Tag Archives: West Bank

May 10 2013

From the Warsaw Ghetto to John Lewis for Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s Ewa Jaciewicz.

Cross posted by Richard Millett

PSC's Salim Alam handing out anti-Israel leaflets inside John Lewis.

PSC’s Salim Alam handing out anti-Israel leaflets inside John Lewis.

Ewa Jaciewicz is an activist. That’s what she does. She was last seen hanging around inside a chimney in Nottingham for which she was “rigorously trained”. She writes about her activism in great detail for The Guardian.

On Saturday she helped orchestrate an anti-Israel protest inside John Lewis on London’s Oxford Street. About 50 anti-Israel activists followed her in and unfurled banners accusing Israel of apartheid and urging shoppers not to shop in John Lewis because it sells products made by Sodastream, an Israeli company with a factory on the West Bank that produces items enabling consumers to live greener lives.

Jaciewicz, a campaigner against climate change, should be sympathetic to Sodastream except her desire to see the Jewish state disappear obviously trumps all the good that Israeli companies do for the world.

Now, that’s hypocrisy for you.

Meanwhile, you can buy Sodastream products online from John Lewis here.

One of the signs unfurled by the activists read: “John Lewis…ethical policy? You profit from war and apartheid. Stop selling stolen goods.”

There is nothing illegal about Sodastream, and international law fully supports Israel’s presence in the West Bank. Anyone would have a very hard time disproving this.

But what Jaciewicz, a member of the Polish Campaign of Solidarity with Palestine, never wrote about for The Guardian was her trip a few years ago to the Warsaw Ghetto.

Now, what would a reasonable human being do if they visited a site where some 400,000 Jewish people (or people of any religion for that matter) lost their lives? Say a prayer, lay a flower, place a simple stone in remembrance?

Jaciewicz helped daub the words “Free Gaza and Palestine” on one of the nearby walls. What did any of those 400,000 innocent lost souls ever do to her?

Jaciewicz on the left near Warsaw Ghetto.

Jaciewicz on the left near Warsaw Ghetto.

One of Jaciewicz’s accomplices inside John Lewis was Salim Alam, one of the head honchos at the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Alam once chaired a Palestine Solidarity Campaign meeting which was so horrific that afterwards one of the audience members let rip with a long Holocaust denial rant.

So these are just two of the characters that dominate the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s activism against Israel.

If only the shoppers at John Lewis who heard the accusations of apartheid against Israel and the calls for Israel’s destruction knew these back stories then they might understand what this sort of activism against Israel is truly about.

After about 45 minutes the police turned up and the activists removed themselves from John Lewis after being warned by the police that they could otherwise be arrested for aggravated trespass.

And as thousands continue to be gassed and murdered in Syria by Assad where are the protests against that and where are Jaciewicz’s articles on Syria?

More photos/footage from Saturday:

Jaciewicz appears in this clip: blond and in a black top and on her phone.

anti-Israel activists inside John Lewis.

anti-Israel activists inside John Lewis.

Thanks to Harvey for his footage and photos above and for the others that braved the onslaught on Saturday of this continuous vile campaign against the Jewish state.

Related articles
May 2 2013

‘Pallywood Light’ at the Guardian, part 2: The Phantom Israeli Rock-Thrower

Earlier today we posted about a Guardian video which purported to show Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians, following the murder of 32-year-old Evyatar Borovsky by a Fatah affiliated terrorist at a bus stop in the West Bank on Tuesday, but which didn’t in fact include any clips of Jewish violence.

As we noted, there were indeed multiple reports elsewhere of retaliatory attacks (including rock throwing) by Jews against Palestinians in the area near where the terrorist attack occurred, but the Guardian video on May 1 – though titled ‘Jewish settlers attack Palestinians in the West Bank‘ – simply included short clips of Israeli soldiers using crowd control measures against Palestinians near the village of Orif.

However, upon looking at the film again, we noticed something else – an opening still shot of what appears to be an Israeli rock thrower which doesn’t actually appear anywhere in the actual video.

Here’s how the video is presented on the side of the Guardian’s Israel page. Notice the rock-thrower wearing a blue shirt.

video

When you open the link you also briefly see the rock thrower:

video 2

After a few seconds however, the image above disappears and the full video begins.

Here’s the video again.

Nowhere in the video does the (presumably Israeli) rock thrower in the blue shirt appear.  And, whilst we were unable to find the video corresponding to this particular still shot, if you Google the title you can find other uploads of the video which appear on YouTube without the mysterious rock-thrower.

youtube

Original Guardian video at top. Seen below is the very same video, uploaded by another YouTube user.

It seems that the image in question was spliced from a completely different video and added by Guardian editors to the May 1 video report to buttress the narrative.  

In fairness, this technique is used in other Guardian videos (and on other news sites).  Nonetheless, in this particular case it seems highly misleading – especially in light of the fact that, as we noted, the video itself contains no footage whatsoever of Israelis throwing rocks or otherwise attacking Palestinians, despite its quite explicit title to that effect.

I guess the more accurate title for the video which editors could have used, ‘Various clips and still shots which, when spliced together, still only suggest Israeli settler violence to the trained Guardian reader’, wasn’t quite as catchy.

Related articles
May 2 2013

Pallywood Light: Guardian video claiming to show ‘Jews attacking Palestinians’ fails to deliver

Following the murder of an Israeli man, 32-year-old Evyatar Borovsky, by a Palestinian terrorist in a stabbing attack at a bus stop in the northern West Bank on Tuesday, the Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood reported on the incident, as well as on subsequent retaliatory attacks by “Jewish settlers”.  

The Jewish ‘attacks’ evidently occurred near the Yitzhar community where Borovsky lived, as well as in the Palestinian villages of Burin, Hawara, and Orif – and a nearby highway (route 60). According to multiple reports, some Israelis threw rocks at Palestinians and some set Palestinian fields ablaze.

The claim that there were some retaliatory attacks by Jews following Borovsky’s murder doesn’t appear to be in doubt.

However, the Guardian also published a video story on May 1, with the following title:

video

Here’s the video caption:

A group of masked Jewish settlers set fire to a house and fields across villages in the West Bank before attacking Palestinians. Palestinian villagers clash with the settlers on a hill overlooking the village of Orif. Israeli soldiers arrive to disperse the crowd with stun grenades. The attack was in retaliation to the killing of Israeli settler Eviatar [sic] Borovsky

However, upon viewing the one minute and six second Guardian video, we couldn’t help but notice the absence of any clips actually showing ‘Jewish settlers attacking Palestinians’, despite text on the bottom of the screen at various moments stating that such attacks were taking place.

