Squeezing Out the Truth at The Economist

Sarit Catz..
CAMERA ..
16 May '13..



When it comes to reporting about Israel and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the influential Economist, a London-based weekly news and international affairs publication, regularly abandons responsible journalism. The magazine gives every indication of having an agenda to vilify Israel by presenting accusations of Israeli racism, ethnic cleansing, and discrimination without any basis in fact. (See CAMERA's previous debunking of some of these false claims.) The Economist's most recent smear of Israel comes in a May 4th article, published both in print and online, entitled “Squeeze them out; As Jewish settlements expand, the Palestinians are being driven away.”

The thesis of the story is that the Israeli government is “herding the West Bank's Palestinians out of the rural 60% of the territory, officially known as Area C” in order to hand the area over to Israelis. And, yet again, The Economist provides no evidence for its false claims and leaves out crucial information that negates its thesis.

As Ari Briggs of Regavim, an independent research institute and think tank, wrote in a Jerusalem Post Op-Ed the opposite phenomenon is occurring:

The illegal “building intifada” being waged by the Palestinian Authority on state lands in Area C of Judea and Samaria, (the West Bank), has become the latest battleground for the radical Left in conjunction with foreign-funded Israeli so called human rights NGO's such as B'tselem and Bimkom.

This unlawful land theft is being carried out with the full support of the EU, foreign aid organizations and the UN.

And seemingly also with the encouragement of much of the media –in this case, The Economist.

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"The Gatekeepers" and the banality of Dror Moreh

...His predecessor, Avraham Shalom, gives away the film's implied position: "Because of terrorism, we forget the issue of the Palestinian state." Why did we forget? Maybe terrorism was the goal from the onset, and the Palestinians actually never wanted a state? But Moreh is not showing statements that could put cracks in his narrative.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
17 May '13..

1. I was invited to a discussion of the Israeli Documentary Filmmakers Forum recently. To prepare, I watched the two films that represented Israel in the American Academy Awards' documentary film category -- Dror Moreh's "The Gatekeepers" and "5 Broken Cameras" by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi. Despite the harsh reviews they received, I recommend seeing them. They represent a perspective that needs to be dealt with.

I'll write about "The Gatekeepers" now and save "5 Broken Cameras" for another time. The sycophantic interviews of Dror Moreh in the American media did not bode well for his ability to decode the riddle of the heads of the Shin Bet. They do not say much that is deep in the film. Perhaps this is because Moreh could not deal with such minds or because he was interested not in psychological or intellectual depth, but rather in the political story in which the heads of the Shin Bet served as statistics to fill in the left wing's version of the failure of the Oslo Accords.

The theme of "shooting and weeping" has been well known since we came back to our country and had to defend it with our lives, together with the necessity of taking the lives of others. Now even the heads of the Shin Bet have doubts. This either-or quality is the bread and butter of drama: morality versus terrorism, combat versus conscience, control versus the desire for liberty. The film opens with former Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin's motto: "There's something unnatural about taking the lives of people in a single second."

His predecessor, Avraham Shalom, gives away the film's implied position: "Because of terrorism, we forget the issue of the Palestinian state." Why did we forget? Maybe terrorism was the goal from the onset, and the Palestinians actually never wanted a state? But Moreh is not showing statements that could put cracks in his narrative.

While the film pretends to present complexity, it never fulfills its promise. It shows the world as black and white, and the historical excerpts have no profound context. The Six-Day War. A Palestinian population. Occupation. That's it. There's no discussion about our historical, religious and cultural context as a nation living in this region. Not a word about our principled claim to sovereignty over it.

Regional Reality Check - Farewell to Sykes-Picot

...In fact it seems the only real, stable borders still existing are those of Israel. And that is in good part because Israel has built elaborate security barriers north, east, and most recently south, to demarcate and defend them. Israel’s borders exist on the ground, and the great irony is of course that they are the only boundaries in the region that do not exist on maps and are viewed as temporary until a peace agreement with Syria and with the Palestinians is achieved.

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
17 May '13..

Much has been written about whether the instability in Iraq, the warfare in Syria and the crises this causes for Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan, the Kurdish drive for autonomy (at least) in Iraq and Turkey, will at some point combine to unravel the Sykes-Picot Agreement between France and England in 1916. Put another way, the question is whether the borders established in the context of the First World War will stick.

