Sunday, September 11, 2016
Fifteen years on, 9/11 seared into New York history
New York marks the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks more resilient, wealthier and more diverse than ever, yet that terrible day is forever seared into its DNA.In Israel, 9/11 marked with shared grief, vow to fight terror together
The al-Qaeda hijackings of September 11, 2001 — the first foreign attack on the US mainland in nearly two centuries — ruptured a sense of safety and plunged the West into wars still being fought today.
More than 2,750 people were killed when two passenger jets destroyed the Twin Towers, the symbol of New York’s financial wealth and confidence. The remains of only 1,640 people have been identified.
Nearly 75,000 others live with mental and physical illnesses as a result of the attacks, many of them emergency workers who breathed in cancerous toxins as they valiantly tried to save lives.
In the last 15 years, New York has sought to craft a balance between remembering the victims and the carnage, and doing what it does best: endless regenerating, rebuilding and looking toward the future.
Israeli politicians and American officials in Israel marked the 15th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Israel stands “shoulder to shoulder” with the United States in combating Islamic terrorism.
“We remember the victims. We embrace their loved ones. We stand with our greatest ally, the United States of America, and with other partners in the battle against militant Islamic terrorism that spreads its fear, its dread, its murder around the world,” Netanyahu said at the start of his cabinet meeting.
Netanyahu made the remarks in English.
“Our memories are long, our determination is boundless. Civilized societies must band together to defeat these forces of darkness, and I’m sure we will,” he said.
Netanyahu’s remarks Sunday morning came ahead of most US memorials of the devastating al-Qaeda hijackings of September 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people in the first foreign attack on the US mainland in nearly two centuries.
Outside Jerusalem, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro and others gathered at Israel’s 9/11 memorial to pay their respects at an official ceremony.
The Palestinians were Osama bin Laden’s most ardent fans
It is a fitting coincidence that just in time for this 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, The New York Review of Books (NYRB) has published an article by Middle East analyst Nathan Thrall urging President Obama to use his remaining time in office to pass a United Nations Security Council resolution that would define binding parameters for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Like most Middle East analysts, Thrall is apparently not interested in the longstanding and well-documented Palestinian support for terrorism, even though the pervasiveness of this support has arguably serious implications for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Thrall wants President Obama “to salvage his legacy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” asserting right at the outset that “Barack Obama entered the White House more deeply informed about and sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than any incoming president before him.” He notes Obama’s friendship with the historian Rashid Khalidi and his acquaintance with Edward Said – whom he describes as “the most famous and eloquent Palestinian critic of the Oslo accords;” Thrall then goes on to recall that Obama “had offered words of encouragement to Ali Abunimah, the Palestinian activist, writer, co-founder of the Electronic Intifada, and leading advocate of a one-state solution.” What Thrall prefers not to mention is the fact that Abunimah is also an ardent Hamas supporter and has only disdain for Obama. As Abunimah cockily declared in a tweet some three years ago, referencing all of Obama’s Palestinian “friends” mentioned by Thrall: “Back when this While I have no way of knowing how “deeply informed” Obama is about the “Palestinian cause,” I do know for sure that anyone who gets their information from the likes of Khalidi, Said and Abunimah will simply be brainwashed with seething hatred for Israel. But this could actually pass as being “deeply informed” about the “Palestinian cause.”
Netanyahu on 9/11: Israel stands shoulder-to-shoulder with 'greatest ally' US
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened Sunday's cabinet meeting by remembering 9/11, and saying that Israel stands shoulder-to-shoulder with “our greatest ally, the United States of America.”Clifford D. May: How the world has changed since 9/11
Netanyahu said Israel also stands with other international partners in “the battle against militant Islamic terrorism that spreads its fear, dread and murder around the world. Our memories are long, our determination is boundless.”
The premier said that civilized societies “must band together to defeat these forces of darkness,” adding that “I'm sure we will.” He made his comment about 9/11 both in Hebrew and English, something rarely done at the start of cabinet meetings.
