Tuesday, August 06, 2013
The New York Times Romanticizes Palestinian Stone Throwers and Ignores Their Victims
Stones kill, maim, wound and change people's lives forever. Israeli infants have been slain, toddlers critically wounded and adults have sustained severe head injuries or were hospitalized with lighter injuries, all due to Palestinian stone throwers.The Independent’s Unbelievable Response to Complaint from Reader
But the story of Israeli victims is not the one the New York Times prefers to tell and is certainly not the one Middle East correspondent Jodi Rudoren chose to recount in her latest front page, above-fold article about Palestinian stone throwers, entitled "‘My Hobby Is Throwing Stones': In a West Bank Culture of Conflict, Boys Wield the Weapon at Hand."
Quite the contrary, this was a story that romanticized and heroized the Palestinian perpetrators. It is they – not the Israeli dead and injured – who are presented as the victims, "provoked by the situation," forced into this type of "futile" hobby, only to be arrested and incarcerated by fierce, powerful Israeli soldiers.
The term “political prisoner” is widely understood to describe a person imprisoned for beliefs, not actions. If someone kills an innocent civilian in the name of a political cause – whether that be animal rights, abortion rights, or Palestinian independence – that person would be jailed because of the act of murder, not the political cause he supports. The distinction is important. Referring to a murder as a political prisoner grants legitimacy to the crime. It is a disservice to genuine political prisoners and to the victims of the violent criminals.The Guardian or PressTV? Iran’s president to export the Islamic Revolution ‘peacefully’
Gore’s reference to a “wider political game” is even more bewildering. According to this view, the designation of a political prisoner is not related to either the crime or its motivation. Instead, it is accorded if a third party believes it can gain politically by demanding the prisoners release.
And, those genuine peace advocates among us may reasonably believe that it strains credulity to imagine a brave, new ‘dovish’ Islamist regime which will suddenly cease in its coordinated campaign of antisemitic propaganda, which includes Holocaust denial and incitement to genocide.BBC self-conscripts to Peace Now campaigning yet again
So, while continuing to export the Islamic Revolution by providing a military lifeline to the butcher in Damascus and sending sophisticated weapons to terror movements in Lebanon and Gaza, thus helping to destabilize the region, we are being asked to believe that the new President will, nonetheless, emphatically oppose all forms of “foreign intervention”.
Iranian imperialism with a ‘smiling face’, courtesy of the Guardian.
As we see once again, the backbone of this BBC report is taken from a press release of the same date put out by the politically motivated NGO ‘Peace Now’, to which the BBC report also links. This is of course far from the first time that the BBC has rushed to promote the ‘Peace Now’ campaigning agenda as ‘news’ – see here, here, here and here. Yet again – and in direct breach of BBC guidelines on impartiality – the BBC fails to inform its audiences of the political agenda of the organization it describes only as a “watchdog”.Oliver Stone’s Son Says 9/11 Inside Job, Defends Hezbollah, Calls Israelis ‘European Settlers’
Clearly the main aim of this article is to persuade audiences of Israeli ‘intransigence’ and to continue the BBC’s already well-entrenched campaign to promote the notion of “settlements” as one of the main obstacles to a Middle East full of sweetness and light. The standard BBC template slogans on that subject are of course included in this article too.
Sean Stone, son of controversial film director Oliver Stone, delivered a barrage of anti-Israel rhetoric on the Russia Today TV channel August 1st. He referred to Israel as a “crusader state” and repeatedly called Israelis “European settlers.” He said these “European settlers” don’t feel comfortable in what is “historically Palestine,” and they have no ties to Israel. He also referred to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an “American guy.” Stone, who is a convert to Islam, also claimed that the terror attacks on New York of September 11th 2001 were an inside job and were not carried out by Islamic terrorists led by Osama bin Laden. Sean’s positions are not entirely surprising, as Oliver Stone himself has a history of making anti-Semitic remarks.Egyptian soccer player agrees to play match in Israel
Salah, 21, reportedly changed his mind after meeting with team officials. He has been under pressure from his fellow countrymen to boycott the match.Rabbi shot in Russia released from Israeli hospital
“I will fly to Israel,” he said in a statement. “Football is more important than politics and it is my job.
“In my thoughts I am going to play in Palestine and not Israel, and I am also going to score and win there. The Zionist flag won’t be shown in the Champions League.”
In the first match between the two teams, which Basel won 1-0, Salah avoided shaking hands with members of the Israeli team, which includes Israeli-Arabs. (h/t Zvi)
Isakov was airlifted to Israel after being shot July 24 as he exited his car and headed into his home in Derbent, in the predominantly Muslim Republic of Dagestan, near Chechnya.Panama and Israel: An Unlikely Friendship
Authorities have said it was likely a terrorist attack by Muslim extremists.
