Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, March 03, 2011

Why is Israel under pressure to help create an authoritarian state?

Here is a sentence in the New York Times by Isabel Kershner, from an article about Israel possibly proposing an interim peace plan:

With the Middle East in turmoil and the West eager to encourage moderate forces in the region, Israel is under pressure to show some movement on the Palestinian issue.

Let's parse this a bit.

The uprisings in the Middle East have been against unelected, authoritarian regimes over frustration over the economy and lack of freedoms.

The PA is an unelected, authoritarian regime with an economy that is wholly dependent on outside assistance and no freedom to criticize the regime.

According to the PA's own laws, Abbas' term as president expired in January 2009. Fayyad was never elected. The last elections brought Hamas into power.

Why is Israel under pressure to help create a new state that would not only be opposed to Israel's existence, but whose already existing institutions are illegal, undemocratic and anti-freedom? Aren't the exact same issues causing Arabs to revolt and demonstrate across the entire region?

The "peace process" has evolved into a religion, one not based on any logic or sense. This is only one tiny example where a statement that seems uncontroversial at first sight is in fact completely counter-factual.

Just no one in the media or in Western governments seems to have the ability to think beyond sound bites.

(h/t David G)

Oh, by the way, Gaddafi tried to rape a female reporter

A vignette in a Benny Morris article:

Which reminds me of a story a fine, young journalist once told me about her experiences in Tripoli. It was in the 1980s, I think. She had come to interview Qaddafi. She was ushered into the famous tent. Qaddafi sent his aides away and the two of them shared lunch. And then Qaddafi tried to caress her. Flustered, she got up to leave. He then chased her around the table, bent on rape. She was brave and apparently fit; she outran him, at least long enough for his aides to rush in at the sound of her screams. Rape averted.

And then he makes this astute observation:

It is a shame journalists did not usually publish their impressions of and experiences with Qaddafi. This no doubt facilitated Western and Arab acceptance of cooperation with this almost unique, base specimen of humanity.

Unfortunately, this is still happening today. Only after the people start revolting does the Western media wake up and say, "Oh, I knew about how evil that despot was for years!"

Of course, they never reported it at the time.

And usually they still refuse to. It is an insidious game where the reporters know much more than they are willing to report, because they want to push certain narratives more than they want to contradict them.

(h/t Silke)

Everyone is ripping off my Mubarak suit story

I knew that this story would be popular, so I put a watermark on the photo of the suit with his name on it to stop people from stealing it:

But I was not obnoxious enough....and my photo is being cropped by other bloggers without credit and are getting picked up in news stories again without any credit to me.

Alas, another scoop that got away from me.

Is there going to be a march from Cairo to Gaza?

Palestine Today reports that the "January 25th youth" will march from Cairo to Rafah tomorrow and attempt to enter Gaza in a bid to open the border between Egypt and Gaza and "end the siege."

The organizers say that the march will have some 100 Egyptians, "including leaders of the January 25th revolution," and about 100 foreigners.

Interestingly, a similar march was scheduled for February 26th, and seems to have fizzled out.

The distance from Cairo to Rafah is over 300 kilometers. Good luck with your march, guys.

Israel allows Gazans to export cherry tomatoes. The PA denies it.

From YNet:

Palestinian farmers will start exporting cherry tomatoes from the Gaza Strip this week, as part of a government decision from the end of 2010 to expand the Strip's agricultural exports.

The first stage will see some 50 tons of tomatoes sent to Europe through Israel. According to estimates, the exports will yield Gaza's farmers some €150,000 (about $206,500).

The Palestinian farmers will deliver the tomatoes through the Kerem Shalom crossing to Israeli agricultural export company Agrexco, which markets the produce in Europe. The money is transferred to agricultural cooperatives, which will hand it over to the Palestinian farmers.

The Agrexco company stresses that it has lists of the growers and ensures that the money reaches them.

As part of the exports, which began in November 2010, the Strip's farmers export strawberries, carnations and peppers. Meanwhile, the pepper exports have been halted due to technical problems.

