March 27 Media Critique: "ABC: Giving Airtime to Extremists"

Things must be good for the rabid pro-Israel partisans – they are having a hard time finding “media anti-Israel bias”.

So much so that they have strayed into the dark recesses of my own ABCs (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) radio division, and visited Radio National (for US readers, its Australia’s NPR, but better), selecting the relatively obscure Religion Report as the hapless victim of one its pointless and dishonest ‘Media Critiques’.

Onto the distortions!

The charge of Zionist collaboration with the Nazis is a form of Holocaust revisionism that is barely deserving of a response

That’s as unequivocal a charge as you could ask for. It must be true, mustn’t it?

Here’s what Radio National said,

Which Israeli Prime Minister in his youth was a member of an organisation that offered to collaborate with the Nazis at the height of World War II, because of their shared racial ideology of blood and soil?

Hang on…..where’s “the charge of Zionist collaboration with the Nazis”??

Surprise, surprise, it doesn’t exist. More blatant lies from HonestReporting.

Let’s review the facts for HRs benefit. The former Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir, was a member of Lehi – fact.
Lehi offered their services to the Nazis in the fight against the Allies in WWII – fact.

You could argue about the reasoning for the offer – while Lehi shared some ideological points with the Nazis, they primarily wanted to establish a Jewish state in Palestine and saw Great Britain as the enemy.

So, there was no charge of Nazi collaboration.

Unfortunately, it gets worse.

Next HR attack the guest, Lenni Brenner, on this edition of the Religion Report. Name-calling is a favourite. Brenner is an “extremist”. Why? HR indulge in some classic deceptions to make the point. Firstly,

The neo-Nazi right was delighted with Brenner's book….

They probably also like Readers Digest. Does this make it “extremist'?

And,

Left-wing revisionists such as Brenner do not deny that mass murder took place but seek to blame Zionist Jews for the actions of the Nazis.

Where does this come from?? Just another scurrilous assertion from HR. Brenner makes no suggestion like this in the interview or in his writings . That’s probably why HR sensibly refrain from quoting any of Brenners words to demonstrate their claims – it’s not possible.

HR then talk about “classic Holocuast deniers”, lumping Brenner in as not one of them , but like them, and then have another go at it, throwing the Iranian President in for good measure, just in case anyone hasn’t quite got the point yet,

Abusing the memory of 6 million murdered Jews is a malicious method to attack Israel and has most recently been employed by Iranian President Ahmadinejad. Why has ABC indulged an extremist like Lenni Brenner?

OK, got it, Brenner’s not exactly a Holocaust denier, but……..

I feel like I need a shower after wading through this bit of mud-slinging. HR again display their anti free-expression instincts – how dare the media air views that we disagree with.

HonestReporting - partisan, intolerant, and dishonest.

March 19 MC: "The Palestinian Government: 'All Forms of Resistence' "

This was as surprising as the sun rising in the morning – HonestReportings take on the Palestinian unity government and its' desperate efforts to find “media anti-Israel bias’ in the coverage.

As ever, blatant dishonesty is HRs mainstay in its’ effort to fabricate bias out of media reporting of the conflict. HR is shocked by an appalling “whitewash” of the evil, violent Palestinians,

Some of the international media attempts to whitewash the new Palestinan unity government.

Palestinian PM Haniyeh has stated that the new Palestinian unity government will support "all forms of resistance".

Naturally, despite the use of quotation marks, Haniyah doesn’t say that anywhere I've seen, and they don't provide a link except to his formal statement. Can’t these guys help themselves, or is lying just second nature to them? This is the relevant part of Haniyehs statement,

The government affirms that resistance is a legitimate right of the Palestinian people as granted by the international norms and charters; our Palestinian people have the right to defend themselves in face of any Israeli aggression and believes that halting resistance depends on ending the occupation and achieving freedom, return and independence.

The closest it comes to is this, the unoffical translation of Haniyehs speech,

The government affirms that resistance in all its forms, including popular resistance against the occupation, is a legitimate right of the Palestinian people as granted by the international norms and charters; our Palestinian people have the right to defend themselves in face of any Israeli continuous aggression.

HRs main target is AFP. And, as usual, their criticism of AFP is wrong, regarding the statments of US National Security Advisor, Stephen Hadley.

HR only provide part of Hadleys words quoted by AFP,

"This government needs to renounce terror and violence," Hadley told CNN.

But that wasn’t all Hadley had to say. In the very next sentence, which HR failed to provide for their gullible readers, is this,

"It needs to acknowledge the right of Israel to exist," he said, adding that those conditions so far have not been met.

Ignoring this, HR then screech on cynically about the Quartets demands,

Does the AFP regard a call to renounce terror and violence as "hardline"? What would the AFP consider to be moderation? Why are Hadley's comments, which reflect the position of the Quartet, regarded as such while Haniyeh's do not merit any similar judgment?

Because Hadley’s comments only “reflect the position of the Quartet” after some careful selective quoting of them by HR.

The Quartets demands are not for the recognition of “Israels right to exist” as Hadley demanded, so AFPs comment is quite reasonable.

Utterly, deliberately dishonest and utterly typical of HR.

Four words from an Australian journalist sum up HRs rubbish perfectly,

Rank distortion…..scurrilous assertions

LA TIMES CHANGES HEADLINE

Warning! : HR arse-covering exercise.

The real problem with the previous ‘Media Critique’ was that HR falsely presented the LA Times headline as the words of Saree Makdisi. When the LA Times later changed the headline, it just highlighted HRs dishonesty.

Just desserts. Idiots.

March 12 Media Critique: "LA Times and Israels 'Right to Exist' "

Questioning Israel's very "right to exist" is a well-employed tool of Israel's detractors to call into question the Jewish state's legitimacy as part of an effort to undermine her.

Aaargghhh! So close…they almost got it right. I think this would have hit the nail on the head,

Constructing false accusations of questioning Israel's very "right to exist" is a well-employed tool of Israel's apologists to call into question the critics of the Jewish state's actions as part of an effort to undermine them.

And HR just love doing it.

In February, HonestReporting highlighted an op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor that questioned Israel's right to exist.

This is more of HRs self-referential, blatantly dishonest, 'fact'-creation strategy. See here.

Now, the Los Angeles Times follows suit, giving space to Saree Makdisi to ask, "Why does The Times recognize Israel's 'right to exist' "?

Did he ask this? You might think that given the use of quotation marks ("Why does The Times recognize Israel's 'right to exist'?" “) that this is a direct quote from Madski’s article (seems a reasonable assumption doesn't it?). Alas no, Saree Makdisi did not say that, HR are just being blatantly dishonest, as usual. All perfectly normal at HR – they aren’t to be deterred by mere reality. If Makdisi doesn’t say exactly what suits HR, they just make something up and attribute it to him.

In this latest LA Times piece, Makdisi muddies the issue of "recognition" in legalistic jargon while failing to acknowledge that the issue goes deeper than this in practical terms....

Yes, Makdsi is truly evil, employing logic and relevant legal principles to the question of what is meant by ‘recognising Israel’.

