BBC's shameless 'apology' for its biased reporting
I know - it's been a long time since I posted anything. I've been working - pays much better than blogging. But I don't want to let the blog die entirely, and I wanted to share with you what has to be one of the worst media bias stories from Western media in recent years.
I am sure that many of you saw the headline above. On Friday night, an Israeli policewoman, 23-year old Hadas Malka HY"D (May God Avenge her blood) was murdered by three 'Palestinian' terrorists who conducted coordinated attacks in two places along the outside of the Old City's wall. The headline above sat on the BBC's website and in its Twitter feed for many hours. The bias in the headline is obvious - the 'deadly stabbing' didn't happen itself. It was perpetrated by the three 'Palestinians' who were shot. A more appropriate headline would have been 'Israeli policewoman murdered by three Palestinians.' Even Maan's headline was less biased.
This morning, the Beeb 'apologized' for its headline. No, not really, but they posted a response to outrage in the virtual world that included Donald Trump Jr., the US President's son. Here's the Beeb's entire 'apology.'
BBC Response: We accept that our original headline did not
appropriately reflect the nature of the events and subsequently changed
it. Whilst there was no intention to mislead our audiences, we regret
any offence caused.
They don't regret the headline. They regret the 'offence caused.' They accept that it didn't appropriately reflect the nature of the events, but they don't apologize for writing it, nor for leaving it up for many hours.
Makes it sound like there's no connection between the Israeli's death and the 'Palestinian' attackers' assault - they just happened to occur around the same time.
And you wonder about the origins of the #FakeNews epidemic?
NY Times publishes op-ed by terrorist, 'forgets' to mention his five murder convictions
A group of 'Palestinian' terrorists in Israeli prisons started a hunger strike on Monday. The group is led by mass murderer Marwan Barghouti, the former leader of the Fatah Tanzim terror group, who has been in an Israeli prison for the last 15 years, and who was considered toxic enough not to be released as part of the 'terrorists for Gilad' trade of 2011.
The New York Times considers this such important news that on Saturday - in the middle of the Passover holiday - it posted an op-ed by Barghouti on its web site, which made the print editions on Sunday. Barghouti refers to Israel's 'system of mass arbitrary arrests' as if there was no reason to arrest him. He complains that Israel has 'violated international law' for nearly 70 years, a period which goes back to independence and is clearly not meant to be limited to the post-Six Day War era. He refers to himself and his fellow terrorists as political prisoners.
There's one small part he left out, and which the New York Times did not bother to correct until late Monday, long after almost everyone who wanted to read the op-ed had (except for those who are keeping two days of Passover who would probably not find Barghouti persuasive anyway). On Monday, the Times posted this on its web site to correct the record.
Yes, that would be the same trial that Barghouti refers to in the editorial as a 'political show trial.'
I'm reminded of Gilda Radner's famous line upon being caught in a semantic mistake on Saturday Night Live.... "Never mind...." Too bad the Times took two days to fix the 'mistake.' But then, who would expect any better of them?
Greetings from Paris - Charles DeGaulle where once again Every Landing Always Late. They've admitted to two hours and fifteen minutes so far. And to think that I ran like crazy thinking I had only an hour and fifteen minutes to make a connection (American left more than two hours late from Charlotte last night, but made up much of that time on the way).
That's okay, because I will have some time to work after I finish this post (and maybe another one) and Paris may be one of the most appropriate places in the world to talk about Shimon Peres, who passed away this morning at the age of 93, because he was fluent in French and because in his later years he so emulated the French.
Israel owes a lot to Shimon Peres, especially our alleged nuclear capability, which was his doing in the early 1960's. I saw a Facebook post this morning that claimed that Peres 'saved' the country from hyperinflation in the 1980's, but the person who wrote it was a child at the time, and I was an adult. I don't believe that's accurate.
Palestinian Communications Minister Imad Al-Faluji, Al-Safir, 3 March 2001. (Translated by MEMRI):
Whoever thinks that the Intifada broke out
because of the despised Sharon’s visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque is wrong..
. . This Intifada was planned in advance, ever since President
Arafat’s return from the Camp David negotiations, where he turned the
table upside down on President Clinton.
Yasser Arafat’s wife Suha (pictured above) said the following (from Palestinian Media Watch):
On the personal level, I miss him very, very
much. [Our daughter] Zahwa also misses him, you can’t imagine. She
didn’t know him. She knows that Arafat sent us away before the [Israeli]
invasion of Ramallah. He said: ‘You have to leave Palestine, because I
want to carry out an Intifada, and I’m not prepared to shield myself
behind my wife and little girl.’ Everyone said: ‘Suha abandoned him,’
but I didn’t abandon him. He ordered me to leave him because he had
already decided to carry out an Intifada after the Oslo Accords and
after the failure of Camp David [July 2000].
Imad Faluji, PA Minister of Communications:
Whoever thinks that the Intifada started because
of the hated Sharon’s visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque is mistaken. That was only
the straw breaking the Palestinian people’s patience. This Intifada was
already planned since [Arafat] the President returned from the recent
talks at Camp David [July 2000].” [Private filming of speech by Faluji, Dec. 5, 2000]
The Israel Project
notes that American diplomat Dennis Ross recounts in his book The
Missing Peace how the Israelis called Washington with proof that the
Palestinians were “planning massive, violent demonstrations
throughout the West Bank and the next morning, ostensibly a response to
the Sharon visit.” Washington pressured Arafat to dampen the violence, but the Palestinian leader – again per Ross – “did not lift a finger to stop the demonstrations, which produced the second Intifada.”
Who was Shimon Peres. Some interesting quotes are here. He did some good for the State of Israel, but he took many actions, especially in his later years, that were based on delusions of grandeur that harmed many people.
