Saturday, April 15, 2017
Elder of Ziyon
media bias, NYT
Friday, March 10, 2017Elder of Ziyonmedia bias, NYTA new Israeli law, approved Monday, will bar entry to any foreigner who supports the B.D.S. movement (boycott, divestment and sanctions) against Israel for its occupation of the West Bank. It’s a strong statement by the Israeli right wing, intended to characterize supporters of the movement as enemies of Israel.
No doubt there are haters of Israel among B.D.S. supporters. But there are also many strong supporters of the Israeli state, including many American Jews, who ardently oppose the occupation of the West Bank and who boycott products of the Israeli settlements in occupied territories.
[The law] should be condemned by all who value Israel’s tradition of debate and dissent and who support the search for a lasting peace.From reading the editorial, one would think that Israel is banning any critics of Israeli settlement policy.
Friday, February 17, 2017Elder of Ziyonmedia bias
David Friedman, President Donald Trump's pick to be U.S. ambassador to Israel, displayed an exhaustive knowledge of Israeli-Palestinian affairs during his Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday, but at times glossed over intricacies of the famously complex region. A look at some of his statements before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:Friedman's statement was 100% correct. The Palestinians have failed to end incitement, the PLO still praises terrorists today despite pretending to be against terror have failed to renounce terror, the PLO's main faction officially says that terror is a legitimate right if it is not tactically wiseat this time, and all Palestinians still regard terrorists as heroes.
FRIEDMAN: Asked about the Trump administration's position on a two-state solution, he said he would be delighted to see a peace deal giving Palestinians an independent state. But he acknowledged skepticism "solely on the basis of what I've perceived as an unwillingness on the part of the Palestinians to renounce terror and accept Israel as a Jewish state."
He said Palestinians had failed to "end incitement" of violence, and terrorism had increased since the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, intended to be a stepping stone toward Palestinian statehood.
THE FACTS: Not all Palestinians are the same.
The Palestinian Liberation Organization, the group that formally represents all Palestinians, officially denounced terrorism decades ago, although attacks have continued to be a problem for Israel in the years since. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in office since 2005 and in charge of autonomous enclaves in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has spoken out against violence, saying it undermines Palestinian statehood aspirations.
Hamas refuses to renounce violence or recognize Israel. Hamas controls the Gaza Strip after seizing it in 2007 in a violent takeover and setting up a government there to rival Abbas' West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.
As far as Israel being a Jewish state, Abbas, current head of the PLO, says the Palestinians met their peace requirements by recognizing Israel, and it's not up to them to determine the religious nature of the state of Israel.
FRIEDMAN: Asked whether under Palestinian law the Palestinians were "rewarding terrorists" and whether there was an "increasing incentive" based on the number of people a terrorist murdered, said, "Exactly true."Friedman is 100% right. The PLO pays terrorist families, and terrorists know that their families will be taken care of (and that they would have automatic jobs when they get out of prison.)
THE FACTS: It's complicated.
Israel has long scoffed at the Palestinian fund for "martyrs," set up in 1967 by the PLO, arguing that the payments it makes are an incentive to kill Israelis. The fund makes monthly payments to roughly 35,000 families of Palestinians killed or wounded in the conflict with Israel and had a budget last year of $170 million, Palestinian figures show. Recipients include relatives of Palestinian suicide bombers.
But the fund doesn't pay people in advance to carry out attacks. The Palestinians argue the fund helps support Palestinian victims of Israel's occupation, including families of those driven to attack by the dire conditions of occupation or by a desire to avenge others killed by Israelis.
FRIEDMAN: Asked about his connections to Beit El, a settlement of religious nationalists near Ramallah in the West Bank, Friedman said his affiliation had been as the president of a group called American Friends of Beit El Yeshiva, the U.S. fundraising arm of the settlement's Jewish seminary and affiliated institutions. He said the money he'd helped raise had gone toward educational facilities like dormitories, gymnasiums and classrooms.Ap did not manage to contradict a single statement Friedman said. Writing for Arutz Sheva is not a violation of any law or US regulation. And trusting an anti-settlement group without fact checking it is irresponsible.
