Amplification of unchallenged Assad propaganda persists at BBC News - by Hadar Sela

...Clearly the BBC is not enhancing audience understanding of events in Syria (or its own reputation as a credible and relevant media outlet) by parroting the unchallenged propaganda of a brutal regime that has killed hundreds of thousands of its own citizens and displaced millions.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
08 September '17..

Several hours after reports of an attack on a facility in northern Syria emerged early on the morning of September 7th the BBC News website published a report that was originally titled “Israeli jets ‘hit Syrian chemical site'”. After an additional alteration, that headline was later changed to read “‘Israeli jets hit Syria’s Masyaf chemical site’ – reports” and in the hours after its initial publication the article underwent numerous amendments.

From version five of the report onwards, BBC audiences were delivered a dose of Syrian regime propaganda – including a link.

“The Syrian army said rockets had struck the base near Masyaf, about 35km (22 miles) west of the city of Hama, at 02:42 on Thursday (23:42 GMT on Wednesday), causing “material damage” and the deaths of two personnel.

It accused Israel of attacking “in a desperate attempt to raise the collapsed morale” of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) and warned Israel about “the dangerous repercussions of such hostile acts on the security and stability of the region”.”

This is of course far from the first time that BBC reporting on alleged Israeli strikes against military targets in Syria has included amplification of the Assad regime’s unfounded propaganda concerning supposed Israeli support for one or other of its enemy factions and intervention in the civil war in Syria. That practice has been in evidence for well over four years:

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In reality, Roger Waters isn't like Rosa Parks. He's like the KKK. - by Elder of Ziyon

...their motivation has nothing at all to do with civil rights. Like the KKK, they are motivated by hate for the world's only Jewish state, not by their love of Palestinians or concern for universal human rights. They don't give a damn about Palestinians - only about punishing Jewish Israelis. (They don't want to boycott Arab Israeli businesses.) Meaning that their fundamental driving factor really is antisemitism. And Roger Waters' hate is a perfect topic to be pushed in the New York Times.

Elder of Ziyon..
08 September '17..

The New York Times decided to give yet more oxygen to BDSers like Roger Waters.

Waters wrote an op-ed that is so absurd and filled with lies and half-truths that it brings up, yet again, the late Senator Patrick Moynihan's dictum, " Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."

Waters claims that the Israel Anti-Boycott Act violates free speech:

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Palestinian Authority (PA) Arrests Human Rights Activist – Must Be Israel’s Fault! - by Sheri Oz

...I find it “interesting” (to put it mildly) that when the PA does something that even Amnesty International finds fault with, Beinart finds a way to put the blame squarely on Israel’s head.

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
07 September '17..

Amnesty International, not a friend of Israel by any means, reported clearly and simply on the arrest of Issa Amro of Hebron. Then along come other news websites that embellish the story, most in a way that makes it seem like Israel is to blame for the Palestinian Authority (PA) having taken him into custody.

After explaining what happened, Amnesty International takes the PA to task for clamping down on free speech:

Issa Amro, a Hebron-based coordinator for Youth Against Settlements and a former field researcher for the Israeli NGO B’Tselem, was detained at around midday local time today by Palestinian Preventive Security Forces, after he posted comments on his Facebook page criticizing the arrest of a local radio journalist [Ayman Qawasmeh] yesterday by the same Palestinian security forces.

“It is outrageous that a prominent human rights defender has been arrested simply for voicing his opinion online. Criticizing the authorities should not be a criminal offence. Issa Amro’s arrest is the latest evidence that the Palestinian authorities are determined to continue with their repressive campaign against free speech,” said Magdalena Mughrabi Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

Amnesty International recently highlighted a chilling escalation in attacks on media and freedom of expression by both the Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and the Hamas de facto administration in Gaza, detaining a string of journalists and shutting down opposition websites.

How odd then, that other “reporters” felt the need to involve Israel in this story. I guess they had to add something of their own rather than just regurgitate original press releases, the latter of which is all too frequent in today’s so-called journalism. And what better to add than that Israel is at the bottom of this. Here is how they did it:

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Surprise? NY Times Likens Israel to North Korea - by Ira Stoll

...The Times claim that this comparison is “only in the mechanics of alliance politics” doesn’t make the comparison any better or more accurate.

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner.com..
07 September '17..

A New York Times column likens Israel to the brutal dictatorship of North Korea.

In his foreign policy column “The Interpreter,” New York Times staffer Max Fisher makes the claim that China can’t solve the problem of North Korea’s nuclear weapons. He relies in part on “Jeffrey Lewis, who directs an East Asia program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.”

