Rennert - WaPo quota system: A major Israel-bashing spread once a week

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
27 November '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/11/wapo_quota_system_a_major_israel-bashing_spread_once_a_week.html

At the Washington Post, it has become an all too predictable ritual -- a major Israel-bashing article by Jerusalem correspondent Joel Greenberg once a week -- preferably at the weekend.

Greenberg's highly selective pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel coverage gets top play in the foreign news section. It is designed and executed by Greenberg to put Israel in the worst possible light, while keeping silent about all too real Palestinian obstacles to a two-state solution.

A case in point: Greenberg's latest dispatch in the November 27 edition, spread across a full half page with a six-column headline that reads, "In Israel, concerns grow about stifling dissent -- Threats against anti-settlement activist come amid legal proposals that some say are aimed at government's leftist critics."
Stifling dissent in the Jewish state? For anyone acquainted with all the raucous debate in Israeli society about political and religious issues, this sounds like a bad joke. But Greenberg nevertheless pushes the alarm button about a supposedly imminent danger to democratic dissent.

Rozenman - Washington Post Israel Coverage: All Hole, No Bagel

Eric Rozenman
CAMERA Media Analysis
17 November '11

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=2152

The Washington Post is, as CAMERA noted in our October 25 "Post-Watch" ("Washington Post Airbrushes Exchanged Palestinian Prisoners"), "one of the last major American news organizations to maintain a significant network of foreign correspondents." Yet that commitment of resources hasn’t prevented much recent Post foreign desk Arab-Israeli reporting from amounting to narishkeit. That’s Yiddish for foolishness, in particular, immature foolishness.

Five examples from the first half of November conform to The Post foreign desk’s chronic "Palestinian-centric, Palestinian-apologetic" perspective. This viewpoint predisposes the newspaper to mischaracterize Arab-Israeli news when not missing it altogether.

Rennert - Wash. Post extols Palestinian agitators as latter-day 'Freedom Riders'

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
16 November '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/11/wash_post_extols_palestinian_agitators_as_latter-day_freedom_riders.html

Joel Greenberg, the pro-Palestinian Jerusalem bureau chief of the Washington Post, is in top form in the November 16 edition with a piece about a group of Palestinian agitators from the West Bank trying to take a bus ride from the West Bank into Jerusalem without requisite security permits.

The headline, splashed across three columns, reads:

"'Freedom Riders' arrested on the bus to Jerusalem - Palestinian activists tried to ride through Israeli checkpoint."

Here's how Greenberg uses his lead paragraph to shape his latest pro-Palestinian oeuvre:

"HIZMA CHECKPOINT, WEST BANK - Evoking the nonviolent tactics of the American civil rights movement, six Palestinian activists boarded an Israeli commuter bus linking Jewish settlements in the West Bank to Jerusalem on Tuesday and were arrested as they tried to ride through an Israeli checkpoint on the outskirts of the city."

Greenberg goes on to describe how these "activists" call themselves "Freedom Riders" so as to link their tactics to civil rights demonstrators who challenged segregated buses in southern U.S. states in the 1960s.

However, Greenberg's attempt to analogize these Palestinian agitators with non-violent challenges to segregation in the United States is a bit of a stretch too far - as even Greenberg has to admit farther down in his story, when he writes the following:

Rennert - Wash. Post dispenses anti-Israel poison pills

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
06 November '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/11/wash_post_dispenses_anti-israel_poison_pills.html

In its Nov. 6 edition, the Washington Post features prominently a lengthy article by Jerusalem correspondent Joel Greenberg about young Palestinian activists alienated from both Hamas and Fatah seeking a third way for the Palestinian cause. The article, with two accompanying photographs, takes up two third of the main world-news page ("Young Palestinian activists push their own agenda - Disenchanted with Fatah and Hamas, an embryonic group sees human and civil rights, not territory, as the basis of its struggle").

Greenberg pins his piece on an interview with a 22-year-old university student, Hurriyah Ziada, who apparently typifies this new wave of young Palestinian activists. Except it turns out that, far from being uninterested in territory, as the headline asserts, it turns out Ziada and like-minded Palestinians have very definite territorial aims in charting a new path for Palestinian politics.

As Greenberg himself acknowledges, their objective is "one state that would also include the area of Israel, with equal rights for Jews and Arabs, and Palestinian refugees allowed to return." Greenberg, however, fails to point out that this, in effect, would eliminate the Jewish state and that Israeli Jews would find themselves residents of an Arab/Muslim nation, depending on their Arab/Muslim masters for their "equal rights." So it turns out that Ziada's agenda actually meshes nicely with Hamas's prime objective -- a single state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean sea. Goodbye Israel. Greenberg just makes her aims seem more palatable.
Ziada, of course, is entitled to her opinions and to have them reported accurately by Greenberg. It's when he injects his own views that he crosses the line from objective reporting to pro-Palestinian propaganda. As when he dispenses some of his own anti-Israel poison pills. For example:

Elder - Media has lots on the prisoners, little on the terror

Elder of Ziyon
25 October '11




From the Washington Post:

A week ago, Yahya Dabassa Ibrahim was on a hunger strike, rotting away in an Israeli prison where he expected to spend the rest of his life.