"It primarily derives from my commitment to Jewish education," Friedman said of his involvement with Beit El. "The quality of those schools is excellent."
THE FACTS: It's true that the funds Friedman's group raises help support the settlement's educational activities. But Friedman appears to be playing down his family's long association with Beit El.
In addition to supporting Beit El's institutions, which include high schools and an Israeli military academy, Friedman has written numerous columns for Arutz Sheva, a right-wing news site affiliated with Beit El. It was in some of those columns that Friedman made controversial comments that have attracted attention since his nomination.
In Beit El, his and his wife's names are on the facade of the Friedman Faculty House, which the anti-settlement watchdog Kerem Navot says is built on private Palestinian land without permission from its Palestinian landowners.
Tuesday, January 24, 2017Elder of Ziyonmedia bias
Today (Sunday), the Local Building and Planning Committee in Jerusalem approved the construction of 671 housing units in various neighborhoods whose approval had been delayed for several weeks: 324 units in Ramot, 174 units in Ramat Shlomo, 68 units in Pisgat Ze’ev, 49 units in Beit Hanina, 14 units in Wadi Joz, 24 units in Umm Lison and Umm Tuba, 7 units Jabel Mukaber, 4 units in Beit Safafa, 3 units in Sur Baher and 4 units in A-Tur. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said: “The past eight years have been difficult with pressure from the Obama administration to freeze construction. While the Jerusalem Municipality did not freeze construction, pressure from the American government meant that national approval was often not granted, and sometimes the publication of new plans was delayed. I believe that we are entering a new era, in which we will be able to continue to build and develop the city for the benefit of all residents, Jews and Arabs alike, This will enable us to the right thing – to strengthen our sovereignty, to provide housing solutions for young people, and to develop Jerusalem – Israel’s indivisible capital.”667 units were approved, 566 in existing Jewish neighborhoods and 101 in Arab neighborhoods.
Jerusalem's City Hall approved the building permits for more than 560 units in the urban settlements of Pisgat Zeev, Ramat Shlomo and Ramot, areas annexed to Jerusalem in a move unrecognised internationally.Germany's DW.com said "Israel approves 566 new homes in east Jerusalem settlements," ignoring the Arab homes.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said in a statement that the eight years of the Obama administration had been "difficult with pressure ... to freeze construction" but that Israel is now entering a new era.
Friday, December 30, 2016Elder of Ziyonmedia bias, NYT
By next year, there will be as many Palestinians living between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River as Jews. https://t.co/VAhFNfFnBh— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) December 29, 2016
Experts have in the past disputed Palestinian officials’ population numbers.
In June 2016 demographics expert Prof. Sergio DellaPergola told a subcommittee of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that his research showed 2.4 million Palestinians lived in the West Bank as of the end of 2015. Former Israeli diplomat Yoram Ettinger, who has in the past accused the PA of immensely inflating its population in order to receive more foreign aid, placed the number at 1.75 million Palestinians in the West Bank at 2015’s end.Baker must have read that, and still decided to tweet a false PA claim as fact without any reservation.
.@peterbakernyt Isn't it a little irresponsible to report claims as fact? The article notes demographers say PCBS exaggerates by 500K-1M.— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) December 29, 2016
Kerry’s principles largely follow longtime US orthodoxy — two state solution, Jerusalem as capital for both, security, normalized relations.— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) December 28, 2016
Wednesday, December 21, 2016Elder of Ziyonmedia bias, NYT, Omri Boehm, philosophy
Zionism [is] a political agenda rooted in the denial of liberal politics.How so?
