Barry Rubin on media lies

An excellent piece by Barry Rubin:

Israel is subject daily to scores of false claims and slanders that receive a remarkable amount of credibility in Western media, academic, and intellectual circles even when no proof is offered.

Palestinian groups (including the Gaza and Palestinian Authority regimes), associated local and allied foreign non-government organizations, Western radical and anti-Israel groups, and politically committed journalists are eager to act as propaganda agents making up false stories or transmitting them without serious thought or checking.

So the key question is to understand the deliberateness of this anti-Israel propaganda and evaluating the credibility of the sources.

Some of these are big false stories—the alleged killing of Muhammad al-Dura and the supposed Jenin massacre—others are tiny. Some—like the claim Israel was murdering Palestinians to steal their organs-- get into the main Western newspapers while others only make it into smaller and non-English ones.

Taken together, this campaign of falsification is creating a big wave not only of anti-Israel sentiment but of antisemitism on a Medieval scale, simply the modern equivalent of claims that the Jews poisoned wells, spread Bubonic Plague, or murdered children to use their blood for Passover matzohs.
Here are three actual examples of well-educated Westerners believing such modern legends reported to me recently by colleagues:

--A former classmate, one told me, claimed that the Palestinians are living in death camps, being starved, etc. Asked to provide facts and provided with evidence to the contrary, he could provide no real examples. Finally, he remarked, `The truth is always somewhere in the middle.’”

--Hundreds of American college professors signed a petition claiming that Israel was supposedly about to throw hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of the West Bank though there was zero evidence of any such intention and, of course, nothing ever happened.

--A British writer of some fame claimed, on the basis of an alleged single conversation with a questionable source, that Israel was preparing gas chambers for the mass murder of Palestinians. When asked if she was really claiming this would happen, she stated that it wasn’t going to happen but only because people like her had sounded the alarm to prevent it.

There is no limit. When stories are proven wrong, the damage remains, apologies are non-existent or muted, and no lesson is learned because the same process is soon repeated.

 Here is one example plucked from today’s mail. The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry claim Israel has seized seven oxygen machines intended for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and paid for by the Norwegian government. It said that a protest was being made to Norway. The story was picked up by several European newspapers. No evidence or specifics—what Israeli agency held them up? What dates? What hospitals were these for?--was provided.

Asked to look into the oxygen machine story, an Israeli official did so and pointed out that there are no controls over such imports into the West Bank so there would be no basis for holding up anything going there. As for Gaza, those directly involved in the process of sending in aid note that no applications to import such machines has been filed, there is no record of any such machines arriving, and thus nothing had been held up.

In short, the story is completely false, presuming that the Palestinian Authority health ministry won't provide documents and specifics. But that isn't going to happen as it will just be on to the next false story, hoping for a bigger media response.

Having seen so many such stories disproved over the years—as Israel’s credibility, while not perfect, has compared favorably with that of any Western democratic state—one might think a lesson would be learned. But as the great American journalist Eric Severeid remarked many years ago, nothing can protect someone when the media sets out deliberately to misunderstand and report falsely about them.

 Honorable journalists and scholars should take note and approach these false stories more skeptically. They should also reexamine their stereotypes and remember that their political views should be kept as much as possible out of their professional work.

Not so long ago, the above points would have been taken for granted as the most basic and obvious principles. They need to be relearned.

Read the whole thing.
(h/t sshender)

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The two truths that we see from the new Pal/Lebanese rights movement

Thousands attended a rally in Beirut on Sunday demanding the government giving Lebanese Palestinians their civil rights.

The arguments that Lebanese politicians are using to justify their endemic discrimination against Palestinian Arabs are hilariously specious. They will all claim to love the Palestinian Arabs, but then they add that big "but:"

For example:

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun stressed on Tuesday granting Palestinian refugees in Lebanon their rights, but noted that this requires funds that are unavailable.

