Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Brendan O’Neill: The violence of the Safe Space
Consider some recent examples from Britain, where students have built what they call Safe Spaces but which look to me more like Unsafe Spaces for those judged to hold the wrong views or to have the wrong attitudes.Rabbi Shmuley Boteach: What Is Richard Branson’s Problem With Israel?
Last week at King’s College London, a meeting of pro-Israel students was invaded by anti-Israel activists. They smashed windows, set off a fire alarm, threw chairs around. They chanted “Nazis!” at the attendees of the meeting. Oh, the irony of activists shutting down a meeting of largely Jewish students while shouting “Nazis”: a serious self-awareness failure.
A key justification given by student radicals for shouting down pro-Israel meetings is that such events are “offensive” or “distressing” to certain students. That is, they violate the Safe Space. So in the name of maintaining safety on campus, certain events can be violently interrupted. It’s Orwellian: war is peace, freedom is slavery, violence is safety.
On two campuses in Britain — Cambridge and Goldsmith’s — feminist students have burnt the literature of far-left groups whom they accuse of rape apologism and of contributing to a hostile climate for female students. That is, these far-left groups make women feel unsafe and therefore their pamphlets must be publicly burnt. The use of fascistic menace to make students feel comfortable — the Orwellianism continues.
At a London university last year, the Iranian secularist Maryam Namazie was harassed by members of the Islamic Society who shouted at her: “You are violating our Safe Space!”
Other “elders” in Branson’s organization include the notoriously anti-Israel, antisemitic Bishop Desmond Tutu, whom I have also met on several occasions, including at the Oxford Union. Tutu is a supporter of the BDS movement, calling for an economic and cultural boycott of Israel. His bigoted views have surfaced with statements such as, “The Jewish lobby is powerful — very powerful,” while accusing Jews of “an arrogance — the arrogance of power because Jews are a powerful lobby in this land and all kinds of people woo their support.” Tutu has stated that Zionism has “very many parallels with racism,” and has accused the Jewish state of subjecting the Palestinians to “Israeli Apartheid.” He believes that the Palestinians are suffering more than the Jews did during the Holocaust, stating that “the gas chambers” had made for “a neater death” for the Jews.US rapper downplays Holocaust, suggests listeners read David Irving
Clearly such views are not just a moral abomination but represent a deplorable and uncleansable stain on the reputation of a man who won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Is this what Richard Branson had in mind when he stated in an interview, “And obviously after the Second World War, the world had enormous sympathy for the Jewish people. Over a number of decades, that sympathy has been lost…”?
I believe in my heart that Branson is a good and charitable man. So why say these things about the Jews?
Branson also tapped the corrupt former head of the UN, Kofi Annan, the same man who overruled UN General Romeo Dallaire in April 1994 and ordered him not to use his UN forces to disarm the Hutus in Rwanda and prevent them from hacking to death 800,000 Tutsis. Annan in the past declared that Saddam Hussein was a man he could do business with, and then sat down to smoke expensive cigars with the Butcher of Baghdad. He also declared himself “deeply moved” by the death of arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat and ordered the UN flag flown at half mast.
Also included in Branson’s Elders group is the man Kofi Annan appointed as United Nations special representative for Afghanistan and Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi. During Brahimi’s assignment he criticized Israel’s violence and suppression of Palestinians and called Israel “the big poison in the region.”
A US rapper on Monday attempted to downplay the Nazi genocide, implicate US President Barack Obama in a Jewish conspiracy and suggest his listeners research infamous Holocaust denier David Irving after posting a song to his website, British based Internet publication The Jewish Chronicle reported Tuesday.
Bobby Ray Simmons Jr., better known as B.o.B., who has number one singles in both the US and UK, released his new song dubbed 'Flatlines,' in which he states: "Stalin was way worse than Hitler, that's why the POTUS (President of the United States) gotta wear a Kipper."
B.o.B. goes on to rhyme: "They nervous, but before you try to curve it, do your research on David Irving."
Irving is a notorious Holocaust denier and British historian who was was jailed in Austria in 2006.
The chart-topping recording artist also took umbrage with scientific claims concerning the spherical shape of the globe, posting dozens tweets claiming that the earth was in fact flat, and suggested renown astrophysicist Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson was being paid to maintain the lie crafted by the Department of Defense and NASA.
