From Ian:
A Growing Trend: Brave Muslim Zionists
Muslims and Arabs who openly identify as Zionists are growing in number – powered by the freer flow of information and ideas made possible by social media and the search for answers in the wake of the Arab Spring and Islamist terror.
A new Facebook page for Arab supporters of Israel has attracted about 20,000 visitors. The page, which shares content in English, Arabic, and Hebrew, was founded by a religious Jewish woman and an Arab man. It posts examples of Israel treating Arabs and Muslims with kindness and shares surprising Arab support for Israel from across the Middle East, including Tunisians who created an Israeli flag after being unable to buy one, and who have faced threats for their views.
Muhammad Zoabi entered the spotlight as a proud Arab, Muslim Zionist in the summer of 2014. Just 17 at the time, Zoabi began to advocate for Israel in English, Arabic, and Hebrew. He posted a video demanding that Hamas release three Israeli teens who had been kidnapped a few weeks before Operation Protective Edge. Death threats soon forced Zoabi into hiding, and he found shelter with Kay Wilson, who had survived a brutal 2010 terrorist stabbing attack.
Zoabi became so popular that he reached his maximum friend limit (5,000) on Facebook, where there is even a page calling for him to be prime minister of Israel. Zoabi's Zionism is hardly surprising, given his upbringing. His mother, Sarah Zoabi, revealed her Israeli patriotism on national television. She introduced herself on the popular Israeli show "Master Chef" as an "Arab, Muslim, Israeli, proud Zionist" from the northern city of Nazareth. "I believe in the right of the Jewish people to have their own country, which is the state of Israel, the Holy Land.... I want to say to all the Arabs of Israel to wake up," she continued. "We live in paradise. Compared to other countries, to Arab countries – we live in paradise."
Zoabi's family also includes some fierce Israel haters, like his cousin Haneen Zoabi, who is a member of Israel's parliament but regularly uses her position to defame Israel and side with its enemies.
Douglas Murray: Why the Prevent strategy isn’t the problem
All this is, in any case, woeful buck-passing. If you had to call for anything in the wake of the news from Syria I would think a much better thing to call for would be an investigation into how people who should take some responsibility for the radicalisation of such young people consistently evade any and all such responsibility.
For instance, after the three Bethnal Green schoolgirls went to Syria, the father of one of them – Abase Hussen – was all over the media looking teary, hugging a teddy bear and berating the police for not stopping his daughter from going to Syria. How might she have imbibed her radical ideas, he was asked. ‘Total mystery’ was the gist of his reply each time. Mr Hussen soon appeared in front of Keith Vaz’s media-hungry Home Affairs Select Committee and used the opportunity to blame the police again. Soon the police were hauled before the same committee and given a very tough time of it. Why didn’t they know what Mr Hussen claimed not to know about the girl sleeping in the next door room to him? One might at this stage point out that one of the criticisms of Prevent is ‘spying’ yet each time the authorities miss something they are asked why they don’t spy more than anyone possibly could. But ‘police failure’ is always such an easy thing to grandstand over.
But what was this? A couple of weeks later and a video emerged of sweet old teddy-cuddling Mr Hussen at a demonstration outside the American Embassy in London in 2012. Led by Anjem Choudary and standing alongside one of the killers of Lee Rigby (and this time without his teddy) the video of the demo shows a shrieking Mr Hussen next to a burning American flag while standing behind a banner that reads, ‘The followers of Mohammed will conquer America’.
Anyone wondering how extremist ideas might infiltrate into the mind of a young girl could do with looking into what people like Mr Hussen actually believe, where in the community they get their ideas from and what can be done to stop the spread of the same. It might also ask how people like Mr Hussen are able to so constantly fool decent liberal-minded societies into believing that everything to do with radical Islam is the fault of our liberal societies rather than the fault of the people whole espouse and believe radical Islamic teachings. But as I say, too few people want to do that. Instead the Muslim community and almost every elected and unelected representative uses every opportunity to attack Prevent and slip any and all personal or communal responsibility for a problem they more than anyone know is there.