Israel and the Palestinians recognized each other by signing the Oslo Accords and final borders could be negotiated as part of an overall settlement.

Confusion reigns! The evil Palestinians won’t recognise Israel, whines HR….but they did 14 years ago. How did that one slip through? I’m looking forward to the next HR announcement –‘Heads Roll at HR for Telling the Truth’.

This is brilliant stuff from ‘Honest’Reporting - the central premise of this entire “Media Critique” is a lie. I guess they are employed for their ideological obedience, not their intelligence or grasp of basic ethics.

March 10 Media Critique: “Time for a Retraction”

It’s hard to know what exactly should be retracted. HR is typically inaccurate,

In October 2006, notoriously anti-Israel journalist Robert Fisk was given the front page of the UK's Independent to spread the libel that Israel had used uranium-based weapons in southern Lebanon during last summer's war.

And Fisk was typically circumspect, asking questions rather than making unsupported assertions like the one that HR makes – “the libel that Israel had used….. ”. HR would do well to take a lesson in objectivity from Robert Fisk. Here are a few examples,

Did Israel use a secret new uranium-based weapon in southern Lebanon…..?

Fisk details the evidence supporting the charge,

But scientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in Khiam and At-Tiri, the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbollah guerrillas and Israeli troops last July and August, suggests that uranium-based munitions may now also be included in Israel's weapons inventory - and were used against targets in Lebanon. According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures". Both have been forwarded for further examination to the Harwell laboratory in Oxfordshire for mass spectrometry - used by the Ministry of Defence - which has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples.

And gives a chance for those subject to the allegation a chance to respond,

Asked by The Independent if the Israeli army had been using uranium-based munitions in Lebanon this summer, Mark Regev, the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: "Israel does not use any weaponry which is not authorised by international law or international conventions.

Any chance of HR retracting its false allegation against Robert Fisk? A snowflakes chance in hell.



DUGARD'S "APARTHEID" CHARGE DEBUNKED
This must have really hit a nerve. Why else would HR keep telling it’s readers of every ‘debunking’ of John Dugards opinion on Israeli practices in the OTs.

Just to remind you, Dugard might know something about Apartheid as he is a South African. HR link to an Op-Ed piece that tries to ‘debunk’ Dugard,

In his introduction he states: "I shall not consider the violation of human rights caused by Palestinian suicide bombers. Nor shall I consider the violation of human rights caused by the political conflict between Fatah and Hamas."
That sort of bias taints every page of Dugard's report and destroys the credibility of its conclusions...

Yes, someone’s bias is on display, but it’s the Op-Ed writer, who ignores the final sentence of that paragraph where Dugard explains why this is the case.

Such matters are of deep concern to me, but my mandate precludes me from examining them.

Of course you can imagine that a report on South African Apartheid that failed to detail the criminal acts of the ANC or the conflict between the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party would have had it’s credibility destroyed……..or so apologists for South African Apartheid would probably have argued.

You can read the whole of John Dugards detailed report here.

March 1 Media Critique: "Missing the Big Picture"

HonestReporting have come up with some pretty thin pretexts for its’ Media Critiques, and this one is right up there with the thinnest of them.

We highlighted how many media outlets were prepared to take the libels surrounding Israeli excavations at the Mugrabi Gate at face value……..in the meantime, the media has taken its eye off the ball and has still not corrected its coverage.

“Highlighted”? This must be a synonym for 'alleged', as HRs February 11 report could provide not a single example of what it claimed the media was doing wrong.

This is an emerging favourite HR strategy – self-referencing claims. The original report makes allegations with no evidence to back them and a few weeks later a subsequent report references the old report as the source of an established fact.

The media “has still not corrected its coverage”, because there is nothing to correct.

"REUTERS PHOTO CAPTION GAFFE"
This is the gaffe that isn’t.

Several ultra-Orthodox Jews protest against the excavations at Al-Haram al-Sharif and about the Israeli state in general. This is accurately reported by Reuters. What’s the gaffe?? That this fact was reported, apparently. All HR can complain about is a lack of “context”. The context that HR would seem to prefer would be if they were totally ignored. Reuters took a photo and gave it an accurate caption and the Times of London gave the story 2 paragraphs, which is a “full news brief” according to HR. I wonder what their partial news briefs look like?

"WHAT'S NOT BEING REPORTED"
Yes, what??

The mainstream media has reported claims by the Russian Foreign Minister that Hamas has pledged to end missile attacks and violence against Israel. While Hamas supreme leader Khaled Mashaal attempts to project a "moderate" image in order to persuade the Russians to help lift the international boycott of the Palestinian government, the media has virtually ignored the steady stream of Qassams that continues to fall on Israel, launched from the Gaza Strip. This, in addition to other Palestinian terror that includes the murder of Erez Levanon in the West Bank.

HR has a flexible approach to the truth, which allows them to fabricate the assertions above. The article linked to about the visit to Russia is headlined “Russian official: Hamas may halt attacks”. Not much of a “pledge” is it? The article quotes Khaled Meshal which makes the “maybe” quite clear,

First of all, Israel has to end its occupation of Palestinian territory and put an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people.

And the “steady stream” of Qassams amounts to one incident where Islamic Jihad fired 5 Qassams in response to the IDF killing 3 of it’s members in Jenin, with a few other episodes of smaller numbers of Qassams landing inside Israel, with no injuries reported.

Finally the killing of a West Bank settler didn’t get much coverage, but it was reported in The Independent.

By selectively reporting events in Israel, the media contributes to creating a distorted picture of the reality.

HR demonstrates that its extremely selective attention enables it to claim whatever it likes, despite the facts.

It’s still very unclear what parts of the “big picture” are being missed. Maybe that the Israeli Occupation will reach its 40th anniversary this year, or the general humanitarian situation in the OTs, the travel restrictions, or the ongoing human rights abuses.

All very important, and under-reported, parts of the “big picture”, but probably not what HR meant.

Feb 20 Media Critique: "The Economists Politicised City Guide"

HonestReporting is scandalized – the Economist has told the truth. A terrible crime in the eyes of HR.

Specifically, the Economists "Cities Guide" has pointed out a few well known features of life in Israel, namely, the flagrant anti-Arab bigotry, evident from the way security measures target Palestinian-Israelis, to edicts by sections of the Tel Aviv ultra-orthodox community against leasing to Palestinian-Israelis. Hardly ground-breaking issues - that’s been official Israeli policy for ever. But they are stories that have been in the news lately, hence their appearance in the news section ("News this Month") of the "Cities Guide", as even those idiots at HR are forced to admit.

Anyway, HR is upset that such inconvenient facts are brought to public attention and seeks, however ineffectively, to fashion this into its standard whining about ‘bias’. The Economist is “singling out Tel Aviv for negative treatment”, according to HR.

Monthly news on each city includes briefs on generally non-controversial issues of cultural or politically benign events and municipal happenings. That is, until you see February's entry for Tel Aviv.

