Responsible Press

"The World Media Goes Bonkers: An Israel-Attacks-Iran Case Study" by Barry Rubin

2012-02-08T13:30:00.000-08:00

"The World Media Goes Bonkers: An Israel-Attacks-Iran Case Study" by Barry Rubin

Graphic courtesy- IsraelIran.Net

For the second time in a few months we have seen a crazy global Israel-About-to-Attack-Iran Story. I don't want to go into all of the details but this tale is an example of how the media has just lost it completely due to a combination of laziness (reporters don't really do research or check sources); agenda; ignorance; and good old sensationalism. Partly, too, it arises from the difficulty of the mass media in dealing with the Internet media era and the difficulty of the Internet media in achieving decent journalistic standards.
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Arab League acknowledged "Palestinian" identity was devised as a device to counter Jewish territorial claims

2011-09-19T16:59:00.000-07:00

“Of all the Palestinian lies there is no lie greater or more crushing than that which calls for the establishment of a separate Palestinian state in the West Bank... Not since the time of Dr. Goebbels has there been a case in which continual repetition of a lie has borne such great fruits....”

– From “Palestinian Lies” in Haaretz, July 1976.

By MARTIN SHERMAN in The Jerusalem Post

Nothing could better underscore just how emaciated Israeli foreign policy has become than the penetrating observation by former Meretz minister of education Prof. Amnon Rubinstein articulated above.

Nothing could better underscore just how detached from the reality the discourse on “Palestine” has become than the avowal of the timeless and unconditional rejection of Israel, articulated in ensuing excerpt. . . .

While no real consensus exists among political scientists as to the exact definition of “nation” and “nationalism,” there is broad agreement as to what constitutes its sine qua non. Whatever other details one scholar or another might wish to add to his/her preferred definition, there would be almost no disagreement that: a “nation” is an identifiably differentiated segment of humanity that desires to exercise political sovereignty in a defined territory; and that “nationalism” is the pursuit, by identifiably differentiated segments of humanity, of the exercise of political sovereignty in a defined territory.

The most cursory analysis of historical events in this region will quickly reveal that in the case of the Palestinians, neither of these two elements exists: neither an identifiably differentiated people desiring exercise of political sovereignty, nor a defined territory in which that sovereignty is to be exercised.

One need only examine the declarations/documents of Palestinians themselves to verify this – and to discover that they do not conceive of themselves as a discernibly discrete people with a defined homeland.

Accordingly, little effort is required to demonstrate that the Palestinian “narrative” – the notional fuel driving the demands for statehood – is a motley mixture of myths, which although they overlap and interlock, are nevertheless easily identifiable and readily refutable.

The inescapable conclusion is that the entire edifice of Palestinian national aspirations is a political hoax, a massive sleight of political hand designed to serve a far more sinister – and thinly disguised – motive. So what are these myths; and why are they so easily identifiable?

The myth of Palestinian peoplehood

Senior Palestinian leaders have admitted – openly, consistently and continually – that Palestinians are not a discrete people identifiably different from others in the Arab world.

For example, on March 14, 1977, Farouk Kadoumi, head of the PLO Political Department, told Newsweek: “Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people.”

This statement parallels almost exactly the position expressed two weeks later by the former head of the PLO’s Military Department and Executive Council member Zuheir Muhsin, who declared: “There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are all part of one nation.”

It was Jordan’s King Hussein who underscored that the emergence of collective Palestinian identity was merely a ploy to counter Jewish claims to territory considered Arab.

At the Arab League meeting in Amman in November 1987, he said: “The appearance of the Palestinian national personality comes as an answer to Israel’s claim that Palestine is Jewish.”

This of course necessarily implies that the “Palestinian personality” is devoid of an independent existence, and is a fictional derivative, fabricated only to counteract Jewish territorial claims. Indeed, without Jewish claims there would be no Palestinian personality.

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The World Turned Upside Down - Britain's Melanie Philips

2011-06-23T15:27:00.000-07:00

Columnist and author of Londonistan, Melanie Philips, remarks on leftist media bias in Los Angeles, California at the Horowitz Freedom Center's Wednesday Breakfast Club, January 23, 2011

"Palestinian forces abuse journalists"- Human Rights Watch

2011-04-07T02:46:00.000-07:00

By DANIEL ESTRIN, Associated Press – Wed Apr 6, 8:38 am ET

JERUSALEM – A leading human rights group on Wednesday criticized Palestinian security forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for what it said was an increase in attacks on local journalists, including arbitrary detentions and abuse.

A report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch said that over the past two years, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has stepped up harassment of journalists investigating corruption or seen to be supporters of the rival Hamas militant group. The pressure tactics by the Western-backed government have led to more self-censorship among local reporters, the group also said.

The report focused on the West Bank, documenting seven cases of abuse there. But it also included two cases in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip — where reported abuses against journalists by Hamas have been less frequent but nevertheless harsh, according to HRW. It said abuse by Hamas, as well as by Israeli security forces, would be the focus of future reporting.

"Palestinian security forces are becoming notorious for assaulting and intimidating journalists who are just trying to do their jobs," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Both the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza need to end these blatant attacks on free expression."

Speaking to reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Stork said the abuses stretched beyond journalists. "Many other citizens in the West Bank, in Gaza, who are critics or who are perceived to be critics of the government or of the authorities are coming to face the same treatment," he said.