He added after the FPM's weekly meeting that they cannot be granted right of ownership in Lebanon, and said that houses for Palestinians should be built in refugee camps, similar to those that were constructed at the Nahr al-Bared camp.

The MP stressed: "We cannot scatter the refugees throughout the Lebanese territories because if they lose their communication then they will lose their cause."

In other words, they must remain confined in squalid "refugee camps" and not be allowed to purchase land in the rest of Lebanon because if they are treated the same as other Lebanese, they would lose their Palestinian identities!

If Palestinian Arab nationalism is so weak that it cannot survive a nation treating its members like human beings, how strong was that nationalism to begin with?

Another MP is more explicit:

In an interview with OTV on Saturday MP Nematallah Abi Nasr , a member of the Free patriotic Movement said that he is concerned that the extended presence of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon would lead to their naturalization.

“Keeping the Palestinians in Lebanon kills the country and grants Israel a favor,” Abi Nasr said.

He said that the issue of granting foreigners property rights in Lebanon should be well-studied.

“It is not acceptable to grant the Palestinians civil rights while there are still armed Palestinian factions in the country ,” the MP added.

That's funny - there is an armed Hezbollah faction in the country; should that mean that Shiites should lose their property rights?

Prime Minister Hariri used different code-words in his remarks but said the same thing:

Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Tuesday said Lebanon has a duty to fulfill towards Palestinians' civil rights and vowed not abandon the Palestinian right of return.
"Lebanon has to ensure the safety of residents on its territory," Hariri told a conference at the Grand Serail under the title "Achievements: vision and future" at the invitation of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee.

Hariri, however, stressed that "building the Lebanese state is a priority."

"This small country has paid price in blood for the Palestine cause, and Lebanon is still committed to the cause," Hariri said.

Equally, Hariri, said, Palestinians living in Lebanon should realize the importance of stability in Lebanon for their cause.

 “But in Lebanon’s duties toward the Palestinians, there is no window of naturalization,” Hariri also said, adding, “We confirm our commitment to rejecting naturalization and to deal with the issue of weapons in and outside the Palestinian refugee camps.”

What he is saying is that there is no way that Lebanon will allow the Palestinian Arabs to gain equal rights, because that might destabilize Lebanon. Therefore, by denying them those rights, Hariri is saying that this preserves their fake "right of return." You see, it is for their own good!

Lebanon has reason to be worried about Palestinian Arabs, of course - Fatah was in no small part responsible for the Lebanese civil war. Even so, the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs  would jump at the opportunity to become normal, productive members of Lebanese society. They were born there, their parents were born there, and they have never set foot in "Palestine." And for most of them there is very little likelihood that this will change.


There are two subtexts in this drama that everyone in the Middle East knows very well, but they keep hidden from the Western world.


The first is that no Arab country likes the Palestinian Arab people enough to want to actually give them equal rights. The Arab League says that every Arab country must allow any Arab to become a citizen - unless they are Palestinian. Individual Arab countries have their own reasons not to allow PalArabs to become citizens. In Lebanon, the reason is obvious - it would upset the delicate (and, by now, fictional) demographic balance between Christians, Shiites and Sunnis. Other countries would be worried about an influx of relatively educated (thanks to UNRWA) and relatively liberal new citizens which could challenge existing dictatorships. The bottom line, though, is that Arab nations have no desire to integrate hundreds of thousands of their bretheren."


The second subtext is that Palestinian Arab nationalism is weak. The public excuse used to oppose naturalization is that this would dilute or destroy the Palestinian Arab "cause," which is a ridiculous argument on the face of it - unless you are worried that most Palestinian Arabs would happily integrate into their new societies and never agitate to "return" to a land that most of them never lived in. If their sense of a national self was so strong, then citizenship in other countries would not be considered a threat to that sense of solidarity. In reality, there is no such sense - it is a fiction that is peddled to the West. To the extent that it exists at all, it is a recent phenomenon and it is only alove due to the misery that PalArabs have been living under in their host countries.


