Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, October 05, 2016

Do News Clarifications and Corrections Matter? Bah Humbug

Do corrections and clarifications to news stories matter when it comes to setting the record straight about Israel? How do we measure the impact of these corrections? Is it important to pressure news outlets to change stories when they fail to convey the truth, or worse yet, outright lie?

All respect to media watchdog organizations such as CAMERA, Honest Reporting, and BBC Watch. We know perfectly well these organizations are on Israel's side, on the side of the truth. They catch 'em red-handed, they do, and often manage to get the big guns, media outlets such as the New York Times, the Guardian, and the Washington Post, to retract or at least correct stories they run that make Israel out to be the bad guy, the facts be damned.

But there is something unsatisfying about the process of running down the mistakes, and getting them corrected. It makes the watchdogs look fussy and over-particular, and really, what good do those corrections do, anyway? News cycles are short. A correction on yesterday's news?

You can wrap fish with it.

Let's take for instance, this Australian story with the headline, Palestinian 'executed' after Israeli checkpoint knife attack. Here's what happened: an Arab terrorist going through an Israeli security checkpoint (which is designed for the purpose of identifying and preventing terrorists from entering civilian areas), lunges at the IDF soldier manning the checkpoint and stabs him.

The terrorist is shot dead.

Honest Reporting complained about the story because of the title, which appears to refer to extra-judicial killing, and because the text refers to the terrorist as a "Palestinian fellow," a descriptor designed to rebrand the terrorist as someone harmless.

In response to Honest Reporting's report, 9 News changed the word "fellow" to the slightly less offensive "man."

But the original title was left unchanged.

Anyone reading the story with an uncritical eye (both before and after the correction) will be left with the impression that Israel is a country of bloodthirsty, repressive, and murderous outlaws. And since Israelis are Jews, well, the reader will believe he now has good reason to dislike the Jews as a people. He will point to this story in debates online, and in conversations with friends. He will say, "It's not just me that says Israelis are murdering Arabs in the streets, it's the media."

What is lost here is the truth: terrorists are the bad guys, Israeli soldiers the good guys, keeping the Israeli populace safe.

Terrorists kill Israelis because they are Jews. Terrorists want all of Israel and they want it all Judenrein. They will not hesitate to murder ballerinas in their sleep, or slit the throat of a three-month-old Jewish infant. They will not hesitate to firebomb a young girl riding in the passenger seat of her daddy's car on the way home from her advanced math classes at Bar Ilan. The terrorists know exactly when that car will reach that convenient bottleneck in the road so they can set that smart little beautiful girl on fire and ruin her pretty face, maybe even kill her.

But the reader will glean none of this from the Australian news story in our example. The reader comes away with this main idea: Arabs=Innocent/Jews=Evil.

Now what if Honest Reporting had been successful, and the Australian 9 News had completely changed the title of the story? What if 9 News had changed that headline to, for instance: Arab terrorist shot, killed after stabbing soldier at security checkpoint. That would have been a truthful headline in every respect.

And it wouldn't have mattered a bit. The news cycle is brief. You blink your eyes and it's not news anymore.

A story that goes viral does so in minutes. In a few short hours, another story has superseded it and risen to the top of the page. So if you have thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of viewers and they see an untruthful headline: Palestinian 'executed' after Israel checkpoint knife attack, they are going to see it within minutes or hours.

They will likely never see the correction. Because by the time the story is corrected, it's no longer news and no one cares. It is the impression left by that shocking original headline that remains.

And even if the reader happens to, for some odd reason, go back to the story and see that the title has been corrected, the impact of such a correction has to be weak indeed as compared to the shock of the original headline. The shock is what feeds into the public lust for ammunition against Israel and the Jews, from the alt right to the progressive left. No one cares about the accuracy of the corrected headline.

Because it can't be used against the Jews.

So it's just there, doing nothing, that correction. Except building resentment. Against the damned Jews who are so picayune and always demanding corrections. As if it matters. Everyone knows Jews=evil/Arabs=innocent. Right?

Or that headline wouldn't have been there in the first place. Where's there's smoke there's fire. Jimmy didn't hit you fer nothing. You must have done SOMETHING.

