Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Is There A Pattern of New York Times Bias Against Israel? (Daled Amos)

Last week, The Algemeiner held a discussion about The New York Times and its coverage of both Israel and of Jews in general.

Entitled, "The New York Times and the Jews," it was hosted by Dovid Efune, the Editor-in-Chief of the Algemeiner and featured Ira Stoll, Laurel Leff and Dovid Goldman. Ira Stoll writes a regular column for the Algemeiner, where he critiques the New York Times coverage of both Israel and of Jews. Laurel Leff is the author of Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America's Most Important Newspaper. Ari Goldman was a journalist with the New York Times for 20 years, from the 1970's to the 1990's and now teaches journalism at Columbia University.

Dovid Efune, Ira Stoll, Laurel Leff and Ari Goldman discuss "The New York Times and the Jews"

The crowd that came to hear the discussion was one of the largest for one of Algemeiner's events. Many may have come to see and hear The New York Times burned in effigy. Instead, the presentation was even-handed, despite the fact that the paper had turned down an opportunity to have someone attend to represent them.

A History of The New York Times

During her part in the discussion, Leff presented some historical background of the New York Times and differentiated between the philosophy of the paper early on, in contrast to what it is today.

The founder of the modern New York Times was Adolph Ochs, who bought the paper in 1896. His parents were German Jews who came to the US in the 1840's. Ochs married Iphigene (Effie) Wise, the only child of Rabbi Isaac Meyer Wise, the founder of Reform Judaism and its institutions in the US.

Adolph Ochs. Public Domain

This is important because Ochs adopted his father-in-law’s philosophy, as did his own son-in-law, Arthur Hays Sulzberger (publisher 1935-1961), later. Sulzberger, a Reform Jew, was an outspoken anti-Zionist at a time when the Reform movement was still debating the issue.

A basic idea of Reform Judaism was that Jews were no longer a people, an ethnicity or a nation. Judaism was just a religion.

Flowing from that principle:

Ochs and Sulzberger were opposed to Zionism and the creation of a Jewish state
They did not want the New York Times to be seen as a Jewish newspaper
Jews should not be separated out in any way, except for religion

This affected The New York Times coverage of the Holocaust years later:

There would be no special pleading for the Jews. This led to downplaying the Shoah
Jews were not alone in suffering. “Everyone” was suffering
The paper opposed to the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, a big issue during the war.

But despite this negative view of Israel, that attitude is not necessarily relevant to the New York Times coverage of Israel and Jews today.

While classic Reform Judaism had a tremendous impact during the first half of the 20th century, the attitudes it fostered at The New York Times basically died with Arthur Hays Sulzberger, who remained an unrepentant, anti-Zionist, classical, Reform Jew.

Most Reform Jews abandoned that anti-Zionist position and supported the creation of the state of Israel. As a result of this change, Sulzberger became disillusioned with Judaism and withdrew. His attitude towards Israel was not passed on to his son, the second Arthur Sulzberger, who became indifferent to his Judaism and married an Episcopalian.

According to Leff, the current publisher, Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, has no connection to Israel or Judaism and there is no sense of Jewish identity left.

This does not mean there are no biases or that their coverage cannot be criticized. It just means that the basis for the paper's view of Israel does not come from any historical sense of their Jewishness.

Bottom line, the current publisher does not care especially about Judaism and is not like the first Sulzberger, who was strongly motivated by his anti-Zionism.

Categorizing New York Times Errors

Ira Stoll addressed what Dovid Efune playfully suggested were “the most egregious crimes” of The Times. Stoll noted that for something to be a crime, one needs to prove intent. Instead, he said, these issues were mistakes, errors, problems -- and bias, only if one can see patterns. And before dealing with the “why” and the motivation, it is safer to start with the mistakes and what categorizes them.

Towards that end, Stoll offered a categorization of some of these problems in the paper's reporting, based on his book, a collection of his critiques of The New York Times appearing in his Algemeiner column. The book is entitled "The New York Times and The Jews".

Stoll went over a few of the categories covered in his book:

Corrections

There are items the editor admits are mistakes, corrections of basic facts there were misstated. Among those, the following New York Times articles are problematic:

For Juicy Beef for Your Seder Table, Look Beyond Brisket, featured a correction:

An earlier version of this article incorrectly implied that beef tenderloin is kosher and appropriate for Passover. It is not kosher, but other cuts of beef that are kosher may be used in the recipe in its place.

When a Spouse Dies, Resilience Can Be Uneven had this correction:

The Personal Health column on Tuesday, about resilience after the death of a spouse, misstated the length of the Jewish period of mourning for a spouse. It is 30 days, not a year. (The one-year period is for those who have lost a parent.)

In contrast with these mild examples, there is "The Correction of the Year." The article Is Facebook’s Campbell Brown a Force to Be Reckoned With? Or Is She Fake News? included this correction:

An earlier version of this article erroneously included a reference to Palestinian actions as an example of the sort of far-right conspiracy stories that have plagued Facebook. In fact, Palestinian officials have acknowledged providing payments to the families of Palestinians killed while carrying out attacks on Israelis or convicted of terrorist acts and imprisoned in Israel; that is not a conspiracy theory.

Not Fit to Print

Another category, Stoll calls "Not Fit to Print" -- stories that appear in other newspapers that the New York Times did not find room for. While Stoll did not actually give any examples, here are some from his Algemeiner articles that he mentions in his book:

New York Times Finds News of Pro-Israel Vote in Congress Not Fit to Print:

"The US House of Representatives voted on January 5 to approve a resolution objecting to UN Security Council Resolution 2334 as “biased against Israel” and calling for it to be repealed or fundamentally altered."

