the Shalit Deal)
of the most celebrated of the clan's numerous murderers, the woman who
engineered the Sbarro pizzeria massacre [Image Source]. For obvious
reasons, the adoration of its murderers is generally absent from 
agenda-driven reporting about the odious clan.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
15 June '16..

Over at UK Media Watch ("Promoting Fair and Accurate Coverage of Israel") they have just published a critical analysis of what it takes to pull the wool over the eyes of the editors at one of the world's best-regarded weeklies:

The Economist fancies itself a sophisticated magazine, one which “offers authoritative insight” into news, politics, business, finance, science and technology. However, as it pertains to Israel, they've sometimes proven themselves just as vulnerable to the mindless group-think plaguing the rest of the media. A case in point involves their review of The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine by Ben Ehrenreich (The view on the ground, June 11), a book featuring the Tamimis of the West Bank town of Nabi Saleh. Though some British media outlets have caught on to the family’s well-choreographed ‘Pasbara’, the anonymous Economist critic barely shows even a hint of journalistic skepticism in the face of Ehrenreich’s risible narrative... ["‘Sophisticated’ Economist duped by Pallywood tale starring the Tamimis", Adam Levick, UK Media Watch - today]

Ehrenreich, who created what the editors at the Economist call "an elegant and moving account", came to our attention three years ago with a cover story he wrote for the New York Times Sunday Magazine - an appalling confection spun from fantasy, carefully-phrased half-truths, wishful thinking and adoration of the redemptive power of murder.

We hated it. And not only because of the connection of the people of whom he was writing with the murder of our daughter Malki - a tight, meaningful, ongoing and ugly connection.

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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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A new euphemism for malevolent terrorists: “Restive” Palestinians?

...it doesn’t seem to be asking too much to expect influential media outlets to use plain, accurate non-euphemistic words when referring to people who engage in such grotesque acts of racially motivated violence.

Adam Levick..
UK Media Watch..
28 October '15..

As some news headlines on the recent Arab terror spree have demonstrated, the media’s capacity to use obfuscatory language to characterize Palestinian terror and extremism is at times quite extraordinary. Not only are editors often reluctant to use the ‘subjective’ word “terrorist” to describe extremists who attack Jewish civilians, but they also often insist on using words which obscure the malevolent nature of such acts.

Here’s the headline of an article in the Oct. 27 edition of The Economist:

The word restive is an adjective which describes someone “unable to keep still or silent and becoming increasingly difficult to control, especially because of impatience, dissatisfaction, or boredom.”

However, ...

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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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Sugarcoating and Spice and..., Hamas is Still Hamas

...Hamas is still the same Hamas. Isn’t it time media such as The Economist deal with that reality instead of sugarcoating terrorism?

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
08 June '14..

The formation of a new Palestinian unity government has brought with it a sudden need to sweep the issue of Hamas under the proverbial carpet on the part of some media (and foreign governments). The Economist is a case in point. According to the magazine:

This time the team is technocratic and Hamas-free. It recognises Israel and disavows violence.

The reality, however, is that the government is backed by Hamas, which has notably not recognized Israel and remains committed to its destruction through violent means.

The Economist continues:

Those who wish to give Hamas a fresh chance say Mr Netanyahu’s accusations of terrorism are out of date. Hamas leaders stopped ordering suicide-bombings nearly a decade ago; despite Israel’s continuing blockade of Gaza, it has largely abided by ceasefire agreements. The Palestinians note bitterly that Israel has killed several hundred Palestinian civilians since Hamas took over Gaza, whereas rockets fired from the enclave into Israel in the same period have killed less than a score of Israelis.

That Hamas’ methods have changed over the years is irrelevant when considering that the terror organization is responsible for murdering hundreds of Israelis. The blockade of Gaza exists precisely to prevent Hamas terrorists from acquiring the resources necessary to maintain a terror infrastructure.

