Press Release - HonestReporting

For Immediate Release

Dec. 17, 2012

Contact: Simon Plosker, simon@honestreporting.com

or call +972 54 5802030

Gideon Levy of Haaretz Wins HonestReporting's Dishonest Reporter of the Year

HonestReporting has named Gideon Levy of Haaretz as the 2012 Dishonest Reporter of the Year for misrepresenting an Israeli opinion poll to conclude that the Israeli public supports apartheid.

See all of the Dishonest Reporting Awards.

Levy's victory marks the first time the winner has been a member of the Israeli press rather than part of the international media covering Israel. However, Levy's dishonest reporting reached well beyond Israel's borders, making headlines across the world.  

Time For HonestReporting's Year End "Awards"

Honest Reporting has come out with its Dishonest Reporter Award 2007--which includes 15 other awards of dubious distinction, capping a year with more of the same as well as some surprises:

What a year of surprises.

Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip. Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas talked peace in the presence of Saudi and Syrian dignitaries. BBC journalist Alan Johnston was held hostage for nearly four months. When Israel struck an unidentified Syrian facility, the only significant protest came from North Korea.

And then came Farfur, the Hamas mouse.

Who would've thought?

Of course, there were other unsurprising developments. Qassam rockets continued to fall on Sderot. This year's three unfortunate fatalities: Oshri Oz, Shirel Friedman and Chai Shalom.

Israeli MIAs Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev ended the year in captivity, as did other Israeli MIAs.

The Israel Lobby was a top selling book while The Man From Plains documented Jimmy Carter's controversial book tour.

On with the awards . . .

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tag: Israel and HonestReporting.

MEDIA NOT UNIFORM ON GAZA WHITEWASH. Check out the latest article from HonestRepoting: Gaza "Under Siege"? Apparently not all of the media is falling all over themselves to paint the Hamas terrorist regime as the saviors of Gaza. Still, some are--resulting in discrepancies such as this:

AP writes:

"We can't stop all smuggling. We need more machines, we need double the number of border guards," Egyptian army Col. Amr Mamdouh told reporters during a rare tour of the border area Sunday. "Anywhere you stamp your foot on the ground, you will find tunnels," he said.

But The Washington Post writes:

Egyptian border guards have found about 75 percent fewer tunnels from the Gaza Strip since Hamas took control there, an indication of the radical Islamic group's broad success in reducing the smuggling of weapons and other contraband, a top Egyptian border official said Sunday.

Read the entire article.

How long until all of the media starts to report in lockstep?

Technorati Tag: Israel and Gaza and Hamas and Media Bias and HonestReporting.

HONESTREPORTING: NEW SERIES. HonestReporting is starting a series of media critiques studying long-term media bias.

This is the first in a new HonestReporting series that will analyze whether specific media outlets demonstrate a discernible bias over the long term. Bias in the mainstream media can sometimes be patently clear - deliberately manipulated or staged photographs, articles comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa, or sympathetic descriptions of terrorists, to name but a few. We try to respond to all of these cases, encouraging you, our readers, to contact the media directly and ask why the facts are not being reported accurately.

However, bias is often more subtle. There is nothing inherently suspect about a picture of a Palestinian civilian or a human interest story detailing the life of a Palestinian child. An account of a Palestinian shopkeeper's life can be useful in shedding light on how the conflict affects ordinary people. Articles and photographs can be 100% accurate and, taken at face value, are completely within the realms of professional journalism.

Yet, a closer examination of specific media outlets over a longer period of time can reveal troubling patterns which indicate a more subtle and potentially more harmful bias. When pictures and accounts detailing only one side of a conflict are given prominence on an almost daily basis, it is a classic example of a bias so deep that it colors a media organization's entire reporting.

The first article: 6 Month Analysis of the BBC: The Subtle Bias

Subtle?

Technorati Tag: Israel and BBC and HonestReporting and Media Bias.