To appreciate this inherent tension, consider Hillary Clinton’s words from the second presidential debate: “It is important for us as a policy not to say, as Donald has said, we’re going to ban people based on a religion. How do you do that? We are a country founded on religious freedom and liberty.” Here Clinton establishes a minimum standard of liberal decency that few American Jews would be inclined to deny. But she is not the incoming president. Trump’s willingness to reject this standard is now a cause for alarm among Jewish communities, along with those of other American minorities.Boehm, knowing his audience is American, purposefully defines American values as the "minimum standard of liberal decency." Which means that any country that favors one religion or national group over another is, if you buy Boehm's definition of liberalism, indecent.
Yet insofar as Israel is concerned, every liberal Zionist has not just tolerated the denial of this minimum liberal standard, but avowed this denial as core to their innermost convictions. Whereas liberalism depends on the idea that states must remain neutral on matters of religion and race, Zionism consists in the idea that the State of Israel is not Israeli, but Jewish. As such, the country belongs first and foremost not to its citizens, but to the Jewish people — a group that’s defined by ethnic affiliation or religious conversion.
Opposition to the Palestinians’ “right of return” is a matter of consensus among left and right Zionists because also liberal Zionists insist that Israel has the right to ensure that Jews constitute the ethnic majority in their country. But if you reject Zionism because you reject the double standard, organizations such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or the Jewish Federations of North America would denounce you as anti-Semitic.In plain English, this means that Boehm holds that his concept of liberalism clashes with the Jewish people's right to self-determination. Since Jews aren't a nation, in Boehm's estimation, they only have religious rights, not national rights. This is arguably far more antisemitic than anything that today's Right (not the alt-right, that Boehm takes pains to conflate with Zionism) espouses.
[It] is Friedman’s own politics — and the politics of the government that he supports — that’s continuous with anti-Semitic principles and collaborates with anti-Semitic politics.
The “original sin” of such alliances may be traced back to 1941, in a letter to high Nazi officials, drafted in 1941 by Avraham Stern, known as Yair, a leading early Zionist fighter and member in the 1930s of the paramilitary group Irgun, and later, the founder of another such group, Lehi. In the letter, Stern proposes to collaborate with “Herr Hitler” on “solving the Jewish question” by achieving a “Jewish free Europe.” The solution can be achieved, Stern continues, only through the “settlement of these masses in the home of the Jewish people, Palestine.” To that end, he suggests collaborate with the German’s “war efforts,” and establish a Jewish state on a “national and totalitarian basis,” which will be “bound by treaty with the German Reich.”When this letter was written, Stern's assumption was that Hitler did not want to systematically exterminate the Jews, but wanted to encourage them to leave Europe.
It has been convenient to ignore the existence of this letter, just as it has been convenient to mitigate the conceptual conditions making it possible. But such tendencies must be rejected. They reinforce the same logic by which the letter itself was written: the sanctification of Zionism to the point of tolerating anti-Semitism.
Monday, December 19, 2016Elder of Ziyonmedia bias
Sunday, December 18, 2016Elder of Ziyonmedia bias
After the Second World War, the State of Israel was established and gradually recognized ‘de jure’ — or lawfully — by most of the world’s countries. However, although the U.N. recognized the state of Israel in 1948, allowing it to become a member state, it placed the whole city of Jerusalem under international control (a ‘corpus separatum’) on Dec. 13 1949. Despite this, most governmental offices moved to the city.UN General Assembly resolution 303(4) was passed on December 9, not December 13th. It did not place Jerusalem under international control - General Assembly resolutions cannot do that - it merely said "its intention that Jerusalem should be placed under a permanent international regime."
As you know, the General Assembly of the United Nations has in the meantime, by a large majority, decided to place Jerusalem under an international regime as a separate entity. This decision is utterly incapable of implementation - if only for the determined unalterable opposition of the inhabitants of Jerusalem themselves. It is to be hoped that the General Assembly will in the course of time correct this mistake which its majority has made, and will make no attempt whatsoever to impose a regime on the Holy City against the will of its people.
