Surprise? The Washington Post’s Opinion Page Slanders Israel, Again - by Sean Durns

The Washington Post is not living up to its own guidelines and standards. Its opinion pages—meant to be a place for honest debate—are increasingly a forum for falsehoods—and worse.

Sean Durns..
TOI Blog..
06 August '20..

“Facts,” Mark Twain once observed, “are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.” When it comes to the Israel-Islamist conflict, the Washington Post’s global opinion page ignores the facts. And the newspaper consistently treats its own standards and ethics as pliable.

A July 31, 2020 op-ed entitled “The 2020 Democratic platform betrays Palestinians and again gives Israel a pass” offers a case in point. Writers Huwaida Arraf, Zeina Ashrawi Hutchison, and Sam Hindi, all delegates for the Democratic National Convention (DNC), use the Post to slander the Jewish state. They write that “as Palestinian-Americans and delegates to the Democratic National Convention, we are deeply dismayed that the language on Israel-Palestine once again ignores reality and basic Palestinian rights.” Yet, their argument rests on lies and omissions, all of which the Post could have—and should have—fact checked.

The delegates claim that “Israeli settlements are Jewish-only colonies built on stolen Palestinian land” in the “West Bank.” This is false. In fact, no sovereign Palestinian Arab state has ever existed. Indeed, as The Wall Street Journal noted in a May 16, 2020 correction that was prompted by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA): “Under the Oslo accords, sovereignty over the West Bank is disputed, pending a final peace settlement.”

And the Jewish claim to the land is based on both history and international law.

Arabs are from Arabia and Jews are from their “historic homeland,” Judea and Samaria — or, as it has sometimes been called for the last half century, the “West Bank.” The term “Palestine” comes from the word “Palaestina” which the Roman conquerors coined after expelling many, but not all, Jews from Judea in the second century AD. Arabs, including the forebears of today’s Palestinians, didn’t arrive in the land until the Islamic conquests of the seventh century. By contrast, Jews are indigenous to the land and have maintained a continual presence that goes back thousands of years.

Contrary to what the writers claim, Jewish communities in the West Bank do not “violate international law.” In fact, the opposite is true.

(Continue to Full Column)

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Truth be told, ‘Peace in the Middle East’ isn’t open-heart surgery - by Sean Durns

It’s not so complicated. Palestinian leaders have long rejected peace with a Jewish state, treating terror as a bargaining tool. Yet “The Washington Post” seems unaware of this reality.

Sean Durns..
CAMERA..
14 February '20..
Link: https://www.camera.org/article/camera-op-ed-peace-in-the-middle-east-isnt-open-heart-surgery/

It doesn’t take a heart surgeon to figure out why there isn’t peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The Washington Post, however, seems to think otherwise.

On Jan. 29, 2020, the Post’s Alexandra Petri published a column titled “I have just read 25 books and am here to perform your open-heart surgery.” Petri used satire to mock Trump son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, who noted that he read 25 books in preparation for helping oversee the administration’s peace proposal. What is truly laughable, however, is the newspaper’s lack of self-awareness.

For years, The Washington Post has given column space to “experts” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Individuals like Aaron David Miller, Dennis Ross, Daniel Kurtzer, Martin Indyk, Richard Haas and Rob Malley, among others, are all experienced former U.S. diplomats with decades of experience devoted to “solving” the conflict. All have doctorates in international relations or related fields (Malley also has a Harvard Law degree). All have lectured and published widely on the topic. Several—Miller, Ross, Kurtzer and Indyk—have published books on their experiences.

And all failed at what they set out to do: achieve peace between Israel and Palestinian leaders. That they failed is not, of course, a judgement of their many years of public service. They were merely the latest diplomats whose plans and proposals fell victim to Palestinian intransigence.

As the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) has frequently noted, Palestinian leaders have for more than eight decades rejected opportunities for a Palestinian Arab state if it meant living in peace next to a Jewish one.

In 1937, the British, who ruled over Mandate Palestine, proposed what can be considered the forerunner to the “two-state solution” and were rebuffed by Arab leaders, including the Palestinian-Arab leadership that would soon side with the Axis powers in the coming war. In 1947, the Unites Nations proposed a partition plan that would have given Palestinians something that they had never had before: a state of their own. Instead, Palestinian leaders and five Arab nations rejected the U.N. proposal and sought to destroy the fledgling Jewish nation. They failed.

Similar rejectionism followed the Arab-initiated 1967 Six-Day War. In the mid to late 1970s, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, seeking to align his country with the United States, made peace with Israel. Simultaneously, however, Yasser Arafat, the head of the Fatah movement and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) rejected peace, preferring instead to continue to support terror attacks against Israel.