Israel-Thrives: Vox's distortion of Middle East history
Returning to Gerstman's rebuttal to the Vox post, Gerstman recognizes Vox's distortion of the pre-1920 record as he responded to one of the commenters that he did not have enough time to include a response to that distortion and respond to the more recent material. The problem is whether or not one knows the reality of the Pact of Umar in 19th century Ottoman Palestine, and that the founding of the PNM was about restoring that social order, sets the framework for how one evaluates what happened subsequently. If restoration of the 19th century social order is not on one's radar screen for the PNM's motives, then one would naturally conclude that the PNM is concerned with protecting the rights of the Palestinian people. If that is so, and the PNM harps on the refugees from the Independence War, it must be because Israel did really bad things in creating that refugee crisis. If the PNM hasn't reached a deal with Israel, it must be because Israel hasn't offered enough to establish the Palestinians' rights.Caroline Glick: Ted Cruz’s American restoration
All of this changes once one recognizes that the core of the conflict is Arab irredentism for the 19th century social order. From that perspective, a plot of land the size of a postage stamp where the Pact of Umar does not hold is an inexcusable humiliation to the Palestinian-Arab psyche. However, the Arabs have learned through decades of war that they cannot restore the Pact of Umar against western objections and it goes without saying that the West will not support restoring the Pact of Umar. What is feasible though, is to convince the West that the Palestinians just want their rights and specific actions under "international law" to secure those rights where it just so happens that those actions would enable the restoration of the Pact of Umar the way control of the Sudetenland facilitated the occupation of all of Czechoslovakia. Enter the Oslo Accords and western fascination with the notion that the 1967 "borders" should be the starting point for the final border between Israel and Palestine. Viewing Oslo through the lens of social order-irredentism would show that talks have failed to yield a result because the PNM will not accept anything less than their gaining the capacity unilaterally reinstate the Pact of Umar over time.
There are three points that are needed to ground the notion that the conflict is about social order-irredentism. First is establishing that there was a social order in the 19th century to which the Arabs could be irredentist. This part is trivial, it just requires showing the history and not allowing anyone to dismiss it as irrelevant (such as Vox describing that century as generally peaceful and moving on). The second part is establishing that the Mufti was animated by a desire to preserve and restore that social order as it was breaking down. Finally is to establish that today's PNM is a continuation of the Mufti's mission.
On the one hand, Trump continuously insists that as president he will be the greatest thing that ever happened to Israel.Trump lobbied Kerry to be Mideast envoy - 'I'd solve Arab-Israeli conflict in 2 weeks'
But on the second hand, a month ago, he told Jewish Republicans that he won’t recognize that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and blamed Israel for the absence of peace with the Palestinians.
But on the third hand, a week ago, he told an evangelical Christian reporter that he backs moving the US embassy to Jerusalem “one hundred percent.”
Got that?
And that brings us back to the key question of whether America wants to be great again, trusted by its allies, feared by its enemies, and safe at home. Because if so, voters need to ask not who channels their rage the best, but who has the courage and the competence to roll back Obama’s policies. How can Rubio, who supported some of Obama’s most devastating policies, or Trump who has no coherent policies, be expected to do what needs to be done?
Through Ted Cruz’s willingness to match his words with his deeds, and do what he believes even when doing so bring him no benefit, and through his clear recognition that American foreign policy must rest on the simple rule of being good to your allies and bad to your enemies, Ted Cruz has proven that he alone has the courage and the competence to lead an American restoration.
Donald Trump, the Republican presidential hopeful, lobbied then-candidate John Kerry to be his envoy to the Middle East during the latter's failed bid for the White House in 2004, according to the Internet site BuzzFeed.Is Israel a Problem for Bernie?
According to a Trump biography, the real estate mogul, who has taken the lead in polling among GOP voters by running a controversial campaign that some have accused of anti-immigrant race-baiting, bragged to Kerry that it would take him just two weeks to resolve the Israeli-Arab conflict.
"You know how to negotiate. You’d be the best person to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict,” Kerry is said to have told Trump in the book No Such Thing as Over-Exposure: Inside the Life and Celebrity of Donald Trump.
“It would take me two weeks to get an agreement,” the billionaire businessman said in response.
While attacking the Obama White House for its policies toward Israel, Trump has raised eyebrows among potential voters for his remarks on what he would do if elected president. (h/t Alexi)
Clinton has criticized Sanders for his call for the U.S. to “move as aggressively as we can to normalize relations with Iran” and pointed out that doing so would be to disregard Iran’s hostility toward Israel. But she has actually tread carefully on the Middle East during the campaign and understandably so.Clinton says ‘America needs a strong and secure Israel’
The first reason why Clinton is in no position to make a meal out of Sanders’ history of less than supportive statements and votes is that her record on Israel isn’t pristine either. For every citation of a Sanders’ refusal to sign onto Congressional resolutions condemning Palestinian terrorism or his criticisms of Israeli policies, his side could cite her embrace of Suha Arafat in the moments after she falsely accused Israel of poisoning children. As far as Iran is concerned, President Obama’s former secretary of state can’t reasonably condemn Sanders’ willingness to jump into bed with the ayatollahs since she has defended appeasement of Tehran, too.
