Archive for the ‘My favorite posts’ Category

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Brit Tzedek v’Shalom’s misleading petition

Saturday, March 10th, 2007

By Vic Rosenthal

Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, an American Jewish organization which claims to be “pro-Israel and pro-Peace” is asking people — especially Jews — to sign a petition which says:

I call on your Administration to urgently promote talks between Israel and any party – including the Palestinians, Lebanon, and Syria – that accepts Israel’s right to exist by engaging in direct negotiations, back-channel contacts, and/or an international peace conference.

At first glance, this is ambiguous. Does it mean that Israel should talk to anyone who accepts her right to exist, and should do so in any of several ways? Or does it mean that anyone who engages in negotiations, back-channel contacts, or a peace conference thereby accepts Israel’s right to exist and Israel should talk to them?

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Was “Ruach Shaked” deliberately misleading?

Friday, March 9th, 2007

By Vic Rosenthal

Unsurprisingly, given the sustained anti-Israel and antisemitic content of the Egyptian media since (and before) the ‘peace’ treaty, some Egyptians are outraged by alleged Israeli war crimes in the film “Ruach Shaked”, directed by Ran Edelist, which was shown on Israeli television last week. The Jerusalem Post reports that

Severe warnings emerged from Egypt on Friday that Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer would be arrested if he set foot on Egyptian soil. It followed the documentary film about the Shaked Reconnaissance Unit which seemingly held Ben-Eliezer responsible for the deaths of 250 Egyptian prisoners of war during the Six Day War.

“We demand that the Egyptian court bring these murderers and war criminals to justice on Egyptian soil,” Egyptian MP Mustafa Bakri told the Kol al-Arav newspaper on Friday.

It’s clear that the incident did not happen — Shaked did not kill unarmed Egyptian prisoners of war, but rather a lesser number of Palestinian Fedayeen who, while retreating, were still fighting.

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Israel arrests terrorists… no, members of “security forces”

Wednesday, March 7th, 2007

Various sources report that Israel has stormed the Palestinian Military Intelligence headquarters in Ramallah and arrested 18 Palestinians:

In the West Bank town of Ramallah, about 100 Israeli Army vehicles surrounded the building in the early hours, with troops ordering people to come out before they moved in.

The Israeli Army said it had arrested 18 people who heeded its call through loudspeakers to surrender. The army said they were involved in shooting attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers and in attempts to kidnap Israelis.

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NPR’s psychological warfare technique

Wednesday, March 7th, 2007

By Vic Rosenthal

National Public Radio (NPR) is a personal bête noir. I used to be a regular supporter of my local Public Radio station, but stopped because of what I felt was biased coverage of Israel and related issues from NPR. Organizations such as CAMERA and Honest Reporting have documented this bias for some time.

NPR was generally criticized on the basis of which events they chose to cover (they somehow ignored the 2002 Passover Seder Massacre in which Hamas murdered 30 people), and the relative amount of time they gave to pro- and anti-Israel voices. In response, NPR started providing free transcripts of their Mideast coverage from major news programs in 2002. They also appointed an ombudsman, Jeffrey Dvorkin, to deal with complaints about biased reporting.

So when I woke on February 27 to another anti-Israel segment from NPR’s Linda Gradstein, describing an Israeli incursion into Nablus [Shechem] on the West Bank, I planned to obtain the transcript and complain about it to the ombudsman. Unfortunately, as of today the transcript has not appeared (they usually are provided within a couple of days at most). And Dvorkin, the ombudsman, apparently doesn’t work there anymore. An automatic reply to my email of March 2 said that his assistant would read all mail until a new one was hired, but as of today I have received no response. I’ve transcribed it myself, and it appears below.

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Ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and racism

Tuesday, March 6th, 2007

The most effective way to vilify Israel with progressive people is by accusing her of racism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and so on. All of these accusations have to be somewhat creative because none of these characteristics actually apply to Israel in anything like their normal senses (indeed, Israel is one of the least racist societies around).

It’s worth pointing out, though, that they do apply quite well to Palestinians and other Arabs.

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