FISKING MOUSA ABU MARZOUK IN THE LA TIMES: HonestReporting tackles Marzouk's July 10 Op-Ed in the LA Time and his claims:

• Claim 1: Hamas "resistance" is justified under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
  
• Claim 2: Hamas deserves a place at the international negotiating table.
• Claim 3: Israel is guilty of "foundational crimes of murder and ethnic cleansing by means of which Israel took our towns and villages, our farms and orchards, and made us a nation of refugees."
• Claim 4: Israeli leaders made "repeated calls for the destruction of Palestine's non-Jewish inhabitants".

Read the whole thing.

It's a real pity that a newspaper like the LA Times is so desperate from a shrinking circulation that it has to resort to giving an outlet to terrorist organizations.

Technorati Tag: LA Times and Mousa Abu Marzouk and Hamas and HonestReporting.

THE PALESTINIAN MANDELA: For those who would like to believe that Marwan Barghouti is the Palestinian Mandela, Media Backspin provides a lesson in similarities--and differences.

Update: HonestReporting has an article about this as well.

Technorati Tag: Marwan Barghouti and Nelson Mandela.

NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, AND TERROISTS: WORKING TOGETHER: Honest Reporting responds to the appearance of op-eds by Ahmed Yousef, the advisor to former Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh, on the same day in both the New York Times and Washington Post. The HR article includes reaction from Shurat HaDin on the support the Times and Post offer terrorism and the laughable response of NY Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt, who piously intones that bad ideas need to be put in the open for healthy debate--something the Times itself has studiously avoided.

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Ahmed Yousef and Washington Post and New York Times and Honest Reporting.

TAKE THE SIX DAY WAR QUIZ: From HonestReporting.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Six Day War.

HONESTREPORTING: THE SIX DAY WAR--FORTY YEARS ON. HonestReporting has a special report on The Six Day War--and a request:

Forty years have now passed since the "Six Day War" which resulted in Israeli control over the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights. Some media reports already refer to the fortieth anniversary of the "occupation."

The goal of this special report is to remind HonestReporting subscribers of the events of 1967 and Israel's administration of the disputed territories. We ask that you PRINT OUT AND PASS ON this special report to help you respond to some of the bias and misconceptions that will inevitably flood the international media over the coming weeks.

Read the whole thing--and pass it on.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Six Day War and HonestReporting.

USS LIBERTY INCIDENT IN THE NEWS AGAIN--AND THE FACTS. Tim Fischer, former Australian politician, has dredged up the disproven claim that the attack was deliberate--see HonestReporting on Fischer's article.

Dr. Mitchell Bard sums up the evidence that debunks this myth.

MYTH #265 [revised #106]

"During the 1967 War, Israel deliberately attacked the USS Liberty.."

FACT

The Israeli attack on the USS Liberty was a grievous error, largely attributable to the fact that it occurred in the midst of the confusion of a full-scale war in 1967. Ten official United States investigations and three official Israeli inquiries have all conclusively established the attack was a tragic mistake.

On June 8, 1967, the fourth day of the Six-Day War, the Israeli high command received reports that Israeli troops in El Arish were being fired upon from the sea, presumably by an Egyptian vessel, as they had a day before. The United States had earlier announced at the UN that it had no naval forces within hundreds of miles of the battle front on the floor of the United Nations a few days earlier; however, the USS Liberty, an American intelligence ship assigned to monitor the fighting, sailed into the arrived in the area. Following a series of United States communication failures, whereby messages directing the ship not to approach within 100 miles were not received by the Liberty,the ship moved within 14 miles of the Sinai coast , as a result of a series of United States communication failures, whereby messages directing the ship not to approach within 100 miles were not received by the Liberty. The Israelis mistakenly thought this was the ship doing the shelling their soldiers and directed war planes and torpedo boats to attack the ship. Thirty-four members of the Liberty’s crew were killed and 171 were wounded.

Tapes of the radio transmissions made prior, during and after the attack do not contain any statement suggesting the pilots saw a U.S. flag before the attack on the ship. During the raid, a pilot specifically says, “there is no flag on her!” The recordings also indicate that once the pilots became concerned about the identity of the ship, by virtue of reading its hull number, they terminated the attack and they were given an order to leave the area. 27 Critics claimed the Israeli tape was doctored, but the National Security Agency of the United States released formerly top secret transcripts in July 2003 that confirmed the Israeli version.

