My post on March 23rd, 2011 – following a terrorist bombing in Jerusalem which killed one woman and injured dozens – critiqued coverage of the attack by the Guardian’s Conal Urquhart (who was filling in for Harriet Sherwood). The post was titled “

I noted that Urquhart seemed to be at pains to avoid characterizing the violence as a terrorist act.  

This passage, from his initial report on the attack (close to Jerusalem’s main conference hall and central bus station), represents a prime example.

“A bus has exploded opposite the central station in Jerusalem, killing one woman and injuring at least 25 people, four of them seriously.” [emphasis added]

Of course, the bus didn’t “explode”.

A bomb was placed by a terrorist in a trash can, near a crowded bus stop, with the intent of killing Israelis. Some on an Egged bus which had stopped to pick up passengers there were injured (along with others closer to the bomb) as a result of the blast.

Further, in contextualizing Urquhart’s work with other Guardian reports about Palestinian terrorism, I arrived at what appeared to be a few of the Guardian Group’s guiding principles.

One of the rules which Guardian journalists often observe pertains to intentionally unclear causation:

They use passive language which may obscure the fact that an intentional act of violence was perpetrated by a Palestinian terrorist against innocent Israeli civilians.

Harriet Sherwood recently published a report, titled “London 2012 Olympics: IOC rejects silence for Munich victims” (May 15th), which is quite consistent with the Guardian rule detailed above.

Sherwood writes:

“The Munich attack began in the early hours of 5 September 1972, when eight members of the Palestinian military organisation Black September infiltrated the Olympic village, and took 11 members of the Israeli team hostage. The attackers demanded the release of 234 Palestinian prisoners in return for the hostages’ release.

By just after midnight, all 11 athletes, five attackers and a German police officer were dead.” [emphasis added]

By midnight, they were dead. Not “killed“ but “dead“. Sherwood fails to distinguish between victim and perpetrator, and offers no further explanation about how the Israeli hostages lost their lives.

In fact, the Israeli athletes were murdered brutally and quite deliberately by Palestinian Black September terrorists.

Recently the Guardian published a thorough, well-researched and clear account of the murder of Israeli athletes in Munich.  It was written by sports editor Simon Burnton and titled, “50 stunning Olympic moments No 26: The terrorist outrage in Munich in 1972“.  Evidently it takes a sports writer to report on Palestinian terrorism without ideological blinders.

Burton recounts how, on the last day of the crisis, nine of the eleven Israelis were killed while on helicopters (with their captors) at the runway of Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base near Munich. The terrorists were hoping for a deal, whereby they would fly to safety in Egypt, until negotiations with German authorities broke down.

“…a terrorist threw a grenade into one of the helicopters, killing all but one of the four hostages on board. Another terrorist sprayed the second helicopter with bullets, killing the five tied together there. The final hostage, David Berger, died of smoke inhalation before he could be rescued.”

However, per Burton, two of the Israelis were killed in the athletes’ residence on the first day of the crisis. 

“In all 12 hostages were taken, but as the wrestlers were led downstairs to join the coaches one of them, Gad Zabari, managed to escape, with the assistance of the wounded [Moshe] Weinberg. The latter was shot dead and his body thrown, naked, on to the street. The remaining 10 were shepherded into a single bedroom, where the weightlifter Yossef Romano attempted to overcome one of the intruders. He too was shot, apparently castrated and left to bleed to death on the floor.” [emphasis added]

The brutality was beyond description.

Harriet Sherwood’s rhetorical obfuscation is all too predictable. 

Related articles

• Harriet Sherwood’s continuing advocacy journalism on behalf of Palestinian terror suspects (cifwatch.com)
• Guardian “journalist” Style Guide related dilemmas: Palestinian “Terrorism” edition (cifwatch.com)
• What the Guardian won’t report: Palestinians continue to laud Itamar Massacre terrorists (cifwatch.com)
• Harriet Sherwood again takes up the cause of innocent Palestinian “baker”, Khader Adnan (cifwatch.com)
• What Harriet Sherwood won’t report: Journalist arrested by PA for criticizing Abbas on Facebook (cifwatch.com)
• Harriet Sherwood feels Islamic Jihad terrorist’s pain (cifwatch.com)
• Harriet Sherwood on the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike – high on pathos, low on fact. (cifwatch.com)
• Observer op-ed on ‘hunger strikers’ exposes double standards on administrative detention coverage (cifwatch.com)
• Contrary to what The Observer claims, there has not been “relative peace” in Israel (cifwatch.com)
• Video of Harriet Sherwood’s Palestinian “Baker”, Khader Adnan, calling for suicide bombing (cifwatch.com)

In yesterday’s Guardian letters page (May 15) the decision was unanimous. Israel is guilty.

The first letter is from Lord Andrew Phillips.  Before reading it you should know that Lord Phillips has previous “form” on Israel. He has claimed that “America is in the grip of the well-organized Jewish Lobby“, and he once chaired an event organized by MEMO, a Hamas-supporting group.

The basis for today’s letter was a ‘Comment is Free’ column (May 8) objecting to the proposed boycott of Israel by the TUC and other UK unions.

Phillips writes:

Israel‘s ambassador, Daniel Taub, is right to say the Unison boycott is discriminatory (From boycott to bigotry, 9 May). That is the unavoidable crudity of all boycotts, which are usually last-resort expedients when governments do nothing. For many there is no other practical means of expressing, with any sniff of effectiveness, abhorrence at the relentless colonisation by Israel of the West Bank and East Jerusalem (appropriating so far well over 40% of their land mass by recent Foreign Office calculations).

Actually, according to these maps produced by the BBC (whom one could hardly accuse of being biased towards Israel) the following conclusion is drawn:

“Israel has pursued a policy of building settlements on the West Bank.These cover about 2% of the area of the West Bank.”