The massive effort to hide these truths from the world is the reason that Palestinian Arabs are stateless today. The solution to their problems must acknowledge this reality, as well as the real aspirations of the stateless and how their needs have been actively opposed by the Arab leaders for decades.


This entire new Palestinian Lebanese civil rights movement, which was ironically sparked by the flotilla, has the potential to truly expose the first truth to the world. That is a start.

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Dual-loyalty watch: US Muslim fatwa against aiding troops

From Al Arabiya:

The Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA) issued a fatwa prohibiting offering aid to foreign troops in Muslim countries whether on the personal or the business levels.

The assembly, made up of jurists and scholars in charge of issuing fatwas for Muslims in the United States and headed by Sheikh Salah al-Sawy, received several inquiries about the stance of Islam on business deals with coalition troops in Iraq or NATO forces in Afghanistan, especially companies that transfer foodstuffs and other supplies to military bases.

The question was posted on AMJA fatwa bank, reads: “Is it permissible to participate in taking food to the American and foreign soldiers working in Muslim lands?” and the answer is, “That would not be permissible, for that would be helping others in sin and transgression.”

The fatwa, number 3062 to be issued by the assembly, stipulated that Muslims are not to help foreigners on personal or business basis as long as their presence in Muslim countries is linked to occupation.

Essentially, the fatwa is saying that it is forbidden for American Muslims to do anything that helps US troops.

Would this be an example of the kind of "dual loyalty" charges that are often hurled at American Jews?

Apparently so, when one looks at the AMJA website.


The website of the AMJA is most interesting in Arabic, as in that language it certainly tells US Muslims that America is not a country to be proud of.

One fatwa says not to celebrate Thanksgiving, but it is allowed to buy holiday turkeys on sale.

Another article says that while it is obligatory for Muslims to participate in the political process in America, this participation should not in any way be considered an endorsement for democracy - in fact, democracy is scorned.

Is this how patriotic citizens talk?

Then comes this, in the Al Arabiya article:

The statement was based on a verse from the Quran that said Muslims should only offer help in noble causes and should not take part in any kind of action that involves violence or damage.

Um, well, it might be OK if that violence or damage is aimed at Israeli Jews. (The website in Arabic definitely says that there is a distinction between terrorism and "resisting aggression." I don't think they are referring to non-violent resistance.)

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A tragic accident - with an interesting detail

Firas Press quotes Israel Radio about a fatal car accident.

According to the report, a pregnant Israeli woman was killed in ahead-on collision with an Arab car near Ramallah. Five Palestinian Arabs in the other car were injured.

A real tragedy, but one that happens all too often in Israel.

However, note that this occurred on Route 60. Anti-Israel writers routinely describe this road as being for Jews only.

How did a car full of Arabs make it onto this so-called "apartheid road"?

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Alleged Russian spies used forged British, Irish passports

From AFP:

Britain and Ireland are investigating reports that fake British and Irish passports were used by members of an alleged Russian spy ring arrested in the US, officials said Tuesday.London and Dublin said they were checking after US officials announced the arrest of 10 "deep-cover" suspects accused of infiltrating policymaking and reporting back to Moscow.

"There is a reference to a false Irish passport in an FBI affidavit filed in connection with the Russian spy ring," an Irish foreign ministry spokesman told AFP. "We are trying to get official clarification of this report," he added.

The Irish spokesman said "the firm position of the government in regard to the fraudulent use of Irish passports is a matter of public record."

Spies using fake passports? Who would've thunk it?

We'll see if any Russian diplomat gets expelled from Ireland or the UK in retaliation.

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Erdogan: "Obama will ask Israel to apologize for flotilla"

From News.AZ:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday his gathering with US President Barack Obama on the sidelines of a G20 summit meeting in Canada covered a wide array of issues, adding that the meeting was "very fruitful".