But the "News this Month" section contains a variety of stories on every city, such as tunneling disasters in Sao Paulo, assassinations in Moscow, government meddling and crime in Hong Kong, protests in Mexico, election results and controversy over public land in Mumbai, and the theft of rocket launchers by a terrorism suspect in Sydney . You know, the kind of stuff that makes the news everywhere.

However, if any of you feel some irrational connection to any of these cities and feel slighted by such factual coverage, I encourage you to write outraged and hysterical letters to the Economist asking it to explain “why it has singled out {insert city name} for negative and politicized reportage in comparison to other featured cities.”

And of course if you go back next month, there’ll be a range of new “News this Month" stories about Tel Aviv, just like there has been in previous months. HR simply chooses this month to attack the Economist, not because it “singles out Tel Aviv”, but because they can use this months stories to whip their gullible readers into a frenzy over the “anti-Israel media bias” that HR fabricates every week.

So it is true that the Economists "Cities Guide" has been ‘politicised’, but its all been by HonestReporting.

Update:

I've had the usual suspect trying to defend HR's pathetic dishonesty by suggesting that the news stories on other cities don't include charges of racism. Of course that isn't true, but the truth isn't something that stops HR or its supporters from making all kinds of convenient allegations.

For example this months "Cities Guide" to LA includes this story,

Behind much street violence in LA lies the thorny issue of racial tension.

And on Paris,

For the past few years Solidarity of the French, a far-right group, has run a soup kitchen offering pork soup to Paris’s homeless. Critics complain that the organisation chose pork as the main ingredient in order to exclude observant Jews and Muslims, whose dietary restrictions preclude eating pig. On its website, the group stated it would only serve full meals to those who first accepted the soup.

Feb 11Media Critique: "Temple Mount Truths"

Here’s an interesting ‘Media Critique’ from HonestReporting.

By now, you know HonestReportings M.O. – link to an article, with an excerpt from it that is either misleading, or just plain wrong. Not this time. Not a single quote or link, except a few articles from the Jerusalem Post and Ha’Aretz which don’t back up HRs claims. Maybe HR are learning that anyone with a scintilla of initiative or independent thought can just read the link and see HR’s dishonesty.

Onto the allegations;

inciteful language and libelous claims have led to violence, aided by a mainstream media only too happy to accept Arab propaganda at face value.

Examples? Zero.

Despite the fact that the Temple Mount is Judaism's holiest site, much of the media has stressed its importance to Muslims (the third holiest behind Mecca and Median) while ignoring or downplaying the very legitimate Jewish religious and historical connection to the site,…..

Examples? Zero.

While the international media has been too intellectually lazy to find out for themselves whether or not the Muslim intimidation and violence has any justification behind it or not…

Oh dear. Would “Muslim intimidation and violence” mean ‘protests’ by any chance? I think basic journalistic standards would dictate having to investigate any issue of “intimidation”, rather than just accepting it as a fact, as HR does.

Why has the media accepted the propaganda and lies disseminated by certain groups with a political axe to grind?

Examples? Zero.

You would think that the usual suspects, those vile anti-Semitic media organizations AKA the BBC and The Guardian, would be able to provide at least one example for HR. I had a quick look at todays efforts by these two bastions of ‘anti-Israel media bias’, (here and here) and couldn’t find a single example of “accept[ing] Arab propaganda” or “libelous claims”.

This is just HR, once again, deliberately conflating reporting with endorsing. An old favourite.

I guess it’s business as usual at HR. Can’t find any ‘anti-Israel media bias’? No problem, just invent some.

Feb 5 Media Critique: "CSM: Beyond Recognition"

Bingo!!

Just yesterday, in conversation with a commenter regarding an article in the Christian Science Monitor, I said “I expect an hysterical and disingenuous HR ‘Media Critique' on it any day now”.

And HR predictably lives down to my dismal expectations of them.

A CSM op-ed whitewashes Hamas and delegitimizes Israel.

How so? (Note: typically, HR gets this wrong. It wasn’t an Op-Ed, ie opinion written by the editorial staff, but a routine opinion piece.)

Questioning Israel's right to exist is one of the most abhorrent means of delegitimizing the Jewish state.

Very impressive. HR manages to be as disingenuous and hysterical as I predicted with their very first sentence!

Disingenuous, as Whitbeck argues, with perfect reason, that the “right to exist” argument is a complete furphy. No state has any such abstract right. And hysterical, as Whitbecks argument isn't that Israel has no "right to exist" but that such a right simply doesn't exist anywhere for any state. It’s a theatre of the absurd with HR.

Whitbeck reveals his unwillingness to recognize Israeli and Jewish rights in any context, regardless of borders.

Does he really?
Now HR just resort to their usual distortion and twisting of the truth to score cheap points and inflame the passions of their unthinking followers. This is what Whitbeck says on the topic,

if this were all that was being demanded [recognition of Israel] of Hamas, it might be possible for the ruling political party to acknowledge, as a fact of life, that a state of Israel exists today within some specified borders. Indeed, Hamas leadership has effectively done so in recent weeks.

Though it is worth noting how HR tries to quietly slip from a discussion about “Israels right to exist” to something entirely different, “Israeli and Jewish rights”. In so doing, HR attempts to mis-represent Whitbecks argument from one regarding a states rights, to one of an individuals rights. Very nasty, and utterly dishonest.

The claim that Israel treats the Palestinians as "subhumans" ignores Israel's compliance with humanitarian law despite the immense security pressures it finds itself under.

Well, there’s an interesting claim. How is Israels compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL)? Let’s allow the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem have a few words on the topic,

......changes in the Open-Fire Regulations led to the killing of hundreds of Palestinians who did not take part in the fighting. These killings violated IHL relating to occupied territory………… Since the beginning of the al-Aqsa intifada, Israel has continuously violated the laws of warfare.

Oh, so Israels compliance is appalling. I guess that means Whitbeck’s point is a very valid one, supporting his overall argument.

The demands of Israel and the Quartet (the US, EU, Russia and the UN), that Hamas recognize Israel, renounce violence and adhere to previously signed agreements, are a logical and necessary precursor to any sort of attempt to make peace. Yet, Whitbeck refers to the demand for Hamas to recognize Israel's "right to exist" as a "roadblock to peace" that, for Hamas, is "unreasonable, immoral, and impossible to meet.

When all else fails, just be deliberately obtuse and then lie. Whitbeck specifically made the distinction between a reasonable “recognition of Israel” and the unreasonable recognition of Israels “right to exist”. HR link this to the Quartet, but the Quartet doesn’t call for the recognition of “Israels right to exist” as HR try to imply. HR is simply, and dishonestly, trying to frame Whitbeck as being opposed to a 2-state solution.


Once again, HR misrepresent and lie to attack those who express views they don’t agree with. As the BBC recently noted, HRs claims are “utterly false and disingenuous”.

Jan 29 Media Critique: "Blog On!- Media Responds to HR Critiques"

HonestReporting get themselves into a state of over-excitement about nothing.