Here is one answer: they are effectively gone already, whether as a legal matter they disappear or remain. After all, when Iran can send any amount of arms through Syria and Iraq to its allies and proxies in Lebanon–ignoring the Lebanese government and Lebanese border–what is left of borders? Iran has in effect an open space running from the Afghan border to the Mediterranean, where it can place arms and soldiers almost at will. We know that Iranian IRGC forces are in Syria, and we know that Hezbollah forces from Lebanon are fighting there too. We know that just as jihadis from all over the world crossed from Syria into Iraq, ignoring that border to fight the Americans, today they are arriving across borders into Syria, now to fight the Assad regime.

Deciphering delegitimization and the imperative for a political ‘Iron-Dome’

It seems that no matter how heinous the deeds, or obnoxious the declarations, on the Palestinian side, this will never disqualify anyone to be welcomed as an honored interlocutor in the discourse on Israeli concessions. The only criterion for invitation seems to be that there should be someone else who has perpetrated deeds more heinous, or made declarations more obnoxious.

Martin Sherman..
Into the Fray/JPost..
16 May '13..

How is it that after all the wrenching concessions it has made, Israel is far more reviled today than during the rigid “rejectionism” of Yitzhak Shamir? I believe we have to talk to each other and to listen to each other. I think bilateral engagement... is the only way. But confidence, trust, is not existing. – Jibril Rajoub, Fatah Central Committee, at the annual conference of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, April 23.

We the Palestinians are the enemies of Israel. There is no going back to negotiations. Listen. We as yet don’t have a nuke, but I swear that if we had a nuke, we’d have used it this very morning. – Jibril Rajoub, on the Lebanese-based TV station Al Mayadeen, April 30

I have been sitting in front of my computer screen with waves of despair and disbelief flowing over me, unable to write a sentence for hours.

As I meander through cyberspace, each proposal I encounter for resolving the Palestinian issue seems more detached from reality, more devoid of reason, more desperate, more delusional and more depressing than the one before.

Repeatedly disproven, never discarded

It would be one thing if these outlandish schemes were being promoted solely by Israel’s external adversaries. But what I find bewildering and debilitating is that these demonstrably unworkable proposals are being energetically pursued and promoted by influential Israelis themselves.

Almost inconceivably, policy prescriptions that not many years ago would have been condemned as almost treasonous, are being enthusiastically embraced and ardently advanced by individuals and organizations, deep within the mainstream Israeli establishment. Time after time, we see one public figure after another succumb to the pernicious pressures of political correctness and endorse political paradigms they had previously denounced as too dangerous to be adopted.

Failure, no matter how dramatic, disastrous or devastating, seems to have little effect. Regardless of results, reality or reason, they cling stubbornly to evermore radical variants of the same concept of political appeasement and territorial abandonment, which although repeatedly disproven, is somehow never discredited, and certainly, never discarded.

When negotiated withdrawal failed to bring peace, unilateral withdrawal was adopted. When that failed to bring the desired results, unrequited unilateral withdrawal – i.e. withdrawal for withdrawal’s sake – is now being touted as an objective in itself.

BDS - The Black Hole

Any state can declare someone persona non grata; Hawking took the unusual step of declaring himself an ungrateful persona.

Liat Collins..
JPost Columnist..
16 May '13..

It’s not every day you discover you’re smarter than an iconic scientist of Stephen Hawking’s stature. That day came for me last week. On May 8, to be precise.

When Cambridge University announced that Hawking was pulling out of the annual Facing Tomorrow conference hosted by President Shimon Peres for reasons of health, I felt sorry for him.

When Matthew Kalman writing for the Guardian demonstrated that, as rumored, Hawking had withdrawn from next month’s three-day gathering for ideological reasons, I felt worried about him – and sorry for all of us.

Hawking wrote an email to the conference organizers stating: “... I have received a number of emails from Palestinian academics. They are unanimous that I should respect the boycott. In view of this, I must withdraw from the conference.

Had I attended, I would have stated my opinion that the policy of the present Israeli government is likely to lead to disaster.”

Of course, Hawking, a former recipient of Israel’s prestigious Wolf Prize for physics, would have been free to speak his supposedly brilliant mind had he come.

Keeping busy threatening Palestinians who meet with Israelis

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
17 May '13..

While Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was meeting in his office in Ramallah with Shelly Yacimovich, chairwoman of Israel's opposition Labour Party, his Fatah faction was busy threatening Palestinians who meet with Israelis.