But let's look at this from a different angle: could it be that forcing the media to make these constant corrections keeps them in line? Forces them to uphold better journalistic standards? Keeps bias out of the media, makes for a free press, preserves democracy?

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe all we do is drive the hate underground where it festers.

Or maybe it really does teach people that it's unacceptable to hate out loud but that hating in quiet and silence or at least in the company of likeminded souls is maybe okay.

It's frustrating. I believe we must expose the lies, the evil, the false narratives, the scare quotes, the absence of important context, the spin. But I'm not sure demanding or even requesting such corrections politely is a worthwhile endeavor.

In fact, recently, I saw a correction as something resembling the opposite of worthwhile. I saw a correction that seemed actually nefarious by nature. I spotted a "spun" quote in a Times of Israel article regarding the questioning of a soldier in the case against Elor Azaria, who stands accused of shooting a neutralized terrorist.

"Though he has not been formally charged, the as-yet unnamed Netzah Yehuda soldier has been questioned by Military Police 'in connection with the killing,' an army official told The Times of Israel on Monday."

About this I wrote:

"Killing??" Seriously?

It did not pass the smell test that an army official would refer to what happened outside of Ofra as a "killing." As if the motives of the soldier (again without due process) were in question, as if this soldier shot a man simply because he was lusting for Arab blood, and not because this presumed Arab terrorist had rushed a guard post in a place where rushing a guard post usually spells t-e-r-r-o-r a-t-t-a-c-k.

But the text was linked, so I went to the original article quoting the unnamed army official. And low and behold, the word "killing" was not used there. Instead, the linked piece said, “'He was investigated in connection with the death on Friday,' an official said." (emphasis mine)

"The death" as distinct from "the killing."

That's a whole different can of worms.

I was quite disturbed when reader AreaMan tried to find a way to see the writer as having made an innocent translation error and subsequently contacted the author to give him the benefit of the doubt. The author, Judah Ari Gross agreed it had been an "translation error" and changed the text so that instead of the libelous word "killing" in the second piece, it now uses the blameless word "death."

I was furious. Gross got that word "killing" out there and smeared a young soldier standing trial. That is truly an evil thing. How many people saw the original article with that slander in it?? The word "killing" is meant to ascribe an evil intention. It's a characterization, pure bias. People saw it and concluded: Elor Azaria=evil Jew=wanton murderer of Arabs.

In going back to Gross, AreaMan gives him a chance to both get that slander out there, and then retract it with a meaningless oops. It was a MISTAKE.

But who will see the correction?? Who cares?

It's the word "killing" they saw when the story was fresh that stays in their minds. They won't ever see that the word was changed to "death" and if they do, it won't register. The impression has been made. The story is not news. Not anymore

All AreaMan did was give Gross a way to spin the news while looking good, too.

He, Gross, hurt Elor Azaria with that word "killing." I take that personally. And you should, too.

Corrections? They allow the media to be bad. Really bad. And then to dot their i's and cross their t's while no one is watching.

Because the show was already over one or more news cycles ago.

And who really cares, anyway?

Corrections.

Bah humbug.

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If You Don't Stop Bombing Aleppo, I'll Threaten To Make Threats! - John Kerry (Preoccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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If You Don't Stop Bombing Aleppo, I'll Threaten To Make Threats!

By John Kerry, US Secretary of State

President Putin, the time has come for a fateful decision. Either you want to pursue a resolution of the Syrian conflict by diplomatic means, or you do not. But whichever choice you make, know that if you choose war, I will see no choice but to threaten to issue threats against you. You have been forewarned.

Everyone knows Russia has always seen a foothold in the eastern Mediterranean as a strategic asset that must be maintained. But bombing entire neighborhoods into rubble, including the last remaining hospitals in Aleppo, is no way to achieve long-term stability. Even if Assad survives, his hold on what remains of Syria will never be what it once was. You must see that. And you must also see that the US has never failed to defend its own strategic interests. Cross us once more and you will face the full wrath of my ability to make threats that threaten drastic threats I may yet regret making.

You are a reasonable man, Mr. Putin. Reasonable men do not engage in unwise brinkmanship. I have been restrained in my rhetoric until now, but until now the carnage in Syria has been limited to that inflicted primarily by Assad, not your forces. Now that the situation has changed for the worse, and the civilians of Aleppo are being bled to no one's benefit, you leave me no choice but to consider implying that I might warn you against further such violence by saying such violence would incur a further warning.