Palestinian leaders continued to choose terror over negotiations until the fall of their chief patron, the Soviet Union, in 1991. That loss, and Arafat’s decision to support Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait—thereby incurring the wrath of Arab donors—left the PLO, then headquartered in Tunis after being expelled from Lebanon by Israel, in the lurch.

The United States and others would throw a lifeline to the PLO. The Oslo Peace Process enabled Arafat and his entourage to return and receive international aid. Oslo created the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) and allowed for limited self-rule. In exchange, Palestinian leaders promised to cease terrorist attacks, stop praising anti-Jewish violence and resolve outstanding issues via negotiations.

But the Palestinian leadership didn’t keep its word. Indeed, the very night of the September 1993 White House lawn signing ceremony, in which Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands, the PLO chieftain broadcast a speech on Jordanian television stating that Palestinians and the Arab world should understand Oslo in terms of the Palestine National Council’s 1974 decision. As Kenneth Levin, author of The Oslo Syndrome, has observed, this was a reference to the “plan of phases,” according to which the PLO “would acquire whatever territory it could by negotiations, and then use that land as a base for pursuing Israel’s annihilation.”

Indeed, as Shoshana Bryen of the Jewish Policy Center has noted, the PLO never amended its 1964 charter that calls for Israel’s destruction. In a 1996 speech in Stockholm, Arafat acknowledged: “We plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. … We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem.”

While Oslo might have been a deception, these words showed the PLO’s true intentions.

Indeed, they have been remarkably consistent. Palestinian leaders would continue to reject—without so much as a counteroffer—U.S. and Israeli proposals for peace in exchange for statehood, in 2000 at Camp David, 2001 at Taba and 2008 after the Annapolis Conference. In 2014 and 2016, America proposed and Israel accepted plans to restart negotiations based on the 2008 offer. But these were also rejected.

These peace proposals, some of them put forward by The Washington Post’s approved “experts,” never brought peace. Indeed, they often brought violence.

As CAMERA’s Steve Stotsky has documented, terror attacks and violence increased dramatically after the Oslo Peace Process allowed the PLO—a terrorist entity that had murdered Americans and Israelis alike—to return. Indeed, testimonials from Arafat’s wife, Suha, and his associates, like Abd Elah al-Atira, indicate that Arafat likely planned the Second Intifada—in which more than 1,000 Israelis were murdered and thousands injured in five years of suicide bombings, mass shootings and lynchings—while pretending to be interested in negotiations.

In the years since, P.A. leader and Arafat successor Mahmoud Abbas has not only refused U.S. and Israeli demands to end the P.A.’s “pay to slay” program, in which terrorists and their families are paid for acts of violence against Jews, but has increased their salaries. The very flag of Abbas’s Fatah movement that dominates the P.A. continues to depict all of Israel as “Palestine,” a claim routinely made by official P.A.-approved media outlets, which recently—before the latest plan was announced—called to murder Jews at a Holocaust commemoration event.

If the peace process is a “patient,” then Washington Post-approved peace process “doctors” have presided over its death. And yet, the Post itself is unaware of this reality, pretending that the lack of peace must be due to complicated reasons that only esteemed experts with doctoral degrees can discern. In fact, it is quite simple: Palestinian leaders have long rejected peace with a Jewish state, treating terror as a bargaining tool. One doesn’t need to be a heart surgeon to understand that.

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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A Washington Post Narrative on the Israel-Islamic Conflict That Requires Excavation - by Sean Durns

Archaeological digs are about uncovering history and truth—not narrative. It is no wonder that those who deny the Jewish people’s connection to the land would find them objectionable and inconvenient. The Washington Post, however, should take a cue from the archaeologists and dig deeper.

Sean Durns..
CAMERA..
30 January '19..

A Jan. 27, 2019 Washington Post report, “Dig for ancient road unsettles Palestinians,” offered a glimpse at the problems plaguing the newspaper’s coverage of Israel. The article, by Jerusalem bureau chief Loveday Morris and reporter Ruth Eglash, relied on questionable sources and revealed the paper’s preference for narrative-based reporting.

The Post’s 1,181-word dispatch, replete with several photographs, described Israeli archaeological work in ominous terms. The newspaper highlighted excavations near the present day Arab neighborhood of Wadi Hilweh in eastern Jerusalem. Israeli archaeologists believe that the digs will uncover “an important thoroughfare used by worshipers some 2,000 years ago to reach the Jewish holy temple.”

The newspaper noted, “Developers envisage an archaeological attraction that would lure millions of visitors keen to walk the same stones as ancient pilgrims, or perhaps even Jesus.” Private donors and the Israeli government have contributed to the project, which is organized by the City of David Foundation.

The Post, however, warned: “But in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, in which land and each side’s historical connection to it is front and center, the endeavor is inevitably mired in controversy. Palestinian officials say it is an attempt to literally pull their hopes for a future capital in East Jerusalem from under their feet.”