But even if would concede that Clinton has a slightly better record of emphasizing the importance of the alliance than Sanders that misses the point about the lack of a debate about Israel among Democrats. The real reason that there is no opening for Clinton on Israel is that the Vermont senator is firmly in the mainstream of Democratic opinion on Israel. If anything, his willingness to occasionally see things from Israel’s point of view — as he did in one August 2014 town hall event where he was challenged by an opponent of the Jewish state — or to reaffirm his support for its right to exist means that he is no longer completely in synch with the left wing of his party on foreign policy.
As I wrote in the December issue of COMMENTARY, “The Democratic Divorce” from Israel is something that has been in the works for decades as the party drifted to the left on foreign policy. The complete disappearance of the Scoop Jackson wing of the party that combined liberal stands on domestic issues with backing for a strong foreign policy that centered on support for Israel is a matter of record. The determination of Sanders and other liberals to view foreign policy entirely through the prism of the Iraq War and a determination to stay out of the Middle East completed that process.
The vote on the Iran nuclear deal in which virtually the entire Democratic Party caucus supported President Obama’s abandonment of decades of U.S. determination to halt Tehran’s nuclear program in favor of a pact that ensures it will be able to get a bomb within a decade was instructive because it showed the stark divide between the parties on the issue. Nor is it any accident that polls consistently show that those that identify as Democrats are less supportive of Israel in its struggle against Palestinian terrorism.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said the partnership between the United States and Israel must strengthen amid a surge in global extremist terrorism.The Chelsea Clinton fundraiser that should worry Hillary’s pro-Israel backers
Speaking Monday before a crowd of 150 at the Jewish Federation of Des Moines, Clinton also insisted that amiable relations between the two countries “has to be understood in our national interest.”
“Israel needs a strong America by its side, and America needs a strong and secure Israel by our side — to have an Israel that remains a bastion of stability and a core ally in a region of chaos,” Clinton said.
Clinton’s 18-minute address, her first at a Jewish institution in Iowa, one week before the caucuses here was disrupted by an early coughing fit that left her voice hoarse for the bulk of the speech.
For $250,”friends” — or $1000 for a “champion” (photo included) — you too can attend a fundraiser with Chelsea Clinton for her mother at the home of Michael and Sholeh Chegini in Newport Coast, California, according to an invitation to the event obtained by Right Turn. Michael Chegini served on the board of directors and thereafter the advisory board of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a notorious group with links to the Iranian regime that opposed, among other things, any sanctions on Iran.'Europe's decision also goes against the Oslo Accords'
“The Clintons never miss an opportunity to put money ahead of principle,” a spokesman for the Republican Jewish Coalition told me. “They should know better than raising money from folks whose primary concern has been supporting the NIAC — a notorious supporter of the Radical Islamic Mullahs in Iran. Instead as is always the case, the Clintons have thrown principle out the window in exchange for cold hard cash.”
The NIAC, you may recall, was forced to pay damages for a spurious lawsuit against blogger Hassan Daioleslam, who revealed the NIAC’s activities on behalf of the Islamist fundamentalist government that is dedicated to Israel’s destruction. (A federal court found in 2012 “that the work of NIAC president and founder Tritra Parsi was ‘not inconsistent with the idea that he was first and foremost an advocate for the regime.’ The judge essentially found it was conceivable that NIAC could reasonably be accused of lobbying on behalf of Iran, so Daioleslam’s blog posts weren’t defamatory.”)
This is not the first Clinton encounter with the NIAC. Bill Clinton, while Hillary was secretary of state, according to a Fox News report, tried through an aide to get approval for a speaking engagement with the NIAC: “An aide to Bill Clinton asked the State Department in 2012 about the former president potentially delivering a paid speech to an Iranian government-tied group that has pushed for an end to all U.S. sanctions against Tehran, according to an email exclusively obtained by Fox News.” Ultimately Bill Clinton did not do the speech, nor other “paid speaking gigs in North Korea and the Republic of the Congo – an event that would have included notorious Democratic Republic of the Congo leader Joseph Kabila.” (Some may also recall the group tried to block former Obama adviser Dennis Ross’s appointment).
Dan Illouz, a lawyer with the organization Legal Grounds, says that the European Union's efforts to separate Judea and Samaria from the rest of Israel goes against the Oslo Accords.Oh no, Canada
Illouz explained his argument in an interview with Arutz Sheva, following the EU's declaration that its agreements with Israel will not apply beyond the Green Line.
According to him, such a ruling not only contradicts the attitude that Israel has legal and historical rights supporting its presence in Judea and Samaria dating back to the time of the British Mandate, but also stands in opposition to the language of the Oslo Accords insisting that the final status is to be determined by mutual agreement.