So far, Gaza's farmers have exported some 367 tons of strawberries worth €1.8 million ($2.5 million), about 5.3 million carnations worth €850,000 ($1.17 million) and 6 tons of peppers.

The agricultural activity in the Strip is conducted with the help of the Dutch government, as part of a special project training farmers and providing them with infrastructure through a Palestinian agricultural company.

But the PA is saying that this is not true. From their official WAFA news agency:

Abdel Karim Ashur, head of Agricultural Relief Committee in Gaza Strip, denied news Wednesday about an Israeli permit to export vegetables and specifically tomatoes from the Gaza Strip to European markets.

However, Israeli media claimed that Israel allowed the export of tomatoes from Gaza into European markets through Karm Abu Salem crossing.

Ashur told WAFA that Israeli authorities allowed on Tuesday and for the first time the export of only two tons of cherry tomatoes, almost at the end of the tomato season, pointing out that Palestinian farmers agreed to that only to maintain their presence in European markets.

Ashur added that this permit is not a gift from Israel but is a result of pressure on Israel, by Dutch companies cooperating with Palestinian companies, to allow export of cherries, pepper and tomatoes.

Israel is still refusing to allow the export of tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables to European markets and even West Bank markets which offer better prices than Europe, according to Ashur.

He added these measures restrict economic development in Palestine and specially that of the agricultural sector.

Ummm...the photos seem to show otherwise:

A Palestinian worker checks a truckload of cherry tomatoes bound for Europe before it crosses into Israel at the Kerem Shalom crossing point near Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, March 2, 2011.

Boxes of cherry tomatoes from the Gaza Strip bound for Europe are seen at the Kerem Shalom crossing terminal March 2, 2011

Coral is the brand name of Palestinian Arab produce marketed by Agrexco to Europe.

And as I have shown recently, BDSers want the boycott of Israeli products to include Palestinian Arab produce as well!

Gaza banks close because of Hamas robberies

From Ma'an:

The Palestinian Monetary Authority announced Thursday that all banks in Gaza would close on Thursday, following the perpetration of a robbery by unknown gunmen who stole cash from the Palestine Investment Bank in Gaza City.

PMA officials did not report the amount of cash taken from the bank, but said the financial institutions would remain closed until the funds were returned.

A statement from the body condemned the robbery, saying the use of weapons against the people of Gaza was unacceptable. The PMA "resents, denounces and condemns the attack," the statement said.

While it is unclear who robbed the bank, it seems strange that the banks would close from an ordinary armed robbery. More likely the bank suspects that the robbers were none other than Hamas, as Ma'an explains has happened before:

[Last summer] the Palestine Islamic Bank in Gaza City reported three incidents of cash being "withdrawn by force" by Gaza government officials, and in June suspended operations in protest over the actions.

Palestine Press Agency adds that Hamas has also taken over the Palestinian Investment Fund's offices and cash, and that other tenants of the same building were forced to leave. The Fund was meant to be an independent institution to help out businesses in Gaza.

This is only the latest takeover by Hamas of previously private Gaza institutions. These takeovers are one major reason why a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah are increasingly unlikely, as Hamas' control of Gaza is cemented.

UPDATE: The Jerusalem Post via Reuters fills in the blanks, and Ma'an is shown once again to dance around the truth so as not to upset Hamas (h/t T34):

Banks in Gaza closed on Thursday in protest against Hamas's seizure of $250,000 in cash in a dispute with the Palestinian Authority.

A banking official said Hamas police went to the Palestine Investment Bank on Wednesday and demanded the money from the account of the PA-backed Palestine Investment Fund, which Hamas alleged had been illegally transferring money out of Gaza.

"(Hamas police) said unless they were given the money, they would take it by force," the official told Reuters. He said the police left with bags of cash filled with Israeli shekels worth $250,000 after several hours of discussion.

"All banks closed their doors today to protest against Hamas's assault on the Palestine Investment Bank," said the official, who declined to be identified.

A West Bank official for the Palestinian Monetary Authority, which oversees banking in Gaza and the West Bank, said the Hamas police had committed "armed robbery." In a statement, the monetary authority demanded the return of the cash.