Numerous mistakes were made by both the United States and Israel. For example, the Liberty was first reported — incorrectly, as it turned out — to be cruising at 30 knots (it was later recalculated to be 28 knots). Under Israeli (and U.S.) naval doctrine at the time, a ship proceeding at that speed was presumed to be a warship. The sea was calm and the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry found that the Liberty’s flag was very likely drooped and not discernible; moreover, members of the crew, including the Captain, Commander William McGonagle, testified that the flag was knocked down after the first or second assault.

According to Israeli Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin’smemoirs, there were standing orders to attack any unidentified vessel near the shore. 28 The day fighting began, Israel had asked that American ships be removed from its coast or that it be notified of the precise location of U.S. vessels. 29 The Sixth Fleet was moved because President Johnson feared being drawn into a confrontation with the Soviet Union. He also ordered that no aircraft be sent near Sinai.

A CIA report on the incident issued June 13, 1967, also found that an overzealous pilot could mistake the Liberty for an Egyptian ship, the El Quseir. After the air raid, Israeli torpedo boats identified the Liberty as an Egyptian naval vessel. When the Liberty began shooting at the Israelis, they responded with the torpedo attack, which killed 28 of the sailors.

Initially, the Israelis were terrified that they had attacked a Soviet ship and might have provoked the Soviets to join the fighting. 30 Once the Israelis were sure what had happened, they reported the incident to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and offered to provide a helicopter for the Americans to fly out to the ship and to any help they required to evacuate the injured and salvage the ship. The offer was accepted and a U.S. naval attaché was flown to the Liberty.

The Israelis were “obviously shocked” by the error they made in attacking the ship, according to the U.S. Ambassador in Tel Aviv. In fact, according to a secret report on the 1967 war, the immediate concern was that the Arabs might see the proximity of the Liberty to the conflict as evidence of U.S.-Israel collusion. 31

A U.S. spy plane was sent to the area as soon as the NSA learned of the attack on the Liberty and recorded the conversations of two Israeli Air Force helicopter pilots, which took place between 2:30 and 3:37 p.m. on June 8. The orders radioed to the pilots by their supervisor at the Hatzor base instructing them to search for Egyptian survivors from the “Egyptian warship” that had just been bombed were also recorded by the NSA. “Pay attention. The ship is now identified as Egyptian,” the pilots were informed. Nine minutes later, Hatzor told the pilots the ship was believed to be an Egyptian cargo ship. At 3:07, the pilots were first told the ship might not be Egyptian and were instructed to search for survivors and inform the base immediately the nationality of the first person they rescued. It was not until 3:12 that one of the pilots reported that he saw an American flag flying over the ship at which point he was instructed to verify if it was indeed a U.S. vessel. 32

In October 2003, the first Israeli pilot to reach the ship broke his 36-year silence on the attack. Brig.-Gen. Yiftah Spector said he had been told an Egyptian ship was off the Gaza coast. “This ship positively did not have any symbol or flag that I could see. What I was concerned with was that it was not one of ours. I looked for the symbol of our navy, which was a large white cross on its deck. This was not there, so it wasn’t one of ours.” The Jerusalem Post obtained a recording of Spector’s radio transmission in which he said, “I can’t identify it, but in any case it’s a military ship.” 33

Many of the survivors of the Liberty remain bitter, and are convinced the attack was deliberate. None of Israel’s accusers, however, can explain why Israel would deliberately attack an American ship at a time when the United States was Israel’s only friend and supporter in the world. Confusion in a long line of communications, which occurred in a tense atmosphere on both the American and Israeli sides is a more probable explanation.