Here’s the video in its entirety.

Here’s what we just saw:

  • Israeli soldiers on patrol
  • Israeli soldiers talking to what appear to be Palestinians
  • Tear gas and stun grenades are employed by Israeli forces
  • A Palestinian man (at the 54 second mark), purportedly injured, being carried to an awaiting ambulance

Here’s what we did not see, despite claims made in the title and accompanying text:

  • Jewish settlers attacking Palestinians
  • Jewish settlers burning Palestinian fields

Whilst the events described by the Guardian may have indeed occurred, the video they produced and posted certainly did not present any visual evidence to buttress these claims.  

Though there have been far more egregious examples of ‘Pallywood‘ in action (i.e., intentionally misleading or doctored Palestinian film footage; and the staging of certain scenes) it is reasonable to ask why the Guardian editor who published this video failed to engage in basic journalistic critical scrutiny of what the clips were claiming to document.

Related articles
May 1 2013

A Jew, a jihadist and the Guardian: A brief illustration of photographic sympathy

Yesterday, April 30, we posted about a report by Harriet Sherwood on the murder of an Israeli man, 32-year-old Evyatar Borovsky, by a Palestinian terrorist affiliated with Fatah in a stabbing attack at a bus stop at the Tapuach Junction, in the northern West Bank. The report also noted that, on the same day, Israeli forces killed a jihadist bomb-maker and arms dealer in Gaza named Hitham Ziyad Ibrahim Mishal, who was believed to be responsible for a recent rocket attack on Eilat.

Mishal was active in multiple Salafi-jihadi organizations, and reportedly “dealt in the manufacturing, upgrading and trade of firearms, rockets and bombs, which he delivered to various terror organizations.”

Sherwood’s report in the Guardian was entitled ‘Israeli security forces deployed in West Bank after settler is stabbed to death‘ and included this photo depicting grieving Palestinians in Gaza:

new

Here’s the Guardian caption:

A Palestinian boy, right, mourns as men comfort a relative during the funeral of Hitham Masshal, whose body is being carried in the background, in Gaza City’s al-Shati refugee camp. Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters

While certainly not at all surprising, it’s important nonetheless to note that Guardian editors did not show the following photo, which was published elsewhere in the media, showing three of Evyatar Borovsky’s surviving children at his funeral yesterday.

kids-635x357There is another even more heartbreaking photo online of one of these young boys – arms wrapped around his father’s coffin – which we will not show. However, if you’d like to learn more about the life of Evyatar Borovsky (and his widow, Tzofia) you can see the following reports.

Related articles
May 1 2013

Buried by the Guardian: Disturbing data on Palestinian support for suicide bombing

Following a disturbingly high number of Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israelis in recent months, including the lethal stabbing assault of a 32-year-old Israeli man in the northern West Bank on Tuesday, Israeli defense officials have expressed concerns that the conflict could lead to a Third Intifada.

Whilst recent violence by Palestinians has involved rock throwing, knife attacks, shootings and the hurling of fire bombs, the fear that such a coordinated outbreak of Palestinian violence could include suicide bombings – which caused so much death and carnage during the Second Intifada – was amplified by a new Pew poll released on April 30.

The new ‘Pew Research Center Survey of Muslims around the Globe‘ finds that Muslim support for suicide bombing in the Palestinian territories is the highest among the the twenty countries surveyed – with 40% of Palestinians agreeing that ‘suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are often/sometimes justified’.

Here’s the Pew graphic illustrating the data:

suicide bombing

Additional poll findings on Palestinian opinion includes the following:

  • Homosexuality: 89% of Palestinians think it’s immoral.
  • Women’s rights: 89% of Palestinians think women must always “obey” their husband.
  • Sharia Law: 89% favor the imposition of Sharia Law into their society.
  • Honor killings: 45% of Palestinians think it’s sometimes justifiable.

Whilst the Guardian’s Ewan MacAskill did briefly note, in passing, the findings on Palestinian support for suicide bombing, in a broader April 30 report which centered on the moderate views of American Muslims, the report was not tagged with the term ‘Palestinian territories‘ – nor did it appear on the Israel, Palestinian territories, or Gaza pages.

Moreover, whilst Harriet Sherwood did recently take a tepid step towards acknowledging the problem of Palestinian incitement, it seems unlikely that she will properly incorporate this disturbing new data into future reports on violence in the region.

final_suicide_belt_picture_facebook

Glorifying Suicide Bombing: Official Fatah Facebook Page, Oct. 2012

As we’ve argued repeatedly on this blog, it is impossible to honestly debate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without an honest assessment of Palestinian values and social mores, which are, by any measure, on the extremist right end of the political spectrum and, it would seem, irreconcilable with the ideals of peace and coexistence.

Related articles
Apr 30 2013

The Guardian: Where Jews are “hardline”, while Hamas tries to ‘rein in extremists’.

In an April 7 post, we asked how many of the roughly 800 Jews currently living in the ancient city of Hebron Harriet Sherwood had spoken to or interviewed.  Our interest in the Guardian Jerusalem correspondent’s familiarity with Hebron’s Jews was piqued by the following sentence in her April 4 report about an outbreak of violence in the West Bank – including in Israelis cities such as Hebron.

After the funeral Palestinian youths threw stones at Israeli soldiers close to an extremist Jewish settlement in the heart of the city. The Israeli military responded with teargas, stun grenades and rubber bullets

We noted that by referring to a community of hundreds of Israelis as “extremists”, Sherwood was lazily imputing widespread fanaticism without evidence – and, more broadly, conveying a message that there’s something radical or extreme about the desire to maintain even a small Jewish presence in Hebron, the oldest Jewish community in the world.

Our April 7 post is relevant in contextualizing Sherwood’s report on today’s terrorist attack in the West Bank – in which a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli man to death, then grabbed his weapon and fired at nearby border police.

Sherwood begins her piece, entitled ‘Israeli security forces deployed in West Bank after settler is stabbed to death‘, April 30, with the following information, which includes a curious reference to the victim’s home town:

Large numbers of Israeli security forces have been deployed in the West Bank after an Israeli settler was stabbed to death by a Palestinian amid fears that the killing could trigger widespread confrontations.

