War Declared On Israeli Journalists by Palestinian Colleagues

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
26 April '13..



Palestinian journalists have declared an intifada against their Israeli colleagues.

In recent weeks, Israeli journalists who cover Palestinian affairs have been facing increased threats from Palestinian reporters. On a number of occasions, the threats included acts of violence against the Israeli journalists, particularly in Ramallah.

Human rights organizations and groups claiming to defend freedom of media have failed to condemn the campaign of intimidation waged by Palestinian journalists against their Israeli fellow-journaists. It is one thing when governments and dictators go after journalists, but a completely different thing when journalists start targeting their counterparts.

An Israeli journalist had his microphone damaged during an assault, while another was thrown out of a press conference. Behind the two incidents were Palestinian journalists, angered by the presence of Israelis in Ramallah and other Palestinian cities.

The threats and harassment came as more than 200 Palestinian journalists signed a petition, for the first time ever, calling on the Palestinian Authority to ban Israeli correspondents from operating in its territories "without permission."

The Palestinian Authority, for its part, has complied, issuing instructions requiring Israeli journalists to obtain permission from its Ministry of Information before entering Palestinian cities. Palestinian Authority officials and journalists later explained that the ban does not apply to some journalists working for the Israeli daily Ha'aretz and who report on "Palestinian suffering."

Love and determination brought justice despite the pain and anguish of loss.

Yehudit Tayar..
26 April '13..


The dignity of Michael Palmer, and the aura of love as he gave testimony describing what he and his family have been going through since the brutal murders of his son and grandson, Asher and Yonatan Hy"d, brought both reality and anguish into the courtroom.

Friday, September 23, 2011 not only changed the lives of the Palmer family with the brutal murders of Asher and Yonatan by the gang of Arab terrorists who planned, practiced and carried out the murders, but changed much more than that. With unbearable pain of the loss of his loved ones, Michael made a fateful, and until now, unusual decision. He decided to be actively involved in the trials of the murdering terrorists of his loved ones. He hired a lawyer, Adv. Adrian Agassi to help ensure that maximum justice be achieved.

He then took yet another unprecedented step by asking us, friends and family to establish a presence in the military court as the trials took place. This has never been done before by families of victims of terror. And then he agreed to my request to make copies of a photograph of Asher and Yonatan for us to hold against us before and during the trials.

Week after week, month after month for over a year and a half Michael traveled from Kiryat Arba to Opher Military Prison and the military court that is trying the terror gang that perpetrated and carried out the numerous terror attacks, one of which resulted in the tragic murder of Asher and Yonatan z"l.

The effect of having hired Adv. Adrian Agassi , and with us being there with Michael during the nightmare of facing the murderers had an enormous effect on both the prison guards, the judges and prosecution and especially the terrorists and their defense lawyers. This case became something different from all of the other trials taking place in the military court. This case became human, it had faces - not merely more names and it brought the reality of the pain of loss into that Military Court.

Was Fayyad a voice of reform and moderation? Think again.

David Bedein..
Israel Resource Review..
24 April '13..




The recently resigned former Palestinian Prime Minister Salman Fayyad is being eulogized as the late great hope of moderation for the Palestinian Authority.

The time has come to question such a characterization of Fayyad.

A case in point: In May 2009, our agency facilitated an informal briefing for staffers of the Middle East Subcommittee of the US Foreign Relations Committee of the US House of Representatives on the subject of Palestinian Authority and UNRWA education. Journalist and scholar Dr. Arnon Groiss, who regularly translates new PA textbooks used in Palestinian Authority and UNRWA education.

These translations can be easily perused on the net:
http://israelbehindthenews.com/library/pdfs/RightofReturninUNRWASchools.pdf
http://israelbehindthenews.com/library/pdfs/PA-schoolbooks.pdf

Dr. Groiss updated Congress with the content of the new PA texts...

*Denying the historical and religious presence of Jews in Palestine.

*Fail to recognize the State of Israel.

*Demonize Jews and Israel.

*Assign blame for the conflict exclusively on Israel, totally absolving Palestinians.

*Stress the idea of a violent struggle of liberation rather than a peaceful settlement.

In August 2009, a delegation of fifty members from both sides of the aisle of the US House of Representatives met with Salman Fayyad, the newly appointed prime minister of the Palestinian Authority.

Several members of Congress raised the issue of the Palestinian Authority schoolbooks with Fayyad, who assured the delegation that the school books would be changed for the new school year, just about to begin.

Hearing the report from the congressional delegation, our agency immediately dispatched a reporter to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian Authority Education Minister Lamis Al Alami to ask her about the PA curriculum for the new semester.