Palestinian officials—none of whom are specifically cited in the report—might very well make such claims. But The Post failed to inform readers that they’re transparently disingenuous.

(Continue to Full Post)

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Very Classy. Using a Moshe Arens Obituary to Bash Bibi - by Sean Durns

...The Post’s gratuitous jab at Netanyahu was, of course, meant to demean the Israeli prime minister. At first glance, a single line in a larger article might not mean much. But the decision to belittle Bibi in another man’s obituary is quite revealing. It showcases how deeply ingrained The Washington Post’s anti-Netanyahu bias is. The paper simply can’t resist an opportunity to take a punch at him.

Sean Durns..
Algemeiner..
17 January '19..

Newspapers typically publish obituaries of famous figures in order to sum up their life’s work. The Washington Post, however, used an obituary to belittle Israel’s prime minister. In so doing, the newspaper not only discarded decorum and decency, but illustrated how deep its biases go.

Moshe Arens, a former Israeli politician, died at the age of 93 on January 7, 2019. By any measure, Arens was a legendary figure, serving three times as defense minister and once as foreign minister. He was, as The New York Times reported, an influential ambassador to the US who “proved adept at making Israel’s case in the United States and came to be valued by Reagan administration officials as an Israeli government insider.”

An aeronautical engineer turned statesman, Arens was “one of the longest-surviving members of Israel’s founding generation,” the paper said — even seeking the premiership.

As The Algemeiner noted, Arens “was current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s primary mentor in the 1980s,” and helped “pave the way for Netanyahu’s rise to political power.” The Washington Post, however, chose to phrase this part of Arens’ biography differently, writing: “Mr. Arens’s most enduring political legacy is probably his role in launching the career of Netanyahu, a charismatic furniture salesman — and family friend — whom Mr. Arens hired as his No. 2 after being appointed ambassador to the United States.”

Readers unfamiliar with Israeli history — which, if one is open to a charitable interpretation, might include Washington Post obituary writers as well — might think that Arens just plucked a furniture salesman out of the blue. The Post’s description, however, is both misleading and incomplete.

In fact, Netanyahu was a “32-year-old frustrated sales executive at an Israeli furniture company,” according to an Arens obituary penned by Bibi biographer (and frequent critic) Anshel Pfeffer. There is, of course, a significant difference between the jobs of a “salesman” and “executive” — not only in duties, but, if implicitly, in prestige as well.

Moreover, by the time that Netanyahu was chosen by Arens, Bibi was already a combat veteran of the elite IDF unit Sayeret Matkal, which is roughly analogous to the US Army’s Delta Force. Netanyahu was a decorated officer, having been shot in one operation. The future prime minister also possessed dual degrees from an elite school, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and had founded the Yonatan Netanyahu Anti-Terror Institute, named after his brother, a Sayeret Matkal officer who had been killed in an iconic hostage rescue mission in Uganda. That’s quite a resume — and one that the description of “furniture salesman” hardly hints at.

The Post’s gratuitous jab at Netanyahu was, of course, meant to demean the Israeli prime minister. At first glance, a single line in a larger article might not mean much. But the decision to belittle Bibi in another man’s obituary is quite revealing. It showcases how deeply ingrained The Washington Post’s anti-Netanyahu bias is. The paper simply can’t resist an opportunity to take a punch at him.

(Continue to Full Column)

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 Washington Post’s irredeemable ‘reporting’ on UNRWA - by Sean Durns

A picture, the saying goes, is worth a thousand words. And this particular picture is worth more than the thousands of words and images that The Washington Post has produced in its pathetic “reporting” on UNRWA.

Sean Durns..
CAMERA.org...
20 November '18..

Washington Post reporting on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) continues to omit key context and mislead readers. A Nov. 19, 2018 front-page dispatch, “U.S. cuts add to Palestinians’ misery,” adds to the paper’s poor coverage of the U.N. organization. The Post is unable, or perhaps unwilling, to offer straightforward reporting on the agency.

Originally envisioned as a temporary agency, UNRWA was created in 1949, following the unsuccessful attempt by several Arab states to destroy Israel. Over time, UNRWA developed into the only U.N. organization whose stated mission is to assist a specific group of refugees, Palestinian Arabs. All other refugee populations in the world fall under the jurisdiction of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Importantly, UNRWA’s definition of “refugee” is not dependent on need and even applies to citizens of recognized states, such as Jordan.

