The modern Arab-Jewish conflict has played itself out on many fronts in the last 60 years. Israel has been vastly more successful on the field of battle, but the Arabs have managed to co-opt the media narrative. For a generation, the press has been sympathetic to the cause of those who strive to eradicate Israel. This has shown itself over and over again, not only in editorial decisions, but in the blind acceptance of reports coming from Arab sources in the region.
The problem is that those sources have repeatedly shown that they are not interested in reporting the news but, in many cases, in fabricating it. In many cases, these fabrications have been done with the active participation of “respected” news gathering organizations.

In 2006, during the Second Lebanon War, the term Fauxtography was coined to refer to either the embellishing of existing photographs or staging others for the best effect to discredit Israel. The uncovering of tampering resulted in both Reuters and AP disciplining freelance “reporters” as well as having to kill pictures that they had syndicated.

The staging of news photographs, and news in general, is alive and well in disputed areas of Israel even now.

What remains surprising is how otherwise discerning news operations such as the Wall Street Journal still accept, uncritically, the output of suspect sources. Just this past week the Wall Street Journal, as well as a range of other international news operations, posted a picture submitted by Hazem Bader for Agence France-Presse (AFP).

WSJ's "Photo of the Day," Jan. 25, 2012

The caption on the photo explains that the man seen writhing in pain on the ground was intentionally run over by a tractor driven by an Israeli soldier. That is to say that the international press reported, without questioning, that an official representative of the Israeli Government had, without cause, purposely caused a grave injury to an innocent man.
The only problem is that it never happened. There is no record of anyone being injured. CAMERA, a watchdog group that specializes in following anti-Israel media activity, followed all possible leads to find the injured man.

Yet, after checking with both Palestinian and Israeli sources, it seems that the man was not at all injured, and there is no evidence that he was run over. On the Palestinian side, Tthe Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), which provides comprehensive weekly reports about all injuries, fatalities, incursions, and other incidents in both the West Bank and Gaza, makes no mention of this alleged injury in its report for Jan. 19- 25. In addition, the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency did not cover the alleged injury, even though it does report on Israeli army activity that day nearby in Tel Rumeida. And Ma’an also reported a hit and run incident, in which a Palestinian teen was hit by an Israeli driver at a checkpoint this morning. Presumably, then, had this worker actually been run over and injured on Wednesday, Ma’an would have carried the story. Nor does it appear that any English-language wire service or other media outlet covered the alleged injury.

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On Friday night, in the Israeli town of Itamar, two Palestinian terrorists broke into a house and murdered five members of the family who lived there. We are talking about the slaughter, in cold blood, of a father, a mother, and three children, including slitting the throat of a three-month-old baby girl.

The Fogel family

In response Israelis did not take to the streets attacking Palestinian passersby. Nor did they burn cars, break windows, loot, or the usual response we see from the Arab street. No, what the Israeli government did is a thousand times worse. Or at least it is in the eyes of the vaunted New York Times.

Israel has decided in the face of barbarism to build. Yes, that’s right. Build. Not concentration camps or torture rooms, not even military bases, but houses.

In the eyes of the New York Times this is a sin of gargantuan proportions. A newspaper that isn’t even able to describe the act of killing innocent children as terror sees the building of houses as the main impetus to the non-existent “Peace Process.”

“Israel said Sunday it has approved building hundreds of settler homes after five members of an Israeli family — including three children — were knifed to death as they slept in a West Bank settlement over the weekend.

The attack and the government’s response threatened to drive Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking even further out of reach. Israel, which blames the attack on Palestinian militants, is liable to set aside an emerging peace initiative it planned to propose, while the planned construction of new settler homes deepened Palestinian mistrust.”

Of course, killing children doesn’t deepen Israeli mistrust, or shouldn’t because clearly Israel is the only side culpable in the ongoing conflict.

That isn’t enough, of course, for the New York Times; it has to go out of its way to demonize those killed while absolving the killers of guilt. The family killed is referred to as “some of Israel’s most radical settlers,” yet the animals who killed them are members of a mostly defunct militant group that sometimes takes credit for attacks they didn’t commit.

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The title of this article refers to pro-Palestinian groups that organized last May’s six-ship bid to breach Israel’s anti-armament maritime blockade of Gaza. The so-called humanitarian mission ended with nine passengers dead and dozens of other injured. Seven Israeli naval commandos were shot, stabbed, and beaten by peaceful terror-enablers on board the lead craft, the Mavi Marmara.

Now, slow learners who survived the first encounter say they plan to send more, and larger such convoys towards the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave on the upcoming first anniversary of the event.

The Hamas-affiliated Turkish IHH and the Free Gaza movement said they would send another two sea convoys in April and May, Israeli media reported on Monday.