HRW founder Bernstein launches "Advancing Human Rights"

From the press release:

On February 24th, Human Rights Watch founder, Robert L. Bernstein, launched a new human rights organization called Advancing Human Rights (AHR).

"I believe that creating Advancing Human Rights is the most important thing I’ve done in my life," said Bernstein, who will serve as the organization’s Chairman. "I never imagined that at 88 years old I would be founding a new human rights organization, but I am doing it out of necessity because I believe there are trends which are doing great damage to democracies throughout the world."

At a pre-launch event attended by journalists, authors and human rights activists, Bernstein introduced the AHR team. "Leading our new organization as executive director is David Keyes. David and I started working together one year ago. He has built a phenomenal organization, CyberDissidents.org, which is a central part of our new human rights organization. It supports pro-democracy Internet activists throughout the Middle East and has been on the cutting edge of human rights."

AHR will return to the fundamentals of human rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. CyberDissidents.org and Straight Talk on Human Rights, a new platform for common sense analysis, will form the initial programs of AHR.

"We will focus on women’s rights and free speech," Bernstein noted. "These two rights—the spearhead of most totalitarian repression—are so important because where they are absent, achieving the other very important human rights is practically impossible. We will, of course, go into closed societies."

"Now that these closed societies are exploding," he continued, "they will need every ounce of the human rights community’s attention so that we don’t have another Iran."

Bernstein and Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British Forces in Afghanistan and one of AHR’s board members, announced the groups formation on Bloomberg TV on Friday. The AHR board includes famed Soviet dissident, Yelena Bonner, and former Canadian Justice Minister, Irwin Cotler, among others.

Bernstein also says on the website:

Some human rights organizations, like Human Rights Watch, do not condemn incitement to genocide, Arab hate speech being spewed daily in Gaza, particularly, and Saudi textbooks being taught to young children calling Jews “monkeys and pigs.” Hate speech is the precursor to genocide. I understand giving hate speech a lot of latitude in an open society where it is sure to be criticized - but in a closed society it goes unanswered and encouraged by the government, governments that control all the media.

If I’ve misinterpreted the positions of these human rights organizations, I’m happy to be corrected.

Human Rights Watch believes it is its job to protect civilians on both sides in a war. This is where we really disagree. In the Israel-Palestine conflict they cannot protect either side for reasons Colonel Kemp will address. Worse, their methodology which is to analyze a war after it is over is flawed and in my view its staff has little knowledge of the realities of asymmetric war and makes accusations of war crimes where others would understand the sad collateral damage of war. In the Israel-Palestine war, it seems to me, the Israelis are usually the party accused. Hamas, I believe, is fighting a war of attrition, and doesn’t subscribe to the Geneva conventions etc. I will leave the rest to Colonel Kemp.

The other reasons why a new organization is desirable will be spelled out in the near future when we will issue what I would call a “white paper” outlining them. We will then move on in our own way, leaving open societies to fend for themselves most of the time. When we are critical, we will note that while open societies must maintain the highest standards, even when they slip, they start from a much higher standard. In judging open societies you can be sure there will be more than one judge.

The Bloomberg video is here.

This is a great development, and I wish AHR well.

Story: Gazans forced to buy secondhand Israeli clothing

Firas Press has a lengthy article saying that the poor Gazans are forced to buy used Israeli clothing because they cannot afford to buy new clothes. It interviews that shamed customers, such as an engaged woman who doesn't want her fiancée to know that she bought the clothes second-hand.

Something is not making sense.

Last month, Hamas banned Israeli clothing from being imported into Gaza. So if used clothing is getting into Gaza, it seems to indicate that these are clothes that were sent by charities to be given away, not sold!

This would make sense, as Hamas already is known to confiscate medicines that are meant to be given away and sells them through pharmacies. Hamas uses the world's charity as a means to generate cash.

Pallywood, B'Tselem style (CAMERA)

CAMERA has a great expose of the latest Pallywood incident:

Sunday's Hebrew article by Elior Levi and the corresponding English version ("Video: 11-year-old Palestinian stone-thrower arrested") are based on a video that B'Tselem apparently supplied to Levi.