New York Times Finds Gaza Cancer-Patient Terror Attempt Unfit to Print:

"An attempt by the Hamas terrorist group to use cancer patients to sneak explosives into Israel"

Not Fit To Print? New York Times Ignores Palestinian Insult of US Diplomat:

"The Palestinian president publicly called the American ambassador to Israel, Dovid Friedman, a “son of a dog” — and The New York Times ignored it."

None of those stories made their way into The New York Times.

Adjectives and Adverbs

Stoll mentioned the inconsistent use of adjectives in describing world leaders.

He pointed out that The New York Times has described Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu as both loquacious and taciturn, as he also describes online in Does Bibi Talk Too Much, or Too Little? The New York Times Has All The Answers.

Stoll referred also to the different ways Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif and Netanyahu are described, a point he elaborates on in New York Times Showers Compliments on Iranian Foreign Minister. Zarif is referred to as “the urbane, American-educated diplomat,” while Netanyahu is not referred to being American educated at all. In the same article, Stoll points out that Defense Minister Lieberman is described as "ultra-nationalist" and John Bolton, before becoming National Security Advisor, was described as "combative."

Double Standards

Here too, Stoll described the category without actually giving any examples.

In When the New York Times Is for the Birds, Stoll writes about "an editorial condemning the New York City Parks Department for offering women-only bathing hours at a Brooklyn swimming pool frequented by Orthodox Jews." But on the other hand, "a previous Times article had praised a Toronto pool that offered women-only hours geared to Muslims as “a model of inclusion.”

New York Times Coverage of Jews, Israel, Is as Slanted as Its Coverage of Trump contrasts the superior coverage of a Muslim art exhibit in Washington, DC as opposed to an exhibit of First Jewish Americans in New York. Besides the difference in location of the article in the paper and the size of the article, the article about the Jewish exhibit concludes “in the exhibit, we see the kind of religious fervor that promotes a kind of violence against certain groups” -- and odd, negative mention that does not appear in the other article about the Muslim exhibit.

In The New York Times’ Double Standards on Display — Yet Again, Stoll gives the example of The New York Times giving 2 interviews to author Amos Oz about his new book 'Judas'. The interviews were an opportunity to allow Oz to be quoted saying:

Netanyahu is "a coward"
“The day people in this country start calling Netanyahu a traitor I will know that something may change.”
“The day Israelis start calling Benjamin Netanyahu a traitor, I will know something is moving at last.”

By contrast, when Israeli author, Daniel Gordis, came out with his book 'Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn,' there was no interview, no review and no coverage.

Anonymous Sources

Another category of problems with The New York Times is its use of anonymous sources. Despite its stated rule not to overly rely on them, there are cases where the paper does not adhere to its own standard when it comes to Israel.

In his article In Its Attack on Netanyahu, the New York Times Violates Its Own Anonymous Source Policy and Contradicts Itself, Stoll notes how the paper patted itself on the back on its campaign to cut down on the use of anonymous sources -- and how they seem less successful in this goal when it comes to Israel.

He refers to the article “How Benjamin Netanyahu Is Crushing Israel’s Free Press”:

“What can management do?” a Walla News journalist lamented to me. “We’re threatened here by a combination of the most powerful politician in the country and one of the most powerful commercial companies in the country.”

Walla News isn’t alone. An atmosphere of intimidation has begun to take hold in many, if not most, of the country’s newsrooms. A source in Israel Hayom, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, told me that the prime minister “holds everyone on a leash — everyone — not just us. With the other outlets, you might not realize what their interests are but they exist all the same.” [emphasis added]

Not only does the New York Times discard their rule about anonymous sources, but the claim in the article about a lack of a free press is contradicted by the paper in another article where it reports that “leaks of allegations and investigations large and small have gradually dripped out in Israel’s competitive media caldron.”

Stoll deals with the problem of The New York Times use of anonymous stories in these Algemeiner articles:

Stoll could have made a far stronger case for a pattern of bias in The New York Times if he had given examples for each of the categories he mentioned.

Journalists Are Only Human

Ari Goldman, as a former journalist for The New York Times, takes up its defense.

He breaks the issue of The New York Times and its coverage of Israel into 2 parts:

How to view the institution
His experiences at The New York Times vis-a-vis the Jewish question -- not including Crown Heights

Goldman stressed that The New York Times is run by human beings who make mistakes every day. And correct them. This is what it means when journalism is referred to as "The First Rough Draft of History"

Since journalists can only go by what they know, errors are not necessarily a conspiracy. It could simply be the information they have available.

He conceded that The New York Times has an agenda It is an agenda to write "great" stories in the "most dramatic, exciting" way. Left unaddressed was the question whether the desire to write great, dramatic and exciting stories might potentially lead a journalist to allow their biases to dictate the story or to exaggerate or omit information.

Goldman also tried to make the case that The New York Times was not a liberal newspaper. His proof was that the paper exposed the Eliot Spitzer scandal and covered the story of Hillary Clinton's email server. By that standard, if Fox News reports scandals of conservative politicians, should that serve as proof that they are not a conservative news program?

Goldman claimed that Jews and Israel were just not as high on the agenda of the paper as it was during his time there in the 1970's through the 1990's, saying "I don't think they care as much about us as we care about them."