According to this AIJAC report the number is probably less:

“B’tselem is highly critical of Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank, and commissioned a detailed survey of the West Bank to determine the degree of settlement control and published a highly critical report last year. The group choose to focus their publicity for the report on the fact that municipal and regional councils associated with the settlements had theoretical legal jurisdiction over 42% of the West Bank, but they also conceded that their survey showed that the “built-up area” of settlements constituted a mere .99% of West Bank land. (As for the 42% number, one often quoted by Palestinian advocates, it is pretty irrelevant. This is municipal jurisdiction – ie zoning, planning, responsibility for local road maintenance – over mostly empty land. This land can become part of a future Palestinian state essentially at the stroke of a pen.)”

Back to Phillips’ letter:

“The fact that a significant minority of Israelis, and many Jews here, vehemently oppose both that colonisation and Gaza’s slow strangulation, with the oppression and humiliation that attends them, only underlines the complete failure of western (particularly US and UK) diplomacy, replete as it is with double standards.”

Again, lots of emotive words with no facts to back any of them.  He does not even explain what double standards he is talking about.

Phillips continues:

“If the Israeli government were remotely interested in accommodation with Palestine, as opposed to its subjugation, they would long ago have ceased their annexation programme…”

Annexation program? The only area captured in 1967 that has been annexed is “East” Jerusalem, i.e. the part of Jerusalem that was originally home to thousands of Jews until they were expelled by the Jordanians in 1948.

The next letter on the page is from a Sylvia Cohen, who writes to express support for the boycott of Israel’s Habima Theatre (a bit late now that the boycott has been rejected). Again, Ms. Cohen has “form” on Israel with at least two previous letters in the Guardian, one rejecting any celebration of Israel’s birth, as the Jewish state was “founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land.”

The third letter was written by Ernest Rodker. Again, Mr. Rodker is no ordinary outraged citizen. He is the UK spokesman for the Israeli man convicted of treason, Mordechai Vanunu.  (He can be seen here being interviewed by Iranian Press TV.)

His letter is a farrago of lies, exaggerations and outright propaganda. He writes:

“It is strange to read Daniel Taub, defending what he calls the voices speaking for peace against being boycotted, when he is representing and defending one of the most vindictive and oppressive governments in the Middle East.” [emphasis added]

While I’m not sure which human rights organizations have attempted to quantify Israel’s level of “vindictiveness”, the suggestion that the Jewish state is among the most oppressive in the region is simply risible. (See this report by Freedom House for a definitive analysis of Israel’s human rights record.) 

Rodker continues:

“Faced with thousands of Palestinians imprisoned for long periods without trial, many in their teens, assassinations of suspects not proven guilty, and appropriation of hundreds of acres of land through illegal evictions alongside the building of many illegal settlements, and all in the name of defending Israel, Taub’s comments are hardly credible.”

“Thousands of Palestinians imprisoned”? Wrong. Even B’Tselem has the number at 308. Assassinations of suspects not proven guilty? By “suspects” perhaps he’s referring to the targeted killing of terrorists in neighboring Gaza involved in the planning or execution of attacks against Israelis, a practice the U.S. has been using quite liberally to kill terrorists thousands of miles away from its shores, in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The final letter is by Karl Sabbagh, a Palestinian-British writer, who comments:

[...] if Taub thinks that the boycotts of Israel have done “nothing at all”, why is he so exercised about them?

WhyBecause boycotts have a publicity appeal which have everything to do with delegitimization and nothing to do with practicalities.

Sabbagh goes on to list some companies who have withdrawn from collaboration with Israel under pressure from BDS groups, but the immediate victims of these boycotts and economic blackmail are the Palestinians themselves. If Sabbagh would ever come to Israel he would see that the trains (from which Deutsche Bahn were pressured to withdraw) are running (not on time, this is Israel after all), the electricity (from which Veolia was pressurized to withdraw) is humming and Israel’s economy continues to thrive.  The BDS-ers are certainly not having it all their way, as the site “Divest This!” explains.

Sabbagh concludes:

“Taub may say he is concerned on behalf of the Palestinians, but there are plenty of Palestinians – I am one of them – who cheer every victory of the boycott movement as a sign that there are limits to Israel’s power to have things its own way.”

He may claim proudly to be a Palestinian, but he lives in Britain and will not feel the effect of boycotts on himself or his family. He is ready to sacrifice his co-nationals on the altar of his radical-chic “right-on” mentality.

These four letters illustrate more clearly than any textual analysis the Guardian’s World View - showing Israel in the worst light possible, exaggerating every conceivable sin, and belittling Israel’s undeniable progressive and democratic advantages.

Related articles

• The stylish appeal of BDS movement’s tireless campaign to erode the Jewish state’s legitimacy (cifwatch.com)

[Note: This CAMERA post is consistent with their current efforts to analyse NY Times' coverage of the Palestinian prisoner issue numerically, by quantifying their tendency to use certain words, phrases, and themes (and cite certain facts) over others. CiF Watch has also recently published a post similarly providing a textual analysis of Harriet Sherwood's report on the Palestinian prisoner issue. - A.L. ]

NYT Jerusalem correspondent, Jodi Rudoren

Even before Jodi Rudoren began her tenure as the New York Times‘ bureau chief in Jerusalem, serious concerns were raised about her objectivity.

Here at Snapshots we said, “Only time will tell whether [those] concerns will be borne out.”

Unfortunately, judging by Rudoren’s recent story about Palestinian prisoners on a hunger strike, published online on May 3 and in print the following day, those concerns are certainly being borne out.