One wonders if the intrepid Ynet journalists, including both Levi, his editors, and English translators, even bothered to view the pre-packaged B'Tselem video before passing it off as journalism. The article states:

In the video the officers can be seen putting the boy, Karim al-Tamimi, in a police vehicle after chasing him down. The boy's mother pleaded with the officers to allow her to accompany him to the Sha'ar Binyamin police station, but her request was denied. . . .

The boy's father, Salah al-Tamimit [sic] told Ynet, "They took him without a chaperone, and by the time we arrived at the police station he was already being interrogated."

Yet, a careful viewing of the clip (with Hebrew and Arabic dialogue) reveals that the exact opposite was the case; the policemen invited the mother to accompany her child. At 2:07 minutes into the video, one of the policemen says to the mother, "Come, come, get in." The cop then asks one of the people standing nearby, "Is that his mother?" When the bystander answers in the affirmative, the policeman repeats, "Get in with him" (the boy). The door is opened for her and she is about to get into the vehicle, as the policemen are saying "get into the car," but then (2:27) the mother is pulled away from the car by the Palestinian man wearing a black jacket. After the policemen closes the van's door, a woman wearing a pink shirt pushes the mother towards the vehicle, and then the mother bangs on the door, a heartrending scene directed to the end. Here's the clip:

What possible explanation is there for the discrepancy between the article and the video? Perhaps Elior Levi received the video together with a B'Tselem press release which falsely claimed that the mother was denied permission to board the van with her son. Levi then copied the press release, without carefully reviewing the video, nevermind undertaking any field work.

A careful review of the video shows that the boy had been hidden behind a sign, blocking him from viewers' site as he threw stones at the moving vehicles. In addition, despite the fact that he had a number of options, the boy knew exactly where to run -- in the direction of the camera. And thus we have the perfectly dramatic shot of a skinny and frightened child running away from the big and scary police.

CAMERA translated the Arabic which is heard in the video, and the translation provides additional evidence that Levi's report is entirely erroneous and that the B'Tselem photographer, Nariman al-Tamimi, staged the scene.

When Karim's mother is about to enter the police van after the police tell her to board, one of the Palestinians clearly says to her in Arabic, "Don't get in," and then the Palestinian man in a black jacket pulls her away from the vehicle. This sentence proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is the Palestinians themselves who prevented her from joining her son in the van, while the Israeli police repeatedly urged her to get in.

It is also noteworthy that in the beginning of the clip videographer Nariman al-Tamimi shouts to the boy, "hurry, hurry, hurry" as he runs in her direction, yet another indication that the entire scene was planned in advance.

It appears that B'Tselem has some explaining to do regarding its "citizen journalists," the recipients of B'Tselem cameras, who fabricate news as opposed to document it.

Afternoon links

Iranian newspapers are still breathlessly talking about the gay, Freemason, Zionist, "silly" logo for the 2012 Olympics. (And the T-shirt I designed is already my best selling product in history!)

Leon Wieseltier at TNR on post-post-imperialism and the Arab world. (pass-through link courtesy TNR)

Israel Matzav draws a conclusion about the "peace process."

Liberal-leaning JTA is not thrilled with J-Street.

Speaking of, can anyone find a difference in the positions of J-Street and the American Task Force on Palestine? I think that the ATFP might be more pro-Israel than J-Street, which of course means that J-Street is not pro-Israel.

JPost piles on HRW's downplaying Libya's human rights record.

Azure has a thoughtful article about how international NGOs are affecting world politics, and not usually in a good way.

This article about a left-wing tour through Israel for journalists will hopefully be translated into English soon.

The BBC notices a different Arab lobby - but stops short

In a comment to my earlier story on the New York Times noticing the Arab lobby in America, Jed G notes a BBC piece about how Arab governments try to influence British journalism:

Over the past two months, as unrest spread across the Middle East, from Tunisia to Bahrain, many Western journalists were discreetly contacted by PR agencies acting for Arab leaders trying desperately to stem the flow of negative headlines.

The UK has become a global centre for this kind of international PR.

London is becoming a global hub for governments and world leaders - some of them with very questionable human rights records - who want to give their reputations in the west a bit of a facelift.