New NY Times Jerusalem bureau chief's first column portrays Israel as repressive
For those of you who thought Jodi Rudoren was difficult, you may yet find yourself pining for her return. Meet Peter Baker, the New York Times' new Jerusalem bureau chief, whose first column is, to put it mildly, troubling.
Baker's first story went all over the map, mixing religion, politics and freedom of expression in a dishonest effort to portray Israel as a repressive society, and Culture Minister Miri Regev (who, as far as I know, is secular) as a religious fascist.
This is from the first link.
More substantively problematic was the incomplete and deceptive
framing of Minister Regev’s efforts related to taxpayer funding of
cultural events. Readers might assume her actions as characterized by
Baker compel Orwellian public expressions of fealty to the state.
But the "Loyalty in Culture" legislation seeks to remove public
funding for extreme anti-Israel projects. It permits a retroactive
reduction in the budget for "actions against the principles of the
state." Among these are cultural events that entail: "Denying the
existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state;
incitement to racism, violence, and terror; support for an armed
struggle or terror act by a hostile country or terror organization
against the State of Israel; marking Independence Day as a day of
mourning; an act of vandalism or physical degradation that dishonors the
country’s flag or state emblem."
The Minister is calling for what she terms "freedom in funding" along
with freedom of expression. She and those who support passage of the
law believe Israel is free not to fund cultural events that promote
terror, incite racism, denigrate Independence Day and so on.
That makes perfect sense to this Republican. Let the Arabs mourn their 'naqba' all they want, but why does the State of Israel have to pay for it? The answer is, we shouldn't. And it's not like the Times doesn't know it.
In a related story from January 2016, another Times piece
cited criticism of Regev’s initiatives but, importantly, also provided a
balancing counter-voice. Reporter Steve Erlanger wrote:
"... Mr. Leibler, The Jerusalem Post columnist, defended Ms.
Regev and Mr. Bennett as trying to ‘restore a climate that nurtures love
of Israel and promotes pride in Jewish heritage’ after years when
‘far-leftists, postmodernists and even post-Zionists took over the
Education Ministry.’"
That’s a piece of information that readers deserve to have. Readers
must hope that going forward they will get some sense of the full
context – even if the reporter’s default viewpoint is to fault Israel.
If this is the foot on which Baker has chosen to get off, one has to wonder how much objectivity we can expect from him going forward.
NY Times reporter makes excuses for Gaza World Vision chief diverting funds to Hamas
World Vision International is an Evangelical Christian humanitarian aid, development, and advocacy organization. It was founded in 1950 by Robert Pierce as a service organization to meet the emergency needs of missionaries. In 1975 development work was added to World Vision's objectives. It is active in more than 90 countries with a total revenue including grants, product and foreign donations of $2.79 billion (2011).
On Thursday, Israel's General Security Agency charged Mohammed el-Halabi, the Gaza director of World Vision, with siphoning off $43 million of aid money from World Vision in the past six years and giving it too Hamas.
Mohammad El Halabi, the manager of Gaza operations for World Vision,
the Christian charity group, was arrested in June at the Erez Crossing
between Israel and Gaza while on his way home from meetings in Israel.
He spent the next nearly two months in Israeli detention. Israel charged
Halabi on Thursday with providing support to Hamas, which governs the
Gaza Strip and which Israel and the U.S. regard as a terrorist
organization.
Haaretz has more on the case
based on a briefing given to reporters by an official from Shin Bet,
Israel’s internal security service, and because a gag order imposed in
the case was lifted Thursday. Here’s more from the Israeli newspaper:
The charge sheet says that Halabi, with a masters degree in
engineering, joined Hamas's armed wing Izzedin al-Qassam in 2004 and was
asked a year later to infiltrate a humanitarian organization so as “to
be close to decision makers in a foreign organization, to be involved in
the group and operate secretly to advance al-Qassam's interests.”
The Shin Bet accuses Halabi of joining World Vision and sending its
funds to Hamas’ military wing, some of it to fund digging
military-related tunnels and to purchase weapons.
The Shin Bet alleges that a sum of $80,000 contributed by British
donors to assist needy families, and support civilian projects in Gaza
were used to build a Hamas position in the Gaza town of Beit Hanun, to
pay Hamas activists’ salaries and bonuses members who had fought against
Israel in the 2014 war.
Halabi’s attorney rejected the charges, telling Haaretz
the fact the World Vision official was detained for 55 days before
charges were announced proves, in the words of the newspaper, “there’s a
problem with the evidence.”
The government of Australia doesn't think there's a problem with the evidence: They immediately suspended all aid to World Vision projects in the 'Palestinian territories.'
A Shin Bet official cited by The New York Times
said there was no evidence that World Vision had been aware of Halabi’s
alleged activities. But Tim Costello, the head of World Vision
Australia, which is heavily involved in the Gaza project, told the Times the
organization was “very worried” about the impact of the allegations.
Indeed, the Australian government said Thursday it was suspending
funding to the group’s projects in the Palestinian territories.
World Vision announced on Friday that it will not receive funds from
the German government because of the allegations Hamas misused funds,
according to a report in the Berlin-based Tagesspiegel.
“The 3.6
million euro, which we received from the [German] Federal Development
Ministry and [German] Foreign Affairs Ministry for new projects in the
region will no longer be provided until the accusations are clarified,”
said a spokeswoman for the World Vision.
Volker Beck, the
German Green Party MP and head of the German-Israel parliamentary group
in the Bundestag, said in a statement: “World Vision massively damages
the trust necessary for aid work for the people in Gaza,” adding that
“Hamas is a terrorist organization, which should not be financed with
tax-payer funds.”
The paper reported that as much as 1.1 million
euro from Germany was transferred to World Vision in Gaza since 2010.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said that it welcomed Australia and Germany’s
suspension of funds.
But all of that isn't enough for the New York Times' Diaa Hadid. Although she didn't write this in the newspaper (which perhaps might have had the integrity not to publish it), on her personal Twitter page, she was busy making excuses for el-Halabi.