Freelance jihad
If we reject the term "lone wolves," some asked, what shall we call them? In a succinct message, Daniel Pipes offered a wonderful replacement: "freelancers."
Likewise, the Palestinian jihad against Israel was once dominated by organizations like the PLO, PIJ, Hamas, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and others. During the deadliest period of the "second intifada," the proliferation of organizations meant that recruiters, handlers and dispatchers were ubiquitous, and freelancers were rare. And while those organizations show no signs of going away, the current so-called "Knife Intifada" has brought about a tactical shift. Kitchen knives and even screwdrivers are the tools of freelance jihad in Israel. When these are unavailable, an opportunistic freelancer can always deploy cars, trucks even bulldozers as weapons
In the late 20th century, jihad terrorism was conducted primarily by organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah and al Qaeda. The attacks were meticulously planned over the course of months and even years. In the 21st century, it is beginning to look like jihad terrorism might become dominated by freelancers whose attacks may be near-spontaneous strikes requiring little planning.
The term "freelancer" captures precisely the entrepreneurial spirit of today's jihadist who works without ties to an organizational hierarchy but follows the same pattern concerning targets, tactics and goals. Economically, freelancers represent the cheapest form of jihad. Operationally, they are less likely than "members" to attract the attention of law enforcement officials. "Training" can be conducted online.
Even if they have "no direct links" to an organization's leadership and have never set foot in Syria or Iraq, American and European Muslims who conduct attacks in the name of the Islamic State or al Qaeda, or "in defense of Muslims," are just as much a part of the movement as anyone fighting in Aleppo or Sana'a.
They are not lone wolves and their motives are not unknowable. They are freelancers in the global jihad.
Why Google Shouldn’t Say Palestine
It surely ranks as one of the most absurd and yet insightful Internet petition disputes. Supporters of the Palestinians have been raging at Google recently because they felt the Internet giant had slighted their cause. An urban myth of recent vintage claimed that Google had removed the legend “Palestine” from its maps. But the problem was that, although a glitch had taken the labels off what some call the territory of “Palestine,” the words that were temporarily erased were “West Bank” and “Gaza”–not the name of a nation that formally exists only at the United Nations and in the Olympics but not in the real world.
As the New York Times reported on Thursday, that isn’t satisfying the people that call themselves Palestinians since they think their territorial demands should be treated as legal facts. Nor has it influenced the anti-Zionist Jewish Voices for Peace whose staff joined the protest and created, as the Times noted, a fraudulent GIF that showed “Palestine” being taken off the map. The petition that still sits at change.org falsely alleges that Google removed “Palestine” from the map at the behest of the Israeli government and even goes so far as to additionally claim that the “two Jewish founders” of the company had acquiesced to this mythical request because of their Zionist leanings.
While the whole conspiracy theory underlying this controversy is fraudulent the question of what to call “Palestine” is not without some interest for both students of history and the Middle East peace process.
Maps that note the boundaries between nations are or at least ought to be a function of legally recognized borders. It’s worth recalling that such an independent Arab state in this area would be the first in history. The Romans coined the name “Palestine” after the Philistines (who were not Arabs) in their effort to strip the territory then known as Judea of its Jewish identity after they crushed rebellions and killed or evicted most of the population. The next political entity called by that name was the British Mandate for Palestine that ruled over what are now Israel, the West Bank and Gaza from 1922 to 1948. The League of Nations granted the British rule over the country as part of a charter in which they were tasked with facilitating the growth of a Jewish national home there.
PM hails snubbed, bronze-winning judoka for showing ‘beautiful, strong face of Israel’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Israeli judoka Or Sasson on Saturday for winning an Olympic bronze medal in Rio on Friday, telling Sasson he is “the true face of Israel.”
