| Dave Zirin's last piece of anti-Israel evidence disappears Posted: 09 Apr 2014 05:32 PM PDT Remember Dave Zirin, sports reporter for The Nation who claimed in two separate articles that Israel deliberately targets Palestinian Arab soccer players? In the second article, which our own Bob Knot ripped to shreds, Zirin self-righteously described how people didn't believe the first article (that Bob also destroyed.) The part of the response that was truly jarring however was the numerous private queries I received from prominent members of the media. I am choosing to keep their identities private because their correspondence to me was private and I will respect that. The queries contained no curiosity about Israel's possible expulsion from FIFA. They all instead openly doubted that the shooting of the two young men had even taken place. Was I sure this really happened? When I pointed to my initial sources, the response by numerous people was, "Do you have any sources that are not Palestinian?" One person, writing for a major sports website, sent me numerous queries that I did not respond to, and then when the facts of the shooting appeared in the Israeli paper Haaretz, said to me, "Forget previous queries. I see news of the shooting on Haaretz. Never mind." The assumption of mendacity affixed to Palestinian sources spoke volumes. Haaretz' reporting was the peg on which Zirin hung his cap of proof that the soccer players were innocent and shot in the legs, deliberately, by Israeli troops. What self-respecting journalist would doubt Haaretz' account? Zirin shows that unnamed sports reporters were swayed to his side of the story based purely on Haaretz' corroboration. Only one problem. That Haaretz article was not written by Haaretz. It was plagiarized from the well-known international affairs journal known as Inside World Football. And that "reporting" contradicted Haaretz' earlier reporting of the same incident!As CAMERA reports, on Wednesday , Tamar Sternthal, director of CAMERA's Israel office, sent the following email to editors:The Ha'aretz article reports as fact: Jawhar Nasser Jawhar, 19, and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, 17, were shot by Israel Defense Forces soldiers as they were walking home from a training session in the Faisal al-Husseini Stadium in al-Ram, in the central West Bank, on January 31. At the time, Ha'aretz's Amira Hass covered this incident, and made it very clear that the Israeli border police maintained that the two Palestinians were about to throw a bomb -- they were not just innocently walking home -- when they were shot. Hass reported on Feb. 3 ("Wounded Palestinian teens dispute border police claims"): Two Palestinians have been hospitalized in Jerusalem since Friday after they were shot and arrested by Border Police forces amid claims they were going to throw a bomb. The two Palestinians are under guard in Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem, have been operated on for their gunshot wounds, and will remain there until their treatment is finished. They deny the claims made against them, and contend that the Border Patrol forces shot them, sent attack dogs to chase them, beat them with their rifle butts, and punched and kicked them.
Adam Jamous, 17, and Jawahar Halbiyeh, 19, are residents of Abu Dis, a town east of Jerusalem. Last Thursday evening they were en route to visit a friend in a neighborhood close to a Border Police base. An Abu Dis resident told Haaretz that before midnight, residents heard a lot of gunfire and saw dogs attacking the two men when they looked out the window. . . .
In response to inquiries, a Border Police spokesman said, "During operational activity, a group of individuals was seen just seconds before throwing bombs at security forces. When they saw the Border Policemen, the group attempted to run away and tried again to throw bombs at the policemen. The policemen initiated the protocol for opening fire in order to neutralize the threat. The suspects were apprehended, and a bomb was found on them, which has been deactivated."