That Abbas continues to meet with Israelis on a regular basis in Ramallah does not seem to bother Fatah.Nor does Fatah seem to be bothered that Palestinian security officers work closely together with their Israeli counterparts in the West Bank. That is called "security coordination" between the Palestinians and Israel.

But when Palestinian youths are invited to meet with Israelis as part of an interfaith dialogue project, Fatah is quick to issue denunciations and threats. When Palestinian and Israeli teenagers are invited to play football together as part of a project to promote peace and coexistence, Fatah is also quick to react.

But Fatah has no problem when Abbas or any top Palestinian official meets with Israelis.

Nor does Fatah have a problem with some of its senior representatives carrying Israeli-issued VIP cards that grant them various privileges that are denied to most Palestinians, such as permission to enter Israel and avoid waiting at Israel Defense Force checkpoints.

Palestinian youths from Hebron, though, who met with Israelis near Bethlehem to share their problems and insights have been forced to issue a statement distancing themselves from the meeting. Following threats from Fatah, which condemned the event as a form of "normalization" with Israel, the Palestinian participants claimed that they had been "misled" regarding the true goals of the meeting.

Who is the de facto sovereign of the Temple Mount?

...This week a senior official from the Foreign Ministry's Jordan desk was asked who was in charge of the Temple Mount. Without hesitating, the official said: The de facto sovereign of the Temple Mount is not the State of Israel but rather the Kingdom of Jordan, which has effective rule there.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
17 May '13..

Things are being hidden on the Temple Mount, and one does not need to be a genius to understand that. It was enough to watch the body language of the government's representatives who attended last week's meeting of the Knesset's Internal Affairs and Environment Committee to see that things the state would prefer not be visible to the eye were going on.

MK Miri Regev, the committee chairwoman, asked for a discussion about "the right of Jews to pray on the Temple Mount" in a somewhat naïve attempt to open a crack in the prohibition against Jewish prayer there, which has been in effect for many years. The state sent its best "forces" to defend the status quo on the Mount and explain that any change could bring blood, fire, pillars of smoke and old-new holy wars upon us. Advocates of the Temple Mount described the injustice being perpetrated there and the feeling of humiliation, together with the basic laws that were being violated. But suddenly the meeting, which was quite ordinary in character, veered from its familiar path. Surprise followed surprise -- and denials were quick to follow.

Elhanan Glatt, the director-general of the Religious Services Ministry, dropped a bombshell, announcing to the members of the committee: "By order of Deputy Religious Services Minister Eli Ben-Dahan," that the ministry intended to draft amendments that would enable Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount and submit them for the cabinet's approval." Only 90 seconds passed from that moment to the denial that arrived almost at the speed of light, evidently because of intervention from the Prime Minister's Office.

What exactly went on there behind the scenes? Here is one possible explanation: Ben-Dahan wants to change the situation on the Temple Mount. Before he was appointed to his position, Ben-Dahan participated in the activities of one of the Temple Mount groups. Now, as deputy religious services minister and the official in charge of the ministry, he is trying to change things. Glatt, who served until recently as the chief executive of the Center for Bnei Akiva Yeshivot, is trying, too. So is his former boss, the current chief executive of the center, Rabbi Haim Drukman, who recently made several statements supporting Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. It is possible that Glatt was sent to send up a trial balloon and check the responses.

Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when he was in the opposition, promised in writing that when he became prime minister he would work to regularize Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. But, as happened to another Likud prime minister, Menachem Begin, who also promised as a member of the opposition to regularize Jewish prayer there, Netanyahu discovered, when he became prime minister, that all the defense officials firmly rejected the institution of any such amendments.

Until last week, the last time anyone pronounced the forbidden phrase "amendments for the regularization of Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount" was during the 1980s. Judge Ruth Orr acquitted a group of members of the Betar movement who had prayed on the Temple Mount. When then-Religious Affairs Minister Yitzhak Rafael (National Religious Party) toyed with the idea, the Prime Minister's Office blocked him, too.

Paula Stern, the BBC and an Appreciation of Israel

...We are living - in a land so beautiful it can bring tears to your eyes and steal your breath away. The majesty, the dignity, the absolute holiness of this land comes through as you drive, as you walk, as you sit on your balcony and stare out at the mountains to the east, south, west or north. From my backyard, I can see Jerusalem and the mountains nearby. From my front porch, I can see the Judean Desert and the low hills that lead down to the Dead Sea.

Paula R. Stern..
A Soldier's Mother..
17 May '13..