In a call aired live on Channel 2 Saturday night, the prime minister told Sasson that “every boy and girl saw not just a great athlete but also a man of values,” an apparent reference to Sasson’s professionalism in the face of an unpleasant encounter Friday with his defeated Egyptian opponent, Islam El-Shahaby in the first round of the tournament. “You showed the true face of Israel, the beautiful, proud face of a strong country that seeks peace.”
El-Shahaby refused to shake hands with Sasson, or even bow in mutual respect. The Egyptian was ordered back to the floor to bow, was booed by the crowd, and later said he was quitting judo. The incident made international headlines.
Netanyahu told Sasson and Channel 2 that the encounter demonstrated how “alongside the development of ties with regional countries, there remains a lot of work to be done in the face of the awful propaganda [in the Arab world] that has been used against us for decades. This work will happen, God willing.”
IOC to probe Egyptian judoka’s refusal to shake Israeli’s hand
A spokesman for the International Olympic Committee said Friday that the IOC would look into the refusal by Egyptian judoka Islam El Shehaby to shake the hand of his victorious Israeli opponent Or Sasson after their first round match in the men’s over-100kg competition at the Rio Games on Friday.
Sasson went on to win the bronze medal in his event. El Shehaby, who was booed by the crowd when ordered back to the arena to at least bow to his opponent, said later he was quitting judo.
“Things happen in the heat of the moment that are not acceptable,” said Mark Adams, although he clarified that he hadn’t heard all the details of the incident.
“We believe the Olympic movement should be about building bridges, not erecting walls. There’s absolutely no excuse for it.”
He acknowledged that sometimes athletes can’t bring themselves to shake hands with their competitors.
“It’s a shame if that happens,” Adams said.
'Can't ask me to shake the hand of someone from this State,' says Egyptian judoka
The Egyptian Olympic Committee on Saturday said it will open an investigation into Egyptian Judoka Islam el-Shehaby after he failed to shake the hand of Israeli opponent Or Sasson following his loss on Friday.
The Egyptian Olympic Committee said it has summoned el-Shehaby to a hearing on the matter in order to listen to his version of events. The committee added that it will release its decision in the next 48 hours.
Before speaking to the committee, however, el-Shehaby said he respects the rules of the sport and had no obligation to shake hands with his opponent.
"Shaking the hand of your opponent is not an obligation written in the judo rules. It happens between friends and he's not my friend," L'Esprit du Judo quoted El Shehaby as saying.
"I have no problem with Jewish people or any other religion or different beliefs. But for personal reasons, you can't ask me to shake the hand of anyone from this State, especially in front of the whole world," he said.
Networks Omit Anti-Israel Bullying by Muslim Nations at Rio Olympics
Where is the diversity-and-inclusion crowd from NBC? If a country blocked a set of LGBT athletes from boarding a bus, they would have had a fit. But bullying Israel is apparently acceptable. The Times of Israel added that in judo, a Saudi competitor forfeited before having to face an Israeli.
A search for “Israel” in the last week of network transcripts showed ABC had an unrelated mention of an Israeli last Friday morning, and Democrat vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine mentioned Israel on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.
Israel mostly came up in a critique of Donald Trump. First on MSNBC, it came up on Tuesday night on Hardball, when liberal Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy insisted Trump was encouraging assassination like the shooting of Yitzhak Rabin.
On Wednesday night’s Hardball, host Chris Matthews picked up that line: “The New York Times lead editorial today called on Republicans to repudiate their nominee. The Washington Post editorial said Trump`s comments belongs on a list of "disqualifiers." That was their word. And New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman likened it to the right-wing rhetoric in Israel that led up to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.”
In the next hour, MSNBC All In host Chris Hayes repeated the smear: “In his column today, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman compares Trump`s Second Amendment comments to the volatile political rhetoric in Israel, leading up to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.”
AFP Headlines Conceal Egyptian, Lebanese Bad Sportsmanship at Olympics
And today, after an Egyptian judoka refused to shake the outstretched hand of his victorious Israeli challenger, earning boos from the audience, AFP again fell short. Its headline:
“Egyptian judoka jeered after Israeli handshake snub.”