The Times column says:

Its sticks and carrots all having failed with North Korea, China worries that increasing pressure will cut off what little influence it has.

Americans might see parallels in their country’s own troubled alliances, particularly in the Middle East.…

Mr. Lewis drew a parallel, if only in the mechanics of alliance politics, with Israel.

For decades, Washington has tried to persuade, induce or coerce Israel into altering its policies toward the Palestinians. Israeli leaders accepted American aid, ignored American demands and, in shows of calibrated defiance, often announced new settlement construction on the eve of American visits.

To the outside world, American unwillingness to impose greater pressure looks like a lack of will. When American diplomats warn that more pressure would only deepen Israel’s calculus and sacrifice American influence, they are blamed for perpetuating the conflict.

This is so off-base in so many ways that it’s hard to know where to start.

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The Making of An Accidental Zionist - by Gary C. Gambill

...Alongside the antisemitism and the money, this idea of Israel as the low-hanging fruit for do-gooders wanting to improve the Middle East was the third foundation stone in what became a vast conspiracy of silence about how the region works during the 1990s.

Gary C. Gambill..
Middle East Forum/JPost..
05 September '17..
Link: http://www.meforum.org/6912/the-accidental-zionist

I was staunchly pro-Palestinian when I arrived at Georgetown University to begin studying for an MA in Arab Studies in the fall of 1995, or at least I thought so.

I had read Thomas Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem in college a few years earlier and accepted the basic conclusion that Israel's unwillingness to compromise had become the primary obstacle to Middle East peace.

If any place might have been expected to shepherd this eager young mind into accepting "progressive" orthodoxy on Israel, it would have been Georgetown's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS).

There I received a solid grounding in post-colonial theory, revisionist historiography of Israel, and so forth.

Radical though their views may have been, I don't recall many CCAS faculty caring much what I thought of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and few were involved in the kind of campus activism that is de rigueur among academics today. The roster of guest lecturers hosted at CCAS's spacious, elegantly appointed boardroom was another story, however, and notices for anti-Israel events throughout the Washington, DC, area were routinely advertised on the center's bulletin board. Going to them was the cool thing to do, and I attended more than I care to admit.

However, while I remained sympathetic to the Palestinian experience, I found interacting with other sympathizers increasingly intolerable. My immersion into the anti-Israeli movement brought me face to face with peer antisemitism for the first time, primarily among European and American students who shared much the same liberal outlook as myself.

Oddly enough, I don't recall any disparaging talk about Jews (albeit plenty about Israel) from Arab students at Georgetown, some of whom went out of their way to befriend Jewish students and faculty. It was Western students who said the darndest things.

How BBC News squeezes ‘settlements’ into internal PA affairs story - by Hadar Sela

...With 25.7% of the word-count of this report promoting Israel-related subjects unrelated to the story it purports to tell and 52.5% devoted to repetition of statements from a political NGO, the BBC can hardly be said to have deviated from its usual policy by taking the opportunity to provide its audiences with meaningful and comprehensive reporting on what the corporation’s Jerusalem bureau chief described as a human rights issue.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
07 September '17..

As regular readers know, the BBC does not as a rule cover internal Palestinian affairs and so – as was noted here in July – the absence of any reporting on a new Palestinian Authority “Cyber Crime” law came as no surprise.

“The controversial Cyber Crime Law, signed by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas on July 11, permits the imprisonment of Palestinians for “liking” or sharing published material on the internet.

Critics say the law paves the way for the emergence of a “police state” in PA-controlled territories in the West Bank. They also argue that the law aims to silence criticism of Abbas and the PA leadership.

The new law comes on the heels of the PA’s recent decision to block more than 20 Palestinian websites accused of publishing comments and articles critical of the PA leadership.

The law was approved by Abbas himself, without review by the Palestinian parliament, known as the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). The PLC has been paralyzed for the past decade, as a result of the power struggle between Abbas’s PA and Hamas — the Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip.”

Likewise, the BBC did not produce any English language coverage of the recent spate of detentions and arrests of Palestinian journalists and social media users by both the PA and Hamas.

Visitors to the BBC News website’s Middle East page on September 6th may therefore have been rather surprised to find a highly unusual article with the oddly punctuated headline “Palestinian Authority ‘detains rights activist over criticism’“.

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Doing the exact opposite of what was needed in Gaza in its meeting with Hamas - by Elder of Ziyon

...The fundamental issue that Hamas has managed to obfuscate is that these "prisoners" are not prisoners - but hostages. The reason Hamas didn't allow Maurer to speak with the Israelis who for whatever reason ended up in Gaza is because it wants to use them as bargaining chips to get Israel to release terrorists and achieve other goals, and even the promise of showing proof of life is something that Hamas sees as something to be bartered..