The group urged international donors to demand the Palestinian Authority — which receives hundreds of millions of dollars in Western support each year — stop the practice as a condition for receiving aid.

Adnan Dameiri, a spokesman for the security forces in the West Bank, said the cases were aberrations, "individual behavior from certain members in the security forces" and that they do not reflect a "systematic policy of the Palestinian Authority against journalists."

A Hamas official in Gaza said instances of abuse were mistakes, and those responsible have been punished. "The government absolutely rejects any harassment committed against the media," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

HRW cited a 2010 report by the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms, which found a 45 percent increase over the previous year in physical attacks, arrests, confiscation of equipment and other violations against journalists. The independent, nonprofit group recorded 79 cases of journalist abuse by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

In one case documented by Human Rights Watch, freelance journalist and filmmaker Muhannad Salahat was arrested by Palestinian Authority and held without charge on two occasions in early 2010.

During 24 days in custody, he was interrogated about his documentaries and asked to sign a document saying he belonged to a Facebook group that included discussions of governmental corruption. He was then told that was the basis of the case to be brought against him. He was later released.

Another freelance journalist, Khalid Amayreh, said he has been repeatedly detained by Palestinian Authority security since reporting about torture in West Bank prisons and criticizing the suppression of protests against Israel's 2009 military offensive in Gaza. In one instance, HRW said, he was put in solitary confinement and forced to sleep next to a toilet.

The abuse takes place "in the context of virtual impunity" for security officials, the report said. And while it is not necessarily ordered by Palestinian leaders, "the utter failure of the PA leadership to address the prevailing culture of impunity for such abuses suggests that they reflect government policy," HRW said.

Hamas' security services in the Gaza Strip have also intimidated journalists, calling in reporters to warn them their coverage was slanted and threatening punishment, the report said.

It also noted a recent wave of crackdowns on journalists who cover protests in Gaza that urge the rival Palestinian governments to reconcile. In one instance, Hamas agents threatened to throw a journalist out of a window, HRW said.

___

Dalia Nammari in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.

Sexually assaulted and told 'You'll die tonight'... but spared as she's American: Female journalist's horror at the hands of Gaddafi's men

2011-03-22T13:51:00.000-07:00

Nightmare: Miss Addario was taken hostage on March 15 and
released on Monday night. She has spoken of her painful ordeal

London Daily Mail Online 22 March '11
A female war photographer from the New York Times revealed tonight how she was repeatedly sexually assaulted during her nightmare hostage ordeal in Libya.

Lynsey Addario was one of four Times journalists have now been released after being held captive by pro-Gaddafi forces.

During their six-day detainment, the Americans were beaten and threatened with being decapitated and shot.

Miss Addario, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, gave a harrowing account of her brutal treatment at the hands of their Libyan captors in an interview given just hours after her release.

After she and her colleagues were hauled out of a car at a checkpoint near the eastern city of Ajdabiya, one of the Libyans punched her in the face and laughed at her.

‘Then I started crying and he was laughing more,’ she told the Times.One man grabbed her breasts – the start of a pattern of sexual harassment she endured over the ensuing 48 hours.

‘There was a lot of groping,’ she said. ‘Every man who came in contact with us basically felt every inch of my body short of what was under my clothes.’

As she was being driven away from Ajdabiya, she said another of her captors stroked her head and told her repeatedly that she was going to be killed.

‘He was caressing my head in this sick way, this tender way, saying, "You’re going to die tonight. You’re going to die tonight",‘ she added. . . .

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Assault: Lara Logan was sexually abused while
reporting on the celebrations in Cairo following
last month's popular uprising

Thirteen journalists are still said to be either missing in Libya or in government custody.

They include four from the Al Jazeera Arab TV network, two from Agence France-Presse news agency and a photographer from Getty Images. Six Libyan journalists are also unaccounted for.

Last month, South African journalist Lara Logan, Chief Foreign Correspondent for CBS, was also sexually abused while covering scenes of celebration in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Miss Logan was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault before being saved by a group of women and Egyptian soldiers.

The mother-of-two needed hospital treatment on her return to the US.

Is Antisemitism Exempt from the Media’s Demand for Civility?

2011-02-16T11:50:00.000-08:00

Is Antisemitism Exempt from the Media’s Demand for Civility?

Matthew Hausman's Op/Ed in the blog Israpundit opines not on the motives of the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others by a deranged assailant, Jason Lee Loughner, but on media responses to it.

Liberal commentators and politicians have consistently failed to challenge Arab media sources for reporting the blood libel as fact and for disseminating antisemitic propaganda as news. They rarely acknowledge antisemitic content that appears in Egyptian papers such as Al-Ahram and al-Goumhuriyya, the Saudi daily Al-Riyadh, the Jordanian paper Al-Arab al-Yaum, the Syrian Arab News Agency, and other similar venues. Likewise, they assiduously avoid exposing how the blood libel myth is taught in Muslim schools throughout the Mideast – and by the supposedly moderate Palestinian Authority – and how this baleful and pathological fixation bodes ill for peace.
...
There can be little doubt, however, that the American media tilts much further to the left than to the right. Consequently, there is far greater risk that mainstream conservatives and moderates will be misrepresented as right-wing extremists, and that left-wing excesses will be denied, downplayed, or portrayed as temperate. This is particularly apparent from the media’s biased coverage of Israel and its failure to address left-wing antisemitism or Arab-Muslim rejectionism in any meaningful way. Although editorial opinion can certainly reflect the subjective views of the author, even pundits have an obligation to represent historical facts accurately when they form the basis of commentary. Unfortunately, when dealing with Israel, the media often shows little regard for objective facts that interfere with its firmly held predilections and preordained conclusions. And unless this dynamic changes, the media’s pleas for civility will continue to ring hollow.