You can read some criticism of the story here, here and here. Below we take a look at the piece by the numbers:

• Number of quoted words by Palestinian supporters of Palestinian prisoners: 269

• Number of quoted words by Israelis explaining the rationale behind administrative detention (or anything else): 0

• Number of words by Rudoren (or anyone else) discussing Israeli rationale behind administrative detention: 0

• Number of paragraphs before Rudoren gets around to letting readers know that the stars of her article are members of Islamic Jihad: 14

• Countries and groups that list Islamic Jihad as a terrorist organization include: The United States, Canada, The European Union, The United Kingdom and Australia.

• Rudoren’s description of Islamic Jihad: “a radical and militant Palestinian faction.”

• Number of other articles in May 4 edition of the New York Times that use the words “terrorist,” “terrorist organization,” terrorist network” or “terrorist attack” to describe non-Palestiniangroups, individuals and attacks: 6

• Number of people murdered by Islamic Jihad: Hundreds

• Number of rockets fired at Israeli cities and towns by Islamic Jihad: Hundreds

• Number of references in the article to those attacks: 0

• Number of days after extremist activist Ali Abunimah complained to Rudoren on Twitter about lack of coverage of the prisoners’ hunger striker before Rudoren authored what Abunimah endorsed as her “must read” report: 4

Related articles

• Observer op-ed on ‘hunger strikers’ exposes double standards on administrative detention coverage (cifwatch.com)
• Harriet Sherwood’s continuing advocacy journalism on behalf of Palestinian terror suspects (cifwatch.com)
• The hysterical Tweets of anti-Zionist “rock star” Ali Abunimah (cifwatch.com)

Here are the Guardian reports from that day in 1948:

The main story.

The leader:

I’m very interested to hear readers’ thoughts on these Guardian reports in the context of the paper’s coverage of Israel today.

Related articles

• Contrary to what The Observer claims, there has not been “relative peace” in Israel (cifwatch.com)
• Why is the ‘liberal’ Guardian still rooting for a reactionary antisemitic Islamist named Raed Salah? (cifwatch.com)
• Observer op-ed on ‘hunger strikers’ exposes double standards on administrative detention coverage (cifwatch.com)
• Should the Guardian’s Phoebe Greenwood be sacked? (cifwatch.com)
• Guardian photo story on Gaza drawings by Palestinian who are children curiously on-message (cifwatch.com)
• Harriet Sherwood cynically exploits a Holocaust survivor on Yom HaShoah to criticize Israel (cifwatch.com)
• Harriet Sherwood’s continuing advocacy journalism on behalf of Palestinian terror suspects (cifwatch.com)
• Who’s afraid of Richard Millett? (cifwatch.com)

It’s Naqba Day, and the Guardian is certainly not one to miss an opportunity to undermine Israel’s legitimacy. Yesterday’s contribution to this commemoration was an article by Khaled Diab.  (Diab is a regular contributor to ‘Comment is Free’, and is a staunch supporter of the one-state solution.)

The general premise of Diab’s ’Comment is Free’ essay sounds fair enough, titled “Palestinians must prioritise people over lost land”, with the sub-title “Nakba day reminds Palestinians that dreaming of the right of return stands in the way of securing more vital rights”.

However, as we read through the essay the position suggested by the title (and some of the opening text) is undermined quite egregiously. He begins with an appeal to the emotions of the reader with an evocative story of a Palestinian grandmother who experienced the events of 1948:

“Perhaps few recall it better than my Palestinian neighbour, a sprightly great-grandmother who turned 90 this year. Born at the start of the British mandate to a prominent Jerusalem family, she gave birth to her second child just months before Israel’s declaration of independence. At first, she and her family were determined to stay put during the civil war that broke out following the UN vote to partition Palestine.

Then the Deir Yassin massacre occurred, leading to general panic among the Palestinian population. Fearing for the safety of their family, my neighbour and her husband packed a couple of suitcases and sought temporary refuge in Amman, then a tiny backwater of just 33,000 inhabitants.”

Deir Yassin is one of those “clashes of narratives” that are at the root of Palestinian hostility towards Israel, and which will never be agreed upon by both sides. The article points the reader to the Wikipedia entry for Deir Yassin but one can gain a much more balanced understanding of the event from the Jewish Virtual Library.

Regardless of the facts and numbers of casualties at Deir Yassin, the JVL explains that the Arab propaganda about the alleged Jewish violence against Deir Yassin’s residence backfired, thus confirming Diab’s neighbour’s story:

“Contrary to claims from Arab propagandists at the time and some since, no evidence has ever been produced that any women were raped. On the contrary, every villager ever interviewed has denied these allegations. Like many of the claims, this was a deliberate propaganda ploy, but one that backfired. Hazam Nusseibi, who worked for the Palestine Broadcasting Service in 1948, admitted being told by Hussein Khalidi, a Palestinian Arab leader, to fabricate the atrocity claims. Abu Mahmud, a Deir Yassin resident in 1948 told Khalidi “there was no rape,” but Khalidi replied, “We have to say this, so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews.” Nusseibeh told the BBC 50 years later, “This was our biggest mistake. We did not realize how our people would react. As soon as they heard that women had been raped at Deir Yassin, Palestinians fled in terror.”¹⁴

Returning to Khaled Diab’s article, we read:

“The family has never managed to regain or be compensated for their house in West Jerusalem but, unlike many others, they managed to return to East Jerusalem and settle just a few miles from their former home. Today, millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants live in neighbouring Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, while significant Palestinian diasporas are found in Chile, the US, Honduras, Germany and other countries.”

This above paragraph really encapsulates the whole Palestinian “right of return” issue. The family fled due to their own leaders’ propaganda, but managed to return to “just a few miles from their former home”. In this case, why are they still considered refugees?