Illouz pointed out that "Europe was a witness to the signing of the [Oslo] Accords. Although it has no commitment to what what said and signed, it took part in the process, oversaw the signature, and then supported and recognized the agreement. In the Oslo Accords it is stated that the negotiation over borders must be between the two sides and any who goes against this goes against the Oslo Accords."
It was clear that it wouldn't take long for Canada's new government to sink its liberal fangs into Israel. Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper's loss to Justin Trudeau in October virtually guaranteed an end to the honeymoon between Ottawa and Jerusalem.France said to plan summit with PM, Abbas attending
Sunday's message from Canadian Foreign Minister Stephane Dion to the Jewish state, then, though contemptible, was not the least bit surprising.
Borrowing a page from the U.S. State Department's playbook -- and emulating an abusive marriage -- Dion professed his love and commitment while throwing a punch.
"As a steadfast ally and friend to Israel," his statement read, "Canada calls for all efforts to be made to reduce violence and incitement and to help build the conditions for a return to the negotiating table."
This little of piece of immoral parity came on the heels of a couple of particularly horrifying stabbing attacks by Palestinian terrorists against two Israeli women -- one slashed to death in front of her traumatized teenage daughter; the other wounded while pregnant.
But the above brutal assaults are merely drops in the bucket of the uprising that began in September and has been continuing daily without letup.
France is hoping to bring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas together in the framework of a larger conference on the war against terrorism, a TV report said Monday.Pollard cancels speech to avoid being sent back to prison
According to a Channel 2 report citing unnamed officials, the French are planning to soon hold an international conference on the fight against terrorism and global jihad, to which both Netanyahu and Abbas will be invited.
There was no immediate confirmation of the report from Israeli, Palestinian or French officials.
The French hope is that on the sidelines of such a summit, Netanyahu and Abbas will agree to also meet one another and restart dialogue that may then grow into substantive peace negotiations.
France has tried several times to take an active role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, irritating Washington, which pursues a resolution to the decades-long dispute as a diplomatic holy grail.
Jonathan Pollard, who was released in November after serving nearly 11,000 days in prison for spying for Israel, canceled a speech he was scheduled to give at a private, informal meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.Walking While Jewish in a Berlin refugee center
Pollard canceled after a report that he planned to speak was leaked to the Jewish Daily Forward. His lawyers warned him that if he went ahead with the engagement, and his speech -- which was to have been his first public statement after 30 years in prison -- was leaked or taken out of context, he faced a risk of being sent back to prison.
Although Pollard had been billed as the keynote speaker, he decided to speak only briefly, thanking his hosts and explaining why he had decided to curtail his address.
According to the report, a letter from President Reuven Rivlin to U.S. President Barack Obama was presented at the meeting. The letter says that Pollard's current situation (the terms of his parole stipulate that he must not leave the U.S.) prevents him from obtaining employment, exercising his faith and reintegrating into society.
With anti-Semitism rising in Germany, and even Angela Merkel admitting that there was a problem with migrants from certain countries (she would not name them), what would it be like to be Walking While Jewish in a German refugee center?Israel native encounters swastikas, anti-Semitic slurs while visiting Berlin refugee camp
The German Die Welt newspaper published “an experiment” where an Israeli Orthodox Jew did just that.
Everyday Antisemitism website reports:
A video showing a Jewish man’s experience in a migrant center in Berlin was released yesterday by German newspaper Die Welt.
The man, who has experienced several antisemitic attacks within the last six months in Germany, encountered varying reactions within the center. While some expressed a wish for peace in Europe and empathy with Jews as another minority group, others were more hateful. One woman turned away in disgust on hearing he was Israeli. A boy said that all Jews should leave the Middle-East. The Jewish man also told the Jerusalem Post that he heard a group of men whispering “Jew” on seeing him but, when he confronted them, they assured him that he was mistaken.
There were also several instances of prominent, antisemitic graffiti found on the walls of the center: a swastika, a Star of David with the number 666 written below it, and an image of Israel entirely covered in the Palestinian Authority flag.
Having ignored warnings for months, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday that “Antisemitism is more widespread than we imagined. And that is why we must act intensively against it,” adding, “We must focus our efforts particularly among young people from countries where hatred of Israel and Jews is widespread.” In addition to antisemitism emanating from recent arrivals to Germany, there has been a marked increase in incidents in the country.
In one of the long corridors separating hangars that serve as living areas, the visiting Israeli came across anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled across the walls. According to the report, the graffiti included red swastikas, Stars of David accompanied by the satanically-affiliated number 666, and maps of Israel in the colors of the Palestinian flag.German cultural center cancels anti-Israel event ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day
Die Welt cited Shai as linking the graffiti to refugees of Palestinian background.