Is the AP on YouTube the 'golden age' of video news?

2011-01-31T16:35:00.000-08:00

Watch live streaming video from beet_tv at livestream.com

While audiences for the networks news nightly newscasts have vastly shrunk and cable news nets have maintained which might called a niche audience, the emergence of the Web, social media and mobile as video-rich environments has powered video news consumption in extraordinary ways.

The Associated Press has registered some 645 million video views just on its YouTube channel since its launch in 2006. MSNBC.com has registered its biggest month ever this January with 158 million video views, we have learned.

As mobile and connected TV's become more widely used, video news consumption will continue to rise. How this is monetized remains to be seen.

Tomorrow at the Washington Post, we will explore this "golden age" in a two-hour panel panel discussion with Ann Derry, New York Times; Steven King, The Washington Post; Mark Larkin, CBSNews.com; Kevin Roach, The Associated Press; Anna Roberston, Yahoo! News; Mike Stephanovich, Reuters Insider; Mike Toppo, CNN.com; Jeff Whatcott, Brightcove; Stokes Young, MSNBC.com; and special guest, Chris "The Fix" Cillizza of The Washington Post.

Palestinian reports, reporters discredited: Woman who was alleged to have died from riot police tear gas was not there; actually died from Atropine overdose by Palestinian hospital

2011-01-20T03:20:00.000-08:00

At the end of an investigation into the death of Palestinian woman Jawaher Abu-Rahma over two weeks ago in Bilin, the IDF determined Wednesday that she died from an overdose of Atropine administered at the hospital. According to the investigation, Abu-Rahma hadn't even participated in the Bilin protest.

Question Marks
How did Abu-Rahma die? / Yoaz Hendel
Op-ed: Palestinians have tendency to make use of human tragedies in order to smear Israel
Full Story

The conclusions of the investigation, which included an examination of her medical records, confirmed the IDF's evaluation that the young woman had died as a result of faulty medical care in the hospital and not from the crowd dispersal methods used by the IDF soldiers. -YNet News

The Death and Life of American Journalism - John Nichols talk at Australia's Walkley Conference

2010-10-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

In a time when thousands of newspapers are shedding staff, being closed, sold off or swallowed, John Nichols reasserts the importance of fierce and independent political journalism.

Lamenting the economic state of modern news media, John Nichols, political blogger for The Nation, defends independent journalism as a necessary element of a free society. "When someone gets information that power doesn't want and communicates it to the powerless, they are committing the act of journalism."

Nichols is a noted U.S. commentator who writes for The Nation and was a visiting guest at the 2010 Walkley Media Conference. He warns his Australian audience that the dip in quantity and quality of American television and print media could spread, if Australia fails to value the institutions and outlets that act as our critical "fourth estate." - Australian Broadcasting Corporation

John Nichols is a noted U.S. commentator who writes for The Nation and was a visiting guest at the 2010 Walkley Media Conference.

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2010/08/10/John_Nichol...

Iraq's Kurds protest kidnap-slaying of journalist critical of politicians

2010-05-11T09:48:00.000-07:00

(AP) Sardasht Othman, 23, was snatched Monday in front of the campus of University of Salahuddin in the regional capital of Irbil, where he was in his final year as an English literature student, according to police.

His handcuffed and bullet-riddled body was found four days later outside the Kurdish region in Mosul, which has been a haven for al-Qaida in Iraq. The demonstrators maintained that his corpse was left there to shift the focus away from Kurds and suggest it was the work of Sunni Arab insurgents.

"Kurdish security services want to instill fear in us by killing the journalists and forcing them to stop their writings, but their attempts will fail," said Riben Hirdi, a respected Kurdish columnist participating in the demonstration.

At least 300 students supported by opposition politicians and other journalists gathered in a rare demonstration in front of Sulaimaniyah University bearing banners condemning the killing, including one saying "the assassination of Sardasht is the assassination of democracy."

"They claim democracy and security ... while a journalist is kidnapped and murdered in broad daylight," said student Saman Karim, who carried a poster showing a pen and a gun.

Othman was a reporter for the biweekly Ashtiname newspaper and contributed to a number of Kurdish Web sites, often writing about corruption, according to the online Kurdistan Post, to which he also contributed. He reportedly had received threats over his articles.

Journalism advocacy groups and human rights organizations also have condemned the attack.

"The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the two parties that control the region, seemed to have reached an agreement to muzzle the press and restrict the freedom of journalists as much as possible," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement Thursday.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists called on authorities to conduct a "thorough investigation into the slaying and make a commitment to fight impunity in journalist murders."

Othman's death follows that of Soran Mama Hama, who was shot dead outside his home in Kirkuk in July 2008 after writing articles critical of local politicians.

"We ask the Kurdistan government not to neglect this case (of Othman) as it did with the killing of journalist Soran Mama Hama," said Shwan Mohammed, the editor of the Kurdish Awina paper, who attended the demonstration.

Israel Aid Pays U.S. Dividends That Exceed Cost: BusinessWeek Commentary

2010-04-09T11:42:00.000-07:00

April 7 (Bloomberg) -- The argument that American military aid to Israel is damaging to the U.S. is not only erroneous, it hurts the national security interests of this country and threatens the survival of Israel.