"I can say that our meeting opened a way for a useful perspective for our future bilateral relations as well as for regional and world peace," Erdogan told reporters upon his arrival in the Turkish capital, Ankara, from Toronto.

Erdogan said he discussed with Obama issues including Iran's nuclear program, a deadly Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid convoy, as well as Afghanistan and the Palestinian problem.

Responding to a question whether his meeting with the US president would make any contributions to the mending of Israeli-Turkish relations, Erdogan said Obama was in agreement with the Turkish premier that Israel should make an apology for the raid on the aid flotilla, Turkey's demand for redress and the lifting of Gaza blockade.

"Obama has expressed that he would convey these points to the Israeli prime minister who is set to visit to Washington on July 7," Erdogan said.

So is Erdogan telling the truth?

Hopefully, some reporter will ask this question in today's White House briefing.

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Bald-faced lies by IHH

The IHH, the terrorist-supporting group that was primarily behind the violence on the Mavi Marmara, has released a glossy PDF file filled with lies about what happened on the flotilla. It doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny but the Free Gaza movement is publishing and disseminating it happily, because truth is apparently not a virtue to these virtuous "humanitarians."

I can't do a word-for-word fisking because the IHH did not save the file in such a way that the text can be copied, and optical character recognition is pretty much useless. But here are some lowlights:

"The sole aim of these ships was to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza and break the siege"

Well, that's two aims! And as we know from Free Gaza, humanitarian aid is used a cover for the political goal of delegitimizing Israel. In fact, the Mavi Marmara contained no humanitarian aid whatsoever.

The IHH claims that Israel blocked their communication to the Turksat satellite at 22:30 at the same time that the Israeli boats began to follow them. However, live broadcasts continued up until IDF soldiers boarded the ship, as the initial video of beating and stabbing Israeli soldiers was broadcast in real time.

IHH claims that two Israeli submarines were involved in the operation. This is the first I have heard that claim, and so far no evidence has been found to that effect. I am not sure what a submarine would accomplish, unless IHH is implying that Israel was ready to torpedo the boats.

The videos show that the IHH attackers had finished their morning prayers some time before the IDF arrived, and that they had plenty of time to prepare their iron batons, slingshots, and broken bottles to attack the soldiers. The IHH also does not say a word about the IHH throwing items on the soldiers alongside the boat, including one percussion grenade. All of this is on video.

Machine-gun fire? We don't hear that on any of the videos smuggled from the ship.

Shooting as they were descending? Unless the soldiers had three arms, that is impossible.

Geared directly towards killing? Then why were there no deaths on the other boats?

People defending themselves only with items they could find? Um, no, they were prepared a bit ahead of time (especially second video on that link.)

The IHH report goes on to detail more lies, each more fantastic than the one before (for example, that an IHH doctor handed over the injured Israeli soldiers - and then they shot him!) but those lies cannot be refuted with video evidence, merely common sense. Obviously, IHH is not going to mention their own exhortations to throw the soldiers overboard.

Then again, if a "humanitarian" organization has no compunction about preparing to attack humans with iron batons, why would one thing that they have any problem with lying to the world about it?

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Alarab Online op-ed praises Holocaust deniers

When an op-ed in an newspaper starts off with "No one dares to criticize the Zionist entity, or talk about its crimes, for fear of being accused of anti-Semitism," you know that you are entering an alternate universe.

Welcome to Al-Arab Online, a British pan-Arab newspaper.

The op-ed, written by Shaheen Zakaria, goes on to describe exactly what kinds of anti-Zionism is being silenced.

His first example? Roger Garaudy, the famous French anti-Zionist - and Holocaust denier.

His next example is Paul Findley, who parlayed his anti-Israel positions into bestselling books and a hero's status among Muslims.

Another example of someone he feels has been muzzled is Holger Apfel, who said in German parliament last week "Stop cooperation with the… Jewish scoundrels, don’t give in to the thriving Holocaust industry." He was suspended until the end of the year for these "anti-Zionist" remarks.