Eviatar Borovzky, 30, a father of five children and a part-time security guard at the hardline settlement of Yitzhar, near Nablus, died of his wounds at the scene of the attack.

Even if the contention that some Jews who live in Yitzhar are “hardline” has merit, it’s unclear what significance the politics of the victim’s home city has in understanding the attack, anymore than the fact that the terrorist suspect is reportedly from a city (Tulkarem) where several deadly terrorist attacks have originated would have relevance.

Sherwood’s report also included the following:

Around the same time [as the attack on Borovzky],an Israeli air strike killed an alleged Palestinian militant in Gaza in the first targeted assassination since the eight-day war last November. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said Haitham Masshal, 24, had been involved in a recent rocket attack on the Israeli Red Sea resort of Eilat. It described him as a “Global-Jihad-affiliated terrorist” and said he had “acted in different Jihad Salafi terror organisations and over the past few years has been a key terror figure”.

…

Hamas, the Islamist organisation which controls Gaza, has observed the ceasefire agreement that ended November’s conflict. However, in the past two months there has been renewed intermittent rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, blamed on small extremist organisations that Hamas is trying to rein in.

So, according to Sherwood, Hamas is trying to “rein in” extremism in Gaza.

Briefly:

  • Hamas is recognized as a terrorist movement by the US, EU, Canada, Japan, the U.K., and Australia.
  • Hamas’s founding charter cites the wisdom of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to “prove” that Jews are indeed trying to take over the world.
  • Hamas has carried out hundreds of deadly terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.
  • Hamas leaders have called for genocide against the Jews.

Regarding the final bullet point, here’s one example: Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior leader and co-founder of Hamas, is seen in this video waxing eloquently (on Al-Aqsa TV in 2010) about the the Jews’ future in the Middle East:

No, there’s clearly nothing “extremist” or “hardline” about that!

Related articles
Apr 29 2013

Jewish “terrorists” vs Arab “fighters”: An open letter to the Guardian’s Richard Norton-Taylor

The following is a letter written by a CiF Watch reader named David Shayne, and originally submitted to the Guardian’s Richard Norton-Taylor in response to his report entitled ‘British officials predicted war – and Arab defeat – in Palestine in 1948‘.
heading

Dear Mr. Norton Taylor,

I read your article with great interest, but I must say I was rather appalled to read your following claim:  

“The documents, which have a remarkable contemporary resonance, reveal how British officials looked on as Jewish settlers took over more and more Arab land.”

This statement is extremely misleading, evoking an image that  Jewish government or other entity was forcing Arabs off their lands in large numbers.  This picture is false.

It is well documented that, during the British Mandate, Jews in fact acquired very little settled Arab land.  All Jewish land acquisitions were commercial, land purchased from willing sellers (and often at exorbitant prices).   The Jews, being politically powerless, had no means to compel Arabs to sell their lands.  Moreover, a vast majority of these purchases involved unused lands in sparsely settled areas, e.g. the Jezreel and Hefer valleys, swampy areas that the Arabs tended to avoid.  The Jews, in turn, avoided moving into heavily populated areas.  That is why to this day Arab and Jewish population concentrations are in different parts of the country (e.g, the West Bank and the Coastal plain).  

There are many books that describe these issues, a particularly good one is “From Time Immemorial” by Joan Peters.

Even today, when there is a Jewish government which can and does exercise its power regarding the controversial settlements policy in the West Bank, most of these were likewise built on uninhabited stretches of land.  Generally, Arabs were not expelled in order to create these towns.

Another severely erroneous statement in your article was this:

“In the weeks leading up to the partition of Palestine in 1948, when Britain gave up its UN mandate, Jewish terrorist groups were mounting increasing attacks on UK forces and Arab fighters, the Colonial Office papers show.”

It is not clear what time period is meant here.  If the reference is prior to November 29, 1947 (the UN Partition Plan vote) then it is true that some Jews did engage in “terrorism” and Jewish forces did attack British forces (which the British always called “terrorism” even the targets were legitimate military targets and no British soldiers were killed).  But there was also plenty of Arab terrorism, meaning the random murder of unarmed Jews and Britons that had occurred during the same time.  The British, too, engaged in “terrorism” of their own from time to time (see the book “Major Farran’s Hat“). Singling Jews out as “terrorists” is grossly misleading.

If the reference is to the period between November 29, 1947 and May 15, 1948, then the statement is a flat-out lie.  Arab forces attacked Jews all across Palestine the very next day after the UN vote.  Dozens of Jews were killed immediately, the Jews tried to organize to defend themselves.  Since the British were leaving, and the Jews had their hands full just protecting themselves from the Arabs, all anti-British operations ceased.  I am not aware of a single significant incident of Jews attacking Britons during this time period.

The British, on the other hand, continued to severely oppress the Jews and prevent them from acquiring the necessary arms to defend themselves.  Moreover, many Britons openly aligned themselves with Arabs and some participated in anti-Jewish terror (e.g, the February, 1948 bombing of Ben Yehudah Street in Jerusalem).

The very characterization of Jews as “terrorists” and the Arabs as “fighters” when it was Arab terrorist violence that launched the 1947-48 war to start with reveals a deep prejudice that belies any semblance of objective reporting.

Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your response.

David Shayne

Related articles
Apr 24 2013

The Indy’s Alistair Dawber whitewashes terrorist crimes of Samer Issawi

An April 23 story in The Independent, written by the paper’s Jerusalem correspondent Alistair Dawber, entitled Palestinian prisoner gives up 250 day hunger strike after deal with Israel, begins with a photo of the joyful parents of the convicted Palestinian terrorist in question, Samer Issawi, celebrating their son’s decision to end his hunger strike.

samer

Dawber begins his story thusly:

One of the most high profile Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel has put an end to a 250-day hunger strike after reaching a deal with the Jewish state that will see him serve another eight months in jail.

Samer Issawi was sustained by vitamins and other supplements throughout his protest during which time he refused regular food and turned down a proposal to exile him. His cause has been taken up enthusiastically by Palestinians, many of whom consider the so-called security prisoners as national heroes. Throughout the West Bank and Gaza, several people have been seen wearing T-shirts emblazoned with Issawi’s face.

Dawber is correct that Palestinians and their political leaders routinely characterize even the most malevolent  terrorists in a manner which would lead some to believe they are civil rights martyrs and not cold-blooded killers – a disturbing dynamic which Palestinian Media Watch demonstrates continually.