We asked her about changes in the curriculum. Al Alami answered that she was under strict orders from Fayyad not to change anything in the curriculum

Yet you would not be surprised by Fayyad's real educational policy if were to read Fayyad's position paper for a future Palestinian state, available on the net at:

http://www.geneva-accord.org/images/Offical%20Paper%20-%20Program
%20of%20the%20Thirteenth%20Government,%20August%202009.pdf

In that position paper. Fayyad spelled out his platform, in clear terms and in English.

The Cultural Crisis in the Arab and Islamic World by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

Israel is perceived as an orderly country of a "normal" people, loving life, progress and development, the exact opposite of what is happening in the greater region within which it lives. And the sharper this perception is, the stronger and more intense the envy becomes. On the other side of the Atlantic there is another "normal" country, the United States, where another people lives, basing its existence on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The envy towards Israel and the United States that permeates the Arab and Islamic world becomes hatred directed against these two countries. This is the source of the names "the Big Satan" and "the little Satan", which is how Iran, the regime of darkness and oppression, refers to them.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar..
mordechaikedarinenglish.blogspot.co.il/..
26 April '13..

Anyone in the world who takes any interest in the news, whether from newspapers or the electronic media, can immediately discern the difference between what is happening in Europe and the United States versus what is happening in the Arab and Islamic world. In the Western countries, the news usually deals with the economic crisis, visiting leaders, natural disasters, traffic accidents, and criminal acts such as murder, burglary and violence. The perpetrators are usually people acting alone who commit the crimes out of criminal or personal motives, or inadvertently. Therefore, when a terror attack such as that which happened in Boston occurs, the Western media all become alarmed, and ask "why". Why, when three people are killed and about one hundred seventy are wounded in a terror attack, does the event dominate all the media for many days, while larger disasters - for example a bus falling over a cliff resulting in the death of tens of children - get much less coverage?

The answer is simple: When the incident in question is a "home-made" disaster, stemming from the Western way of life - for instance, traffic accidents, murder in a romantic framework or the death of Western soldiers in foreign countries - the media and the public ultimately accept that the disaster is difficult to prevent and is part of life, and return to the normal routine. On the other hand, a terror attack carried out by a Muslim immigrant is perceived in a totally different way: it is seen as a war waged by a foreign culture against the Western culture. Even if many people do not admit it, the sense in the United States after the attack in Boston is that "a foreign, alien culture is waging against us, using people who immigrated to our country, live among us, look like us, and sound like us but are actually totally different from us: they are Muslims". This perception turns all of the media's attention to the battlefield - the streets of Boston and its suburbs in the most recent case - so that we will be sure that the battle ends with the good guys winning and the bad guys losing. It is actually a war between the sons of light and the sons of darkness, us and them, our culture versus their culture and as in war, we must win at any price, even if it costs a fortune and means confining the residents of Boston in their houses for a whole day, which normally would be totally unacceptable in the United States, the land of freedom. That's how it is in the West.

In the Arab world and in a not insignificant portion of the Islamic world, the news is something totally different. The routine coverage during the past two years is of civil wars that cause tens of thousands of fatalities, a ruler massacring his citizens, mass murder resulting from clashes between tribal, ethnic, religious or sectoral groups, massive terror attacks, millions of demoralized and impoverished refugees, a severe economic crisis and political and economic corruption. Here, three fatalities and hundreds of wounded is the usual bloody toll occurring every few minutes and has become routine, almost "not news". When you compare the news in the West with the news in the Arab world you get the impression that you're dealing with two different planets, two civilizations that are polar opposites from each other: one specializing in development of life and prosperity, and the other dealing with the creation of death, suffering, blood and tears. Here too, the question arises: why is there such a great difference between the Western countries and the Arab world; what causes the Arab world and the Islamic part of the world to be a source of violence, mass murder and almost incessant suffering for whole populations.

Denial is still the name of the game - Anarchy in Sinai and no solution in sight

Zvi Mazel..
Middle East/JPost..
3 April '13..

The first Egyptian reactions to the grad rockets that targeted Eilat were of flat denial. No fewer than three individuals – a self-proclaimed expert, a retired general and a military commentator – explained at length that there was no way the missiles had been launched from Sinai.

One said that determining what had happened would take time and would require satellite images; another argued that the Iron Dome system, recently deployed to the Eilat area, is designed to intercept only projectiles launched from beyond Israel’s borders — the rockets must have been launched from Israeli territory, he duly concluded. South Sinai’s governor joined the chorus, rejecting out of hand the notion that the rockets could have been shot from the peninsula.

It may be remembered that in December 2010, this governor’s predecessor accused the Mossad of dispatching a shark to the waters of Sharm e-Sheikh in order to harm local tourism. A “high ranking army source wishing to remain anonymous” added that the ongoing investigation had found no indication that the missiles had originated in Egypt.

A few hours later, perspectives Egyptian views were shifting, perhaps because a Salafi group had taken responsibility for the launch.