But the Oct. 18 prisoner swap between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas landed the Bethlehem native in a surreal place: the Gaza Strip’s brand-new luxury hotel.

The eight-story Al-Mashtal Hotel, which opened in late July, is an oasis of fluffy white duvets, stunning ocean views, steaks cooked to perfection and sparkling swimming pools. Its splendor is startling in this blockaded territory where dozens of bombed buildings lie in ruin, heaps of garbage dot nearly every street and the Mediterranean shoreline is speckled by evidence of the tons of raw sewage dumped into the ocean every day.

As he sat in the hotel’s dimly lighted courtyard on a recent evening, Ibrahim, a convicted bombmaker, struggled to describe how dramatically his luck had changed.

Ibrahim, 50, served roughly 10 years of a life sentence. He was among the prisoners who went on a hunger strike in recent months after Israel took away certain perks, including access to television, and limited visits by relatives.

He was accused of manufacturing explosives that were used in attacks in Israeli cities, according to news reports. Ibrahim said he didn’t want to discuss the incidents that led to his incarceration, but he made it clear that he didn’t regret participating in militancy.

“We sacrificed part of our lives not to stay in hotels like these, but to liberate Palestine,” he said.

This terrorist is Yihya Ibrahim Abd al-Hafez Daamsah, who helped coordinate the Cafe Moment bombing of 2002. He was serving a life sentence. Since the Washington Post doesn't want to delve into the details of exactly why he was in prison, I will.

(Read full "Media has lots on the prisoners, little on the terror")

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Rennert - Wash. Post legitimizes Hamas rule in Gaza -- no terrorists there

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
19 October '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/10/wash_post_legitimizes_hamas_rule_in_gaza_--_no_terrorists_there.html

The Washington Post, in its Oct. 20 edition, runs an article by correspondent Ernesto Londono about Hamas pressing for an end to Israel's blockade of Gaza after its success in gaining the freedom of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit ("Amid celebrations, Hamas hopes for lifting of Gaza bloackade," page A8/

Londono's article goes to great lengths to erase any tinge of terrorism from Hamas's identity and record. It distorts recent history by making it appear that Hamas seized control of Gaza by legitimate, democratic means. And it provides a false rationale for Israel's 22-day counter-terrorism offensive in Gaza at the end of 2008, completely ignoring the thousands of rockets and mortar shells fired from Gaza at civilian populations in southern Israel.

Here's how Londono transmutes Hamas from a terrorist subsidiary of Iran into a scrubbed-clean political outfit:

Rennert - Wash. Post's silly semantics against Israel's rightful claims to Jerusalem

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
02 October '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/10/wash_posts_silly_semantics_against_israels_rightful_claims_to_jerusalem.html

Just when readers of the Washington Post might think that its reporters have exhausted all available semantic distortions to blacken Israel, here comes a new contorted Israel-bashing label that descends into the far reaches of utter silliness.

It's served up by Joel Greenberg, the Post's Jerusalem correspondent, in an Oct.2 article about a senior Palestinian official complaining that the Quartet of international mediators -- the U.S., the EU, the UN and Russia -- are too easy on Israel in pushing for resumption of negotiations ("Abbas aide presses for strong action by Quartet -- He portrays mediators' response to settlement plans as slap on wrist" page A14).

While the Quartet is pushing for a new round of talks without pre-conditions, the Abbas aide first wants an Israeli settlement freeze and Greenberg clearly sympathizes with him. Greenberg also writes that the dispute about how to proceed to negotiations was aggravated when Israel advanced building plans on West Bank land annexed to Jerusalem," -- as he puts it in his lead paragraph.

Farther down in his piece, Greenberg more specifically reiterates that Israel has complicated matters with plans to build "1,100 homes in Gilo, a Jewish neighborhood built on West Bank land annexed to Jerusalem." It takes Greenberg a while to recognize the Jewish character of Gilo.

However, in Greenberg's view, it is not enough to simply label Gilo a Jewish neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem. No, as far as he's concerned, Gilo doesn't belong to Israel and to these Jewish residents because it sits on "West Bank land annexed to Jerusalem." Such annexation, in his view, is Israel's original sin.
Consequently, Greenberg rejects any permissibility for Jerusalem, like many cities and capitals around the world, to grow by bursting its geographic boundaries -- a natural phenomenon elsewhere around the globe.

Which is utterly silly, when you think of it.