Ezra Nawi, an Israeli Jewish plumber, has a long history as a left-wing activist helping Palestinians in their struggle against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. Now he is under arrest in Israel, after a right-wing activist surreptitiously filmed him bragging about exposing Arab brokers who tried to sell Palestinian land to Jewish settlers. Such sales are a capital crime under Palestinian law.
Considered
variously as a big-mouthed provocateur and a colorful human-rights
adventurer, Mr. Nawi has become the latest symbol in the battle between
advocacy groups on opposite sides of Israel’s political spectrum, and
the increasingly fierce debate here over the nature of Israeli society
and democracy.
The debate has heated up as Israel’s conservative government is pushing
forward contentious legislation that would require nongovernmental
organizations to disclose funding they receive from foreign governments
in their publications, advertising and meetings with public officials.
The proposed bill, which supporters say is meant to increase
transparency, would apply mainly to leftist groups critical of Israel’s
policy toward the Palestinians, since rightist groups mostly receive
private funding from abroad, and it has already drawn harsh criticism
from the Obama administration and European diplomats.
No, this story is not about the NGO law, which the Times so hates. It's about yet another Leftist fascist who thinks he has the right to endanger other people's lives.
It
is an odd case. Mr. Nawi, described in a 2009 New York Times profile as
“the Robin Hood of the South Hebron Hills,” helping Palestinians who
love him and “thwarting settlers and soldiers who view him with
contempt,” is now accused of endangering the lives of Palestinians. That
is because selling land to Israeli Jews is punishable by death
according to the Palestinian Authority. Although the authority is not
known to have carried out any executions for any offense in more than a
decade, there have been reports of torture in its prisons.
The
Ad Kan video, from about a year ago, shows Mr. Nawi behind the wheel of
his jeep, bragging about what appeared to be a dubious sideline to his
activist work in the West Bank.
He told the man sitting next to him, whom he believed to be a fellow
sympathizer, that he sometimes posed as a land broker and engaged with
other land dealers mediating sales of Palestinian-owned land to Jewish
settlers, then handed over their details to the Palestinian Authority
security services.
Asked what the Authority did with such people, Mr. Nawi said it “catches them and kills them.”
Days later, he was arrested at the airport as he was about to leave the country.
Odd? Not to anyone who knows the history of Israel's prosecutorial regime burying charges against the Left. Only by gathering evidence so convincing that even the Left-leaning Uvda had to run with it or lose all credibility could Nawi's disgusting behavior be exposed.
There is a story here. Too bad it's not the one the Times chose to tell.
Seems like a better idea for a cartoon: Hillary Clinton and her lapdogs. cc: Washington Post The New York Times
Posted by Ted Cruz on Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Seems like a better idea for a cartoon: Hillary Clinton and her lapdogs. cc: Washington Post The New York Times
Posted by Ted Cruz on Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Four 'Palestinian' teens arrested for fatal Rosh HaShanna rock attack
Four 'Palestinians' have been arrested for carrying out a rock attack on the first night of Rosh HaShanna in which a 64-year old man was murdered and his two daughters seriously wounded.
An investigation determined the rock was thrown by youths from the
neighboring Arab village of Sur Bahir. In a joint statement with the
Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), police said on Saturday that the
four suspects from the neighborhood confessed to carrying out the
deadly attack shortly after their arrests.
“During interrogation
by the Shin Bet, the four admitted that they planned to carry out
terrorist acts, especially on Rosh Hashanah, and positioned themselves
so that they could throw stones at passing Israeli vehicles,” police
said.
The four suspects, police added, are between the ages of
16-19, and have Israeli residential status. Three of the four suspects
have been identified as Mohammed Abu Salah, born in 1997; Fares Mostafa
Walid Atrash, born in 1997; Mahmoud Abed Rabbo Doiat, born in 1996. The
identity of the fourth suspect was barred from publication due to his
age, police said.
Doiat, who confessed to throwing the large
rock that killed Levlovitz, said he wore a Hamas flag which he received
earlier in the month at a “Al-Aksa Is in Danger” demonstration
condemning the Ministry of Defense’s ban of two radical Muslim groups
from the Temple Mount. The rally was organized by Hamas and the Islamic
Movement, according to security forces.
Levlovitz was
critically wounded after striking a tree upon losing control of the car.
His two daughters were also seriously wounded.
Police said that after observing the crash, the four suspects fled the scene, and subsequently met again to coordinate their alibis if arrested. Despite their arrests, police said that the investigation into the attack is ongoing, and that the Jerusalem District Attorney will file formal charges against the four upon reviewing the evidence against them.
This was the attack in which the New York Times' Diaa Hadid reported that rocks pelted the road and Levlovitz just happened to be there.
A Jewish man died early Monday morning after attackers pelted the road
he was driving on with rocks as he was returning home from a dinner
celebrating Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, the Israeli authorities
said.
Can't wait to see how the Slimes reports the arrests.
Senior New York Times editor defends use of 'Jew tracker'
Some of you might recall that during the 'debate' over Obama's sellout to a nuclear-armed Iran, the New York Times introduced something called a 'Jew tracker,' which correlated Senators' votes with their religion and the number of Jews in their district. When word got out, the 'tracker' was quickly revised. We now know that at least one senior editor at the Times - Greg Brock - regretted the tracker's revisions.
The Times’ “Jew tracker”
was described as anti-Semitic and offensive by pro-Israel officials who
slammed the paper for feeding into stereotypes about Jewish power and
money.
The controversial chart listed all lawmakers who voted against the
nuclear deal and highlighted in yellow whether or not that person was
Jewish. The chart also included the number of Jewish persons living in
each lawmaker’s district.
Following a report by the Free Beacon on the tracker, the New York Times
altered the site by removing the column identifying members as Jewish.