In this vein, Diab continues:

“Closely related to the Nakba is another political yin-yang: the Palestinian dream, and Israeli nightmare, of return. Palestinians, particularly the disenfranchised inhabitants of refugee camps, have clung on to their dream for the past 64 years. This is most poignantly symbolised by the keys to their former homes which many families have held on to. Politically, this longing has been expressed by Palestinians in their claimed “right of return”, which has been upheld by a number of UN resolutions, including Resolution 194 of 1948.”

However, Resolution 194 does not say what Diab thinks it says. Paragraph 11 states:

“11. Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible;”

It does not mention descendants inheriting the refugee status ad infinitum. And as proof of Israel’s compliance with this article, Diab’s grandmotherly neighbour herself, back in East Jerusalem, is but one confirmation of this fact.

Diab further relates how the Palestinian demand for “right of return” has taken over their political process but comes to the correct conclusion that this is a loser’s game.

“But at a time when the dream of Palestinian return is perhaps more distant than ever, and more and more Palestinians are being pushed off their lands by Israel, why are so many focusing on what to much of the rest of the world seems like a futile quest?

The reasons are complex and include disappointment and frustration at the crushing of the Palestinian dream of self-determination, on the one hand, and the cynical exploitation of identity politics as a substitute for real policies, on the other. Then there is the aggressive expansion of Israeli settlements, ongoing Israeli Nakba denial, as well as Israel’s insistence on a law of return for Jews but no right of return for Palestinians.”

Diab’s recitation of Israel’s “crimes” is repeating the failed propaganda exercise of the Palestinians’ early leaders in 1948. There is no “aggressive expansion of Israeli settlements” since no new settlements have been set up since the mid-1990s. Any new settlement building is done within settlements’ boundaries, and therefore does not encroach on any further land.

Further, Diab’s reference to what he characterizes as Israeli “Nakba denial” necessarily evokes “Holocaust denial”, a hyperbolic and completely unserious historical comparison.

As for Israel’s “insistence” on the Law of Return, that is a direct outcome of (and reaction to) 2,000 years of persecution throughout the world, both in the Western Christian world and the Eastern Moslem world, culminating in the Holocaust. If Israel were to be overrun tomorrow, 6 million Jews would be easy prey with nowhere to go, and politically persecuted Jews in the diaspora would, once again, have no place to take refuge. 

Diab is now building up to the main thrust of his article, their treatment at the hands of their fellow Arabs, although he cannot resist a malicious dig at Israel once again:

“However, the trouble is that this fixation on return focuses aspirations on a remote, distant and perhaps unattainable goal, while drawing attention and energy away from the very real issues facing Palestinians across the region. Not only does Israel disenfranchise and discriminate against the Palestinian populations under its control, especially in the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians in many Arab countries are denied their rights too. [emphasis added]

Perhaps the starkest example is Lebanon where, on the back of fears of upsetting the small country’s fragile sectarian balance, some 400,000 Palestinian refugees, many of whom were born in Lebanon, are deprived of numerous basic rights – including citizenship, public healthcare and access to numerous professions – and forced to live in what are effectively ghettos, otherwise known as refugee camps. Jordan has done more than others to integrate dispossessed Palestinians by granting most of them citizenship but, even there, Palestinians still face a certain amount of discrimination and some of them have been made stateless again.

Though the status of Palestinians in many Arab countries is partly a product of classic xenophobia and a reluctance, as they see it, to pay for Israel’s crimes, much of this marginalisation stems from Palestinian and Arab fears that integrating refugees would hurt their political quest for nationhood and the ever-elusive return. But what this traditional equation overlooks is that a nation is not the land – which has been declared so “sacred” by both Israelis and Palestinians alike that any number of generations is worth sacrificing at its divine altar – but the sum of its people. [emphasis added]

So this Nakba day, 15 May, it is time for Palestinians to prioritise the people over their lost land, and to campaign, wherever they now live, for their full civil, social and economic rights and their cultural right to be recognised as a distinct community.”

I would say that it’s about time an Arab commentator stated this clearly. 

Diab continues:

“That is not to say that Palestinians should forget the Nakba. Just like Jews mourned their “exile” for centuries, Palestinians have a right to keep the memory of their dispossession alive, though this is likely to become more spiritual and symbolic with the passing of each generation. And perhaps, counterintuitively for us today, as Palestinians cement their identity as a people without a land, they may, in a more tolerant and inclusive future, also start performing a kind of Palestinian version of Aliyah to a land with two peoples.” [emphasis added]

This co-opting of Jewish methods for mourning, commemorating the Destruction and Diaspora, and the 2,000 year-old Jewish wish to make “Aliyah” suggests a determined effort to construct a historical understanding necessary to one day supplant the Jewish nation itself.

Furthermore, with the innocuous little phrase “a land with two peoples”, Diab has managed to slyly insert a “one-state solution” proposal by the back door. This does not bode well for a future of peace and co-existence.

Diab is correct that the Palestinians must let go of their insistence on “right of return” because it is recognized as a non-starter. He is also very right in drawing attention to the miserable treatment the Palestinians receive at the hands of their brethren. However, aiming for a one-state solution will not bring the Palestinians any closer to a state of their own.

Related articles

• European conference organised by ‘Palestinian Return Centre’ launches new initiative. (cifwatch.com)
• Who’s afraid of Richard Millett? (cifwatch.com)

Richard Millett was called a “typical Israeli” last night at an SOAS Palestine Society event in London.

(The event included a presentation by Abdel Bari Atwan – a ‘Comment is Free’ contributor who can be seen here explaining that if Iranian missiles hit Tel Aviv he would “dance in [London's] Trafalgar Square” and here praising a terrorist attack against Israeli civilians.)

If you’re wondering whether the abuse hurled at Richard was racist, simply replace “Israeli” with any other identity and repeat the charge.  ”You’re a typical Arab.” “You’re at typical Black,” etc.