An Egyptian Army spokesman posted a statement on its Facebook page indicating that a commission of inquiry had been immediately set up to check the situation on the ground in Sinai.

In the statement, the spokesman wrote that Egyptian territory had never been and would never be a threat to neighboring countries.

The presidency followed suit with a similar communiqué, while another military source indicated that the Egyptian Defense Minister General Abdel Fattah Alsisi had given orders to raise the state of alert along the Israeli border to its maximum level.

No one seemed aware that Iron Dome radars and other installations had tracked the missiles, and that the likely explanation for the decision not to fire at them was that such an interception would have taken place in Egyptian airspace.

At this stage, Israel is unwilling to violate its neighbor’s sovereignty. In Egypt, as in all Arab countries, denial is the name of the game whenever Israel is involved. They are never the ones at fault, it seems; it is always the Zionists or the Jews.

Who has given her the mandate to decide who decides who is an Israeli?

Eytan Meyersdorf..
Times of Israel..
25 April '13..

The president of Ben Gurion University, Rivka Carmi, recently questioned the aims and tactics of the Zionist movement, Im Tirtzu, an extra-parliamentary movement that works to strengthen and advance the values of Zionism in Israel.

In her article, Carmi claimed that the movement “derides ‘exposing’ students to speakers and opinions that some might consider anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli,” and called for a country where “everyone’s opinion can be heard without fear.” Clearly, Im Tirtzu does not fall into Carmi’s category of “everyone.”

Carmi was quick enough to lash out against Im Tirtzu for protesting MK Haneen Zoabi’s appearance at the university’s “Who is an Israeli” conference, when protest is the definition of a healthy democracy. Why does MK Zoabi have the right to protest against the Jewish state (and to even participate in acts of violence against IDF soldiers), but others do not have the right to protest against her? Is that Carmi’s idea of democracy?

Ironically enough, it was the political science department in Carmi’s own university that was deemed unfit by the Council for Higher Education for being slanted to the radical left and was forced to implement major changes in order to make the department more pluralistic.

Hypocrisy at its finest.

Im Tirtzu is a movement spearheaded by students; students who disagree with the values being taught by professors preaching the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement to their classes; students who disagree with the values of pro-terrorist rallies; students who disagree with the values being taught by MK Haneen Zoabi. While those views have a place within the academic world, it is critical that the other side is presented.

More Media Distortion of Airport Security Issue

...Finally it was discovered that metallic buttons on the baby carrier had set off the security scanner alarm. I mention this as just one example of how, in a post-9/11 world, all of us have been affected by the increasing levels of security checks at airports. But it seems that Israel’s airport security procedures are the only ones that can induce almost righteous indignation in the media.

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
25 April '13..

Just this week, en route to Israel through a British airport, I observed a young family being held up at security. Despite the fact that he had a newborn infant strapped to his chest in a baby carrier and was accompanying his wife and young daughter, the young man was subjected to multiple pat downs.

Struggling to hand over the baby while juggling with items of clothing and luggage, this was clearly an inconvenient and unpleasant experience being meted out to a family that should not have raised any security concerns. Finally it was discovered that metallic buttons on the baby carrier had set off the security scanner alarm.

I mention this as just one example of how, in a post-9/11 world, all of us have been affected by the increasing levels of security checks at airports.

But it seems that Israel’s airport security procedures are the only ones that can induce almost righteous indignation in the media.

As the Associated Press reported: “Israel’s attorney general on Wednesday upheld a practice to allow security personnel to read people’s email accounts when they arrive at the airport, arguing it prevents militants from entering the country.”

Cue dramatic headlines that overstated the story to the point of being misleading as well as adding a sinister backdrop to the story. For example, this headline in The Australian:

As it Goes with Israel, ... Where's the Coverage?

SC..
CAMERA Snapshots..
25 April '13..

When terrorists bomb a public place in Israel, injuring dozens and even killing children, or when an Israeli police officer is killed by terrorists, it is not all that jarring to most of the world. Though it should be.

Last week, radicalized Muslim terrorists reportedly bombed the Boston Marathon, injuring dozens and killing three civilians including an eight-year-old boy. Subsequently, they allegedly also murdered a young police officer.

In the wake of this tragedy, both victims and the admitted terrorist are being treated by doctors who were trained in Israel, and in the case of Professor Kevin (Ilan) Tabb, the director of Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (the BI), an actual Israeli. Suspected terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is being treated at the BI as are 24 people who were injured in the attack, among them 16 who are in serious condition.