The paper also edited the report to remove overt references to the
relationship between each lawmaker’s religion and his position on the
Iran deal.
Despite altering the website to address the material critics viewed as offensive, a senior New York Times editor praised the tracker and fought back against one Jewish critic who had written to express outrage over the post.
“Are you so ignorant that you don’t understand the historical
significance of what you’re doing? Are you so tone deaf? Why don’t you
include addresses so that people’s homes can be attacked?” wrote the
reader, who requested anonymity, to Greg Brock, a senior Times editor.
“My parents were Holocaust survivors and the first thing the Nazis
wanted to know is: where are the Jews? This merely furthers the classic
anti-Semitic trope of dual loyalty,” the reader added.
In a response, Brock defended and praised the tracker, saying he wished the Times has published it “sooner.”
“I’m not going to get into the gutter with you with name calling and
saying your email is ‘stupid’—as you said of us,” Brock wrote. “But it
would be helpful if you did your homework. You’ll find that we are in
excellent journalistic company. I just wish the Times had thought of it sooner so we do not appear to be copying others.”
Brock maintained that Jewish publications, which are written for
local Jewish communities, have run similar reports detailing which
lawmakers voting for and against the deal are Jewish.
“Do you ever read the Jewish press—some of the finest journalism
around, in my humble opinion,” the editor argued. “If you search online
right now, you will see that these publications have been keeping a
running count of the voting position of Jewish senators and
representatives for weeks.”
Anyone still believe the Times isn't anti-Semitic?
Shabbat Shalom everyone. Don't get your news from the Times.
Epic Twitter battle: State Department's @marieharf v. NY Times @SangerNYT
This has to be the first time in a long time that the media in the US has actually done its job.
After Tuesday's New York Times story about Iran's increasing its nuclear fuel supply by 20% over the last 18 months, State Department spokesperson Marie Harf had it out with New York Times reporter and story co-author David Sanger over the story. Or at least Harf had it out - Sanger only tweeted once at the beginning. Harf's argument essentially comes down to this: It doesn't matter how much nuclear fuel Iran has until the deadline, when it will all magically disappear.
Yes, she really said that. Read her last tweet in the rant.
.@SangerNYT You can tweet all the ISIS reports you want - doesn't change the fact that main contentions in your story were wrong.
Only a few years ago, Israelis were concerned about the question of
how they could continue to grow their first world economy with a growing
population in a country where there simply wasn’t enough water. What
followed was a major investment in technology and enactment of sensible
policies about water use that led to this startling fact. As the Times
states, “More than 50 percent of the water for Israeli households,
agriculture and industry is now artificially produced.” Though water is
expensive, the prospect that the country will run out is gone. In a
region that is in desperate need of Israel’s expertise, you would think
this development would lead to better relations with the Palestinians
and the Arab world. But what is missing from the Times’ story
is the fact that there is little sign of any interest in cooperation on
the part of Israel’s antagonists. As much as they ought to take
advantage of the Jewish state’s advances, such concerns are always
secondary to their main priority: fighting Israel.
The story of how Israel revolutionized its production and use of
water is another proud chapter in the country’s history. In the past
couple of decades as attacks on Israel’s legitimacy have multiplied, we
haven’t heard much about Jews making the desert bloom. That old line
about the rebirth of this old land under the care of a returned people
has been treated as an outdated cliché by biased journalists who
preferred story lines that reinforced the libels about Israel being an
apartheid state. That theme was also part of the narrative about water.
To the extent that water has been mentioned much in the news, it
generally served as another point of attack as Palestinian claims that
Israel was “stealing” their water in the West Bank was often reported as
fact rather than a political talking point. As even the Times notes in
its feature, Israel continues to supply the Palestinians with more water
than it is required to do under the Oslo Accords. Israel shares the
mountain aquifer that runs through the West Bank with the Palestinians.
But the Palestinians position is that they are entitled to all of it,
not just their share.
The underlying problem of that discussion has
always been the assumption that all of the territory is “Palestinian
land’ to which Israel has no legitimate claim. But even if you think
Israel ought to cede much of that territory if the Palestinians are ever
willing to make peace, the problem with this argument is that the Arabs
still don’t recognize Israeli rights to any water except the sea into
which they have been trying to push the Jews ever since they began
returning to their ancient homeland.
It might make sense for Israelis and Arabs to cooperate about water.
But if water remains an issue that exacerbates the conflict rather than
solving it, it’s not because the Israelis aren’t willing to share their
expertise or even some of the water they are desalinizing or treating
for further use. It’s because water, like economic development, has
always been beside the point to Palestinians and other Arabs and
Muslims.
Hezbullah grabs human shields in southern Lebanon, NY Times says 'Israel says'
Greetings from... Silver Spring, Maryland. I have meetings in Washington for the next couple of days, and then will be moving on to someplace else in the US.
Hezbullah is once again grabbing human shields in southern Lebanon. But to the New York Times it's only 'Israel says.'
But when the Israeli military trains its lens on that hilltop Shiite
village close to the border, it sees nine arms depots, five
rocket-launching sites, four infantry positions, signs of three
underground tunnels, three antitank positions and, in the very center of
the village, a Hezbollah command post.
...
Maps and aerial photography provided to The New York Times by Israeli
military officials this week illustrate, they say, that Hezbollah has
moved most of its military infrastructure into the Shiite villages of
southern Lebanon and around their perimeters. Israel says this amounts to using the civilians as a human shield.
Without
knowing when the next war will break out, or what might precipitate it,
the Israelis are blunt about the implications: They will not hesitate
to strike at those targets, so southern Lebanon will most likely be the scene of widespread destruction.
Effectively,
the Israelis are warning that in the event of another conflict with
Hezbollah, many Lebanese civilians will probably be killed, and that it
should not be considered Israel’s fault.