To make matters worse, you have stationed batteries of advanced S-300 surface-to-air missiles in Syria, in anticipation of US action to thwart further carnage. I must warn you, Mr. Putin, such measures will only result in my issuing further remonstrations to the effect that if this mayhem continues, I will do it again. And again, if necessary, Mr. Putin. I will not waver from this path. You will find me a determined adversary. When I threaten to make threats, I follow through. Make no mistake.

This is the last time I warn you, Mr. Putin, before I warn you again. I have never been as serious and determined about any course of action as I am about this one. The bloody games stop here and now, Mr. Putin, or else I will take the unprecedented step of following through on a threat to issue a serious threat.

You have been warned.

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Times of Israel reports:

Israeli warplanes struck Hamas sites in the northern and southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday afternoon, in the second such attack of the day after a rocket fired from the coastal enclave struck Sderot, according to Palestinian media.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the airstrikes, saying it targeted “a number of terror installations belonging to the Hamas terror group.”

In its statement, the IDF called Hamas “the sovereign in the Gaza Strip, which bears responsibility for every terror incident emanating from it.”

According to Palestinian media, Israeli jets hit targets in both the al-Tufah neighborhood of Gaza City in the northern Strip and in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza. According to Channel 2 television, the targets included Hamas rocket stockpiles.

Earlier in the day, Israeli tanks fired on Hamas targets in Beit Hanoun in the northeastern corner of the Strip, the army said. There were no immediate reports of Palestinian injuries.

Yes, but were they really Hamas targets, or were civilians the target, as Amnesty and HRW like to pretend?

Well, according to Hamas, the targets were all associated with "resistance."

Zionist enemy planes launched sporadic raids on Wednesday evening at resistance sites in the south, east and north of the Gaza Strip, no injuries were reported.

But it's still early. In a few weeks the "human rights" groups can claim that Israel targeted civilian infrastructure and no one will bother to check out the facts.

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10/05 Links Pt1: Europe's "Good Terrorists": Because They Might Destroy Israel?; Time to break up the Quartet

From Ian:

It is time to break up the Quartet

For different reasons, each of the four Quartet members is unqualified to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian agreement.
• The EU: when not involved in promoting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, attempting to sanction Israeli citizens, or labeling food from Israel (all the easier to boycott), the European Union (an increasingly oxymoronic term) is busy negotiating its own continued existence. It has never been a neutral arbiter in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
Jennifer Rubin noted three years ago that the EU “strives for relevance but its anti-Israeli tendencies make it particularly unsuited to play any constructive role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” The EU was also instrumental in the UN’s International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) denunciation as illegal Israel’s wall that ended the wave of successful Palestinian suicide bombers. Its statement on November 18, 2003, declared that: “Palestinian land has been confiscated to build the wall.” Fortunately the ICJ’s rulings are non-binding, including the order for Israel to compensate the Palestinian people for inconveniences the wall had caused.
• The UN: like the EU, the UN has been reliably in favor of the Palestinians and opposed to Israel ever since it voted to divide the former British Mandate into two nations. Since then it has denounced Israeli “occupation” 2,342 times and “settlements” 256 times, as compiled by Eugene Kontorovich and Penny Grunseid.
Meanwhile, it ignores or rationalizes Palestinian terrorism. In January of this year, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon excused Palestinian terrorism by noting that “it is human nature to react to occupation.”
• Russia: the nation that in the past decade has invaded Ukraine and Georgia, and annexed Crimea, has no moral standing in negotiations over which territories will comprise a Palestinian state. Historically, Russia has supported Palestinian terrorism. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas earned his PhD in Holocaust denial at a Russian university. And Russia is an avowed ally of Israel’s enemies – Iran and Syria especially.
• The US: once upon a time the fourth member of the Quartet could be relied upon to defend Israel from attacks at the UN, but not under this president. Obama feigned outrage over the Russians interfering in the US election, but did little to conceal his interference in the Israeli election, sending his own campaign pros and spending American taxpayer funds in an attempt to ensure the defeat of Benjamin Netanyahu. Many interpreted the line about “building a wall” in Obama’s final speech to the UN as a shot at Trump, but it seems more likely a shot at Israel.
According to its mandate, the Quartet was created “to help mediate Middle East peace negotiations and to support Palestinian economic development and institution-building in preparation for eventual statehood.”
The problem is that the Palestinians have refused statehood repeatedly for one reason: it could not coexist with a State of Israel. Yasser Arafat’s insistence on a “right of return” that would flood a nation of eight million Jews with twice as many Muslims ended the 2000 Camp David talks. The stated purpose of the Quartet is untenable until the Palestinians change. As Golda Meir purportedly said: “We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”
The only redeeming value of the Quartet (and the real miracle of the past eight years) is that Obama didn’t turn it into a Quintet by installing Iran as the fifth member.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Europe's "Good Terrorists": Because They Might Destroy Israel?