According to an article in Ynet:

“Unfortunately, I have had a lot of experience with these types of injuries after years of treating people injured in terror attacks in Israel,” said the professor, who is a member of the board of Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem, where he studied medicine and completed his residency. “We have a few Israeli doctors in the emergency room, and the director of the ER is also Israeli.”
[…]
“It was very similar to what I was used to in Israel in that we had to admit many injured people in a short period of time,” Professor Tabb said. “The fact that we are treating both the victims and the suspected terrorist also reminds me of similar situations in Israel. In Israel we had an injured soldier and a terrorist lying on adjacent beds. When an injured person is admitted to the ER, the doctor or nurse treats him without asking questions.”

These facts have not received much coverage, except in the Israeli and Jewish press. No surprise there. Even more important, however, is their broader implication. Israel is not just a great friend and ally to the United States. Israel is on the front line of our own battle.

Little Adelle, Happy Birthday!

Paula R. Stern..
A Soldier's Mother..
25 April '13..

Today is the third birthday of little Adelle Biton - she was critically wounded in a rock attack several weeks ago and her family will celebrate this day in the hospital with her - praying for her recovery. Adelle is still unconscious, still on a respirator.

What should have been a happy, exciting day celebrated in nursery school turns into a day of tears. May God grant her a full and speedy recovery and may she be the last Israeli child hurt by the rocks and missiles of hatred thrown/launched by Arabs who seek our destruction.

Please say a prayer for Adelle and her family - think good thoughts for her recovery. I look into her eyes in this picture and think of how little she is, how beautiful. These are our babies, the children of Israel - we cherish them, we love them and we teach them to choose life. We are all praying that Adelle will be given life - a long one, a happy one.

Dear God, please return Adelle to her family - healthy, whole, and with sparkling eyes that once again light up the hearts and souls of all who see her.

Link: http://israelisoldiersmother.blogspot.co.il/2013/04/happy-birthday-little-adelle.html

Click here for more from Paula's A Soldier's Mother

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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Media Bias, Marathons and the “Israel as Villain” Plotline

Perhaps the problem was that reporting the ban on Israelis would have spoiled the neat “Israel as villain” plotline. After all, the race’s main sponsor was a Danish nonprofit. And it’s hard to paint Israel as the Grinch who stole the marathon from would-be runners when enlightened Europeans were complicit in the same crime–with far less justification.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary/Contentions..
24 April '13..

When the news broke last week that Israel had prevented Gazan runners from participating in the West Bank’s first marathon, my initial reaction was to wonder why Israel had done something so stupid. Granted, Gaza is an enemy quasi-state that routinely launches rockets at Israel, and most countries don’t let enemy nationals enter or transit their territory; hence Israel’s refusal to allow Gazans to do so (aside from humanitarian cases like the many Gazans treated in Israeli hospitals) is usually perfectly justified. But exceptions are routinely made for international sporting events; that’s why Israel rightly objects when its own athletes are barred from international tournaments in Arab countries. Hence this ban, which was reported worldwide, could only hurt Israel’s image.

But it turns out Israel was perfectly justified in barring the Gaza athletes–because the marathon’s Palestinian organizers had barred Israeli participants. Clearly, no country should be expected to facilitate an “international” event that bars its own athletes from participating. That this justification was absent from last week’s news reports thus speaks volumes about both the incompetence of Israel’s public relations and the biases of international reporting on Israel.

Palestinian prisoners releases - A brief history

...This descent into irrationality was inevitable, as the Palestinians’ decades long obsession with prisoners has never been predicated on the quest for justice, but rather is a manifestation of the consecration, and resultant pursuit, of terror which to this day pervades every aspect of Palestinian society. For Hamas, this is understood by most observers; but it no less true of the Abbas-led PA.

Charles Byblezer..
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost..
24 April '13..

Last Wednesday, Palestinians worldwide held protests to mark “Prisoner Day,” an annual event meant to highlight the alleged plight of, and to celebrate, Palestinian criminals and terrorists imprisoned in Israel. The matter has gained notoriety over the past two years as the Palestinian Authority has made the release of prisoners a precondition for renewed peace talks with Israel.

“The Palestinian leadership gives priority to the prisoners issue and [to] ending their suffering,” PA President Mahmoud Abbas proclaimed earlier this month. “We cannot be silent about their staying behind bars.... [We] have demanded the freeing of all prisoners.”

Abbas reportedly stressed the importance of the subject both during last month’s visit to Ramallah by US President Barack Obama, and in a recent meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry, following which a PA official reiterated that “without the release of a significant number of prisoners... there can be no talk about resuming the peace process.”

While there is nothing unique about Palestinian preconditions to negotiations – which presently also include that Israel cease construction in settlements; accept the 1967 borders as a basis for talks; and cede territory from Area C in the West Bank, under exclusive Israeli jurisdiction as per stipulations in the Oslo Accords, to Palestinian control – demanding the release of prisoners, many with “blood on their hands,” is particularly perverse and revealing.