In fact, some of the runners in the Palestinian Marathon on April 21 wore Samer Issawi t-shirts.

Palestine Marathon, Bethlehem, West Bank, 21.4.2013

Marathon runner on the left seen wearing Samer Issawi t-shirt

Additionally, the “so-called” security prisoners cum “national heroes” Dawber is referring to are the more than 4,800 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails who have been convicted of serious violent crimes, and include the following:

  • Masterminds who ‘organized’ terror attacks which killed Israelis
  • ‘Specialists’ who prepared the explosives used during such deadly attacks
  • Recruiters of suicide bombers
  • Senior members of terrorist Palestinian organizations

Further in the story, Dawber provides a bit of background on the hunger-striking Palestinian prisoner. 

Issawi, 32, was initially sentenced to 30 years in 2002 for, according to Israel, making pipe bombs during the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising. He was released in 2011 as part of the deal to release the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was freed by Hamas after five years being held in Gaza. Issawi was one of 1,027 Palestinians to be freed as part of the deal.

However, Issawi didn’t merely make pipe bombs.

Per Capt. Eytan Buchman, an IDF spokesman, as reported by CAMERA:

Issawi was convicted of multiple crimes which included five counts of attempted murder. This included four shootings, between July 2001 and February 2002, in which Issawi and his accomplices fired an AK-47 on police cars and buses travelling between Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem. In one attack, a policeman was injured and required surgery. On October 30, 2001, Issawi, together with an accomplice, fired at two students walking from the Hebrew University campus to their car in a nearby parking lot. In another case, Issawi provided guns and explosive devices to a terror squad, which then fired on a bus. Finally, in December 2001, Issawi ordered an attack on security personnel at Hebrew University, providing a terror squad with a pistol and a pipe bomb. Two of the squad members tracked security personnel but didn’t carry out the attack.

Issawi didn’t play merely a ‘supporting role’ in terror attacks, but, rather, was directly responsible for firing an automatic weapon at innocent Israeli civilians with the hope of murdering as many of them as possible – and was responsible for ordering additional lethal attacks on other Israelis.

Remarkably, even an AP story published on April 23 in the Guardian about the end of the Palestinian’s hunger strike included information on Issawi’s attempted murder of Israeli students at Hebrew University – a telling fact, and one which places Alistair Dawber whitewash of the terrorist’s crimes in even clearer context.     

Related articles
Apr 22 2013

The Palestinian Marathon and Phoebe Greenwood’s selective credulity.

The Guardian published a story on April 21 by Phoebe Greenwood entitled ‘First Bethlehem marathon staged in howling wind and rain‘, which focused on the putative challenges faced by Palestinians in organizing their first-ever full marathon.

Greenwood’s report includes the following passages:

A Palestinian city encircled by Israeli settlements, bypass roads connecting the settlements and checkpoints, Bethlehem cannot offer an uninterrupted 42.2km full marathon course. The 26 competitors who ran the full race were required to make two circuits of the city along a course that passed through two refugee camps, alongside the Israeli separation wall, turned back on itself at a checkpoint and finished back at the Church of the Nativity.

“In any other country, a marathon runs from point A to point B. In the West Bank, we have to run from point A to point A.  It’s around 40km from Bethlehem to Hebron but runners would have to cross the Israeli settler roads, and that could never happen,” said Xavier Abu Eid, a Palestinian government spokesperson and native Bethlehemite.

Xavier Abu Eid is, according to his short bio at ‘This Week in Palestine’, a “Palestinian-Chilean student of political science and Vice President of the General Union of Palestine Students in Chile”.  He’s also a marathon participant.

Xavier to the left

Xavier Abu Eid is seen on the left

Greenwood naturally lets Abu Eid’s claim about the ‘atypically circuitous route’ of the marathon go unchallenged.

However, a quick glance at the Palestinian Marathon route in contrast with Israel’s annual Jerusalem Marathon undermines Abu Eid’s suggestion.

First, here’s the Palestinian marathon map, according to their own website:

RunCourse_Red-1024x730

As you can see, the route begins near the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, then travels north before heading southwest towards Al Khader – where runners then turn around and run back towards the Bethlehem starting line.  Participants who did the half marathon ran one (roughly 21 km) Bethlehem-to-Al Khader loop, while those running the full marathon (42.2 k) ran two such loops.  

Now, here’s a map illustrating the route of the Jerusalem marathon:

jlem

As you can see (by following the race which begins by the black arrow), the 42K run begins by circling Givat Ram before, in a far less than direct route, heading towards Hebrew University’s Mt. Scopus Campus, where the runner doubles back (along some of the same route) to the finish line, which is positioned roughly 500 meters across from the original starting line.

(See black arrow indicating the start of the race, as well as numbers showing the path.)  

Additionally, the Tel Aviv Marathon doesn’t employ a direct route from “point A to point B” – but similarly requires that runners turn back at a certain point, and run a second time along part of the same route to reach the finish line.

Of course, it was just one throwaway line by the Palestinian spokesperson – but its significance transcends the minutiae of the specific claim.

In late 2011 we posted about a Tweet by Greenwood indicating her skepticism over a comment by then Israeli Vice Prime Minister (now Defense Minister) Moshe Ya’alon about incitement, racism and the glorification of terrorism in Palestinian school textbooks.  As we noted at the time, evidence regarding such hate education by the Palestinian Authority is extremely well-documented by sites such as Palestinian Media Watch, and its difficult to understand how a professional reporter could seriously question the veracity of such reports.

For those who carefully follow the coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it’s very difficult not to observe the credulity of reporters at the Guardian and elsewhere in the face of even the most flippant and often unserious Palestinian statements, in contrast with their extreme skepticism when they cite even the most intuitive and empirically based Israeli claims.

Related articles
Apr 15 2013

Glenn Greenwald and Israel’s booming anti-Zionism tourism trade

Glenn Greenwald’s ‘Comment is Free’ post on April 13 concerns a bill circulating through the US Congress which would allow Israel into America’s “visa waiver program”, permitting Israel to join with 37 other countries whose citizens are permitted to travel to the US without a visa.  The bill evidently includes a clause which would allow Israel’s entrance into the visa waiver program with the stipulation that Israel won’t have to allow in US citizens who may ”jeopardize the security of the State of Israel”, while otherwise ensuring that reciprocal travel privileges are extended to all.