...For the State of Israel there has always been and always will be one capital only - Jerusalem the eternal. So it was three thousand years ago - and so it will be, we believe, until the end of time.
But in 1967, during the Six-Day War, Israel captured the eastern section of Jerusalem, which Jordan presided over, and declared Israeli law, jurisdiction and administration would be applied to the whole city. Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem has been considered illegal under international law and was condemned by the U.N., as well as other states.The link that Time gives to claim that Israel's rule over the part of Jerusalem that Jordan had annexed is illegal says no such thing. It is an article by legal scholar Eyal Benvenisti that argues that even if Israel annexed "East Jerusalem" it would still be considered an occupier (a controversial theory) but in no way does his article claim that such occupation is illegal. In fact, there is no such thing as "illegal occupation" - the laws of belligerent occupation simply reflect that an occupying country has certain responsibilities, but the state of occupation is not illegal. The most that anyone can claim is that some Israeli actions violate the laws of occupation, not that the occupation itself is illegal.
In 1980, the Knesset declared that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel,” but this law was declared null by the U.N., which called for the removal of the remaining embassies in the city.
The status of Jerusalem cannot simply be declared; it must be agreed to by the parties. That is a practical reality. It will remain so. despite this draft resolution or a hundred more like it....
The Council calls upon those States that have established diplomatic missions in Jerusalem to withdraw them from the Holy City. In our judgement this provision is not binding. It is without force. And we reject it as a disruptive attempt to dictate to other nations. it does nothing to promote a resolution of the difficult problems facing Israel and its neighbours. It does nothing to advance the cause of peace.
Countries continued to locate their foreign embassies in Tel Aviv, Israel’s second largest city, situated on the Mediterranean coast, and the refusal to recognize Jerusalem as Israeli territory has become a near-universal policy among Western nations.Not really, since Western nations recognize the Green Line (falsely) as a border. Their diplomats and heads of state routinely travel to Jerusalem to speak to Israeli diplomats. If pre-1967 Jerusalem was considered controversial, none of these national leaders would ever step foot in the city as guests of Israel.
The U.N. still maintains its position on Jerusalem. In October 2009, the U.N.’s Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that Jerusalem must be the capital of both Israel and Palestine—living side-by-side in peace and security, with arrangements for the holy sites acceptable to all—for peace in the Middle East to be achieved.If the UN maintains its position of Jerusalem as a corpus separatum, then how can it also call for Jerusalem to be divided into becoming a capital of two states?
Tuesday, November 29, 2016Elder of Ziyonjimmy carter, media bias, NYT
We do not yet know the policy of the next administration toward Israel and Palestine, but we do know the policy of this administration. It has been President Obama’s aim to support a negotiated end to the conflict based on two states, living side by side in peace.The words "key words" links to a UN publication that also says that there were two main points to the resolution - but not the ones Carter says.
That prospect is now in grave doubt. I am convinced that the United States can still shape the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before a change in presidents, but time is very short. The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine, as 137 countries have already done, and help it achieve full United Nations membership.
Back in 1978, during my administration, Israel’s prime minister, Menachem Begin, and Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat, signed the Camp David Accords. That agreement was based on the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which was passed in the aftermath of the 1967 war. The key words of that resolution were “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East in which every state in the area can live in security,” and the “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.”
The agreement was ratified overwhelmingly by the Parliaments of Egypt and Israel. And those two foundational concepts have been the basis for the policy of the United States government and the international community ever since.
The resolution stipulated that the establishment of a just and lasting peace should include the application of two principles:The part that Carter quotes about "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" was not from the operative part of the resolution, but from the preamble - which has no legal standing. And the part that he ignores is the part that was meant to say that the final borders would be the result of negotiations, not the 1949 armistice lines.
✹ Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; and
✹ Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.
