Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Report: US ambassador to Egypt flees country after violent protests
Fatah is also shooting at Jews - from Gaza and in the West Bank
A'jad to lead Iranian effort to censor Internet use
Jordan Press Association tells members they must be biased against Israel
Do journalists have any ethics on Twitter? (updated)
J-Street calls Gaza terrorists "civilians"
Despite rocket barrage, Israel keeps Gaza crossings open
Dutch newspaper captions Iron Dome as "firing rockets into Gaza" (updated)
BBC, Sky News silent over Hamas beating their reporters
Egyptian army hurls rocks at anti-military protesters (video)
CNN: Israel kills people, US and Yemen target militants

Report: US ambassador to Egypt flees country after violent protests

Posted: 11 Mar 2012 08:19 PM PDT

On Friday, there were violent protests in front of the US Embassy in Cairo.

It appears that they were enough to prompt the US ambassador to flee Egypt, according to Bikya Masr:

Anger toward the United States is growing in Egypt, and on Friday, some 100 angry demonstrators took to the US Embassy in Cairo to voice their concern, clashing with security forces in the area.

As a result of the rising tension and anger toward the US, the country's ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson reportedly has fled the country to Germany en route back to the United States.

On Friday, the protesters called for an end to military rule over Egypt, which they argue is a result of American support and backing, both financially and politically.

The demonstrators clashed briefly with soldiers stationed near the US embassy in downtown Cairo.

Shouting "Down with military power!" the protesters lobbed stones at the soldiers, who responded by throwing them back and trying to disperse the crowd.

The US Embassy in Cairo would not reveal to Bikyamasr.com when the ambassador would be returning to Cairo, saying the security situation at the embassy is "under control."

No confirmation of this report yet from any other source.

Fatah is also shooting at Jews - from Gaza and in the West Bank

Posted: 11 Mar 2012 05:34 PM PDT

Ma'an reports that the Ayman Juda group within the Al-Aqsa Brigades took responsibility for some of the rockets that slammed into Israel on Saturday.

The Al Aqsa Brigades are part of Fatah. You know, the "moderate" terrorist group that Mahmoud Abbas and Saeb Erekat belong to.

But that's not all this peace-loving terror group did this weekend.

Today they claimed responsibility for shooting at a civilian bus on Highway 60 near Ariel at the Givat-Assaf junction. No one was injured.

This must be another of those "non-violent popular protests" we hear so much about.

A'jad to lead Iranian effort to censor Internet use

Posted: 11 Mar 2012 01:40 PM PDT

From Al Arabiya:

The Iranian minister of communication and technology accused Western nations of using the internet as a tool for spying and spreading corruption, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported on Saturday.

"Unfortunately, the Western states, the U.S. on top of them, are using the internet for spying and spreading corruption on Earth, but Iran has started a movement in administering internet use and will definitely limit such (Western) misuses through the aid and assistance of (the world) free circles," Reza Taqipour was quoted by Fars news agency as saying at a meeting with the Iraqi minister of Communication Muhammad Tawfiq Allawi.

"The Internet should be at all states' service and not for Western economic misuses and demonization of other states," Taqipour added.

Taqhipour announced that Iran will within weeks launch a "halal" network that will provide Iranians with a safe environment to surf the web as it will be "clean" of "immoral" sites.

Iranian officials have said in the past that the Internet could open the nation to a cultural invasion from the West and make it vulnerable to computer viruses, such as the Stuxnet worm that attacked its nuclear facilities. Many believe the malware was created by Israel or the United States to block Iran's nuclear progress.

In January, Iran's head of police, Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam, stated that Google is not a search engine but rather an instrument for spying.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday ordered the creation of a new government agency to monitor cyberspace in an aggressive step in the ongoing crackdown on online activities by ordinary Iranians.

Khamenei issued a decree calling for a Supreme Council of Cyberspace, an entity that would be headed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and would include other top Iranian officials, including the intelligence chief and the head of the Revolutionary Guards.

"Planning and constant coordination" of the Internet are needed "to prevent its damages and consequences," the decree said. The council should have "a constant and comprehensive monitoring over the domestic and international cyberspace," it added.