Promoting Revisionist Israeli History at the Economist

...But it’s worth pondering why the Economist would pass along an odd and verifiably false smear that paints Jews as the choosing heirs of a terrorist–and which slanders Netanyahu specifically. The answer, I’d wager, is contained in the last three sentences of the review, which demonstrate the potent combination of astounding ignorance and spectacular malice.

Seth Mandel..
Commentary Magazine..
12 may '14..

On Friday afternoon, Tablet’s Yair Rosenberg posted a corrective calling the Economist to account for its latest falsehood about Jews. In a review of a book about the British Mandate authorities’ hunt for Avraham Stern, the leader of the “Stern gang,” or Lehi, the reviewer made the following claims:

Stern still commands a striking hold over many of Israel’s ruling right-wingers, including the successors of the mandate-era Jewish underground who continue to perpetrate attacks on Palestinian civilians. Many still choose his nom de guerre, Yair, for their sons, including Israel’s current prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. One of the most fanatical settlements, Kochav Yair, is named after him.

Rosenberg patiently explains that there are two kinds of falsehoods in this paragraph. The obvious one, which the Economist has since corrected, is its characterization of Kochav Yair as a “fanatical settlement.” Rosenberg notes that readers quickly pushed back on the Economist, since Kochav Yair is neither fanatical nor a settlement. The other falsehood is that Jews named Yair are named for a terrorist.

Rosenberg admits he’s not impartial here; his name is Yair and, as he joked on Twitter, claiming that Yair is not a Jewish terrorist’s name is exactly what you’d expect a Jew named Yair to say. But kidding aside: “To the more literate, however, ‘Yair’–which means ‘will illuminate’–is of course a famous biblical name that has been popular among Jews for centuries,” Rosenberg writes. “It is one of the few names possessed by multiple characters in the Hebrew Bible.”

Rosenberg also notes that the Economist has yet to correct this mistake. But it’s worth pondering why the Economist would pass along an odd and verifiably false smear that paints Jews as the choosing heirs of a terrorist–and which slanders Netanyahu specifically. The answer, I’d wager, is contained in the last three sentences of the review, which demonstrate the potent combination of astounding ignorance and spectacular malice. Here’s the magazine describing Stern’s legacy:

According to The Economist Israel Desecrates Holy Sites ...

...In fact, while the desecration of Jewish holy sites is, in the example of the Temple Mount, an officially sanctioned Palestinian activity, Israel has anchored in law the protection of all religious holy sites since 1967 and prosecutes those who are caught violating the law

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
02 March '14..

In recent years the Muslim Waqf responsible for administering the Temple Mount has removed piles of earth from the site dumping precious Jewish antiquities into the municipal trash, deliberately erasing the physical connections between the Jewish people and their holiest site.

Only last year there was an incident of vandalism by Palestinian Muslims of sacred Jewish objects at Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs.

But who is really threatening the sanctity of religious sites in the Holy Land? According to The Economist, it’s Israel.

The hook on which to hang this absurd charge is one incident of vandalism of David’s Tomb in Jerusalem by Jewish extremists and recent debates on allowing Jews to pray on the Temple Mount.

In fact, while the desecration of Jewish holy sites is, in the example of the Temple Mount, an officially sanctioned Palestinian activity, Israel has anchored in law the protection of all religious holy sites since 1967 and prosecutes those who are caught violating the law:

The Holy Places shall be protected from desecration and any other violation and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places.

The Economist, however, writes:

The assertion that time is not on Israel’s side simply defies logic

...As for the assertion that time is not on Israel’s side, it defies logic. Israel is a success story, while our Arab neighbors are plagued by civil wars, cultural decline, and economic contraction. If time is their friend, they surely don’t need enemies.

Dr. Emmanuel Navon..
I24 News..
22 January '14..

In its last issue, The Economist claims that Israel will not remain Jewish if it does not evacuate the West Bank (“demography,” it says, is heading to “a Palestinian majority”). Interestingly, The Economist’s argument is no longer about peace but about demographics. With the Oslo Agreements having brought war and bloodshed, and with the European-imposed Arab state model crumbling under the weight of political Islam, the idea that establishing a 23rd failed Arab state is what will bring peace to this war-torn region does not even pass the laughing test. Hence has the justification for Palestinian statehood switched (at least among rational people) from peace to demographics.