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri would like the Europeans to understand that they need not worry about terrorism by the Islamist movement because the attacks will be directed only against Israel.
The European Court of Justice (EJC) is sending the message to Hamas that Europeans see no problem with Hamas's desire to destroy Israel and continue to launch terrorist attacks against Jews. This message also undermines those Palestinians who still believe in a peace with Israel.
The EJC recommendation to remove Hamas from the EU's terrorism blacklist comes at a time when countries such as Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and even Saudi Arabia, as well as the Palestinian Authority, are doing their utmost to weaken Hamas.
Appeasing terrorists is a dangerous game: it has already backfired on its foolhardy players and will continue to do so. This is exactly how Muslims conquered Iran, Turkey, North Africa and much of Europe, including Hungary, Greece, Poland, Romania, and the Balkans -- countries that still recall a real "occupation," an Islamist one, and abundantly want none of it.
The EU and the ECJ need to be stopped before they do any more harm to Palestinians, Christians and Jews -- or to Europe.

The only time I ever saw my grandfather cry was when we were watching the signing of the Oslo Accords.

At 15 I wasn’t really aware of what was happening but his reaction shocked me so much that the scene is forever seared in to my memory…

My grandmother was sitting in stony silence in her chair in the living room, watching tv. As I came in to the room I saw my grandfather standing, leaning over the back of the other chair. I stood next to him and we watched the ceremony. My grandfather, wiping the tears from his face, saw me staring at him. He was pale. My undemonstrative grandfather, a man who (unlike my grandmother) rarely expressed any thoughts on politics said: “He just signed away Israel.”

My heart skipped a beat.

His were not tears of joy. At the time while most Israelis were overcome with a feeling of euphoria, truly believing (or at least wanting to believe) that this event would reign in a new area of peace, his reaction was highly unusual.

Both my grandparents were extremely concerned and it wasn’t long before I began to see how correct they were…

Lesson 1: People are complicated

The death of Shimon Peres has triggered a slew of articles and segments about him (including this one). Some lauded Peres, practically deifying him. Others demonized him. In Israel, between his death and his funeral, the media focused on nothing else, as if the world had stopped because the man who seemed like he would live forever stopped.

The media coverage has bothered me enormously, largely because it has been horribly one dimensional. People are complicated and Shimon Peres was a prime example of this. He deserves better than being flattened in to a character that is “the good guy” or “the bad guy,” depending on who is writing the story.

The influence of my grandparents could have put me in the demonization camp but it was those same grandparents who taught me to look deeper than that.

Like his wife, Sonia Peres, who loved the man but hated the visibility of political life, like Prime Minister Netanyahu who utterly rejected the politics of the man but, at the same time, loved his personality, I too differentiate between Shimon the man and Peres the politician.

It is fascinating that one person can encapsulate such complexity…

Shimon Peres was a diaspora Jew in a time when it was cool to become a sabra, a new Jew. He had a heavy accent and he was an administrator, not a fighter. In many ways he was exactly the opposite of the image the new Israelis wanted for themselves – and yet he was no less revolutionary. It was his vision that helped actualize much of the security platforms Israel has today (including a very important “textile factory”). Things others declared impossible, Peres made happen. He was a politician but he was also a poet.