Ironically, Zakaria is claiming that Jews claim antisemitism for speech that is merely anti-Zionist, but two of his three examples are unquestioned antisemites that he considers merely "anti-Zionist."

Which means that to some in the Arab world, Holocaust denial and Jew-hatred is simply a manifestation of legitimate Israel bashing.

In the end, he does more to prove that Arabs are anti-semitic than he intended!

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Israel formally complains about Egyptian anti-semitic cartoon

From YNet/Reuters:

The Israeli embassy has sent a complaint to the newspaper of Egypt's ruling party about a cartoon that linked Israel and Nazis, an unusual step from a mission that tends to ignore its Egyptian media critics.

Al-Watani al-Youm (the National Today) published a cartoon on June 15 showing an aid ship apparently bound for Gaza being grabbed by an octopus carrying an Israeli flag with a Nazi swastika in place of the Star of David symbol.

Here is the cartoon  from that newspaper (which responds that it is not anti-semitic because they are semites too; that for Israel to claim that something is an insult to humanity is absurd because Israel is the worst insulter of humanity on the planet; and that Israelis pretty much are Nazis.)

This cartoon is hardly worse that cartoons printed daily in the Arab press. 

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Apparently, Zionists corner the market on illegal drugs as well

Apropos to my earlier item on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad saying that Israel has a monopoly on pharmaceuticals, one of his generals is accusing Israel and the US of being behind the world's illegal drug trade as well:

A senior Iranian commander took the US and the Zionist regime of Israel responsible for the spread of drug addiction in the world, stressing that they use drugs as a biological weapon against the freedom-seeking nations.

"The US and the Zionist regime are pioneers of drug distribution in the world and the world arrogant powers use drugs as a biological weapon against the freedom-seeking nations," Commander of Iran's Basij Forces Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi said on Monday.

The arrogant powers want to pocket the money earned through the production and trafficking of the drugs, which is the second profitable source of capital after weapons smuggling, and spread addiction among target populations, he added, reminding that most of the American addicts are from the Blacks.

The drug problem will not be uprooted in the world until arrogant powers are annihilated, the commander underlined.

He described Afghanistan as the main source of drug production in the world, and underlined that NATO forces in Afghanistan are currently in control of 8,000 tons of drugs which they aim to smuggle into other countries to captivate their nations through addiction.

It looks like this guy might have been on something himself when he said this. Must've been good stuff.

(FARS writes the bolded part above as "until the arrogant powers are not annihilated" but that doesn't make sense, so I assumed that the "not" was a mistake. I couldn't find the article on their Arabic,Turkish or Persian sites.)

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Retired Jordanian generals call to strip PalArabs of their rights

From The Media Line:

A recent statement made by a group of retired Jordanian army generals, which calls for Palestinian refugees to be stripped of their Jordanian passports, has sent shockwaves across the kingdom.

The unprecedented statement was provoked by the haunting fear of the so-called “Jordan option” to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict at the expense of the kingdom by establishing a Palestinian state in Jordan.

The previously negligible group touched on sensitive issues that have been, until lately, considered taboo in the country’s political dictionary, namely Palestinian-Jordanian relations and the future of Palestinians in the kingdom.

The statement said efforts by Israel and its supporters to settle Palestinians in the kingdom are succeeding, pointing to the fact that the kingdom is home to 4.5 million Palestinians, some holding Jordanian citizenship and some not.

“The worst part of the conspiracy is that it has supporters in the kingdom who call for settlement of Palestinians and granting them equal political rights under support from Israel and the US,” said the statement, calling for drastic measures to control the swelling effect of these lobby groups.

There is no reliable information on the exact number of Palestinians in the kingdom. Authorities claim they are half of the population, although independent figures have given 65 percent of the kingdom’s 6 million population as a number. The Palestinian population is mostly concentrated in major cities including Amman, Irbid and Zarqa as well as refugee camps around these cities.