Accidents caused by “friendly fire” are common in wartime. In 1988, the U.S. Navy mistakenly downed an Iranian passenger plane, killing 290 civilians. During the Gulf War, 35 of the 148 Americans who died in battle were killed by “friendly fire.” In April 1994, two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters with large U.S. flags painted on each side were shot down by U.S. Air Force F-15s on a clear day in the “no fly” zone of Iraq, killing 26 people. In April 2002, an American F-16 dropped a bomb that killed four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. In fact, the day before the Liberty was attacked, Israeli pilots accidentally bombed one of their own armored columns. 34

Retired Admiral, Shlomo Erell, who was Chief of the Navy in Israel in June 1967, told the Associated Press (June 5, 1977): “No one would ever have dreamt that an American ship would be there. Even the United States didn’t know where its ship was. We were advised by the proper authorities that there was no American ship within 100 miles.”

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara told Congress on July 26, 1967: “It was the conclusion of the investigatory body, headed by an admiral of the Navy in whom we have great confidence, that the attack was not intentional.” Twenty years later, he repeated his belief that the attack was a mistake, telling a caller on the “Larry King Show” that he had seen nothing in the 20 years since to change his mind that there had been no “cover­up.” 35

In January 2004, the State Department held a conference on the Liberty incident and also released new documents, including CIA memos dated June 13 and June 21, 1967, that1967, which say that Israel did not know it was striking an American vessel. The historian for the National Security Agency, David Hatch, said the available evidence “strongly suggested” Israel did not know it was attacking a U.S. ship. Two former U.S. officials, Ernest Castle, the United States Naval Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv in June 1967, who received the first report of the attack from Israel, and John Hadden, then CIA Chief of Station in Tel Aviv, also agreed with the assessment that the attack on the Liberty was a mistake. 36

Israel apologized for the tragedy and paid nearly $13 million in humanitarian reparations to the United States and to the families of the victims in amounts established by the U.S. State Department. The matter was officially closed between the two governments by an exchange of diplomatic notes on December 17, 1987.

Notes

27 Hirsh Goodman, “Messrs. Errors and No Facts,” Jerusalem Report, (November 21, 1991); Arieh O’ Sullivan, “Exclusive: Liberty attack tapes revealed,” Jerusalem Post, (June 3, 2004) .
28 For the most comprehensive analysis, see A. Jay Cristol, The Liberty IncidenThe Rabin Memoirs, (CA: University of California Press, 1996), pp. 108-109
29 Rabin, p. 110.
30 Dan Kurzman, Soldier of Peace: The Life of Yitzhak Rabin, (NY: HarperCollins, 1998), pp. 224-227; Rabin, p. 108-109.
31 Washington Post, (November 6, 1991)
32 Nathan Guttman, “Memos show Liberty attack was an error,” Ha’aretz, (July 9, 2003).
33 Jerusalem Post (October 10, 2003).
34 Hirsh Goodman and Zeev Schiff, “The Attack on the Liberty,” Atlantic Monthly, (September 1984).
35 The Larry King Show” (radio), (February 5, 1987).
36 Jerusalem Post, (January 13, 2004); Washington Times, (January 13, 2004).

This article can be found at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths2/1967war.html#f9

Source: Myths & Facts Online -- A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Mitchell G. Bard.

UPDATE: Fred Fry International links to this post and gives links to web sites that claim the Israel attack is deliberate (scroll down). Another article about the incident is The 'USS Liberty': Case Closed by historian Michael Oren, written in 2000. He writes:

Refuting this accusation was difficult if not impossible in the past, when the official records on the Liberty were designated top-secret and closed to the general public. With the recent declassification of these documents in the United States and Israel, however, researchers have gained access to a wealth of primary sources--Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and U.S. military records, Israeli diplomatic correspondence, and memoranda from both the State Department and the White House. With the aid of these materials, the attack on the Liberty can now be reconstructed virtually minute-by-minute and with remarkable detail. The picture that emerges is not one of crime at all, nor even of criminal negligence, but of a string of failed communications, human errors, unfortunate coincidences and equipment failures on both the American and Israeli sides--the kind of tragic, senseless mistake that is all too common in the thick of war.

Technorati Tag: Israel and USS Liberty and Tim Fischer.