Greenwald’s antagonists in the tale are AIPAC and the bill’s supporters in Congress, who he accuses of prioritizing the interests of Israel over those of US citizens. His protagonists, opposing the bill, include Mike Coogan of the US Campaign to End Israeli Occupation, and Mitchell Plitnick, former Director of the US Office of B’Tselem, 

Greenwald characterizes the bill as “pro-discrimination”, and quotes Ron Kampeas claiming that the clause will allow Israel to continue the ‘practice of routinely refusing to allow Americans of Arab ethnicity or Muslim backgrounds to enter their country’.  However, other than one anecdotal example of a Palestinian-American evidently being denied entrance into Israel, neither Greenwald nor Kampeas cite statistics to demonstrate a pattern of such discrimination, nor explore the question of how many were denied entry for legitimate security reasons.  

Instead, Greenwald cites this passage from a US travel advisory:

Some US citizens holding Israeli nationality, possessing a Palestinian identity card, or of Arab or Muslim origin have experienced significant difficulties in entering or exiting Israel or the West Bank.

Not content with the advisory’s carefully worded message regarding the “difficulties” which “some” US citizens have evidently faced “in entering or exiting Israel or the West Bank”, Greenwald further claims that “Israel also bars those who are critical of Israeli actions or supportive of Palestinian rights“.

Greenwald provides exactly two examples, in the links embedded in the text, to back up his definitive statement that “Israel bars” critics of Israel – a 2008 case involving Norman Finkelstein (which was related to his contact with Hezbollah) and a 2010 case involving Noam Chomsky.

Note that Greenwald didn’t merely claim that “Israel has barred some who are critical of Israeli actions”, or similarly restrained language, but rather suggested a pattern of barring critics of Israel – a claim which is contradicted by, among other factors, the fact Israel is saturated with pro-Palestinian activists (and critical journalists) from other countries.   

“Progressive” tours for foreigners wishing to see Israel through a pro-Palestinian perspective include the following:

  • Alternative Tours: “Operating out of the Jerusalem Hotel (near Damascus Gate), Alternative Tours offers trips in and around Jerusalem as well as to various West Bank cities, including Bethlehem, Jericho, Hebron, Nablus and Qalqiliya. The tours include stops at religious and historical sites and visits with local institutions and people”.

Here’s the image on their home page to get a sense of their priorities:

firstpage3

  • Alternative Tourism Group (ATG): “ATG is a Palestinian NGO that specializes in touring that critically examines the history and politics of The Holy Land.  ATG is founded on the tenets of justice tourism, which are based on the goals of economic benefit for the local population, environmental protection, productive exchanges between host and guest through one-on-one interactions, and political/historical education.  Tours visit Palestinian and Israeli cities and villages, settlements, refugee camps, and/or Bedouin camps, and can include conversations with leading activists and educators, as well as interfaith encounters”.

ATG also explains on their website that foreign tourists will see Israeli ‘Apartheid’ and ‘Colonialism’ first hand.

On ATG’s page with ‘Practical Info‘ for foreign participants, there’s no warning for travellers on restrictions imposed on their entry by Israeli authorities, and the following photo appears on their site, showing a group of ATG participants in a Palestinian village planting olive trees:

DSC_8315-copia

  • Breaking the Silence: BtS, active in promoting “war crimes” charges against Israel after the Gaza war in 2009, is “comprised of veteran Israeli soldiers, and leads tours to Hebron as well as to South Hebron Hills”.

Here’s the image on the website of BtS (an Israeli NGO generously funded by the European Union) advertising their Passover tour of Israel.

passover

  • Holy Land Trust: HLT “offers study tours of the West Bank and Israeli cities, including: Ramallah, Jericho, Bethlehem, Beer Sheva, Nazareth, Israeli settlements, and Palestinian refugee camps.  You will have the opportunity to meeting with community leaders, politicians, and activists on both sides of the conflict”.

Registration is now open for Holy Land Trust’s 2013 Summer ‘Palestine Encounter’.  

Evidently, these 2012 participants of the summer ‘encounter’ had no difficulty entering the country:

western_wall

  • Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions (ICAHD): ICAHD, an NGO which uses rhetoric including accusations of “ethnic cleansing,” “genocide,” “collective punishment,” and “apartheid” against Israel, ”offers tours that trace the separation barrier and the roads and tunnels separating the settlements from Palestinian cities and villages, and visit the sites of demolished homes in East Jerusalem”.  Twice a year, “ICAHD offers an intensive ten-day study trip in which participants have the opportunity to meet people from both sides of the divide and gain in-depth knowledge on the latest analysis of the conflict”. 
Jeff Halper leads an ICAHD Jerusalem Tour

ICAHD director Jeff Halper leads a tour

  • Palestinian Solidarity Project (PSP): “PSP offers “one-day trips focusing on settlement, land confiscation, nonviolent resistance, and prisoner issues in the Beit Ommar area.”

The page at PSP where the following photo of pro-Palestinian activists planting olive trees appears notes that ”a group of 25 internationals accompanied by two farmers went to the farm land of Ali Ayad Awad, which lies beside the barrier fence on the north side of Karmie Tzur settlement.”

DSC_0195

  • Zochrot: Zochrot is an NGO which promotes the unlimited Palestinian ‘right of return’ and, “through tours of destroyed Palestinian villages in Israel (from 1948), aims to introduce the Palestinian Nakba into the collective consciousness.  Tours are led by Palestinian refugees and their families in conjunction with Zochrot staff.”
zochrot

Zochrot tour in the West Bank

ism

Here are two ISM activists who got past Israeli border control and arrived ‘safely’ at their destination (posing with Palestinian terrorists):

book3

While it’s impossible to know how many of the record 3.5 millions tourists who visited Israel in 2012 (who brought $4.6 billion into the Israeli economy) were anti-Zionist activists, it seems that, contrary to Greenwald’s claims, foreign travelers who are “critical of Israeli actions” or “supportive of Palestinian rights” don’t have too hard of a time gaining entry into the state.  

If there is a concerted effort by Israeli authorities to bar anti-Zionist activists from entering the country, they’re obviously doing a very poor job.

(This post was updated several hours after publication, and an incorrect statistic originally cited was removed. – A.L.)

Related articles

Apr 12 2013

Guardian editorial advances ‘raw political lie’ about Israeli views on peace talks

An official Guardian editorial on April 11 on efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations (‘Israel-Palestine: a mountain to climb‘) wasn’t the most egregiously skewed commentary they’ve published by any standard.  Nevertheless, it did again demonstrate the signature Guardian polemical tick of ignoring data which contradicts their preconceived narrative of the conflict.