I'm in a holding pattern with this blog. Not much to write about in terms of being a soldier's mother because thankfully, my sons are home - two with their wives; another happily and unhappily studying away in high school. Yaakov is coming home this summer to begin further studies; he brings with him his wife and two daughters. Chaim is blooming in university, finding facets of himself, polishing his abilities and finding the voice that is uniquely his.

My daughters are doing well - my oldest is finishing university - she is the kind of mother I always wanted to be. Aliza is grace. Hard to explain it with another word so I'll leave it at that. They've grown to be people - something that a mother has to learn to accept. They are individuals - all of them, with their own directions and lives.

I'm going through a rough time personally - not things I really want to write about, but things that weigh on my mind. The BBC show aired and it was...okay. That's a ridiculous word but an excellent one. I never thought it would be pro-Israel - but the fact that it wasn't anti-Israel pleases me greatly. They were fair. Over and over, that word comes to mind.

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The Commemoration of a Self-Inflicted Tragedy - Naqba

...Israel successfully resisted invasion and dismemberment — the universally affirmed objective of the Arab belligerents — and Palestinians came off worst of all from the whole venture. At war’s end, over 600,000 Palestinians were living as refugees under neighboring Arab regimes. So the term naqba is misleading. Indeed, it smacks of falsehood, inasmuch as it implies a tragedy inflicted by others. The tragedy, of course, was self-inflicted.

Daniel Mandel..
The American Spectator..
15 May '13..

Today, Palestinians and their supporters, as they have done increasingly over the years, mark what they call the Naqba (Arabic for catastrophe). It was on this day 65 years ago that Israel came into existence upon the expiry of British rule under a League of Nations mandate.

That juxtaposition of Israel and naqba in not accidental. We are meant to understand that Israel’s creation caused the displacement of hundreds of thousand of Palestinian Arabs.

But the truth is different. A British document from early 1948, declassified only weeks ago, tells the story: “the Arabs have suffered a series of overwhelming defeats…. Jewish victories … have reduced Arab morale to zero and, following the cowardly example of their inept leaders, they are fleeing from the mixed areas in their thousands.”

In other words, Jew and Arabs, including irregular foreign militias from neighboring states, were already fighting and Arabs fleeing even before Israel had sovereign existence.

Thus, on May 15, what is now called the Naqba consisted, not of an Israeli act of forcible displacement of Arabs, but of neighboring Arab armies and internal Palestinian militias responding to Israel’s declaration of independence and Britain’s departure with full-scale hostilities. Tel Aviv was bombed from the air and the head of Israel’s provisional government, David Ben Gurion, delivered his first radio address to the nation from an air-raid shelter.

Israel successfully resisted invasion and dismemberment — the universally affirmed objective of the Arab belligerents — and Palestinians came off worst of all from the whole venture. At war’s end, over 600,000 Palestinians were living as refugees under neighboring Arab regimes.

So the term naqba is misleading. Indeed, it smacks of falsehood, inasmuch as it implies a tragedy inflicted by others. The tragedy, of course, was self-inflicted.

Qatar, Israel, and the consequences of conceding endlessly

...It’s mind-boggling how the Arabs can appear so conciliatory when sacrificing nothing, while Israel is regarded as intransigent when conceding endlessly and at great existential risk. It may well be that our reputation is sullied precisely because of our very readiness to concede. Our pliability isn’t without detrimental consequences. Even futile negotiations do great harm down the line. Simply put, egregious territorial generosity undercuts all future Israeli bargaining positions.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
17 May '13..

The wardrobe adaptability of the Emir of Qatar Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani is very telling. The same goes for his cousin, Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani.

When it serves their purposes, Qatar’s staggeringly wealthy two most powerful players strut about in very traditional Arab garb. But when the occasion deems it expedient, they soothe subliminal western anxieties by donning tailored suits of the exceptionally elegant sort that proliferates in European Union forums. That purportedly imparts an impression of trustworthiness.

The cousins’ policy line is just as chameleon-like. There’s a yawning gap between their utterances in English and in Arabic.

Not too many years ago, Qatar was an Israeli success story, or so it was widely believed in Jerusalem. Relations with Doha, especially trade ties, flourished since the mid-Nineties. They weren’t formal or full, yet they were hardly covert. Everyone knew about them. Unnamed Qatari higher-ups had reportedly visited Israel and Shimon Peres, then deputy premier, openly visited Qatar in 2007. Tzipi Livni did the same a year later. Other Israelis, such as Ehud Barak, hobnobbed with the emir.