Both Reuters and the BBC have responded to HR's false allegations, Reuters observing the niceties of correspondence, while the BBC simply throws it back at them. This was the BBCs observation on HR's allegations,

utterly wrong and disingenuous

But then you could say that about almost every thing that comes out of HR.

HR’s beef was a BBC report that included a photo of a boy standing near an unexploded shell in the family living room. The reporter actually noted in the report that the boy in the photo was pushed to stand there so the photo could be taken. HR then rant on about “fauxtographry”. But they only know this fact because the BBC explicitly told its readers! Well, what choice do they have – they can’t talk about what an Israeli shell is doing in the boy’s living room.

The lights are on, but no one is home at HonestReporting.

Jan 23 Media Critique: "Heads Roll at Reuters"

Ho hum.

HR is still trying to make waves over the non-issue of Reuters 2007 Calendar. Says HR,

Judging by the volume of e-mail that reached Reuters following our January expose of politicized imagery and captions in its 2007 calendar, the media organization certainly got the message that this pernicious form of bias is simply unacceptable. After we alerted you to Reuters' weak initial response to your complaints, many people attempted further correspondence. Lacking any more credible excuses the Reuters press office went silent.

Maybe they just got tired of a bunch of emails all saying the same inaccurate things.

Not to be deterred, HR suggest that its readers try again,

Can we expect to see Reuters applying its new improved standards in the future and will the organization's calendar be subjected to the same internal investigation? Ask David Schlesinger yourself by posting a comment on the Reuters Editor's Blog.

Again, we can only marvel at the lack of what HR claims is its principle target - “anti-Israel media bias” - in the media world, so much so that HR must settle for criticising corporate calendars.

"AP USES THE 'TERROR' WORD?"

But HR briefly return to an old favourite - the media’s alleged refusal to use HRs favourite term.

Associated Press (and many other media outlets) have an aversion to using the terms "terrorism" or "terrorists" - unless the perpetrator happens to be an Israeli Jew:

In a bizarre twist, the Israeli referred to in the story is a Palestinian convert to Judaism who planned a terrorist attack in cooperation with his Palestinian brother, described by AP as a "militant".

If you are also wondering why AP is happy to label an Israeli Jew (albeit a former Palestinian) as a "terrorist" but not a member of the Islamic Jihad, send your comments to info@ap.org.

HR then link to an AP report. As ever, HR have to distort facts to come up with their allegations. This is what the AP report actually says,

Asaf Ben-David, an Israeli Jew, is facing charges of conspiring to carry out a terror attack with a wanted Palestinian militant — his brother.

So AP simply report that Ben-David has been charged with “conspiring to carry out a terror attack”. That is, they've described the facts of his case. Does AP describe Ben-David as a "terrorist" anywhere in the article? No.

Here’s the AP article, check it yourself and see that HR is, yet again, making things up.

More fabrications and false allegations from HonestReporting.

If you’re ever wondered where HR get their information, this gives a clue – HR released this on Jan 23^rd, and on Jan 22^nd another site had the same AP story making the same basic allegations.

Guess who? Little Green Footballs. The good people at LGF Watch have kindly provided the links to demonstrate the falsity of the general charge that the media never use the terms terror/terrorist/terrorism, except in reference to Israel.

Jan 15 Media Critique: "Iran: Threat to Israel and the World"

Today HonestReporting take whatever tiny shreds of credibility it has retained from posing as an organization campaigning for fairness and accuracy in the media, and flung them so far down the toilet as to be irretrievable.

HR, in its wisdom, has decided to play the role of propaganda organ in the march to war on Iran. It even calls this blatant pile of lies a “Media Critique”. Perhaps they think that audacity can hide their dishonesty.

Bertrand Russell's definition of propaganda is helpful in seeing HR for what it is,

Propaganda may be defined as any attempt by means of persuasion, to enlist human beings in the service of one party to any dispute. It is thus distinguished…from instructions by its motive, which is not the dissemination of knowledge but the generating of some kind of party feeling……it will consist of such information as tends in a given direction, to the exclusion of such information as has a contrary tendency.

So let’s see what specific techniques of propaganda the fanatics at HR adopt in their mission of dishonesty.

The world can longer ignore the threat posed by Iran
Nonetheless, everyone should be aware of the threat and Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons capability.

Unsupported assertion. What factual evidence is there that Iran is trying to develop “nuclear weapons”? None.

IRANIAN POLICY - NO MORE ISRAEL
In 2005, much of the media reported his call for Israel (actually the "Zionist regime" since Iran refuses to use the word "Israel") to be "wiped off the face of the map"”

Juan Cole and others, who actually can read Persian, say that this is an incorrect translation, and that the phrase used by Ahmadinejad actually means this,

The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.

The issue of the correct translation raised a minor controversy, with the consensus coming down on the side of "time" rather than "map", as the correct translation.

At any rate, HR demonstrate their casualness with quotes, as while HR render the phrase as above ("wiped off the face of the map"), the translation they link to actually says this -“wiped off the face of the earth”. Translation from Persian is one thing, but HR can’t even copy from English correctly.

The same linked article throws up other problems for HR’s thesis. Ahmadinejad's speech is also translated as wishing for “the annihilation of the Zionist regime”. But he also quotes Khomeini on the Shah, approvingly, saying “the dear Imam [Ruhollah Khomeini] said this regime [the Shah] must be destroyed”. If HR were to be consistent in its interpretations, they must believe that Ahmadinejad's policy is 'no more Iran'.

I think we can safely assume HR don’t think this.

Finally HR indulge in some selective omission. In communication, as opposed to propaganda, we assume that our interlocutor will tell us all relevant and significant information. Failure to do so is a sure sign of bad faith. So, what important facts do HR leave out in their Ahmadinejad section? HR tells its readers that he is the President of Iran. Knowing that a great many of it’s readers are in the US the term “President” has a very clear meaning – it’s the pinnacle of political power, with the ability to commit the country to war and to control its armed forces. Iran’s President has no such powers. He does not control the Iranian army, the Supreme Leader , Khamenei does. Ahmadinejad could declare war on Israel tomorrow and nothing would happen.

Clearly HR know this, and try to evade the problem with this,

Moreover, he has done so with no significant domestic dissent. When the leader of a sovereign nation makes unequivocal statements without domestic opposition, those statements serve as the basis of national policy.

No they don’t. National policy remains under the control of the Iranian Parliament (Majles), with only the Supreme Leader having supra-parliamentary powers.

IRAN'S POLICY -- DEVELOPMENT OF LONG RANGE MISSILES
Years before the current controversy involving Iran's attempts to develop nuclear power and (according to almost all experts) nuclear weapons, Iran invested heavily in the acquisition of long range missile systems.

Iran’s current missiles are a threat to only its near neighbours. Western Europe and the US are outside their reach. So HR moves onto speculation – if Iran develops longer range missiles and nuclear weapons, then it will be a “threat to…… the world”.
This is called threat inflation.

Here’s the International Institute for Strategic Studies' somewhat less hysterical take on Iran’s weapons programs.