Iranians have grappled with increased obstacles to using the Internet since opposition supporters used social networking sites to organize widespread protests after the disputed 2009 re-election of Ahmadinejad.

It's a neat trick to impose censorship and spy on local activists' Internet usage in the name of "morality."

It is unclear if this "halal" network is completely self-contained or just heavily censored. If it is really an Iranian intranet, with no connectivity to the world, then any viruses that do happen to get introduced (by USB or CD-ROM, for example) would spread far faster since every anti-virus program relies on updates over the Internet.

And I thought from reading that world-renowned Iran ~~expert~~ apologist Juan Cole that Khamenei hated Ahmadinejad. Why is he entrusting him with leading the nation's cyber-police?

Jordan Press Association tells members they must be biased against Israel

Posted: 11 Mar 2012 12:30 PM PDT

From Jordan Times December 21 (h/t Zvi):

When Israel is involved, patriotism should take precedence over all other considerations, Jordan Press Association (JPA) President Tareq Momani emphasised.

The 950-member JPA opposes contact between its members and Israelis, he noted, adding that the case is different with respect to the state-run media.

"We are totally against any contact with Israelis. The issue here is not just about journalism. Israel for us is still an enemy occupying Arab land and oppressing Arab people. We will not accept giving their views platform," Momani told The Jordan Times yesterday.

Last Thursday, Al Ghad daily reported that a Jordanian woman was suing the Israeli embassy for holding her against her will for 24 hours. The article had only the statement by the woman, who was employed by the embassy, and that of her lawyers, but lacked any response from the Israeli side.

The reporter, Mwaffaq Kamal, told The Jordan Times that his decision not to get a comment from the Israelis was in line with his institution's editorial policy, but is also within his personal convictions.

"I agree that professionalism requires balanced reporting, but for me this is a case that involves an enemy," Kamal told The Jordan Times on Saturday, adding that he complied with the JPA regulations.

"Professionalism requires giving space to all parties to give their side of the story, and it is the readers' decision to make up their minds," Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism Executive Director Rana Sabbagh told The Jordan Times yesterday.

She underlined the sensitivity of issues related to Israel, but stressed that in news coverage, professionalism should be above all considerations.

"Jordan has signed a peace treaty with Israel. Therefore, there is so much integration and collaboration between the two sides. For example, when reporting about water issues, Israelis should be contacted for a comment," she said, adding, however, that this is an individual decision and editors cannot force journalists to do something that contradicts their principles.

The JPA Law does not contain penalties against journalists who contact Israelis in the course of their reporting, but the head of the association's disciplinary committee, Fayez Mubaydeen, told The Jordan Times that there can be a price to pay, which goes as far as revoking or suspending membership in the association.

"When such a case is reported to the association, the disciplinary committee looks into it and raises its recommendation to the JPA council to take action accordingly," he said.

Tareq Hmeidi, an Al Rai reporter, told The Jordan Times that earlier this year, he was invited to a science conference in Qatar but decided to forego it when he heard that Israelis were also taking part in the event.

"Regardless of my personal views, I cannot go against public opinion. The conference was purely scientific and had nothing to do with politics, but I decided to boycott it, in compliance with the regulations of the JPA," said Hmeidi, adding that he was criticised by the US-based Science magazine for not attending.

And this is from a state that is at peace with Israel!

Western media relies on Arab reporting, especially English-language Arab reporting. Western journalists who see an article in a Jordanian or Kuwaiti newspaper will naturally trust that their fellow journalist is unbiased and fair, and will use the information relatively uncritically. Journalists generally feel they are all on the same side, the side of "truth."

As a result, when a significant number of Arab reporters freely admit that they have no intention to report fairly about Israel, this affects Western coverage of Israel as well.

Do journalists have any ethics on Twitter? (updated)

Posted: 11 Mar 2012 11:25 AM PDT

When journalists tweet, do they have the same ethical responsibilities as they do when writing articles?

Apparently, pro-Palestinian journalists don't believe so.

George Hale from Ma'an tweeted yesterday:

4 people injured after Israeli forces open fire toward mourners near the eastern cemetery -#Gaza medical official

Never mind that Gaza medical officials have been known to, um, how should I put it? - lie. A piece of information gets released, and it gets tweeted without verification.