Rennert - Wash. Post whacks Israel during High Holidays -- On the religion page no less

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
01 October '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/10/wash_post_whacks_israel_during_high_holidays_--_on_the_religion_page_no_less.html

Lisa Miller, a Wash. Post religion writer and columnist, is a self-avowed Jew, who in her own words in the Oct. 1 edition confesses that "these days I'm not so crazy about Israel." Born into a Jewish family but "without any formal religious education," she recently joined a Reform synagogue. During High Holy Day services, when it comes to petitioning God to protect Israel, "I hesitate before I voice this plea." ("In a season of introspection, coming to terms with Israel" page B2)

So why is she put off by Israel? Well, she doesn't like that "on the eve of these holidays an at the moment when Mahmoud Abbas was making his bid at the United Nations for Palestinian statehood, Israel announced the approval of 1,300 new housing units in East Jerusalem."

"I'm ashamed that Israel continues to draw criticism from human rights groups for the demolition of homes in the West Bank and, sharing the blame with the Palestinians, for waging a conflict over land with the lives of innocent people," she writes.

Which makes one wonder how much she really knows about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and where she gets her information. At one point, she references leftist intellectuals "such as Peter Beinart and the late Tony Judt," who have said that "Jews like me will abandon Judaism because of the dissonance" between today's Israel and the historical-theological Israel.

In other words, Israel is no longer true to its biblical past. It has lost its way.

So, to relieve her angst, Miller consults several liberal rabbis who advise her to love all Jews, including even "Benjamin Netanyahu as well as Judt, who in 2005 called the state of Israel an 'anachronism."

Miller is clearly lost in a leftist fog. One can only wonder, how much -- or how little -- she really knows about Israel. In criticizing new housing units for Gilo, for example, she obviously hasn't got a clue that this is a Jewish neighborhoods of 40,000 people with three dozen synagogues that, under any imaginable peace agreement, will remain on the Israeli side. She also seems to lack any real sense of Jerusalem demographics. Or else, she would know that Arab housing construction and population growth have far outpaced Jewish housing construction and population growth since 1967 in Israel's capital.

Rennert - NY Times, Wash. Post suffer from Gaza-Hamas amnesia

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
26 September '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/09/ny_times_wash_post_suffer_from_gaza-hamas_amnesia.html

It's been a while since Hamas-ruled Gaza has made an appearance in the "news" pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post. Both papers, along with most other Western media, have been so intent on cheering Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas's request for UN statehood recognition that they somehow overlooked Hamas' opposition to his purported agenda for a two-state solution. Hamas wants a single state that swallows up all of Israel. And it makes no bones about it.

So, you might think that, when it comes to giving international approval to a Palestinian state, Hamas' refusal to live side by side with Israel might command some attention. But you would be wrong. The media are so totally invested in pursuing the myth of Palestinian readiness for statehood that illusion trumps hard reality Why let facts spoil the party?

Take, for example, the Sept. 26 edition of the New York Times, which features an article by Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner, headlined: "Palestinians Roll Out Hero's Welcome for Abbas" page A10).

Bronner, reporting from Ramallah, tells readers that Abbas returned from New York "to a hero's welcome," as thousands came to greet him at his headquarters, "waving flags, shouting oaths of loyalty and holding aloft his photograph."

What Bronner fails to tell readers is that there was no hero's welcome mat for Abbas in Gaza. Just the opposite. In Gaza City, when a restaurant owner began screening Abbas's address to the UN General Assembly, a couple of Hamas' security goons halted the screening and led the owner away for indoctrination and re-education. Forty-eight hours later, he still hadn't been heard from.

Rennert - Wash. Post takes leave from reality on settlements

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
20 September '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/09/wash_post_takes_leave_from_reality_on_settlements.html

Joel Greenberg, the Washington Post's Jerusalem bureau chief, has been on the beat long enough to have learned basic on-the-ground facts about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without staining his coverage with Palestinian falsehoods. But apparently not.

The latest example: In the Post's Sept. 20 edition, he writes the following:

"The Palestinians have refused to resume talks without a freeze on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which they say is swallowing up land they seek for a future state."

Greenberg should know by now that Benjamin Netanyahu, and before him Ehud Olmert, imposed a freeze on the boundaries of West Bank settlements. During their tenure as prime ministers, the number of settlements has been frozen, the boundaries of settlements have been frozen, and acquisition of land for new settlements or expansion of existing settlements has been prohibited. There is no "swallowing up land." The only thing that's not frozen is population growth within the boundaries of existing settlements. Children are born, an inconvenient truth at the Post.

So where does Greenberg come off writing that Israeli settlements are swallowing up more land in the West Bank? I realize he attributes this to the Palestinians. But when they so brazenly lie -- this is not an issue of spin, slant, or different narratives; this is a matter of hard, demonstrable reality being lied about -- shouldn't he point out what's really going on in the West Bank?

Rennert - Abbas gets immunity at Wash. Post -- only Israel engages in 'hawkish, hard-line' moves

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
18 September '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/09/abbas_gets_immunity_at_wash_post_--_only_israel_engages_in_hawkish_hard-line_moves.html

The Washington Post uses two entirely dissimilar narratives in its ''news'' coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- a polite, deferential attitude toward Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority , in sharp contrast to shrill, negative accounts of Benjamin Netanyahu and his government.