Of course, Richard is not an Israeli.  He’s a British Jew who routinely defends Israel and Jews at events hosted by the most hostile anti-Zionist, pro-Islamist (and often antisemitic) activists. His blog posts are frequently personal reports, using both photos and videos compiled while  monitoring events hosted by the UK’s ubiquitous array of groups hostile to Israel’s existence.

His reports unambiguously demonstrate the illiberal nature of much of the pro-Palestinian movement. One post shows Baroness Jenny Tonge praising Hamas leaders at a Palestinian Return Centre event, another post details a confrontation with a Holocaust denier who attended a Palestinian Solidarity event and yet another recounts a PSC event at which Jews were compared to Nazis.

It’s quite telling that the incident began last night when participants objected to Richard filming their public event (where no restrictions on such recordings were in place and, as Richard noted, others were filming the event).  What did they have to fear from a lone Jewish blogger who was merely attempting to disseminate information about what was said by a few pro-Palestinian activists?

One of the biggest scandals of the Guardian’s coverage of Israel and the Palestinians is the dishonest manner in which they frame the debate: a binarism which imputes good will and progressivism to nearly anyone claiming to advocate on behalf of the Palestinians on one hand and racism (or at least illiberality) to those unapologetically advocating for the Jewish state.

Perhaps Richard Millett is feared so much because he consistently gives lie to this absurd moral paradigm.  

Related articles

• Camera grabbed, rucksack snatched and racially abused at SOAS (cifwatch.com)
• Mavi Marmara’s Ken O’Keefe compares Jews to Nazis at Middlesex Univ. Event: The Footage. (cifwatch.com)
• Brainwashing children to hate Israel: The Palestine Solidarity Campaign way (cifwatch.com)

When I went to last night’s Palestine Society event at SOAS (public advertisement above) the audience was greeted with this slide when we entered the Khalili Lecture Theatre:

The slide that greeted us in the KLT at SOAS last night.

Before journalist Abdel Bari Atwan or Oxford University’s Dr. Karma Nebulsi spoke we were shown a film. Here is the eight seconds I was able to film before I felt some quite sharp prods in my shoulder while being ordered to stop filming:

Next I am told “You’re a typical Israeli, you know that”, which I took as a racist comment:

Next I am told to stop filming and recording by the chairperson before a rather large chap who had subsequently seated himself in front of me got up, turned around and tried to grab my camera, leaving me with a throbbing finger, before making off with my rucksack:

In the act of snatching the rucksack my phone, glasses case, pens and voice recorder ended up all over the floor and under the seats in front of me. I had to kneel to pick everything up, but I’m still missing a pen.

The audience started to taunt me and slow hand clap. Bari Atwan remained silent throughout while Nebulsi had the nerve to accuse me of being disruptive. Bizarrely, she offered to escort me outside to retrieve my rucksack but I refused to leave until my stuff was returned. At no stage did anyone in the 40 strong audience come to my defence in any way:

Eventually, SOAS security retrieved my rucksack and, suprisingly, my coat, which must have been removed by someone from behind me while I wasn’t looking. My coat had my keys in it:

After my coat and rucksack had been returned and after I had managed to retrieve most of my belongings from the floor and from under the seats I left.

To say I felt shaken and pretty distressed is the least of it.

I have turned off the comments just for this blog as I don’t wish to have prejudiced anything that may or may not happen but if anyone can help me with the names of any of those in the clips above then I would be very grateful.

Also, I’d be interested in knowing the translation of the Arabic on the slide above.

My email is richardblog@live.co.uk

Abunimah, who’s an opponent of the existence of a Jewish state within any borders, has characterized Israel as a“supremacist” state, and approvingly cited those who compare Israeli behavior to that of Nazi Germany. 

Abunimah is also co-founder of the site, Electronic Intifada.

Abunimah, not surprisingly, isn’t quite able to contain his rage against the Zionist menace on Twitter.

While following the hashtag on the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike (#palhunger) I came across the following pithy Tweets by Abunimah.

(Abunimah has blocked me from viewing his Tweets due to past Zionist apostasies, but those not banished can see his feed, here).

But, that Tweet was an exercise in self-restraint and sobriety compared to this:

Yeah, he’s got our number. Imprisoning Palestinians is the Zionist ‘reason d’être’, our founding principle, our driving passion.

We’re not motivated by the age-old Jewish desire to be ‘a free people in a free land’.  That whole thing about “Jewish self-determinism” is just a convenient ruse.  

Abunimah SO sees through us.

Related articles

• CiF Watch Special Report: Latest Assault on Israel’s legitimacy, ‘Air Flotilla 2′, April 15th, 2012 (cifwatch.com)
• An episode of “Guess the Twitterer”: An ‘Air Flotilla 2′ #EpicFailure Production (cifwatch.com)
• Ali Abunimah makes UNRWA Spokesperson Chris Gunness “Giggle” (cifwatch.com)

While you can read our blog’s substantive critiques of the Guardian Group’s sympathetic coverage of Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strikes (here, here, here, here, & here), the following represents a summary of Harriet Sherwood’s latest two reports:

Passages which represent, or are sympathetic to, the Palestinian prisoners’ side of the story: 20

Passages which represent, or are sympathetic to, the Israeli side of the story: 4

Use of the words “terror”, “terrorism”, “terrorist” (or even the Guardian Style Guide preferred word, “militant”) to characterize the suspects in Israeli custody, or in any context at all: 0

Passages offering context concerning the use of administrative detention by other democratic states: 0

Most incendiary, unserious or hyperbolic quotes included in Sherwood’s report:

Sherwood quotes from a letter written by a Palestinian prisoner to his daughter:

“…You will know that your father did not tolerate injustice and submission and that he would never accept insult and compromise, and that he is going through a hunger strike to protest against the Jewish state that wants to turn us into humiliated slaves…” [emphasis added]

Sherwood also quotes an Israeli MK:

Jamal Zahalka, a member of the Israeli parliament, told a solidarity rally in Jaffa: “If one of the striking prisoners dies, a third intifada [uprising] will break out.” [emphasis added]

And if the “striking” prisoners are released they are highly likely to continue their involvement with terrorist movements intent on launching lethal attacks against Israeli civilians: a real world consequence of treating violent extremists as human rights activists which the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent never seems to consider.