The response included a picture of the bomb, but did not include any answers to the claim that the suspects were beaten. (Emphases added) Given that Ha'aretz has previously reported that according to the Israeli border police, the two were about to throw a bomb when they were shot, why does Ha'aretz now ignore this information? Have editors obtained information substantiating the Jamous and Halbiyeh's account, and disproving the Israeli spokesman's? If not, a clarification ought to be published making clear that the Israeli Border police dispute the Arabs' account that they were shot when they were doing nothing more than walking home. (We will be in touch with Inside World Football to request a clarification there as well.) Additional contradictions exist between the March 31 Ha'aretz report and Hass' earlier report: 1) According to Hass' report, the two "were en route to visit a friend in a neighborhood close to a Border Police base." According to the later Ha'aretz account, "they were walking home from a training session in the Faisal al-Husseini Stadium in al-Ram." (The fact that al-Ram is 13.3 miles from Abu Dis -- not exactly walking distance -- further complicates the picture.) 2) According to Hass, the two were shot by Border Police. According to Ha'aretz's later account, they were shot by Israel Defense Forces soldiers. 3) According to the more recent account, "the two were shot in the legs and set upon by dogs." According to Hass' earlier version, their lawyer said "one of them . . .was hit by many bullets and had a bite wound on his arm." On a separate matter, at least nine paragraphs of the March 31 Ha'aretz story is reproduced, almost word for word, from Andrew Warshaw's March 31 account in Inside World Football. Thus, Warshaw wrote: The Israeli security forces have accused the Palestinians of using football to hide the movement of terrorists and equipment within the region. The Palestinians have denied this and point to the inability to get footballers to training and matches which they say is a deliberate act of oppression.
FIFA have set up a mediation Task Force and Palestine football's leading figurehead Jibril Rajoub has already met with his Israeli counterpart Avi Luzon and FIFA President Sepp Blatter to try and resolve the long-term issue of access to and from Palestinian territories.
Blatter, who is due back in the region next month, wants Israel and Palestine to sign a formal co-operation agreement at or around the FIFA Congress in June but Rajoub has implied this is some way off while travel permit restrictions continue to be imposed by Israel on everyone from players to consultants.
Kemer, however, implied the debate has been far too one-sided.
"I don't think we will be expelled from FIFA because we are making good progress with the Palestinians," he said. "I would say we are on the right track."
Despite his comments, earlier this year two teenage Palestinian footballers were shot by Israeli security forces in the West Bank and were told it is unlikely they would play again.
Jawhar Nasser Jawhar, 19, and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, 17, were shot by Israeli soldiers as they were walking home from a training session in the Faisal al-Husseini Stadium in al-Ram in the central West Bank on January 31. The incident served as a graphic reminder of the situation on the ground and was recently taken up by FIFA vice-president Prince Ali bin al-Hussein during a briefing with reporters.
"I am not promoting or defending any side (but) I am in a very difficult situation where I have to take two boys from Palestine at my own expense, for treatment in Jordan," said Prince Ali, head of the Jordanian FA.
"These are the two who were shot in the legs and set upon by dogs. Why is this happening? Under FIFA statutes you cannot say one country can do one thing and another country can do something else. All we are asking is to allow our young boys and young girls to play the sport."
The Ha'aretz account follows. All the text that is word for word identical with Warshaw's copy appears in red: Inside World Football reported that Israel'ssecurity forces have accused the Palestinians of using soccerto hide the movement of terrorists and equipment within the region. The Palestinians have denied this and point to the inability to get soccer players to training and matches, which they say is a deliberate act of oppression.
FIFA has set up a mediation Task Force and Palestinesoccer's leading figurehead, Jibril Rajoub, has already met with his Israeli counterpart Avi Luzon and [Warshaw's account gives Blatter's full name and title here] Blatter to try and resolve the long-term issue of access to and from Palestinian territories.
Blatter, who is due back in the regionin April, wants Israel and Palestine to sign a formal co-operation agreement at or around the FIFA Congress in June, but Rajoub has implied this is some way off while travel permit restrictions continue to be imposed by Israel on everyone from players to consultants.
Kemer, however, implied the debate has been far too one-sided. "I don't think we will be expelled from FIFA because we are making good progress with the Palestinians," he said. "I would say we are on the right track."
Earlier this year, two teenage Palestinian soccer players were shot by Israeli security forces in the West Bank and were told they are unlikely to play again.