The headline is perhaps less awful than the earlier one. But the language is still unnecessarily vague, and inexplicably so coming from a major professional media organization. To describe the incident as involving an “Israeli … snub” suggests it was the Israeli who snubbed his opponent, and not the opposite. And if it was an Israeli snub, was it also an Israeli jeer?
Perhaps some readers encountering the news for the first time might will be able to extrapolate from the AFP headline what actually happened. Others certainly won’t.
US will not 'foreclose' UN options on two-state solution, Power says
The Obama administration has not yet decided whether to endorse efforts at the United Nations Security Council addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the end of the president's term, Washington's envoy to the UN, Samantha Power, told a group of Jewish leaders on Thursday.
The Manhattan meeting, which included Power and over 40 representatives from the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, featured a lengthy conversation on the prospect of UN action– of great concern to the Jewish American establishment, to the Israeli government and apparently opposed by the president's choice for successor, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has characterized such moves in the past as "counterproductive."
Attendees of the meeting who spoke afterwards with The Jerusalem Post left with the impression that Power doubts action will be taken. But US officials say that no final decision has been made as to how the US will proceed.
"When asked about whether the Obama administration was planning an initiative related to Middle East peace, Ambassador Power stated that she could not foreclose any options, because ultimately, such a decision will be made by the president," a US official told The Post on Friday night, confirming the conversation. "When asked about a potential UN Security Council resolution, she answered that she would not speculate on a hypothetical resolution and clarified that no such resolution is on the table today."
Some in Saudi media criticize anti-Semitism, warm up to Israel
A media campaign in Saudi Arabia is seeking to combat anti-Semitism in the kingdom, apparently in an effort to prepare public opinion for deepened relations with decades-old enemy Israel.
Ehud Yaari, a senior analyst on Israel’s Channel 2 TV, on Friday read out examples of key sentences in recent articles by Saudi columnists and reporters demonstrating a shift in attitude towards the Jewish state and Jews in general.
Saham al-Kahtani, a famous Saudi columnist, recently wrote that describing Jews as the sons of apes and pigs, and other derogatory descriptions of Jews from the Quran, relates to the period in which Islam’s holiest book was written, and should not be seen to refer to all Jews today, the Israeli TV report said.
This interpretation of the Quran is not in line with previous interpretations, which take the phrase comparing Jews to animals quite literally.
Similarly, Yasser Hijazi, columnist in the influential paper Riyadh (published in the country’s capital), said that Arabs must “leave behind their hostility and hatred of Jews,” according to a translation of his comments published by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
Hassan Nasrallah: 'There is no location in Israel outside of our cross-hairs'
The Hezbollah leader also thanked Syria and Iran for their assistance in the war ten-years-ago, and noted that his terror organization "is spearheading the fight" against Israel.
"Israel knows that there is no location in the country that is not in Hezbollah's cross-hairs," Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech Saturday evening.
He added that there is "no region of Israel outside of Hezbollah's missile reach."
At a ceremony, marking the tenth anniversary of the Second Lebanon War, Nasrallah stated that "Israel believes everything the resistance says."
"Israeli authorities didn't declare any goals in the Gaza Strip for fear they wouldn't achieve them."
Nasrallah spoke via video to his supporters in Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon and said that victory in the war was the organization's most important achievement.
Hillary Clinton Has Not Done One Thing for Israel
Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans have been using false Hitler analogies to frighten Jewish voters away from Donald Trump, after several successive presidential elections in which more Jews have been voting for the GOP.
However, aside from attacking Trump’s comment in February that he would be “neutral” in negotiations (though not in general) between Israelis and Palestinians, Democrats struggle to name a single thing Hillary Clinton has done for Israel in decades of political life.