The op-ed begins thusly.

The late journalist and author Amnon Dankner wrote a satirical column a few months before his untimely death in which he imagined that Israel had found a way of detaching itself, body and soul, from the Middle East and turning into the island it always wanted to be. Drifting westwards, it would finally find its true home on the east coast of the US. Dankner’s conceit captured a raw political truth: that there is no urgency, or even appetite, for negotiations with the Palestinians. The polling is consistent: 70% are for the two-state solution; 80% think it will never happen.

Leaving aside the risible suggestion that it’s Israel’s fault that the Arab world has spent most of the past 65 years devoting vast amounts of energy – militarily, economically, diplomatically and morally – to rid the region of the sole ‘Zionist presence’, the Guardian’s contention that Israelis have no “appetite” for negotiations with the Palestinians is flat-out untrue.

Gallup’s latest polling (on March 13, 2013) indicates that 70% of Jewish Israelis (and 89% of non-Jewish Israelis) support the peace process with the Palestinians.  

poll

The fact that most Israelis are also skeptical concerning the efficacy of such talks doesn’t imply an erosion of support for the process itself – but, rather, indicates that most don’t believe talks will lead to the end of hostilities.

Whilst a strong majority of Israelis still support, in principle, a two-state solution, and a majority support the evacuation of a substantial portion of the settlements, Israeli polling data also clearly indicates that a large majority of Israelis are convinced that a two-state solution will NOT in fact resolve the conflict.  

Their skepticism is based on the failure of the Oslo ‘peace process’, and the broader failure of the ‘land for peace’ strategy, per the results of such unilateral Israeli moves as the withdrawal from South Lebanon in 2000, and the Gaza disengagement in 2005.

Most Israelis passionately support efforts to achieve peace but, based on experience, also believe that, given the reactionary political values which are pervasive within Palestinian society, a new Palestinian state will likely be ruled (or at least politically dominated) by either Hamas or another extremist movement, and result in continuous Gaza-style rocket attacks and other acts of terror, all of which will make Israel less secure.

The assumption that a new Palestinian state will be peaceful represents a remarkable leap of faith given the Palestinian Authority’s track record in the nearly 20 years since Oslo, one which has been heavy on hate-education, incitement, terrorism, non-compliance towards previous agreements, corruption, and repression of fellow Palestinians.

Contrary to the Guardian editorial, there is indeed an Israeli appetite for negotiations, but one which is soberly informed by a wariness towards a putative resolution which will result in a continuation of war and terror, greater insecurity, and more Israeli bloodshed.

Related articles
Apr 8 2013

Guardian continues pushing false narrative of Israel’s ‘lurch towards the right’.

On Jan. 22, shortly after exit polls were published on the evening of the Israeli election, we published a post demonstrating that the Guardian’s predictions prior to the election – warning of a dangerous shift to the right – were proven entirely inaccurate.

Scare passages from their “analysts” before Israelis went to the polls included predictions of “a more hawkish and pro-settler government“, “a more right-wing and uncompromising government than Israel has ever seen before“, and ”the most right-wing government in its history“

The Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent Harriet Sherwood predicted that “Netanyahu’s parliamentary group will be markedly more rightwing after 22 January.”

When all the votes were counted, it was confirmed that the country had moved slightly to the left in comparison to the 2009 results, and the government formed by Binyamin Netanyahu and presented to President Peres on Feb. 22 - comprised of Likud-Israel Beiteinu, Yesh Atid, Jewish Home, and Hatnua (Tzipi Livni’s party) – represented, broadly speaking, a centrist coalition.

The Guardian invested heavily in promoting their desired political narrative of a Jewish state lurching to the far right, and they got it completely wrong. 

Whilst we didn’t expect a mea culpa from the Guardian, their March 17 editorial on Obama’s visit to Israel, which lamented the ‘dim prospects’ for a breakthrough in peace negotiations, made a quite telling mistake – conveniently omitting one member of the new government.  The editorial misled readers by claiming that the coalition was composed of ”the Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu bloc: Yesh Atid, founded by former TV personality Yair Lapid; and Jewish Home, a party linked to the West Bank settler movement led by Naftali Bennett” – leaving out Tzipi Livni (Hutna), whose aggressive position on the need to resume peace talks would have undermined their desired narrative.  

The editorial was only adjusted to reflect reality when CiF Watch contacted Guardian editors and alerted them to the mistake.

The Guardian error, it should be noted, was especially egregious in light of the fact Livni, who led negotiations with Abbas while serving as foreign minister under Ehud Olmert, will be in Bibi’s inner cabinet, a member of the security cabinet and will lead a small team of “personally appointed staff into peace talks with the Palestinians”.

Harriet Sherwood’s latest report on efforts by US Secretary of State John Kerry to revive peace talks, ‘John Kerry returns to Middle East amid lowered expectations’, similarly demonstrates an unwillingness to acknowledge the profound errors in predictions that she, and her Guardian colleagues, confidently offered in the weeks leading to the election.

Sherwood’s report includes the following passages:

Kerry is believed to be keen to dust off the 11-year-old Arab (or Saudi) peace plan, under which regional states would normalise relations with Israel in return for the establishment of a Palestinian state. And he is likely to ask Turkey to play an active role in any revived process.

It all seems reasonably promising on paper, but the reality on the ground looks rather different.

The new Israeli government, sworn in two days before Obama’s visit, is a rightwing pro-settler coalition

In the spirit of the Guardian editorial from March 22, Sherwood conveniently omitted the presence of center-left parties (Yesh Atid and Hatnua) in Bibi’s 68 seat coalition – a government which, for only the third time since 1977, excludes ultra-orthodox parties.

Whilst terms such as “right”, “left” and “center” are, in fairness, fraught with problems, it’s interesting to observe that the decidedly liberal Jewish newspaper, The Forward’, for instance, saw fit to characterize the new government, in a March 14 report, as  ’reflecting a shift to the centre’.

In fact, even Al-Jazeera, on March 15, in a story titled ‘Turbulent road ahead for Netanyahu coalition‘, avoided characterizing the new government in such deceptively monolithic terms.  Instead, they wrote that the “Centre-right [Israeli] government set to be formed in Israel seems wired for dysfunction”, and noted the ideological split represented by the four party coalition.