Flotilla supporters say Israel’s blockade causes privation and starvation, is inhumane and violates international law.

However, Hamas often responds to Israel’s allowing in humanitarian aid via several monitored crossing points by issuing counter-offers promising Israel’s annihilation, and then bombing said crossing points, cutting off the aid along with their noses.

So, after the Islamist group’s violent coup wresting power from the Palestinian Authority in 2007, and deadly shrapnel showers visited on Israeli cities by close to 10,000 Kassam rockets for more than seven years, Israel cordoned off the Strip until further notice, meaning either Hamas’ leadership learns to dance the hora, or, failing that, that their jig is up. (more…)

Quote unquote:

The truth? In the week that three Presidents, a King and their own Prime Minister gather at the White House to begin a fresh round of talks on peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the truth is, Israelis are no longer preoccupied with the matter. They’re otherwise engaged; they’re making money; they’re enjoying the rays of late summer. A watching world may still define their country by the blood feud with the Arabs whose families used to live on this land and whether that conflict can be negotiated away, but Israelis say they have moved on… Asked in a March poll to name the “most urgent problem” facing Israel, just eight percent of Israeli Jews cited the conflict with Palestinians, putting it fifth behind education, crime, national security and poverty. Israeli Arabs placed peace first.

Obviously that poll actually shows that Israelis are preoccupied with educating their children, keeping their families safe from crime, and not getting killed by neighboring countries. Ergo listing those as priorities one, two, and three. But why let mere numbers get in the way of “Jews are too busy ‘making money’ to embrace negotiations?”

And obviously the West Bank Arabs with whom the Israelis are negotiating are very explicitly not Arabs who “used to live on this land,” insofar as they’re Arabs who “are living on this land” right now. That’s in sharp contrast to the descendants of Jews who were expelled from Arab lands, and who are being left out of the “comprehensive” peace talks. But why let all that get in the way of eliminationist, anti-Israel themes? (more…)

The newest faux outrage comes from the mouth of controversial Jewish Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. In a sermon from Israel, Rabi Yosef as much as called for God to level genocide against the Palestinians. I say “as much as” because he didn’t actually call for genocide, but he came awfully close for comfort. In fact, even as he didn’t say it explicitly it’s hard not to see it being fully implied.

“Abu Mazen and all these evil people should perish from this earth,” said Rabbi Yosef, head of the Israeli Shas party. “God should strike them and these Palestinians — evil haters of Israel — with a plague,” he added. Naturally, the Palestinians are outraged and Reuters, the Associated Press, and other news outlets played the story for all it was worth.

Rabbi Yosef, of an extremely conservative sect and party, has been known to say wacky things like this before. Not long ago he told Israeli youth to abandon all electronic products like smart phones and computers because they were evidence of “street debauchedness,” what ever that is.

As reported in many places, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu issued a statement distancing himself and the government from the extreme rhetoric of Rabbi Yosef, as well he should.

The government’s press release says that they “don’t represent the views of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu or the Israeli government. Israel entered into negotiations out of a desire to progress with the Palestinians toward an agreement that will end the conflict and ensure peace, security  and good neighborly relations between the two nations.” (more…)

Byline: CALVIN WOODWARD

Bytitle: Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — A New York imam and his proposed mosque near ground zero are being demonized by political candidates — mostly Republicans — despite the fact that Islam is already very much a part of the World Trade Center neighborhood. And that Muslims pray inside the Pentagon, too, less than 80 feet from where terrorists attacked.

And that the imam who’s being branded an extremist has been valued by both Republican and Democratic administrations as a moderate face of the faith.

Even so, the project stirs complicated emotions, and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a complex figure who defies easy categorization in the American Muslim world.

He’s devoted much of his career to working closely with Christians, Jews and secular leaders to advance interfaith understanding. He’s scolded his own religion for being in some ways in the “Dark Ages.” Yet he’s also accused the U.S. of spilling more innocent blood than al-Qaida, the terrorist network that turned the World Trade Center, part of the Pentagon and four hijacked airplanes to apocalyptic rubble.

Many Republicans and some Democrats say the proposed $100 million Islamic cultural center and mosque should be built elsewhere, where there is no possible association with New York’s ground zero. Far more than a local zoning issue, the matter has seized congressional campaigns, put President Barack Obama and his party on the spot — he says Muslims have the right to build the mosque — divided families of the Sept. 11, 2001, victims, caught the attention of Muslims abroad and threatened to blur distinctions between mainstream Islam in the U.S. and its radical elements.