It is easy to find several anti-Israel things Clinton has done. These include: supporting the Iran deal, which places Israel in grave danger as Iran slowly expands its nuclear program and continues supporting terrorists; tattacking on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for approving apartments in a Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem; comparing Israel to Iran and the Jim Crow South; and kissing Yasser Arafat’s wife, Suha (above), after she falsely accused Israel of using poison gas against Palestinians. While at the State Department, Clinton also surrounded herself with anti-Israel advisers and distributed anti-Israel articles. And he running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), not only backed the Iran deal, but actually boycotted Netanyahu’s speech to Congress last year.
But naming anything Clinton has done for Israel — whether as First Lady, U.S. Senator from New York, or Secretary of State — is much more difficult. A Hillary Clinton rapid response website called “Correct the Record” attempts to compile a list, but two of its examples are demonstrably false, and the rest are all things Clinton said, but that were contradicted by her actions.
‘Termites’ congressman toured West Bank with pro-Palestinian group
The Atlanta Journal Constitution on Wednesday reported that Johnson took part in May of a tour of the West Bank and Jerusalem hosted by Miftah, which supports “an independent, democratic and sovereign Palestinian state.”
The trip, which included Johnson’s wife, DeKalb County commissioner Mereda Davis Johnson, and several other congressional Democrats, was also underwritten by the American Global Institute, which promotes overseas travel for lawmakers.
Such trips are commonplace; the Journal Constitution report came as part of the newspaper’s investigation into the travel of the state’s congressional delegation. Three US House Republicans from the state, Buddy Carter, Barry Loudermilk and Rick Allen, toured Israel and the West Bank a year ago on the biennial trip hosted by the American Israel Educational Foundation, an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Johnson, addressing pro-Palestinian groups on the sidelines of last month’s Democratic National Convention, had said settlements were “almost like termites [that] can get into a residence and eat before you know that you’ve been eaten up and you fall in on yourself.”
A European’s Take on Israel, BDS and Western Politics
As a European spending the summer in the United States, I am often asked about the upcoming presidential election. The peculiarity I’ve noticed seems to be the rapid dissolution of the distinction between “liberal” and “conservative.”
There is no other issue that resists the liberal/conservative paradigm more than Israel — especially since ‘”Palestine” has become the latest rallying cry for so-called progressive forces who want to boycott the Jewish state.
And yet, which other country upholds progressive values more than Israel? Israel — in its protection of minority, LGBTQ and women’s rights, and as a safe haven for any Jewish soul in the world — acts as a vanguard of liberal Western values in a sea of despair. So where exactly do fascist tendencies rear their heads today? We need look no further than the insidious forms of fascism represented by the “liberals” of the BDS movement.
It’s sad to see this generation of young, self-proclaimed liberals support a movement that happily allies itself with those who call for Israel’s destruction. As the BDS movement slanders Israel and Jews with impunity, its Western proponents support a Palestinian state that would oppress women, gays, Jews and all other ethnic and religious minorities. It would also be a state that sponsored and condoned terrorism.
It is a shame that some of the greatest minds of this generation are being squandered down the ethical cul-de-sac of BDS and anti-Zionism. In the face of this threat, we must engage in meaningful, mutually productive dialogue, conducted in a calm and measured way, in order to show our opponents the errors of their ways.
Second Annual Students Supporting Israel National Conference
The second Annual Students Supporting Israel National Conference will take place in Minneapolis from August 13th to the 15th, with over 50 students from all over the United States in attendance. SSI is looking forward to this exciting event as this conference is the product of the hard of work and determination to bring the vision of a united, pro-Israel student movement to life.
Despite the increased awareness of the pro-Israel community in the last couple of years of the antisemitism and anti-Israel feelings on college campuses, the problem has only gotten worse. According to the AMCHA Initiative report on Antisemitic Activity in 2015 at U.S. Colleges and Universities with the Largest Jewish Undergraduate Populations, there is a strong correlation between anti-Zionist groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and antisemitism. In addition, the report found that BDS is strongly correlated with antisemitic activity, the presence of SJP, faculty boycotters and BDS are strong predictors of antisemitism, and anti-Zionism permeates and is inseparable from contemporary campus antisemitism.