U.S. support for Israel is essential, not only for Israel’s national security, but for America’s. Every bit of that support -- and more -- withstands all reasonable scrutiny.

Under the 2010 U.S. budget, about $75 billion, $65 billion and $3.25 billion will be spent on military operations and aid in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan during this fiscal year, respectively. Israel will receive $3 billion, in military aid only. There is no economic aid to Israel, other than loan guarantees that continue to be repaid in full and on time.

There isn’t enough space here to discuss the relative merits of the expenditures in these other countries, but we already know the critically important return the U.S. gets for helping its oldest, most trusted ally in the strategically important Middle East -- the most powerful military force in that region, the pro-U.S., pro-West and democratic Jewish state of Israel.

Here’s how.

First, it’s important to remember that about 70 percent of the $3 billion aid must be used by Israel to purchase American military equipment. This provides real support for U.S. high- tech defense jobs and contributes to maintaining our industrial base. This helps the U.S. stay at the very top in the manufacturing of our own cutting-edge military munitions, aircraft, vehicles, missiles and virtually every defensive and offensive weapon in the U.S. arsenal -- with the added contribution of Israel’s renowned technical know-how.

Research Cooperation

Second, the U.S. and Israel are jointly developing state- of-the-art missile defense capabilities in the David’s Sling and Arrow 3 systems. These two technologies build on the already successful Arrow 2, jointly developed by our two countries, which is already providing missile defense security to Israel and U.S. civilians and ground troops throughout the region. The knowledge the U.S. gains from these efforts also has a positive multiplier effect on applications to other U.S. military and non-military uses and U.S. jobs.
Third, given Israel’s strategic location on the Mediterranean, with access to the Red Sea and other vital international shipping and military lanes of commerce and traffic, it is critically important to the U.S. that Israel continues to serve as a port of call for our troops, ships, aircraft and intelligence operations.

Forward Base

Israel also has permitted the U.S. to stockpile arms, fuel, munitions and other supplies on its soil to be accessed whenever America needs them in the region.

Fourth, America’s special relationship with Israel provides the U.S. with real-time, minute-to-minute access to one of the best intelligence services in the world: Israel’s. With Israeli agents gathering intelligence and taking action throughout the Middle East and, literally, around the world, regarding al- Qaeda, Hezbollah, Iran and Hamas, among others, the U.S. receives invaluable information about anti-U.S. and terrorist organizations and regimes.

Fifth, imagine the additional terrible cost in U.S. blood, and the hundreds of billions more of American taxpayer dollars, if Saddam Hussein had developed nuclear weapons, or if Syria possessed them.
Then remember that it was Israel that destroyed the almost- completed nuclear reactor at Osirak, Iraq, in 1981 and Syria’s nuclear facility under construction at Deir-ez-Zor in 2007.

Foiling Iran

And think about the many operations that Israel’s Defense Forces and intelligence agents have undertaken to foil, slow and disrupt Iran’s efforts to develop a nuclear weapons capability. A nuclear-armed Iran would threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans in the region, all of Iran’s Arab neighbors, the world’s largest oil supplies and those who rely on that oil. It also would provide anti-U.S. terrorists with access to the most lethal Iranian technology and probably set off a nuclear arms race in the region.

For about 2 percent of what the U.S. spends in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan this year, Americans can take pride in the return on our investment in aid to Israel.

And with Israel’s truly invaluable assistance to America’s vital national security, we can take comfort that -- in actions seen in Tehran and Damascus and noticed by al-Qaeda and other anti-U.S. terrorists everywhere -- the U.S. is safer and made more secure because of the mutually dependent and beneficial relationship between the U.S. and Israel.

(Rep. Steve Rothman is a Democratic congressman from New Jersey who serves on the House committees responsible for U.S. military and foreign aid.)

Jon Stewart questions editorial choices at CNN

2010-04-02T16:23:00.001-07:00

Jon Stewart went off on one of his favorite topics last night -- CNN and it's identity crisis. "CNN is like the guy at the strip club who says 'I'm gonna hang out, but I'm not getting a lap dance. I'm here for the buffet.'"

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

CNN Hires Erick Erickson

www.thedailyshow.com

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Political Humor

Health Care Reform

The Obsession with Israel

2010-03-06T20:07:00.000-08:00

(Courtesy Free Middle East)

Scandal over Mossad use of UK passports curiously fails to materialise with Britons awe struck at Israeli daring

2010-02-18T14:57:00.000-08:00

(The Israeli mother of captured and killed soldier Ilan Saadon displays her son’s portait in her house in the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon. Hamas leader al-Mabhouh was responsible for the abduction and murder. He traveled to Dubai under a false passport, as did Ilan Saadon's avengers).

Robin Shepherd Online:

There is something very strange going on in Britain, and Israel’s detractors are hopping mad. Not, I hasten to add over the apparent use by the Mossad of six British passports in the assassination in Dubai of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Criticism on that score is both reasonable and necessary. No country can allow its passports to be used by a foreign state, let alone in the course of a secret service hit job. Britain is no exception.

What vexes them is not so much the use of the passports per se as the fact that the kind of hyserical public furore that we have come to expect whenever a stick presents itself for the beating of Israel has singularly failed to materialise. On the contrary, large sections of the British press have responded with barely disguised awe at the audacious operation that the Israelis had the balls to carry out.