But Qatar unilaterally abrogated these ties after Operation Cast Lead. Doha offered to restore them if Israel allowed unrestricted shipments of building materials to Gaza. Since these can be used to build bunkers, Israel refused.

However, the Qatari transformation isn’t only Israeli-linked. Qatar had become the financial sponsor of the misnamed Arab Spring, bankrolling assorted Muslim Brotherhood insurgents and their allies. The upheavals shaking the Arab world – Syria foremost – were in effect orchestrated by Doha.

The emir – despite his excellent personal ties with Israelis, Americans and other Westerners – has used his clout and unimaginable riches to bring to power and sustain Islamist forces that are fundamentally inimical to the West, to say nothing of their implacable hatred for the Jewish state.

As the Washington Post Misses the Point Completely

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
16 May '13..

In its May 16 edition, the Washington Post runs an article by correspondent William Booth about restrictions faced by Palestinian and Israeli journalists in covering each other's turf ("Palestinian journalists campaign to restrict Israeli counterparts' access" page A10).

Booth leads off with a campaign by Palestinian journalists to limit their Israeli counterparts' access to cover Palestinian parts of the West Bank. "For the first time, Palestinian authorities say they will require all Israeli journalists to apply for press credentials; those without may be escorted away by police," Booth reports.

And, of course, press access conditions are even worse in Gaza where Israel forbids its reporters to enter lest they be kidnapped by the Hamas terrorist regime -- a fact acknowledged by Booth.

So far, so good.

Booth, however, comes perilously close to drawing an equivalence between press restrictions bedeviling Israeli and Palestinian reporters. While about 50 Palestinian journalist have credentials issued by the Israeli government, Booth belittles this fact by adding that almost all of them work for international organizations. Only a handful of Palestinian reporters working for West Bank or Gaza media "can report in Israel, and their movements can be severely restricted," he adds.

Taking a Moment and Walking through the Peace Index Poll

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
16 May '13..

The Peace Index is a project of the Evens Program for Mediation and Conflict Resolution at Tel Aviv University and the Israel Democracy Institute. This month's survey was conducted by telephone on April 28–30, 2013, by the Midgam Research Institute.

Let’s take a moment and walk through some of the findings among adult Israeli Jews:

What is your position on holding peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority?
1. Strongly in favor 31.2
2. Somewhat in favor 32.9
3. Somewhat opposed 12.8
4. Strongly opposed 16.7
5. Don’t know / Refuse to answer 31.2

So Israelis want to talk.

But wait a moment.

Do you believe or not believe that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority will lead to peace between Israel and the Palestinians in the coming years?
1. Strongly believe 6.8
2. Somewhat believe 24.0
3. Somewhat don’t believe 22.6
4. Don’t believe at all 44.2
5. Don’t know / Refuse to answer 2.4

That’s right. Israelis want to talk, but they don’t think it will lead to peace.

Israel, the Picture of the Year and the Politics Behind It

David Katz..
Times of Israel..
16 May '13..

As a veteran photographer and, in more recent years, an advisor on the use of imagery in the campaign to delegitimize Israel, it came as no great surprise when World Press Photo named the “Gaza Burial” picture as Photo of the Year – an entry by outstanding Swedish photographer Paul Hansen, a staffer with Dagens Nyheter.

As for the reason it came as no surprise, my feeling on seeing the incredibly evocative and beautifully lit image was that World Press Photo, an organization founded in 1955 and known for holding the world’s largest and most prestigious annual press photography contest, had been motivated more by its own publicity at the expense of Israel, than by the integrity of many of the other images that it had received in this category. It seems the judges realized they would get a lot more mileage out of a picture depicting dead Palestinian babies in Gaza, much to the benefit of both their travelling photo exhibition, viewed by over a million people in 40 countries, and a yearbook published in six languages.

On first seeing the image, I just felt a sense of sadness at the circumstances that led to the picture being made in the first place and frustration at the bias and double standards that Israel faces on a daily basis by organizations like World Press Photo in relation to this kind of imagery.

The 2013 World Press Photo of the year by Paul Hansen (photo credit: AP/Paul Hansen, Dagens Nyheter)

At the same time that Paul Hansen was in Gaza – where photographers can only work if they are watched over by the terrorist organization Hamas – I was in Southern Israel photographing wave after wave of incoming rockets and their effects on the lives of the one million Israelis that were in the line of fire.