The Crown Heights Riots

But even Ari Goldman agrees there was a real problem with The New York Times coverage of The Crown Height Riots in 1991, the 3 days of riots following the accidental death of Gavin Cato by one of the cars in the Lubavitcher Rebbe's motorcade. Three hours after the riot started, a mob surrounded Australian Jew Yankel Rosenbaum and murdered him.

Ari Goldman was one of the journalists who covered the story for The New York Times and in 2011 wrote an article for The Jewish Week -- Telling It Like It Wasn't.

Goldman quoted himself from that article, that during those riots he saw "journalism go terribly wrong" in framing the story as a clash between the black community and the Jewish community instead of recognizing the issue of black Antisemitism.

According to Goldman, this perception of a "clash" was even picked up by the Jewish community itself at the time. He said that the JDL admitted that it did not come out as strongly for the Lubavitch community at the time as it should have because of the way the riots were framed.

None of the speakers seemed to sense any comparison between the media coverage of The Crown Heights Riots and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

Both the riots and the conflict are described by the media as clashes of equally responsible groups, without any sense of the Antisemitism involved. How often have we heard of the conflict being described as a "cycle's of violence" where both sides are warned to show restraint.

Goldman writes that in order to show Jewish culpability during the riots, The New York Times went so far as to run a picture of a Chasidic man "brandishing an open umbrella before a police officer in riot gear" with the caption "a police officer scuffling with a Hasidic man." In the Middle East, the media goes to not dissimilar lengths when it waits for Israel to respond to terror attacks before reporting, so as to be able to present a more "balanced" report of two sides clashing.

Writing about the riots at the time at The New York Times, AM Rosenthal described how the media “treats it all as some kind of cultural clash between a poverty-ridden people fed up with life and a powerful, prosperous and unfortunately peculiar bunch of stuck-up neighbors" -- not unlike the way the Gazans are described vis-a-vis Israel. Rosenthal went on to describe those riots as an "Antisemitic pogrom" -- a term that certainly fits the behavior and goals of the current Gazan riots.

The Democratization of the Media

One of the benefits of social media is the ease with which public opinion may be gauged. Today, readers not only read the story, but they can also affect which ones are covered just by clicking on them online. The gap between editorial decisions and the public is narrowed, emphasizing the importance of the democratization of the media.

One benefit is the speed with which the public can lodge a complaint about a story.

In 2015, The New York Times ran a story about Lawmakers Against the Iran Nuclear Deal, which included a chart that was supposed to do more than just show which Congressmen were in favor or opposed to the deal. The chart went so far as to show which Congressmen were Jewish -- and highlighted them in yellow.

Here is the chart for the Senate:

After a huge outcry, the chart was amended

On the flip side, however, there is a negative aspect to opening up to popular input.

Last year, Ira Stoll wrote ‘Parasitic Thug’ Is New York Times’ New Name for Netanyahu, about how The New York Times not only published an Antisemitic reader's comment describing Netanyahu as a "parasitic thug" influencing US elections, it also accused Jews of forming a "5th column." The New York Times even awarded the comment with a gold ribbon as a New York Times pick. The fact that the comment received 76 "thumbs up" votes from fellow readers is also food for thought. The comment was later removed.

The fact that newspapers now have a trending chart, whether visible to the journalists (CNN) or just the editors (New York Times) is a further indication of influence readers can potentially have on newspapers.

The Coverage

Towards the end of the discussion, Laurel Leff addressed the issue of The New York Times coverage of Israel. She insisted that no one covers Israel like the New York Times -- not even The Wall Street Journal because the paper itself has a different purpose. A better comparison would be between The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Leff continued that it was not fair to say that The New York Times does not understand the Israeli perspective. Most of the journalists live there, some for a long time. By the same token, she claimed that Palestinians criticize journalists that they don't understand what is going on because they live in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem instead of in Ramallah. If only journalistic insight were a question of geography.

She also noted that journalists get pressure from both sides as well as from both the left and the right and that journalists tend to side with whom they perceive as being the underdog.

Taking Ari Goldman's earlier point about the errors made by The New York Times against Israel being honest mistakes, Dovid Efune asked Ira Stoll if he could think of any honest mistakes made by The New York Times that actually favored Israel.

Stoll's example was a point he has written about before. There appears to be a tendency in The New York Times to refer to Mahmoud Abbas as "aging." Apparently, the point is that the paper feels that Abbas is senile, incompetent and unable to do his job, yet resorts to euphemisms instead of addressing the issue in an article.

That hardly qualifies as "an honest mistake" made in Israel's favor.

Too bad the question was not asked of Ari Goldman.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that during the discussion, every effort was made, not just for balance, but to avoid piling on The New York Times. Despite the fact that Ira Stoll clearly had multiple examples of potential bias, based on the paper's use of double standards and anonymous sources and on the stories it ignores, those examples were mentioned only in passing with no actual examples given. Having raised the point that a claim of bias would have to show a pattern, Stoll could easily have presented a case -- a strong case -- which is why he makes numerous references to the "bias" of The New York Times in his book.

Laurel Leff was deliberate in distancing the Sulzberger's of today from the original Sulzberger and defended the paper from any charge of bias. Her position seemed to be that The New York Times was no different from any other paper in its coverage of Israel -- only better.