Elder of Ziyon..
06 September '17..

The New York Times eagerly reported in 2015:

GAZA CITY — A new training regimen for fighters in Hamas’s armed wing employs slide presentations and a whiteboard rather than Kalashnikov rifles and grenades. The young men wear polo shirts instead of fatigues and black masks. They do not chant anti-Israel slogans, but discuss how the Geneva Conventions governing armed conflict dovetail with Islamic principles.

The three-day workshop, conducted last month by the International Committee of the Red Cross, followed numerous human-rights reports accusing both Israel and Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, of war crimes in their devastating battle last summer, and came as the International Criminal Court prosecutor conducts a preliminary inquiry into that conflict.

The Red Cross developed its program in conjunction with Islamic scholars several years ago, but ramped it up after last summer’s deadly battle. So far this year, it has conducted six sessions for a total of 210 fighters from Hamas’s Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades and two other Gaza armed groups. Another workshop is scheduled for this week.

...Red Cross leaders say they have seen an increasing commitment from Hamas leaders and linemen alike, if only because they now consider their international image a critical component of their struggle.

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Posts 4 year-old pics of Gaza ‘Tunnel Children’, pretends they’re current - by Adam Levick

...It’s difficult to know which is worse: the fact that they completely obfuscated the terror dimension of Gaza’s tunnels, glorified Hamas’s abuse of children or unethically used four-year old photos while presenting them as current.

Adam Levick..
UK Media Watch..
06 September '17..

On Sept. 2nd, Daily Mirror published a photo essay on the “tunnel children” of Gaza, “brave youngsters” who, we are told, keep the economy in the strip going.

Though most don’t typically turn to the British tabloid for hard ‘news’, the piece, by Tom Howell, doesn’t adhere to even the most minimum standards of accuracy, and is in fact more akin to Hamas propaganda than anything resembling journalism.

For starters, it completely ignores the use of such tunnels by Hamas for terror purposes. It also perversely describes Hamas’s illegal use of child labor in these tunnels as something noble, rather than the cynical exploitation of young boys by a terrorist organization.

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BBC World Service ‘big prison’ framing of Gaza Strip misleads audiences (part two) by Hadar Sela

...So as we see, in this very long item the BBC World Service promoted a carefully framed picture of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip which once again failed to adequately clarify its background. While excluding Hamas terrorism from audience view, the item did however steer listeners towards the erroneous belief that the crisis involving electricity, water, medical and sewage has some connection to the blockade imposed by Israel, while completely ignoring the topic of why that measure is necessary.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
06 September '17..

In part one of this post we discussed the first part of an item about the Gaza Strip aired in the September 3rd edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Weekend‘ which ended with presenter Paul Henley saying:

Henley: “Najla – a mother of two young children with impeccable English who lives in Gaza. And she paints a grim picture of a place to live, of a quality of life, Stewart.”

Studio guest Stewart Purvis for some reason responded by bringing up an unrelated BBC linked story and misleading listeners with regard to Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005 during which all the communities in – rather than “around” – Gaza were of course evacuated. [emphasis in italics in the original, emphasis in bold added]

Purvis: “Yes; very, very depressing to listen to and it’s actually about ten years since I was last in Gaza visiting the BBC bureau there and I came away pessimistic and I suppose my pessimism was partly confirmed when a few months later the BBC correspondent Alan Johnston was taken hostage, if you remember, and happily was later released. But I just…I mean at that point the Israelis had withdrawn from settlements around Gaza and there was some sense of momentum. But that momentum seems to have completely disappeared and there is really so little signs of anything positive happening almost on any front.”

While one might have expected the discussion to turn at that point to relevant topics such as the 2007 violent Hamas take-over of the Gaza Strip, the terror organisation’s subsequent escalation of attacks on Israeli civilians and its Israel erasing agenda or the decade-long rift between Hamas and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, instead Henley turned to his other guest, Jane Kinninmont, with a topic much less helpful to audience understanding of the topic of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

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Agence France Presse Dissembles: Palestinian Clown Incarcerated for Activity in 'Leftist' Group - by Tamar Sternthal

...According to the organization's "Editorial Standards and Best Practices," AFP journalists are "expected to provide accurate, balanced and impartial news coverage." In other words: no dissembling.

Tamar Sternthal..
CAMERA Snapshots..
05 September '17..