With his traditional Jewish yarmulke visible, Shai was reportedly met initially by the inhabitants with a mix of refugee children proudly displaying their German language skills and grown men ominously whispering "Jew."
When he confronted those hissing under their breath, they men assured Shai that he was mistaken and that they had not said anything.
Shai met other refugees who expressed consternation toward the Jew from Tel Aviv. However, he encountered others who responded to him with criticism of the Israeli government, but no ill-will toward the country's people.
Shai approached a pair of university students from Baghdad, who apparently had never met a Jew before, asking them what they learned about Israel in their homeland.
Yet in a more hostile encounter, Die Welt reported that one young refugee boy had menacingly gestured and told Shai "the Jews must get out of the country."
The director of the publicly-funded cultural center in the northern Germany city of Bremen on Monday pulled the plug on an anti-Israel event seeking to demonize the Jewish state.Swiss socialist group apologizes for anti-Semitic caricature
The event, “Antisemitismus – Philosemitism and the Palestinian Conflict” was organized by the German-Palestinian Society and the Middle East Forum Bremen.
“We regret if in this context the rental of our rooms for this event gave the impression that an anti-Israel event could take place,” Stephan Pleyn, the director of the Bürgerhaus Weserterrassen, told The Jerusalem Post by email.
He added that “it was in no way the intention and that does not reflect our position. We have canceled the event on January 26.”
After researching Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions activity in Bremen – a hot spot for recent anti-Israel operations – the Post sent media queries to the mayor and cultural center about municipal space for BDS and anti-Israel events.
The anti-Zionist talk was slated to take place one day before International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Wednesday.
An organization belonging to the Swiss socialist party has apologized for posting online a caricature which critics said was reminiscent of Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda.200 leftist Brazilian academics join anti-Israel boycott
JUSO, the youth division of the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland – the country’s second largest party – released a statement Saturday calling it a “mistake” to publish the caricature last week on JUSO’s Facebook page.
The caricature shows Swiss Economics Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann saying: “And one spoonful for the international finance lobby” as he feeds a large-mouthed man wearing a black coat and hat and side-locks, who is clutching the minister’s wrist. A boy with lighter hair sits on the minister’s other side while opening his far smaller mouth.
A group of 200 left-wing Brazilian university professors and researchers have signed an online letter supporting an academic boycott of Israel.NPR Affiliate Peddles Anti-Israel, Pro-Terrorist Propaganda
“The professors and researchers who sign below, reaffirming their commitment to social justice and against all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism, declare their support for the campaign for an academic boycott of Israel in the terms proposed by the BDS movement,” reads the letter.
Most supporters serve at Brazilian government-run public universities, including the country’s most prestigious Unicamp, USP and UFRJ. Long-time Brazilian diplomat and former United Nations rapporteur, Professor Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, is the most prominent figures among the signatories.
Two weeks ago, Pinheiro slammed Brazilian congressman Jean Wyllys for visiting Israel by saying, “It’s insolent that a human rights activist pays a visit to Israel nowadays” after Wyllys, Brazil’s only openly gay congressman and human rights defender, declared he objected to BDS despite his leftist platform.
There is an independently operated NPR affiliate in San Francisco that regularly broadcasts anti-Israel and/or pro-terrorist propaganda that is completely divorced from fact.CAMERA Prompts New York Times Editor's Note on Jerusalem Eviction Cases
KALW (FM), licensed to the San Francisco Unified School District, airs a weekly, 4-hour music show called "Tangents," each Saturday night. Pretentiously billed as an "unusually diverse, genre-bending program that explores the bridges connecting various styles of music," it serves as a platform for producer/host Dore Stein – aka Dore Alan Steinberg – to promote radical, left-wing political beliefs, primarily his extremist, anti-Israel views. To that end, Stein[berg] devotes the last hour of every program to a segment called "Gaza Corners," where he delivers, among other things, vitriolic diatribes against Israel.
"Gaza Corners" is archived on a dedicated website, that features articles and interviews with such radical anti-Israel sources as Electronic Intifada, BDS groups such as Samidoun, Jonathan Cook, Gideon Levy, and other members of the same cohort of Israel-defamers. Stein[berg]'s absurd conceit – and self-justification – is that he is a maverick exposing the dark side of Israel that no one else in the mainstream media dares to discuss. He describes "Gaza Corners" as "an opportunity to bring up points of view that normally are not addressed by the mainstream media, often about Gaza or Palestine or Israel but also the greater Middle East as well, and often beyond that..."