It’ s also worth considering the general military spending issue to get some perspective on Iran. Here are the defence spending figures as a percentage of GDP, for Iran and some of its neighbours.

• Iran 2.7%
• Turkey 3.3%
• Israel 8.2%
• Saudi 8.8%
• UAE 2.8%

(Source IISS, “The Military Balance 2005-2006”)

Iran is one of the lowest per capita spenders in the region. Israel’s spending, in total, is double that of Iran’s. To put that in per capita perspective, Israel spends about 30 times as much as Iran, per person.

More perspective – Iran hasn’t initiated any wars against any of it’ neighbours in the last 100 years.

So, who’s the threat to peace here, Iran or big-spending, nuclear Israel with a history of repeated military aggression against it’s neighbours?

IRAN'S POLICY -- DEVELOPMENT OF NUCLEAR POWER/WEAPONS
Iran's efforts are clearly aimed at the production of nuclear weapons. Iran's declarations that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes lacks any credibility.

The IAEA say differently and I think that 99.9% of people will rate the IAEA's credibility as vastly greater than HR's.

Another relevant matter would be that Iran has a history of pursing a civilian nuclear power capacity. This was under the Shah in the 1970's and was fully supported by the US at a time when, obviously, Iran had even more oil than it does today.


So there we have HRs attempt to "enlist human beings beings in the service of one party to any dispute" via "the exclusion of such information as has a contrary tendency".

What moral standing has a propagandist to demand fairness and impartiality from others? Absolutely none.

And that sums up HonestReporting - zero credibility.

Jan 11 Media Critique: "Hamas Unreality Check."

And an HonestReporting reality check over the recent interview with Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal.

Has Hamas moderated its views or has the media jumped to conclusions?

Strangely, HR almost get this right. That is, it’s true that the latest statements from Hamas are not in themselves evidence that it has “moderated its views”. But HR are mistaken in that the flaws in reporting this are of a very different type than HR suggest.

Most bizarrely HR claims that,

Why does the media rush to portray Hamas as "moderate" despite the organization's own declarations to the contrary?

Typically, despite the use of quotation marks (implying a quote, one might think), HR provides not a single quote or link to demonstrate any media describing Hamas as “moderate", as HR claim they do.

And straw-man arguments come in handy,

The bottom line - despite the Reuters interview and some resulting media reports, Hamas has not fulfilled the three basic criteria of the international community for lifting financial sanctions on the Palestinian government - recognition of Israel's right to exist, forswearing terrorism, and accepting previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.

Of course none of the media reports HR links to claim that Hamas has done so.

HR could criticize The Independent for claiming that “yesterday [Hamas] appeared to soften its long-standing refusal to recognize Israel”, as if nothing similar had preceded it. But Hamas has been making accommodating noises similar to this, for the past 12 months. So the valid criticism that can be made is not that the newspapers have "jumped to conclusions" to describe Hamas as “moderate” (which they haven’t), but that they describe Meshaal’s statements as new, when they aren't.

For example, almost a year ago Meshaal wrote in the Guardian,

We shall never recognize the legitimacy of a Zionist state created on our soil in order to atone for somebody else's sins or solve somebody else's problem. But if you are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce, we are prepared to negotiate the terms.

And the Hamas spokesman for the PA said in Feb. 2006,

Hamas is not against a political compromise. It is not against a state on the 1967 borders. Israel, it is often said, is a de facto reality.

The thought of a Hamas prepared to accept Israel and curtail its aspirations to a Palestine within the ’67 borders is a frightening prospect – for Israel. ‘Huh’, you ask? That’s because a negotiated solution is the end to Israelis’ creeping annexation and confiscation of Palestinian land. If there really is a peaceful settlement, how can Israel possibly continue to steal land from a Palestinian state to build settlements? Simple – it couldn’t. The ‘peace process’ minus the peace has always been a perfectly acceptable situation.

The truth is that the extremism of Hamas has always been played up in the media. That’s not to say it doesn’t exist – it clearly does. But what we have now is a situation where their indications of a willingness to accept a two-state solution is becoming hard to avoid, and sections of the media who have ignored (or are ignorant of) that, rush to hail a sudden change in Hamas’ position.

We’ve seen this before. A similar process played out with the PLO, with the PLO’s obvious acceptance of a 2 state-solution during the 1970’s generally ignored for failing to produce the exact formulation of words required, until it could be suddenly hailed for a dramatic turn-around in 1988.

There have been several key events that have pointed to the changes in the position of Hamas. One of the most significant was its announcement, now over 18 months ago that it would not conduct suicide missions inside Israel. Hamas was prioritizing politics over militancy as it prepared for the Palestinian elections, its first foray into national elections and a clear sign of the pragmatism of a developing political party. The policies and positions it produced in the lead up to the elections, and after wards, also demonstrated this aspect of Hamas’ development.

Hamas’ proposed National Unity Government Program called for,

Cooperating with the international community for the purpose of ending the occupation and achieving a complete withdrawal from the lands occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem ,so that the region enjoys calm and stability during this phase.

And its Cabinet Platform released on March 27, 2006, again made oblique references to the 2-state solution,

the need to link the two halves (West Bank and Gaza) of the homeland politically, economically, socially, and culturally.

Israel could deal constructively with Hamas if it chose to do so, but like with the PLO 30 years ago, what Israel fears is not a militant organisation, but an increasingly pragmatic one that is moving towards a negotiated diplomatic solution. Being faithful commissars, HR adhere to the party line.

Get Carter

And they're still banging on about Jimmy Carters' book. While there have been the usual range of nobodies (Kenneth Stein) and reflexive defenders of Israel (Dershowitz, Ross) attacking Carter, here’s a perspective that HR wouldn’t want it’s readers to see. Former Israeli Minister of Education Shulamit Aloni, has her say on the subject.

Jan 4 Media Critique:“Reuters Responds: Pulling the Wool Over Our Eyes?”

More obsessing over the Reuters calendar from HonestReporting.

HR has decided, with the usual cynicism, that the issue is of the calendar being “politicized”,

The photos of the Iraqi woman and the G8 meeting, in fact, contain no political commentary at all. The only image that does is that of the Palestinian. Reuters dodges the key question - how did this image come to be used and why did it include the only caption containing a negative and politicized message?

The "politicized message" just being a factual caption. Can they really be so stupid? Unfortunately, yes. Obviously the only people with a “politicized” axe to grind are HR. Reuters produces a calendar for it’s clients with lots of pretty pictures. HR looks at it and starts ranting over “media bias” because one of the pictures is of a Palestinian, claiming that this makes it "politicized" Just the usual inversion of reality from HR.

Reuters has sent out standard replies to those HR zombies who complained over the photo, which politely say, 'f***-off you morons'.

Again HR is determined to demonstrate that there is no phenomenon of “anti-Israel media bias”. If there actually was, they wouldn't spend any time on this tiny and irrelevant matter.