“The
civilians are living in a military compound,” a senior Israeli military
official said at military headquarters in Tel Aviv, speaking on the
condition of anonymity because he was discussing delicate intelligence
matters.
“We
will hit Hezbollah hard, while making every effort to limit civilian
casualties as much as we can,” the official said, but “we do not intend
to stand by helplessly in the face of rocket attacks.”
Glad to hear we're not going to adopt the Gaza model in southern Lebanon. I'll believe that when I see it.
The
Israeli military says that a few miles northwest of Muhaybib, in the
larger village of Shaqra, with a population of about 4,000, it has
identified about 400 military sites and facilities belonging to
Hezbollah, which Israel says has been armed by Iran and Syria.
Zooming
out over a wider section of southern Lebanon, the Israeli military says
the number of potential targets for Israel in and around villages runs
into the thousands.
Israeli
military officials said they were publicizing the Hezbollah buildup to
put the problem on the international agenda in case there is another
conflict — and to possibly decrease the chances of one breaking out.
The Israeli claims could not be independently verified.
Because the Times can't send a reporter in there to actually see what's going on without a Hezbullah 'guide' and no 'guides' were conveniently available? Just asking....
Here's an example of an IDF slide that the Times didn't consider to be 'independently verified.'
A lot has changed since 2006.
Hezbollah’s
leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has said in public statements and interviews
that the group is far stronger now than at the end of the 2006 war.
“These abilities have multiplied with time,” the official with knowledge of Hezbollah’s forces added, declining to give details.
Hezbollah
has sheltered in villages to some extent for many years. But Israel
says the group has increasingly moved into built-up areas and out of the
open ground where much of the 2006 fighting took place.
“At
the end of the day, it means that many, many Lebanese will be killed,”
said Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser now at the
Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University near Tel
Aviv. “Where is the world? Why does it not stop the buildup?”
Here's what's ahead:
An Israeli expert familiar with military planning said that if Israel
attacked Lebanon again, it would probably do so in three phases. First,
it would strike without warning at targets that pose the greatest
threat, he said; then it would call for civilians to evacuate southern
Lebanon. Once a critical mass of people had left, ground troops would
move in.
Something tells me that, as in Gaza, the civilians can't or won't leave. Will Israel attack anyway? We can only hope so. Somehow, I doubt the scenario outlined above will play out so neatly.
When I made aliya (immigrated to Israel), I used to tell people that the difference between the media in the US and the media in Israel was that in the US you could tell the difference between the news pages and the op-ed pages.
Those days are long since gone. As further proof, I present this unthinking editorial from the New York Times, which dismisses Israeli concerns over being turned into 1938's Czechoslovakia (Hat Tip: Eli Tabori).
As outlined on Monday by Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister of
intelligence and strategic affairs, the Israelis are now insisting that
Iran end all research and development on advanced centrifuges, which are
used to enrich uranium; reduce the number of operating centrifuges at
its Natanz plant beyond what was agreed to in the framework; and close
its underground enrichment facility at Fordo. Also, Israel has demanded
that Iran allow inspections “anywhere, anytime” by international
monitors, ship its stockpile of enriched uranium out of the country and
disclose past nuclear-related activities that might involve military
uses.
Funny, but every one of those demands, which the Times now calls 'unreasonable,' was part of the original Western negotiating position at the beginning of the JCPOA talks.
In any negotiation, there could never be a deal without compromise. It
would be preferable if every vestige of Iran’s nuclear program were
eradicated. But that was never going to happen, not least because Iran’s
know-how could never be erased.
What a load of bunk. The know-how may always exist but if you can't fire up a centrifuge, you can't enrich uranium. It's that simple.
Iran’s leaders would not accept a deal in which they did not maintain
some elements of a nuclear program tailored for energy and medical
purposes — not weapons.
But Iran's program is not 'tailored for energy and medical purposes.' For example, consider this regarding Fordo:
Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility, a clandestine underground site near the
city of Qom, is “unnecessary for its civilian nuclear program” and
unneeded unless Iran wants nuclear weapons, according to the Institute
for Science and International Security (ISIS).
“Iran’s decision
to build a relatively small, deeply buried enrichment facility without
first informing the IAEA suggests that Fordow was intended to be used to
make weapon-grade uranium (enriched to over 90 percent) for nuclear
weapons, or to provide Iran with that option,” the Fordow report said,
citing International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) evidence.
Since
the plant was discovered in 2009, Iran has changed its stated purpose
multiple times in official IAEA documents and correspondence, adding
“credence to the assessment that after realizing it was caught in 2009
building the facility in secret, Iran rushed to proclaim a civilian
purpose for it with the IAEA.”
Now, how exactly is that tailored for 'energy and medical purposes'?
While the deal does not grant international monitors the right to go
anywhere, anytime, it does impose a tough inspection regime and
establishes a commission to resolve disputes if Iran blocks access to a
suspected site.
Given Iran's history of hiding its nuclear activities, how 'tough' could any inspection regime that requires giving notice to Iran be?
It allows research on advanced centrifuges, but the machines can’t be used for enrichment for 10 years.
Why would they 'research' them if they weren't planning to use them? 10 years is not a long time - it's less than the age of Iran's nuclear program and less than the amount of time since the IAEA caught on to it. Do you have a reasonable expectation of being alive in ten years? All this deal does is kick the can down the road and leave us to face a much stronger Iran with a more advanced nuclear weapons program ten years hence. Some accomplishment.
There is confusion about how the deal addresses Iran’s willingness to
come clean on its past military activities, but experts have said that a
final agreement would require Iran to answer all questions before
sanctions are lifted.
Who are those 'experts' and what is the basis for their opinion?
The Times had made up its editorial mind to support whatever deal Obama presented before the deal was ever presented. It will only read the fine print after its opinion is out there. That's not the job of a critical media in a Western country. It's no longer 'all the news that's fit to print.' But then, that slogan was always a sham anyway.