(The media just reported that the prisoners have ended their hunger strike, after both sides agreed to an Egyptian brokered deal.)

Related articles

• Observer op-ed on ‘hunger strikers’ exposes double standards on administrative detention coverage (cifwatch.com)
• Harriet Sherwood on the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike – high on pathos, low on fact. (cifwatch.com)
• Harriet Sherwood again takes up the cause of innocent Palestinian “baker”, Khader Adnan (cifwatch.com)
• Harriet Sherwood feels Islamic Jihad terrorist’s pain (cifwatch.com)
• What Harriet Sherwood won’t report: Journalist arrested by PA for criticizing Abbas on Facebook (cifwatch.com)
• Video of Harriet Sherwood’s Palestinian “Baker”, Khader Adnan, calling for suicide bombing (cifwatch.com)
• Harriet Sherwood celebrates ‘Int’l Women’s Day’ by championing the cause of Islamic Jihad terrorist (cifwatch.com)
• Harriet Sherwood reports hearsay from Gaza: Lazy journalism, ideologically-driven or both? (cifwatch.com)
• Contrary to what The Observer claims, there has not been “relative peace” in Israel (cifwatch.com)

Weapons found in Palestinian terror suspect’s home, near Hebron, January 2012

Yesterday we commented on an Observer editorial which harshly condemned Israel for the use of administrative detention to detain suspected terrorists: “Observer op-ed on ‘hunger strikers’ exposes double standards on administrative detention coverage“.

In addition to the failure of The Observer (sister publication of The Guardian) to provide context on the use of such practices by other democracies and its failing to acknowledge that many of those held have already engaged in terror activities, the editorial made this astonishingly inaccurate claim:

“Indeed, according to the UN’s special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights, over the past year the number of administrative detentions has almost doubled despite the period of relative peace in Israel.” [emphasis mine]

First, it evidently never occurs to Guardian Group journalists that the degree to which there has been a decrease in the number of major terror attacks may have something to do with preventative anti-terror procedures, including administrative detention.  

But moreover, while the kind of large-scale deadly suicide attacks Israel experienced during the 2nd Intifada have thankfully decreased dramatically, Palestinian terrorists’ attempts to launch such attacks have not waned.

As I noted in the previous post, there are dozens of terror attacks in Israeli each month (see official Israeli terror statistics here), most of which the Guardian (and the majority of the mainstream media) fails to report.

In addition to rockets fired into Israeli towns from Gaza ( 627 deadly projectiles were fired in 2011 and 272 so far in 2012), here are a few recent attempted attacks, thankfully thwarted by the IDF, which belie the claim that there has been “relative peace” in Israel.

• January 2: IDF force captured 2 Palestinian men carrying illegal guns. The two were taken in for investigation near Nablus while the M-16 rifle, an Uzi, and matching ammunition they carried were confiscated by security forces.

• January 15: IDF forces uncovered a hunting rifle and a shotgun in a Palestinian’s house in the village of Dahariya, near Hebron. The man was known to the police on previous charges of criminal violence.

• February 21: A powerful explosive device was uncovered along the Israel-Egypt border. Israeli forces saw a man hurling a suspicious bag and immediately fleeing the scene. The explosive was detonated in a controlled manner. No one was hurt.

• April 11: IDF forces stopped a would-be bomber over Passover at a checkpoint east of Nablus, northern Samaria. The terrorist was carrying improvised explosive devices, three knives and 50 bullets.

• April 21: 2 Palestinian teens carrying bombs and guns were nabbed by Israeli forces. They were apprehended near Tapuach junction with 5 pipe bombs, a gun, and ammo.

• April 24: IDF forces uncovered 4 improvised bombs on two Palestinians at a crossing north of Jericho. The bombs were found in the men’s bags and detonated safely.

• April 28: IDF forces nabbed 2 terrorists with 4 pipe bombs as they were trying to smuggle explosives through a checkpoint in northern Samaria.

• May 7: Israeli forces arrested 17-year-old Palestinian for carrying 3 pipe bombs. The teen was detained near Tapuach junction, a known hot spot for terror attacks.

• May 10: Israeli forces arrested 2 Palestinians carrying 2 explosive devices and 3 prepped firebombs near Tapuach Junction, again.

There is one thing, of course, that all of these thwarted Palestinian terror attacks (against innocent Israeli civilians) have in common:

They weren’t reported by the Guardian. 

Related articles

• Observer op-ed on ‘hunger strikers’ exposes double standards on administrative detention coverage (cifwatch.com)

Here’s the headline:

Now, here’s the, um, story.

That’s right. The text in the story is exactly the same eleven words used in the headline.

I could be reading too much into this but we can only hope that this is part of a larger Guardian Group business plan to cut costs (in light of a  £58.6 million operating loss during FY2011) by using wire services (like AP) more, and on-the-ground “reporters” (like Harriet Sherwood) less.

A boy can dream can’t he?

Related articles

• Guardian “journalist” Style Guide related dilemmas: Palestinian “Terrorism” edition (cifwatch.com)
• Harriet Sherwood feels Islamic Jihad terrorist’s pain (cifwatch.com)
• Should the Guardian’s Phoebe Greenwood be sacked? (cifwatch.com)
• Guardian corrects story with false translation of Noam Shalit interview after his son’s release (cifwatch.com)
• Guardian removes letter on Jews’ ‘Ghetto’ mentality: Runs afoul of their “editorial guidelines” (cifwatch.com)
• You may need to read this twice – the Guardian Denies that Jerusalem is Israel’s Capital. (cifwatch.com)

(The “baker” can be seen in this video imploring his fellow Palestinians to carry out more suicide attacks against Israelis.)