See also Times of London Commentary by Michael Evans: Mossad ties are vital for the security of Britain

Diplomatic outrage is one thing, but severing ties with Mossad to punish Israel’s secret service for using British passports for an assassination would be to Britain’s detriment.
The intelligence world is dirty and grey, and Britain, despite its attempts to be perceived as a moral force, has to play with the dirtiest to ensure that it can share information that is so crucial to maintaining a handle on enemies and potential enemies.
If you work in the intelligence game, you have to be aware of the grey areas. Mossad may have no time for MI6’s more bureaucratic rules, but the Israeli organisation is a unique asset.

Times of London Columnist Melanie Reid: We’re all thrilled by Mossad the movie

Of course we should condemn extrajudicial murder, but I still can’t help admiring Israel’s nerve.

It is an unfashionable thing to say, but I have a considerable admiration for the Israeli way of doing things. They want something, they get it. They perceive someone as their deadly enemy, they kill them. They get hit, they hit back. They don’t waste time explaining or justifying or agonising; nor do they allow their detractors to enter their country and then afford them generous welfare payments. They just act. No messing. No scruples. Not even a shrug and a denial, just a rather magnificent refusal to debate anything.

This absolutism, based on their history, carries its own moral weight; one that is rather electrifying in a Western world grown flabby with niceties. Clearly, the Israelis could defend their policies if they wanted to, but they quite simply can’t be bothered. It’s a waste of breath. One admires them for that, too.

Read Robin Shepherd's book, A State Beyond the Pale: Europe's Problem with Israel

Product description: Israel's conflict with the Palestinians and the wider Muslim world also takes place across one of the great fault lines in global politics. No-one with a serious interest in international affairs can ignore it. But why have so many people and institutions of influence in Europe chosen to place themselves on the side of that fault line which opposes Israel? Where exactly does all this hostility come from? Can this really be put down to a revival of anti-Semitism on a continent which gave the world the Holocaust? 'A State Beyond the Pale: Europe's Problem with Israel' looks at the roots of anti-Israeli sentiment in Europe and shows why there is now a risk that it may even spread to the United States. In the author's view, the Israel-Palestine conflict can be seen as a test case for the West's ability to stand up for the values it claims as its own. In Europe, important institutions and individuals are now failing that test. This book explains why.

Reviewed in The London Telegraph

"Robin Shepherd...explains that Europe's pacifism is not, despite what it likes to believe, a symptom of maturity, but of tiredness, nihilism and suicide. Europeans no longer believe in Europe, they are not prepared to fight for it, and they are unwilling to believe that its enemies are willing to destroy it. So had the Nazis not faced the golden generation but instead the bed-wetter generation, how would history have spanned out?" (TELEGRAPH.CO.UK - 7.09.09 )

"There's a problem at Fox – a big problem. The evidence suggests Saudi money is negatively influencing news coverage," Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily

2010-02-18T13:45:00.000-08:00

Democracy Broadcasting News reported about editorial changes in Fox News Channel's reportage of Islamist-related news over a week ago. Now, as Fox News continues to air the Islamist PR group, CAIR, to represent the mainstream American Muslim viewpoint, popular conservative e-zine, World Net Daily's publisher, Joseph Farah, gets specific, addressing this problem of conflict of interest.

If I did not point out the way the network has apparently compromised itself on coverage of both the Middle East and key domestic issues through its ownership, I would be withholding important facts and analysis from you and compromising my own integrity.

The blackout of coverage of "Muslim Mafia" and the major lawsuit surrounding it, alongside Fox's continued pandering to CAIR – a group the U.S. Justice Department and FBI both say unequivocally is tied to terrorism – make it impossible for me to be silent any longer.

A few years ago, Saudi Prince al Waleed bin Talal, who then owned 5.5 percent of the Fox News Channel's parent company, News Corp., boasted of his influence on the network's principal owner, Rupert Murdoch, and explained how he persuaded him to alter on-air content about "Muslim riots" in France to make them more palatable to adherents of Islam.

More recently, Talal and Murdoch greatly expanded their business partnerships to give Murdoch a significant stake in Middle East television programming and advertising.

Meanwhile, CAIR, which claims falsely to receive "no support from any overseas group or government," was revealed in "Muslim Mafia" to have received a $500,000 gift from the very same Saudi Prince al Waleed bin Talal – not to mention gifts of $112,000 from Saudi Prince Abdullah bin Mosa'ad, at least $300,000 from the Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic Conference, $250,000 from the Islamic Development Bank and at least $17,000 from the American office of the Saudi-based International Islamic Relief Organization.
(Photograph: FBI agents arresting CAIR founding director Ghassan Elashi in 2002.)

Do I begin to paint a picture of possible media compromise?

If Talal was able to influence content on the Fox News Channel back in 2005 as a minority shareholder in News Corp., is it not likely he and his Saudi friends would have a much more significant influence on Fox News today as major partners of the principal owner?

Major new study shows blatant anti-Israel agenda at the Financial Times

2010-02-06T14:03:00.000-08:00

Robin Shepherd reports about Just Journalism's analysis of bias at Britain's Financial Times:

If you thought that the Financial Times was the kind of news outlet that remained above the fray in its coverage and commentary on Israel’s predicament in the Middle East, you’d be wrong. A new, in-depth study by the respected media monitoring group Just Journalism shows that this quintessentially establishment newspaper yields to nobody in its anti-Israeli bias and its wilful distortion of Middle Eastern realities.