Jawhar Nasser Jawhar, 19, and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, 17, were shot byIsrael Defense Forces soldiers as they were walking home from a training session in the Faisal al-Husseini Stadium in al-Ram, in the central West Bank, on January 31.
The incident served as a graphic reminder of the situation on the ground and was recently taken up by FIFA vice-president Prince Ali bin al-Hussein during a briefing with reporters.
"I am not promoting or defending any side [but] I am in a very difficult situation where I have to take two boys from Palestine at my own expense, for treatment in Jordan," said Prince Ali, head of the Jordanian FA.
"These are the two who were shot in the legs and set upon by dogs. Why is this happening? Under FIFA statutes, you cannot say one country can do one thing and another country can do something else. All we are asking is to allow our young boys and young girls to play the sport."
Ha'aretz's text is virtually identical to Warshaw's aside from minor changes like substituting "soccer" for "football," placing paragraph breaks in slightly different places, updating dates, and the like. Again, we urge Ha'aretz to publish a clarification making clear that the Israeli border police have said that the two players were about to plant a bomb when they were fired. (Additional background information on this case, including Jawhar Nasser's affiliation with the DFLP, supports the Israeli spokesman's account.) Thank you in advance for your follow up on these points.
As soon as Haaretz editors received this letter, they immediately deleted the article. So Dave Zirin is left with nothing but a report written by a British sports reporter whose knowledge of the Middle East is minimal, who unquestioningly trusts one side of the story without researching the other side, and whose "reporting" is contradicted by Haaretz itself. This is besides the many facts that were published here that shredded the report and that no one has yet found a single problem with, Guess what, Dave? The Palestinian Arab reports of the incidents really were mendacious lies. And over the years I have documented scores of similar, verified cases where the Palestinian media exaggerated or falsified facts, and even where "eyewitnesses" make things up. It happens all the time. Zirin's righteous indignation that people didn't believe his first report is hypocritical, because now that every shred of his reporting has been shown to be false he does not have the intellectual honesty to admit his role in the libel. Worse still, he added to it with an entire encyclopedia of slander in his second article. The question remains - will The Nation act appropriately?  |
| 04/09 Links Pt2: Dershowitz SLAMS J Street; Brandeis RESCINDS Hon.Degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali Posted: 09 Apr 2014 03:00 PM PDT From Ian:
Dershowitz SLAMS J StreetIn a recently published video, Alan Dershowitz explains the issues he sees with J Street. The clip was recorded at the world premiere of the new film, The J Street Challenge.
Some highlights:
-In reference to Iran: "J Street is weakening both the United States' and Israel's position."
-"J Street cannot call itself a pro-Israel group when it takes positions that do not reflect any few of Israeli leaders."
-"J Street speaks out of both sides of it's mouth"
-"I analogize (J Street) to Jews for Jesus. They (Jews for Jesus) fool students, into thinking it is a Jewish organization and J Street fools students into thinking it is a pro-Israel organization." HuffPo (CA) Jewish and Arab Refugees Must be ComparedA few weeks ago the Al-Jazeera Arabic channel carried a report on starving Palestinian refugees in a Syrian camp. In a sequence that must have slipped the editor's notice, an elderly man moaned in desperation to the camera: "Take us to the Jews. They will feed us!"
In that unguarded moment, two things were revealed: first -- Palestinian refugees are being deprived of a humanitarian solution to their plight. Second -- Arabs know full well that Israelis look after their own -- and not only their own -- but try and help others.
Nowhere is the contrast more stark than in the treatment of the two sets of refugees which arose out of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. A fair proportion of the 711,000 Arab refugees were left to languish -- and now starve -- in refugee camps as a longstanding reproach to Israel. Some 850,000 Jewish refugees were ultimately absorbed and given full citizens' rights in Israel and the West. (h/t Yerushalimey) American Muslims for Palestine's Telling Choice of HeroesIn the American civil rights movement, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King were among those who set the moral tone. They were champions of non-violence who believed in civil disobedience to generate change by casting light on unjust laws.
