More proof Juan Cole is a liar

Last week I noted that Juan Cole made quite a number of mistakes in his little "fact box" about Gaza - mistakes that he didn't bother correcting even after they were pointed out to him.

One of them was when he says:

Exports from Gaza to the rest of the world allowed by Israel: 0

He sourced this from HRW, which correctly stated that "No goods have left Gaza through Israel since May 12, according to Gisha, an Israeli rights group focused on Gaza." May was when the agricultural season ended. Which means that hundreds of tons of goods were exported before May 12 - a fact that Cole purposefully misrepresents when he says a flat zero.

But perhaps he was trying to imply that Israel would not allow any more goods to be exported from Gaza this year?

Wrong again.

From the IDF Spokesperson:

In light of the agricultural export season due to start at the end of November, and following the finalization of the trade process from Gaza to various European markets, a continuing education program for Palestinian agriculturists took place last Tuesday in the Coordination and Liaison Administration for Gaza.

As part of the conference, a detailed explanation of the export process was given. This process begins from the moment the product is picked and packed in Gaza, after which it is sent out of Gaza via the Kerem Shalom land crossing and sold in the European market, all while maintaining the freshness and high quality of the products. Furthermore, representatives of the Coordinator of the Government Activates in the Territories (COGAT) have announced that starting next month, an initial pilot program of furniture export from Gaza to Europe will commence.

This conference is part of the ongoing daily cooperation between the Coordination and Liaison Administration for Gaza and the Palestinians in the agricultural sector. The conference was attended by representatives of both the Agricultural Ministry of Israel and Gaza, observers on behalf of the Quartet, representatives of Israeli exporters, representative of the European States in the PA and a representative of the Kerem Shalom land crossing. All the attendees mentioned the great importance of the cooperation in this field and expressed their hope it would expand to other fields as well.

Mr. Tim Williams, the Quartet Advisor said: “It is important that we will see exports from Gaza and not just from the network of the Dutch project. We know that the Quartet is working and supporting the advancement of this field and that Israel already okayed the export of furniture and textiles, and I expect that from now on we will begin to see exports of furniture already in the coming weeks as was promised”.

During the past year, Palestinians from the Gaza Strip have exported more than 399 tons of strawberries, 10 million carnations, 6.5 tons of Cherry tomato and 6 tons of red, green and yellow bell peppers to European markets. In the coming year, Palestinians are expected to export 1,000 tons of strawberries, 20 million carnations and 150 tons of red, green and yellow bell peppers. The exports are carried out thanks to the cooperation between COGAT and the Palestinian agricultural coordinator who work together in order to improve the lives of Gaza’s civilian population.

We see that there is a huge project being coordinated among multiple groups in Israel, Gaza and the EU to ensure exports coming out of Gaza can be done safely and effectively, and the numbers have been doubling year after year.

But Juan Cole, celebrated academic who cares nothing for actual facts, sums it all up as "zero."

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Juan Cole isn't very "informed" about Gaza

I stumbled across this piece of stupidity by Juan Cole where he takes already suspect statistics from HRW and elsewhere - and twists them even more:

Truckloads of goods per year allowed by Israel into Gaza today: 1,000

Truckloads of goods per year allowed by Israel into Gaza in 2005: 2,500

Exports from Gaza to the rest of the world allowed by Israel: 0

HRW's numbers are per week, not per year. One would think that a celebrated academic would know the difference.

Beyond that, the number of truckloads to Gaza is now about 1250 a week - 25% higher than Cole says. And a few events happened between 2005 and now, which Cole and HRW don't address, that make security an issue.

Israel allows exports of strawberries and flowers from Gaza, and did this year as well. Growing season ended in May. HRW says this, Cole ignores it. Cole is lying when he says that the amount of exports from Gaza are "zero."

Moreover, Israel requested a one-time export of tens of thousands of palm fronds in September, which was refused by Hamas. Does Cole approve?