Netanyahu said that the battle against terrorism is also taking place in social media, and that a senior delegation from Facebook has arrived in the country in recent days with the goal of “improving the cooperation against incitement on social media toward terrorism and murder.”
The 15th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 should be a time for mourning, commemoration, reflection -- and strategic planning.How the 9/11 attacks would have been reported based on how Islamic attacks are reported now ....
But many people prefer to avoid thinking too much about how life was interrupted on that sunny Tuesday morning: mothers and fathers making one final phone call to their children; office workers who moments earlier were deciding where to have dinner now deciding whether to be consumed by flames or leap to their deaths; dutiful police and firefighters rushing into the World Trade Center, never to come out again; a long plume of smoke rising from the grey rubble of what had been great edifices bustling with commercial activity, as America-haters, domestic and foreign, began to babble about chickens coming home to roost.
In much of the media, what happened will no doubt be described as a tragedy, rather than what it was: an act of war and an atrocity. We'll hear only a little about al-Qaida's current status, and next to nothing about its relationship to the Islamic State group and the Islamic Republic of Iran, about how the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Shabab, Boko Haram and Lashkar-e-Taiba fit into the picture.
President George W. Bush responded to 9/11 with energy and determination. But his approach was flawed: "Terrorism" is not the enemy; it is only a weapon deployed by the enemy. As for the misused word "terror," it is a synonym for fear, and a "war on fear" is not a serious concept.
President Barack Obama's approach has been worse: He has maintained that we face nothing more than "violent extremists" motivated by "grievances." That obfuscates rather than explains who our enemies are, what they believe, and what they intend.
How the 9/11 attacks would have been reported based on how Islamic attacks are reported now ....PreOccupiedTerritory: Muslims: Make Freedom Tower A Mosque; ‘It’s There Because Of Us’ (satire)
On previous anniversaries of the 9/11 attacks I posted about what the BBC report would be like if it reported it in the way it reported terrorist attacks against Israel (see below). But the media's downplaying of all Islamic attacks is getting pretty much the same. Hence the new anniversary graphic above.
A coalition of Islamic groups is calling for the addition of a symbol of their faith to be added to the spire that adorns the Freedom Tower in Lower Manhattan, with the contention that the skyscraper would never have been constructed if not for a group of Muslims.PMW: UK MP acts against Jibril Rajoub following PMW report
Protecting Endangered Religious Values and Enhancing Remembrance Sites – Islamic Organization Network (PERVERSION), an umbrella organization of mostly grassroots American Muslim associations, petitioned the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, to arrange for the installation of an Islamic crescent at the top of, or in place of, the spire that currently adorns the apex of the structure. According to PERVERSION, the addition of the symbol, a feature that distinguishes mosques, would finally give proper attribution to the very reason for the existence of One World Trade Center.
“If not for the courageous acts of thirteen Muslim aviation students in 2001, the Freedom Tower would never have been built,” read the statement of PERVERSION. “Yet not a single tribute to the deeds of those young men, who acted very specifically in the name of their Muslim faith, can be found at the site of their defining moment. It would be most fitting for the Port Authority to install a crescent at the tip of the spire to acknowledge the existential debt the building owes to those men and their Islamic belief.”
The petition names both the Port Authority, which owns most of the World Trade Center site, and the Durst Corporation, which manages the property and its leases, as addressees. A spokesman for PERVERSION insisted the group does not wish to see the integrity of the tower compromised – merely that it should include a visible testament to its provenance.