At War With The Truth - CBS chairman Jeff Fager and 60 Minutes

...“What’s obvious is that CBS News – and, specifically, CEO Jeffrey Fager – have abandoned their fundamental role and responsibility to the public: to provide reliable facts and to correct errors if they’re made,” says Levin. “It’s particularly absurd that CBS continues to claim that the town of Bethlehem is completely surrounded by a wall, like ‘an open-air prison.’ This is patently false and it’s shocking it that hasn’t been corrected a full year after the broadcast. The charge is one favored by anti-Israel propagandists. The question is: is CBS now in that category?”

Cindy Mindell..
Jewish Ledger..
15 May '13..

On April 22, 2012 CBS’s 60 Minutes aired “Christians of the Holy Land,” reported by Bob Simon and produced by Harry Radliffe. There were several factual errors in the segment, the most glaring of which described the security barrier built to stop suicide bombers entering Israel from the West Bank “completely surrounds” Bethlehem.

In fact, maps provided by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the United Nations, B’tselem, and even the PLO indicate that this is not so: the security fence is located to the north and west of Bethlehem and leaves the rest of the city’s perimeter open to the West Bank.

In response, the Boston-based watchdog organization, CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) posted articles on its website indicating the errors and informed CBS of the network’s error. Leaders of the organization showed up at a CBS shareholders’ meeting and submitted a proxy to call on the CBS Board of Directors to make sure that CBS News lived up to its policy of corrections. In August 2012, CAMERA took out a half-page ad in the Wall Street Journal pointing out the erroneous information included in the report.

CBS never made the correction.

Then, on April 7 of this year, CBS chairman Jeff Fager spoke at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in New Canaan, where he is a member, as part of the church’s weekly program, “Abraham’s Tent: Jews, Christians and Muslims in the World Today.” The church website states the intent of the program as follows:

“We must educate ourselves with a basic understanding of each other’s perspectives. We must also look honestly at our conflicts, and we must work to live together in peace. This series will give people the knowledge and understanding they need to do this.

“The educational program from September to June will be organized in three terms around these three topics. In the fall, St. Mark’s will look at The Common Word, examining what we have in common. In the winter, they will look at our conflicted history, and in the spring they will explore ways in which to live together in peace.”

On the day Jeff Fager spoke, CAMERA media analyst Dexter Van Zile was in the St. Mark’s audience. Upon entering the church, he first noticed copies of CAMERA’s August 2012 Wall Street Journal ad displayed on a table for audience members to take. Before Fager began his presentation, Reverend Peter F. Walsh, rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, distributed copies to those who did not have one. According to Van Zile, “Fager showed the 60 Minutes segment and then complained about the angry response the show had elicited. In particular, he condemned the Wall Street Journal’s decision to run CAMERA’s ad, which he said was intended to create havoc on the CBS show’s reporting. Fager then told his audience that CAMERA got it wrong about the security fence in its ad and that ‘Bethlehem is surrounded by a wall.’”

After Fager’s presentation, during a Q & A session, Van Zile identified himself as a CAMERA employee, pointed out the error and offered to give $5,000 from his own pocket to a charity of Fager’s choice if Fager could prove that the security barrier in fact completely surrounded Bethlehem. According to Van Zile, Fager answered, “Okay.” But he ignored the challenge until May 1, when Van Zile phoned the chairman’s office. The next day, Fager contacted CAMERA through a CBS staff-person who stated, “We are looking into your points about the security barrier.”

To date, however, 60 Minutes has failed to issue a correction, either during its Sunday broadcast or on its website – contrary to CBS’s corporate policy which states that “significant errors of fact must be corrected clearly and promptly in the broadcast or on the web page of the program in which the error was made…”

(+Video) Comedy for Koby - Laughing in the face of terror

Israel Hayom Staff..
16 May '13..

In the spring of 2001, when 13-year-old Koby Mandell was brutally murdered together with his friend Yosef Ishran while hiking near his home in Tekoa, the last thing on his parents' mind was that one day their deaths might inspire comedy and laughter. Yet, through a unique semiannual comedy tour called "Comedy for Koby," which will launch its tenth run next week, that is just what has happened. Today, over 2000 people gather across Israel to laugh and be entertained by top-tier American comedians, all in Koby's memory.