Well, I'll put it on, and I will dissemble myself in't; and I would I were the first that ever dissembled in such a gown. I am not tall enough to become the function well, nor lean enough to be thought a good student; but to be said an honest man and a good housekeeper goes as fairly as to say a careful man and a great scholar.
-- Feste the Clown, Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night"

According to Agence France Presse photo captions last week, Israel had imprisoned a Palestinian clown for 20 months for alleged involvement in a "banned leftist group." In fact, Israel's Shin Bet security agency accused him of being a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, designated as a terror organization by the European Union, the United States, Canada and Israel. A sampling of the numerous captions follow:

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BBC World Service ‘big prison’ framing of Gaza Strip misleads audiences (part one) by Hadar Sela

...As we see, throughout this lengthy item BBC World Service listeners heard nothing of the terrorism perpetrated by Hamas against Israeli civilians and of the link between that and Israel’s counter-terrorism measures along its border with the Gaza Strip. While they did hear long and detailed descriptions of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, the absence of any adequate explanation of how the lengthy dispute between Hamas and Fatah has adversely affected electricity, water, medical and sewage services in the territory means that listeners would be quite likely to reach the erroneous conclusion that those issues are connected to the ‘blockade’ which is mentioned repeatedly.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
05 September '17..

An edition of the BBC World Service radio news and current affairs programme ‘Weekend‘ that was broadcast on September 3rd included an item promoting some noteworthy framing of the Gaza Strip but before that, presenter Paul Henley introduced his studio guests Stewart Purvis – formerly of ITV and OFCOM – and Jane Kinninmont of Chatham House.

Leading up to the Gaza related item, listeners heard some interesting signposting concerning radicalisation and terrorism which dovetails perfectly with the BBC’s chosen narrative on those topics.

Henley asked Kinninmont:

Henley: “How much…when you’re looking at causes of instability and the endless problems that you concentrate on there [the Middle East], how much do you put down to unemployment, which seems to be the big social and economic problem?”

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Victimization Narrative and the True Palestinian 'Nakba' by Philip Carl Salzman

...The Arabs in Palestine thought that the Jews could not and would not stand up to them, and they acted on that well-established cultural principle. However, the thousand-year-old conditions did not obtain this time around. The Jews they faced were not a dhimma, and they did not cower. Against the odds, and with little outside help, they fought and won. Again and again.

Philip Carl Salzman..
MEF/Algemeiner..
03 September '17..
Link: http://www.meforum.org/6910/the-true-palestinian-nakba

Seventy years ago today, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) introduced a detailed proposal to the UN General Assembly for the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state, approved less than three months later by a vote of 33 to 13. Not for the last time, however, a concerted international effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict foundered on the shoals of Arab rejectionism.

Arab Muslims roundly condemned UN partition — and more broadly the very principle of a Jewish state anywhere in Palestine — striving instead for complete victory. Following the tribally-based principle of those closer uniting against those more distant, the opposition to the Jews was both organizational and religious. Jews were not kinsmen and, worse, were infidels.

The Arabs acted according to their tradition, refusing compromise with inferiors. For over a millennium, Islamic empires had spread by the sword from Arabia across the Middle East and North Africa to much of Europe and as far east as India. God bestowed upon Muslims a right — no, a duty — to dominate Dar al-Islam (the house of Islam) forevermore. Not only did Jews, long a subservient and despised minority in Dar al-Islam, lack the right to have an independent state in Palestine, but the Arab residents of Palestine had no right to concede it to them.

The Arabs in Palestine thought that the Jews could not and would not stand up to them, and they acted on that well-established cultural principle. However, the thousand-year-old conditions did not obtain this time around. The Jews they faced were not a dhimma, and they did not cower. Against the odds, and with little outside help, they fought and won. Again and again.

NYT Review Exalts Book Accusing US of ‘Blind,’ ‘Fanatical’ Support of Israel - by Ira Stoll

...The German-owned publisher of Notes On A Foreign Country — Farrar, Straus and Giroux — is the same firm that brought out John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s infamous The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. If America is as blindly and fanatically loyal to Israel as Hansen claims — well, at least, fortunately for her, Farrar, Straus and Giroux and the New York Times Book Review don’t appear to suffer from that problem.

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner.com..
04 September '17..

The latest issue of the New York Times Book Review devotes its entire front page (and most of a second page inside) to a glowing review of Suzy Hansen’s new book, Notes On A Foreign Country: An American Abroad In A Post-American World.

The Times-picked reviewer gushes that the book is “rare and necessary…admirable.” It also claims that the book “is spoken softly rather than screamed.” The book’s author, Hansen, “is a contributing writer for the Times magazine.”