British Member of Parliament Joan Ryan (Labour) last week requested that the British Secretary of State Amber Rudd prohibit the entry of Palestinian Authority and Fatah leader Jibril Rajoub into Britain. MP Ryan’s appeal is a result of Palestinian Media Watch’s report “The Jibril Rajoub File” published last month, which documents Rajoub’s public glorification of terror and incitement to murder Israelis during the recent terror wave.Anti-Israel UN seminar led by BDS activists
In her letter to the British Home Department, MP Joan Ryan wrote:
“The Home Secretary has the power to deny entry to Britain to any non-UK national who seeks to foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence or seeks to provoke others to terrorist acts... I wish to draw your attention to the statements of Jibril Rajoub, a member of Fatah’s Central Committee and head of the Palestinian Olympic Committee... I attach a dossier of information compiled by Palestinian Media Watch about Jibril Rajoub. As you will see, he has a long and consistent history of making statements which seek to incite terrorism and glorify its perpetrators. I believe that a statement from your department making clear that Jibril Rajoub will be prohibited from entering the UK will send an unequivocal message that Britain does not and will not tolerate the promotion of terrorism.”
[Letter from MP Joan Ryan to Secretary of State for the Home Department Amber Rudd, Sept. 6, 2016]
(A copy of MP Ryan’s letter follows below.)
The PMW report referred to by MP Ryan includes over 20 pages of examples of Rajoub’s statements and activities promoting terror, prohibiting peace building events, and glorifying terrorists, such as the examples below:
The United Nations Department of Public Information held a media seminar in Pretoria, South Africa earlier this month on peace in the Middle East. The stated goal of the three-day seminar was to bring together “politicians, academics and other experts exploring new ways to narrate the complex and evolving story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”Israeli officials not invited to UN Middle East peace seminar
While the UN is meant to be an objective body, no official Israeli representatives were invited to participate. The current Palestinian representative to the UN and their former representative to the European Union both took part in the seminar. Moreover, most of the speakers at the event are known for their anti-Israel views including Professor Steven Friedman from the University of Johannesburg who attacked Israel and defended the BDS movement. Other officials affiliated with the BDS movement took part in the seminar and were quoted on the official UN website.
Israel’s Ambassador to the Danny Danon wrote a letter to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon harshly criticizing the fact that the UN sponsored an anti-Israel event. “The UN has a moral obligation to act in accordance with the values and purposes of its charter, and events like this undermine the integrity and impartiality of the UN,” wrote Ambassador Danon. “It is unfortunate that approximately 6.5 million dollars annually are diverted from those in dire need of humanitarian assistance to bodies whose only function is to serve as public relations departments for the Palestinian cause,” the Ambassador continued.
Ambassador Danon also criticized the participation of BDS activists in the UN seminar, writing that “BDS is a notorious anti-Israel movement, which is conducting a global campaign of misinformation and outright slander against my country. Such activity against a member state ought not to be promoted by the UN.”
The United Nations Public Information Department recently held an International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East in Pretoria, South Africa, but neglected to invite any official Israeli representatives, according to Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon.UN Commission Finds Jews to Be “Only Ethnic Group That Doesn’t Really Belong Anywhere” (satire)
Film directors, journalists, politicians, academics and experts in a variety of fields were invited to the three-day seminar to explore "new ways to narrate the complex and evolving story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
Despite the notable lack of Israeli officials, the Palestinian representative to the United Nations and former Palestinian ambassador to the European Union participated extensively in the seminar.
"The vast majority of the speakers at the seminar are known for having anti-Israel stances," Danon said, adding that BDS activists played a significant role in the event.
The “Jewish Question” is a lot like the Kardashians – a lot of people have tried to understand what all the fuss is about, but no one seems to have a 100% convincing explanation. Recently however, the United Nations tasked a commission with finally answering the question of “where all these damn Jews are coming from, and where do they belong?” After several months and following an investigation rivaling those of Encyclopedia Brown himself, the Commission has released its findings.ISIS-inspired extremist 'shouting "Allahu Akbar" stabbed a man at random then chased his bleeding victim down the street before turning his knife on police' in a frenzied terror attack in Sydney
“Jews,” according to the Commission, “despite genetic testing showing they’re all related, don’t really come from or belong anywhere.” The UN statement read, “We are currently working off the hypothesis that the People of the Book are produced via a process we call ‘Spontaneous Jewneration.’” A process of elimination led the group to that conclusion, after they narrowed the most likely choices to Europe/Russia and the Middle East. The Commission announced that, “we asked Arabs, Iranians, smaller Middle Eastern groups, and others such as BDS and Roger Waters. They all seemed to think that Jews came from Europe and Russia. Thus, we approached European nations (Germany, Poland, Spain, etc.) and Russia. But as it turns out, Jews didn’t do too hot in those places either.”