Joseph Dana retweeted the same information adding, "Classy."

Only one problem: It never happened.

It was reported in Gulf Today/AFP this way:

Palestinian security officials said that at one funeral, east of Gaza City and close to the Israeli border fence, Israeli troops opened fire at a crowd of mourners, wounding four people, one in the head.

But PCHR, which is reporting every single attack by Israel, is silent on the topic. You can be sure if it happened they would have noted it. Similarly, Ma'an never reported on any gunfire at a funeral, even though their editor was the first to tweet the information. Why not?

But step back for a second. Does the story make any sense at all? Israeli troops aren't in Gaza, so how could they shoot mourners at a funeral? With rockets? Helicopter gunships? Really long range machine guns?

In other words, how much do you have to hate Israel to believe that the IDF is shooting at funerals?

So what really happened?

From AP:

Tens of thousands of Palestinian mourners marched through the streets in funeral processions. They carried slain militants in coffins, their bodies too torn up to be wrapped in cloth, as Muslim tradition dictates. Masked militants sprayed machine gun fire above the mourners' heads in angry grief.

Ah, so the only gunfire in Gaza at funerals is coming from the terrorists. If anyone was injured by gunfire, it came from terrorists shooting their own weapons.

But the tweets live on, get retweeted, and people who read tweets from journalists give them the same credibility that they give articles that were edited and vetted (not that they are so much better, as we see from AFP.) They rarely get retracted or corrected, because, hey, its only Twitter, right? (And if pushed, they'll just fall back on saying that they were quoting "officials" who they know quite well routinely lie.)

And the truth gets lost in the sea of hate and bias.

UPDATE: PCHR does describe the incident:

At approximately 14:00 also on Saturday, Israeli soldiers stationed at observation towers at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel to the east of the northern Gaza Strip town of Jabalya opened fire at a number of Palestinian civilians who got close to the border and threw stones, during the funeral procession of a number of victims of Israeli air strikes. Five civilians were wounded by gunshots, including two ones who were in serious conditions.

It is doubtful that the funeral procession came within 300 meters of the border, so the Gazans deliberately went over to the border that the IDF keeps clear to avoid terror attacks. (h/t Bruan)

UPDATE 2: See Israellycool on some other lies flying around Twitter.

J-Street calls Gaza terrorists "civilians"

Posted: 11 Mar 2012 10:17 AM PDT

From J Street:

J Street is deeply concerned about the most recent spate of violence between the Israel Defense Forces and militants in Gaza, which, in three days, has already resulted in over one hundred rockets fired on Israeli cities and towns and airstrikes on Gaza that have killed over a dozen Palestinian civilians.

So far, there have been 16 terrorists killed and two civilians (one farmer was in the vicinity of terrorists, who were injured.)

J-Street automatically condemns Israel for killing civilians without the slightest checking of facts. That is not how someone who is "pro-Israel" acts, to put it mildly.

See also Challah Hu Akbar.

(h/t Emet)

Despite rocket barrage, Israel keeps Gaza crossings open

Posted: 11 Mar 2012 09:35 AM PDT

From COGAT:

Despite the continuous firring of more than 120 missiles and mortar shells towards civilian targets in southern Israel, the stoppage of studies and the disruption in the daily lives of more then million Israelis, the state of Israel has decided to open the land crossings to Gaza regularly.

Today, 200 aid trucks are entering Gaza from Kerem Shalom, including 11 trucks loaded with building materials and gravel and 40 trucks for UNRWA projects, in addition to cooking gas being pumped in.

Also three trucks are leaving Gaza filled with flowers for export to Europe.

Dutch newspaper captions Iron Dome as "firing rockets into Gaza" (updated)

Posted: 11 Mar 2012 08:30 AM PDT

If you think that media bias against Israel is bad in English-language media, check this out from the Dutch Volkskrant.nl site:

The caption translates to "A rocket fired from Israel to the Gaza Strip."

This is the Iron Dome system, where rockets are fired to destroy incoming Grad rockets from the Gaza Strip!

(h/t Barry)

UPDATE: The caption was corrected to "An Israeli Iron Dome rocket is fired to intercept an incoming rocket from Gaza."