But if The Economist and other proponents of the two-state model have been so wrong about peace, why assume that they are so right about demographics?

For a start, Gaza is now out of the equation, and therefore calculations only apply to pre-1967 Israel and to the West Bank. The binational scare is based on a census conducted in 1997 by the “Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics” (PCBS). According to that census, there were 2.78 million Arabs in the West Bank in 1997. This figure surprised many at the time because a similar census conducted by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS) in 1996 had revealed that the number of Arabs in the West Bank was of 2.11 million. How could the Arab population have increased so rapidly within a year?

The answer is that the PCBS included 325,000 overseas residents and double-counted the 210,000 Arab residents of Jerusalem. In 2011, there were about 400,000 Arabs from the West Bank living overseas. They are still included in the PCBS demographic count. According to internationally accepted demographic standards, overseas residents who are abroad for over a year are not counted demographically. The PCBS does not abide by this international standard (Israel does). The PCBS also assumed, back in 1997, that there would be an annual net Arab immigration to the West Bank and Gaza of 45,000. In reality, there has been an annual net Arab emigration from the West Bank and Gaza.

According to Israeli demographer Sergio della Pergola, Jews constitute a 62% majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, excluding the Gaza Strip. When Israel declared its independence in 1947, there was a one-third Jewish minority. In 1947, Roberto Bachi (a professor of statistics and founder of Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics) implored Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion not to declare independence. Bachi claimed at the time that with a population of 600,000 the Jews would become a minority by 1967. Bachi did not take into account the massive waves of “Aliya” (Jewish immigration), and his predictions turned out to be mistaken.

The Jewish population has grown so far, mostly thanks to Aliya. How does the trend look for the coming years?

An extraordinarily misleading 12 words on why Hamas hates Israel

Adam Levick..
CiF Watch..
16 September '13..

Sometimes when reading the British media’s coverage of the Middle East, it seems as if some ‘professional’ reporters either have little expertise on the issues they’re writing about or that their employer lacks such high-tech, super-sophisticated research tools as, say, Google.

The Economist’s recent article on Hamas’s continuing isolation (Lonely Hamas, Sept. 7), is a case in point.

First, in fairness, the report does paint a largely accurate picture of the pressure being placed on the Islamist group by Egypt’s new regime:

THE Gaza Strip, an enclave tucked between Egypt and Israel that is still ruled by Hamas, a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, is once again caged in. Egypt’s ruling generals, fearful that what they see as an Islamist tumour on their north-eastern flank might grow back into a Brotherhood cancer, want to contain it, if not cut it out. So they have sent bulldozers to demolish the houses along the border with Gaza that covered the tunnels providing Gaza’s 1.8m people with half their basic needs and most of their fuel and building material.

Of some 300 tunnels that operated before Egypt’s army overthrew Muhammad Morsi, the Muslim Brother who had been president for a year, only ten are said now to function.

Later, there’s also this fair assessment of why the ‘Zionist enemy’ (at least temporarily) no longer seems like Hamas’s greatest threat:

If it is to survive as Gaza’s ruler, Hamas will have to rely on its old foe, Israel. While Egypt has choked off access to Gaza, Israel has loosened it, with 400 lorries recently entering the strip from Israel via the Kerem Shalom crossing in a single day, the liveliest such traffic for many years. “If they increase demand, we’re ready to step up,” says an Israeli military spokeswoman.

At Friday prayers, some Hamas preachers curse Egypt more than Israel.

Good so far. However, then, in the final paragraph, the author of the unsigned article attempts to provide readers with some context on the enmity between Israel and Hamas, and writes the following:

Yet Israelis still loathe Hamas, which carried out scores of suicide-bombings against Israelis in the early 2000s. Hamas, meanwhile, reviles Israel for its assaults on Gaza and its leaders.

That’s why Hamas hates Israel?!

(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. Check-it out!