Ari Goldman felt the greatest responsibility for defending the paper. At one point, he went so far as to tell the audience that if they felt there was a problem with The New York Times coverage of Israel, they should tell their children to be journalists. But it was Ari Goldman himself who opened the door to the issue of New York Times bias in the Crown Heights Riots.

Even given the restraint in the criticisms of The New York Times that night, it is hard to claim that was a unique case.

(Watch the discussion on The Algemeiner's Facebook page)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Dr. Ahmed al-Tayeb, Sheikh of Al-Azhar in Egypt, gave a speech last night for Laylat Al-Qadr where he stressed how tolerant Islam is towards Jews.

That tolerance seems to only go so far, though.

Dr. Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, the Sheikh of Al-Azhar called upon Muslims (pointing out) the necessity of differentiating between Jews (on the one hand) and the occupying Israeli state (on the other hand). He said: “Jews are one thing and Zionism is another thing. Criticising the Zionist entity doesn’t necessarily mean criticising Jews or Judaism “. He pointed out that the issue of (accusations of) antisemitism have turned out to be a lie that no longer fool the peoples (i.e. nations).

The Grand Imam stressed in his speech that he delivered at the Waqf Ministry’s celebration of Laylat Al-Qadr that there isn’t a single Quranic verse that calls for the killing of Jews or Christians, and that there is no place in that book for this kind of barbaric cruelty. He stressed that the verses talking about fighting are supposed to (urge Muslims to) repel aggression.

He added: “The fair (or righteous) ones among the Jews themselves admit that they enjoyed a secure life with Muslims and acknowledge (that) the Islamic state in Egypt and Andalusia (acted this way).”

He pointed out that Islam does not blame/admonish/punish contemporary Jews for the crimes of their forefathers....

He mentioned that the words “curse” and “humiliation” in the Quran were not meant for all the Jews, only those among the People of the Book who denied (the truth) of the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Quran.

See? As long as Jews are willing to live as second class citizens in a majority Muslim country, where they have to pay a poll tax and cannot build synagogues higher than mosques, they are fine. As long as they don't deny the truth of the Koran, they are fine.

Only the others who actually have some pride are the ones that should be cursed.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Last week I mentioned that a Palestinian NGO had started a social media campaign against the PA government for its punitive sanctions on Gaza that hurt two million people.

I mentioned that the group had called for a demonstration on Sunday last week, but I didn't see any coverage of it.

It turns out that there was a small demonstration last week, and today there was another.

Dozens of people publicly called for the immediate lifting of all punitive measures imposed on the Gaza Strip and to end Abbas' sanctions against the territory.

Most interestingly, they emphasized a slogan: One people, one enemy.

The slogan itself shows how deeply wedded the even the most moderate Palestinians are to the idea of Israel being their eternal enemy. These people want peace between the PA and Hamas, but you will never see any rallies in Ramallah calling for peace with Israel the way that there have been huge peace demonstrations in Israel.

This incident shows yet again that the entire purpose of Palestinianism is rejection of Israel, not the building of a Palestinian Arab nation.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

06/11 Links Pt2: In Universities, anti-Semitism travels under the guise of pro-Palestinian activism; ZOA: Fire Joy Reid for Antisemitism & Conspiracy Theories; Stars come out to celebrate Israel's 70th anniversary

From Ian:

Increasingly, in our Universities, anti-Semitism travels under the guise of pro-Palestinian activism.

...Being Mein Kampf-y is back in vogue and Jews amassed in their homeland are the primary target. Islamic regimes claim the moral high ground by criticising Israel for using disproportionate force to protect state borders while they quietly bankroll illegal armies of jihadis. The use of non-state actors in the place of legitimate armies means Islamic regimes can fund illegal wars while avoiding accountability under international law, at the UN and in the media.

The UN General Assembly will convene for an emergency session this week regarding Gaza. Some Arab states object to Israel defending its borders against Hamas militants. Recent attempts to damn Israel while exculpating terrorists have failed. But they have gained support from powerful countries such as China, whose government rails against colonialism as it colonises international waters.

The Palestinian territories are so radicalised that Hamas governs Gaza. It is the foot soldiers of Islamist terror that you see running for Israel’s borders on the TV news at night. If the accompanying narration is anything to go by, we are supposed to be angry at Israel for gunning down the terrorists trying to invade it. What is the proposed alternative? Should the Israel Defence Forces lay down their arms and let the terrorists invade the only pluralistic democracy in the Middle East?

Israel was always going to be a risky venture. Theoretically, it secures a safe haven for Jews after centuries of persecution. However, their concentration in a small territory in a neighbourhood of Islamic states poses a significant threat.

Increasingly, anti-Semitism travels under the guise of pro-Palestinian activism. While it is possible to argue for the two-state solution and against Israeli policy without being anti-Semitic, it is dangerously naive to ignore the intent of Palestinian jihadis to enact the final solution by wiping Israel off the map.

Dangerously naive is the default position of progressive populists in relation to Israel. The alt-left champions jihadis while denouncing democracies. Many seem unaware of what they are defending when they criticise Israel’s national security measures.

Student activists [at the University of Sydney] have struck another blow for tyranny by celebrating a female suicide bomber who killed Israelis.

The student women’s collective at the University of Sydney featured Hamida al-Taher on the front page of campus newspaper Honi Soit. The edition was dedicated to the struggle against “Israeli colonisation”. The collective described her as a martyr. One may reason that a young woman being used as a bomb for jihad is cause for condemnation, not celebration. But the sisterhood between jihadis and Western feminism is no place for reason.