BBC, Sky News silent over Hamas beating their reporters

Posted: 11 Mar 2012 07:20 AM PDT

From the International Press Institute, in a story I noted Thursday:

The Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate has reported that three journalists reporting on a mass wedding of 500 couples in Gaza City were attacked. The mass wedding was organised by local charities in conjunction with Hamas, according to Ramallah-based Maan News.

According to the Palestine Press Agency and the Wafa news agency, the journalists who were attacked were: Mohammed Mashharawi, who works for Sky News, Adnan al-Dorosh, who works for the BBC Arabic Service, and Amer Abu Omar. Sources said that Mashharawi was briefly detained by Hamas.

Earlier IPI spoke to Sami Sahmoud, a correspondent for Sky News Arabia and colleague of Mohammed Mashharawi, who said that the incidents were due to tension between the journalists and the Hamas security forces. IPI research indicates that Hamas had laid out strict guidelines on where the journalists were allowed to be in the stadium as they covered the mass wedding. Sahmoud told IPI that one security official allegedly began to violently push the journalists; Mashharawi tried to resolve the situation by talking to the security forces. According to Sahmoud, the issue appeared to have been resolved by the media co-ordinator but a few minutes later the guard came back with more security guards, and tried to arrest Mohammed, who asked to see his security information. A scuffle reportedly broke out and the other journalists tried to help Mashharawi. Sources said that Mashharawi, al-Dorosh, and Abu Omar were allegedly taken out of the stadium and beaten.

According to Sahmoud, Mashharawi was taken to prison, where he was reportedly told to remove his shoes, belt and shirt and he was allegedly detained for an hour in a dark cell. During the journey to the detention centre, Mashharawi was allegedly punched in the face and the chest, and one official even threatened to shoot him, IPI research revealed. No formal charges were made against any of the journalists. The Government Information Bureau contacted the journalists following the case, Sahmoud revealed. The Ministry of Interior in the Gaza Strip condemned the "unacceptable" attack and said a full investigation would be launched, according to Maan News.

Sky News and the BBC have been completely silent on the assault on their own reporters, as has all of the mainstream media.

Which is pretty much all you need to know if you are expecting even Western news agencies to report fairly and in an unbiased manner from Gaza. The fear for the safety of their reporters, while understandable, is far more important to the media than reporting the truth about Hamas.

This is why so many college students and casual media consumers have such a skewed view of the Middle East. Palestinian Arab crimes are minimized, but perceived Israeli violations of human rights are amplified, because the environment in Israel is so much more tolerant towards reporting anti-Israel news and Israel is filled with international reporters and NGOs eagerly filling their quotas of anti-Israel "research."

Egyptian army hurls rocks at anti-military protesters (video)

Posted: 11 Mar 2012 06:15 AM PDT

From OfficialWire:

Protesters outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo supporting the Egyptian military's crackdown on international pro-democracy groups clashed Friday with demonstrators rallying against the country's military leadership. Dozens of people were injured.

The issue of the pro-democracy groups has been at the center of one of the most divisive chapters of U.S.-Egyptian relations in recent decades.

Egyptian officials alleged the groups were using foreign funding to foment unrest in Egypt and were pursuing a legal case against dozens of defendants, including 16 Americans. Relations improved somewhat when Egypt allowed the American defendants to leave the country, effectively letting them avoid trial.

But the decision to lift the travel ban incited a backlash among many Egyptians who accused the country's ruling generals of bowing to U.S. pressure and meddling in what is supposed to be an independent judiciary.

The pro-military protest was led by Tawfiq Okasha, a staunch loyalist to the military leadership and a well-known TV presenter whose daily show has been banned for airing insults against pro-democracy activists. Okasha has repeatedly accused activists of receiving foreign funds to destabilize the country.

Witnesses said the clashes began when pro-military supporters began throwing rocks at anti-military protesters who were marching to the nearby Tahrir Square. Dozens wounded in the clashes, according to Egypt's Middle East News Agency.

As people ran from the scene, Egyptian troops first tried to separate the stone-throwers but also threw rocks at the protesters, witnesses said.

Essentially, the Egyptian army joined the riots on the side of the pro-military protesters.

Here's video from Daily News Egypt:

Professional.

(h/t Yoel)