If Saturday's fundraising dinner for the group American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) is any indication, role models for their cause include an unrepentant killer, a woman directly responsible for two people's deaths in a grocery store bombing. Prosecutors say she is in America only because she kept that crime a secret from immigration officials.
In addition to its praise for Rasmieh Odeh, the dinner at a banquet hall outside of Chicago offered further insight into AMP's radical ideology. Other speakers included a man identified as a Muslim Brotherhood leader in Jordan who previously led a Hamas-propaganda arm in America and a man listed as a member of the Palestine Committee, the Muslim Brotherhood's umbrella organization of American-based Hamas-support groups. Brandeis RESCINDS Honorary Degree to Ayaan Hirsi AliAccording to an official statement from Brandeis University, the university has elected to withdraw a planned honorary degree for human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali:
"Following a discussion today between President Frederick Lawrence and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ms. Hirsi Ali's name has been withdrawn as an honorary degree recipient at this year's commencement. She is a compelling public figure and advocate for women's rights, and we respect and appreciate her work to protect and defend the rights of women and girls throughout the world. That said, we cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University's core values. For all concerned, we regret that we were not aware of these statements earlier." (h/t MtTB) Brandeis Students Petition Against Human Rights Activist Ayaan Hirsi AliPrevious recipients of Brandeis honorary degrees include:
Tony Kushner ("I can unambivalently say that I think that it's a terrible historical problem that modern Israel came into existence.")
Bernard Lewis ("Classical anti-Semitism is an essential part of Arab intellectual life at the present time-almost as much as happened in Nazi Germany.")
Adrienne Rich (From 2009: "With initial hesitation but finally strong conviction, I endorsed the Call for a U.S. Cultural and Academic Boycott of Israel.")
Desmond M. Tutu (Via Ynet: "Tutu has demonized the "Jewish lobby" as too "powerful" and "scary," resorting to a vile myth rooted in anti-Jewish stereotype, whereby the Jews control Washington. According to Tutu's horrific and false accusation against the Jewish people, Israel is a sadistically colonialist entity, a blind persecutor of children, and a mad builder of apartheid walls.") Brandeis MSA Speaks Out Against Hirsi AliLeaders of the Brandeis University Muslim Student Association penned an Op-Ed in The Justice to describe their issues with the university's decision to give human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali an honorary degree: Bill Maher: The confident blasphemistIsrael may be the one principle that stirs Maher's Jewish soul — that is, if he believed in souls — as his defense of it has the tremor of passion that stems from the gut.
"Israel is held to a standard that no one else in the world is asked to hold," Maher said on this March day, picking up where he'd left off. Now ready to rabble-rouse, he took aim at the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. "You know, the idea that they would cast Israel in the role of the oppressor?" Maher said with his signature incredulity. Then added, "Of course, some Israeli policies are oppressive. But where is that coming from? That's coming from the fact that people are lobbing rockets into their territory. I mean, what would America do if somebody was lobbing rockets from Toronto? We'd f------ nuke 'em. We're ready to nuke Crimea, and we don't even give a s--- about it! People don't even know where it is! It's insane." (h/t Predictor92) A Paid Operative Behind Campus DivestmentOn Tuesday, April 1st, Students for Justice in Palestine presented the Loyola student government with an anti-Israel divestment resolution. But what they neglected to mention was that they didn't write the legislation themselves. It turned out that the real author was Dalit Baum, a major leader in the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. Baum is not a student or faculty member of Loyola or any North American university. She is a paid operative working to co-opt student governments into following the BDS Movement's malicious, anti-Israel agenda. And if she is writing resolutions for one school, it is likely that she is writing them for others as well.