But he was mostly unarmed

In other words, it’s a reasonable calculation that for the majority of the day, he was “unarmed.” By the logic of the journalists who cover Israel, then, they should report that that the axe-wielder was another “mostly unarmed” civilian, a “protester” or “demonstrator” who had harmed nobody.

I also expect journalists to try to cast doubt on whether he was even carrying the axe. They will probably write that the Israelis “claimed” or “alleged” he was carrying it, but there’s no proof. After all, since when do Palestinian terrorists carry axes?

I would bet that the residents of nearby Kibbutz Nirim, who were right in the path of the axe terrorist, have some sense of what lay in store for them if the Israeli soldiers had not shot him.

I doubt anybody at the kibbutz has forgotten about the terrorists who used an axe to butcher the five rabbis in the Har Nof (Jerusalem) synagogue, or Michael Nadler, the young man from Miami Beach whom axe-wielding terrorists butchered on the Golan Heights. They haven’t forgotten the Bat Ayin axe attack or the Ma’ale Adumim axe attack, the axe attacks in Afula and in the Old City of Jerusalem, and all the rest, far too numerous to list here.

But the journalists won’t mention any of that in their articles. Not because they don’t believe Palestinian terrorists have used axes. But because hiding that fact advances the Palestinian agenda. Most journalists want to see Israel forced to accept the creation of a Palestinian state along Israel’s nine-miles-wide border.

Anything that would cast doubt on the Palestinians’ nature or intentions could strengthen opposition to creating such a state.

And that’s why the media pretend that Palestinian terrorists are “mostly unarmed”—even when they are armed with the same deadly weapons that have been used by so many terrorists before them.

A talk by Tom Gross on Israel and the media, and how Israeli PR could be improved (Feb 9, 2010)

* “A fascinating lecture by Tom Gross, well worth watching. Even though it is from a few years ago, it is still just as relevant today and has lessons for us all.” -- William Shawcross, CVO, British writer and former Chairman of the Charity Commission. * “This is a great talk by Tom Gross – journalists and diplomats alike should watch it” -- Evgeny Kissin, leading Russian-born classical concert pianist * Tom Gross: “The media coverage of the Mideast is even worse than we think it is.” Tom Gross is a former Mideast correspondent for the London Sunday Telegraph and New York Daily News, and a contributor to The Guardian and Wall Street Journal.

From Israel Hayom last week:

The Israeli government on Thursday unveiled what it billed as a groundbreaking program to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in long-neglected Palestinian neighborhoods of east Jerusalem.

The "Leading Change" program aims to reduce the huge social gaps between the Arab and Jewish populations in the capital.

Palestinian neighborhoods suffer from poor infrastructure, neglect and subpar public services, and nearly 80% of the city's Palestinian families live in poverty.

The program will invest 2 billion shekels ($560 million) in three core areas: education, infrastructure, and helping Palestinian women enter the workforce. The funds will be spent on a variety of programs, including nine pilot projects in the coming five years, with the aim of attracting further government and private investment down the road.

Various government ministries, along with the Jerusalem Municipality, will carry out the program, which was launched at a ceremony at President Reuven Rivlin's official residence on Thursday.

Rivlin praised what he called "the most comprehensive attempt by the government to date to narrow the gaps and to develop the economy" of east Jerusalem, which has experienced "lost generations" over the decades.

Since this is exactly opposite of the worldwide meme of how Israel neglects its Arab population, this story will not be mentioned by the media.

Even Netanyahu's critics who call him a racist grudgingly admit that he has spent a lot of money helping the economy of the Arab sector in Israel.

However, there is some potential on this story being picked up by the Israel haters, where they will spin it to say that Israel is spending money in order to annex "East" Jerusalem.

Once that message gets out there, then international reporters will find an angle to report on this story while continuing to demonize Israel.

(h/t Yoel)

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RISING UP: The Metaphoric Kite

Hamas’ riling up the masses and ‘populist warfare’ tactics are a concerted effort to provoke Israeli retaliation. These tactics are not novel by any means, nor are their espousal of terrorism and advocacy for the destruction of Israel by way of bombings, rockets, and lethal intifadas. However, the recent use of incendiary kites deployed from Gaza by the thousands into Israel is especially disconcerting for its symbolic and violent outcomes.

What are kites but symbols of youth and innocence, emblems of playfulness and wonder for children? But leave it to Hamas to pervert a toy and joyful experience for youth. As the kites are transformed from toys to tools of chaos, so too are the children of Gaza ideologically weaponized from birth. Gazan youth learn unconditional hate for Jews and Israel and are raised under the thumb of a militarized and an internationally-recognized terror group.

Hamas methodically perpetuates hate from one generation to the next by indoctrinating children with deplorable idioms and sanctioning violence as honorable. They’ve bred the next generation of civilian shields and terrorists instead of preparing a skilled and educated population of future leaders.

Of course, not all Gazans and certainly not all children follow Hamas’ path. But Hamas is so hell-bent on Israel’s extinction that it deprives children of innocent play and weaponizes what should be their toys to serve further destruction.

The kites are dually symbolic not solely of Hamas’ imparted ideology on their kids, but of Hamas’ irresponsible handling and appropriation of international aid to Gaza. Donated by Japan specifically for the impoverished children of Gaza, Hamas and Hamas-followers weaponized the toys to launch a barrage of flying incendiary devices against Israel.