Isakov, a father of four, told Israeli media he intends to return to Derbent as soon as he is well.
Panama has stood by Israel from the beginning: Panama was one of the many countries to vote for UN Resolution 181, which created the State of Israel. Since then, Panama has consistently voted with Israel, including voting against Palestinian Statehood on November 29, 2012. Only nine countries, including Israel and the United States, voted against UN Resolution 67/19. Some, such as Max Fisher did, have speculated that the vote was more for the United States, because of conomic ties. However, Panama has more reasons than this to support Israel.UK, France to remake Israeli TV show ‘Mom and Dadz’
Panama has, unfortunately, experienced terror from Hezbollah, just as Israel has. According to Tracy Wilkinson’s 1994 Los Angeles Times article, “The day after Buenos Aires’ seven-story Jewish community center was reduced to rubble on July 18, a suicide bomber said to be Lebanese and unable to speak Spanish or English boarded a commuter flight in Colon, Panama, near the Atlantic end of the Panama Canal. When he detonated the bomb, all 21 people aboard were killed, including 12 Jewish and Israeli businessmen, and three U.S. citizens.” This attack not only devastated Panama, but led to even stronger ties between Israel and Panama.
Israeli-made television show, Mom and Dadz, has been bought by British and French production companies and is set for remakes in English and French. The comic drama features a gay couple raising a child with a single woman and the complex dynamics of the characters that goes with this mission.Israel Waives US 'Iron Dome' Funding
Although the show may at first sound like the now defunct NBC show, The New Normal, Mom and Dadz stays away from the one-liners that accompanied the American series and instead “focuses on the complex dynamics of the parental triangle, layering their insecurities and complicated emotions with wry humor,” according to the New York Times.
Despite pledges by US President Barack Obama and key congressional leaders to shield the Israeli Iron Dome from sequestration cuts, Israel has offered to waive funding protection, reports Defense News, which says Israel has been “insisting it should bear its share of the burden.”United Hatzalah Head Tells TED Crowd About Israeli Lifesavers
“Our position is we must bear the burden that our American friends are bearing,” Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador in Washington, told the website in an interview to be published in an upcoming edition. Sources from both countries told the website that this is “a painful, yet pragmatic price for the goodwill to be generated among longtime supporters in Washington.”
After witnessing a terror attack in Jerusalem as a child, Eli Beer decided that he wanted to be a doctor and help people, the director of United Hatzolah told an audience at a recent TED conference.TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conferences are gatherings where innovative ideas, theories and projects are presented to thousands of viewers, both live and on-line. Beer spoke at a recent TEDMed conference, which concentrates on medical issues. (h/t Zvi)UN makes Holocaust documents available online
Scholars, campaigners and lawyers can for the first time readily access more than 2,200 documents from a largely unknown archive housed at the United Nations that documents thousands of cases against accused World War II criminals in Europe and Asia.Across Forbidden Border, Doctors in Israel Quietly Tend to Syria’s Wounded
The unrestricted records of the United Nations War Crimes Commission were put online in early July by the International Criminal Court after an agreement with the UN, a move spurred by British academic Dan Plesch, who has been leading the push for greater access to the archive. The documents relate to more than 10,000 cases.
The identity of the patients is closely guarded so they will not be in danger when they return to Syria. Soldiers sit outside the wards where the adults are to protect them from possible threats and prying journalists. But doctors granted access to the children in the closed intensive care wing, on the condition that no details that could compromise their safety were published.Christian Leader: 'We Want to Defend the State'
Like many Israeli hospitals, this one serves a mixed population of Jews and Arabs; its staff includes Arabic-speaking doctors, nurses and social workers. In the lobby, a glass display case contains the remnants of a Katyusha rocket that was fired from Lebanon and hit the hospital’s eye department during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. The rocket penetrated four floors but nobody was injured because all the north-facing wards had been moved underground.
With more than 100,000 people estimated to have died in the Syrian civil war, Dr. Barhoum, an Arab Christian citizen of Israel, acknowledged that the Israeli medical assistance was “a drop in the ocean.”
But he said he was proud of the level of treatment his teams could provide and proud to be a citizen of a country that allowed him to treat every person equally. He said the cost of the treatment so far had amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars and would be paid for by the Israeli government.
In the face of severe opposition – some would say persecution – by the leaders of his church, Father Gabriel Nadaf, a Greek Orthodox priest from Nazareth and spiritual leader of a forum for the enlistment of Christian youth in the IDF, continues to advocate for a strong connection among Arab Christians with the State of Israel.
On Monday, Nadaf met with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to discuss issues affecting his community, and ways the state could help him encourage greater participation of Christian Arab youth in Israeli society. (h/t Zvi)