Yesterday, May 12, The Observer (The Guardian’s sister publication) published an official editorial titled “Hunger strikers expose an inhuman system“.

The editorial begins:

“The disclosure that six of almost 1,600 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike to protest against the Israeli policy of “administrative detention” are close to death has profound implications for Israel and for the stalled Middle East peace process. The rule of law and fair and proper judicial processes, where those accused of a crime may be charged and are guaranteed an opportunity to speak in their own defence in open court, is a key human right that a properly functioning democracy should guarantee even in a troubled period of peacetime.”

Vital context ignored by the editorial includes the fact that administrative detention is a practice inspired by the recognition that the criminal law’s reliance on strict rules of evidence are not suited to handle the challenges presented by terrorism.  The reasoning behind administrative detention often is based upon fear that the suspect is likely to pose a threat in the near future. So, it is meant to be preventive in nature rather than punitive. 

The administrative detention practice used to imprison Adnan is a judicial method similarly employed by other democratic states around the world, including the the EU, UK – and the U.S.

In fact, Israeli detainees are allowed judicial review, generally within eight days, while in the UK the length of time (which was 28 days until 2011) is now two weeks. The U.S. can hold terror suspects indefinitely.

A U.S. Homeland Security Affairs report concluded that (for these and other reasons) Israel’s use of administrative detention is more respectful of prisoners’ rights than in the U.S. and Britain.

Further, while Israel uses administrative detention purely to prevent acts of terror against its citizens, many countries in the EU use this type of detention for asylum seekers and illegal immigrants.

The Observer editorial continues:

“Indeed, according to the UN’s special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights, over the past year the number of administrative detentions has almost doubled despite the period of relative peace in Israel.”

Much like Harriet Sherwood’s false claims that rockets have only “sporadically” been fired into Israel (when, actually, 627 deadly projectiles were fired at Israeli towns in 2011 alone), the notion that Israel has “relative peace” is profoundly misleading. 

In addition to rockets from Gaza, each month there are typically dozens of terror attacks in Israel proper as well as in the West Bank. Here’s a breakdown of terror attacks in Israel for the month of April, 2012, most of which never get reported by the MSM.

West Bank and Jerusalem – 60 attacks: 2 explosive devices; 2 small arm shootings; 2 stabbing (in Jerusalem); 54 firebombs (22 in Jerusalem).

Green Line – 1 stabbing attack (in Kfar Saba).

The Observer editorial further warns:

“There is an evident risk of violence for both Israelis and Palestinians should any of the hunger strikers die.”

And, there is a much greater risk that Israeli civilians will die if the Palestinian terrorists are released, a humanitarian concern the author of this polemic clearly did not consider.

The Observer editorial continues by issuing a further warning to Israel on why they must give in to the terrorists’ demands.

“At a time when more and more observers are increasingly convinced that the two-state solution is failing, the nonviolence of this hunger strike is already deeply suggestive of what a Palestinian civil rights movement might look like – should Palestinians abandon the demand for their own self-determination and, instead, insist on full equality within a binational state.”

I guess it was lost on the author that the only reason such prisoners affiliated with violent terrorist movements are behaving ‘non-violently’ is the fact that they’re incarcerated and unarmed.  Further, ignored in the passage is the fact that the overwhelming majority of the terror suspects subscribe to an ideology intrinsically opposed to mere “self-determination” and hostile to the existence of a Jewish state within any borders. 

The “non-violent” Palestinian prisoners currently engaged in a hunger strike include the following suspects, who were re-arrested by Israeli authorities for continued terrorist activity after being released in the Shalit deal:

Abbas al-Sayyid – Senior activist in Hamas.  He was sentenced to 35 life sentences for his role in the terrorist attack in the Park Hotel terror attack in Netanya on Passover evening 2002 which killed 30.  After he was arrested, he confessed during questioning by the GSS (General Security Service) that he organized and led the terrorist attack, and even afterwards he sought two more explosive belts to commit additional attacks.  His arrest prevented a number of planned attacks on Israeli citizens.

Muhannad Shrim – Senior activist in Hamas and al-Sayyis’ assistant.  He was sentenced to 29 life sentences for his involvement in the deadly“Park Hotel” terrorist attack in 2002, which killed 30 and injured 160.  During questioning after he was arrested, he told police how he transported the terrorist bomber from his apartment before the attack.

Jamal al-Hor – Hamas activist who was sentenced to five life sentences forterrorist attacks and involvement in murder.  Among other things, he was involved in the planning of the attack at “Café Apropo” in Tel Aviv with other members of a terrorist cell he founded which came to be known as the “Tzurif squad”.  Three young women in their early 30’s were killed, one of whom was in her third month of pregnancy, and 48 others injured.

Wajdi Joda – Head of the ‘Democratic Front’ in the Nablus region.  Joda personally recruited the terrorist who committed the suicide attack at Geha interchange on December 25, 2003.  In the attack, four Israeli civilians were killed, among them three women and 21 injured, when the bomber blew himself up at a bus stop in the evening.

Finally, the editorial claims that they oppose the use of administrative detention by all countries. Yet, a quick search of the Guardian’s website demonstrates a disproportionate focus on Israel.  Out of 13 total references to “administrative detention” on their site in 2012, in some critical or pejorative manner, only one didn’t focus on Israel. 

The subtext of the Observer editorial, suggesting that releasing dangerous terrorists from prison will help the ‘peace process’, is only exceeded in absurdity and cynicism by the Guardian Group’s evidently serious suggestion that they aren’t obsessively critical of the Jewish state.