While the kites were a relatively mundane gift from Japan, they are indicative of the much larger and more substantial trend of misappropriation of funds by Hamas.

“Hamas allocates 55% of its budget to fund its military needs and its share in the rehabilitation of Gaza is less than 5% of the total investment. In addition to its disproportionately large military budget, Hamas also diverts aid money to fund its military ventures,” per the IDF. This is in spite of “80% (of the Gaza population) are dependent on international aid.”

According to Major General Yoav Mordechai, "The egotistical Hamas terror organization has robbed funds that are meant for the needy of Gaza from international organizations. Hamas prospers at the expense of the residents of the Strip and uses donations meant for them to finance terror. How long will the world and the Gazan people ignore this?”

And his posed question is certainly valid, considering the perpetual allocation of funds by Hamas towards arms accumulation and expanding their frightening military capabilities.

So the metaphoric kite represents Hamas’ operations: Like a kite looms above, Hamas persists as an ongoing threat to the State of Israel and the state of Western democracy in the Middle East. The kite will inevitably fall, to be sure, but when that kite is outfitted with incendiaries, it menaces Israeli civilians and distances further any promise or hope of peace.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

06/11 Links Pt1: Gaza—The “humanitarian” hoax; How to beat Hamas' guerrilla terrorism; Germany's Migrant Rape Crisis: "Failure of the State"

From Ian:

Martin Sherman: Gaza—The “humanitarian” hoax

The privation in Gaza is not the cause of the enmity towards the Jewish state. Quite the opposite! It is the enmity towards the Jewish state that is the cause of the privation in Gaza.

No cliché has dominated the discourse on the Gaza situation more than the perception of Palestinian violence as a corollary of the Strip’s dire economic condition – Prof. Efraim Karsh, It's Not Gaza's Economy, Stupid, June 3, 2018.

Many experts claim that an easing of economic conditions in Gaza…is the way to achieve political stability in a Gaza Strip ruled by Hamas. This is a fallacious argument. Prof. Hillel Frisch, Economic Benefits Will Not Bring Stability to Gaza , June 6, 2018.

It is refreshing to see what appears to be an emerging challenge to the mindless Pavlovian response, propagated by most of the Israeli media, to the horrific hatred and violence on display along the border with Gaza.

Soldiers turned sociologists?
Sadly, and perhaps, most disturbingly, it is none other than the IDF and the security establishment that appear to be one of its principal advocates.

Reflecting this hopelessly unfounded perspective was a recent report, headlined, “Israeli military recommends easing humanitarian situation in Gaza”, which cited a senior military source advising that “Israel should ease the humanitarian situation in Gaza and reach a long term ‘arrangement’ with Hamas”. A day later, this was followed by a similar report,” Army calls to lift some economic restrictions on Gaza, boost chances of quiet”, citing “A top official in the IDF’s Southern Command [who stated that ] Israel must take steps to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which would likely bring quiet to the Gaza region.”

Bill to punish Palestinians for pay-for-slay scheme heads to final vote

A bill meant to discourage the Palestinian Authority from continuing to pay terrorists can go to a final vote, after the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee authorized it on Monday.

The legislation requires the government to deduct the amount that the Palestinian Authority pays terrorists from the taxes and tariffs Israel collects for the PA, and is backed by MKs from the coalition and much of the opposition.

The PA paid terrorists over a billion shekels ($280 million) in 2017, upping the amount to over NIS 1.4 billion ($390 million) in its 2018 budget, according to a Defense Ministry report based on the PA’s budget.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the bill’s passage, and said it will be used to pay damages for fields destroyed by Gazans launching incendiary kites into Israel. “Justice should be done here. Whoever burns fields should know it has a price.”

“This bill fixes a historic injustice,” according to Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern, who proposed the legislation. “This is a bill that will reduce terrorism.”

PMW: Far-reaching PMW achievement in Israeli Parliament today

Today the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) Committee on Foreign Affairs and Security voted unanimously to deduct the amount that the PA pays to terrorist prisoners and terrorists' families from the tax money that Israel collects and transfers to the PA each month. The amount, according to the 2018 PA budget, is approximately 1.2 billion shekels per year (approx. $350 million).

The legislation adds that the withheld money will be put into a special account which will be used to compensate victims of terror and their families, as well as to compensate Israelis for economic damage caused by Palestinian terror, and other uses.

Since the vote was supported by all the Knesset members present, both of the coalition and opposition, the legislation is expected to pass the second and third readings in the Knesset shortly and be enacted into law.

Palestinian Media Watch has been working with the Knesset committee in all of its deliberations about this legislation. On November 13, 2017, PMW was invited and made a PowerPoint presentation to the committee introducing the Knesset committee to the topic of Palestinian rewards to terrorists.

PMW showed the Knesset the history and scope of the PA practice:
The amount the PA spends on terror rewards;
Proof that these rewards motivated terror attacks;
Proof that at least part of the money Israel transferred was reaching terrorists in prison; and much more.

Subsequently, the Ministry of Defense announced that the Israeli government would like to initiate its own version of the legislation. Representatives of the Ministry of Defense turned to PMW and met with us numerous times for information detailing the practice and its scope.

PMW was invited to the four subsequent meetings in the Knesset Committee in 2018, (January 9, February 12, May 15, and today), and played an active role in all the meetings.