What HR is showing is, again, their anti-democratic and anti-free expression position. We’ve seen it before when they attacked the South African newspaper, the Mail&Guardian, for allowing a South African govt minister to express his views. That was disgraceful enough, but now HR demonstrate their utter vacuousness and fanaticism, by launching this bizarre attack, not against a news story, or an opinion piece, but against a calendar that Reuters has produced as a bit of self-promotion that it distributes to it’s clients. I’d say something about a storm-in-a tea-cup, but this isn’t anything anywhere near as big as a tea-cup.

Their totalitarian bent can’t be satisfied by trying to stifle discussion and opinion they don’t like, now it encompasses images that they don’t like, images that aren’t even part of the news cycle. Not only must everyone think in lock-step with the HR Stalinists, our eyes must be shielded from what they deem to be inappropriate. Just to reiterate for the final time - all this is over a photo in a corporate calendar.

Obsessed, fanatical and 100% intolerant – HonestReporting.

January 2 Media Critique: "Latest Reuters Photo Gaffe"

Everytime I think that HonestReporting can’t sink any lower, they prove me wrong.

This time HR scream long and loud that, despite all their protestations, there really is no "anti-Israeli media bais".

Naturally they don’t say it in those exact words, but by the targets they choose. Again it’s Reuters (when you’re on a good thing stick to it). And the issue – Reuters promotional 2007 calendar. Really, I’m not kidding. The precise problem – it shows a photo of a Palestinian. It seems now that the Palestinian untermesnch may not even be mentioned.

The 21st C. Stalinists are on the march.

What is the problem with having a photo of a Palestinian in a Reuters Calendar?,

The calendar, however, consists entirely of images and captions depicting positivity, achievement or culture. Only the above image and caption displays any militaristic or negative subject matter.

Er no…it shows only photos. One of the criteria being it should be of events in the past year, and being a photographic calendar, the photos must be exceptional. There’s a few of the others I’d question, but this one is a beauty in terms of photography – tightly cropped, stunning colour, well composed, contrasting vividly with the subject matter.

This is it,

It’s a no-brainer. Except at HR, where it,

demonstrates a subtle yet insidious and institutionalized form of bias…….a glaring error

How so? They don’t explain. Perhaps they can’t explain it, not even to themselves. They just feel it’s wrong, probably because they are fanatical bigots who let their hatred of Palestinians affect their views on everything - even calenders.

Dec 28 Media Critique: "Video Message from Sderot"

The awful biased media are at it again. Ignoring the plight of Israelis injured by Qassam rockets, specifically, the two 14yr old boys hurt on December 27. HonestRepoting says,

The mainstream media continues to downplay or even ignore the continuous Qassam strikes against Sderot and surrounding communities by Palestinian terrorists.

Yet stories appeared in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, and the wire services, Reuters and AFP covered it.

In my back yard, the story was covered by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, SBS, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. They were the only ones I checked, but they all carried the story. It’s not a good sample size to make significant claims of probability, but you get the idea.

HR continues,

Commenting on the daily threat to Sderot, the Jerusalem Post points out: "It has become a curious game of Palestinian Roulette ... The rocket that fell in a Sderot nursery school playground could have, with a little less luck, taken the lives of many toddlers."

If the Qassams didn’t result in so few deaths, they could really kill a lot of people.

But, let's be serious. This is an indefensible act. Innocent civilians are clearly at risk. And it’s just as clear that HRs’ protestations that the media “downplay or even ignore” such incidents is pure invention.

I’ll also provide a touch of the ‘context’ that HR so loves. Since the new truce began at the end of November, we now have 2 injured Israelis. And on the Palestinian side? Israel has killed 15. No, that’s not a typo – 15 , during the ‘truce’.

That’s how these things work, Palestinian actions put cease-fires at risk, but Israel can go on killing and it’s ‘business as usual’. The apologists will now interrupt – but the ‘truce’ only covers Gaza. Yes, that’s right, so why do we bother pretending that there actually is one?

Some more context – Israel has killed 660 Palestinians in 2006. Palestinians have killed 23 Israelis . I don’t want to engage in the algebra of body-counts, but it lends some relevant perspective.

To gauge just how much the mainstream media ignore the suffering of Israeli civilians , let’s take the opportunity to do a comparison with a recent incident where a Palestinian child was not just injured, but killed, and see what kind of media attention it grabs. On December 19, the IDF shot and killed 13 yr old Do'a Nasser Hamid, near Tulkarm.

Never heard of the incident? That’s because it went almost completely unreported. Which major media outlets reported this? NYT?-No. IHT?-No. Reuters or AFP*?-No. On my patch – those 4 media outlets that reported the 2 injured Israeli teens – none of them reported the killing of this 13 yr old Palestinian girl. Not one. Try the Google sampling test for yourself. If you can’t be bothered, the returns for the killed Palestinian girl are a remarkable 4, versus between 100-400 (depending on which name you use) for the 2 injured Israeli boys.

Yet, HR whines on,

We ask why Israeli children never earn the iconic status and outpouring of sympathy that the media accredits to other child victims of war or terror in other parts of the world (including the Palestinian areas).

Yes, those lucky, lucky Palestinian children are given such iconic status in the media that their death at the hands of the IDF can go completely unnoticed.

But, for those of us not in the fantasy land of the pro-Israel fanatics, this is not news. We know that reality is the exact opposite of what HR tells its credulous readers. Detailed studies by If Americans Knew demonstrate that media sources vastly under-report Palestinian deaths and fully report Israeli ones. This anecdote just illustrates the trend, which is even more pronounced when the victims are children (IAK found that the NYTs reports Israeli child victims at a rate 10x greater than Palestinian victims.)

Why the sudden beat-up over 2 injured boys in Sderot. Pardon my cynicism, but HR’s last paragraph of this overwrought piece provides a clue,

As the tax year draws to a close, now is your last opportunity this year to make a real difference for Israel. Please make the most generous tax-deductible gift you can today by clicking here.

All makes sense now.

* Significantly, AFP did report the killing of 2 IJ members on the 20^th but made no mention of the IDF killing of the 13 yr old girl the day before.

Dec 25 Media Critique: "Bethlehem-Abusing the Christmas Story"

I thought we may enjoy some respite from HonestReporting’s absurdities at this time of the year, but there’s no rest for the wicked.

Todays target – the British newspaper, The Independent. A good article from Johann Hari on the implications of the occupation and movement restrictions on women in labour.

As usual HR goes for some outraged hyperbole,

The media employs seasonal religious symbolism to attack Israel

Yes, Israel is being beaten with a statue of the Virgin Mary by a British newspaper. How crass.

And,

In a tasteless affront to one billion Christians worldwide, the Independent, a leading British daily, describes the Virgin Mary as a "Palestinian refugee in Bethlehem", and present-day pregnant Palestinian women as "21st century Marys" who "have been giving birth in startlingly similar conditions to those suffered by Mary 2,000 years ago."

Horrendous. How can anyone make such a shocking comparison. As all good apparatchiks know, these pregnancies will result in the birth of the devils spawn, who will dedicate their lives to the slaughter of Jews. This journalist makes them sound almost human.