In our election eve post we predicted that the Guardian would likely learn nothing from their journalistic miscalculation about the political trajectory of the Jewish state – that, once again, nothing would be learned which could serve to lessen the grip of their hubris, the rigidity of their ideology. 

It doesn’t provide any comfort to note that our suspicions appear to have been valid.

Related articles
Apr 7 2013

The Guardian’s lazy, pejorative characterization of Jews in Hebron

How many of the roughly 800 Jews living in the ancient city of Hebron has Harriet Sherwood interviewed?

My curiosity regarding the Guardian Jerusalem correspondent’s familiarity with Hebron’s Jews was piqued by the following sentence in her April 4 report about recent violence in the West Bank (after “five months of calm“) following the death of convicted Palestinian terrorist Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, titled ‘Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli soldiers in West Bank‘:

After the funeral Palestinian youths threw stones at Israeli soldiers close to an extremist Jewish settlement in the heart of the city. The Israeli military responded with teargas, stun grenades and rubber bullets

Hebron’s Jewish community, which currently includes some “90 families and 200-350 yeshiva students”, is perhaps the oldest Jewish community in the world (dating back to Biblical times) and is designated as the second holiest city in Judaism, containing sites of historical significance such as the Tomb of the Patriarchs.

Jews have lived in Hebron almost continuously throughout the Byzantine, Arab, Mameluke, and Ottoman periods, and it was only in 1929 — as a result of an Arab pogrom in which 67 Jews were murdered and the remainder forced to flee — that the city became temporarily free of Jews.

Under Jordanian control from 1949 to 1967 Jews not only were not allowed to live in Hebron but were barred from entering the Tomb of the Patriarchs, while authorities undertook a systematic campaign to obliterate any evidence of Jewish history in the city.  They “razed the Jewish Quarter, desecrated the Jewish cemetery and built an animal pen on the ruins of the Avraham Avinu synagogue”.

Shortly following Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, the Jewish community of Hebron was re-established, and today – consistent with the terms of the 1997 Hebron Agreement signed by the Palestinian Authority - is comprised of  two sections – H1 and H2.  H1 is all Palestinian (population apx. 120,000), while the city’s entire Jewish population resides in H2 (a geographical unit which is also home to 30,000 Palestinians).

2612312924

Jews in Hebron

Whilst Hebron is of course positioned on the ‘other side’ of the 1949 armistice lines (the green line), characterizing Jews who currently live in Hebron as “settlers” falsely suggests that they are interlopers, colonizing land with which they have no connection.  Worse, referring to a community of hundreds of Israelis as “extremists”, as Sherwood does, imputes widespread fanaticism without even a hint of evidence – conveying a message that there’s something radical or extreme about the desire to maintain even a small Jewish presence in the city.

Moreover, would the Guardian ever countenance such a negative characterization of residents within a Palestinian Arab city – even for places which have generated a large proportion of terrorist acts?

Try sounding these hypothetical sentences out in your head and decide whether they could conceivably ever be published at the Guardian in any context:

In 2002 Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield, which included a large anti-terror operation in the “extremist” Palestinian city of Jenin.

Or, how about this:

A rocket was fired into Israel today from Gaza City, “the extremist Palestinian city“.

Each example cites Palestinian towns where, by any standard, there has been a disproportionate amount of terrorist activity.  Yet, is there any doubt that the Guardian would never, under any circumstances, make such a huge generalization about every inhabitant of these cities?

Whilst it would of course be fair – based on the context and information in a particular story – to refer to specific Jews (or specific Jewish groups) within Hebron or other ‘settlements’ as “extremist” (as Sherwood did in an Aug. 12 report about Jews who physically attacked Palestinians for nationalist motives) stereotyping an entire community of Jews with such a pejorative is inaccurate, illiberal and intellectually lazy. 

Apr 5 2013

What Harriet Sherwood’s “five months of calm” in Israel actually looks like.

Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, a Palestinian who was serving a life term for recruiting a terrorist to carry out a suicide attack against Israeli civilians inside a crowded Jerusalem cafe in 2002, died of cancer on Tuesday. 

(Dozens of people at the Caffit Cafe on Emek Refaim were spared death or injury when the bomber’s suicide belt failed to detonate.)

Despite the fact that the convicted terrorist – who was diagnosed with advanced cancer of the esophagus in February - had been treated by Israel’s top oncology doctors at Beersheba’s Soroka Hospital, his death was immediately used by the Palestinian Authority to stoke violence in the West Bank.  President Mahmoud Abbas, and Minister of Prisoner Affairs Issa Qaraqe, among others, immediately accused Israel of medical negligence.

In addition to riots by prisoners in Israeli jails which ensued after Hamdiyeh’s death, Palestinians have been violently taking to the streets in Hebron and throughout the West Bank and throwing rocks and explosives at Israeli soldiers.  Israeli civilian vehicles have also increasingly come under attack on roads in the West Bank since Tuesday.

Also since Tuesday, terrorist organisations in Gaza have launched missiles at Israeli communities for the third time since the eight-day November war ended.  For three straight days, rockets were fired from Gaza, with two rockets exploding in open areas near Sderot on Wednesday “triggering alerts and sending frightened families fleeing for shelter”.  Additionally on Wednesday, a global jihadi group in Gaza  targeted Sderot with rocket fire just as parents were bringing their children to school. Fortunately, there were no injuries stemming from the attacks.

In response, the Israeli Air Force struck two terror targets in the Gaza Strip, representing the first Israeli response to Gaza rocket fire since the end of the November war in Gaza.  The IAF didn’t respond to a rocket attack launched from Gaza on March 21 during President Obama’s visit to Israel, which ended up striking an Israeli nursery school in Sderot (which was closed for the holidays), nor to a Feb. 26  Gaza missile fired towards the town of Ashkelon.

Rocket believed fired last month during Obama visit; kindergarten had been closed for Passover holiday, delaying discovery. (Photo courtesy of Sderot Media Center)

Rocket believed fired last month during Obama visit; kindergarten had been closed for Passover holiday, delaying discovery. (Photo courtesy of Sderot Media Center)

The recent violence was reported by Harriet Sherwood in the Guardian on April 4th.