The official spokesman of Fatah movement and member of its Revolutionary Council, Osama al-Qawasmi, said that the law passed by the Knesset, which authorizes the Israeli government to withhold tax revenues of the amount the PA pays the families of "martyrs" and prisoners, is "piracy" and "theft" and "violates all international conventions."

Because paying terrorists and their families is protected under international law.

Just so you know.

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Syrians approaching the Israeli border in 2011

The current "Great Return March" is not the first attempt by Palestinians to "return" to Israel by pretending to peacefully march through the Israeli borders.

In 2011, there were two sets of similar demonstrations or attempts, in May and June for Nakba Day and Naksa Day. Arabs of Palestinian descent attempted to walk into Israel from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, as well as Gaza and the West Bank.

In most cases, the demonstrators were not stopped by Israel, but by the police and armies of the host countries and territories - often violently.

On May 15, the Lebanese army fired at the demonstrators, killing 10 of them.

The Egyptian army stopped any buses with demonstrators before they could approach the border, and in Jordan dozens were injured as the Jordanian security forces stopped the demonstrators from approaching the border with Israel.

If these were peaceful protests, then why would the host countries be willing to use violence to stop its own citizens from approaching Israeli territory?

The reason is that everyone knows that crossing a border without permission is an act of war, not an act of protest. The countries wanted to avoid the possibility of starting a war with Israel (with the exception of Syria, which facilitated the demonstrations in order to distract the world from the beginnings of the Syrian uprising.)

During the June 5 demonstrations, even Hamas stopped the protesters from approaching the Gaza border by putting up checkpoints and arresting those who tried to bypass them.

At the time, the US issued a statement saying the obvious truth: "We call for all sides to exercise restraint. Provocative actions like this should be avoided. Israel, like any sovereign nation, has a right to defend itself."

What was so obvious in 2011, that attempts to breach a border are acts of war that can be expected to be met with deadly force, has suddenly become controversial in 2018.

It is also notable that Israel used the exact same methods to stop the protesters in 2018 as in 2011: warning them, using tear gas, and shooting at their legs when the other methods didn't work. There were no condemnations from the international community then, and as we've seen even Lebanon and Jordan and Egypt - and Hamas - attempted to stop the protests, with violence if necessary.

The international reaction to the current wave of violent riots is the height of hypocrisy.

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Last week, Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah gave one of his regular speeches where he opines on a wide range of topics.

In this speech, he claimed that Arab Gulf countries were acting as intermediaries for Jews who want to buy houses from Arabs in Jerusalem. The Arabs would not sell directly to Jews for fear of being attacked or killed, but they sell to Gulf Arabs who then turn around and resell them to their Jewish clients, from the safety of their homes thousands of miles away.

Nasrallah says that the owner of a house near the Temple Mount was offered $20 million from an Arab intermediary, who meant to sell it to Jews.

An article in an Arabic news site yesterday specifically accused a UAE businessman of being an intermediary for exactly such transactions. With fairly thin circumstantial evidence, the article claims that some Arabs with Israeli citizenship as well as Mahmoud Abbas rival Mohammed Dahlan are helping facilitate shell companies in the UAE buy land and houses from Arabs in Jerusalem. Dahlan vehemently denied the charges on Facebook.

Even so, the article claims that these transactions are happening, and says that at the current rate of Jewish purchase of these properties, the majority of the properties around the perimeter of the Temple Mount will be owned by Jews within five years.

So far, no international human rights group has spoken out against the idea that Arabs should be threatened rather than be allowed to sell property to Jews. After all, why should pure antisemitism and death threats to property sellers be a subject for human rights groups to bother about?

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Indonesian leader of 50 million Muslims visits Israel to address American Jewish Committee forum

The Arabic media, already reeling over the visit of a delegation of Moroccans to Israel this week, now has another headache to deal with.

Yahya Cholil Staquf, General Secretary of the world's largest Muslim organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Supreme Council, will address the American Jewish Committee (AJC) Global Forum in Jerusalem this week.

Pak Yahya has inspired many in Indonesia and elsewhere with his work that promotes understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims, and underlines a tolerant, moderate vision of Islam. The organization he heads has over 50 million members and 14,000 madrasahs in Indonesia, the fourth-largest country in the world and the country with the world's largest Muslim population. They adhere to Sunni Islam traditions that teach that the primary message of Islam is universal love and compassion.

It would be tough for Muslims to say that the leader of 50 million of them is a traitor.

It would be very tough for BDS to threaten the leader of 50 million Muslims.

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Sometimes you can find the best stories only in Arabic media.

Palestine Today reports that a delegation of Moroccans began a visit to Israel today. The visit will last several days.

It will include a visit to the Knesset including the visit, which will last several days a visit to the Knesset and a field tour of Jerusalem, a visit to the centers and museums including the Yad Vashem and some universities.

The delegation includes 11 people, including engineers, writers, directors and businessmen, who see the importance of dialogue and communication with their counterparts in Israel.

Delegates are also scheduled to visit Islamic holy sites.

These sorts of things are barely a blip on Israelis' radar, but Arabic sites know that this sort of thing is the reality, and the Argentina soccer fiasco is the exception that proves the rule. The Arab world is moving closer to Israel and no longer subscribes to the zero-sum reality of Palestinians that says that taking advantage of what Israel has to offer hurts Palestinians.

In fact, Morocco also set up a field hospital in Gaza in recent days.