Therefore, without any other options, the group came up with the idea of Spontaneous Jewneration. Most people seem to think that Jews come from somewhere, and if that’s the case, it follows that they belong somewhere as well. However, given that Jews having a right to live in the Mideast, let alone their own state, is such a contentious issue, and given past failures to live in Europe, it seems that the Jewish question will forever be the Kylie Jenner of the Kardashians. People know they should care but don’t have the energy to do all the research needed to have an informed opinion.
A 22-year-old man allegedly inspired by ISIS has been charged with terrorism and attempted murder, after allegedly stabbing a man in a Western Sydney park.Andrew Bolt: ABC claims West Bank "occupied"
Grandfather Wayne Greenhalgh, 59, was on his daily walk in a reserve in Minto on Saturday afternoon when he was allegedly stabbed by Ihsas Khan, who was shouting 'Allahu Akbar, this is a good day to die'.
After receiving multiple stab wounds to his hands and body Mr Greenhalgh escaped to a nearby property where he was taken into an adjoining hairdressing salon by the owner.
A local resident said she watched in horror as property owner Duyen Phan barricaded the entrance as Mr Khan, 22, allegedly attempted to smash his way inside before local heroes intervened.
Sivei Ah Chong, 43, confronted Mr Khan and repeatedly bashed him over the head with a plank of wood, stopping him from getting to Mr Greenhalgh, according to The Daily Telegraph.
Here we go again with the ABC's Middle East correspondent, whose apparent antipathy to Israel has her claiming the West Bank is "occupied" [and refers to "palestinian territory"].ABC Sophie McNeill doesn't learn. 'Occupied' ?
Gerald Steinberg: Ethnic cleansing: Memories of 1929 and 1948
The short video that Prime Minister Netanyahu released on Friday on the obstacles, as he sees them, to peace with the Palestinians contained a number of central messages. But the one that got primary attention was his reference to ethnic cleansing – specifically the Palestinian demand that in any agreement, none of the Jews living beyond the 1948 “green line” would be allowed to remain.Netanyahu apparently not to meet Obama during US visit
The condemnation and outrage that followed, from the US State Department, journalists, Knesset members and in social media was intense, and predictable. Netanyahu was accused of pandering to the Israeli Right to shore up his standing in the polls (although the video was in English with Hebrew and Arabic subtitles). US officials repeated their opposition to settlements, and referred to “that type of terminology” (ethnic cleansing) as “inappropriate and unhelpful.”
As is often the case, many of the instant pundits and Netanyahu critics missed the context and the substance. In the Israeli historical memory, beyond the Nazis and the Holocaust, the term “ethnic cleansing” brings up images of the 1929 Hebron massacre and the 1948 forced exodus of the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Both events remain sources of trauma. In 1929, Arab rioting that began in Jerusalem extended to Hebron – the second holiest city for Jews. Sixty-seven Jewish residents were killed, and the survivors forced to flee. The British forces that controlled Palestine did not provide protection and it was only after the 1967 war that Jews returned to live in Hebron – a priority then and now, 50 years later, precisely in response to memories of 1929.
The ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem is even more sensitive and prominent. In May 1948, when the combined forces of the Arab Legion (the Jordanian army) and the local Palestinian militias conquered the Jewish Quarter, they did not disarm the Jewish residents and treat them as residents of occupied territory, in accordance with the Geneva Convention and international law. Rather, all of the Jews were expelled from their homes – every single one.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will apparently not meet with US President Barack Obama on his trip to the United States this month for the United Nations General Assembly.PA seeks UN action on settlements in wake of PM’s ‘ethnic cleansing’ video
Though the Prime Minister’s Office has refused to officially confirm that a meeting between the two leaders will not take place, no schedule for such a confab has been set.