Abbas predictably assumed this position not long after the October 2011 Gilad Schalit prisoner-swap deal with Hamas, in which 1,027 Palestinians – nearly 20 percent of all Palestinians either imprisoned or detained in Israel at the time – were exchanged for a single captive IDF soldier.

Hamas’ popularity ballooned following the deal, so Abbas felt compelled to demonstrate his own pro-terrorist bona fides in order to reinforce his standing as the “legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.”

Contrary to popular belief, the Schalit deal was not particularly ground-breaking.

Fayyad’s No. 1 fan at the NY Times performs his own postmortem

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
24 April '13..

The political demise of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad continues to drive much of the discussion about the dead-in-the-water Middle East peace process in the media. Thus, it’s no surprise that Fayyad’s No. 1 fan at the New York Times would weigh in today on the paper’s op-ed page to perform his own postmortem on the death of “Fayyadism.” Thomas Friedman, who modestly takes credit for coining the term, writes today that there is plenty of blame to go around for his favorite’s failure. He rightly notes that both PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah Party and their Hamas rivals always wanted to get rid of Fayyad–the factor that I wrote last week was the main reason Fayyadism was doomed from the start. But Friedman also puts forward a theory about the American and Israeli responsibility for Fayyad’s failure.

According to this line of argument, which is rapidly being incorporated into the catechism of Israel-bashers, the cutoff of U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority by Congress as well as the withholding of various revenues by the Israelis precipitated Fayyad’s end. In this telling, without the cash to keep the Palestinian economy afloat, Fayyad’s reform agenda and administration rapidly collapsed, allowing his enemies to force him out. This narrative holds that it was these cuts, which were implemented to punish the PA for its decision to go to the United Nations to pursue independence rather than to negotiate for it in peace talks, were counterproductive and ultimately responsible for the exit of the only Palestinian leader who could be said to care about his people or peace.

But while this way of looking at things is convenient for those who always prefer to blame the Israelis and the pro-Israel community in the United States for everything that happens in the Middle East, it is completely illogical.

As even Friedman admits, Fayyad was adamantly opposed to the PA’s UN gambit that was nothing more than a way to evade peace talks since Abbas was unable and/or unwilling to ever make a deal with the Israelis. By placing the full force of U.S. policy on the same side as Fayyad, the Obama administration, Congress and Israel were backing up the PA prime minister, not undermining him. The PA remains completely dependent on foreign aid from the West, and using this leverage was the only way for President Obama and the Israelis to convey to Abbas that he should listen to Fayyad rather than make a grand gesture at the UN that would do nothing for the Palestinian people.

The Secretary of Defense's Epiphany?

The easy thing would be to credit Mr. Hagel's epiphany to an echo of his boss's change. But one might hope it is something more: a new understanding that Israel doesn't "control" American policy; Israel doesn't need to "intimidate" anyone and doesn't require its own "members" in the United States Senate. Israel has friends because it is a friend. Israel receives security consideration because it its enemies are, generally speaking, our enemies.

Shoshana Bryen..
American Thinker..
24 April '13..

As a U.S. senator, Chuck Hagel went to great lengths to assure people he was not the "Senator from Israel," and he seemed surprised when people objected to his remark, "The political reality is ... that the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here." It was never clear who should have been offended -- Jews and/or Israelis, or the colleagues Hagel implied were "intimidated" or were in fact "Senators from Israel."

It is that same Chuck Hagel -- now secretary of defense -- who is in Israel to conclude details of a proposed U.S. arms package including the KC135 refueling aircraft and Osprey V22 transport aircraft. The Osprey had not previously been released for sale abroad. And the KC135 had been denied to Israel by the Bush administration for fear it would appear that the U.S. was encouraging Israel to consider an attack on Iran. The Obama administration is selling it for precisely that reason. "Iran presents a threat in its nuclear program and Israel will make the decisions that Israel must make to protect itself and defend itself," Hagel said.

It isn't only weaponry. Hagel pointedly asserted, "Israel and the U.S. see the threat of Iran in exactly the same [way] ... [s]o I don't think there's any daylight there. When you break down into the specifics of the timing of when and if Iran decides to pursue a nuclear weapon, there may well be some differences but generally I believe our intelligence is generally very close to each other." He visited Yad Vashem.

What gives?

To begin with, Secretary Hagel's boss, President Obama, appears to have had a bit of an epiphany about the Middle East, about instability, and about Israel. Indeed, Mr. Hagel said President Obama had made "not only maintaining[,] but improving Israel's qualitative [military] edge a top priority."

Haaretz - The link between financial woes and sensationalist anti-Israel coverage

Richard Landes..
The Augean Stables..
23 April '13..