Oddly, UNRWA considers individuals living in areas ruled by Palestinians—as well as descendants of those who fled during and before Israel’s 1948 War of Independence—to be Palestinian “refugees.” As CAMERA has noted, according to UNRWA’s spurious definition, the twenty-year-old, Los Angeles-born millionaire fashion model, Bella Hadid, is considered a “refugee” from a seventy-year old event that occurred after Arab countries rejected a U.N. plan for a Jewish state and an Arab state, opting for war instead. Further, UNRWA has become the only refugee agency in the world whose purpose is not to resettle refugees (“UNRWA Has Changed the Definition of Refugee,” Foreign Policy Magazine, Aug. 17, 2018).

Instead of helping resettle refugees, UNRWA schools and facilities have been used to promote hatred and murder of Israelis.

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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. 

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It Seems for The Washington Post, Jewish Blood Isn’t Cheap — It’s Just Not Worth the Ink - by Sean Durns

...Thwarted terror plots, including suicide bombings and the planned assassination of a country’s leaders, are certainly newsworthy, but apparently not if the country is Israel and the newspaper is The Washington Post.

Sean Durns..
Algemeiner..
25 June '18..

“If it bleeds, it leads” is an old adage describing the media’s tendency to prioritize stories involving violence. But this is not the case, it seems, if it’s Israelis who are doing the bleeding. And not if you’re The Washington Post covering the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Beginning in late March 2018, Hamas undertook a nearly two-month-long operation dubbed the “Great Return March,” in which the Gaza-based terror group sent its operatives — many of them armed — to breach Israel’s sovereign border. In an attempt to create civilian casualties, terrorists were interspersed among unarmed civilians and tires were burned and mirrors used to obscure the vision of IDF snipers seeking to target Hamas terrorists.

Nonetheless, the Israeli targeting was largely successful. Of the 124 Gazans killed during the event, “more than 80%” were “terrorist operatives or affiliated with terrorist organizations,” according to a June 12, 2018 analysis by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. Hamas itself not only admitted that many of those killed were its operatives, but also conceded that they were “deceiving the public” by claiming that the March was one of “peaceful” resistance.

Media coverage of the Hamas-led operation, however, was uniformly awful — as CAMERA has documented. And The Washington Post was among the worst.

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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. 

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Hamas might appreciate the advertising, but Washington Post readers shouldn’t - by Sean Durns

It’s much easier, it seems, to reprint Hamas claims while ignoring Hamas culpability. But as long as media outlets like The Washington Post ignore and omit key facts, any solution will remain out of sight. As The Post’s onetime owner, Katharine Graham, reportedly said: “News is what someone wants suppressed. Everything else is advertising.” Hamas might appreciate the advertising, but Post readers shouldn’t.

Sean Durns..
CAMERA..
01 June '18..

A May 29, 2018 Washington Post report on a recent Hamas missile attack against Israel omitted key facts and context (“Tensions rise as Gaza militants fire more than 70 mortars, rockets into Israel”). The dispatch, by reporters Ruth Eglash and Hazem Balousha, also seemed to blame some Israelis for being upset that the U.S.-designated terrorist group was trying to murder them.

Hamas’s charter calls for the destruction of Israel. The group routinely launches rockets and wages war against the Jewish state. However, the group’s barrage on May 29, 2018 was “the largest amount of rockets and mortars fired at Israel” since the 2014 Israel-Hamas War, said Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Lt. Col Jonathan Conricus.

Armed with Iranian-made rockets and mortars, and assisted by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), another U.S.-listed terror group, Hamas purposefully launched missiles at Israeli schools, among other targets. As The Post bizarrely reported:

“One of the mortars in the first round of fire early Tuesday struck the yard of a kindergarten, drawing angry responses from Israeli leaders, although no children were in the preschool at the time [emphasis added].”

This description could be read as implying that the “angry response” from Israeli leaders was an overreaction. At the very least, it’s an odd way to describe a terror groups—referred to as “Palestinian militants” by The Post—failed attempt to murder Israeli schoolchildren.

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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. 

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Checking the Washington Post’s Fact Checker - by Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser and Sander Gerber

While trying to impugn Prime Minister Netanyahu’s correct assertion that the total 2017 funding of the Prisoner and Martyr Program is $350 million, Kessler misses the purpose of these entities. The Fact Checker’s subjective judgment misses the main point: the PA terror payments policy incentivizes terror that has claimed thousands of lives, including those of Americans. Providing any justification or rationalization for this is outrageous, immoral, illegal, and unacceptable. Ending this moral obfuscation may pave the road to peace. Ignoring it will eternalize the current impasse and encourage more terror.

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser/Sander Gerber..
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs..
25 March '18..
Link: http://jcpa.org/washington-posts-fact-checker/

The Washington Post’s Fact Checker’s column, “Does the Palestinian Authority pay $350 million a year to ‘terrorists and their families’?” (March 14, 2018), was less successful at fact-checking than at whitewashing the official Palestinian Authority policy of promoting and incentivizing terror by rewarding terrorists.