Percentage of Palestinian children in Gaza who are stunted from malnutrition: 15%

In fact, the latest Lancet study showed:

6% of 1883 children who were assessed were stunted (8% of 930 boys vs 3% of 950 girls, p=0·01), less than 1% had wasting, 2% were underweight, 11% were anaemic (7% of boys vs 14% of girls), and 15% were overweight and obese (11% of boys vs 20% of girls; 11% were overweight, and 4% were obese).

Moreover, a higher 11.5% stunting rate was considered a fantastic achievement in a recent World Bank report, and the stunting rate in Gaza is small compared to many other Arab countries!

Number of key medicines which have gone out of stock in Gaza because of the blockade and consequent money problems: 163

There are no restrictions on importing medicine into Gaza. None. Any shortage of medicines is because of the PA (not Hamas) not paying for them. The blockade has nothing - nothing at all - to do with this.

Poor Juan, so blinded by hate that he is forced to bend statistics and believe unreliable sources to push his agenda.

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Fisking a single Juan Cole paragraph

A reader emailed me to fisk a new Juan Cole posting on his blog. While I would normally not waste my time on something that does not get wide circulation, in the light of my now thinking more in terms of training people how to do hasbara, I thought this would be an opportunity not only to fisk, but to give pointers on how to fisk.

I do not have the time to show the lies in the entire piece, but the first paragraph will do quite well (and take up enough time, thank you.)

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his far rightwing government have slapped President Obama in the face with mail gloves by refusing to extend the freeze on new colonies in the Palestinian West Bank. Palestine Authority president Mahmoud Abbas reaffirmed his refusal to go forward with direct negotiations if Israelis were going to be seizing land that was being negotiated for while the talks were ongoing!

1. "Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his far rightwing government." As Cole well knows, left-wing Labor is part of this government. Likud itself is not "far rightwing" by any measure, as it is the government that made peace with Egypt and withdrew from Gaza. The PA, on the other hand, has every attribute of a far right-wing government, as it refuses to negotiate without preconditions and it refuses to compromise on even the most basic demands that Israel could not possibly countenance, like the illusory "right to return." It also refuses to allow any Jews in its nascent state and it imposes a death penalty on anyone who sells his land to Jews, making it an apartheid government as well.

2. "slapped President Obama in the face with mail gloves" is ridiculous imagery - mail gloves are metal gloves used by armored knights. The implication is that Netanyahu is actively injuring Obama, both in terms of honor and physically, which is absurd. (And isn't it interesting that Cole now cares so much about the honor of the President of the United States when he would have applauded any foreign leader treating Obama's predecessor with contempt.)

3. "by refusing to extend the freeze" - There was a ten month freeze,and for nine and a half of those months the Palestinian Authority refused to negotiate with Israel. As Cole will presently mention, he accepts Abbas' refusal to negotiate while the freeze is not in effect, but did he ever say a word about Abbas' intransigence while the freeze was in effect? Of course not!

4. "on new colonies" - Israel has not sanctioned the building of new Jewish towns for years. They have, in fact, dismantled numerous structures built by Jews outside existing boundaries of towns and villages in Judea and Samaria. This is simply a lie. Note also that he chooses the word "colonies" and not the more popular "settlements" because he wants the reader to think of Israel as a  "colonialist" state.

5. "in the Palestinian West Bank." Which parts of the West Bank will end up as "Palestinian" and which will end up in Israel is up for negotiation. UN resolution 242 makes clear that Israel must have secure borders and that the 1949 armistice lines were not the recognized borders of Israel. There has never been a Palestinian Arab state so calling the West Bank "Palestinian" is presumptuous. You can call it "formerly occupied by Jordan," you can call it "disputed," but if you want to be accurate you cannot call it "Palestinian" unless you are referring to Mandate-era Palestine, in which case all of Israel is "Palestinian" as well.

6. "Palestine Authority president Mahmoud Abbas" - who is now the illegal president of the PA because he went past his term in office and did not call new elections.