But it is not simply Stein[berg]'s extremist opinions and viewpoints that are at issue here. It is the outright falsehoods that are part and parcel of the propaganda he peddles on the NPR station.
Take for example, the Dec. 26, 2015 "Gaza Corners" segment about the death of terrorist Samir Kuntar.
Presenting the story in a conspiratorial tone, suggesting that he is divulging a dark secret the mainstream media has kept hush-hush (although, this was, in fact, a widely reported story), Stein[berg] disgorges a series of pro-terrorist lies that typifies the sort of twaddle he regularly disseminates on the show, and exposes the depth of his ignorance about the subject matter he purports to reveal. Here is a partial transcript with CAMERA's emphasis and commentary on his most obvious and egregious falsehoods:
In two posts earlier this month, CAMERA detailed how the Times reporter relied solely on the unfounded claims of Palestinian families facing eviction in Jerusalem's Old City ("Diaa Hadid Pokes a 'Hornet's Nest'" and "Diaa Hadid, Recycling Old Stories about Old City"). In an editor's note published in print today and appended to the online article today, The New York Times thoroughly clarifies the circumstances surrounding the Maswadi, Hashimeh and Sub Laban families.
As CAMERA noted last month, Hadid years ago worked for an anti-Israel NGO and had written that Israel was a country "founded on hate." Her Jan. 15 travesty, "Evictions in Walled Old City Stir Up a 'Hornet's Nest,'" which necessitated the remarkable editor's note, is more evidence that she has been unable to transition from anti-Israel activist to professional journalist. The questions that remain are: will Hadid continue down this partisan path? If so, will The Times continue to stoop so low as to employ a plainly anti-Israel advocate?
To see the other four corrections that CAMERA prompted on Diaa Hadid's reporting since she starting working for The New York Times last March, please see here.
NYT Issues 315-Word Correction on Article Slamming Israel
The New York Times appended a lengthy correction apologizing for and explaining multiple errors and omissions in a recent article claiming that Jewish people are evicting Palestinians from their homes in Jerusalem.New York Times Correspondent Corrected (Again) by Editor
The article, which sought to portray several Jewish organizations as pariah groups seeking to put Palestinian families out on the streets, was “incomplete,” relying only on stories and facts presented by Palestinians.
It turns out these Palestinian families did not tell the whole truth, according to the correction. The Times says reporter Diaa Hadid should have fully and properly reported out the piece by speaking with those Jewish individuals who had claims made against them.
“While the reporter tried to reach representatives of the landlord in the Sub Laban case, The Times should also have tried to reach the landlords involved in the other cases and their lawyers,” the corrections states.
These reporting failures led to a biased article that only told a portion of the story, according to the editor’s note.
In other words, Hadid sat down with the people being evicted and wrote up their stories without making the effort to check them against other evidence.PreOccupiedTerritory: NY Times Adds Automatic Editor’s Note To Every Diaa Hadid Submission (satire)
This is not the first time that Hadid has written an article for the Times in which she left out important material that did not fit her agenda. As we pointed out, four of the people she used as primary sources for her article on the Arab social scene in Haifa complained that they had been taken out of context.
After being publicly corrected by her editors twice, we can only wonder if Hadid’s oversights are a result of sloppy journalism or something more deliberate. Certainly, her past with the notoriously anti-Israel site Electronic Intifada (“New York Times Employs Veteran of Anti-Semitic Website“) is deeply concerning.
We were encouraged when Margaret Sullivan, the Times Public Editor responded to criticism of the paper’s Israel coverage by saying that they needed to do more to document the lives of Palestinians and what they think, rather than simply portraying them as victims. Yet Hadid is making the Times’ coverage worse, not better.
The paper of record will from now on address recurrences of overt and frequent journalistic bias from one of its Mideast correspondents by implementing an automated script that attaches an Editor’s Note to every story submitted by her, the organization’s Public Editor announced today.Haaretz’s Owner Proves Paper Has an Anti-Israel Political Agenda
Margaret Sullivan, the “readers’ advocate” at the New York Times, wrote on her official blog today that to save time, the company will now flag all Diaa Hadid articles when they come in, and each of those articles will always feature an accompanying box listing the factual inaccuracies, lies by omission, one-sided accounts, and anti-Israel assumptions behind the article.
“Following near-constant complaints over the accuracy and apparent prejudice of Ms. Hadid’s writing, the Times has decided for efficiency’s sake to use a simple automated script that includes an Editor’s Note feature for every story of hers we publish,” Sullivan wrote. “Good writers are not so easy to find and retain, and I believe the Times is making a genuine effort to balance journalistic ethics and integrity with very real personnel challenges.”