Facing false and misleading messages by SJP members and BDS efforts on our campus, Students Supporting Israel decided that the pro-Israel community can no longer watch from the side or take a defensive approach, but the time has come to be on the offense. This means taking back our campuses on the grassroots level, because this is where the opinions of the future generations are being shaped and where SJP and BDS spreads their message.
Amid BDS Activism, Divestment Falters on College Campuses (Part 2)
As I have repeatedly argued, the real anti-Israel menace on campus comes from faculty. On that front, the news is not as sanguine.
On the positive side, the fear that after the adoption of boycott resolutions by three minor associations in prior years would lead more significant professional academic associations to follow their example has not come to pass.
One reason may be the backlash that followed the decision by the American Studies Association to support a boycott. Yair Rosenberg noted in Tablet that the ASA “lost nearly 20% of its affiliated universities in the wake of their boycott, and were condemned by the American Association of University Professors, and by 250 schools, including most of the Ivy League.”
Undaunted, in December 2015, the National Women’s Studies Association adopted a resolution calling for the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” of economic, military and cultural entities and projects sponsored by the state of Israel. Only about one-third of the membership voted and the result was expected, given that the association sponsored sessions at its conference that only presented the pro-BDS point of view.
Far more important was the decisive rejection of the boycott by the American Historical Association. Had this prestigious group of scholars fallen for the BDS narrative, the faculty situation would be even more grave.
Israel's Globes Covers Haaretz's Translation Problems
On July 14, 2016, Globes, Israel's leading business paper, ran an in-depth feature on "Haaretz, Lost in Translation," a phenomenon that CAMERA has been documenting, exposing and correcting since 2011, in which the English versions of articles which originally appeared in the Hebrew edition of the Israeli daily downplay, minimize or entirely omit Palestinian or Arab violence or other wrongdoing. At the same time, the English edition at times introduces false information about Israel which did not appear in the Hebrew original. The Globes article, by Yonatan Kitain, extensively quotes Hanan Amiur, editor-in-chief of Presspectiva, CAMERA's Hebrew department. Presspectiva has successfully placed Haaretz's skewed translations on the Israeli public agenda. CAMERA's translation of Kitain's Globes article follows.
Errors in Translation or Biased Editing? Haaretz in English Sounds Far Worse
Disparities between Haaretz's Hebrew and English editions prompt criticism of the extreme left bias that repeatedly appears in the English edition? And how does Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken respond?
LA Times Errs on Western Wall, Still Silent on Stolen Aid
Even as it continues to churn out coverage on Israel and the Palestinians, including an article today on opposition to women leading prayer at the Western Wall, The Los Angeles Times still ignores Hamas' diversion of tens of millions of dollars donated from multiple international aid organizations, a huge story with profound implications for humanitarian aid in Gaza and other areas of conflict.
Meanwhile, today's story on the Western Wall, by Joshua Mitnick, errs: "The wall, with its giant stone blocks, is the last remnant of the Jewish Temple complex built two millenniums ago. . . "
In fact, It is not the last remnant of the Temple complex. There are numerous extant remnants. The southern, eastern and northern retaining walls are also still extant. Surviving features abutting the southern walls include a broad stairway leading up to the Temple Mount's entrance and two gates, known as the Huldah Gates, which provided access to the Temple Mount (Hershel Shanks, Jerusalem: An Archaeological Biography, p. 143). Some of the interior part of the Herodian Double Gate (which is one of the Huldah Gates) is also still intact. There are also surviving underground remnants of the Temple complex, including the area known as Solomon's Stables. In addition, an area called "Robinson's Arch," in the south-western corner of the Temple complex, still remains. In his book, Shanks provides details concerning numerous other remnants.