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Over the Top at the The Economist - Advocating for Palestinian Killers

RH..
CAMERA Snapshots..
19 August '13..

The Economist continues to go off the rails in its treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its overt bias violates all journalistic norms. The latest article about the topic of the Palestinian prisoner release, “Why they count,"” essentially advocates for Palestinians who have violently attacked or murdered Israelis. Subtitled "The release of prisoners touches Palestinians to their core," the article starts by complaining that the number of Palestinian prisoners released by Israel has declined and then faults Israel for allegedly detaining "eight times as many Palestinians as it has just released" -- with the implication that, with some exceptions, many Palestinians are randomly detained and held in prison for no good reason.

When the two sides sat down to negotiate two decades ago, after signing the Oslo accords in 1993, Israel freed 2,000 Palestinians in a single year. For the next couple of years it released, on average, around 1,000 a year. In later years that number slumped to a few hundred. Now, to coincide with the fresh round of talks that started in Jerusalem on August 14th, Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has freed just 26.

And:

Since July 19th, when America’s secretary of state, John Kerry, announced that peace talks would restart, Israel—say human-rights campaigners—has detained eight times as many Palestinians as it has just released.

Citing Palestinian President Abbas' "critics," the column goes so far as to suggest that violence and kidnapping, Hamas' tactic of choice, is most effective against Israel:

The Economist's Sympathy for the Devils

...How to explain The Economist’s newfound sympathy for the devils? It’s clearly easier to support prisoner releases when the terror attacks weren’t in your neighborhood.

Pesach Benson..
Honest Reporting Backspin..
17 August '13..




The Economist thinks Israel was stingy with last week’s prisoner release.

As a measure of the seriousness of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, the number of Palestinian prisoners released on the eve of talks, say pessimists, is a gloomy barometer. When the two sides sat down to negotiate two decades ago, after signing the Oslo accords in 1993, Israel freed 2,000 Palestinians in a single year. For the next couple of years it released, on average, around 1,000 a year. In later years that number slumped to a few hundred. Now, to coincide with the fresh round of talks that started in Jerusalem on August 14th, Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has freed just 26.

Even this has provoked an outcry in Israel.

Surprised that The Economist is so dismissive of Israeli terror victims’ pain?

Maybe a little. You see, the paper tapped into the very same distress when it condemned Abdelbaset al Megrahi’s release from prison back in 2009. Scottish authorities released the Lockerbie bomber on “compassionate grounds” after being diagnosed with cancer. Megrahi returned to a hero’s welcome in Libya and lived another three years.

What The Economist articulated then applies to the 26 murderers now enjoying their ill-deserved freedom:

The reason to leave Mr Megrahi in prison was less practical than symbolic. The atrocity of which he was eventually found guilty in 2001 killed 270 people (189 of them Americans). Terrorism is sometimes fuzzily thought to have a sort of intellectual respectability that more banal forms of violence lack. But the Lockerbie bombing was cold-blooded mass murder; Mr Megrahi’s crime was worse than that of any other prisoner in Britain. The purpose of jail is to signal society’s disapproval and console victims as well as to rehabilitate and deter; and, on moral grounds, Mr Megrahi should have died in one.

Now the ‘Economist’ Warns Iran Won’t Be Stopped

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary..
27 June '13..

For years, we’ve been told that there’s plenty of time to stop Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. The world laughed when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu drew a red line across a cartoon bomb at the United Nations last fall to demonstrate the need to act before it was too late. President Obama, who has vociferously pledged that Tehran will never gain such a weapon on his watch, tried engagement and then a mix of sanctions and diplomacy to try and make good on his promise. He still insists that this policy will eventually work and with the election of a new supposedly more moderate Iranian president, virtually everyone in the chattering classes and the foreign policy establishment has seemed content to allow the administration to keep talking about talking with the Islamist regime even if there’s no sign that it will ever work. This complacence has been criticized by American conservatives and some Israelis to little effect, but now one of the most reliable indicators of establishment thinking in Europe with little sympathy for Israel is agreeing with those long deemed alarmists about Iran.