Hadid, who formally began writing for the New York Times last March, has racked up an array of articles that required the issuance of subsequent corrections by editors, corrections that point to the writer’s systematic minimizing of Palestinian culpability for violence and magnifying of alleged Israeli misdeeds. Prior to her work with the Times, Hadid wrote for Electronic Intifada, a site known for its anti-Israel and antisemitic prejudice. With the new automated script, the paper hopes to retain its correspondent’s talents and fluency in both Arabic and English while trying to filter out the obvious anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli slant that suffuses her writing.
With a circulation as low as 6% market share of Israeli print media according to recent research, Haaretz is utterly unrepresentative of the Israeli public and political system at large. Yet, Haaretz is still considered by outsiders to be the Israeli equivalent of the New York Times.The Times Misplaces Judaism’s Holiest Site
To be clear, Haaretz, even with a low circulation, is still a vital part of Israel’s dynamic and democratic free press. But the fraught and often aggressive discourse that characterizes so much of the Israeli debate sounds very different to a foreign audience.
Indeed, Haaretz, through its English-language website, has demonstrated that it is more concerned with its international audience than its domestic Israeli one. Haaretz, unable to exercise any meaningful influence at home, is using its English-language website and print newspaper to encourage external pressure on Israel.
The latest and most prominent example is an opinion piece by the newspaper’s proprietor Amos Schocken, titled “Only International Pressure Will End Israeli Apartheid.”
It’s an all too common error that appears in far too many media outlets. The Times of London (subscription only) has published the following photo caption:'Hitler was right' demo shocks British city
Naftali Bennett visits the Western Wall, Judaism [sic] holiest site, during a tour in Jerusalem’s old city
The Times has amended the caption, which now reads:
Naftali Bennett visits the Western Wall during a tour in Jerusalem’s old city
A group of neo-Nazis shocked passersby in Newcastle, northern England, with an impromptu rally featuring a banner with the words "Hitler was right" in front of a picture of the Nazi dictator's face.Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese Diplomat Who Saved Thousands from the Nazis, Gets His Own Movie
Some 20 activists from the far-right "National Action" group staged the Nazi flash mob, mirroring a tactic the extremists have used on several other occasions to gain attention.
The group assembled in front of a World War Two monument in the city center, and proceeded to give Nazi salutes and chant racist slogans, as stunned passersby looked on. They held a large banner with the words "Refugees not welcome, Hitler was right," in an apparent attempt to capitalize on anti-immigrant sentiment triggered by a much-criticized open-door policy elsewhere in Europe.
According to the Jewish News, police who arrived at the scene shortly afterwards allowed it to continue as no laws were broken and it remained largely peaceful.
However, footage from the event shows one Nazi thug assaulting a busker, who played his saxophone loudly in an apparent attempt to drown the fascists out. A police officer can be seen separating the two, but no arrests were made.
Ultimately dismissed from the Japanese Foreign Service, Sugihara lived out his post-war life in obscurity, doing menial work to support his family. He was eventually tracked down in 1968 by one of the Jews he saved, then an economic attaché to the Israeli Embassy in Tokyo, and brought to Israel, where he received a hero’s welcome. In 1984, Yad Vashem recognized Sugihara as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. Two years later, he died.
Though Sugihara’s story has been the subject of several documentaries, it has not received biopic treatment until now. “Persona Non Grata” was directed by Japanese-American director Cellin Gluck, filmed in Poland, and stars Toshiaki Karasawa in the lead role.
London Mayor Boris Johnson Joins Campaign Against Antisemitism
London Mayor Boris Johnson on Monday joined hundreds of US mayors and dozens of European ones in signing onto the Mayors United Against Antisemitism initiative, which was launched by the American Jewish Committee last July.Taiwan’s new president ‘amazed’ by Israel
“However it manifests itself, antisemitism is totally unacceptable and can never be justified,” said Johnson, according to a statement released by AJC. “In London we have a large and visible Jewish population, which makes a massive contribution to our city’s success, and as mayor I take this issue very seriously.”
Johnson was the first UK mayor to sign on to the initiative, which calls on the municipal authorities to publicly address and take concrete actions against rising antisemitism, which has been documented particularly in Europe by several Jewish and governmental organizations.
Saturday’s elections in Taiwan catapulted a major Israel fan into the presidency.Zuckerman puts $100m toward US-Israel scientific collaboration
Tsai Ing-wen, 59, of the Democratic Progressive Party, became the 14th president and vice president of the Republic of China on winning 56% of the vote. She will start her new job on Wednesday.
The new president visited Israel in 2013, the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday, and on returning to Taiwan, published a glowing article in the island’s main newspaper.
She expressed amazement at Israelis’ ability to maintain normal lives despite terror, and admiration for Israel’s high-tech industry, its social protests of 2011 and the determination of Israeli diplomats to fight for their country abroad.