Lesson 2: Determination

One of the most outstanding characteristics of Shimon Peres was his determination. Many called him an incorrigible optimist, assigning to him extreme, almost unexplainable naiveté. These qualities would seemingly suggest a failing in intelligence however, considering that Peres was a highly educated, intelligent man, I believe that these are a mistaken perception of his almost superhuman determination.

Contrary to what it might seem following the infatuated media coverage, Peres spent most of his political life disparaged and reviled, even by his own party. He wasn’t looked at as a visionary statesman, he was considered a wheeling and dealing politician. It was Rabin who called Peres: “A tireless underminer.” Time and again Peres lost to political rivals and yet he never gave up. He had a vision and faith and was willing to do whatever it takes to see that become reality.

Differences of opinion regarding the correctness of his vision or actions are irrelevant in the consideration of his extraordinary determination. How many people can you think of with such a strong sense of conviction? What could you achieve in your own life if you dealt with your challenges in the way Peres dealt with his?

Lesson 3: Maybe I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one

I’ve been laughed at for being a dreamer, an idealist. Shimon Peres was a dreamer too. His dreams of peace in the Middle East were both beautiful and dangerous but those were not his only dreams.
He dreamt of tomorrow with a passion associated only to the greatest inventors in history, people like Leonardo da Vinci and Nikola Tesla who envisioned things way before their time. Peres read while others were sleeping. He thought that resting was a waste of time. He taught himself about the latest developments in science and technology and was able to hold deep conversations on an astonishing breadth of subjects. Peres was a true futurist and he was proud that his nation, Israel, is instrumental in inventing and developing a better tomorrow.

Peres was widely embraced around the world for his vision of peace but it was his enthusiasm for the future that endeared him to many at home and abroad.

Perhaps the most important dream Peres had for himself was the desire to be loved. He served the public most of his life but only received widespread admiration in his final public role, as President of Israel. His tireless determination finally paid off. His controversial political past was largely set aside and, for the most part, he was warmly embraced by the nation he loved.

I’m certain knowing that tribute to his vision and personality brought so many world leaders together, brought them to Israel, would have given him great satisfaction.

Lesson 4: Age is an attitude

It seemed like Shimon Peres would live forever. He had an air of timelessness about him. While most people remain in the timeframe of what was contemporary in their youth, Peres kept his mind flexible, changing with the times, always focused on the future. As he grew chronologically older, his attitude remained contemporary. He kept up with the swiftly changing technology, adopted the use of social media and participated in the creation of viral videos. For those of us who were born into the technological age it is difficult to comprehend the enormous flexibility it takes to change with the times. My grandmother was born before electricity was common in homes and she lived to see the invention of television, a man on the moon, cell phones and the internet. Peres not only saw all those changes, he made use of them.

Peres proved that age is a mindset, an attitude. He was always excited to see what tomorrow would bring and that made it seem like there would always be a tomorrow for him. This attitude made the epitaph he requested for himself seems so apt: “Died before his time.”

Lesson 5: Narrative appropriated

Watching the media response to the death of Shimon Peres left me wondering about the validity of the narrative we are taught about other historical figures. The Israeli media, like most media around the world, aligns mostly with the political left. Our artists, musicians and other celebrities tend to identify with the left as well. Peres was the spokesperson of the Israeli left, he gave dignity to their ideas, presenting them in world forums, gaining acceptance abroad which, in turn, reinforced the perception of his colleagues that their way was the right way. Even following the utter failure of the Oslo Accords, additional land-for-peace and prisoners-for-peace deals, the left still upheld Peres as their symbol of Israel’s undying hope for peace. His death created a vacuum for the Israeli left. They have no more representatives for their ideas. While the general public still wants peace and would willingly make enormous sacrifices for peace, Israelis, in general, no longer hold the belief that the next deal signed will bring peace. With no leader to look to, the left has done everything in their power to transform Shimon Peres the man, with all his complexities, in to a symbol with which they can justify themselves. Considering that the people who set the tone for the culture are the ones redefining the man and deciding what his legacy is, there is very little room for anyone with a different perspective. This, combined with a rigid taboo on speaking poorly of the deceased, makes an honest discussion of his peace initiatives (or the people hurt by them) almost impossible.

Watching this unfold raises so many questions….

Is it so difficult to discuss someone or something we don’t like without being disrespectful? Or being accused of being a “hater”/”racist”/whatever other shut-you-up label is currently popular?