In an eye-opening article published this week, the Economist dismisses the notion that anything the United States and its allies has been trying will work:

British and American intelligence sources think Iran is about a year away from having enough highly enriched uranium to make a bomb, and rather further from mastering the technologies to make a nuclear warhead small enough to fit into a missile. But David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector who is president of the Institute for Science and International Security, thinks that by mid-2014 Iran will have the capacity to produce enough fissile material for a single bomb in one or two weeks, should it choose to do so. It seems unlikely that Iran could be forced to change course on this matter by foreigners. The best that can be hoped for is that it decides that it does not want or need a nuclear weapon.

But given that, as the magazine stated in the opening sentence of the piece, “Iran is putting up with sanctions that damage its economy rather than accept a deal limiting its nuclear programme,” what possible reason is there to believe that the ayatollahs would simply give up what the regime has worked so long and hard to achieve? The obvious answer is none at all. Which means that the assurances we have been getting from Washington about having all the time in the world to let diplomacy work—in spite of repeated failures—was pure bunk. While I wouldn’t expect those who have been working diligently to switch American policy from one aimed at stopping Iran to one of containment (something Obama has disavowed) to draw any conclusions from this, it should be noted that this turn of events has led a leading columnist at Israel’s left-wing Haaretz newspaper to make a startling concession: Netanyahu was right all along.

More Brilliance at the Economist - Did They Stay or Did They Go?

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting Backspin..
09 June '13..





An article on Christian Arabs in The Economist begins with the following:

While Israel’s 1.4m Muslim citizens vociferously champ for the right to return to the lands they fled in 1948, when Israel was created…

Evidently someone at The Economist must be confused. For starters, 1.4 million Muslims did not flee Israel in 1948 (the number was half that) and if they had, they would not be citizens as The Economist described them.

And even then, today’s Arab Israelis are living as full citizens in mixed cities such as Haifa, Akko and Jaffa as well as their own villages in the Galilee region and Bedouin settlements in the Negev to name but a few. They certainly aren’t “vociferously champing” for a right of return.

It’s these sorts of supposedly minor errors that add up to the historical distortion of events in the region. Time The Economist checked its figures.

Link: http://honestreporting.com/did-they-stay-or-did-they-go/

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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BDS - Why does The Economist insist on hiding that truth?

GI..
CAMERA Snapshots..
10 May '13..

The Economist is the latest media organization to misinform its readers by whitewashing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The British weekly stated in a recent article that BDS "wants Israel ostracised until it withdraws to its pre-1967 borders."

As we and others have noted before, BDS calls for much more than an Israeli withdrawal to the boundaries that existed before Jordan attacked the country in 1967. It seeks the end of Israel.

But don't take our word for it. Take it from Omar Barghouti, a BDS spokesperson quoted in the Economist's article. Barghouti has admitted that his goal is not for Israel to change its borders, but for it to be replaced with a "unitary state, where, by definition, Jews will be a minority."

He has also explained, in so many words, that BDS wants the same thing:

CAMERA - The Economist Changes Offensive Title

SC..
CAMERA/Snapshots..
17 March '12..



Since we posted our article on the venomous M.S. blog of March 6, 2012, The Economist has seen fit to change the title from “Israel, Iran and America: Auschwitz complex” to “Israel, Iran and America: Masters of their fate?” The editor’s note reads:

The original headline of this blog post was inappropriate and has been changed at the instruction of the editor in chief. No offence was intended and we apologise unreservedly.

The content of the blog flouted all journalistic norms, completely misrepresented the facts and was laden with hostility toward Israel, Judaism and Jews. One hopes the editor-in-chief will see the need to rectify that as well.

Link: http://blog.camera.org/archives/2012/03/the_economist_changes_offensiv_1.html

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
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Marquadt-Bigman - Ranting against Israel at The Economist

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
08 March '12..



At the Economist’s blog on “Democracy in America” – which is supposedly about American politics – one of the respected magazine’s correspondents identified by the initials M.S. has published a post under the title “Israel, Iran and America: Auschwitz complex.”