Glenn Kessler’s article represents some of the major problems with the attitude of Western media toward the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It verifies that the Palestinian Authority pays huge sums to perpetrators of terrorist acts and their families and confirms that the PA operates two organizations dedicated to this purpose. It also affirms that the salaries are malignly promised in advance to the terrorists and grow as the violence perpetrated causes greater damage.

Yet it fails in its unmandated moral exploration and judgment of what constitutes “terror.” Appallingly, it excuses payments to civilian attackers for intentional violence against innocents to promote political and religious goals. After 9/11, ISIS massacres, and Palestinian murders of Jews, Kessler shamefully resorts to the sloppy and evil excuse: “this brings us back to the cliché that one man’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.”

As Ambassador Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, noted: “Kessler enters the swamp of moral relativism, which in the current context means that no one is in a position to judge even the most heinous terror attacks, and this leads to terror with impunity and the world becomes more dangerous as international standards are not upheld.”

This attitude ignores the context. The terrorists are paid in accordance with Palestinian Authority law that defines them as the “fighting sector” of Palestinian society. There are two PA Institutions established by law to provide for the “prisoners and martyrs,” which are allocated $350 million in the official PA budget for 2017. In addition, Palestinian leaders regularly honor terrorists, erect memorials to commemorate them, and PA curricula and media praise them. This reflects the Palestinian narrative that regards the ongoing struggle against Zionism as an imperative for any Palestinian until victory. This is the logic behind the terror payments that is ignored, but should not be,

Washington Post Defends Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund - by Daniel Pomerantz

The Martyrs Fund is, by the very Palestinian law that established it, designed around terror. The only thing that’s fuzzy is why this incontrovertible fact is so conspicuously absent from the Washington Post’s fact-checking.

Daniel Pomerantz..
Honest Reporting..
14 March '18..

What is the Palestinian Martyrs Fund? Is it a reward for terrorists or a system of social welfare for those in genuine need?

A Washington Post fact-checking analysis attempts to make the case that the fund is not primarily a reward for terrorism but a misunderstood social welfare program, unfairly maligned by Israeli and American researchers:

A big problem is definitional. Netanyahu refers to “terrorists and their families.” In the Palestinian Authority’s budget, one can find $350* million in annual payments to Palestinian prisoners, “martyrs” and injured, but can one with certainty say they are all terrorists?

(*The Martyrs Fund has recently been increased to $403 Million.)

To this end, journalist Glenn Kessler repeats Palestinian arguments that the fund is a kind of social welfare, cherry picking examples that would appear to support the claim. He also criticizes rigorous Israeli and US research.

Finally, Kessler completely avoids examination of the one thing that would utterly topple his dubious case: Palestinian law itself.

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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. 

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‘The Washington Post’s continuing distortion of the Arab-Israeli conflict - by Sean Durns

The Washington Post continually omits Palestinian rejection of U.S. and Israeli peace offers, while simultaneously ignoring Palestinian leaders who embrace terror.

Sean Durns..
JNS.org..
13 March '18..

When it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, The Washington Post says much with what it chooses—and chooses not to—report. Both omission-laden reporting and selective coverage are distorting the paper’s depiction of the Jewish state.

The Washington Post continually omits Palestinian rejection of U.S. and Israeli peace offers, while simultaneously ignoring Palestinian leaders who embrace terror. In the last 18 years alone, the Palestinian Authority has refused U.S. and Israeli proposals for peace in exchange for a Palestinian state on numerous occasions, including 2000 at Camp David, 2001 at Taba and 2008 after the Annapolis Conference. Similarly, the P.A. rejected U.S. attempts to restart negotiations in 2014 and 2016, and has refused bilateral talks—a requirement stipulated by the Oslo accords that created the P.A. in the first place and which remains the basis for its funding—for the last eight years.

The P.A. could have accepted any of these numerous opportunities for statehood; they not only refused, but declined to so much as make a counteroffer.

Yet The Washington Post doesn’t feel that this continual pattern of Palestinian rejectionism is worthy of news space. The Post failed to detail these rejected offers in the more than 35 reports on the state of the “peace process” that their Jerusalem bureau and World Views section published from January 2016 through February 2018.

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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. 

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The Washington Post Alleges Israel Used Iranian Drone As ‘Pretext’ For Attack - by Sean Durns

...Webster's Dictionary defines pretext as "a reason that you give to hide your real reason for doing something." The chain of events (an account of which can be found here) proves otherwise. The phrase "pretext" is journalistically imprecise, misleading and violates The Post's own standards for fairness in reporting.

Sean Durns..
CAMERA Snapshots@camera.org..
11 February '18..
Link: http://blog.camera.org/archives/2018/02/_the_washington_post_claims_is.html

The Washington Post has treated an Iranian attack against Israel with unwarranted skepticism, using the event to unfairly question the motives of the Israeli military.