Monday, November 28, 2016Elder of Ziyonmedia bias, NYT
For starters, it’s important to accept that the New York Times has always — or at least for many decades — been a far more editor-driven, and self-conscious, publication than many of those with which it competes. Historically, the Los Angeles Times, where I worked twice, for instance, was a reporter-driven, bottom-up newspaper. Most editors wanted to know, every day, before the first morning meeting: “What are you hearing? What have you got?”We've seen this happen many times. With Israel, the narrative drives the stories, not the facts. And in the case of the Middle East, the NYT narrative is indeed what drives too many politicians and pundits in other media outlets to slavishly follow the Gray Lady's lead.
It was a shock on arriving at the New York Times in 2004, as the paper’s movie editor, to realize that its editorial dynamic was essentially the reverse. By and large, talented reporters scrambled to match stories with what internally was often called “the narrative.” We were occasionally asked to map a narrative for our various beats a year in advance, square the plan with editors, then generate stories that fit the pre-designated line.
Reality usually had a way of intervening. But I knew one senior reporter who would play solitaire on his computer in the mornings, waiting for his editors to come through with marching orders. Once, in the Los Angeles bureau, I listened to a visiting National staff reporter tell a contact, more or less: “My editor needs someone to say such-and-such, could you say that?”
The bigger shock came on being told, at least twice, by Times editors who were describing the paper’s daily Page One meeting: “We set the agenda for the country in that room.”
Having lived at one time or another in small-town Pennsylvania, some lower-rung Detroit suburbs, San Francisco, Oakland, Tulsa and, now, Santa Monica, I could only think, well, “Wow.” This is a very large country. I couldn’t even find a copy of the Times on a stop in college town Durham, N.C. To believe the national agenda was being set in a conference room in a headquarters on Manhattan’s Times Square required a very special mind-set indeed.
Inside the Times building, then and now, a great deal of the conversation is about the Times. In any institution, shop-talk is inevitable. But the navel-gazing seemed more intense at the Times, where too many journalists spent too much time decoding the paper’s ways, and too little figuring out the world at large.
Friday, November 25, 2016Elder of Ziyonmedia bias, NYTIf Palestinians set some of the fires, it would be a new and potentially disruptive tactic in a long-simmering conflict.
...
In the past, Jewish extremists have used fires in the West Bank to torment Palestinians, setting olive fields and vehicles ablaze. In the worst such episode, in July 2015, a baby was killed and his parents later died of their injuries after arsonists set their home ablaze in Duma, a West Bank village.
Moreover, even though Diaa Hadid is vastly exaggerating the number of times Jews have actually used arson in the West Bank, if she is going to expand the definition beyond setting fields on fire and include torching buildings, surely she cannot be unaware that there are over 100 firebombs hurled at Israelis and their property every single month.In the late 1980s and early 1990s, arson comprised about one-third of all forest fires in Israel, which is a very large proportion. Some of the sources of this arson were identified as the work of criminals, whose sole aim was to collect the insurance money. However, many instances of arson in the late 1980s were directly related to the Palestinian uprising (the first Intifada). Palestinians have used arson in the past as an insurgency method, as early as the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, but in the 1980s it was adopted as a highly visible action against Israel. Arson was found to be easy to execute: all one had to do was cross the old border between the West Bank and Israel, which was unguarded and open to all, start a fire in one of the many forests in the hilly areas near the border, and then disappear. According to the International Forest Fire News (IFFN), between 1988 and 1991 the number of fires attributed to arson rose to over 30%, which was explained by an increase in politically motivated arson associated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[7]
There were frequent occurrences of forest fires in areas adjacent to the old "Green Line" border between Israel and the West Bank, during the years 1988-1990. Between 288 and 388 forest fires were caused by arson, which occurred in areas near the old pre-1967 border.[8] In some of the fires, which occurred in northern Israel, Israeli Arab Palestinians were found to be responsible. These fires were extraordinary, given the fact that in 1988, there was a great deal of rain and, as a result, the vegetation was highly combustible.