And then we get this strange and glancing mention of the Jewish state. The review explains that Hansen “asks why, given the extent to which America has shaped the modern Middle East — the lives it ended, the countries it fractured, the demons it created, its frantic and fanatical support of Israel — it ‘did not feel or care to explore what that influence meant.’”

“Frantic and fanatical support of Israel”? Is this the same America that for decades, under administrations of both political parties, has refused to move its embassy to Israel’s capital in Jerusalem? The same America that, under President Obama, agreed to an Iran nuclear deal that the Israeli government vociferously opposed, a deal that President Trump has so far not undone? The same America that, also during the Obama administration, declined to veto a UN Security Council resolution declaring Israeli settlements a violation of international law?

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Antisemitic as well as historical fraud.The case of Thomas Suarez's ‘State of Terror’ - by David Collier

...Most of the errors inside the book stem from sloppy research. The result of a rabid little man, motivated by hatred, grabbing at archive files in a desperate attempt to find something, anything, that sounds like it is attacking Zionists. Suarez is no historian and does not possess the frame of mind to provide context to anything he writes. For a wannabee historian, this is a fatal weakness.

David Collier..
Across the Great Divide..
04 September '17..

As each page of the Thomas Suarez book, State of Terror, is turned, another horrific statement against Zionists appears. The book was called a ‘tour de force‘ by Ilan Pappé. Jenny Tonge referred to its central ‘truth‘. Publishers Weekly suggested it is ‘an impressive display of historical excavation’.

So we (David Collier and Jonathan Hoffman), went digging to see if the Thomas Suarez story ‘held up’ – to see if he had used his sources properly when he wrote his book. This meant dozens of visits to the National Archives at Kew, and other days spent diligently reading books by anti-Zionists such as Ilan Pappé, Hanna Braun and Yosef Grodzinsky. There is no getting away from it. ‘State of Terror‘ isn’t just a vile book, it isn’t just antisemitic, it is a pyramid of errors. Far too many for this to ever have been accidental.

As Thomas Suarez opens his introduction he uses a quote from 1946. He forgets to tell his readers that he cannot confirm it was ever said. This is the way the book begins. The first archive file he lists says something very different to the way he describes events in 1938. This is the way the book ends. Between these two are a couple of hundred pages full of unsupportable libels. We know they are unsupportable because we checked some of the source material behind the claims. Today we publish our report.

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The perfect example of media double standards on Israel - by Adam Levick

...The broader question of why such Palestinian misdeeds are rarely noted by the media was addressed by former AP Jerusalem correspondent Matti Friedman in his groundbreaking Tablet expose of the media’s anti-Israel bias and double standards. Though we urge you to read the entire piece, part of the problem, Friedman argued, lies in the fact that “Palestinians are not taken seriously” by journalists “as agents of their own fate”, and are seen merely as “passive victims” of Israel, the only actor in the regional drama that matters.

Adam Levick..
UK Media Watch..
03 September '17..

A recent article by the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, Peter Beaumont, again shows how what media outlets ignore in their coverage of the conflict is as misleading to news consumers than the errors in the stories they do cover. The piece (“Trump’s ambassador refers to ‘alleged occupation’, Sept. 1) is critical of the US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, for his characterisation, during a Jerusalem Post interview, of the situation in the Palestinian territories as an “alleged occupation”

Beaumont quoted a response by an unnamed Palestinian official who warned that “Mr Friedman should realise that denying facts doesn’t mean that they don’t exist”.

Of course, the hypocrisy of a PA official lecturing anyone on factual or historical accuracy was no doubt lost on Beaumont, as the veteran Guardian journalist has consistently ignored the continuous Palestinian denial of Jewish history in Jerusalem and the existence of the Jewish Temple. Whilst Beaumont critically reported on Friedman’s use of the word “alleged” before “occupation”, he’s failed over the years to acknowledge PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s use of the term “alleged Temple” to question the existence of the First and Second Temples.

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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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BBC audiences left in the dark on Iranian terror financing yet again - by Hadar Sela

...Whether or not a BBC representative was present at Sinwar’s first meeting with the press is unclear but the agency AFP – to which the BBC subscribes – was there. Nevertheless, BBC audiences have seen no reporting whatsoever on this latest example of Iranian terror financing.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
03 September '17..

Readers may recall that when the JCPOA deal between Iran and the P5+1 powers was closed just over two years ago, senior BBC correspondents assured audiences that funds freed up by sanctions relief would be used by the Iranian regime to improve the country’s economy.