A look at some of the claims and how they compare with the known facts: (more…)

Not all fauxtography involves doctoring of recent news photographs; sometimes news sources take an old picture and change the context which also is using photographs to fake a news story. For example the picture below was taken by the Associated Press on January 14, 2009, right after the end of the most recent Israeli war with Hamas.

Last week the UK Daily Telegraph ran an article about the Gaza Blockade, this is how the article looked:

Does the picture look familiar? That’s because it is the same exact photograph from two years ago.  This time the caption says:

The blockade prevents Gaza from exporting any goods, putting a crippling squeeze on the local economy, and restricts imports to a limited amount of basic humanitarian aid Photo: AP (more…)

After having to quietly pull cropped and photoshopped images that hid jihadist violence on the Mavi Marmara, images that were edited in explicit violation of their ethics guidelines, Reuters is now quietly reissuing the full undoctored photos.

And adding this kind of crap in the captions:

Pro-Palestinian activists hold down an Israeli commando on the Gaza-bound Turkish ship Mavi Marmara in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea early May 31, 2010. Israeli marines stormed the Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza on Monday and nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed, triggering a diplomatic crisis and an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council.

“Activists” were “holding down” the Israelis who “stormed” their “aid ship.” That’s a second stab at objectivity, from a media outlet that’s theoretically overcompensating for the functionally doctored propaganda they just got caught publishing. (more…)

Helen Thomas, the liberal harpy bestowed with legendary status by virtue of outliving her contemporaries, has finally been forced from her seat in the front row of the White House briefing room. Thomas’s odious comments sparked an outcry in the U.S., as well they should, but the media should spare us their outrage.

Thomas’s comments are indistinguishable from the pus spewed by members of the aid flotilla and their Hamas compatriots. The “peace activists” on the aid flotilla told the Israelis to “Go back to Auschwitz.” Yet the media portray the aid flotilla as a group of humanitarians seeking to deliver relief to distressed Palestinians, and the Israelis as bloodthirsty butchers. Thomas’s comment, horrible and reprehensible as it is, is the natural child of utter historical ignorance and the media’s continual focus on the supposed evils of the Israelis and lamb-like suffering of the Palestinians.

The Palestinians certainly suffer, but most of their suffering is the result of Hamas’s insistence on killing civilians within Israel. If terrorists wouldn’t cross over into Israel, there would be no need for a fence. Egypt also fears Hamas, and also prevents Gaza residents from entering Egypt. (“Israel consistently alleged that Iranian and other weapons were being smuggled into Gaza through a series of tunnels, and with Egypt maintained tight control on the enclaves borders,” Hamas, Council on Foreign Relations.) The Israelis take extreme measures to avoid killing civilians. (more…)

It must be insanely frustrating to do media outreach or public diplomacy for Israel.

It’s not only that media outlets seem to have an endless supply of anti-Israel storylines that they just mix and match regardless of context, from lurid descriptions of imagined atrocities to old standbys about Palestinian dispossession. It’s also that journalists and editors seem to pick their themes with something approaching reckless abandon, throwing against the wall one thinly sourced anti-Israel libel after another. If something sticks they congratulate themselves on brave journalism. If a smear is debunked they just shrug and move on.

The problem isn’t so much a resistance to specific facts, though the BBC has indeed been conspicuously ignoring Israeli evidence that contradicts their preferred take on reality. It’s just that being wrong is a functionally costless proposition if the error works against Israel, so journalists can publish an endless stream of sensational accusations with minimal concern for their veracity. All they need is a quote, which anti-Israel partisans are more than willing to provide, and that qualifies as fact-checking.

The reports surrounding Israel’s Monday raid on the Mavi Marmara ship stands as a veritable textbook on how that coverage plays out in real time. (more…)

Andrew Sullivan is not a huge fan of Israel; he is entitled to his opinion.  However, his latest column about the incident in the waters outside of Gaza makes up the facts. Honestly, in the case of most of the posts Sullivan writes about Israel, Andrew is living in his own reality, where truth and facts do not matter.

The Atlantic columnist begins his latest example of creative writing begins with the first paragraph.

Maintaining the siege and blockade of Gaza (because its citizens elected a government Israeli abhors), and strafing it with military might over a year ago, is not exactly what one expects of a civilized Western state. To then go on the offensive against a flotilla of aid ships, trying to bypass the blockade, and killing at least ten people aboard is bordering on insanity…

There are at least three bald-faced lies in that  paragraph. First, the blockade was established to stem terrorism from Gaza (perhaps Sullivan forgot the five thousand rockets sent from the strip into Israel from 2005-2009).

