Fishman's Gaza Water Libel Actually Unsupported By Gazan Academics - by Sheri Oz

...I guess Alex Fishman ran out of topics to write about because this month he raised the old issue of Gaza’s dire water straits.

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
24 June '17..

Even as two engineers from Gaza tells the true story, Ynetnews publishes a water libel fable on behalf of Hamas .

I guess Alex Fishman ran out of topics to write about because this month he raised the old issue of Gaza’s dire water straits. According to Fishman the problem is because Israel is not willing to continue providing Gaza with free electricity:

The . . . large and modern wastewater treatment facility built by the World Bank in the northern strip in 2013 has yet to be activated because there is no electricity, and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman is telling Hamas: Stop digging tunnels and you’ll get everything—electricity, a port, etc. That makes sense. But it’s exactly how Israel’s governments have been brainwashing us over the years with axioms aimed at preserving the status quo and serving political needs. [emphasis mine]

Pardon me for my stupidity but I do not understand what brainwashing is going on here nor how it is relevant to the fact that the World Bank actually built a “large and modern wastewater treatment facility” in Gaza that is going to waste because the Palestinian Authority (PA) refuses to pay for the electricity needed to run it (and to run everything else modern and essential). Is it not possible that the PA is refusing to pay for electricity as a way to make Israel look bad and preserve “the status quo and serve the[ir] political needs” to make Israel look like the demon and keep up the farce of everything is Israel’s fault?

(Continue to Full Post)

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

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Ynet and the power of the media to malign

Calev..
LOTL..
18 February '13


There are times when one is struck by the lowliness of how the media covers events in Israel, Israeli publications included, and today happens to be one of those times.

Whether the following item in today's Ynet is true , half-true, or lacking any credence is irrelevant in terms of the photo used to illustrate this story.

Police suspect 'modesty squad' terrorized Beitar Illit
Two ultra-Orthodox men harass city's female residents for what they claim is unchaste behavior
Eli Senyor
Published:
02.18.13, 14:50 / Israel News

Two ultra-Orthodox men were arrested Monday for allegedly heading a "modesty squad" that terrorized the female residents of Beitar Illit over what they deemed their "immodest behavior."

The two, both in their 30s, are believed to be responsible for what the police called "a reign or terror."

(full article)

For those who are interested in the further details of the story, follow the link above, however a simple question might be in order here. How did they come to choose the following illustrative photo and what would they like the viewer to derive from it? What aspect of the story does the picture below illustrate?

(Illustration Photo: AFP)

I suspect many of you can answer that, but it is indicative of our lowered expectations of media coverage of those groups who enjoy less favor in the eyes of those who have the power to malign. And that they can malign entire groups without any accountability.

If anyone should feel moved to address this, your comments may be directed to:
Ynetnews Editorial Department: news@ynetnews.com or Editor-in-chief, Ynet: editor-in-chief@y-i.co.il

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.

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The Media - Whose Watchdogs are They?

Moshe Feiglin..
jewishisrael.org..
24 Cheshvan, 5773..
(Nov. 9, '12)..


It is morning and my car glides down the mountains of the Shomron into the smog of greater Tel Aviv. Another crazy day of running for the primaries is about to begin. My cell phone rings. A young, determined voice is on the other end.

"Shalom, this is so and so from the news website, ynet."

"Shalom."

"I am writing an article about donations to the candidates in the primaries. I wanted you to confirm a certain fact. "

"Go ahead."

"I see that you received a donation from a woman by the name of Nitzah Kahane."

"OK."

"Is it true that Nitzah Kahane is the daughter in law of the late Rabbi Kahane?"

Maybe I hadn't yet completely awakened. Perhaps I was suffering from lack of sleep and loads of pressure during the campaign – but that question peeled a thick layer of politically correct right off my psyche.

"Oh," I answered the young reporter. "You probably want to show your readers that women support Feiglin."

"No", the man answered dryly.

Medad/Pollak - Why not Ynet?

Yisrael Medad/Eli Pollak..
Media Matters..
JPost..
01 February 12..



The future will tell whether the public will tolerate the lack of accountability of Ynet.

One observer of media ethics, Stephen J.A. Ward, writing in the Winter 2012 issue of MEDIA, the journal of the Canadian Association of Journalists, provides us with a concise definition of the ethical journalist. According to Ward, journalists should seek to serve the public but not be activists; journalists must strive to be fully impartial as well as objective; they should maintain professional and personal independence and be truly transparent in their work, even welcoming review. These rules-of-thumb should apply to mainstream media outlets as well as internet sites and the social media phenomenon.