Her report, from Hebron, was titled ‘Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli soldiers in West Bank‘, and contained the following strap line:

Clashes come as militants fire rockets at Israel for third day, sparking fears of fresh wave of violence after five months of calm

Sherwood echoed the narrative advanced in the strap line in her second paragraph:

Palestinian protesters clashed with soldiers after thousands of mourners turned out for the funerals of a 64-year-old cancer-stricken prisoner and two teenage boys shot dead by the Israeli military, the latest sign of the increasing turbulence across the West Bank.

Meanwhile Gaza militants fired rockets towards Israel for the third consecutive day in a move that threatens to trigger a fresh cycle of violence after almost five months of calm since the eight-day war last November.

Whilst some narratives about the conflict are open to interpretation, it really is difficult to understand how a professional journalist covering the region can honestly characterize the months since the November war as “calm”.

The following is terror data was compiled by the Israel Security Agency, but many of the attacks listed were also reported in the media at the time:

  • In March 2013 there were 125 terror attacks, with most of the attacks executed in the form of firebombs. Six Israelis were injured: five citizens and one security officer. Five of them were injured by firebombs (a security officer in Judea on March 3, and 4 Israelis on the Trans-Samaria Highway on March 14), and one citizen was shot (March 18) near a gas station in Kedumim (West Bank).
  • In Feb 2013, there were 139 terror attacks. Again, most attacks were in the form of firebombs. Three Israelis – one civilian and two security officers – were injured. They were all wounded during separate stone hurling and firebombing incidents during rioting in Jerusalem and the West Bank. The civilian was injured in Bitunya / Binyamin area (21 Feb.), and the two security officers were injured in Issawiya / Jerusalem (9 Feb.) and in Hebron (22 Feb.).
  • In January 2013, there were 83 terror attacks: Three Israelis were injured: an Israeli citizen was moderately injured in a stabbing attack in the West Bank (January 29), and two security officers were injured by a firebomb near Al Aroub (January 3) and by stone-throwing in the nearby area of Rachel’s Tomb (January 13).
  • In December 2012 there were 112 terror attacks. Three Israeli security officials were injured: two were stabbed in the West Bank (December 3), one was run over by car in Jerusalem (December 23).

It was difficult to gather information on terror attacks which may have occurred in the last nine days of November (after the Nov. 21 ceasefire), but, even assuming for the sake of argument that there were no attacks during that period, in the four-months beginning in December there were 459 terror attacks – a fact which definitively undermines Sherwood’s characterization of life in Israel during that time. 

One of the victims of Palestinian terrorism during this period, 3-year-old Adele Biton, is still fighting for her life in an Israeli hospital – weeks after the car she was travelling in with her mother and two sisters was hit by Palestinian rock throwers.  The rocks caused the car to swerve, and it rammed into a truck parked on the side of the road. 

LiveLeak-dot-com-a0f7bd2b4598-adele-israel-rock-victim.jpg.resized

Adele Biton

Though her mother and siblings were also injured in the attack, Adele suffered severe trauma and is still listed in critical condition.

Apr 3 2013

Will the Guardian be inspired by AP and stop referring to Jews as “illegal”?

H/T Yisrael Medad

Associated Press, one of the largest news agencies in the world, will no longer use the term “illegal immigrant” to describe those who migrate to a country in violation of their immigration laws, their Executive Vice President announced on Tuesday.

Their style guide will no longer permit the term ‘illegal immigrant’ or the use of ‘illegal’ to describe a person.  It will now only use of the word “illegal” to describe an action, such as “living in or migrating to a country illegally”.

It is believed that most of the 1400 U.S. newspapers which use AP will likely follow their decision on the use of such a loaded term and will, for instance, stop referring to the millions of unauthorized Latino migrants to the US as “illegal”.   

ABC reported the following:

…most of America’s top college newspapersand major TV networks, including ABC, NBC and CNN, have vowed to stop using the term. Nearly half of Latino voters polled last year in a Fox News Latino survey said that they find the term “illegal immigrant” offensive. A coalition of linguists also came together last year to pressure media companies to drop “illegal immigrant,” calling it “neither neutral nor accurate.”

Whilst many Americans are applauding the decision by AP as a victory for accuracy and diversity, we can only wonder whether serious news organizations – and the Guardian – will similarly drop the loaded and value-laden term “illegal settler” to characterize Jews who, consistent with the parameters of the Mandate for Palestine, live beyond the 1949 armistice lines (in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem).

An "illegal" Israeli settler boy, Purim 2011

An “illegal” Israeli settler boy in the historic Jewish city of Hebron, Purim 2011

A quick search of the Guardian’s site shows a few references to such ‘illegal’ Israelis.

Guardian film critic Philip French wrote the following in his Oct. 21, 2012 review of the documentary ’5 Broken Cameras’:

Behind this pair, but no less endangered, is Emad, recording some of the fiercest footage of assaults and atrocities on the West Bank that I’ve ever seen, as well as the arson wreaked on Palestinian olive groves by illegal Jewish settlers.

A July 24, 2012 story by Phoebe Greenwood on Palestinians facing eviction from ‘unauthorized’ homes in the southern Hebron hills included this variation of the charge:

Hila Gurani, the state’s attorney, wrote that the second intifada and the second Lebanon war exposed gaps in IDF preparation that requires more extensive training in firing zones, which the illegal Hebron residents are preventing  

And, a report by Nicholas Watt about the call by some within the UK Labour Party to label products which are produced in the West Bank included this passage:

Labour is opposed to boycotting Israeli goods but [Yvette] Cooper believes consumers should be informed whether products are produced by illegal settlers.

Moreover, a Google search using the words “illegal Israeli settlers” turns up 727,000 hits, and included references to the proscribed Jew in many “mainstream” publications. (Obviously, another variation of these specific words, in a different order, would likely produce further examples.)

The implications are fascinating. 

If, for instance, we use AP’s logic as a guide, and only use the term “illegal” to describe an action, shouldn’t the Guardian and other sites stop referring to Jewish communities and homes in places like Ariel, Ma’ale Adumim and eastern Jerusalem as “illegal”?  If so, we might one day look back at the ubiquitous use of such subjective terminology (there were more than 5,000 references to “illegal settlements” at the Guardian’s site) as an embarrassing chapter in their paper’s history.

Whatever the Guardian editorial position on the desirability of a future Palestinian state which may include most of Judea and Samaria, we can hope that they’ll catch up with the times, heed their liberal calling and stop labelling – in one manner or another – hundreds of thousands of Jews residing within the boundaries of their historic homeland as “illegal”.   

Related articles