The post seems to have been written in a fit of debilitating rage.

Right at the outset, the writer quotes Netanyahu stating to Obama that he views it as his “supreme responsibility as prime minister of Israel…to ensure that Israel remains master of its fate.”

Everyone knows what this means in the relevant context of the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran: given America’s vastly superior military capabilities, the US can wait with a strike much longer than Israel to see how far Iran will get with its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

But the Economist’s correspondent seems oblivious of this widely noted issue.

Instead, s/he plays (?) dumb and, in an attempt at sarcasm, picks up on the notion of being master of one’s fate:

Rubin - The Economist Makes Israelis Into Monsters, Follow-Up

Barry Rubin
Rubin Reports
pajamasmedia.com
01 August '11

http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/08/01/the-economist-makes-israelis-into-monsters-follow-up/

I wrote recently of how The Economist ran an incredible article trying to make Israelis look like horrible war criminals based on what seemed to be made up and distorted material. The one person actually quoted by name in the article was Eran (distorted to “Iran”) Segal. I sent him the paragraph in question:

“For some of Halamish’s settlers, irritated by the tear-gas that wafts into their living rooms from across the hill, this is not harsh enough. `The soldiers don’t maim enough Palestinians,’ complains Iran Segal.”

Mr. Segal responded that he only talked to the reporter about how the Friday stonethrowing–note, not the tear-gas (fired by Israeli soldiers) but the stones thrown at him by Palestinians–makes life impossible. He explained to the journalist that stones can kill.

The only thing he said about what the army should do was that if it had taken the problem more seriously in the past that the stone-throwing would have stopped.

I believe Mr. Segal, who seemed genuinely shocked by the statement attributed to him. Note how his complaint about being a victim (stones thrown to injure and perhaps kill him) was changed into making him seem a bloodthirsty aggressor (wanting to maim harmless little kids who had done him no harm at all).

Whether or not the settlements should be there, the land traded to the Palestinians in exchange for peace (if that’s ever possible), or the settlements should be dismantled after a peace agreement (if that ever happens) is irrelevant. That’s for the editorial pages.

The views of people quoted and what actually happens should be represented fairly. One reporter I know who worked for a major American newspaper told me she was forbidden to write anything about settlers that might be deemed the least bit sympathetic. The narrative was that Palestinians were victims and that’s what all the stories should reflect.

Mr. Segal has been slandered, but then that’s true for all Israelis.

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Rubin - If Anti-Israel Propaganda Becomes Too Ridiculous Will Nobody Believe it?

Barry Rubin
Rubin Reports
pajamasmedia.com
29 July '11

http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/07/29/if-anti-israel-propaganda-becomes-too-ridiculous-will-nobody-believe-it/

And if once-prestigious publications publish material that borders on satire will they be discredited?

This article in The Economist, once considered the world’s greatest international magazine for serious news and business analysis is so horrendous that I admit to laughing hysterically while reading it.

The opening sentence is priceless. Innocent Palestinian kids are just going to get water and for no reason at all Israeli soldiers start shooting them down in cold blood. If such an incident had ever happened, it would be everywhere in the mass media. Yet no date or place is mentioned, making it certain that this is fabricated or, more likely, the journalist merely writing down what he was told by Palestinians.

Then the reporter quotes an Israeli settler as saying that the soldiers should maim Palestinians more. No place, no date. This one the journalist himself must have made up.

That’s the best line I have read since a USA Today reporter (later fired for making stuff up) wrote of how a settler was going out to kill Palestinians so he put on his kipa before he went out the door. [Note: Orthodox Jews always wear a kepah or hat even when at home not murdering Palestinians.]

When the individual named in the USA Today article as having been at least an attempted murderer protested to the newspaper that it was ridiculously inaccurate, they ignored him only to find out later that the reporter did make things up on other stories (and fiddled his expense accounts, too) and fired him.