7. "reaffirmed his refusal to go forward with direct negotiations" - which proves that he is the intransigent party here, not the "obstreperous Likud government" as Cole goes on to say later.

8. "if Israelis were going to be seizing land that was being negotiated for" - All the building happening right now is within existing towns, no more land is being "seized" by Israel. In fact, Palestinian Arabs have been seizing land by planting trees and crops in disputed areas that would and should be up for negotiations.

9. "while the talks were ongoing!" - The Pa negotiated in the past without this condition, which means that it is the PA that has changed the rules and added preconditions, not Israel.

When reading a piece by someone like Cole, one must not only look at the main points but at the side-statements and adjectives, which are in some ways even worse. His entire framework is twisted, so one cannot take literally anything he says to be the truth unless it is verified from another source.

And one must also realize that Cole knows every fact I bring up above is true - and he chooses to ignore the truth anyway. This is enough to prove that his words have no value, and his entire intent is demonization and propaganda, not truth.

The truth is that there is one intransigent party here, and that is the PLO led by Mahmoud Abbas. (The PLO does the negotiations, not the PA.) If Obama is to be counseled to lean on anyone, it is the PLO. The negotiating position of the PLO has not changed since 1988 - no compromises, no flexibility, no concessions since then. Not one. Their demands are identical, and they add up to the same result - the ultimate destruction of Israel. (See this 2009 video just sent to me for yet more proof of that.) This is the reality, the reality that people like Cole know very well but spend countless hours trying to distract the world away from with their mantras of lies like "seizing land" and "far rightwing government."

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My comment to Juan Cole

Juan Cole writes in his blog:

The spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, made waves this week when he included in his blessing for Rosh Ha-Shana, the Jewish New Year, a prayer that a plague should strike the Palestinians and wipe them out, including Mahmoud Abbas. He said, “Let Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority] and all these evil folk perish from this world. May God smite them with plague, them and these Palestinians.”

I wrote a comment - we'll see if he publishes it:

It is amusing that Juan Cole, who famously defended Ahmadinejad by claiming that his statement to wipe Israel from the face of the earth was a mistranslation, relies on Yahoo to translate the words of Rabbi Yosef. YNet today gave a more accurate translation: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3945840,00.html

Yosef did not wish a plague on all Palestinians, only the ones who “persecute Israel.”

Since Cole cares so much about accurate translations, I trust that he will correct this and apologize.

This picture was taken in Iran in 2008. I guess the podium designer doesn't know Farsi as well as Cole does.


(h/t Dan)

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IDF releases timeline of events. Juan Cole praises Lebanese murderer.

A senior IDF source provides us (via email) with a background and narrative of the events of Tuesday that was given at a briefing earlier Wednesday.

Hezbollah’s Influence on the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF)

· Since mid-2007, there has been an increased in activity of Global Jihad in the area of Southern Lebanon.

· Recently, we have seen more incidence of violence by Hezbollah directed against UNIFIL’s peacekeeping force.

· LAF brigades in the past were often majority Christian soldiers. ≈ this has changed. The LAF policy now dictates that different brigades will rotate responsibility for the area, and this includes brigades with varying ethno-religious composition.

· There are now a number of brigades of Shiite commanders in charge of forces in the border area. It is likely, given where these soldiers are from – that many of them have relatives who are Hezbollah activists or supporters.

· There has been increasing influence of Hezbollah upon LAF forces, and growth in this has been seen in recent years, as more violations of Res. 1701 have occurred by the Lebanese Armed Forces.

Provocation, Intimidation & Tension in Recent Months:

· Over the past three months, the Central and Eastern Brigades of the LAF have acted with increasing aggression towards Israeli forces stationed along the border. IDF forces have been threatened verbally, as well as with physical gestures by Lebanese troops, aimed at escalating tension in this already sensitive border area. Certain LAF companies have in fact made threats and sought to provoke the IDF through threatening gestures with heavy weaponry, including machine guns and RPGs.