The Intifada militants also began to systematically burn Israeli fields, orchards and forests, and whilst no lives were lost, considerable damage was caused.[9] Interviews conducted in 1988 with local Fatah leaders from the Tulkarem region, revealed that forests were regarded as the Israel government's property and were therefore a symbol deserving of arson.[10] Setting fires was employed as a tactic, politically motivated, aimed at damaging Israel's economy and exhausting its resources. The Palestinian propaganda increased the perception that forests were used intensively by the State of Israel as a “political tool”, to mark its presence on the ground along the “Green Line”, in order to underline its existing borders after the 1948 war and the creation of the State of Israel, which the Palestinians totally rejected (until the Oslo Accords in 1993).
During the initial Intifada period, Palestinians started dozens of Israeli forest fires, some quite extensive, intentionally as acts of arson for political reasons.[11] The evidence is overwhelming that these were deliberate acts of political sabotage and Palestinian arsonists have been apprehended as a result.[12] The Israeli police have apprehended Palestinians and Israeli Arabs in the act of setting fires, while others confessed to arson after their arrest.[13]
Some fires followed specific calls by underground Palestinian terror organizations to torch forests, and cause economic damage to Israel and its symbols. Incidents of arson proliferated during the period of the first Intifada, the inciting rhetoric was often disseminated in the leaflets, praising arson and call upon Palestinians to burn the land from underneath the Jews.
Some fires followed specific calls by underground Palestinian terror groups. The instances of arson carried out by the Palestinians were in accordance with the instructions issued by the underground leadership,”The Unified National Command of the Uprising ”(Al- Qiyada Al- Wataniyya Al- Muwahada lil-Intifada-Arabic)[14] which published leaflets providing information and instructions to the population. Typewritten leaflets were distributed across the West Bank and Gaza with instructions for action to be taken against Israel.
Thursday, November 24, 2016Elder of ZiyonGhassan Daghlas, media bias
As I have reported, Ghassan Daghlas is literally paid by the Palestinian Authority to lie about Israel. I've exposed his lies many times.Settlers set fire to farming land south of Nablus
NABLUS, November 24, 2016 (WAFA) – Israeli settlers from Yitzhar Thursday set fire to farming land in the town of Huwwara, south of Nablus, according to Ghassan Daghlas, an official who monitors settler activities in the north of the West Bank.He said residents saw dozens of settlers setting fire to the land and watched from the hills celebrating as the fire raged in the area.Fire gutted olive trees in the area, he said, as fire fighters and residents were trying to contain it before it spreads to other areas.Weather conditions and high wind cause fires to spread fast as officials have warned against starting fire anywhere.However, officials said the settlers took advantage of the bad weather conditions to destroy as much as possible of the Palestinian agricultural land knowing very well that the fire is going to spread fast.
Wednesday, September 28, 2016Elder of Ziyonmedia bias, NYTMr. Peres, Mr. Rabin and Arafat were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.There are two major problems with this description.
But the era of good feelings did not last. It was shattered in 2000 after a visit by the opposition leader Ariel Sharon to the sacred plaza in Jerusalem known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. The next day, the Israeli police fired on stone-throwing protesters, inaugurating a new round of violence that became known as the second intifada.
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| 1994 Dizengoff St bus bombing , 22 killed |
On the morning of September 28, 2000, a six-member Likud Knesset delegation led by the then-leader of the Israeli opposition, Ariel Sharon, paid a visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. From the moment the plans for the visit had been made public four days earlier, there was concern among Israeli security officials that the heavily media-covered visit might inflame some Palestinian nationalist sentiments because it would be viewed as a deliberately provocative symbol of Israeli control of all of Jerusalem, east and west.There is also convincing evidence that the second intifada was planned by Arafat beforehand. From Wikipedia:
These concerns prompted consultations on the matter between Israeli and Palestinian officials, culminating in a telephone conversation between Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami and the head of the Palestinian Preventive Security Organization, Jibril Rajoub, in which Rajoub indicated, “If Mr. Sharon refrains from entering the Mosques on Temple Mount, there will not be any problem.” Only then did the Israeli police agree to permit the visit–along with a 1,500 member police escort, just in case.