Is it so difficult to differentiate between a man and his actions? What in the world makes it so easy to convince people that any person is one dimensional? Only good or only bad? Who says we have to completely agree or completely disagree with anyone? Why do we have to choose “teams”? Isn’t it possible that we may have the same goals while still disagreeing about how to achieve them?

Last but not least, I am left to wonder - if the narrative of a man’s life can be appropriated so swiftly, so close to his death, how much of what we know about historical figures is true?

I remain with more questions than answers. Possibly the historical facts matter less than the principles we choose to remember and uphold. I know others will define Peres as the symbol for peace and teach that his methodology is the correct way to attain peace. To me it seems disrespectful to turn someone so complex in to a one-dimensional tool to use to further a political agenda…

Personally, I choose to remember the lessons I’ve learned from Shimon, the man, the poet, not the politician. To me his legacy isn’t about politics, it’s about a way of being in the world, an attitude towards life:

People are complicated. No one is a saint, no one is a devil.

Determination pays off in the end. Never give up.

Focus on the future.

Age is an attitude.

History is taught according to the narrative convenient to the people in power. This is a very disturbing realization however I still hold on to the belief that it is the principles we choose to uphold that will determine our future.

Maybe I’m a dreamer but, at least, I’m not the only one.

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AFP reports:

A group of women will try to reach the Gaza Strip on board a boat on Wednesday in a bid to break a decade-long blockade by Israel, a spokeswoman said.

Gaza has been under an Israeli blockade since 2006 but it was tightened in 2007 after the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas seized control in the tiny enclave.

Israel says its maritime, land and sea blockade of Gaza is aimed at preventing Hamas from receiving supplies which could be used for military purposes.

Fifteen women will try to breach the blockade aboard the Zaytouna-Oliva boat early on Wednesday, said spokeswoman Claude Leotic.

"But we fear there will be an Israeli attack" to prevent the boat from reaching Gaza's shores, she told AFP Tuesday in a telephone interview.

Israeli media, quoting unnamed officials, have reported in recent days that the navy will intercept the boat and escort it to the Israeli port of Ashdod to prevent it from reaching Gaza.

A different narrative was given to i24News:

Asked if they have any fears about encountering the Israel Defense Forces, Maguire says not at all.

"We are not afraid of the IDF. We understand that they are doing their job and we are a group of unarmed women bringing a message of peace," she says.

"We expect that they will treat with us dignity and [we] will treat them with dignity as well."

To their own fans, they say the exact opposite in an "urgent press statement":

From past Israeli interceptions the possibility of a violent military attack as was experienced by the Mavi Marmara flotilla in 2010 is a reality.

It is deplorable that despite the loss of lives resulting from Israel’s unlawful piracy in international waters, the Israeli regime has once again threatened to repeat its criminal conduct. By the same token, it is inexcusable that the United Nations and its Security Council have failed to warn Israel not to proceed with its threat to attack the WBG.

There were supposed to be two boats, but one of them dropped out.

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Hamas law and order news

Two stories from Gaza:

A teacher is being investigated for systematically beating students, in this video that one student made:

Hamas also sentenced a woman to death by hanging for killing her husband.

I have never seen any death sentence for any man for killing his wife.

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Jerusalem exhibition at the Met overstates Muslim connection, mixes up Al Aqsa and Dome of the Rock

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a new exhibit about Jerusalem called Jerusalem 1000 - 1400: Every People under Heaven:

Beginning around the year 1000, Jerusalem attained unprecedented significance as a location, destination, and symbol to people of diverse faiths from Iceland to India. Multiple competitive and complementary religious traditions, fueled by an almost universal preoccupation with the city, gave rise to one of the most creative periods in its history.

This landmark exhibition demonstrates the key role that the Holy City played in shaping the art of the period from 1000 to 1400. In these centuries, Jerusalem was home to more cultures, religions, and languages than ever before. Through times of peace as well as war, Jerusalem remained a constant source of inspiration that resulted in art of great beauty and fascinating complexity.

This exhibition is the first to unravel the various cultural traditions and aesthetic strands that enriched and enlivened the medieval city. It features some 200 works of art from 60 lenders worldwide. More than four dozen key loans come from Jerusalem's diverse religious communities, some of which have never before shared their treasures outside their walls.