"I would imagine that all of those (countries) are represented in some way or another by a UK-based PR agency," Nick Allan told me in one of Soho's most exclusive clubs, as I showed him a list of Arab states that included Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

Nick Allan spent 20 years working for Britain's Foreign Office. Now he is an independent PR consultant. Although he does not currently represent any foreign governments, he has in the past had to deal with what he calls "difficult regimes".

"The key is to change the narrative about that regime. So you can't change the fact that it's a dictatorship, there's only so much lipstick you can put on a dictator, but you can certainly try to change the narrative by pointing to as many positives as you can."

In practice, Mr Allan says, the work would include drafting and placing articles in newspapers, introducing journalists to members of the government in question, or organising trips to that country. Often the PR agency will also try to squash negative stories.

"Quite often what you're doing is just pure damage limitation. There's an article in the press that your client doesn't like, and they are screaming at you down the phone to 'close the story down', do whatever you can to make the story go away.

"A lot of PR agencies will employ media lawyers to do exactly this: to write to the editors, to put as much pressure as possible on the editor or the newspaper to not run the story."

The picture that is being painted is not pretty. We see that people are being paid by foreign governments to write their own articles in newspapers, presuambly without identifying their ties to their unsavory employers they are defending.

Even worse, we are seeing that these same PR agencies are hiring lawyers to threaten newspapers to pull stories that would make Arab dictators look bad.

In other words, they are doing everything they can to limit freedom of the press and transparency.

This is an important article, one that helps explain the incredible bias in UK journalism. But it is missing a key component - a component that makes one think that the problem is even worse than is being reported.

Why didn't the BBC reporter interview anyone from the BBC who has gotten pressured by these PR firms?

It is one thing to interview someone who (says that in the past he) applied pressure to tilt news stories towards his clients' viewpoints. But why not go into the BBC newsroom and find real reporters and editors and publishers who admit that they changed their stories in reaction to outside PR pressure?

This is a story about the media that doesn't bother to interview anyone from the media. Instead, it treats the PR firms as if they are the only ones who have to answer for their unethical behavior.

Certainly the reporter could have shielded the names of the journalists who succumbed to bribes, or threats, or more subtle forms of pressure. But that is the story, and the BBC completely missed the boat in framing it as only being about PR firms taking money from less than ideal clients.

The BBC can start by identifying its own offenders. And if they claim they have never given in to Arab pressure, let's hear examples of what failed.

The consumers of British news media deserve to know the truth about how the news is created and spun. By deflecting the argument, this story looks more like a whitewash of journalists than real journalism.

Louis Farrakhan, winner of Gaddafi Prize, calls Jews "Satan"

From JPost:

Nation of Islam leader says his comments on Jews are meant "to pull the cover off Satan" and "Zionists dominate the US government and banks."

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan said Jews and Zionists are "trying to push the US into war" and are a cover for Satan, at the group's annual meeting near Chicago on Tuesday.

“President Obama," Farrakhan said, "if you allow the Zionists to push you, to mount a military offensive against Gaddafi and you go in and kill him and his sons as you did with Saddam Hussein and his sons, I’m warning you this is a Libyan problem, let the Libyans solve their problem among themselves.” Farrakhan called Muammar Gaddafi "my brother" and "my friend."

He also accused American Zionists of attempting to push Israel into war with Iran, adding that "Zionists dominate the government of the United States of America and her banking system."

One panel at the conference, titled "The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews," claimed that Jews were disproportionately involved in the slave trade and accused them of controlling the media.

“Some of you think that I’m just somebody who’s got something out for the Jewish people," Farrakhan said. "You’re stupid. Do you think I would waste my time if I did not think it was important for you to know Satan? My job is to pull the cover off of Satan so that he will never deceive you and the people of the world again.”

He also said "The Black people of America are the real children of Israel."

So how many anti-semitic motifs did Farrakhan manage to cram into his speech?

Jews control the banks
Jews control the government
Jews push other countries into fighting their wars for them
Jews control the media
Jews were responsible for the slave trade
Jews are Satan
Jews are deceptive
Jews aren't really Jews

Not bad!