At this stage in the proceedings I should offer full disclosure: I am an advisory board member of Just Journalism and key quotes from a letter sent in my name accompanying the report have been quoted in several world media outlets from the New Republic to the Jerusalem Post.

The key findings of the report, taken from the Executive Summary, are as follows:

1) The FT views Israel as primarily responsible for the perpetuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while downplaying other factors. In particular it places the role of settlement-building in the West Bank above any other single factor affecting the conflict. Settlement-building is referred to as ‘colonisation’ in nine editorials.

2) Other aggravating factors such as terrorism, disunity within Palestinian ranks and a failure to accept Israel as a Jewish state are downplayed. Neither of these last two are addressed as areas of legitimate concern for Israel; rather, both are viewed as ploys by Israel to ‘change the subject’.

3) The editorial coverage over the past year reflects a gradual shift away from the view that Iran’s nuclear intentions might be peaceful towards the conclusion at the end of 2009 that they are not.

4) The prospect of an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities is referred to in five editorials; yet no Financial Times editorial in 2009 makes reference to the threatening rhetoric from Iran’s President Ahmadinejad against Israel.

5) The publication backed the Goldstone Report, which described the Israeli military operation as ‘a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population’. The Financial Times described Israel’s actions in Gaza as ‘disproportionate’ in four editorials.

6) Israeli political leaders are depicted as ‘irredentist’, ‘hawkish’, and ‘ultra-nationalist’. In contrast, Palestinian leaders are portrayed as ‘moderate’ and ‘conciliatory’, if corrupt.

7) Israel’s total military and civilian withdrawal from Gaza in August 2005 is not viewed as a meaningful Israeli concession, rather it is seen as inadequate at best, and a cynical ploy at worst.

8) The Arab world is portrayed as having made a substantial effort for peace in the broader Arab-Israeli conflict. The Saudi Peace Initiative of 2002 is touted in seven editorials and the newspaper expresses sympathy with the recent Arab refusal to meet Israeli concessions with Arab concessions.

9) Mixed attitudes towards the nature of Arab regimes are displayed. The newspaper attacks the West – the US in particular – for backing ‘an ossified order of … Arab strongmen’ typified by the Mubarak regime in Egypt; however, Saudi Arabia is spared harsh criticism, particularly regarding its human rights record.

Documentary - "Conflict: the power of propaganda" - illuminates Palestinian manipulation of media against Israel

2009-11-03T15:05:00.000-08:00

In the new film "Conflict: The Power of Propaganda," director Chris Atkins goes behind the headlines and past the media bias against Israel to present a fair and realistic picture of what is happening in the Islamic conflict to conquer Israel.

The fast-paced documentary exposes rampant Palestinian propaganda and challenges viewers to recognize the calculated deception - and its ties to both extremism and terrorism on a global scale. Executive producer Joe Amaral and his filmmakers go inside the world of the Palestinian media, documenting how Palestinian propaganda seeks to rob the Jewish people of their rich history in the Land of Israel. Alarming video evidence shows how school children are taught and encouraged to aspire to kill Jews and to become suicide bombers.

(Courtesy Joe Israel Productions)

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper promises no "double-speak" regarding condemning Arab antagonists of Israel

2009-10-27T12:57:00.000-07:00

From Prime Minister Stephen Harper's address to the Canadian Jewish Congress October, 2009

Dershowitz book fills gap broadcast news industry confab, NewsXchange, leaves overlooking examination of media-bias

2009-10-14T16:22:00.000-07:00

As the annual NewsXchange convenes today in Malta, while several Israeli news creators are registered as delegates, no session addresses the illiberal journalistic bias demonstrated against Israel in global news coverage regarding Hamas (or any Islamic anti-Semitism).

In the new book The Case for Moral Clarity, Alan Dershowitz explores the press' double-standards (bordering on hypocrisy) when failing to investigate and report Arabs' immoralities (against other Arabs or Christians or Jews) and over-reporting about Israel's self-defense against Islamist onslaught.

"Hamas' tactic of playing Russian roulette with the lives of Israeli children by firing thousands of rockets at a million Israelis, while employing human shields in order to maximize Palestinian civilian casualties, is pure evil.

The Israeli decision to respond to this unlawful and immoral provocation by targeting the terrorists and their rockets is pure self-defense, authorized by international law, the United Nations Charter and universally accepted moral principles. Yet most of the world remained silent about, and many even supported, the Hamas evil tactic, while most of the world condemned Israel's entirely reasonable response.

When the media began to cover this latest war started by Hamas, and Israel's response to it, I noticed a strong media bias against Israel. Sometimes it was quite deliberate, but sometimes it was simply the result of the media's understandable focus on showing dead and injured victims, particularly children.

I decided that it was important to present a fuller perspective in the court of public opinion. Accordingly I set out to write a series of Op-Eds, defending Israel s right to protect its citizens by proportional military action. Over the course of the war I published my writings in the Wall Street Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald, The New York Times, the Washington Times, The Canada Post, the Huffington Post, the Jerusalem Post, Frontpagemag and other print and online media. I also participated in interviews and debates on CNN and BBC. The response was overwhelming. I received numerous emails and letters imploring me to circulate my views more widely, since the perspective I presented in my writings and appearances was very much a minority view in the media. When cease fires were finally declared, I decided to publish revised and updated versions of these essays and several new ones written especially for this volume in a short book, in order to make them more widely available in an easily accessible format, and to respond to the often erroneous and biased misinformation that passes for objective description.