There are some papers which, as much by their literary standards, as by their journalistic standards, stand out as the paper favored by the intellectual elite: The Guardian in England, Le Monde in France, The New York Times in the USA, and Ha-aretz in Israel. If only for their cultural material they are much prized. And, perhaps not surprisingly (but, I think, we should be “surprised” by everything these days), they have a “leftist,” progressive slant. Much has been written about the decline of the NYT’s coverage of the Middle East, not to mention its tendency to reject or heavily edit editorials from the “right,” and run without any editing, editorials from the flakey left. The Guardian is so bad, it has a website dedicated exclusively to exposing its delirious tendencies towards anti-Semitism. In 2003, a devastating study came out chronicling the collapse of journalistic ethics (in French déontologie) of Le Monde. And now, a new study, traces the decline of standards and the rise of politicized, radical “left” slant in Israel’s Ha-aretz.

Note that all of the critiques have emerged in the last decade, the period of time in which, we argue at The Al Durah Project, the mainstream news media (MSNM), were taken over, at least in their coverage of the Middle East, by a school of “lethal journalists” who systematically injected Palestinian lethal narratives into the information systems of the West as news. It’s hard to exaggerate the role of Ha-aretz in this process. Foreign correspondents read its English edition religiously as their source of information.

NB: this is not because it’s their only access to an English translation. I once asked a journalist if she had read Khaled abu Toameh.

“Who’s he?”

“He writes for the Jerusalem Post.”

“Oh, I don’t read that right wing rag.”

Instead the international press corps prefer a “left”-wing rag. When I presented the al Durah material to my students, one of them, commenting on Ha-aretz’s relentless denunciation and mockery of any effort to exculpate Israel, asked,

“Isn’t Ha-aretz an Israeli paper?”

“Yes,” I replied, “why do you ask?”

“Because it sounds like a Palestinian one.”

As one critic wrote to Ha-aretz in response to a subscription request, “If I want to read a Palestinian paper, I prefer to read it in Arabic.”

Now, after a series of grotesque cases of anti-Israel coverage that violated all the principles of accurate journalism, a study has come out detailing the indictment of the paper’s radical direction.

(Continue to Downfall of a Great Newspaper)

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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Is Jordan Palestine? Should Jordan be Palestine?

...The “Jordan-is-Palestine” plan is thus a right-wing fantasy which mirrors the left-wing fantasy of the “two-state solution.” Both are based on the assumption that if the Palestinians had a state of their own, the conflict would cease, Israel would capture the moral high ground and the fundamental perception of the conflict would shift, that it would become be a run-of-the mill territorial dispute between states, etc.

Daniel Tauber..
Columnist/JPost..
23 April '13..

If you’ve heard former MK Aryeh Eldad speak in the past few years (before recent Knesset elections, at least), you probably heard him say something like this: “The vast majority of Jordan is Palestinian.

In fear of an uprising, the King of Jordan has his private airplane running 24 hours a day, seven days a week to whisk him away in case of a revolt. He should declare that Jordan is the Palestinian national homeland or seek asylum in London.”

Such language (there was also a petition and a pamphlet) is only the most recent incarnation of a push for “Jordan is Palestine,” a slogan many on the Right still adhere to.

In a lengthy 1988 article on the topic for Commentary (rejecting “Jordan is Palestine”), Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes and international affairs expert Adam Garfinkle documented many proponents of the theory, even practical Israeli plans for potentially realizing it, and Pipes continues to update the article on his website with quotations of relevant personalities who maintain the opinion.

As Eldad has explained, the goal of making Jordan into Palestine is to lessen pressure on Israel to implement the “two-state solution.” Once Jordan becomes Palestine, the “the Palestinians [would] lose their orphan status as a people without a state” and “their international demands will become much weaker.”

The two-state solution would become meaningless as there would already be a Palestinian state, and there would therefore be much less of an argument for Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria, something Jordan-is-Palestine proponents rightly fear would lead to grave danger for Israel.

If only it were that simple.

The Middle East, the Jews and the Ummah

Bataween..
Point of No Return..
24 April '13..

"A well-meant mistake of history."A few years back, thus was Israel described by a certain Mr Cohen, a journalist for the Washington Post. In response, Zaki Elia, who lives in London, wrote an email to him. It was 'a delivery failure' : Mr Cohen never got to read it. Lately, Zaki stumbled upon it while tidying his old mails and thought to share it. (with thanks: Michelle)

To Mr Cohen, from a Middle Easterner.

Your analysis of the state of affairs in the Middle East where the state of Israel has been labelled as a ”well meant mistake of history” because of the persecution of European Jewry is puzzling today taking into consideration that the great majority of the Jews living in Israel are from Sephardi and Mizrahi origin. You may not be familiar with the Mizrahi Jews as they have been conveniently and mistakenly classified as Sephardim, from Spain and not the Middle East. I am a Mizrahi Jew - meaning Easterner, the first generation outside the Middle east.