Good journalism in the sense of news-gathering and news-reporting isn’t that difficult to produce. The basics are quite obvious: fairness, accuracy, truthfulness, confirmation of sources, prompt correction or clarification of (and, if neccessary apology for) errors, whether they are factual mistakes or mistakes of omission.

In Israel the broadcast media has a clear code of ethics. Although compliance with it could improve, the very existence of a code guides the media and prevents egregious failures. Or at least leads at times to apologies and corrections.

Israel’s newspapers, on the other hand, are in a different league. Only Ma’ariv has a complaints commissioner. The others at best are willing sometimes to relate to public outrage or complaints, after all they do want to sell and an outraged public will not buy.

UPDATED: B'Tselem Photographer Stages Scene

Yishai Goldflam/Tamar Sternthal
CAMERA Media Analysis
02 March '11



March 2 Update: Translation of Arabic Proves the Scene is Staged

March 1 -- Once upon a time, journalists would report the news. Today, some prefer manufactured news. When journalists collaborate with organizations driven by a one-sided agenda aimed at influencing public opinion, the distinction between a newspaper and a propaganda mouthpiece is dangerously blurred.

Take, for example, B'Tselem, which noticed that some lazy journalists prefer to receive pre-packaged video clips over actually doing their jobs. These edited and ready-to-view clips then appear next to bombastic headlines, and the journalist congratulates himself for getting a scoop.

Such was the case early this week (Feb. 27) at the Israeli site Ynet, which appears in English and in Hebrew. Sunday's Hebrew article by Elior Levi and the corresponding English version ("Video: 11-year-old Palestinian stone-thrower arrested") are based on a video that B'Tselem apparently supplied to Levi.

One wonders if the intrepid Ynet journalists, including both Levi, his editors, and English translators, even bothered to view the pre-packaged B'Tselem video before passing it off as journalism. The article states:

In the video the officers can be seen putting the boy, Karim al-Tamimi, in a police vehicle after chasing him down. The boy's mother pleaded with the officers to allow her to accompany him to the Sha'ar Binyamin police station, but her request was denied. . . .

The boy's father, Salah al-Tamimit [sic] told Ynet, "They took him without a chaperone, and by the time we arrived at the police station he was already being interrogated."

Yet, a careful viewing of the clip (with Hebrew and Arabic dialogue) reveals that the exact opposite was the case; the policemen invited the mother to accompany her child. At 2:07 minutes into the video, one of the policemen says to the mother, "Come, come, get in." The cop then asks one of the people standing nearby, "Is that his mother?" When the bystander answers in the affirmative, the policeman repeats, "Get in with him" (the boy). The door is opened for her and she is about to get into the vehicle, as the policemen are saying "get into the car," but then (2:27) the mother is pulled away from the car by the Palestinian man wearing a black jacket. After the policemen closes the van's door, a woman wearing a pink shirt pushes the mother towards the vehicle, and then the mother bangs on the door, a heartrending scene directed to the end. Here's the clip:

(Read full "UPDATED: B'Tselem Photographer Stages Scene")

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Et tu, YNet?

Elder of Ziyon
25 January '11

I've been showing how Al Jazeera and the Guardian are purposefully misinterpreting the leaked "Palestine Papers" to make Israel look as bad as possible.

Even though they link to the actual memos that prove their distortions, their false spin is what gets into print. And most people dont bother to check the original.

Apparently, "most people" even includes Israeli reporters!

From YNet:

Leaked confidential documents published by Al-Jazeera and the Guardian reveal that during her tenure as Israeli foreign minister in Ehud Olmert's government, Tzipi Livni pressed for the "transfer" of some of Israel's own Arab citizens into a future Palestinian state as part of a land-swap deal that would exchange Palestinian villages now in Israel for Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Here is the talkback I gave to YNet:

(Read full "Et tu, YNet?")

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When Right Seems Wrong...but is Really Right

Paula R. Stern
A Soldier's Mother
14 September 09

I called Elie today. I've been missing him a lot, which is, of course, silly since I just saw him last weekend. Life is particularly pressured right now and it seems to have manifested itself in a number of ways, including this feeling of being out of touch. So, I called with a ready excuse about the cellular phone company service. Elie asked me if I was near a computer and when I told him I would be in 5 minutes, we agreed that I would call him back after I got home.

He guided me to a website - "Go to YNET," he said, explaining that I needed to go to the Hebrew news site and not the English one. "click News."