The Post asserted in a Feb. 10, 2018 report (“Israel claims incursion by Iranian drone”) that the Jewish state used an Iranian drone’s “alleged incursion” into Israeli airspace as a “pretext for Israeli strikes on what it described as Iranian targets in Syria.” The Post’s claim was part of a problematic and inaccurate caption that accompanied a video that the paper posted online to describe events that transpired in the early morning hours of Feb. 10, 2018.

As the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) noted, the IDF intercepted an Iranian made unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) after it entered Israeli airspace from Syria. During the attack, several anti-aircraft missiles were launched at Israeli fighter jets and sirens sounded in northern Israel. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) responded by engaging twelve targets, including three aerial defense batteries and four Iranian military targets, all of which were located in Syria. An Israeli attack helicopter successfully destroyed the Iranian UAV. An IAF F-16 jet also crashed, after its two pilots ejected. The pilots are currently hospitalized and it's unclear at the time of this writing what led to the downing of the IAF plane.

The IDF has released footage showing the Iranian drone infiltrating Israeli airspace and the IDF’s response.

However, in its report, The Washington Post—without reason or explanation—sought to impugn the IDF’s motives and obfuscate on what happened. The paper wrote “the Israeli military released video it said shows an Iranian drone in Israeli airspace on Feb. 10, before it was destroyed by an Israeli attack helicopter. The alleged incursion was used as the pretext for Israeli strikes on what it described as Iranian targets in Syria [emphasis added].”

Providing Cover for Palestinian Antisemitism at the Washington Post - by Sean Durns

...The Washington Post is failing to provide readers with the full story. If, as their masthead proclaims, “democracy dies in darkness,” good reporting dies from one-sided omissions and seemingly purposeful distortions.

Sean Durns..
Algemeiner.com..
18 January '18..

The Washington Post is treating antisemites as credible sources — and purposefully omitting hate-filled remarks by Palestinian leaders.

On January 14, 2018, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas gave a two-hour harangue before the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Central Council. Not for the first time, the president of the PA — bound by the Oslo Accords to recognize the Jewish nation of Israel — denied the Jewish people’s connection to their ancestral homeland. And — also not for the first time — The Washington Post gave Abbas cover.

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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. 

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Journalism demands more—than UNRWA and PLO-approved stenography - by Sean Durns

...The Washington Post’s whitewash of UNRWA is disconcerting. If the basic tenets of journalism include identifying the “who, what, when, where, why and how,” The Post failed in spectacular fashion.

Sean Durns..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
05 January '18..

A Jan. 3, 2018 Washington Post dispatch, by Jerusalem bureau chief Loveday Morris and reporter Ruth Eglash, omitted key context and information about the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). The report, ostensibly about U.S. warnings that it will cut aid to the agency, also relied on questionable sources.

The Post cited a Jan. 2, 2018 tweet by President Donald Trump, stating that the U.S. gives “Palestinians HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and gets no appreciation or respect. With the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make these massive future payments to them?” Trump did not specify aid to UNRWA, although the paper pointed out that earlier that day, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, “suggested that the United States will cut funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the agency tasked with assisting Palestinian refugees, until the Palestinian leadership returns to the negotiating table.”

UNRWA is the only U.N. organization whose stated mission is to assist a specific group of refugees, Palestinian Arabs. All other refugee populations in the world fall under the jurisdiction of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This is but one of several ways in which “Palestinian refugees” are treated—and categorized—in a completely different manner from other refugees. UNRWA is almost entirely reliant on the donations of individual member states, with the U.S. being the chief donor country, donating $360 million dollars in 2017—40 percent of the organization’s budget.

UNRWA’s Objectives

The Post’s report, however, didn’t inform readers that UNRWA is a heavily politicized agency that seeks to delegitimize and destroy the Jewish state.

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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. 

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When it comes to its coverage of Israel, the language used by The Washington Post is revealing indeed - by Sean Durns

...“The aim of language,” the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once observed, is to “reveal the situation…[to] reveal it to myself and to others in order to change it.” 

Sean Durns..
CAMERA Snapshots..
13 November '17..
Link: http://blog.camera.org/archives/2017/11/the_washington_posts_selective.html

The Washington Post often displays two standards of language in its international coverage: one for Israel and another for the rest of the world.

Take, for example, the paper’s use of the term “terrorist.” Post reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shows an aversion to the word, with the less descriptive “militant” often being a preferred substitute. An Oct. 30, 2017 report “Seven Palestinian militants killed as Israel blows up tunnel from Gaza,” is but one of many examples.