Netanyahu will arrive in New York for the General Assembly on Wednesday, September 20. High-level meetings of this type are usually announced more than a week in advance.
Netanyahu’s trip will likely be the last chance for a face-to-face meeting between Netanyahu and Obama before the US president leaves office in mid-January.
The Palestinian Authority on Sunday redoubled efforts to persuade the international community to take action over Israel’s settlements, following the release of a video by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which he accuses the PA of advocating “ethnic cleansing.”Gaza Rocket Attack Fails Due to Premature Explosion at Launch
Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, said the prime minister’s video — published on Facebook and Twitter on Friday — “shows that Netanyahu has crossed every red line with his egregious and blatantly unethical remarks that flout international law.”
In the video, Netanyahu decried what he said was a PA wish for the West Bank to be free of Jews in a future Palestinian state, calling such a desire “ethnic cleansing.”
The remarks drew swift condemnation from the United States and members of the Arab Israeli community.
Gaza terrorists were undoubtedly anxious late Saturday night upon failing to carry out a rocket attack on southern Israel, due to quick-trigger backfire on the launching pad.UK Labour’s Corbyn turns down Herzog invite to Yad Vashem
According to Arab media reports, the operatives tried to launch two rocket attacks towards Israel: but both rockets went off too early, during takeoff.
It was a case of premature explosion on the launching pad.
No details were made available regarding possible casualties resulting from the backfire.
There have been cases in the past when women and children have been injured as a result of such “work accidents.”
Britain’s Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has reportedly refused an invitation from Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog, who heads Israel’s own Labor Party, to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in the wake of a months-long anti-Semitism controversy surrounding large numbers of officials and activists affiliated with the British party.UK's Labour suspends Jewish donor for likening Nazis to Corbyn leadership
The British daily The Guardian reported on Saturday that Corbyn had cited existing commitments for turning down Herzog’s invitation, which was made in April, and offered to send in his stead Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson or its general secretary, Iain McNicol.
“I’m very disappointed Jeremy turned down the invitation to visit Israel from our sister party,” Labour MP Joan Ryan, head of Labour Friends of Israel, was quoted as saying.
“Given the deep concerns about his commitment to a two-state solution, his labeling of terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah as ‘friends,’ and the allegations of anti-Semitism which have occurred on his watch, such a visit should have been a priority,” she added.
The British Labour party has suspended a prominent Jewish donor, after he allegedly used the term "Nazi stormtroopers" to describe supporters of Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn.NGO Monitor: Head of War on Want Departs, Leaves Legacy of BDS
British media reported Sunday that Labour has subsequently launched an investigation into allegations of abuse by the donor, Michael Foster, in accordance with election rules which prohibit "abuse of any kind by members or supporters".
The comments in question were made in an article Foster wrote for the Daily Mail on Sunday, entitled "Why I despise Jeremy Corbyn and his Nazi stormtroopers."
Foster, who has reportedly donated over £400,000 to the party over the past two-and-a-half years, denied using the word "Nazi" himself, saying it was added to the headline by Daily Mail editors.
However, the German term he used for stormtrooper, Sturmabteilung, is widely recognized to refer to the Nazi Brown Shirts.
In June 2016, War on Want (WoW) announced that Executive Director John Hilary would be stepping down. Under Hilary’s leadership, WoW has played a leading role and mobilizer of anti-Israel BDS (boycotts, divestments, and sanctions) campaigns.BBC failure to adhere to editorial guidelines highlighted by ‘War on Want’ story
According to an article in today’s Sunday Times (“War on Want chief quits amid claims of anti-Semitism,” Andrew Gilligan, September 11, 2016), Hilary’s departure comes as the UK Charity Commission considers complaints about “campaigning and political activities” by WoW, and is preparing an “operational case report” on the charity. This procedure is carried out only when there is “significant public interest in the issues involved.”