The Mizrahi Jews lived in Alexandria, Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad and beyond for two or three millennia before Mohammed had his revelations and proclaimed his subsequent Ummah. Today there are no Jews to speak of in the Muslim world: they all moved including the communities of North Africa. (About one million of them migrated - dare I say an unrecognised equivalent to the Palestinian tragedy?) Some moved to Europe and the New World, others to Israel following a similar pattern of persecution that the Ashkenazim went through, thankfully without the outrage of the Holocaust.

Describing Palestine as “a Turkish colony” is fundamentally inaccurate and reveals your misinformed judgement. The Turks were the custodians of the Caliphate, the near-holy regency from Mohammed. Palestine was a province of the Ummah, and not a colony. You might say this is semantic, but the difference between Empire and Ummah is the difference between the profane and the sacred. The Ummah is the utopian equivalent of the promised land: Mohammed and his “khalifas/regents” brought the Ummah about by subjugating, pacifying and Islamising by the sword in the name of Allah. A truly Holy Empire, where Christians and Jews were tolerated, patronised and periodically persecuted. As dhmmis, they will eventually see the inevitability of the Universal Mahommedan vision . Therefore it would have been more accurate and true to use the expression 'a Muslim province '(loosely defined by topography and taxability).

That said, the true tragedy of the Middle East is one of cartography. The reasons behind the crisp borders are Western reasons. Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Kuwait, Syria, Iraq are all historical mistakes. I find it mystifying that you should single out Israel, otherwise, how would you explain the dysfunctional societies of Iraq, Lebanon and others repressed and unexpressed, or the obliteration of Kurdistan? Or large swathes of Armenia? And what is the legitimacy of Pakistan and Bangladesh beyond Islam? Both these nations created refugee problems that dwarfed those of Palestine in human scale and magnitude, and yet we do not hear of them. The same parallel tragedy is playing havoc on the continent of Africa : borders were defined oblivious to the reality of the people living on that land. Let me assure you I am not an anti-colonialist in the Cold War mould. Borders are important, necessary concepts to manage an ever-shrinking world based on universal human rights as enshrined by the United Nations.

The Honey-Trap of (Im)Moral Equivalence

People love to lay the blame for the stalemate at 50:50. But the facts do not support this. Israeli schoolbooks do not teach children to hate and destroy Palestinians, as the Palestinian schoolbooks do of Israelis Even the most extreme Israeli politician does not threaten to wipe out the Palestinian people, as even mainstream Palestinian politicians do of Israelis.

Douglas Murray..
Gatestone Institute..
24 April '13..

Today, in an age that often seems of pragmatism and managerial-ism in politics, if there is a way not just to honor the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's memory but to continue her legacy it should be to encourage and praise those rare individuals who are willing to buck such trends. In Canada recently, I have had an opportunity to reflect on the perhaps surprising fact (also surprising to many Canadians) that in recent years Canada has shown itself to be a home to convictions which ennoble the present and can stand proud before history. The Harper government's moral clarity on a number of issues –in particular religious freedom and Israel – demonstrate a stand that can be rightly admired and celebrated by free peoples around the world.

Over the last decade the issue of religious freedom has come out of the rear-view mirror to a position of utmost importance, especially among minority communities. But nowhere does it matter more than in the Middle East. As Canada's Foreign Minister, John Bair, must have been reminded on his recent trip to the region, whether you compare what is happening across that region to events in Europe in 1848 or 1991, such historical comparisons are of limited use. What is happening there now, the upsurge of Islam, is a once-in-a-lifetime event. And although none of our countries may any longer have the capability or will to have a permanent military presence in the region, the significance of what soft diplomacy we can muster, and what moral stands we insist on, may yet prove far more important.

If the democracies can do one thing to help guide the Middle East in a more liberal direction, it is by simply showing our friends and potential friends in those countries why the freedoms we enjoy could profitably be enjoyed there as well. If we are seen to be saying, to quote Groucho Marx, "These are our principles and if you don't like them we have other principles," we risk enshrining the worst message of the Islamists: that we democrats are bad friends with insubstantial values. This period in history is too important to be left solely to those allegedly sophisticated' British foreign-office types who revel in making no moral judgements at all.

The other area in which Canada has also shown the significance of values is in the matter of Israel. The Harper government has shown that it is possible to remain unbending when it comes to civilizational values.

Iran is a threat to more than just Israel

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
23 April '13..

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is in Israel this week, and the man who was opposed by many friends of the Jewish state when he was nominated seems determined to make a good impression. Hagel came bearing “gifts” in that he brought the official permissions for $10 billion in arms sales to Israel including vital anti-radar missiles, aircraft for mid-air refueling as well as other planes that can rapidly transport troops and firepower. Just as important, he said all the right things in public including the reaffirmation of Israel’s right to decide how to defend itself, and he seemed on his best behavior as he met with his counterpart Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s minister of defense.