The latest example can be found in the Sept. 17 edition in a lengthy article by Joel Greenberg and Joby Warrick about Abbas's decision to take his statehood bid to the UN Security Council ("Abbas formally says he will seek U.N. vote -- Palestinian statehood bid risks clashes with U.S. and Israel'' page A8).

The main part of the story handles with kid gloves Abbas's speech Ramallah speech outlining his UN strategy. There are copious quotes from the speech -- without any judgmental critiques by Greenberg and Warrick.

It's only when they get around to possible Israeli retaliation if Abbas succeeds at the UN that they trot out a bundle of pejoratives in describing some of Israel's possible counter-options.

"Israeli officials have hinted of harsh retaliation," they write. "Some hard-line members of Netanyahu's cabinet are demanding a forceful response." Among those responses, advocated by "hard-liners" are annexation of major Israeli settlements, severing ties with the PA, excluding Abbas from future peace talks," they add.

Without identifying any Israeli cabinet members, they discover at least one who cautions that the government hasn't made any decisions on Israel's response. But this same, unidentified source adds that Abbas's UN move has "strengthened the hand of more hawkish members of Israel's cabinet."

Thus, Abbas is treated with kid gloves, but members of Israel's cabinet are characterized as "hawkish, hard-liners" seeking "harsh" retaliation. Notice that, while there are no pejorative labels attached to Abbas, negative reporting is reserved exclusively to the Israeli side.

Rennert - Crisis over Palestinian statehood bid is all Israel's fault

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
16 September '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/09/crisis_over_palestinian_statehood_bid_is_all_israels_fault.html

If you're looking for a classic textbook example of biased ''news'' coverage, look no farther than the Sept. 16 edition of the Washington Post, which features a front-page article on declining U.S. influence in the Middle East, as pointed up by the Palestinian bid for statehood at the U.N. ("U.N. vote could test U.S. role in Mideast -- Leaders Brush off White House warnings on Palestinian initiative")

The article, by Joby Warrick and Scott Wilson, puts the entire blame on Israel for the refusal of the Palestinian Authority to heed Obama administration entreaties to skip the UN as the road to a peace settlement and instead resume direct negotiations with Israel. Yes, even though it's the PA that defies Obama, it's still Israel's fault. And only Israel's.

Here is how Warrick and Wilson manage to absolve Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas from any responsibility for the crisis with the U.S. and how they put the entire onus on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahua -- right up front, above the fold, in their lead paragraph:

"One week before a U.N. showdown over Palestinian statehood, the Obama administrtion is confronting the stark new limits of its influence in the Middle East, including with its chief ally in the region, Israel."

So, it's Israel -- not the PA -- that is undermining American influence. Never mind that U.S. envoys have been making repeated trips to Ramallah, practically begging Abbas to desist. The villain of the piece is Netanyahu.

In fact, Netanyahu is mentioned 11 times in the article as the uncompromising obstacle, while Mahmoud Abbas is never mentioned at all. The erasure of Abbas from their piece is the Warrick-Wilson way of bestowing absolution on the Paletinian leader. His skirts are kept entirely clean.

Rennert - Two factual errors in same Wash. Post paragraph, conveying Palestinian spin and myths

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
14 September '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/09/two_factual_errors_in_same_wash_post_paragraph_conveying_palestinian_spin_and_myths.html

The Washington Post, in its Sept. 14 issue, runs a front-page article on the GOP victory in a heavily Democratic congressional district in New York, which manages to inject two pro-Palestinian spins in a single paragraph ("Republican wins House seat in NY.'' by Paul Kane).

Kane notes that the victorious Republican, Bob Turner, made criticism of Obama's stance on Israel a major issue in a district with a heavy Jewish orthodox population.

Here's how he conveys this:

"The New York race, for a seat representing a large portion of Queens and a slice of Brooklyn, also turned on Obama's handling of Israel and Palestine. The district's large contingent of Orthodox Jews opposes his proposal for Palestinian statehood drawn around 1967 borders."

Wrong on two counts:

-- There is no "Palestine" -- at least not yet, and there won't be any until there's an actual two-state peace agreement. We're far from that. Kane, however, seems in a hurry to beat the UN to the punch and endorse Palestinian statehood, as if it already is a done deal.

-- There were no 1967 "borders" -- only a 1949 armistice line that half a dozen Arab armies tried to erase in 1967 when they waged an extermination war against Israel. They lost that war and Israel, in the course of defending its existence, enhanced its security by capturing the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. There was no Palestinian state prior to 1967 -- only Jordanian, Syrian and Egyptian occupation of the areas captured by Israel. So Israel didn't grab anything from a pre-existing Palestinian state, as Kane's reference to "borders" would suggest. Israel's eastern "border" remains to be determined, as does a still elusive "Palestine."