Many in the pro-Israel community suspected that professional BDS activists were behind anti-Israel campaigns on college campuses. Divestment initiatives are often orchestrated at a level that most students would not be able to achieve on their own. And now we have definitive proof that this is not purely grassroots, student-led activism, but rather an industry in which paid operatives play a crucial role. It should be noted that Dalit Baum, the operative in question, actively promotes the "right of return," which, in the words of President Barack Obama, would, "extinguish Israel as a Jewish state". This is something that all campus organizations absolutely must be made aware of before they make a decision on whether or not to support anti-Israel divestment campaigns. ALERT: Sneak Passover Anti-Israel Divestment attack at CornellIn a move reminiscent of the exploitation of the Yom Kippur Jewish holiday in 1973 to launch an attack on Israel, Cornell Students for Justice in Palestine has launched a last minute, sneak Divestment Resolution which is to come up for initial discussion on less than 48 hours notice this Thursday afternoon, April 10, at 4:30 p.m.
The notice was just posted on the Cornell Assembly website, although I heard rumors earlier today it might be coming. Maryland budget slams Israel boycotts, offers no penaltiesMaryland lawmakers included language in the new state budget condemning academic boycotts of Israel but scrapped any penalties that were included in a bill under consideration.
Wording in the 2015 fiscal year spending plan, which was adopted Sunday, includes a statement of strong support for Israel along with condemnation of the American Studies Association's boycott of the Jewish state, but no separate law or financial penalties. J Street U Students Support Student in Favor of Divesting From Israel in Bid for Student Government PresidentJ Street U students on the campus of UC Berkeley have begun publicly supporting the campaign for student government president of Naweed Mohabbat, an advocate of divestment from Israel. Hillel Director Attacks StandWithUsFollowing an event featuring the Israel-bashing group, Breaking the Silence, Jacqueline Ulin Levey, executive director of St. Louis Hillel at Washington University, attacked the pro-Israel organization StandWithUs and defended the event in the St. Louis Jewish Light: Dubai Company To Build Ferris Wheel in Jerusalem?A company registered in Dubai and run by a Lebanese businessman is reportedly interested in setting a giant ferris wheel in Jerusalem's Independence Park, as a temporary attraction for Independence Day, celebrated on May 6 this year.
The company, represented in Israel by an Israeli businessman, presented the proposal to the Jerusalem Municipality, in response to a publication by the Municipality calling for companies to propose tourist attractions in the park for a limited time period.
It is noted that the company, located in the Persian Gulf, has experience building large facilities worldwide, with past projects in Hong Kong, Thailand, France, Cyprus and Lebanon. Anti-Israel Agitprop in The AustralianBrowning's opinion piece is certainly not an objective, academic critique of where things have gone wrong. It is, instead, a thinly veiled attack on Israel as evidenced by anti-Israel propaganda and falsehoods. According to Browning:
In 1948, the state of Israel was founded upon the mass displacement of Palestinians, whose homes were either destroyed or taken over by Jewish migrants. Today a minority of Palestinians still live in Israel, subject to a host of restrictions on their employment, housing and education, while the majority live as refugees in the rest of the Middle East. As for the absurd claim that Palestinian citizens of Israel are subject to "a host of restrictions on their employment, housing and education," this is simply a lie. While it would be foolish not to recognize that much can be done to close economic and social gaps between Israeli Arabs and Jews, there are no Israeli state policies restricting the rights of Israeli Arabs to employment, housing and education. The sole legal distinction between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel is that the latter are not required to serve in the Israeli army. In fact, Israeli Arabs enjoy rights and a standard of living far beyond those of their brethren in the Palestinian territories and neighboring Arab states. An Open Letter to the Staff of the Financial TimesYour correspondent David Gardner may live in Beirut, but he dwells in a very different world than mine. In his defamatory article on the Israel-Palestionian peace talks ('US plays the crooked lawyer in an Israeli-Palestinian drama,', April 4), he parades a host of assertions that no sane observer of the situation would accept as factually correct. But he makes things worse by his egregious complaint that Benjamin Netanyahu is blocking the way to peace by refusing to release a fourth batch of Palestinian prisoners currently serving life sentences for committing brutal murders of innocent civilians, namely Jewish men, women, and children. Palestinian Marathon: Media Runs the ErrorsIsrael has most definitely not been kicked out of world soccer's governing body although there are currently calls for Israel's expulsion from international competitions. Most likely this error is simply one that occurred during the editing process.