· Israel has informed the UNIFIL Liaison of the LAF’s demonstrations of aggression and attempts to enflame the situation, and has expressed the IDF’s concerns that such behaviour could spark a deterioration into violent confrontation – something which the Israeli side wishes only to prevent.

· Nevertheless, such provocative behaviour has taken place so often that it has in fact become a regular dangerous routine. This behaviour, over a number of months, laid the framework for the tragically violent incident that took place on Tuesday.

* The LAF is the sovereign army of Lebanon, and receives its orders through a standard military central command structure, in coordination with the Lebanese government in Beirut.

· Tuesday’s tragic events did not take place out of the blue. The increasingly risk-prone aggression and provocation by Lebanese forces over the past three months demonstrated clearly – both at the time and now with the benefit of hindsight – the intention for violence by the Lebanese forces.

The Incident:

· Tuesday began with plans by the IDF, coordinated in extreme detail with the UNIFIL Liaison Officer, to carry out a routine pruning of shrubbery near the fence which lies at a distance of 200-300 metres behind the “Blue Line” internationally recognised border between Israel and Lebanon.

· Such maintenance work is of absolute necessity for the safety and security of not just the Israeli military, but rather also the civilian residential areas and agricultural areas, which lie in, close proximity to the border area. It should be noted that Hezbollah forces using similar shrub growth as cover after illegally infiltrating Israeli territory facilitated the kidnapping of two IDF soldiers during the 2006 Lebanon War.

· Despite Israel’s absolute right to maintain this border area, which lies in undisputed Israeli territory, the IDF coordinates all such activities with the UNIFIL Liaison Officer, and often makes changes to its own plans due to UNIFIL’s concerns.

· In order to prevent any misunderstanding, prior to Tuesday’s planned maintenance work the Israeli officer in charge personally patrolled the relevant area together with the UNIFIL Liaison Officer to demonstrate, in an explicit and specific manner, which trees and shrubbery the IDF intended to work on. All such plans were approved by UNIFIL before any activities by the IDF took place.

· On Tuesday morning, the planned commencement of the maintenance work at 08:30am was postponed by a number of hours as per a request by UNIFIL. When the later time already agreed upon had come, UNIFIL once again requested that the IDF delay such activities a number of additional minutes, and the IDF further complied.

· Subsequently, the IDF sent crane equipment down to the site, in order to demonstrate exactly what activities it planned to carry out.

· At this point, the Lebanese Armed Forces opened fire with snipers towards Israel. It must be noted, however, that such fire was not aimed at the soldiers located by the fence, but rather directly aimed at IDF officers who were standing in a separate area, on higher ground. These officers were wearing helmets and flack jackets. The officer who was killed by this fire was shot in the head, despite the armour he was wearing. This demonstrates the premeditated, planned and deliberate nature of the Lebanese attack.

· Following the Israeli forces’ coming under unprovoked attack by the LAF, the IDF opened fire against the specific parts of LAF forces who had fired against Israel. The IDF made a clear distinction between such LAF forces, and any UNIFIL personnel or civilians that may have been in the area, thus compromising Israel’s capabilities out of genuine concern to prevent any innocent casualties.

· The Lebanese Army cynically manipulated Israel’s goodwill in coordinating all activities with UNIFIL observers, as well as Israel’s ongoing desire to avoid any deterioration into violent confrontation with our neighbours.

Juan Cole, furiously spinning  the Lebanon border incident, reveals not only his (purposeful)  ignorance of the sequence of events, but also that he revels in the death of any Israeli:

One surprising thing is that the Lebanese army showed such spunk in the face of the perceived Israeli affront. They know very well that they are vastly outgunned, and of course the Israeli military hit them with fire from helicopter gunships and artillery pieces. What made them so bold, that they shot and killed an Israeli officer over the tree removal?

Wow, isn't a pre-meditated and unprovoked sniping of Israeli officers standing in the open a couple of hundred yards away, "bold" and "spunky"?