No one should doubt these arms sales greatly strengthen Israel’s defenses as well as its ability to project air power if it should prove necessary. President Obama has made good on his promise to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge and it is incumbent on those of us who have criticized him for his predilection for picking pointless fights with the Jewish state over the peace process throughout his first term to acknowledge that. Nor can one point to the other pieces of the arms package that included sales of missiles to Saudi Arabia and F-16 jets to the United Arab Emirates as proof of bad will since it is obvious those weapons are intended to strengthen the ability of those monarchies to defend themselves against Iran, not to attack Israel.

But, as an article in today’s New York Times made clear, there are still grounds for concern about the U.S.-Israel relationship. Although the administration is helping maintain Israel’s defense deterrent, they did not grant everything on Jerusalem’s wish list. The most prominent item missing from the weapons that are to be delivered is a Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a giant bunker-busting bomb that is exactly what is needed to take out Iran’s underground nuclear facility at Fordow. That and the “fundamental difference of views” between the two countries about the level of risk that Iran’s program poses are complicating the Hagel visit.

Using a Marathon as Political Warfare

If The Palestine Marathon had nothing to do with politics, it had everything to do with political warfare. It is likely the first marathon in the history of modern sports that categorically prohibited runners from Israel from taking part, banning Israeli Jews, Muslims and Druse athletes.

Dan Diker..
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost..
23 April '13..

The so called “Right to Movement” Palestine Marathon that took place in Bethlehem this past Sunday bore an extra responsibility to foster good will and understanding as an international sporting event. The race came at the end of a week that saw two young radical Islamist terrorists detonate bombs near the Boston Marathon’s finish line slaughtering three spectators and wounding nearly 200. The Palestinian marathon was to show the redeeming power of sports to overcome the politically and ideologically driven hatred that killed and maimed so many of Boston’s runners and spectators.

The Palestinian race organizers and main sponsors – KVINFO, the Danish Center for Gender, Equality and Ethnicity, led by Danish runners Laerke Hein and Signe Fischer – planned the inaugural contest in Bethlehem to take place in tandem with the high-profile inaugural London Marathon, noting that they “wanted to show that the Palestinians are perfectly capable of hosting an international marathon,” adding that “the Palestine Marathon is about cultural exchange and understanding, and it is free of any political agenda.”

Palestinian Olympic Committee spokesman Samia Wazir also told the BBC that “the Israelis should look at this as purely a sporting event, it has nothing to do with politics.”

Really? If The Palestine Marathon had nothing to do with politics, it had everything to do with political warfare. It is likely the first marathon in the history of modern sports that categorically prohibited runners from Israel from taking part, banning Israeli Jews, Muslims and Druse athletes.

Welcome to the Islamist Middle East - Knowing the Score-Card

Barry Rubin..
Rubin Reports..
23 April '13..

One of the reasons why the Middle East situation is less fearsome than it might seem is that the radicals and terrorists are not united at all, but battle among themselves for tactical, doctrinal, ethnic, and ambition-related reasons.

For example: despite their daily bloodthirsty howls for Israel’s destruction, these three groups are otherwise at odds:

– The Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt wants to revolutionize the Middle East, but is putting the priority on entrenching its power in Egypt itself, including by dealing with economic and internal security problems. One of its difficulties is a terrorist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula. While this includes cross-border attacks on Israel, it also involves assaults on Egyptian soldiers, police stations, and other facilities.

– The Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip wants to revolutionize the Middle East, and puts a high priority on genocide against Israel. But it has to balance backing Salafist and even al-Qaeda groups with controlling the timing of its wars on Israel.

– The Salafist groups in the Gaza Strip and Sinai want to attack and wipe out Israel, but some of them also want to overthrow the Brotherhood and to institute an even more extremist regime in Egypt.

So: what happens when Palestinian Salafist groups, including supporters of al-Qaeda, want to attack Israel through Egyptian territory or to work with Egyptian Salafist groups to attack Egyptian soldiers or policemen?

Answer: Egypt doesn’t like it.

And Egypt blames Hamas: Why are you helping these people? Or why aren’t you suppressing them? We will let people attack Israel from our territory if and when we want to do so. And, yes, our intelligence does have evidence you are helping these anti-Egyptian forces. For example, we saw that you weren’t interfering with the smuggling of material to make phony Egyptian army uniforms. Salafists can use these to attack Israel disguised as Egyptian soldiers, thus getting us into a shooting confrontation with Israel while we are trying to borrow money and to keep the Americans happy. Or they can even pretend to be our men and kill Egyptians. So why should we help you when you are helping those who attack us?