“President Rouhani was elected because people hoped that he would end Iran’s isolation and thus improve the economy. So the windfall that they will be getting eventually, which is made up of frozen revenues – oil revenues especially –around the world, ah…there are people who argue that look; that will go to try to deal with loads and loads of domestic economic problems and they’ll have trouble at home if they don’t do that. If people – the argument goes on – are celebrating in Iran about the agreement, it’s not because they’ll have more money to make trouble elsewhere in the region; it’s because things might get better at home.” Jeremy Bowen, PM, BBC Radio 4, July 14th, 2015

“In exchange it [Iran] will get a lot. It will get a release of the punishing sanctions. We heard from Hassan Rouhani saying as Iran always says that the sanctions did not succeed but he conceded that they did have an impact on the everyday lives of Iranians. There’s an estimate that some $100 billion will, over time, once Iran carries out its implementation of this agreement, will be released into the Iranian economy.” Lyse Doucet, Newshour, BBC World Service radio, July 14th, 2015.

Many Middle East observers will not have been surprised by the fact that the last two years have repeatedly shown that the BBC’s analysis was off the mark. Recently, yet another example of Iranian terror financing was publicised.

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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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Palestinian Settler-Colonialism - by Dr. Alex Joffe

...It is, then, the Palestinians who are the settler-colonialists, not the Jews or even the Zionists. Does this realization change anything? Does removing a term from the rejectionist toolbox bring the cause of negotiation and peace any closer? This seems unlikely. But in the longer term, facing certain truths will be necessary for Palestinians and Israelis alike. One is that rejection of Israel, at its core, is not a function of Palestinian nationalism and local identity but Islamic religious opposition to Jewish autonomy and sovereignty. Another is that tendentious categories like “settler-colonialism,” which ironically undermine Palestinian claims to indigenous status, should be dispensed with in favor of honest appraisals of history.

Dr. Alex Joffe..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 577..
03 September '17..

One of the mainstays of the modern university is the idea of settler-colonialism. This argues that certain societies are birthed by settlers implanted in a foreign territory, either directly by or with the consent of an imperial power. These colonists then dominate and eradicate the indigenous population. They develop bellicose cultures that eliminate the natives from historical, literary, and other narratives. Primary examples often cited are the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, South Africa and Rhodesia, and Israel.

The settler-colonial argument against Israel posits that Zionism was an imperial tool of Britain (or, alternatively, that Zionism manipulated the British Empire); that Jews represent an alien population implanted into Palestine to usurp the land and displace the people; and that Israel has subjected Palestinians to “genocide,” real, figurative, and cultural.

According to this argument, Israel’s “settler colonialism” is a “structure, not an event,” and is accompanied by a “legacy of foundational violence” that extends back to the First Zionist Congress in 1897 or even before. With Zionism thus imbued with two forms of ineradicable original sin, violent opposition to Israel is legitimized and any forms of compromise, even negotiation, are “misguided and disingenuous because ‘dialogue’ does not tackle the asymmetrical status quo.”

But Middle Eastern history is not amenable to these formulations. Among the many concepts abused and perverted by the Palestinians, accusations of Israeli “genocide” rank the highest for blatant audacity, and for twinned calumny and odiousness. But the settler-colonial idea deserves attention for three reasons: its comparatively recent adoption by Palestinians and their advocates; its broader currency in the academy; and its obvious and ironic falsity.

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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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Concealing Palestinian Rejection of Statehood Offers? Newsweek Guilty of the "Big Omission" by Gilead Ini

...Carlstrom need not embrace the view that, in rejecting the peace offers, Palestinian leaders reveal an unwillingness to end their war against the existence of Jewish state. But it is journalistically wrong to omit key facts in hopes of steering readers away from that conclusion. Palestinians, at any rate, have reached conclusions of their own: In February 2016 poll, a significant majority of Palestinians said they don't think the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank government often dubbed as "moderate," supports Israel's right to exist. That poll, of course, goes unmentioned in the Newsweek essay.

Gilead Ini..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
01 September '17..

Above Gregg Carlstrom's most recent article on the Newsweek website is a short video about tensions in Jerusalem last July. The video, dated July 17, explains that "Palestinians protested new Israeli security measures," noting that "Israel installed metal detectors at the entrances to Al-Aqsa mosque." But the segment devotes not even a single word about what precipitated the security measures: the brazen slaying just three days earlier of two Israeli police officers guarding the holy site.

The video, with its glaring omission, serves as a good opening act for the lengthy article that follows, which also conceals essential facts. Entitled "How Israel Won the War and Defeated the Palestinian Dream," Carlstrom's essay purports to explore the roots of Palestinian statelessness. His survey of the conflict's history, though, begins only with the 1967 Six-Day War, omitting the previous two decades during which a Palestinian state was not created even though the West Bank and Gaza Strip were under Arab control. The Arab world and Palestinian leadership during this era was less concerned with statehood than with eliminating Israel.