When he was The Post’s Jerusalem bureau chief, William Booth almost exclusively relied on the term “militant” to describe members of U.S.-designated terrorist groups, such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), among others who target Israel (see, for example “While Israel held its fire, the militant group Hamas did not,” July 15, 2014). By contrast, the paper’s reporters hardly—if ever—used the term “terrorist” to describe those perpetrating and planning terror against the Jewish state.

Now chief of the paper’s London bureau, Booth has reported on terrorist attacks by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Europe (see, for example “Barcelona suspect says terrorist cell planned to bomb monuments in city,” Aug. 22, 2017). And now, he uses the more precise “terrorist” instead of “militant.” Yet, both ISIS and Hamas, to name two examples, are U.S.-designated terrorist groups who commit terror attacks; it’s unclear what difference there is beyond the fact that one is primarily engaged in the realm of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Question. Does The Washington Post Even Read The Washington Post? - by Sean Durns

...The Post, which had quoted Abu Jihad (aka Mahmoud al-Aloul) in previous articles, apparently declined to report his political advancement. Like basic journalistic standards, Abu Jihad has gone missing from the paper’s pages — depending, perhaps, on the day one reads them.

Sean Durns..
Algemeiner.com..
18 October '17..

An old adage, often attributed to Mark Twain, states that the “truth is stranger than fiction — because we don’t meet it as often.” But readers of The Washington Post might wish for more facts — and less fiction.

When it comes to coverage of Israel, the Post seems increasingly unable to discern the difference between truth and fantasy. In fact, the paper even contradicts its own reporting in order to advance a false narrative.

Take, for instance, the issue of “settlements.”

The Post has featured inordinate coverage of Jewish homes in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), filing dozens of dispatches on this topic from 2015-17 — often at the expense of fully covering Palestinian political affairs.

For example, an October 6, 2017, article by Ishaan Tharoor claimed that “Israeli settlers continue to expand across the West Bank” and that “negotiations” between Israelis and Palestinians only give “settlers more time to build settlements.” But settlements are not expanding beyond existing boundaries. Most of the population growth there is the result of natural increase — not from new arrivals.

And to find out as much, The Washington Post could have just read — The Washington Post.

A March 31, 2017 Post report, for example, was entitled “Israel set to approve first new settlement in 20 years.” That hardly squares with a description of “Israeli settlers continuing to expand across the West Bank…” in Tharoor’s October 6 piece.

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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. 

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The Washington Post Once Again Pushing the ‘Despair’ Excuse for Palestinian Terrorism - by Sean Durns

...As with other Palestinian terrorists who have murdered Jews, the family of al-Jamal will receive payments from the PA—a practice enshrined in law as CAMERA noted in a recent Op-Ed in The Hill. Unsurprisingly, this also went unmentioned by the Palestinian leadership—and The Post that often uncritically quotes them.

Sean Durns..
CAMERA Snapshots..
26 September '17..

A Washington Post report on a Sept. 26, 2017 Palestinian terror attack pushed the narrative that “despair” and “frustration” over the lack of a Palestinian state was a motivating factor in anti-Jewish violence ("Palestinian shoots dead 3 Israelis at settlement near Jerusalem").

The dispatch, by Post reporter Ruth Eglash and Jerusalem bureau chief Loveday Morris, provided details about the attack in which a 37-year-old Palestinian named Nimr Mahmoud al-Jamal murdered an Israeli policeman and two security guards at the entrance to Har Adar in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). Al-Jamal, who worked in Har Adar, opened fire shortly after 7 a.m., murdering the three men and wounding another Israeli.

In an otherwise informative article, The Post uncritically repeated the claim that “Palestinians say such attacks are caused by frustration stemming from 50 years of occupation.” However, as CAMERA has frequently noted, Arab anti-Jewish violence—including terrorist attacks—predates Israel’s acquisition of disputed territories in the 1967 Six Day War (for example, see "Anti-Jewish Violence in Pre-State Palestine," Aug 23, 2009).

According to CAMERA's BBC Watch, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) encourages the media to push the narrative that “despair” and “frustration” over the lack of a Palestinian state are the motivating factor behind terror attacks. (see “Reviewing BBC compliance with PLO media guidance,” Dec. 8, 2015). The Post, and others, frequently seem to follow these PLO-approved talking points.

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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. 

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Washington Post (non) Coverage and the Case of the Missing Abu Jihad - by Sean Durns

...now that al-Aloul has risen in Palestinian politics, The Post has nothing to say. By contrast, Israeli affairs are covered extensively, with reports about who the Israeli prime minister’s dog is biting at a dinner party, an Israeli restaurant purportedly overcharging tourists, and politicians like Naftali Bennett being profiled. Bennett, The Post tells readers, is “hardline.” Fatah’s deputy head, Abu Jihad, however, is nowhere to be found.