Related articles

• We know they’re hungry…but for what, exactly? (This Ongoing War)
• Abdullah Barghouti: Poster Boy For Palestinian Hunger Strike–And Murderer Of 66 Jews #PalHunger
• Propaganda by wife of Islamic Jihad terrorist, Khadr Adnan: Courtesy of the Guardian (cifwatch.com)
• Harriet Sherwood feels Islamic Jihad terrorist’s pain (cifwatch.com)
• Harriet Sherwood celebrates ‘Int’l Women’s Day’ by championing the cause of Islamic Jihad terrorist (cifwatch.com)

The piece can be found on the Guardian’s ‘Global Development’ page.

The Guardian characterizes the art as an expression of the childrens’ “collective yearning for a clean, safe neighborhood”.

The drawings are accompanied by a quote from the child artist explaining his or her inspiration.

A few of the children were curiously quite on-message.

A Palestinian boy, 11, named Amani explained that the following was motivated by his wish that he no had longer had to “live under occupation.” [emphasis added]

A Palestinian child, eight, named Rouane was responsible for the following drawing and is quoted as explaining: “I’d love to have a cleaner and safe neighborhood and a nice countryside and uninterrupted electricity.”

A Palestinian child named Amal, nine, responsible for the following drawing, complained of life “under siege“.

At the very least it seems improbable th Palestinian children (aged 8 to 11) typically use political vocabulary which, when translated from Arabic to English, just so happens to be exactly the same as what is typically employed by anti-Israel activists.

If there indeed was some “adult interference” in these attributions it wouldn’t be the first time a display of drawings allegedly created by Palestinian children was fraudulent.

Elder of Ziyon posted in 2011 (The fake child artists of Gaza) about another exhibit by Gazan children in the same town (al-Zarqa), documenting their experiences during the Gaza war, which were allegedly culled from art therapy sessions at Gaza children’s centers.

The drawings include one of a bomb painted with American and Israeli flags crashing into a street filled with dead bodies and IDF missiles targeting innocent civilians and destroying a mosque.

As Elder noted, the picture above from the exhibit was clearly based on an image by antisemitic artist Carlos Latuff:

Elder observed:

“[The drawings] look like they were done by adults trying to draw in a childish style.  The symbolism, the coloring and the motifs seem, at the very least, to have been heavily prompted by adults.

Kids don’t come up with this stuff on their own.”

Related articles

• Guardian’s biased coverage of terrorist hostilities in Israel’s south: Numbers, headlines and photos (cifwatch.com)
• What the Guardian won’t report: Palestinians continue to laud Itamar Massacre terrorists (cifwatch.com)
• Guardian corrects story with false translation of Noam Shalit interview after his son’s release (cifwatch.com)
• Should the Guardian’s Phoebe Greenwood be sacked? (cifwatch.com)
• ‘Elder of Ziyon’ responds to the Guardian’s Ben White on BDS. (cifwatch.com)
• The relative relevance of a search on the Guardian website (cifwatch.com)
• Should we laugh or cry over Catherine Ashton’s remarks about Toulouse massacre? (cifwatch.com)

In Adulam Park, south of Bet Shemesh, the remains of ancient settlements are scattered all over the limestone hills. One of those is Hurvat Burgin, excavated in 2008 and identified as Kfar Bish – as mentioned by Josephus in ‘The Jewish Wars’. The views of the Hevron  mountains and Gush Etzion from the carob tree-covered hills are breath-taking, but no less spectacular is what is to be found underground. 

The site includes a Second Temple era burial cave – as well as a later Byzantine one – an olive press and a columbarium, as well as a complex system of caves and secret interconnecting passageways used to hide from the Romans during the Bar Kochva revolt. 

In the articles ‘Lost in anti-Zionist translation? Guardian misquotes Noam Shalit on Palestinian hostage taking‘ and ‘Guardian corrects story with false translation of Noam Shalit interview after his son’s release‘ CiF Watch exposed the errors in the recent by Phoebe Greenwood article that was corrected:

New headline:

Old headline:

Greenwood’s article was based on an incredibly rude interview carried out by Israeli journalist Amnon Levi of Israel’s “Channel 10″.

Noam Shalit with Amnon Levi of nana 10 – Channel 10

Having watched the interview (in Hebrew) it’s clear that only Amnon Levi and his cameraman were present with Noam Shalit. The interview was taped in Shalit’s house in Mitzpe Hila – in the Shalit’s kitchen, actually.

So Greenwood’s article, with the misleading quotation, was written after reading a translated transcript of the interview. (In a different article about Noam Shalit’s entry into Israeli politics, Harriet Sherwood says she interviewed Shalit in Jerusalem on Monday – presumably May 7^th, 2012).

It is an interesting commentary on the low standard of Guardian journalistic ethics that Greenwood, while acknowledging that the interview was taped, does not point out that she was not there.

“Speaking to a television interviewer in the kitchen of the Shalit family home, a familiar backdrop for the Israeli public from the family’s five-year campaign for their son’s release, Shalit was subject to repeated questioning attempting to pin him down on his political policies.”

The Guardian and Greenwood do not acknowledge her source, nor that she, for all intents and purposes, provided a translated transcription of Shalit’s comments lifted from the interview plus her own views about them.

In fact, Greenwood’s article is about as close to plagiarism dished up as journalism as one can get. In another time and at another paper I suspect she would have been sacked.

Related articles

• Guardian corrects story with false translation of Noam Shalit interview after his son’s release (cifwatch.com)
• Lost in anti-Zionist translation? Guardian misquotes Noam Shalit on Palestinian hostage taking (cifwatch.com)
• Deborah Orr Tweet defends ‘chosen people’ essay, complains about Zionists’ sense of victimhood (cifwatch.com)