On Sept. 24, 2004, The Los Angeles Times corrected the very same error:
Washington Times Headline Mistakes Hamas Cause for Israeli Effect
The Washington Times' headline “Israel's arrest of Christian aid director imperils Palestinian charity missions” (Aug. 8, 2016) misleads readers as to who was responsible for the closing of the Gaza offices of non-profit organization World Vision, which Israeli authorities say was infiltrated by Hamas. The article itself, by special correspondents Asma Jawabreh and Jacob Wirtshafter, while offering some valuable information, omitted important context on Hamas and threats facing Israel.
On Aug. 4, 2016, Israel charged the Palestinian Arab manager of the Gaza branch of World Vision, a Christian aid organization, with embezzling charity money on behalf of Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip (“Israel says Gaza World Vision director diverted millions to Hamas's military wing,” The Washington Post, Aug. 5, 2016). World Vision's Gaza branch has since been closed pending an investigation.
As The Washington Times article noted, the World Vision employee who was arrested, Mohammed El Halabi, is alleged to have funneled as much as 60 percent of World Vision's Gaza branch funds to Hamas. However, the Times' headline—instead of accurately reflecting the information in the article—implied that Israel, and not Halabi, Hamas or even World Vision, is responsible for imperiling “Palestinian charity missions.”
Yet, a backwards headline is not the only problem with The Times dispatch on Halabi's arrest.
France investigates death threats against Charlie Hebdo
The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into death threats against the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which was the target of a sophisticated terror attack in 2015.
Office spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre said Wednesday that the investigation for “written death threats” follows about a dozen postings in July and August on the paper’s Facebook page, which carried a cover cartoon mocking Muslims at the beach.
The investigation came after the newspaper filed a police complaint on Thursday, a shareholder said.
Eric Portheault told AFP the threats began in mid-July but mounted on Tuesday after the magazine released its latest edition. The threats “do not stop,” Portheault said.
Charlie Hebdo posted its latest cover on its Facebook page on Tuesday, of a bearded man and a veiled woman running naked on the beach, with the message “Musulmans… Dé-coin-cez-vous !” which loosely translates to “Muslims, free yourselves!”
“We cannot let threats, insults, racist statements come to pass. It’s unacceptable. Especially death threats. On August 10, we were told [there would be]’an attack in 20 days,'” Portheault said.
BBC does a makeover on Sinai ISIS group’s language yet again
At the end of the report readers are told that:
“On Wednesday, a video said to be from the IS Sinai affiliate issued a rare direct threat to Israel, saying it would soon “pay a high price”.”
As the Jerusalem Post reports, the video in fact included threats against Jews.
“”This is only the beginning, and our meeting [will be] in Rome and Beit Al-Maqdis [Jerusalem],” the video’s narrator was quoted as saying, according to a translation by the Middle East Research Institute (MEMRI).
“Oh Jews, wait for us. The punishment [we have prepared for you] is severe and soon you will pay a high price,” threatens the narrator.”
Ha’aretz adds: “”Jews will not remain in Palestine, we will turn it into a graveyard for Jews,” Israeli media quoted the video as saying. […]
The video refers to Israel as “El Yahud” or the Jews, rather than Israel.”
As readers may recall, this is not the first time that the BBC has done a makeover on the Sinai-based ISIS affiliate’s language.
Send us examples of bad headlines on Israel in the British media
Headlines have enormous power in shaping news consumers’ immediate impressions of an event.
While purusing a print or online newspaper, or browsing news site Twitter feeds, the headline chosen by editors not only sets the tone for how the article is framed, but often represents the primary source of information on a given issue for those who either quickly skim the article, or don’t read it at all.
This is why we focus so heavily on revealing and attempting to correct factually inaccurate or misleading headlines about Israel. Though errors in the body of the article (and misleading photos) are of course extremely important, headlines sometimes reveal even more concerning efforts to distort stories relating to Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
CAMERA’s article on problematic headlines on the recent terror wave (Wave of Palestinian Violence Accompanied by Spate of Bad Writing) explained that the worst offenders “relied on the passive voice, euphemism, and imprecision — reportorial smoke and mirrors — to obscure Palestinian terror attacks and even recast terrorists as victims of arbitrary Israeli violence”.