Kane and the Washington Post need to brush up on the history and geography of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if they have any interest in presenting accurate reports to their readers. In the Sept. 14 issue, however, they instead dispense with facts and engage in wishful thinking -- Palestinian wishful thinking, that is. And in a so-called "news" article, no less.

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Rennert - Wash. Post inverts UN report on flotilla raid to blacken Israel

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
03 September '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/09/wash_post_inverts_un_report_on_flotilla_raid_to_blacken_israel.html

Let's start with the actual conclusions of the UN report on last year's Israeli commando raid on the Mavi Marmara, the lead Turkish vessel in a flotilla attempting to breach Israel's blockade of Gaza . To wit:

--Israel was within its legal rights to blockade Gaza because of persistent attacks from this Palestinian territory on Israeli towns. "Israel faces a real threat to its security from militants in Gaza," the report declares. It calls the blockade a "legitimate security measure." In this respect, the UN panel -- personally appointed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon -- completely repudiates an earlier finding by the discredited, anti-Israel UN Human Rights Council that the blockade was illegal.

--Violence-bent activists aboard the Mavi Marvara engaged in "reckless" attacks on the commandos descending from a hovering helicopter to the top deck.

--Israel was justified in using force to repel this assault on the commandos.

--Turkey should have done more to screen passengers on the ship before departure to weed out dangerous characters.

--Israel need not issue a formal apology to Turkey, but should come up with an expression of "regret" and pay compensation to families of the nine Turks killed in the battle with the commandos. This is exactly what Israel has offered to do all along, except that Turkey has kept insisting that it would not be satisfied with anything less than an apology.

--Israel's own investigation, which cleared the commandos, was the work of professional and independent investigators, while Turkey's investigation was "tendentious" -- i.e. propagandistic.

--The commandos, when screening other passengers, were sometimes abusive.

-- While the commandos were perfectly entitled to use force to protect themselves from getting killed, they nevertheless used "excessive" force under the circumstances.

All in all, a UN report that tilts heavily in favor of Israel and doesn't let Turkey off the hook. No wonder that Israeli officials view it as a rare vindication of Israel at the UN, while the Turkish government went ballistic in repudiating nearly all its major findings and conclusions.

But now guess which part of the report gets to play in the Washington Post. Yup, the main headline in big type on page A6 of the Sept. 2 edition blares: "Israel's use of force in raid called 'excessive.''

Rennert - Washington Post's 'militant' mentality suckers it in

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
23 August '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/08/washington_posts_militant_mentality_suckers_it_in.html

Here's a royal screw-up by the Washington Post that deserves a place in a Journalism 101 course:

In its Tuesday, Aug. 23, edition, the Post runs an article by Jerusalem correspondent Joel Greenberg, headlined: "Israel, militants in Gaza hold fire -- Egyptian-brokered truce takes effect after five days of fighting" (page A6). Greenberg, in similar fashion, informs Post readers in his lead paragraph that the cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian ''militants" in the Gaza Strip "took hold Monday."

Just one little problem. The cease-fire didn't take effect on Monday, as the headline proclaims. The truce didn't take hold on Monday, as Greenberg reports. While Greenberg was writing his phony dispatch, the AP reported that rockets and mortar shells kept hitting Israel on Monday despite the unofficial truce.

At the same time, Yedioth Ahronot, Israel's largest circulation paper, reported that Gaza groups had broken the supposed cease-fire not once, not twice, but three times. So how could Greenberg go so grievously astray and declare that a ceasefire took hold when rockets continued to fall on Israel?

Here's a clue: Look at the headline's report that Gaza "militants" were maintaining a cease-fire. And at Greenberg's lead similarly referring to Palestinian "militants" keeping a truce.

If Greenberg were to have come clean in the first place that these rocket-firing groups in Gaza are not "militants" but in reality "terrorists" seeking to kill Israeli civilians in pursuit of their agenda to exterminate the Jewish state, he might not have swallowed so easily the Hamas line that a cease-fire was taking hold. After all, "militants" can still maintain a modicum of morality and credibility -- but terrorists never. Terrorists are a totally amoral lot, prone to lying whenever it suits their purposes.

During the second intifada, Yasser Arafat often proclaimed a cease-fire, especially after a particularly bloody terror attack against Israel so as to lull the Israelis into holding their retaliatory fire. As soon as it suited him, he resumed his Palestinian terror war.

Yet, in the teeth of all this cautionary history, Goldberg and the Post remain totally invested in sanitizing Palestinian terror groups, and reflexively and profusely using "militant" to shield them from opprobrium. With this kind of obliging mindset, it doesn't take much to avert one's eyes from the actual reality of terrorists breaking a truce and to depict them instead as believable "militants" whose word can be trusted.

Gullibility thy name is the Washington Post.

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Wash. Post slants coverage of new housing for West Bank city of Ariel

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
16 August '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/08/wash_post_slants_coverage_of_new_housing_for_west_bank_city_of_ariel.html

In its Aug. 16 edition, the Washington Post features a dispatch by Jerusalem correspondent Joel Greenberg about Israel's decision to proceed with construction of 277 homes in the West Bank town of Ariel ("Israel announces new construction in West Bank" page A7).