Who can blame HR, sticking to the facts would just undermine the point they’re trying to make. And that point is…..er, I’m not quite sure either. Maybe that it is “biased” to report what is actually happening in the Occupied Territories.

Oh no, forgive me, this is the point,

Yet, readers must scroll down halfway through this 1,500-word piece to discover the real cause of Palestinian suffering:
"Following the election of Hamas, the world choked off funding for the Palestinian Authority, which suddenly found itself unable to pay its doctors and nurses. After several months medical staff went on strike, refusing to take anything but emergency cases."

Nasty, nasty, Johann Hari, hiding the fact that the death of Fadia Jemal’s baby in 2002 was caused by the election of Hamas in January 2006. Thanks HR for exposing this deceit.

Hari provides some detail of the scale of the problem (1.),

Since Fadia's delivery, in 2002, the United Nations confirms that a total of 36 babies have died because their mothers were detained during labour at Israeli checkpoints.

But HR knows the real problem,

The Independent blames Israel for checkpoint security measures, but fails to provide context with the well-documented Palestinian abuse of ambulances and medical facilities to transport and harbor terrorists. Nor does the Independent mention the 2002 arrest of a Palestinian terrorist recruited to carry out a suicide bombing disguised as a pregnant woman -- a graphic reminder of the depths that terror groups will sink in their efforts to bypass Israeli security.

Yes, Israeli has no choice but to detain pregnant Palestinian women at checkpoints, because they might be terrorists in disguise! Poor Israeli soldiers, they can’t tell the difference between a pregnant woman and someone with a pillow stuffed up their shirt!!

B’Tselem point out the real reason for the existence of the checkpoints,

One of the main purposes of the movement restrictions policy is to protect Israeli settlers. Given that the settlements are illegal, the policy only aggravates the situation: it comprehensively and disproportionately impedes the freedom of movement of an entire population in order to perpetuate the settlement enterprise.

Yes, Palestinian women and babies die at checkpoints for the convenience and comfort of Israels’ illegal settlers.

As for the “well-documented Palestinian abuse of ambulances”, this is typical HR fantasy. There is none. HR provides a link to an Israeli Govt website that claims to detail several incidents. The most serious one is the claim that a suicide belt was transported in an ambulance, a claim over which there is serious doubt. Just remember the Qassam in the ambulance story, where the Qassam turned out to be a folding stretcher. However, there is evidence of the mis-use of ambulances by armed groups – the IDF. The IDF used an ambulance to take soldiers into the West Bank to arrest Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti in 2002, as well as on other occasions.

But wait, there’s “More Abuse of the Christmas Story”.

The Chicago Tribune also “engages in abusing religious symbolism”.

The problem, yet again, is its “one-sided criticism of Israel”. HR would much prefer that someone else was blamed (Martians perhaps?) for the 6m high concrete wall and the travel restrictions that are making life hell for the residents of Bethlehem. Worse still, the Chicago Tribune fails to note the real reason for the difficulties of the Christian population of Bethlehem- HR knows it is “Muslim persecution”, of course. Isn’t it funny how the Christian population of Bethlehem flourished for around 1300 years despite “Muslim persecution”, but has been suddenly affected by it over the last 50 or so. I really can’t figure this out…..

It’s just more of the same – factual descriptions of life in the Occupied Territories are beyond the pale. Blame can be apportioned, as long as journalists remember that Israel is completely blameless. Stories must be ‘balanced’ with liberal helpings of Israeli hasbara, otherwise they are biased. Well actually, no they don’t. Journalists are meant to go beyond the competing claims and official pronouncements and try to describe reality. A reality that HR finds disturbing, preferring it to remain buried under an avalanche of obfuscation and distortion.

References.
1. BBC News "UN Fears over checkpoint births", 23/9/2005.

December 8 Special Report: "The UN Human Rights Council"

On this occasion, HR abandons its stated purpose of watching the media to indulge in that all-time favourite activity for the pro-Israel zealots - shrill denunciation of the UN, especially its human rights body. As of June this year, the old Commission on Human Rights gave way to a new body, the Human Rights Council. The move was meant to address deficiencies in the old system, and the Israel cheer-leaders hoped that their team might get an easier run. The poor darlings have been immediately disappointed, leading to all the usual complaints,

The Council decided that Israel was abusing human rights and, to validate their predetermined conclusion, they ordered an investigation. The Council was very clear in what it expected the investigation to conclude.

As usual HR get their facts wrong. The Special Rappoutuer for the Occupied Territories has already reported on Israels extensive human rights violations. This is not predetermination, but simple fact .

Here’s the detail from the first session so you can see just how unfair the UNHRC is,

-reaffirmed that all acts of hostage-taking, wherever and by whomever committed, were a serious crime aimed at the destruction of human rights and were, under any circumstances, unjustifiable; strongly condemned all acts of hostage-taking anywhere in the world

-adopted the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance

-adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as proposed by the Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group of the Commission on Human Rights

-welcomed the report of the Open-ended Working Group with a view to considering options regarding the elaboration of an Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

-endorsed the conclusions and recommendations adopted by consensus by the Working Group on the Right to Development

-decided to extend exceptionally for one year, ……… the mandates and the mandate-holders of all the Commission's special procedures, of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights

-the Human Rights Council decided to establish an intersessional open-ended intergovernmental working group to develop the modalities of the universal periodic review mechanism

-decided to establish an open-ended intergovernmental working group to formulate concrete recommendations on the issue of reviewing and, where necessary, improving and rationalizing all mandates, mechanisms, functions and responsibilities in order to maintain a system of special procedures, expert advice and a complaint procedure

-welcomed the entry into force, on 22 June 2006, of the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, following ratification by 20 States.

-endorsed the conclusions and recommendations contained in the report of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action on its fourth session

-requested the relevant Special Rapporteurs to report to the next session of the Council on the Israeli human rights violations in occupied Palestine

-decided to request the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief and the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance as well as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to report to the next session on this phenomenon.

See, it’s all about Israel! Bias!!

HR then points to the Councils ‘Special Sessions’ to further press its claims of ‘bias’. The first called for an investigation into Israels conduct in the OT’s that had seen several hundred Palestinians killed in the previous months. And the second - can anyone name a UN member state that in July committed the international crime of armed aggression against a neighbouring sovereign state? Well, I can only come up with one name. Israel. Perhaps the UNHRC should have ignored this to show how committed they are to human rights.

HR then whines about that standard hasbara talking-point, Darfur, and how the UNHRC has done nothing on Darfur. Unfortunately for the incompetents at HR, just 4 days after they published this latest rubbish, the UNHRC convened a ‘Special Session’ on Darfur.

If only they weren’t such brain-dead apologists, they would have known that it was coming. Contrary to HRs accusations, the UNHRC had a very busy and varied agenda, so much so, that it couldn’t adopt resolutions at its second session (aside from one on Kyrgyzstan) and had to deal them at the third session which started on November 27.