As NGO Monitor has reported in detail, WoW has a long history of anti-Israel activities, including advancing false comparisons to apartheid South Africa and supporting a so-called Palestinian “right of return,” which would effectually mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. WoW also regularly utilizes demonizing rhetoric, accusing Israel of “war crimes,” “collective punishment,” “ethnic cleansing.”
Readers who are familiar with the record of the self-described political NGO ‘War on Want’ will perhaps not be surprised by news of the Charity Commission’s investigation. It is however worth remembering that despite its long history of controversial activity, the BBC has engaged in fundraising from which that NGO has benefited, has provided a platform for the promotion of the political agenda of a member of its staff – sometimes without informing audiences of her affiliations as editorial guidelines demand – and earlier this year brought in John Hilary himself as a contributor to a debate on the issue of boycotts without adequate clarification of his organisation’s political agenda.Supporting Terror in the Pages of Newsweek
The BBC’s own editorial guidelines on impartiality state:
“We should not automatically assume that contributors from other organisations (such as academics, journalists, researchers and representatives of charities) are unbiased and we may need to make it clear to the audience when contributors are associated with a particular viewpoint, if it is not apparent from their contribution or from the context in which their contribution is made.”
The ‘War on Want’ example once again highlights the need for consistent adherence to those guidelines, which are currently all too frequently ignored.
Newsweek published an op-ed on Gaza by Daniel Levy that is not only detached from basic reality, but breaches multiple rules of journalistic ethics. The writer of an opinion piece or editorial is entitled to express personal opinions, but in the words of the famous Senator, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”IsraellyCool: Newsweek Middle East Senior Deputy Editor Leila Hatoum A Vile Antisemite
Gaza is brutally ruled by the genocidal terror organization, Hamas. Yet author Daniel Levy refers to Hamas as “a political movement with political goals and when it resorts to violence it is as it means not an end in itself.”
A professional journalist must support all claims with a legitimate source of information. Levy cites no source for his bizarre notion that Hamas is a “political movement with political goals,” while he entirely covers up that Hamas is designated as a terror organization by: Australia, Canada, Egypt, the European Union, Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States: in short, by most of the Western world.
Levy blames Gaza’s frequent wars entirely on Israel, despite Hamas’s publicly stated genocidal intentions toward the Jewish state: Hamas works not only for the destruction of Israel but also the murder of all Jews, a goal that Hamas espouses publicly and and is in fact a central component of its founding charter. Is wiping out Israel and murdering all Jews what Levy means by “political goals?”
Last night, I thoroughly debunked a video by Newsweek Middle East, that purported to prove that there was, and is, a Palestinian state.Biased Reuters, AFP Captions on Disputed Gaza Death
In my post, I speculated that the reason Newsweek Middle East would put out such propaganda is because the operation was licensed by Newsweek to ARY Digital Network, a Dubia-based company.
Today, I have discovered a more likely reason: their Senior Deputy Editor Leila Hatoum hates Jews.
These are some of her tweets in response to Israel supporters who reacted to the video – count the antisemitic tropes.
Both Reuters and Agence France Presse, major photo services with thousands of clients across the world, published incomplete, tendentious captions Friday concerning a Gaza teen killed under disputed circumstances. While Palestinian sources claim that Israeli troops shot 18-year-old Abdel-Rahman Al-Dabbagh in the head during a border clash, the Israeli army said that it only used tear gas. As a Reuters new story accurately reported:PreOccupiedTerritory: BBC Looking For More Negative Angle On Israel’s Treatment Of Wounded Syrians (satire)
An 18-year-old Palestinian was killed during a rock-throwing protest near the Gaza-Israel border on Friday and a Palestinian health official said Israeli soldiers shot him, but the Israeli army said troops were not responsible.
Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said Abdel-Rahman Al-Dabbagh was killed by an Israeli bullet to the head during the border clash in the central Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military said troops had sought to contain the violence on the other side of the border fence and had used only tear gas.