This published last October in the The Independent, reporting on a stabbing attack on two elderly Jewish men in Jerusalem (after which the 16-year-old Palestinian perpetrator was killed by police), is among the most egregiously biased headlines we’ve seen.
BBC Earth article contravenes style guide with inaccurate terminology
Nevertheless, readers of a BBC Earth article titled “Earth’s saltiest place makes the Dead Sea look like tapwater” by Ella Davies which was promoted on the BBC News website’s Middle East page on August 10th were told that the Dead Sea lies on the border of a country called Palestine.
The region portrayed by Davies as ‘the border of Palestine’ is in fact defined as Area C by the Oslo Accords and its final status is subject to negotiation between Israel and the PLO. Clearly a correction to that inaccurate terminology is necessary in order to prevent audiences from being misled.
Dismay, poetry as home of Jew who helped found modern Iraq is destroyed
The 100-year-old home of Iraq’s first finance minister, Sir Sassoon Eskell, has been bulldozed, even though it was earmarked for preservation as a historical monument.
The 19th-century villa of the respected Jewish minister was destroyed so that the site could be handed over to a developer, under the authority of the Baghdad municipality.
An official in Iraq’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities slammed the move as a “violation” of the law, and several Iraqi intellectuals decried the demolition of the historical building as indicative of corruption under Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
Eskell, who was born into an aristocratic Baghdadi Jewish family in 1860, was instrumental in founding the Iraqi government’s laws and financial infrastructure.
Eskell, who died in 1932, is held by many in the country in high esteem as a patriot and an accomplished civil servant.
Israel seeks to foster women entrepreneurs in India
Today, around a million women work in India’s Information Technology (IT) sector, with their strength expected to double in next couple of years. Engineering and technology sectors, previously regarded as male bastions, too have undergone change with 20-30 percent of engineering graduate now being women — a rise from 2-8 percent back in the 80s. Despite such promising trends, women are still underrepresented among start up founders, tech entrepreneurs and corporate leaders in India. In IT sector alone, where women now make up 45 percent of all the new intakes, only 20 percent of the managerial positions are held by women.
With series of initiatives in recent years, Israel is playing the role of a catalyst in fostering Indian women entrepreneurs and startup founders.
In the run up to the Start Tel Aviv 2016, world’s premier startup event organised each year in Tel Aviv that brings together promising startup founders from all over the world, the Embassy of Israel in India has decided to exclusively promote women entrepreneurs and startup founders this year. Ditza Froim, Head of Public Diplomacy at the Embassy of Israel in New Delhi, emphasised the need to encourage greater participation of women in technology and innovation while talking about this year’s initiative, saying that no country can succeed “unless it incorporates all segments of society, even more so when it comes to building an ecosystem of entrepreneurship and innovation.”
The details of this year’s initiative were announced in a press release issued by the Embassy of Israel in New Delhi:
Reporter SLAMS State Department: 'Am I Not Speaking English?'
Trudeau was then asked by another reporter, who pointed out that Clinton promised not to be involved with the Clinton Foundation as Secretary of State, hence showing the problem with Clinton officials in the State Department being in contact with the Clinton Foundation. Trudeau simply repeated her talking point about department officials being "in touch with a wide variety" of people.
AP reporter Matt Lee pressed Trudeau on whether the State Department had reviewed the specific email raised by Williams. Trudeau yet again went into her "wide variety" talking point, sounding like a broken record. At that point, Lee had had enough.
"I’m sorry, are you — am I not speaking English?" Lee fired back. "Is this — I mean, is it coming across as a foreign — I’m not asking you if — no one is saying it’s not OK or it’s bad for the department to get a broad variety of input from different people. The question is whether or not you have determined that there was nothing improper here."
It's incredibly obvious that the "wide variety" line must have been the spin that Trudeau was told to give on the subject. The fact that the State Department is stonewalling even on this one email suggests that they will delay releasing the rest of Clinton's deleted emails for as long as possible.
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