Mr.
Netanyahu has two main objections. One is that an agreement would not
force Iran to dismantle its nuclear facilities and would leave it with
the ability to enrich uranium and, in time, to produce enough nuclear
fuel for a bomb. Two, that a deal to severely restrict Iran’s ability to
produce nuclear fuel for a decade or more is not long enough. He also
dismisses the potential effectiveness of international inspections to
deter Iran from cheating.
While
an agreement would not abolish the nuclear program, which Iran says it
needs for power generation and medical purposes, neither would walking
away. Even repeated bombing of Iran’s nuclear plants would not eliminate
its capability because Iran and its scientists have acquired the
nuclear know-how over the past six decades to rebuild the program in a
couple of years.
The
one approach that might constrain Iran is tough negotiations, which the
United States and its partners Britain, France, China, Germany and
Russia have rightly committed to. If an agreement comes together, it
would establish verifiable limits on the nuclear program that do not now
exist and ensure that Iran could not quickly produce enough
weapons-usable material for a bomb. The major benefit for Iran is that
it would gradually be freed of many of the onerous international
sanctions that have helped cripple its economy.
While
no Iranian facilities are expected to be dismantled, critical
installations are expected to be reconfigured so they are less of a
threat and the centrifuge machines used to enrich uranium would be
reduced. Iran would be barred from enriching uranium above 5 percent,
the level needed for power generation and medical uses but not
sufficient for producing weapons-grade nuclear fuel. Absent a negotiated
agreement, Iran will continue with its program without constraints.
These negotiations are anything but tough. Iran has conceded virtually nothing. No plants are to be reconfigured in any meaningful way (unless the Times knows something that Congress doesn't - wouldn't be the first time), and Iran will be left with thousands of centrifuges and the ability to fire up the nuclear machine anytime it wants to. Moreover, the agreement depends on 'inspections,' and we've all seen where that leads. And it does nothing to stop Iran from developing ballistic missiles, or for that matter a plutonium bomb.
When these negotiations were ramped up, Obama himself promised that he would not conclude a bad deal because a bad deal was worse than no deal. Obama has obviously changed his tune, and as usual, the Times is just singing along. In the meantime, all Netanyahu can do is to object as much as possible, without using any facts that the administration has not already disclosed to the Times.
Where's Hillary? Netanyahu doesn't want you to ask
After the Sabbath started on Friday, the Emergency Committee for Israel, which is based in the United States, circulated this advertisement asking where Hillary Clinton is in the current controversy over a deal with Iran. If you watch the political talk shows on Sunday morning in the US, you are likely to see it.
Let's go to the videotape.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Netanyahu's office condemned the ad, along with a full-page ad against Susan Rice that was placed in Saturday's New York Times by Rabbi Shmuely Boteach (ad below followed by story).
"We condemn these ads and oppose personal attacks of every kind,"
Netanyahu's office said, shortly before the prime minister's scheduled
flight to Washington where he was to address Congress this week. "We
have no connection to these ads and we believe that the discourse on the
Iranian issue must remain to the point."
Netanyahu is really trying to walk a tightrope here....
Obama preemptively attacks Netanyahu, even the NY Times doesn't buy it
The White House on Friday sent an anonymous official to 'brief' reporters with answers to what the President anticipates that Prime Minister Netanyahu will say on Tuesday, but the attack was so transparent that even the New York Times saw through it (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
But
the American officials speaking Friday avoided directly answering some
questions about important outcomes of the agreement still being
negotiated.
Asked whether the accord would guarantee that Iran would remain at least a year away from being able to produce enough fuel for a single
nuclear weapon, a senior official said that the agreement was still
under negotiation and that it was not yet clear how long the accord
might last. He noted that some “transparency measures” that might
provide insight into the inner workings of Iran’s nuclear activities
might be in effect for an “extended period of time.”
Several news organizations, including The New York Times, reported
this week that Iran’s capacity to produce enriched uranium would be
sharply limited for at least a decade under a phased accord. But Tehran
would be able to build up its capacity again in the last years of an
agreement. That suggested that in those final years of a deal, Iran
could move closer to where it is today — two or three months away from
being able to produce a bomb’s worth of material, rather than the
required year that the administration says is its bottom line for the
first phase of an agreement.
The
officials were also vague about whether, and how quickly, Iran would
have to answer a dozen questions from the International Atomic Energy
Agency about research it is suspected of carrying out on nuclear designs
— what the agency calls the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s
program. The I.A.E.A., the United Nations’ inspection agency, said again
last week that Iran stonewalled inspectors on answering most of its questions, which the Iranians insist are based on fabricated evidence.
...
[T]he
concerns voiced by Mr. Netanyahu are also shared by Saudi Arabia and
other Arab states that are regional rivals of Iran. Mr. Kerry plans to
meet with King Salman of Saudi Arabia and other Arab officials over the
next week to try to reassure them about the agreement.
While
the United States has taken the lead in the nuclear talks with the
Iranians, the negotiating partners also include France, Britain,
Germany, Russia and China. European officials have suggested in recent
days that an agreement is closer than the “50-50” assessment by Obama
administration officials.
Why the ADL opposes Netanyahu's Congressional address
Why is Prime Minister Netanyahu going to Washington two weeks before the Israeli elections? And why is the mainstream Jewish Anti-Defamation League opposed? This is the most logical explanation of both issues I've seen yet, it makes President Hussein Obama, the Anti-Defamation League and the New York Times (which invented a violation of 'protocol' that didn't exist) smell like poop.
In the Calvin and Hobbes comics, Calvin enjoyed playing a very special game called Calvinball,
in which he made up the rules as he went along to make sure he was
always winning. Reading the continuous coverage of Bibi’s visit in the
last few days makes you feel that the White House and its supporters are
now playing their own version of Calvinball; let’s call it “protocol,”
which is the official-sounding scare-word they use to imply that Bibi’s
behavior was thoroughly out-of-bounds.