Carlstrom's history continues with the first intifada, which he describes as Palestinian "mass protests" to which Israel "responded with brute force" that killed many Palestinians. He fails to explain how these "protests" managed to take the lives of over 200 Israelis. Those deaths, in fact, go unacknowledged.

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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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Even if the particular citizens are poor and have little political power, like the residents of South Tel Aviv - by Vic Rosenthal

...It is the primary purpose of a government and all of its subsidiaries, including the judiciary system, to protect the nation’s citizens against internal and external threats. This is the case even if the particular citizens are poor and have little political power, like the residents of South Tel Aviv.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
31 August '17..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2017/08/deport-israels-illegal-immigrants/

The attitude of Israelis to African “infiltrators” or “asylum seekers” or “refugees” – what you call them is indicative of how you feel about them – is a manifestation of a broad cultural divide in our society.

There are about 50,000 illegal immigrants (estimates vary) from various African countries, mostly Eritria and Sudan but also numerous others, who came to Israel in the period between about 2005 and 2013, when Israel completed fencing its border with Egypt. In 2012 a law was passed that permitted the detention of illegal immigrants, although the Supreme Court, responding to petitions from various “human rights” NGOs, prevented its implementation. Nevertheless, the flow of immigrants seems to have been stopped, primarily by the physical barrier. Here is an interesting analysis of the immigration phenomenon and the attempts of the state to deal with it, albeit from a left-wing perspective.

Most of the immigrants have applied for humanitarian asylum and have been given visas that must be renewed every three months. They are de facto permitted to work, although many receive welfare benefits. Technically, only a few are eligible for humanitarian asylum as refugees, but the government has decided that most of them can’t be deported to their home countries because conditions there are so bad. Most are Muslims. The majority live in neighborhoods in South Tel Aviv.

The Tel Aviv neighborhoods have been severely impacted by the influx. Local residents say that they are afraid to go out at night because of violent crime committed by immigrants. Resources to help disadvantaged people of all backgrounds have been strained to the breaking point by the needs of the immigrants and their children. Long-time residents of the area that own property find themselves trapped, unable to sell apartments for enough money to move somewhere else.

Although it is irrelevant to the argument about what to do about them, I should point out (probably unnecessarily) that no other Middle Eastern or African country would treat illegal immigrants as well. The Egyptians regularly shoot migrants trying to cross their borders, and other countries deny them the right to work or education for their children. And they certainly would not get welfare benefits!

One can argue about their status endlessly – are most of them “economic migrants” or true refugees? But it should be clear that life in Israel is infinitely better in every way than in the places most of them came from, for both human rights and economic opportunities. It’s understandable that they took great risks to get here. What should we do?

The human landscape on the Temple Mount is slowly changing, but changing - by Nadav Shragai

...It remains to be seen how the "pilot" MK visit this week turns out, but when it comes to "ordinary" Jews visiting the Temple Mount, we have long since passed the trial state. The human landscape on the Mount is slowly changing.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
01 September '17..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=45047

A lot of Palestinians were trying to turn the first visit to the Temple Mount by MKs in two years into another flashpoint. At least for now, it isn't working. Two days before the visit, the Committee for Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa in the Palestinian Legislative Council announced that Israel's decision to allow MKs "to enter Al-Aqsa will not be allowed to pass quietly and will lead to a blowup in the situation in Jerusalem and throughout Palestine."

The council, an official PA entity, urged Palestinian residents of Jerusalem to scupper plans of the "occupation." PA television channels also threw a match onto the Temple Mount embers in an attempt to reignite the flames that were mostly quenched due to concerted efforts in the wake of the shooting attack on the Temple Mount and the ensuing metal detector crisis.

A documentary film that ran on PA television revisited the old lie that the Jews were the ones who planned to set fire to Al-Aqsa mosque in 1969, and even held up attempts to put it out. The mosque was set on fire by Denis Michael Rohan, an Australian Christian, who was arrested, tried, found insane, and committed to a psychiatric hospital.

A day before the MKs' visit, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They also spoke about "the settler attack on Al-Aqsa." A branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades) broadcast threats that they would attack the Knesset members based on intelligence it had obtained. MK Ahmad Tibi (Joint Arab List) made it clear that the Arab MKs would visit the Mount "whenever they want."