Here's how Greenberg begins his article:

"Israel on Monday announced approval for construction of 277 homes in a large Jewish settlerment deep in the West Bank, the third announcement this month of building on occupied land.

"Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved the construction in the settlement town of Ariel...."

Right at the top, in his lead, Greenberg injects an anti-Israel poison pill -- that Ariel is located on "occupied" land. The clear inference is that this land doesn't belong to Israel, that it belongs to someone else Guess who? The Palestinians quite clearly.

Except that the Palestinians never had sovereign ownership of this land. The last sovereign to rule over the West Bank -- then more appropriately called Judea and Samaria -- was the Ottoman Empire, which vanished after World War I -- nearly a century ago. Since then, the West Bank has been an area waiting for inclusion in a permanent, sovereign country.

And when it comes to a sovereign pedigrees, Israel beats Palestinian claims by a country mile. Not only was there a 3,000-year Jewish presence in this land, including sovereign Jewish rule for one millennium; in more recent times, this was land reserved for a national Jewish home by the League of Nations, with concurrence by the U.S. Congress.

Instead of calling it "occupied" -- a highly charged and unwarranted term -- it would behoove the Washington Post not to carry water for the Palestinians and to use instead a more appropriate adjective for the current status of this land, such as "disputed." Since Israel, under any conceivable two-state solution, will keep Ariel and the Palestinians want it for a state of their own, there's clearly a "dispute" here. It's not the job of Greenberg and the Post to poison the well in the meantime.

Nor should Greenberg, again in his lead, question the legitimacy of Ariel by calling it a "large Jewish settlement deep in the West Bank." The inference here again is that Israeli retention of Ariel would somehow block creation of a contiguous Palestinian state. But a look at the West Bank map makes it quite clear that there still would remain ample territory beyond Ariel all the way to the Jordanian border for a contiguous Palestinian state.

The reality is that Jewish settlements occupy less than 5 percent of the entire West Bank and most of them would be evacuated under any realistic two-state deal. But Ariel, a vibrant city of 20,000 inhabitants would remain on the Israeli side. It's been around since the 1970s and in the meantime has built one of Israel's largest universities with an enrolment of 8,000 students -- Arabs and Israelis, secular and religious. In fact, 70 percent of its student body comes from the Greater Tel Aviv area, Israel's liberal, secular heartland.

Rennert - Wash. Post hammers settlements, ignores PA glorification of terrorist killers

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
23 July '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/07/wash_post_hammers_settlements_ignores_pa_glorification_of_terrorist_killers.html

In its July 23 edition, the Washington Post runs a dispatch by Jerusalem correspondent Joel Greenberg that is sharply critical of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and also of a new controversial Israeli law that makes Israeli individuals or groups liable to monetary penalties if they urge boycotts of products from these settlements ("West Bank settlements land in middle of anti-boycott fight -- Law to protect disputed Israeli territories goes up against free speech" page A7).

Greenberg focuses on a Jewish winery in the West Bank that has garnered top prizes in local and international competitions. The new law would enable the winery to strike back at boycotts launched from within Israel by suing for monetary damages. Greenberg not only sees this as an infringement of free speech, but as a news pag to hammer away at settlements in general as major obstacles to a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Here's how he puts it:

"The controversy (over the anti-boycott law) is the latest in a long-running debate over the settlement enterprise, which opponents say is a stumbling block to a two-state solution to the confflict with the Palestinians."

By itself, Greenberg's article seems at first blush a fairly routine enterprise piece about how a winery in a settlement might gain from the new anti-boycott law. But that's just the problem with Greenberg's coverage. It doesn't stand alone.

Once a week -- you can almost set your calendar by it -- Greenberg files a pejorative, piece about Israel -- while totally ignoring far greater Palestinian obstacles to peace. It's in this context that Greenberg evinces the stark one-sidedness of Washington Post coverage of the conflict -- putting all the blame on Israel, while letting Palestinian leaders, even so-called "moderates," off the hook.

Here's but one example of the glaring absence of any Greenberg articles about Palestinian obstacles on the road toward a peace agreement:

The Palestinian Authority set up a summer camp for children under the direct sponsorship of PA Prime Minister Fayyad -- extolled by Greenberg and the Post as a stalwart statesman and trustworthy peace partner. Fayyad personally showed up at the camp and participated in the closing ceremonies, which he also sponsored.

The campers were divided in three groups, each named after a notorious Palestinian terrorist murderer.

One group was named after Dalal Mughrabi, who in 1978 led the most lethal terror attack in Israel's history, in which 37 civilians were killed, 12 of them children. (Mahmoud Abbas similarly misses no opportunity to glorify her as a role model for young Palestinians)

Another group was named after Salah Khalef, the head of the Black September group, who planned many terror attacks, including the murder of two American diplomats, as well as the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

Still another group was named after Abu Ali Mustafa, general secretary of the terror organization Popular Front for the LIberation of Palestine, who planned numerous terror attacks against Israeli civilians.