"Dozens of rioters breached the buffer zone and attempted to damage the security (border) fence. ... Forces stationed at the border used tear gas that led to the dispersal of the riot. Following a preliminary review, the Israel Defense Forces did not conduct the reported shooting," a military statement said.
Nevertheless, in violation of Reuters' policy to "take no sides, tell all sides," Reuters' captions about the incident completely ignore the information from the Israeli side. Reuters' handbook further advises journalists:
The British Broadcasting Corporation is holding off on production of a segment on injured Syrian civilians receiving medical treatment in Israeli hospitals until a sufficiently dark portrayal of the policy can be worked into the broadcast.Algeria Paralympic team investigated for avoiding Israel match
Thousands of Syrians have been spirited across the Syrian frontier with the Golan Heights to institutions such as Rambam Hospital in Haifa and Sieff Hospital here in Safed, in clandestine coordination between the Israeli military and various Syrian groups fighting the Assad regime. Pro-Assad media and institutions refer in blanket terms to the patients in Israel as terrorists, but BBC editors are looking for an angle that preserves the wounded Syrians’ innocent humanity while highlighting Israel’s cynical exploitation of the situation.
“It has to be just credible enough – we do have some journalistic standards,” explained Ann T. Semitt of the Jerusalem bureau. “It doesn’t fly anymore with much of our audience to explicitly parrot the propaganda of a genocidal dictator such as Assad, so we have to find a different approach to smearing Israel in an article about something good Israel is otherwise doing. ”
Semitt said the bureau and BBC headquarters in London had held extensive discussions of options for framing the Israeli medical treatment in negative terms, but had yet to hit on a compelling formula. “We couldn’t find a convincing way to shoehorn mention of Palestinian suffering into the clip without it seeming contrived, and the best we’ve come up with so far is overstating the plight of Druze residents of the Golan Heights, and emphasizing that Israel’s annexation of the area has never been internationally recognized. But that doesn’t spark the emotion the way, for example, charges of organ-harvesting might. We’re still basically at the drawing-board stage.”
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has opened an investigation into the Algerian women's goalball team's failure to arrive in Rio de Janeiro ahead of their matches against the United States and Israel, BBC reported Sunday morning.Dore Gold: Archaeology is best defense of Jewish connection to Jerusalem
The Algerian team was set to play the US on Friday, with another match set against Israel on Saturday.
Seven members of the team supposedly claimed to have missed a bus from a training camp in Poland, which in turn caused them to miss their flight to the Paralympic Games in Brazil last Monday.
The team also claimed that in the five days that followed they couldn't get new tickets due to a public holiday occurring in Algeria.
"To have five days traveling to Rio, it's a long time. I've missed connections in the past, and you usually get there within 24 hours," IPC spokesman Craig Spence explained to the BBC.
The team's absence caused some to speculate on social media that they were avoiding Saturday's match against Israel.
"If, as many people believe, this is a political protest, we can take some form of action against them," Spence said. "It could be a slap on the wrist, or we could remove the goalball team from the tournament altogether."
Archeologist are scientifically proving the Jewish people’s connection to Jerusalem, defending the State of Israel in a way that no one but the IDF can, Foreign Ministry director-general Dore Gold said Thursday night. Opening the City of David’s 17th Annual Archeological Conference, Gold addressed “the international attempt to disengage Jerusalem from Jewish history.”
Gold specifically focused on a UNESCO resolution adopted in April, which ignored Judaism’s ties to its holiest site, the Temple Mount. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all consider the Temple Mount to be a holy site, but the UNESCO resolution referred to the area solely as al-Aksa Mosque/ al-Haram al- Sharif, except for two references to the Western Wall plaza that were put in parentheses.
The text also referred to the plaza as al-Buraq Plaza, named for the Prophet Muhammad’s horse, which sparked an outroar at what Jerusalem slammed as an attempt by the UN to rewrite history.
Gold charged that UNESCO fails to live up to its acronym, which stands for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, accusing it instead of promoting the distortion of history.
He said Israel must understand why this is happening, and what it can do about it.
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