But Tuesday's visit to the Temple Mount was quiet. The first to enter was MK Yehuda Glick (Likud), who was shot and wounded three years ago by a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad over his Temple Mount activity. Glick recovered and became an MK, but since May 2016, when he was sworn in, has been barred from the Temple Mount. A week and a half ago, Glick tried to enter the Temple Mount compound, but was kept away by the police. After speaking with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Glick was persuaded that the Mount would soon be opened to MKs on a permanent basis. A year ago, the police informed Netanyahu that visits to the Mount by MKs presented no problem for their forces, but Netanyahu preferred to play it safe and repeatedly postponed making a decision on the issue.

Media and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's visit to Ramallah - by Bassam Tawil

...According to the Palestinian propaganda machine, nearly without exception, the terrorists were on their way to buy bread for their mothers or visit their grandmothers. These were innocent victims, the story goes, arrested or shot by Israel for no reason. Then there are the lies about Israelis "planting" knives near the bodies of terrorists who stab or try to murder Jews. Western journalists and others accept these lies as facts.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
01 September '17..

Fake news is an old story in the Palestinian world. Yet recently, fake news has been taken to new heights by Palestinian spin-doctors, who have been working overtime to mislead the international community and media. A number of stories published in the past few days in the Palestinian media demonstrate the extent to which Palestinians are prepared to go to deceive the world and impact international public opinion.

Excellence is often a virtue -- except when one excels at lying. And if there is one thing at which the Palestinians have excelled in the past few decades, it is spreading lies about its conflict with Israel. The mainstream media in the West usually takes the fake-news bait -- it sells papers! -- and demonstrates tolerance, if not sympathy, toward Palestinian-produced fake news fabrications.

The most recent case of Palestinian fake news emerged during United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's visit to Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinians. The UN chief, who does not seem to be familiar with the Palestinian culture of lies, fell victim to a typical PR stunt organized by his Palestinian hosts.

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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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‘Ensuring accuracy’ at the BBC Monitoring Jerusalem office? - by Hadar Sela

...That obviously does not bode well for BBC Monitoring’s commitment to “ensuring accuracy”, for consumers of supposedly impartial BBC Middle East related content or for clients (including the UK government) relying on the information it provides to help them make “well-informed decisions”.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
01 September '17..

...BBC Monitoring is the partially licence fee funded department that translates open source traditional and new media from around the world and describes its mission as being “to provide news, information and insight to BBC journalists, UK government customers and commercial subscribers, allowing users to make well-informed decisions”.

Earlier this year BBC Monitoring advertised some vacancies in its Jerusalem office, including a position titled Digital Journalist that was described as follows:

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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 miracle of Israel that was planted, indeed, in 1897. - by Judea Pearl

...If I had to choose the single most significant impact that the Basel Congress has had on our lives here, in 2017 America, I would name one forgotten statement that Herzl made in his first speech at the Basel Congress. On the morning of August 29, 1897, after 15 minutes of wild cheering, Herzl took the stage and said: “Zionism is a homecoming to the Jewish fold even before it becomes a homecoming to the Jewish land.”

Judea Pearl..
Algemeiner.com..
31 August '17..

One hundred and twenty years ago, on September 3, 1897, a Viennese journalist named Theodor Herzl wrote in his diary: “In Basel I founded the Jewish state.” He then added a curious note: “If I were to say this out loud today, everybody would laugh at me. In five years, perhaps, but certainly in fifty, everybody will agree.”

This was two days after Herzl returned from Basel, Switzerland, where, against all odds, he managed to put together the First Zionist Congress — the event that symbolizes the Jewish claim to self-determination.

Herzl had good reasons to feel elated about Basel: 208 delegates from 17 countries, all dressed in solemn tuxedos, packed Basel’s casino to discuss his proposed solution to the “Jewish Problem.”

For three days, delegates listened to fiery speeches, debated and finally came up with as clear a definition of Zionism as one can possibly articulate: “Zionism seeks to establish for the Jewish people a publically recognized, legally secured homeland in Palestine.”

Sure enough, upon returning to his office at the Neue Freie Presse newspaper in Vienna, Herzl’s co-workers greeted him with obvious mockery, as the “future head of state.” But that was the least of the problems that Herzl had to face; skepticism, sarcasm and opposition loomed all over the world. The Vatican issued a letter protesting the “projected occupation of the Holy Places by the Jews.” (Sound familiar?)

The Ottoman authorities had their suspicions aroused, and began to restrict the manner in which Jews were acquiring land in Palestine, especially near Jerusalem.

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The author is the Chancellor’s Professor of Computer Science and Statistics at UCLA, and the president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation.

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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