One could easily make the point that persistent indoctrination of children in the culture of terrorism by the most "moderate" of all Palestinian leaders -- along with other such examples of vicious anti-Israel incitement in PA media, textbooks and mosques -- is a mite bigger of a "stumbling block" to the peace process than a Jewish winery near Ramallah.

Yet, Greenberg and the Post won't touch such Palestinian obstacles to peace with a ten-foot--pole.

Only Israel gets the Greenberg treatment.

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Rennert - Washington Post's weekly Israel-bashing pieces --

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
06 July '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/07/wash_posts_weekly_israel-bashing_pieces_--.html

In his latest weekly Israel-bashing installment, Washington Post Jerusalem correspondent Joel Greenberg turns his attention to Israel's demolition of makeshift Bedouin shelters put up on public lands or in military zones in the Jordan Valley ("Razings leave mark in Jordan Valley -- Israel underlines claim in area with demolition of Palestinian homes" page A5, July 6)

Greenberg's article is illustrated copiously with two color photographs -- a huge, four-column one showing a family amid the wreckage of their home and the other depicting Bedouins leading away sheep as Israeli troops prepare to raze some shacks, plus a map pointing to the Jordan Valley.

The entire spread is unmistakably intended to depict Israel as callous in its treatment of Palestinians, while Palestinians are presented as Israel's victims. This kind of anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian, two-hankies reporting by Greenberg has become a predictable weekly presence in the Post. With such regularity that you can set your calendar by it.

Even if Greenberg has to bend the truth to meet his weekly Israel-bashing quota.

For example, in his latest piece, Greenberg waits until the 13th paragraph to cite Israeli officials who point out that similar demolition measures are also taken against wildcat building on state lands or military zones by Jewish settlers.

But how many Post readers get past the 12th paragraph? The headline, the pictures, the first dozen paragraphs convey a totally erroneous impression that only Bedouins and Palestinians get their unauthorized shelters razed by Israel.

So Greenberg has it both ways. He can deliver one of his trade-mark weekly Israel-bashing pieces, but still claim objectivity by hedging his bets far down in his articles, pretending to present both sides of the story.

He similarly buries -- in the 14th paragraph -- Israeli plans for more home construction in existing Palestinian villages in areas until total Israeli control along with Israeli plans to provide water and power hookups for Bedouin encampments there. But how many Post readers, having had their weekly dose of Israel-bashing in the Post, get as far as the 14th paragraph of a Greenberg story?

And for those readers who plow through his entire article, Greenberg leaves them with a final, concluding and conclusive slap at Israel with this emotional tug: "We need a solution," said Abed Yassin, standing near the wreckage of his shelter. "We need a place to live."

Greenberg could claim some credibility if for every one of his Palestinian-pain pieces, he did a similar number of Israeli-pain articles.

For example, a real reporter -- not a propagandist like Greenberg -- might also report on how hundreds of thousands of Israeli residents in towns and communities near the Gaza border still shudder and run to shelters when rockets are fired in their direction. There are plenty of Israeli children in Sderot, who bear the psychological scars of years of such terrorization by Hamas who also might warrant some in-depth coverage.

A real reporter -- not a propagandist like Greenberg -- might also report that Mahmoud Abbas continues to name Palestinian public places and institutions after Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist who led an attack that killed 37 Israelis, including 12 children -- the most lethal terrorist attack in Israel's history. Abbas exols Mughrabi as a model for Palestinian children. In his latest glorification of Mughrabi, he named a summer camp for children and girls' college after her. A real reporter might want to let Post readers know about the real -- not the phony "moderate" -- Abbas. But not Greenberg.

A real reporter would have an equal-opportunity agenda -- covering both Israel and the Palestinian with the same critical lens, focusng on both Palestinian and Israeli pain.

But Greenberg is not that kind of reporter.

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Rennert - WaPo's belated, grudging report on Israel's success against Gaza flotilla

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
04 July '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/07/wapos_belated_grudging_report_on_israels_success_against_gaza_flotilla.html

Reading Jerusalem correspondent Joel Greenberg's article in the Monday, July 4, edition of the Washington Post about Israel's success in getting Greece to stymie the Gaza flotilla, I had two reactions: What took the Post so long? and better late than never.

But after reading Greenberg's entire catch-up article, I also find that it's still incomplete in many important respects.

First the timing: Greek naval commandos took control of one of the flotilla ships, the U.S. Audacity of Hope, on Friday and forced it back to Greece. It would be normal journalism for the correspondent of a daily newspaper to report this -- and its many ramifications -- the next day, in the Saturday edition. It didn't happen. Well, at least then in the Sunday edition. That didn't happen either. Greenberg skipped two full news cycles before weighing in with a Monday piece. ('As Gaza flotilla stalls, Israel hails ''success'' -- Repeat of Deadly 2010 Clashes Averted' page A6). That's shortchanging Post readers who expect timely news, not warmed over news.