But they are far from being fairly represented in the parliament. With seats being elected on the basis of geographical region rather than the size of the overall vote, power has been disproportionally granted to ‘East Bankers’ from Jordan’s desert areas in the north and south.

The statement’s shocking content did not come out of vacuum, with many eastern Jordanians lobbying to add to the constitution the decision made by King Hussein to disengage from the West Bank in 1988.

The decision by the late king was meant to pave the way for the Palestinian Liberation Organization under the leadership of Yasser Arafat to negotiate the Oslo agreement, which the PLO signed a few years later.

Prominent columnist Nahid Hattar is one of the promoters of the plan to put the disengagement decision in written law in order to sever all ties created between the Palestinian state and Jordan since 1951.

...
A group of intellectuals and political leaders from around the country have come together to counter the suggestion of the retired generals.

In mid-May, around 360 prominent Jordanians joined a movement to push for dialogue and political reform to confront efforts to settle Palestinians in the kingdom. The statement called for a “comprehensive” reform that guarantees all the kingdom’s citizens – both Jordanians and Palestinians – full political and civil rights to strengthen the country’s “internal front” against what they described as attempts to transform the struggle with the “Zionist enemy” into a domestic conflict between “East Bank Jordanians” and Jordanians of Palestinian origin.

Until early 1970, Palestinians who fled their homeland in the aftermath of the 1948 war with Israel enjoyed full political privilege, including joining the army.

But following the civil war, there has been a systematic policy to uproot Palestinians from key political institutions in favor of Jordanians in the East Bank.

The Palestinians moved to control the economy through prominent families that owned banks and major enterprises.

But with talks over final issues including the future of refugees and borders, the possibility of permanent settlement of Palestinians as well as a desire for a larger piece of the political cake pushed conservative Jordanians to sound the alarm over the “Jordan option,” according to a former minister who did not wish to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Last year, Jordan started stripping Palestinian Arabs of their citizenship in an effort to make Jordan less Palestinian and therefore to forestall the idea that Jordan is already a Palestinian state.

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Who is funding the Lebanese ships?

Even Arab journalists who are known for their hatred of Israel are getting uncomfortable with the Hezbollah-backed "flotilla" of a women's ship and a reporters' ship that have been announced to leave from Lebanon. From Asharq al-Awsat's Diana Mukkaled:

Initially I believed that the mechanisms used to publicize the Freedom Flotilla in support of the Palestinians in Gaza were justified because of the nobility of the cause of breaking the blockade. The cause deserves our efforts to be creative in mobilizing public opinion....

However, with the increase in Arab and international division over the Palestinian cause and in light of the extent to which this cause is being exploited, it is difficult to turn a blind eye to the ambitions of local and regional parties that explicitly expressed their positions and their superficial ambitions – something the organizers of the “Mariam” and “Naji al Ali” freedom flotillas could not distance themselves from.

The Journalists Without Limits organization paid $100,000 US dollars in outstanding fines to the Lebanese government so that it could lift the restraints on the "Naji al Ali" ship and the organization could set sail [for Gaza], although the ship has a seating capacity of only 16 persons.

An organization in possession of this sum should reveal the source of this money to journalists as it is an organization that speaks on their behalf. The transparency of NGO activity requires disclosure of financial sources especially as this organization is new and this sum of money may raise questions that might harm the enthusiasm, zeal and sincerity of many of those who are part of it.

[E]very time I saw the organizers of the two voyages on television or heard their statements and read about their positions, I realized that some former journalists fell into the traps sets by others who have achieved nothing in supporting the Palestinian cause but have achieved other feats that I do not want to be part of.

She doesn't want to say the word "Hezbollah" but it is obvious that she knows who is paying the bills for these ships, and even she sees that these ships have nothing to do with aid or even helping Gaza but everything to do with politics.

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