His comment “Strafing it with military might over a year ago is not what one expects of a civilized Western State.” is also wrong.  That is exactly one should expect from a western state.  If rockets landed in Andrew Sullivan’s backyard, I guarantee that he would expect Obama to start “strafing” the offending party. (more…)

The first images of the clashes aboard the Mavi Marmara early Monday morning were broadcast by Al Jazeera English, which had an embedded journalist, Jamal Elshayyal, aboard the ship. What is remarkable about the footage is that the only attack it depicted was of the passengers upon the Israeli commandos, using bars and knives. The footage did not show the soldiers shooting. Yet the images were described as an Israeli attack.

The images were beamed around the world, inciting a mob to storm the Israeli embassy in Turkey, enraging anti-Israel crowds throughout the Arab and Muslim world, and inflaming Western public opinion. Yet the footage did not depict what Al Jazeera claimed it did, and in fact Israel was later able to use the same images to show the violent way in which its troops were confronted (the other five ships were stopped without incident).

Similarly, the infamous footage of 12-year-old Palestinian Muhammad Al-Dura at the start of the second intifada in September 2000 did not actually show the boy or his father being shot by Israeli troops. Charles Enderlin, the journalist who reported that Al-Dura had been shot and killed, was not actually present on the scene. He relied on the explanation provided by the embedded Palestinian cameraman who filmed the event: (more…)

The Old Media is already misreporting the bloody incident off the Gaza coast between a flotilla of Muslim “peace activists” and the Israeli Defense Force. They are, of course, making Israel out to be the bad guys and while it is regrettable that anyone had to get killed in this incident, the fault lies with the armed “peace activists,” not Israel.

That’s right, these are supposed to be peace activists, yet they had armed themselves with bats, metal bars, and slingshots with marbles as projectiles and later firearms that they had hidden on their craft. Why isn’t anyone in the Old Media asking why peace activists are arming themselves?

In fact, the first Israeli troops that boarded the flotilla were only using non-lethal weapons — paintball guns — but this did not stop the Muslims from assaulting the troops with the metal bars, bats and slingshots. The troops did have handguns, but it is reported that as they boarded they were yelling to each other “don’t shoot, don’t shoot.” It is clear that they intended to turn the boats around with as minimal force as possible in order to ensure world opinion that Israel wants to avoid bloodshed when she can.

The Muslims had other ideas as they swarmed the first troops giving vicious physical blows. One soldier was thrown from the top deck 30 feet to a lower deck causing severe injuries. (more…)

Israeli commandos boarded ships of a flotilla — dubbed an “aid mission” of pro-Palestinian activists — headed for the blockaded Gaza strip. Fighting broke out and at least 10 people have been reported killed, with the death toll likely to rise.

Trouble immediately broke out:

One of the commandos told reporters he descended by rope from a helicopter onto one of the six ships in the convoy and was immediately attacked by a group of people waiting for them.

“They beat us with metal sticks and knives,” he said. “There was live fire at some point against us.” (more…)

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was in the U.S. and met with Barack Obama in the White House, but you won’t find any photos of Netanyahu with Obama on the wire services. There aren’t any. Obama wouldn’t allow it. Politico reported:

But the meetings were shrouded in unusual secrecy, in part because U.S. officials, who just ten days earlier called the surprise announcement of new housing in East Jerusalem an ‘insult’ and an ‘affront,’ made sure to reward Netanyahu with a series of small snubs: There were no photographs released from the meeting, and no briefing for the press.

He bows to the Saudi king, he shakes hands warmly with his “amigo” Chavez, but he won’t be seen with the leader of the only democracy in the Middle East, and our only reliable ally there.

And this comes after he has put unprecedented strain on the U.S./Israel alliance by pressuring Israel for allowing Jews to build homes on Jewish land, and blaming Israel for the conflict with the Palestinians Muslims.

Obama is not a passive, weak or naive player in the Muslim/Jewish conflict. He was wet-nursed on Jew-hatred. He grew up in a Muslim country and studied the Koran. He knows what is prescribed for the Jews in Islam. He knows that the Koran says that the Jews are the Muslims’ worst enemies (5:82) and that “ignominy shall be their portion wheresoever they are found” (3:112). (more…)

There’s an interesting piece out from the AFP entitled “Bold new Gaza play skewers Fatah and Hamas.”  Apparently, there’s a play out in the Gaza Strip that rips Hamas and Fatah:

A new play has shocked audiences in the Gaza Strip by shouting out what many in the Hamas-ruled territory mutter behind closed doors — that Palestinian politicians are a bunch of crooks. The biting comedy entitled “Umbilical Cord” goes after the Islamist Hamas and its secular Fatah rivals, accusing them of ignoring the suffering of their people and selling out to Iran and the United States, respectively.

The shocking part about the play obviously isn’t the content of the play – it’s that Hamas hasn’t shut it down and shot all the participants.  The question is: why not? (more…)