So, what precise point of “protocol” did Bibi outrageously violate?
Well, went the original version, he accepted an invitation to address
Congress without the White House being informed that he was coming—which
is certainly no way to behave. Once the New York Times
admitted that this story, which it printed, was 100 percent wrong—and
that the White House had in fact been properly informed—the conversation
about protocol miraculously morphed. Keeping the all-important word
“protocol” in play, the discussion now revolves around President Barack
Obama’s statement that he would not meet with Bibi so close to the
Israeli elections in March; that, Obama said, would be a violation of
“protocol.” Which is a fine point, except for the fact that Bibi never
asked for such a meeting. Instead, he was invited to address Congress by
the speaker of the House of Representatives, who is the leader of a
coequal branch of government—just as he had been invited in 2011 by the
very same man to address the very same branch of government without
anyone mentioning the word “protocol.”
Why all the fuss right now? There are two useful ways to approach the question. The first is to try and imagine what would not have
been a violation of the shifting rules of “protocol.” Indulge me here.
Imagine John Boehner coming up with the idea to invite the prime
minister of Israel to speak. Singularly committed to the sanctity of
bipartisanship—the idea, that is, that no decision in Washington
should be made without the benign approval of both parties—Boehner then
calls the White House. “I have this crazy idea,” he says. “How about a
speech from Bibi?” On the other end of the line, crickets. “The thing
is, John,” say the Democrats, “we don’t really like Bibi, and his Iran
policy is not really the one we’re trying to promote. Mind scrapping the
whole thing?” Fighting back a tear, Boehner agrees. “Sure thing, guys,”
he says. “Sorry for bringing it up. See you later at the congressional
gym.”
This scenario, of course, is idiotic—yet it’s precisely the one so
many Obama supporters have been strongly promoting in tones of heavy
outrage this past week. Which leads me to the second, more useful way of
thinking about the conflict, namely asking why Bibi is so intent on
making a speech that was bound to piss off the White House and its
itchy-fingered defenders.
The theory that’s being floated around by custodians of political civility and nonpartisanship like the New York Times, Josh Marshall,
Matt Duss, et al., is that Bibi’s desire to speak to Congress is a
petty bit of electioneering whose real audience is back home in Israel.
If you believe that, you believe that Bibi and his men think that the
best way to get Israelis to vote for him on March 17 is to make
big-picture speeches in America two weeks earlier—while risking a very
public pre-election row with your greatest ally and economic benefactor.
You believe, bluntly put, that Bibi is a political moron in search of a
blatant photo op that will allow him to bellow to a nation of his
fellow troglodytes who will then vote for him. I don’t like Bibi very
much, but I grew up with the man, and guess what: He’s smarter than
that. And so is my toddler, who learned everything she knows about power
dynamics and international politics from watching Frozen.
But there is another, much more serious explanation for Bibi’s
eagerness to come to Washington in the middle of an election campaign
that most polls show him winning handily: March 24 is the deadline for
the framework agreement in the ongoing negotiations with Iran. As
Michael Doran, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense and
senior policy director in charge of the Middle East at the National
Security Council, has shown in his factually grounded analysis
of Obama’s Iran policy, when it comes to negotiating with the Islamic
Republic, the Obama Administration is committed to keeping everyone in
the dark. Unaware that he was being recorded, Benjamin Rhodes, a key
Obama national security adviser, told a gathering of Democratic
activists last year that Obama is hoping to keep Congress out of the
loop as much as possible. “We’re already kind of thinking through, how
do we structure a deal so we don’t necessarily require legislative
action right away,” Rhodes said.
...
Alas, the nonsense keeps on coming. The most recent storyline, also promoted heavily by the Times,
that Bibi’s speech has met with opposition from a wide coalition
including everyone from some Democrats to the ADL and the leader of the
Reform movement somehow suggests he is empirically in the wrong.
Reporters who cite the ADL’s opposition to Bibi’s speech might have
noted that the man who will step in as the ADL’s head this summer,
Jonathan Greenblatt, is currently employed as one of Obama’s
advisers—which would make opposing Obama kind of sticky. Bibi surely has
his detractors, and some of them have valid reasons for opposing his
speech, even for loathing him, but the condemnation—in response to phone
calls from reporters—is far from uniform. If it was, the story would
not have generated so much attention for so long.
The event gathered nearly four million people,
but seeing in it a mobilization against terrorism, jihad and
anti-Semitism would be a mistake. Leaders of "anti-Zionist" left-wing
organizations that support Hamas were present. Ministers of states financing jihadist terrorism, and even genocide, were also there.
The Ambassador of Saudi Arabia attended, shortly after his nation had just finished flogging Raif Badawi,
a young Saudi blogger accused of "insulting Islam," with the first
fifty lashes of his sentence of 1000 lashes plus 10 years in prison, for
practicing the most gentle free speech. Badawi is now being flayed
alive -- "very severely," the lashing order said. He has 950 lashes to
go.
Turkey, which hosts part of the leadership of the genocidal Hamas organization, was there. Turkey has also jailed more journalists than any other country, including Iran and China.
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of a Palestinian unity government, which includes Hamas and directly supports jihadist terrorism as well as genocide, was at the forefront -- smiling. Binyamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, was initially not invited. He came anyhow.
French officials let him know that he was not welcome and not to speak.
He spoke anyhow. As a sign of disapproval, French officials left the
Grand Synagogue of Paris during the ceremony for the dead Jews, before
Netanyahu's speech.
The President of the populist National Front, Marine Le Pen, was also not included. She is silent. She is sure a coming explosion will happen, and that she will receive more votes.
The slogans in the demonstration spoke of "free speech" and the need
to "live together." Signs saying "I am Charlie" were everywhere. Signs
saying "I am a Jew" ["Je suis Juif"] were rare.