(h/t Dan)

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Juan Cole defending genocidal maniac, again

From the "Atlantic Free Press", by Juan Cole:

Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul continue to show themselves among the few in Congress with any integrity and backbone. They declined to go along with a resolution charging Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad with incitement to genocide, given his alleged call for Israel to be 'wiped off the face of the map.'

As most of my readers know, Ahmadinejad did not use that phrase in Persian. He quoted an old saying of Ayatollah Khomeini calling for 'this occupation regime over Jerusalem" to "vanish from the page of time.' Calling for a regime to vanish is not the same as calling for people to be killed. Ahmadinejad has not to my knowledge called for anyone to be killed.

I was talking to two otherwise well-informed Israeli historians a couple of weeks ago, and they expressed the conviction that Ahmadinejad had threatened to nuke Israel. I was taken aback. First of all, Iran doesn't have a nuke. Second, there is no proof that Iran even has a nuclear weapons program. Third, Ahmadinejad has denied wanting a bomb. Fourth, Ahmadinejad has never threatened any sort of direct Iranian military action against Israel. In other words, that is a pretty dramatic fear for educated persons to feel, on the basis of . . . nothing.

I renew my call to readers to write protest letters to newspapers and other media every time they hear it alleged that Ahmadinejad (or "Iran"!) has threatened to "wipe Israel off the map." There is no such idiom in Persian and it is not what he said, and the mistranslation gives entirely the wrong impression. Wars can start over bad translations.

It was apparently some Western wire service that mistranslated the phrase as 'wipe Israel off the map', which sounds rather more violent than calling for regime change. Since then, Iranian media working in English have themselves depended on that translation. One of the tricks of Right-Zionist propagandists is to substitute these English texts for Ahmadinejad's own Persian text. (Ethan Bronner at the New York Times tried to pull this, and more recently Michael Rubin at the American Enterprise Institute.) But good scholarship requires that you go to the original Persian text in search of the meaning of a phrase. Bronner and Rubin are guilty disregarding philological scholarship in favor of mere propagandizing.

Cole is engaging in the usual dishonesty so endemic among the terror-supporting Left where he attempts to use semantics to stupidly argue a point. (Those who claim that the term "anti-semite" means "hating Arabs, who are Semites" do this all the time.)

(His argument that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, based entirely on Iranian denials, is so absurd as to seem almost a parody of intellectualism.)

Let's look at exactly what Michael Rubin wrote, as he was demolishing Cole (and note that Cole does not address his point here:)

Revisionism is in full swing in Washington as some academics and policymakers bend over backwards to convince themselves and others that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does not mean what he says.
Today, the National Iranian American Council—a lobby group advocating the normalization of ties between the United States and the Islamic Republic—published this analysis, which ends:

The proper translation of Ahmadinejad’s quotes has been the subject of some debate. Kucinich argued that the translations used in the bill were either misquoted or out of context, offering alternative translations from the New York Times to convey his point.

It's a line which originated with Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor, has peddled. Indeed, Cole wrote:

I have a suggestion for my readers. Every time you see a newspaper article that alleges that Ahmadinejad said that Israel should be wiped off the face of the map, please write the editor. Say that this idiom does not exist in Persian, and that what Ahmadinejad actually said was, "This occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." And you can cite me.

Perhaps one can quibble over how to render a translation. Here, the Islamic Republic provides its own clarification. In its official translations, it headlined Ahmadinejad's call to "wipe Israel off the map."
There is a tendency among academics to feel they have to advocate for those countries they study. They should not. Nor should they advocate for the U.S. government. They should analyze dispassionately. But, ignoring or burying evidence that reflects badly on a regime is more likely to advance misunderstanding than advance rapprochement. It is time academics and policymakers both deal with reality as it is, rather than a sanitized version they would wish it to be.

Note Cole's dishonesty as he pretends that the official Iranian translation was just copying from American mistranslations.

The best proof that Cole knows his argument is weak is that he freely links to Kucinich's comments, but not to Michael Rubin's - because he knows that he is not saying anything that disproves Rubin's point. Rubin, on the other hand, has no such problem linking to Cole.

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