All proceeds from the Comedy for Koby tour go to benefit the Koby Mandell Foundation, which Koby's parents, Rabbi Seth and Sherri Mandell, set up in the year following his death. The foundation is dedicated to providing social programming combined with counseling and support services to the relatives of people who have lost loved ones in tragic circumstances. While the foundation was originally founded to help terror victims and their families, following the end of the Second Intidafa and the reduction in terror attacks, the decision was made to extend their programming to other victims of tragedy. The main program offered by the foundation is Camp Koby, a summer camp defined by a unique structure and supportive environment for children and teens who have lost loved ones.



The concept for Comedy for Koby was formulated by the Mandells together with Los Angeles-based comedian Avi Liberman, who had been performing shows for Israeli audiences since 2002. Liberman, who himself was born in Israel but moved to the U.S. at an early age, always worked to give Israeli audiences a distraction from the tension that defined life here, particularly during the years of intidafa when his comedy shows began. Once the introduction was made with the Mandells, the Comedy for Koby brand took off and today plays to jam-packed theaters in six different cities.

When the British Government is Funding BDS

...Charles Tannock, a Member of the European Parliament, told The Jerusalem Post: “I totally oppose the promotion, by a UK taxpayer-funded organization such as the British Academy, of events which aim to promote a ‘campaigning boycott, divestment and sanctions’ anti- Israel event which is aimed at sanctioning a close friend of the UK and a democracy such as Israel.” “It’s equally unacceptable a UN official should be promoting this event through his official email address suggesting possible UN endorsement of this message.”

Jonny Paul/Benjamin Weinthal..
JPost..
15 May '13..

LONDON/BERLIN – A British-funded institute in Jerusalem has come under fire for hosting an event supporting the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel (BDS), along with a UN staff member who circulated its details in an official email to co-workers.

In March, the Kenyon Institute, also known as the British School of Archaeology, hosted an event titled “The emergence of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement” – a campaign led by radical anti-Israel activists also known as BDS – at its East Jerusalem headquarters.

The institute is funded by the British Academy which in turn is funded by the British Government and questions have been raised as to why taxpayers have ultimately funded the controversial event.

Charles Tannock, a Member of the European Parliament, told The Jerusalem Post: “I totally oppose the promotion, by a UK taxpayer-funded organization such as the British Academy, of events which aim to promote a ‘campaigning boycott, divestment and sanctions’ anti- Israel event which is aimed at sanctioning a close friend of the UK and a democracy such as Israel.”

“It’s equally unacceptable a UN official should be promoting this event through his official email address suggesting possible UN endorsement of this message.”

“The Israeli Foreign Ministry should raise this urgently with the British Ambassador to explain how this happened,” he said.

Pauline Latham, MP and member of the Department for International Development Select Committee, told the Post: “The British Government has been very clear that it does not support the boycott movement.

It is a fringe campaign that is inherently anti-peace, perpetuating divisions between Israelis and Palestinians and doing nothing to bring the two sides together in a compromising way.”

“The British Academy need to be able to ascertain how exactly its partners are spending their funding donations. The government should not be directly or indirectly funding the BDS movement and I hope that after further investigation this will come to an end,” she added.

Commemorating the Greatest Humiliation in World History - Nakbah Day

Richard Landes..
The Augean Stables..
16 May '13..

Yesterday was Nakbah Day, and my email box is full of material from various pro-Palestinian groups about the tragedy, literally “the catastrophe,” that befell the Arabs in 1948, which they often like to compare with the Holocaust for gravity. Initially my response to this comparison was to dismiss it as a classic example of the rhetorical excess of the Arab world, compounded by their deep self-absorption: if it happened to them, it’s unimaginably painful; if they could have done it to the Jews it would have been glorious.

Obviously, death of several thousand people, the flight of half a million or so refugees is a tragedy, but compare that to 6 million civilians murdered and millions more driven from their homes? Indeed, this painful story pales even when compared to the kind of damage done in the Arab world of “Hama Rules,” from the 10-20,000 Palestinians killed in Black September 1970, to the more than hundred thousand civilian casualties in the Lebanese civil war (in which the PLO participated actively), to 10-20,000 Syrians obliterated in Hama in 1982, to the million killed by Saddam Hussein in his long career, to the current Syrian civil war in which over 70 thousand have been killed and nearly two million forced to flee their homes.

But rather than minimize the Nakbah, I’d like to take a different approach. I agree that the Nakbah was a unique event in the history of the Arab world, one whose scale and whose staggering effect does compare with the Holocaust in terms of its impact on Arab memory and discourse. The catastrophe was not what happened to the refugees, who were a mere pawn and minor spinoff of the true tragedy. The real catastrophe was the humiliation of the Arab nations in the eyes of the entire world.