Sharon’s visit was relatively brief, avoiding the mosques. It was completed by 8:30 a.m. and was followed by a vocal demonstration of about 1,000 Palestinians led by Israeli Arab Knesset members who hurled stones at Israeli policemen. But this too was relatively brief and not unprecedented in the context of previous Palestinian-Israeli clashes in that religiously and emotionally charged area of Jerusalem. By the afternoon, despite sporadic flare-ups of further clashes between police and demonstrators, Israeli security officials concluded that the matter was behind them.
They turned out to be seriously wrong.
Within hours, the Voice of Palestine was broadcasting denunciations. Sharon was said to have conducted “a serious step against Muslim holy places.” Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian Authority chairman, called upon the entire Arab and Islamic world to “move immediately to stop these aggressions and Israeli practices against holy Jerusalem.” Repeated broadcasts throughout the evening and night described the visit as a deliberate defilement of the mosques.
By the morning of September 29, Palestinian public opinion was inflamed in way that Israeli intelligence had failed to predict. In the West Bank town of Qalqilya a Palestinian police officer participating in a joint security patrol with Israeli police opened fire and killed his Israeli counterpart, leading to the permanent suspension of all joint Israeli-Palestinian security patrols. Following Friday morning prayers in the mosques on the Temple Mount, hundreds of Palestinians rushed past Israeli border guards toward the platform overlooking the Western Wall plaza where Jewish worshippers were praying prior to the Rosh Hashanah holiday.
When heavy rocks began raining down from the compound on the Mount onto Jewish worshippers in the plaza below, the Israeli border guard contingent opened fire on the Palestinian rioters with rubber bullets, killing four and wounding more than 100 persons.
Some have claimed that Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority (PA) had pre-planned the Intifada.[137] They often quote a speech made in December 2000 by Imad Falouji, the PA Communications Minister at the time, where he explains that the Intifada had been planned since Arafat's return from the Camp David Summit in July, far in advance of Sharon's visit.[150] He stated that the Intifada "was carefully planned since the return of (Palestinian President) Yasser Arafat from Camp David negotiations rejecting the U.S. conditions".[151] David Samuels quotes Mamduh Nofal, former military commander of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who supplies more evidence of pre-28 September military preparations. Nofal recounts that Arafat "told us, Now we are going to the fight, so we must be ready".
Support for the idea that Arafat planned the Intifadah comes from Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar, who said in September 2010 that when Arafat realized that the Camp David Summit in July 2000 would not result in the meeting of all of his demands, he ordered Hamas as well as Fatah and the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, to launch "military operations" against Israel.[154] al-Zahar is corroborated by Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of the Hamas founder and leader, Sheikh Hassan Yousef, who claims that the Second Intifada was a political maneuver premeditated by Arafat. Yousef claims that "Arafat had grown extraordinarily wealthy as the international symbol of victimhood. He wasn't about to surrender that status and take on the responsibility of actually building a functioning society."[155]
Arafat's widow Suha Arafat reportedly said on Dubai television in December 2012 that her husband had planned the uprising. "Immediately after the failure of the Camp David [negotiations], I met him in Paris upon his return.... Camp David had failed, and he said to me, 'You should remain in Paris.' I asked him why, and he said, 'Because I am going to start an intifada. They want me to betray the Palestinian cause. They want me to give up on our principles, and I will not do so,'" the research institute [MEMRI] translated Suha as saying.[156]In the New York Times' view, only Israeli actions count towards destroying "good feelings" and starting conflict. Nearly 300 dead Israelis post-Oslo isn't enough to be considered noteworthy. A visit by Ariel Sharon where there were no casualties is awful, but Palestinians dropping stones onto worshippers at the Western Wall during prayers is reduced to "stone throwing Palestinians."