And even when you Greenberg finally digs to report Israel's diplomatic success in getting Greece to blunt the flotilla's objective to breach Israel's blockade, the Post and Greenberg put Israel's "success" between quotation marks -- a signal to readers that they might not share in this assessment.

Then there are the things Greenberg still isn't reporting. While he writes that Greece arrested the skipper of the Audacity of Hope, he fails to mention that he faces criminal charges of endangering his passengers and violating Greece's ban against any vessels seeking to depart for Gaza. Nor does he report that his first hearing won't be until tomorrow, July 5, so he'll be incarcerated over the Fourth of July.

Even more importantly, he still doesn't report that the Obama administration warned the skipper and his passengers that they also could face criminal charges in the U.S. for violating American laws prohibiting support of a terrorist organization -- in this instance, Hamas, which rules Gaza.

Nor does he take note of the fact that the international Quartet -- the U.S., the EU, the UN and Russia -- issued a statement strongly discouraging any and all Gaza flotillas because they may provoke violent confrontations -- and unnecessary confrontations to boot since Gaza gets ample shipments of consumer products via Israel and Egypt. Also taking Israel's side against the flotilla organizers were Australia and Canada.

Then, he fails to report Greece's Sunday offer of a compromise that would have Greece ship any legitimate aid aboard the flotilla to Gaza via normal channels -- i.e. via land crossings from Egypt or Israel. And that this offer was roundly rejected by the flotilla organizers who finally admitted that they weren't on any humanitarian mission, but instead were and still are intent on breaching Israel's sea blockade.

What all this makes quite evident is that the cliché Greenberg and others have disseminated about Israel's supposed isolation on the world stage bears no relationship to reality. Certainly in this instance, Israel had plenty of company, while it was the flotilla organizers who were isolated.

All in all, I 'm still left to wonder what took Greenberg so long to even produce an incomplete piece and to have it published only after some Post readers made him and his editors aware of his dereliction of journalistic duty to get things on time and in full, proper perspective. As for better late than never -- well, that would be a bit too generous.

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Rennert - WaPo adopts Palestinian vocabulary in 'news' report

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
29 June '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/06/wapo_adopts_palestinian_vocabulary_in_news_report.html

In Palestinian parlance, use of violence to injure or kill Israelis is not portrayed as an act of terrorism, or even as a violent attack. Instead, Palestinians call such bloody aggression by the pleasant-sounding euphemism of "resistance."

Hamas propaganda maintains that its entire agenda is based on "resistance" to Israel -- not to kill as many Israelis as possible. Ditto for Mahmoud Abbas, who celebrates Palestinian suicide bombers as "martyrs" in the cause of "resistance."

But to unwary readers in the West, including many subscribers to the Washington Post, "resistance" doesn't convey deliberate spilling of blood, but as my old dictionary has it, merely an act of "active opposition."

In this real sense of the word," the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. can be said to have led a non-violent campaign of "resistance" against racial discrimination. But as becomes immediately obvious, Palestinian "resistance" is sharply at odds with the basic precepts of Martin Luther King, Jr. Palestinian-style "resistance" was not King's practice.

Still, since in Western minds and eyes, "resistance" has no pejorative connotation, Palestinians find it a useful propaganda tactic to cloak brutal attacks and acts of terrorism as perfectly acceptable acts of "resistance."

It's one thing, however, for Palestinians to invent a new vocabulary to make violent tactics more palatable to Western observers and newspaper readers. But it's quite another thing for a national newspaper like the Washington Post to engage in the same semantic trickery.

Yet, this is exactly what Joel Greenberg, the Post's Jerusalem correspondent, does in a June 29 article about the run-up to the sailing of a pro-Palestinian, Gaza-bound flotilla. ("Israel ramps up its campaign to prevent Gaza aid flotilla" page A9).

In recounting what happened when a similar flotilla tried to breach Israel's blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza, Greenberg writes the following:

"Israeli commandos who boarded a Turkish ship in a similar flotilla 13 months ago encountered resistance and killed nine people."

Ah, those trigger-happy Israeli commandos opened fire on "people" (not radical, violence-bent activists) who merely put up some "resistance." There's not the slightest intimation in Goldberg's piece that when the commandos rappelled from a hovering helicopter onto the top deck of a Turkish vessel, they were brutally attacked by some of these "people" with iron bars and other lethal weapons. Nine commandos were injured, some severely. The commandos fired in self-defense after some of their own were beaten to within an inch of their lives.


Uploaded by idfnadesk on May 31, 2010

But as far as Greenberg -- and Palestinian propaganda -- is concerned, the commandos merely encountered "resistance" (perhaps refusal to move away from the top deck) and grossly over-reacted by killing nine "people."

Words still have meaning, however distorted by the Washington Post in the service of Palestinian propaganda.

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