If HR had taken the minimal effort to inquire, they would have found that the UNHRC was discussing human rights issues on the following countries during the second session in September,

"The Council also considered the reports of country-specific Special Rapporteurs and Experts, including on Belarus, Somalia, Cuba, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Cambodia, Haiti, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Sudan and Liberia”, as well as “Iran, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan."

Maybe they forgot that Darfur is in Sudan. Or maybe they just never bothered their pretty little heads to find out what the UNHRC was actually doing.

The decision to hold the 4th Special Session on Darfur was announced on November 30th, more than a week before HRs latest and dumbest “Special Report”. The date for the 4th Special Session was then announced (PDF) on December 4th.

But these are mere facts. What use are they to HR when it has an axe to grind?

There was a further Special Session following the killing of 19 Palestinians by IDF artillery fire in Bayt Hanun. HR claims that it ignored Israeli concerns,

No mention was made of protecting Israeli civilians from further assault.

Of course HR is wrong, as usual. The UNHRC resolution,

urged all concerned parties to respect the rules of international humanitarian law, to refrain from violence against civilian populations and to treat under all circumstances all detained combatants and civilians in accordance with the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949.

And HR desperately push the IDF PR line that the incident was,

an equipment malfunction…..terrible tragedy occurred due to an unintended accident. The government of Israel apologized immediately.....

Followed by the standard strategy of blaming the victims,

if the Palestinians had stopped firing rockets on Sderot, this accident could not have taken place.

HR should consult a dictionary on what constitutes an accident. Others could see this coming. This is what B’Tselem had to say in April when the IDF changed its firing regulations to allow artillary to be fired to within 100m of residential areas in the densely populated Gaza strip,

Three Israeli human rights organizations and two Palestinian organizations jointly wrote to the Israeli Minister of Defense and Chief of Staff demanding the cancellation of the decision to reduce the 'safety zone' for artillery fire on the Gaza Strip, due to the danger it poses to the civilian population and its cost in human lives.

Yes, this was no “unintended accident”, but the foreseen consequence of a voluntarily adopted policy.

HonestReporting – biased, unfair, inaccurate, dishonest. Exactly what we expect.

December 6 Media Critique: "Carters Book: Presidential Pulp"

This is the second consecutive ‘Media Critique’ on Jimmy Carters new book “Palestine: Peace or Apartheid?”.

Someone is worried. First it was the Mearsheimer&Walt controversy , and now the ex-US President, Jimmy Carter, weighs in with his strong criticisms of Israel, making allusions to Apartheid. You know things are changing when even someone like Carter gets it. No wonder HonestReporting and all the other pro-Israel zealots are in an uproar. Carter can expect to be relentlessly attacked for daring to break from the consensus. The attacks will be out of all proportion to the perceived crime, because the zealots see cracks appearing in the ‘Israel right or wrong’ position of US elites. If Carter doesn’t get enough grief, others might be emboldened to express similarly frank views, which might lead to the ‘disaster’ of a real, just peace along the lines of UN Resolution 242.

HR repeats its' claim from the previous 'Media Critique' that it has “previously debunked the false comparison between Israel and apartheid South Africa”. Of course it’s done no such thing, HR just likes to claim that it has. As some of the targets of its vilification have pointed out, the comparisons with Apartheid are unfair, not for the reasons HR gives, but because Israels' action are worse than South African Apartheid. Here are the thoughts of 2 South Africans who know something about Apartheid. First, John Dugard, now Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian territories,

Many aspects of Israel's occupation surpass those of the apartheid regime.

And Ronnie Kasrils, anti-Apartheid activist, and now Minister in the South African government,

This is much worse than apartheid. The Israeli measures, the brutality, make apartheid look like a picnic. We never had jets attacking our townships. We never had sieges that lasted month after month. We never had tanks destroying houses.

And how about the Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem,

By unlawfully discriminating against Palestinians based on their national origin, the Forbidden Roads Regime is reminiscent of the apartheid system that existed in South Africa.

And a group of IDF soldiers got together to make 'Breaking the Silence', which gives just a small taste of the treatment the IDF metes out to Palestinians on a routine basis, just in case human rights groups aren’t your cup of tea.

HR leads its assault on Carter with that professional sophist, Alan Dershowitz, the man who makes Stalinists look like reasonable, open-minded people. Dershowitz attacks Carters most “egregious errors”. As in any book of its kind, errors exist, mostly of the careless or very minor variety, in contrast to the ‘errors’ Dershowitz makes, which are calculated and deliberate attempts at deception. Here are a few examples of what Dershowitz calls errors,

Mr. Carter gives virtually no credit to Israel's superb legal system……Even Israel's most severe critics acknowledge the fairness of the Israeli Supreme Court.

This is straight out of Dershowitz’s propaganda tract, “The Case for Israel”.

So, Israels “most severe critics” think the Supreme Court is fair? After criticising Carter for making claims “without any citation”, he offers not a single scrap of evidence or even one citation to back this extraordinary claim. But let me. Here is David Kretzmer, a law professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who wrote a book about the legal aspects of Israels occupation, giving his opinion on Israels Supreme Court,

The court has rationalized virtually all controversial actions of the Israeli authorities, especially those most problematic under principles of international humanitarian law.

On the question of the new Israeli laws preventing family re-union, several Israeli human rights groups (ACRI, Adalah) took the issue to the Supreme Court which upheld the new law. Adalah issued a press release after the verdict was announced,

the Supreme Court effectively approved the most racist legislation in the State of Israel; legislation which bars the unification of families on the basis of national belonging: Arab-Palestinian. Drawing a comparison, Adalah added that,
“In 1980, during Apartheid, a Court in South Africa refused to approve orders similar to the Nationality and Entry into Israel Law, because they contradicted the right to a family.” Adalah’s General Director Attorney Hassan Jabareen emphasized that today, the Supreme Court has instituted three tracks of citizenship on the basis of ethnic background: a direct track for Jews under the Law of Return; a middle track for foreigners according to the graduated procedure; and the harshest track, for Arab citizens.

If that is them acknowledging the Israeli Supreme Courts fairness, their criticisms must be extremely harsh.

I hope HR takes note of the South African parallel, which again demonstrates that the comparisons of Israel with Apartheid SA are unfair – to South Africa!

And for our final Dershowitz example of Carters ‘error’,

He claims that in 1967 Israel launched a preemptive attack against Jordan. The fact is that Jordan attacked Israel first…

In my humble opinion Carter’s only error here is to be too accommodating to the Israeli position that the 1967 war was a case of a pre-emptive strike. But even that is not obsequious enough for Dershowitz who demands total agreement with his perspective - that Israel was completely blameless in 1967.

Most of the other 'errors' are in a similar vein. If these really are the “most egregious errors” in the book, then Carter has done a great job.

I wonder if HR or Alan Dershowitz have ever bothered to gauge how their Pollyanna-ish views on Israel stack up against the experience of IDF soldiers?

The intellectual walls of fortress Israel in the US are beginning to be besieged, and in testimony to their flimsy construction, the cracks are already showing.