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06/10 Links: Greenblatt: After four decades of Erekat, Palestinians deserve better; Giuliani: The PA is “not entitled to be a state”; Netanyahu bypasses the Ayatollahs - offers water tech to Iranians

From Ian:

Greenblatt: After four decades of Erekat, Palestinians deserve better

It is time for the Palestinians to be served by leaders other than Saeb Erekat, who for the last 40 years has voiced the same talking points and failed to deliver “anything close” to what the Palestinians want, US Mideast negotiator Jason Greenblatt wrote in an op-ed on Sunday.

Greenblatt, who on a number of occasions has been the target of Erekat’s angry rhetorical fusillades, took to the offensive in a Haaretz piece headlined, “Trump Mideast envoy: The Palestinians deserve so much more than Saeb Erekat.”
“Dr. Erekat – we have heard your voice for decades and it has not achieved anything close to Palestinian aspirations or anything close to a comprehensive peace agreement,” Greenblatt wrote. “Other Palestinian perspectives might help us finally achieve a comprehensive peace agreement where Palestinian and Israeli lives can be better.

“The time for leadership and responsibility is now,” he said. “The time for meeting after meeting of government officials repeating the same talking points is over. The Palestinian people want real action, and they need honest, realistic and decisive solutions.”

Greenblatt wrote that notions that Israel is going away, or that Jerusalem is not the country’s capital, or that the United States is not a critical interlocutor for Mideast peace are all simply “mirages.”

“The reality is that there is an opportunity for peace at hand, and that President Trump and his administration are working to help facilitate a peace that will open up the future of the Palestinian people, if they and their leadership have the courage to seize it,” he concluded.

The trigger for the piece was an article Erekat wrote on May 17, following the move of the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and the most violent day of rioting along the Gaza security fence, when 62 Palestinians were killed.

Erekat accused the US of “moral bankruptcy and complicity with Israel,” and accused Greenblatt and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman of becoming “nothing less than spokespeople for the Israeli occupation.”

Rudy Giuliani to PMW: The PA is “not entitled to be a state”

Palestinian Media Watch met with Rudy Giuliani, US President Donald Trump's lawyer, on Wednesday, and documented to him the many ways that the PA glorifies terror and terrorists.

PMW’s Director Itamar Marcus and head of Legal Strategies Maurice Hirsch showed the former mayor of New York City PMW’s reports on the PA's payment of salaries to terrorist prisoners, 31 PA schools named after terrorists as well as texts presenting terrorists as role models from PA schoolbooks.

Giuliani’s response was that these activities show the PA to be a “murder machine.” The PA’s response to terror including financial support and honor for terrorists makes them “a prime supporter of terrorism.”

Most significantly, Giuliani concluded that because of the PA’s terror support they are “therefore not entitled to be a state.”

In his statement to PMW, Giuliani focused on the PA’s policy of paying salaries to terrorists:
“The payment of money by the Palestinian Authority to terrorists who are convicted of terrorism is an absolute human rights outrage and a crime in and of itself. To give money to people who slaughter innocent human beings, including children and women and innocent people of all kinds, is a direct contribution to terrorism... The fact that the Palestinian Authority does this, carries this out on a massive scale, is yet another indication that the Palestinian Authority is a prime supporter of terrorism, and therefore not entitled to be a state.” [Giuliani recorded statement to PMW, June 6, 2018]

Giuliani believes that countries must cut off all funding to Palestinian Authority:
“The United States, for example, should not give the Palestinian Authority any money, and not just restrict the use of money, because money is fungible. So if they get money for one purpose, they just don’t use it for that purpose and they move it over to paying terrorists for killing Americans, because many of these terrorists have killed Americans as well as Israelis.”

Rudy Giuliani: The PA is a “murder machine” and “not entitled to be a state”

The New York Times had an article on Friday by Michael David Lukas, a writer who spent a lot of time looking at ancient Jewish cemeteries mostly in Muslim countries like Tunisia and Egypt.

He ends off the article this way:

It might be difficult to find the traces of Jewish history in Kolkata or Cairo or Baghdad or Fez. And it might be difficult to imagine that now-vanished world in which Jewish bakers lived side by side with Muslim doctors, Armenian tailors and Zoroastrian jewelers.

But that’s all the more reason to search out those places. In visiting these semi-abandoned cemeteries and synagogues, in seeking out the remnants of this mostly forgotten past, I’ve tried, in my own small way, to pay my respects to the dead and to remember that lost world in which they lived.

Not once in the article is the reader given any context as to why the Jews who had lived in these places for so long suddenly disappeared.

The taboo of mentioning the obvious fact of Muslim antisemitism - especially after Israel was reborn, but also throughout history - is simply too strong.

Instead of being ethnically cleansed, the Jews who attended these synagogues just magically disappeared.

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The Palestinian foreign ministry issued a statement warning about how Israel is lying to the world about any Jewish history in Jerusalem.

"This campaign includes various fields and areas, whether diplomatic, sports or cultural, and it uses any excuse to pass on its lies and its Judaic narrative about the Holy City and its many historical sites," the ministry said in a statement.

It warned that Israel is bringing international visitors to visit "occupied Jerusalem with an infusion of fabricated information and the falsification of the facts about occupation."

In a sane world, every enlightened nation that knows a modicum of history would condemn these antisemitic statements that deny Jewish history. But in the world we live in, a putative "nation" can spout out any lies it wants without any fear of a real nation (or major media outlet) standing up to it and saying that as long as the PA denies reality, it cannot expect and does not deserve any respect.

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