This short book asks why so much of the world has been so morally bankrupt - so eyeless in Gaza - when it comes to the conflict between Hamas and Israel. Why has there been so little moral clarity over this conflict between good and evil? Why does the media not do a better job of explaining that the dead Palestinian children it shows the world were killed because they were deliberately placed in harm's way by Hamas precisely in order to create these horrible images? Why is a double standard applied to Israeli self-defense actions? Why are the usual standards of criticism not applied to Hamas's double war crimes?

Why are there so many more protests and so much more rage when the Israeli Army accidentally kills human shields in defense of its own children than when Muslims murder Muslims in cold blood and in much larger numbers throughout the world?

Why is terrorism justified by so many only when it is directed at Israeli civilians? Why is so much of the world so wrong when it comes to Israel?"

Study Demonstrates How We Support Our False Beliefs

2009-08-25T03:25:00.000-07:00

"Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal." - Robert A. Heinlein, Assignment in Eternity, 1953

PhysOrg.com August 21st, 2009 In a study published in the most recent issue of the journal Sociological Inquiry, sociologists from four major research institutions ...

Co-author Steven Hoffman, Ph.D., visiting assistant professor of sociology at the University at Buffalo, says, "Our data shows substantial support for a cognitive theory known as 'motivated reasoning,' which suggests that rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe.

"In fact," he says, "for the most part people completely ignore contrary information.

"The study demonstrates voters' ability to develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information," he explains.

While numerous scholars have blamed a campaign of false information and innuendo from the Bush administration, this study argues that the primary cause of misperception in the 9/11-Saddam Hussein case was not the presence or absence of accurate data but a respondent's desire to believe in particular kinds of information.

"The argument here is that people get deeply attached to their beliefs," Hoffman says.

AOL White House reporter: 'We Took Sides, Straight and Simple' Against Palin

2009-07-14T03:10:00.000-07:00

From Tim Graham in NewsBusters: In AOL Inside Politics Daily, long-time White House reporter Carl Cannon bluntly declared that the political press gave Sarah Palin a raw deal in the 2008 campaign, and seriously failed to scrutinize Joe Biden, especially his fact-mangling and odd statements in the vice presidential debate. Cannon summed up in Sarah 'Barracuda' Palin and the Piranhas of the Press:

The mainstream media is undergoing its demise, drip by drip, day by day, and its practitioners, which include most of my friends in life, are under considerable pressure. In my opinion, however, these pressures do not excuse the treatment accorded Sarah Palin. On the contrary, to me the entire Sarah saga revealed that it wasn't only the traditional media's business model that is broken. Our journalism model is busted, too.

In the 2008 election, we took sides, straight and simple, particularly with regard to the vice presidential race. I don't know that we played a decisive role in that campaign, and I'm not saying the better side lost. What I am saying is that we simply didn't hold Joe Biden to the same standard as Sarah Palin, and for me, the real loser in this sordid tale is my chosen profession.

Media's double-standard on reporting unethical affairs with politicians

2009-06-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

(Courtesy Sigmund, Carl, and Alfred)

UN Human Rights Council practices different standards regarding Sri Lanka and Israel

2009-06-03T12:49:00.000-07:00

Canada's National Post newspaper's Op/Ed: Different Rules for Israel:

If more proof were needed that the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a feckless, biased, intellectually corrupt haven for dictators and Islamofascists, the evidence was clearly on display this week. The UNHRC voted to affirm Sri Lanka's right, justifiably, to self-defence from terror attacks launched against its citizens and territory by the Tamil Tigers. Indeed, the council went further, "condemning all attacks that the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) launched on the civilian population and its practice of using civilians as human shields." Sri Lanka had every right to protect itself, the council concluded, even at the cost of an estimated 20,000 civilian Tamil lives since the beginning of May alone.

Why, then, when Israel seeks to do the same -- protect its citizens and territory from rocket and terror attacks launched from Gaza -- does the very same council accuse Israel of being a "genocidal empire?"

The even-more-blatant-than-usual bias of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC)
council, as evidenced by their different approaches toward the very similar situations in Sri Lanka and Israel, shows that neither the council nor the greater UN can be trusted when it comes to the Middle East in particular and human rights in general.

Read it all

Little white (phosphorus) lies: Human Rights Watch conspires with Islamists to perpetrate incendiary blood-libel against Jews

2009-01-20T12:49:00.000-08:00

According to the AP's Bradley Klapper, the International Red Cross acknowledged on Tuesday (13 Jan 09) that Israel has fired white phosphorus shells in its offensive in the Gaza Strip, but has no evidence to suggest the incendiary agent is being used improperly or illegally.

The bright-smoke creating agent is used to illuminate targets at night or create a smoke screen for day attacks, said Peter Herby, the head of the organization's mines-arms unit.

"In some of the strikes in Gaza it's pretty clear that phosphorus was used," Herby told The Associated Press. "But it's not very unusual to use phosphorus to create smoke or illuminate a target. We have no evidence to suggest it's being used in any other way."

Herby said that using phosphorus to illuminate a target or create smoke is legitimate under international law, and that there was no evidence the Jewish state was intentionally using phosphorus in a questionable way, such as burning down buildings or consciously putting civilians at risk.

Dr. Peter Grossman, president of the Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks, California, who stated that "it is not possible to tell, based on pictures of burns, whether white phosphorus was responsible."