Mr. Peres, Mr. Rabin and Arafat were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
But the era of good feelings did not last. Barely a year later, Mr. Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish gunman upset by the accords, elevating Mr. Peres to the post of prime minister. A series of Palestinian suicide bombings undercut Mr. Peres’s authority, and he lost a narrow election to Mr. Netanyahu in 1996.
Conflict between Israel and the Palestinians accelerated in 2000 after a visit by the opposition leader Ariel Sharon to the sacred plaza in Jerusalem known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. The next day, the Israeli police fired on stone-throwing protesters, inaugurating a new round of violence that became known as the second intifada.
Wednesday, August 17, 2016Elder of Ziyonmedia bias, News, nftp, NYT
Yehia — whose father spoke on the condition that the family name not be published for fear of a backlash if it became known he had taken the boy to Israel for treatment — is the first Afghan treated by Save a Child’s Heart in its 20 years of operations. About half the charity’s 4,000 patients have been Palestinian; 200 others were children from Iraq and Syria, and the roster includes patients from Tanzania, Ethiopia and Moldova.
Tony Laurance, head of a group called Medical Aid for Palestine, said that while providing children “world-class surgery” was “an unequivocal good,” it should not obscure the broader impact of Israeli policies on medical care for Palestinians. Gaza hospitals are perennially short of medicine, equipment and well-trained staff because of Israeli restrictions on travel and trade, and many Gaza residents struggle to get exit permits for care outside the territory.Israeli doctors saving Muslim lives "gets up his nose" because it "betrays reality"? Laurance is saying that positive articles about Israel must not be published because they blunt the impact of the unrelenting anti-Israel propaganda that he and his organization pushes.
“What gets up my nose,” Mr. Laurance said, “is that it presents an image of Israel that betrays the reality.”
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Sunday, August 14, 2016Elder of Ziyonmedia bias, News
Last month we interviewed Mary al Atrash, a 22-year-old swimmer from Beit Sahour in the West Bank who was part of the largest delegation Palestine has ever sent to the Olympic Games.So that is the new narrative - that Palestinian athletes all decided that it is too risky to train in Israel because of the chance that they will be delayed?
She told us about her difficulties to train in a swimming pool that does not match the Olympic standards, and explained that although she technically lives close to Jerusalem, where such swimming pools, exist, she could not go there to train.
After our story was published, a controversy started: Israeli authorities explained that Mary never applied for a permit to train in Jerusalem.
After COGAT –the Israeli Ministry of Defense organization coordinating civil affairs between Palestinians and Israelis in the Palestinian territories- published a statement saying Mary al Atrash never applied for a permit to train in Jerusalem, we contacted Mary and the organizations that supervise her training such as the Palestinian Swimming Federation and the Palestine Olympic Committee.
Indeed, it seems that Mary never applied for a permit, and neither did a lot of other Palestinian athletes. They explain this situation by emphasizing their movement restrictions. They say they can be stopped at any point while going from one place to another and therefore don’t feel safe moving from one city to another. They also mention that roads or checkpoints are sometimes closed which implies a chance of wasting time that they could use to train.
The Palestinian Swimming Federation stressed “the difficulties, that all the athletes face, to enter Jerusalem for training” and that “permits are for a limited time” and that athletes still have to go “through checkpoints” even if they have a permit to train in Jerusalem which makes their situation unstable and puts them at risk of wasting their training time.
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Thursday, August 11, 2016Elder of Ziyonmedia bias, News
@elderofziyon The conflict is the responsibility of both Israel and the Palestinians, who have opposed letting athletes train in Israel— Luke Baker (@LukeReuters) August 11, 2016
Would I be accurate in writing an article, based on this tweet, that the PA bans Pal athletes from training in Israel? @LukeReuters— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) August 11, 2016
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