If The Economist has reached the level of bias once achieved in Germany during the 1930s, what possible hope is there for the mass media? Remember, it isn’t just a writer’s work but also the acceptance of it by editors and the use of that person in future employment.

All of this raises an intriguing question: If the lies become continually larger and more glaringly ridiculous will such stuff lose credibility? Will anyone in authority recognize that such incitement does lead to hatred, terrorism, and even murder (or its justification)?

I’m not answering the question, I’m just asking it.

http://www.economist.com/node/18988684

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The Economist Strikes Again

Elliot Jager
Jewish Ideas Daily
07 January '11

The Economist is a curious publication. A weekly newsmagazine published in London, devoted to international politics, business news, and social trends, it largely hews to a classical liberal (or libertarian) line in economics and a correspondingly conservative line in politics. In contrast to most newsmagazines today, it is also a rousing success: while the moribund Time and Newsweek are tightening their belts, the proudly highbrow Economist has more than doubled its circulation (now at 1.6 million, half in the U.S.) in the past decade and continues to wield great influence in the world of ideas and opinion.

As reputable and sophisticated as the Economist's coverage has been, however, its political stance lends credence to charges of bias. This is particularly true in the case of Israel, where the magazine consistently drops its façade of cool detachment and recklessly scatters diagnoses and accusations like daisies. The current cover story, "Please, Not Again: The Threat of War in the Middle East," is the latest case in point.

According to the Economist, war could break out at any point this year over Iran's "apparent" desire to build atomic bombs, the arms race "between" Israel and Hizballah (presumably, the two share an equal thirst for aggression), or "miscalculations" on the Gaza border. The solution to these frightening scenarios? The Obama administration must exert "tough love" on Israel by imposing a settlement that will establish a Fatah-led Palestine in the West Bank. For, the article reasons, once this is done, Iran, Hizballah, and Hamas in Gaza will all find it "much harder" to attack Israel.

Economist editorials and feature articles are published anonymously—though the newspaper's Israel correspondent, former Haaretz editor David Landau, would likely have contributed to the latest barrage. Landau is on record as asserting that Israel is begging for "more vigorous U.S. intervention" and in fact "wants to be raped" by Washington. In the Economist report, an unappreciative Israel is now pocketing billions in American aid even as it rebuffs pleas to "pause in its building of illegal Jewish settlements." The reasons for this supposed obstinacy are Israel's "thriving economy" and "America's pro-Israel lobby"—hence the need for muscular and determined action by the White House.

(Read full "The Economist Strikes Again")

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Tu Quoque *, The Economist

Emmanuel Navon
For the Sake of Zion
13 June '10

“Can the whole world be wrong?” asked Koffi Annan in April 2002. His was a rhetorical question meant to make a sophistic point: If the UN says black and Israel says white, do the math and guess who’s right. Coming from a man under whose watch (whether as Head of the Peacekeeping Operations Department, as Under-Secretary General, or as Secretary General) the UN was passive at best and accomplice at worst during the Rwanda Genocide, the Srebrenica massacre, the Darfur ethnic cleansing and the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal, asking such a question required no small amount of sang froid.

What Annan meant by “the whole world” was the UN, an organization numerically dominated by human rights violators. Similarly, what The Economist means by “the world” (“How Israel plays into Hamas’s hands,” June 5th 2010) are those European dhimmis who refuse to face what Islam is up to. So, yes, “the world” of Koffi Annan and of The Economist can indeed be wrong.

If you were still wondering why Europe is expressing outrage at Israel’s act of self-defense while excusing Turkey’s provocations, then read the op-ed published in The New York Times on June 10th by Bernard Kouchner, Franco Frattini, and Miguel Moratinos. Those three European foreign ministers provide a crystal-clear explanation for their hypocrisy: they need to appease Europe’s Muslim citizens (here’s the quote: “[the flotilla incident] must not create the conditions for a further escalation of violence either in the Middle East or in Europe, where deep emotion has been aroused”).

(Read full article)

* tu quo·que (too kwo kwe) n. A retort accusing an accuser of a similar offense or similar behavior.

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