The claim that two Palestinian footballers were reportedly shot in the feet at an Israeli checkpoint, is, however, utterly false. The lies have been comprehensively debunked on the Elder of Ziyon blog and should no longer be deemed credible by the mainstream media. Russian bill could make Holocaust denial illegalRussian lawmakers approved a bill that would make Holocaust denial illegal.
The lower house of the Russian Parliament, or Duma, passed the measure Friday on its first reading, the Voice of Russia reported Monday, making it illegal to deny the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal and punishing the "rehabilitation of Nazism." Amid protest, building of WWII statue begins in BudapestThe Freedom Square monument, due to be completed in May, will pay tribute to "all Hungarian victims with the erection of the monument commemorating the tragic German occupation and the memorial year to mark the 70th anniversary of the Holocaust," according to the Hungarian Government Information Center.
The Jewish community has argued that the memorial removes any responsibility from the Hungarian government of that time for the death of Hungarian Jews. French National Front mayor evicts Dreyfus-inspired groupSteeve Briois, who was elected last month to run the town of Henin-Beaumont, ordered the Human Rights League, or LDH, to clear out of its workspace last week, LDH President Pierre Tartakowsky told JTA.
The LDH, which was established in 1898 to protest the wrongful and racially motivated conviction for espionage of the French Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus, for years had occupied office space provided free to it and other civil society groups by the municipality, Tartakowsky said. Anne Frank tree to be planted on US Capitol lawnA sapling grown from the tree that Holocaust victim Anne Frank wrote about while in hiding will be planted this month on the US Capitol grounds, congressional leaders announced Tuesday.
"The Anne Frank memorial tree is an offspring of the horse chestnut tree that was featured in Anne's diary writings," House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wrote in a letter to members of Congress. Israeli company develops 'radiation belt' for nuclear emergenciesCalled the "StemRad 360 Gamma" belt, it shields the body from the effects of gamma radiation.
"It may look simplistic on the outside but the structure inside is three dimensional and very unique. The idea here was to create a product that on the one hand protects but on the other hand is not over burdened weight."
Oren Milstein is co-founder of Stemrad, the company behind the belt. He won't give much away about its key technology, but says it's partially comprised of lead and has been designed to protect the pelvic area, where most of the the body's renewable bone marrow is concentrated. Israel's economy will grow 3.5% in 2015, says IMFThe Israeli economy will grow by 3.5 percent in 2015, up from 3.2% in 2014 and 3.4% in 2013, the International Monetary Fund said in its World Economic Outlook mid-year report.
The IMF outlook is more optimistic than that of the Bank of Israel, which is predicting growth of 3% in 2015, or 2.8% without production from the Tamar natural gas reserve. Happy Passover From The Technion  |
| Lebanese playing poker with Israelis "a betrayal of the homeland" Posted: 09 Apr 2014 01:00 PM PDT Last week, in Montenegro, the Lebanese Poker Cup was held. Apparently, Lebanese poker is popular among Israelis, and a contingent of over 100 Israelis participated, along with players from all over the world.  Including, of course, Lebanon. Al Hadath News is very upset at the idea of Lebanese and Israelis competing at the same table. Despite the fact that the hosting country was not Lebanon, the competing with the enemy at the same table is no less than a betrayal of the homeland.... The historic conflict between Israel and Lebanon is a fundamental incentive to deter any contact with the enemy under any circumstances or event. If I didn't know any better, I would think that the Lebanese are against a little more than the "occupation." One could almost think that hating Israel is an obsession. But surely that cannot be true. I mean, wouldn't it be in the newspapers?Anyway, since any contact with the Israeli enemy is anathema, that would mean that anything that Israelis tweet to Al Hadath News cannot be answered....  |
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