I challenge anyone to find an historical case that even approaches the magnitude of the calamitous failure of the Arabs in 1948, the greatest collective, global humiliation in World History. Japan and Germany may have been utterly defeated, but before that happened they had the whole world trembling at their military might. The Arab military, for reasons that have much to do with their passion for honor, was, after 1948, the joke of the world.

As anyone who studies honor and shame cultures knows, the “public” that sees the humiliation plays a key role. If a man is humiliated and no one sees it, then it didn’t happen. If the “public” thinks it happened and it didn’t, it happened. Daughters and sisters have been killed precisely because the rumor of their shameful behavior alone renders them guilty no matter what actually happened. So the Arab loss of 1948 was particularly devastating because it took place on a global stage in which virtually everyone who was anyone was watching.

Scottish universities, Israel, and ‘toxic’ campus antisemitism

Samuel Westrop..
Gatestone Institute..
15 May '13..

A charity ball organized by the University of St. Andrew's Jewish Society, guarded by plain-clothes police officers, was held in secret last week after threats were made against staff at the original venue. The increasing security and secrecy surrounding this annual student event is an illustration of the sentiments aimed at Jewish students in Scotland.

The ball was originally supposed to be held at the Golf Hotel in St. Andrews, a small University town on the east coast of Scotland. After a campaign organized by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, a number of threats were directed at the hotel's staff, and a number of violent comments were posted on social media, with one protester writing: "Friday we send them into hell."

The Golf Hotel cancelled the event over "safety concerns." One member of the Jewish student society said that the decision to cancel the event was "pathetic…. They [the Golf Hotel] had no right to violate their part of the contract. The Golf Hotel is scared of them. A victory does not come from bullying people into submission, it comes from engaging people and opening their minds."

Although activists from the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign [SPSC] were able to pressure the hotel into cancelling the charity ball, it was held secretly at another location, and raised over three times the amount of money for its nominated charities.

The SPSC offers a free book to all new members: Shlomo Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People -- a book the central argument of which is that the Jewish people, as a single collectivity, do not exist. Last year, the group also protested in support of a student at St. Andrews, Paul Donnachie, who was charged and found guilty of racially abusing a Jewish student.

CAMERA Backgrounder - Palestinian Arab and Jewish Refugees

Ruth Orkin's famous photo of Iraqi
Jewish refugees arriving in Israel

Gilead Ini..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
First posted 12 May '09..

On May 15, many Palestinians and their supporters mark what they call "Nakba Day," a commemoration focusing on their view that the reconstitution of a Jewish state in Israel was a "catastrophe."

The commemoration is often accompanied by a flurry of opinion pieces and news stories conveying the Palestinian narrative of Israel’s independence, which frequently contain false charges.

In May 2008, for example, an Op-Ed in the New York Times claimed "a people had been expelled from their land in a comprehensive ethnic cleansing operation, given the name ‘Plan D’ by Israelis" (Elias Khoury, 5/18/08, "For Israelis, an Anniversary. For Palestinians, a Nakba"). In fact, notwithstanding a limited number of tactical expulsions, "a people" was certainly not expelled. And Plan D was not at all a "comprehensive ethnic cleansing operation" — you can read the text of that plan here.

A news story published in the Washington Post likewise passed along this false charge of mass expulsion. Reporter Sylvia Moreno relayed, from organizers of an anti-Israel rally, the accusation that every Palestinian that fled the war was actually "expelled." She wrote: "To make way for Israel, 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and more than 400 of their villages were destroyed, organizers of the event said" (5/18/08, "Palestinian Quilt Presents a Different Viewpoint; Creation of Israel Came At Great Cost, Some Say"). The reporter didn’t bother pointing out that this accusation has been debunked by prominent historians.

The piece below provides needed facts and context about the frequently distorted refugee issue.

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During and after the 1948 war, hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Jews fled, and in some cases were forced from, their homes in Mandate Palestine and beyond. The effects of this flight are still today a major issue, as politicians, diplomats and other concerned parties try to resolve the Palestinian "refugee problem" — the status of the original Arab refugees and millions of their descendants, many of whom still live in refugee camps. The vast majority of Jewish refugees went to Israel, where they were absorbed with great difficulty. Despite having found a country committed to taking them in, they still seek redress and acknowledgment of their largely ignored plight.

(Continue reading)

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