Reporters and reports emanating from Gaza are at the discretion of Hamas state-propagandist censors. These propgandists have been exposed as unreliable sources and gatekeepers (read the Second Draft and The Augean Stables.com) controling journalists and deciding what they may disseminate and how. Hamas press-managers not only lie (and intmidate journalists from respectable agencies into lying) but even to fabricate false casualty damage situations for photography & videography. This is augmented by a cadre of western accomplices, such as Palestinian-biased Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO's), like Human Rights Watch, and individuals, like Norwegian political propagandist, Dr. Mads Gilbert, from Gaza hospitals' emergency rooms.

Though it may be difficult to accept, experience has proven that information coming through Palestinian-influenced gateways cannot be relied upon for truthfulness. And the biased NGO's are complicit in fabricating "news."

NGO-Monitor.org exposes the agenda bias of several sources reporting condemnation of Israel in Gaza. Condemning HRW's PR campaign alleging Israel's unlawful use of white phosphorus weaponry:

"HRW's large budget, and its media access via the "halo effect" results in the amplification of these reports in the press and through other NGOs, without independent investigation or verification. HRW's disproportionate focus on this issue diverts attention from the far more significant aspects of the conflict such as Hamas' systematic and illegal use of human shields, indiscriminate rocket attacks targeting Israeli civilians, and Iran's role in fomenting the crisis."

1) The number of HRW statements, their focus, and type of language used is far more intense than the organization's calls on Hamas to stop its use of human shields and of indiscriminate rocket attacks aimed at Israeli civilians (including white phosphorus weapons) -- both war crimes under international humanitarian law.

2) HRW's claims, as examined below, are inconsistent and not subject to verification, following a pattern of political and ideological attacks in the 2006 Lebanon war (including false claims disseminated by HRW in the Qana incident), and in other examples, as documented by NGO Monitor (see examples at the end of this report).

3) HRW's "evidence" is based upon innuendo and "eyewitness" reports. One report states that "[o]n January 9, Human Rights Watch researchers on a ridge overlooking Gaza from the northwest observed multiple air-bursts of artillery-fired WP that appeared to be over the Gaza City/Jabaliya area. In addition, Human Rights Watch has analyzed photographs taken by the media on the Israel-Gaza border." HRW does not name its researchers; it does not provide the exact location of its observation; nor does it identify the photos it "analyzed" making independent verification of this "evidence" impossible.

4) The use of flares to assist search and rescue forces and for similar purposes saves lives of injured soldiers and prevents Hamas from kidnapping the bodies of dead soldiers, as has happened in the past, and are legal under all international weapons conventions. If indeed such use occurred, to claim that such operations are somehow illegal or immoral is, in itself, immoral."

In "Human Rights Watch: White (phosphorous) lies," Bar Ilan University's Political Science Department Chairman, Gerald M. Steinberg condemns the phenomenon in The Jerusalem Post 17 Jan 09:

... the important point was that the Human Rights Watch images fit the dominant narrative of Israel as always guilty of war crimes, and of the Palestinians (or, in the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Hizbullah) as innocent victims.

In this campaign, HRW was joined by Amnesty International, B'Tselem and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. The latter two are funded by the European Union, ostensibly to promote democracy and human rights.

When Hamas launched a phosphorus shell into Israel, these organizations, including HRW, were silent, as has been the case regarding the use of human shields in Gaza and other real war crimes." "In this way, HRW and other self-proclaimed human rights organizations have contributed a great deal to undermining the moral basis of morality and international law. Instead of repeatedly calling for 'independent investigations' of Israel, the donors to HRW need to undertake an investigation of how this once-serious organization has been destroyed from within.

Kim Sengupta: Claims that Israel is using white phosphorus illegally won't go away

... However, asked on Wednesday specifically whether there was evidence of injuries to civilians caused by such weapons, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Jakob Kellenberger, who had just returned from a trip to Gaza City said his organisation had found "no evidence" of that. He added: "We have officials at Shifa Hospital and they have not come across injuries which could be proved to be from white phosphorus. This is just from one hospital, but it is the largest hospital in Gaza."

Admissions of Guilt: Mainstream Media Reporting is Biased against Israel

2009-01-16T13:50:00.000-08:00

Pallywood in Gaza hospitals

Despite the destruction of the propaganda studios in Gaza by the IDF, Pallywood continues to fabricate propaganda for the world media from Palestinian hospitals.

Here is the CNN report which featured Hamas-conspirator, 9/11-truth denier, Norwegian Dr. Mads Gilbert alleging that an Israeli drone has killed the adolescent, Mahmoud Mashharawi, undergoing fake CPR. The package was filmed and submitted to CNN by Hamas propaganda accomplices, Ashraf Mashharawi (older brother and Hamas new-media publisher, and reporter Paul Martin).

Israel National News references the Little Green Footballs' debunking the legitimacy of the Dr. Mads Gilbert/Mahmoud Mashharawi-family piece. While CNN withdrew the piece from their website, they publicly continue to defend its validity.

Admissions of Guilt: Mainstream Media Reporting is Biased against Israel reported in IRIS Blog.

Close followers of the mainstream media's coverage of Israel have long claimed that coverage was biased against Israel.

Now the Jerusalem Post's Evelyn Gordon notes that there have been recent admissions of mainstream media bias against Israel in the form of reporting that purposefully emphasizes Arab victims while neglecting to report the context (Arab terror) that brought about Israel's response in the first place.