He guided me to a news article and asked me to capture the video. It took me a while to understand the story and what the video was showing. The story goes like this - at least the published one:

An Arab truck driver pulls up to a checkpoint at 6:30 a.m. with proper paperwork. His truck is filled with rocks designated for building. The soldiers inspect the truck and ask the truck driver to dump his load so they can check under the rocks. The truck driver complies. The truck is emptied. The soldiers don't find anything and allow the truck driver to continue. However, in order to continue, he must now hire a tractor to pick up the rocks and put them back into his truck. This is at his expense and his lost time.

"How can we live this way? What kind of life is this?" another Arab tells the camera.

I watched it a few times and then called Elie back. What am I missing, I thought to myself. This doesn't make "us" look good.

"Where you there?" I asked Elie. I had looked each of the soldiers carefully, but I didn't see Elie. Then again, some were turned away and from the distance, it is hard to tell.

"No," Elie told me. "But they're my soldiers. I can tell who they are, and even who isn't in the camera but was there."

"Elie, what's the story here? It doesn't look good."

That's when Elie explained. The driver isn't so innocent. He's known to the soldiers. The fact that THIS TIME his truck wasn't carrying anything that he wasn't allowed to transport, doesn't mean he wasn't caught in the past. More important that the story, for the soldiers in Elie's unit, were the comments. Almost 70 of them, "and Ima, all of them are good. They all understand."

Yes, they are supporting the soldiers and that is what made Elie happy.

• Don't surrender to them. Much honor to the army.
• And what would you say if between the stones, you found explosives?
• it's difficult to stand at a checkpoint and spend hours guarding for eight hours and have people come and question all that you do. As one of those who examine the merchandise and goods that are brought across checkpoints, I try also to do the best I can for each side. It isn't easy to sleep at night knowing that you could end up passing through explosives or the next suicide bomber. So to all those who have a complaint against the army or the soldiers, keep it to yourself. (Signed a Soldier on a Checkpoint).
• Nothing wrong with what was done. If they let them pass without being checked, then I would say that there is a problem. Kol Hakavod (all honor) to the soldiers for doing a great job, protecting all the people who sit in Tel Aviv and always complain.
• It is obviously a security issue. A full truck comes to a checkpoint. How is a soldier supposed to know that there are no explosives inside? It's obvious the rocks aren't the issue. It's something I learned as a soldier. If we don't check, the Arabs learn and bring in explosives. It doesn't matter that in this truck, there was nothing. Now they see us checking and won't bring in explosives that harm our civilians. Kol Hakavod to the soldiers.

And on it went, comment after comment, in Hebrew and in English. What the soldiers did was correct. This time, the truck didn't have explosives; this time, nothing was hidden under the rocks. On the same day this happened, several knives and firebombs were found at other checkpoints. Perhaps this wouldn't have made the news if something had been found. Yes, the driver was inconvenienced; yes, it is a sign of the situation in which we find ourselves.

And as the many commentators wrote...and as our soldiers read - all honor to our soldiers. So many times our soldiers feel that the world doesn't understand their work. This time, they understood, they read. The article wasn't very positive, trying, as YNET often does, to paint our soldiers in a bad way and yet the readers proved to the soldiers that what they did was correct.

THIS time, the truck had nothing on it so the driver will go on his way. But just as important, many other drivers who might have thought to smuggle something through that checkpoint will understand that the soldiers are checking. A friend, who daughter was killed several years ago in the Sbarro pizza bombing attack once yelled at a reporter who was concerned about the conditions under which the Palestinians live and the damaged "quality of life" they may experience because of the security situation.

"Don't you dare talk to me about the quality of their life," the bereaved father answered, "when my daughter has no life."

Sometimes, what seems wrong, is really right and what is right, seems wrong. I am often told that peace will come to the Middle East when the Israelis do certain things. Stop the occupation, they say, and there will be peace. But there was no peace in 1966, before the so-called occupation began. All the return of the refugees, people say - but we too had hundreds of thousands of refugees and we took them in, gave them homes and a land and a part of our future.

There are so many issues in the Middle East that can be summed up very simply, though the world likes to make it complicated.

On Friday, Israel launched artillery into Lebanon...yes, it's true. But the artillery was in response to two katyusha rockets fired at Israel. The katyushas were fired at our cities; the artillery was fired at the launching ground of the katyushas. Had there been no rockets launched at Israel; there would have been no artillery being fired. The UN promptly stepped in and, once again, made fools of themselves by asking for a cessation of violence.

Idiots, I want to tell them. Don't you see? Stop the rockets, and there will be no violence, no artillery. Stop the smuggling and attempts to blow up our civilians, and there will be no need to search your trucks.

Sometimes, when right seems wrong, it is because you aren't looking at the whole picture.

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