Taiwan could learn much from the Israeli experience and philosophy, she wrote.
Media tycoon Mortimer Zuckerman is launching a $100 million program promoting scientific collaboration between the United States and Israel.Red Bull Releases Skate Trilogy ‘Shekel Me Not’ — Covering 6 Israeli Cities (VIDEO)
The Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program, announced Monday at a New York event that featured Gov. Andrew Cuomo and with several Nobel laureates on hand, promises to provide over $100 million in scholarships and related educational activities for participating scholars and universities.
The program, which will launch in the 2016-17 academic year, aims to foster collaboration between the “highest-achieving” American post-doctoral researchers and graduate students and “leading researchers” at Hebrew University, the Technion, Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science, according to a news release issued Monday.
Despite the “never-ending conflict over there,” Israel turned out to be one European skateboarding photographer’s ideal location for a three-part series called Shekel Me Not, released by Red Bull and featuring sponsored skateboarders from around the globe.Faux Israeli appeal to Ryan Reynolds gets surprising response
Belgium-based Davy Van Laere toured six Israeli cities along with Brazil’s Felipe Gustavo, Belgium’s Fries Taillieu, the UK’s Korahn Gayle, Holland’s Rob Maatman and the local Boaz Aquino, releasing the first of the series on Red Bull’s skate website on Monday.
“As a photographer, my eye likes to see raw spots, of which Israel had plenty,” wrote Laere. “In those 12 days, we skated six cities: Tel Aviv, Ashdod, Haifa, Jerusalem, Netanya and Beersheba. Each city definitely had its own flavour; I want to go back!”
“I really didn’t know what to expect because you hear all these crazy stories in the news,” says Maatman at the beginning of the 5-minute installment, the second of which will be released January 28.
A response appeared to come from Reynolds saying that he would make the trip to Israel if Yakobi published the exchange on Facebook and got 15,000 likes and 1,000 comments on it by the end of January.Brian Wilson to get around to Israel on ‘Pet Sounds’ tour
Reynold’s response contained English grammatical and spelling errors, which were good indicators that something may not have been totally kosher about it.
Indeed, the post was a hoax. This, however, didn’t get in the way of it racking up over 47,000 likes and 7,085 comments in two days.
Most importantly, the post made its way through cyberspace to the real Ryan Reynolds, who responded Monday by posting a personal message alongside an Israeli “Deadpool” publicity poster.
“Israel is in my top 1 list of places I’d like to travel to. I’m touched someone wants me to visit so much, that they faked a message from me saying I’d be traveling to your beautiful country. Unfortunately not this time. But one day, Israel… I will be in you,” the actor wrote.
Just in case that last sentence was meant as a double entendre, Yakobi replied accordingly: “Omg Man , thank you so much!!! We really want to see you here! Thanks for the post!!!# And, Israel is Hot and Wet for you.”
Not surprisingly, Yakobi’s post quickly turned into a meme, with Israelis taking a page from the “Deadpool” fan to issue all sorts of invitations.
The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson will make a stop in Israel during his upcoming world tour marking the 50th anniversary of the release of “Pet Sounds,” often called one of the most influential pop albums in history.Israeli Holocaust survivors give voice to the murdered mute at UN ceremony
Wilson will play over 70 shows in the US, Australia, Japan, United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal and Israel, the legendary musician announced Monday. The tour will kick off on March 26 in Auckland, New Zealand.
While Israel was mentioned in the press release announcing the tour, it was not listed in the tour schedule published on the singer’s website. The Israeli promoter for the concert had not yet been announced.
The 73-year-old rocker said in a statement that the tour would mark the last time he plays “Pet Sounds” in its entirety, which he will do at each show.
At Wednesday’s United Nations ceremony observing the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, two Jewish Holocaust survivors from Israel, Roet and Marta Wise, will deliver their testimonies alongside Zoni Weisz, a Sinto survivor.
To open the session, Barbara Winton will screen a video tribute to her father, Sir Nicholas Winton, who rescued 669 children from the Holocaust on the Czech Kindertransport. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, and other dignitaries are also scheduled to speak.
Ahead of the ceremony, Israelis Roet and Wise told The Times of Israel this week that they see their limited time slots at the UN ceremony as a way of speaking for those Nazi victims who cannot speak for themselves.
Both have made public awareness of Nazi atrocities a lifelong mission: Slovak-born Wise has traveled broadly, recounting in front of thousands her harrowing experiences in the Nazi death camp Auschwitz. And Dutch Jew Roet has generated efforts to memorialize Nazi victims that have spread all over the globe.
Ahead of her flight to New York this week, Wise, 81, spoke with The Times of Israel from her Jerusalem home.
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