Diana Muir Appelbaum reviews the exhibit. Excerpts:

The curators [present] a soft-focus version of medieval Jerusalem as a city shared equally by Muslims, Christians and Jews, with the differences among them no more significant than the choice of whether to make falafel with fava beans or chickpeas. Imposing such a narrative requires a major elision of reality.

In one display case, a copy of a history of the First Crusade by William of Tyre is opened to show images of the coronation of Queen Melisende and her consort Fulk in Jerusalem. It is paired with a handsomely illuminated Quran. One of a number of magnificent Qurans on exhibit, it conveys the idea that the Quran, like the Bible, contains material about Jerusalem. The Quran, however, never mentions Jerusalem.

The curators have my sympathy. Given that Jewish objects related to Jerusalem in these centuries consist largely of manuscripts, and recognizing the advantages of displaying at least a sample of the enormous number of splendidly illustrated medieval Christian books about Jerusalem, the curators needed to find a type of Muslim text that appears not to exist.

'Umra certificate

The most interesting Muslim manuscript on display with a connection to Jerusalem is a pilgrimage certificate with folk art illumination testifying that a man named Sayyid Yusuf bin Sayyid Shahab al-Din Mwara al-Nahri went as a pilgrim to Mecca, Medina, Karbala, Hebron and Jerusalem. There is also an alcove filled with illuminations of the Path of Paradise of al-Sara’I made for Abu Sa'id Mirza in 1466 that includes a delightful image of Muhammad astride his flying horse. Beautiful as they are, it is hard to say why they are included in an exhibition about medieval Jerusalem.

While the major failing of this exhibit is that the curators have built it around a false premise, it suffers also from a lack of focus apparent in the inclusion of many objects with little or no relationship to the city.

Much of the time, however, the exhibit is so detached from Jerusalem as to make me wonder whether the curators, experts in medieval art, had ever visited Jerusalem or studied these faith traditions. Without some explanation of the sort, it is hard to understand the statement on a wall devoted to The Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque, that “At the southwest corner of the great esplanade that overlooks Jerusalem stands the Dome of the Rock.” The southwest corner is, of course, the location of Al Aqsa; the Dome of the Rock is at the center of the enormous platform. This may be an easily corrected mistake; what comes next is more problematic, because it reveals the ease with which a well-intentioned effort to produce a politically acceptable exhibition can lead instead to the distortion of fact.
In large letters, the text on the wall explains that the Dome enshrines a natural stone outcropping “variously understood as the site of Abraham’s sacrifice, the location of the tabernacle in the Temple of Solomon, and the point of departure for the Prophet Muhammad’s Ascent to Paradise.”

“Abraham’s sacrifice” is an odd phrase, not in common use in English where the traditional phrase is “the binding of Isaac.” It appears to have been chosen to elide the distinctiveness of these faith traditions.

In the Jewish and Christian Bibles, Abraham was prepared to sacrifice Isaac, and Jews and Christians traditionally identify the location as the stone at the center of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Islam has a similar story, but the name of the son is not given in the Quran; in Muslim tradition Abraham is usually said to have been about to sacrifice Ishmael, and the location was the black stone in Mecca known as the kaaba.

The exhibit’s litany of “Abraham’s sacrifice, the location of the tabernacle in the Temple of Solomon, and the point of departure for the Prophet Muhammad’s Ascent to Paradise” is problematic in an additional way, because one of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong.

Muhammad’s ascension to Heaven and Abraham’s near sacrifice of his beloved son are legendary accounts. The location of the ancient Temple, by contrast, is an archaeological and historical fact. The curator responsible for the text may have attempted to stay just inside the bounds of accuracy by referencing the “Temple of Solomon.” The construction of a temple on this spot by a king named Solomon—as opposed to the later Temple built on the site by the exiles returning from Babylon—cannot be proven, which gives the text the uncomfortable appearance of what Stephen Colbert calls “truthiness”—a very different thing from truth.

The 'Umra certificate pictured above is the one and only piece of pre-19th century Islamic art depicting Jerusalem I have ever seen, and it is part of a depiction of Mecca, Medina, Karbala and Hebron.

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