No signs or
slogans mentioned jihad or the need to combat jihad or terrorism: the
watchword was that these subjects should be shunned. No signs or slogan
mentioned anti-Semitism or the real cause of jihadist attacks:
caricatures of Mohammed, considered by Koranic law to be blasphemous.
Those subjects had to be abandoned.
Few French Muslims came -- the tiniest drop in a huge ocean -- and
the television cameras immediately homed in on them. They were
interviewed and stated their only concern: "Avoid stigmatization of the Muslim community!"
Prime Minister Manuel Valls had told journalists he was "afraid" for
Muslims. Two days later -- and only two days later -- on January 13, he said
that "France is at war against terrorism, jihadism and radical Islam."
He added immediately that one of his priorities was to fight mercilessly
against "Islamophobia."
This reminds me of George Bush in the aftermath of 9/11 saying that 'you're either with the terrorists or against them,' while insisting that Islam is a 'religion of peace.' It muddles (and muddies) reality. For those of you who don't get it yet, here's a dose of reality.
Anyone who watches television and sees what is happening in many
Muslim countries has to be doubting that Islam is peaceful. Most Muslim
"experts" invited to speak are familiar with Islam, familiar with the
internet and familiar with what is going on in many Muslim countries --
but they lie. Almost all of them are militants, imams, Muslim scholars.
Most of them are members of Islamic organizations. Many belong to the
French branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the French have just
obligingly given them a platform.
The idea that Muslims have to be integrated was discussed many times
-- in vain. The absence of integration has worsened decade after decade.
"Experts" invited to speak about integration were forcefully lying too.
Those who knew the truth and could tell it were kept away.
More than 750 no-go zones exist in the country, all under the sway of gang leaders and radical imams.
More than 60% percent of inmates in French prisons are Muslim.
And future Amedy Coulibalys, Cherif Kouachis, Mohamed Merahs and Mehdi
Nemmouches are radicalized every year before going off to train for
jihad in Syria or Yemen.
Terrorism experts say
that dozens of jihadists are preparing attacks in France alone, and
that more deadly attacks will take place. They stress that many
terrorist sleeper cells exist in the country. France is a country where
gun ownership by ordinary citizens is forbidden. So most people are
powerless against aggressors, as tens of thousands of guns are hidden in
basements.
But to the New York Times, the fact that 60% of the prison population is Muslim has nothing to do with Muslims or Islam. They're blaming France.
The
profiles of the three attackers — Amedy Coulibaly and the brothers
Chérif and Saïd Kouachi — are an indictment of the decades-long failure
of France to address long-festering alienation and exclusion among too
many Muslim immigrants and their French-born children. Unemployment is
as high as 40 percent among youths
in France’s disadvantaged neighborhoods. All three attackers grew up in
poverty. Chérif Kouachi and Mr. Coulibaly spent time in prison. All
ultimately found deadly purpose in Islamist terrorism.
Prison
was the crucible of their radicalization. There are five million to six
million Muslims in France, less than 10 percent of the total
population, but 60 percent of France’s prison inmates are of “Muslim
culture or religion,” according to a report presented to France’s
National Assembly. It was in prison that Mr. Kouachi and Mr. Coulibaly
met the Qaeda recruiter Djamel Beghal. To stem recruiting by Islamist
extremists in prisons, the government of President François Hollande has
announced it will seek to isolate identified Islamist proselytizers
from other prisoners.
There
is also the problem of France’s secularism. A ban on head scarves in
public schools and on full-face veils feels to many Muslims like an
unfair constraint on their religious freedom. Some also find it hard to
accept that blasphemy is not a crime in France, and that Charlie Hebdo
and other publications have a right to satirize religious leaders. Some
students in French schools with large immigrant and Muslim populations
refused to participate
in the national minute of silence following the Charlie Hebdo attack
because they objected to what they had heard about the magazine’s
depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.
The New York Times objects to blasphemy? That's a good laugh. Too bad they don't object to it when the targets are Jews or Christians - only when they're Muslims.
And if it were only France that had this problem, there might be an argument here. But in country after country across Europe and elsewhere, Muslims have specifically made the effort not to integrate into wider society. They're certainly within their rights to do that. But they then cannot be heard to complain (or to have others complain on their behalf) that they're not being integrated. Because the same thing that is going on in France is going on in England, Belgium, Germany and several other countries.
In the meantime, most French citizens disagree with the high and might New York Times:
French Jews could see on January 11 that Prime Minister Netanyahu was
not welcome, while Abbas and other supporters of jihad were celebrated.
They see how speaking ill of Israel blows through the mainstream media
and feeds increasing Jew-hate. They see the French parliament vote for
the creation of an admittedly genocidal "Palestinian State."
They see that they are unarmed and that the soldiers in the streets
will not be there forever. They see that jihadists are preparing more
attacks. They see no-go zones grow increasingly turbulent. They see what
is happening in prisons. They see that the French justice system gives
short terms to jihadists and releases them quickly. They see that the
government cannot stop mass riots and has no way to prevent more
attacks. They see that if just Jews had been targeted in recent attacks,
no protests would have taken place. Each year they see more Jews leave the country. Seven thousand left for Israel in 2014, and the Jewish Agency for Israel expects 15,000 this year.
The Muslim population is largely silent, except in the heavily-Muslim
suburbs, where those who support Coulibaly and the Kouachi brothers can
speak without risking arrest. Those who speak officially in the name of
the French Muslim community explain that Islam is not the threat, that the real culprits are those who "insult Islam," and that "the main victims" are Muslims.
The rest of the French population is not convinced. Several polls show that more that 70% of the French think Islam is incompatible with democracy and Western civilization; those polls predate the recent attacks.
The only thing everyone agrees on is that this month's terror attacks in France are only the start, and much bigger explosions are coming.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