Sean Durns..
CAMERA Snapshots..
14 August '17..
Link: http://blog.camera.org/archives/2017/08/_the_washington_post_and_the_c.html

The Washington Post continues to neglect internal Palestinian affairs. Six-months after he was appointed deputy to Fatah head and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, a man named Mahmoud al-Aloul has yet to be featured in the pages of The Post. Fatah is the dominant movement in the PA, which rules the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).

As CAMERA has noted, al-Aloul is a convicted and unrepentant terrorist who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Jihad (“Father of Jihad”). Since his appointment in February 2017, al-Aloul is potentially in line to succeed Abbas—an ailing octogenarian autocrat who leads entities that receive considerable U.S. and international aid. His ascension should be a news story—particularly given The Post’s frequent coverage of the future of the “peace process” with Israel and recent U.S. congressional efforts aimed at addressing PA payments to terrorists (for more details, see here).

The United States, Israel and others could potentially be looking at the day in which a man named Abu Jihad leads the Palestinian Authority. Indeed, Abbas’ decision to activate the Tanzim faction of Fatah during the latest Temple Mount dispute, led to analyst Grant Rumley proclaiming that “the end of the Abbas era” might be here.

Not Easy but The Washington Post Manages to Outdo the BBC with Anti-Israel Headline - by Sean Durns

In a Feb. 11, 2017 tweet, Post Jerusalem bureau chief William Booth claimed that “every major attack in Israel & West Bank gets covered in Wapo NYT etc and we dig deeper.” That, however, is demonstrably false.

Sean Durns..
CAMERA Snapshots..
28 June '17..
Link: http://blog.camera.org/archives/2017/06/_the_washington_post_manages_t.html

The Washington Post not only failed to offer a full-length report on the June 16, 2017 terror attack in which a 23-year old Israeli Border Policewoman, Hadas Malka, was murdered, it also made misleading changes to an AP dispatch on the attack.

Malka was stabbed to death by a Palestinian assailant in a coordinated terrorist attack in Jerusalem’s Old City. She was attacked while responding to the scene of another terrorist attack in which two Palestinian attackers opened fire on an Israeli Border Police patrol at Zedekiah’s Cave in the Muslim Quarter. Israeli authorities killed all three Palestinian terrorists.

The initial AP report on the attack was titled "Palestinian attackers killed after killing Israeli officer." This headline made clear to AP readers the important chain of events and noted the death of the Israeli officer.

The Washington Post, however, made questionable edits to the AP brief it republished in the print version of its June 18, 2017 edition. The headline chosen by The Post was “3 Palestinians killed after attacks on police”—omitting the death of the Israeli officer and failing to mention that the Palestinians killed were terrorists carrying out an attack. As CAMERA pointed out to Post staff, this violates the ethics code of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). SPJ calls for journalists to "Make certain that headlines, news teases and promotional material, photos, video, audio, graphics, sound bites and quotations do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context."

Concerning Palestinians, It’s Lights Out at the Washington Post - by Sean Durns

...In a June 5, 2017, interview live streamed on Facebook, Post Jerusalem bureau chief William Booth claimed that the paper seeks to detail how “ordinary Palestinians… conduct their daily lives.” If so, it is failing — horribly.

Sean Durns..
Algemeiner.com..
22 June '17..

In recent months, the Washington Post has put the phrase “democracy dies in darkness” on its masthead — the first time that the paper has ever officially adopted a slogan. Yet, when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, Post readers have been left in the dark about critical information and events.

The Post seems incapable of reporting on the Palestinians, unless the stories can somehow be connected to Israel. A look at recent coverage offers some examples.

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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. 

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Except when falsehoods are “widely and commonly used.” - by Sean Durns

The Washington Post’s own publishing guidelines claims that the paper “always seeks to publish corrections and clarifications promptly after they come to our attention.” Except, it might be added, when falsehoods are “widely and commonly used.

Sean Durns..
CAMERA Snapshots..
12 June '17..
Link: http://blog.camera.org/archives/2017/06/_the_washington_post_we_print.html

The Washington Post defends its use of inaccurate language on the grounds that its use is frequent.

As CAMERA has noted (“The Washington Post’s Troubling Trend Towards Israel”) a May 29 Post report (“A daily commute through Israel’s checkpoints”) claimed that “The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip began 50 years ago in June [emphasis added].”

However, as CAMERA pointed out to Post staff: The status of the territories is disputed and no Palestinian state has ever existed. The Post itself noted as much in a Sept. 5, 2014 CAMERA-prompted correction, among other instances. That correction stated, in part: “The Israeli-occupied territories are disputed lands that Palestinians want as a future state.”

Despite this acknowledgement, the paper continues to inaccurately describe the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as “Palestinian land”—including in a Jan. 2, 2015 article that appeared within three months of the correction noted above (“When is a Correction an Error? When The Washington Post Says So,” CAMERA, Jan. 9, 2015).