Farrakhan was the 1996 winner of the Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights, which boasts such luminaries as Holocaust-denier Roger Garaudy, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The keynote was over 4 hours long. Who wants to watch it and post at what times the good parts are?

(h/t Samson)

For years, they have been one of the most formidable lobbying forces in town: the elite band of former members of Congress, former diplomats and power brokers who have helped Middle Eastern nations navigate diplomatic waters here on delicate issues like arms deals, terrorism, oil and trade restrictions.

Just last year, three of the biggest names in the lobbying club — Tony Podesta, Robert L. Livingston and Toby Moffett — pulled off a coup for one of their clients, Egypt. They met with dozens of lawmakers and helped stall a Senate bill that called on Egypt to curtail human rights abuses. Ultimately, those abuses helped bring the government down.

Mr. Moffett, a former congressman from Connecticut, told his old colleagues that the bill “would be viewed as an insult” by an important ally. “We were just saying to them, ‘Don’t do this now to our friends in Egypt,’ ” he recounted.

Now the Washington lobbyists for Arab nations find themselves in a precarious spot, as they try to stay a step ahead of the fast-changing events without being seen as aiding despots and dictators. In Libya, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen, Egypt and other countries in the region, leaders have relied increasingly on Washington’s top lobbyists and lawyers, paying them tens of millions of dollars. Some consultants are tacking toward a more progressive stance in light of pro-democracy protests, while others are dropping their clients altogether because of the tumult.

Would the NYT, or anyone else, have written such an article had the Arab world not been rocked by mass demonstrations? it is not as if the human rights abuses of these governments were secret, after all. But only now does the mainstream media decide it is newsworthy.

But talking about the "powerful Israel lobby" is a staple of news coverage of the region.

Just another example of the media's double standard with respect to Israel.

Of course, the NYT does not touch the Palestinian Arab lobbyists. To even mention their existence would upset the meme that Israel has a stranglehold on the US government. Yet, in the Palestine Papers, we see that they did hire one - Bannerman and Associates, which features Ed Abington, Jr., former United States Consul General in Jerusalem.

The PLO, much of which is funded by the US to begin with, paid millions of dollars to retain this firm - to lobby the US.

While it appears that Bannerman and Associates is no longer lobbying for the PA, who took their place?

(h/t David G)

Israel refusing to sell Turkey spy satellite equipment?

Palestine Today quotes Turkish sources as saying that Turkey intends to send a satellite into space in order to watch activities of the PKK as well as help with environmental issues. It was getting equipment from an Italian company, which was subcontracting some of the cameras to an Israeli company.

According to the article, Israel is refusing to sell the equipment unless Turkey signs an agreement promising that it will not spy on Israel with the satellite.

Turkey is balking at this stipulation, and this has the potential to erupt into a "crisis," according to the sources.

The PLO is insulting the US - more examples

In the past week I highlighted two stories, all but unreported in the media, of explicit insults against the US by the Palestinian Arab leadership.

The first was a press release by the Palestinian Foreign Ministry saying that US actions were themselves "obstacles to peace" and that the US was not an honest broker in the negotiations.

The second was the Palestinian Arab delegation walking out during Hillary Clinton's speech at the UNHRC in Geneva.

There have been others, and Palestinian Media Watch caught them.

Mahmoud Abbas, January 24:

The US is assisting us in the amount of $460 million annually. This does not mean that they dictate to us whatever they want, because we do what we view as beneficial to our cause. I recall that they said, 'Don't go to the Arab Summit in Damascus,' but we went. They demanded that we should not sign the Egyptian reconciliation document [between Fatah and Hamas], but we sent Azzam Al-Ahmed to sign it.

Fatah's Jibril Rajoub said:

The American administration has chosen unilateral aggression against human rights.

PMW brings many editorials from the official PA media as well that is sharply critical of the US.

Yet these insults, which go way beyond the diplomatic pale and should be reserved for countries like Libya and Iran, have been ignored by the media that is emotionally invested in blaming Israeli intransigence alone for lack of progress in peace negotiations.

(h/t David G for reminding me of the PMW article.)