SDEROT (UNDER)COVERAGE: Check out HonestReporting which has an article today about the continued lack of coverage of the constant bombardment of Sderot by Hamas rockets--a major exception being a piece by AP that some online media is picking up on.

There is also a piece in the HR article on Jerusalem with an admission:

"Let's be honest, we have lost the battle for Jerusalem," admitted a Fatah legislator from the city. "The Palestinian Authority hasn't done anything to preserve the Arab and Islamic character of Jerusalem. The Arabs in Jerusalem have lost confidence in the Palestinian leadership and that's why most of them prefer to live under Israeli control. Frankly, when I see what's happening in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, I can understand why."

Read the entire HonestReporting article.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Jerusalem and HonestReporting.

THE BBC'S KINDLER, GENTLER BIAS: Honest Reporting quotes the following from the BBC:

For the Jews of Middle Eastern origins, like their European co-religionists, coming to Israel was the culmination of a religious journey - it was the fulfilment of the centuries-old dream to live in the so-called Promised Land.

But many who came over to Israel as part of the mass migration that followed the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, look back with nostalgia and fondness for the life that they had left behind.

...and finds fault.

Do you see what they see?

Technorati Tag: Israel and Media Bias and Honest Reporting and Iraq and Media Bias.

HARVARD REPORT EXAMINES MEDIA COVERAGE OF LEBANON WAR: Honest Reporting has an article covering the under-reported report:

Harvard Report Examines Media Coverage of Lebanon War

Back at the beginning of March 2007, HonestReporting's Backspin blog drew attention to a research paper published by Harvard University, which examined media coverage of the 2006 Lebanon War. The conclusion: Hezbollah succeeded at using the media as a weapon against Israel. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the mainstream media, having allowed themselves to be cynically manipulated by the Hezbollah propaganda machine, failed to report the findings of the Harvard study.

While the initial lack of publicity was disappointing, a number of blogs have recently revisited the study, generating a surge in internet-led interest. This prompted the Jerusalem Post to report:

"An open society, Israel, is victimized by its own openness," Marvin Kalb and Dr. Carol Saivetz of the Shorenstein Center of Harvard University concluded in their research paper, "The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006: The Media as a Weapon in Asymmetrical Conflict." "A closed sect, Hizbullah, can retain almost total control of the daily message of journalism and propaganda," manipulating its image to the world, the February 28 paper found.

"In strictly military terms, Israel did not lose to Hizbullah in this war, but it clearly did not win. In the war of information, news and propaganda, the battlefield central to Hizbullah's strategy, Israel lost this war," Kalb and Saivetz concluded.

Hizbullah was able to exploit skillfully the technological innovations wrought by the internet and the demands of the 24/7 news cycle, and constructed the narrative story line for the "first really 'live' war in history" where "the camera and the computer" were "weapons of war," they argued.

For Hizbullah, the Second Lebanon War was a "crucial battle in a broader, ongoing war, linking religious fundamentalism to Arab nationalism." Its chosen field of battle was the media and its strategic aim was to win the hearts and minds of the Arab world.

Citing US and Australian military experts, Kalb and Saivetz stated Hizbullah believed the "historic struggle between Western modernity and Islamic fundamentalism will ultimately be resolved" on the "information battlefield." Hizbullah's media strategy was crafted to achieve this end, they said.

In the Second Lebanon War, Hizbullah limited access to Western reporters, "orchestrated" events and manipulated journalists with threats of expulsion if they violated its reporting rules. And the press largely complied with the restrictions that were "reminiscent of the Soviet era," Kalb and Saivetz found.

In one example cited by the paper, on a tour of a Shi'ite neighborhood of Beirut damaged by IAF air strikes, Hizbullah warned reporters not to "wander off on their own or speak to residents" and to photograph only approved sights. If the press violated these rules, "cameras would be confiscated, film or tape destroyed, and offending reporters would never be allowed access to Hizbullah officials or Hizbullah-controlled areas."

"At one point, apparently on cue, a Hizbullah minder signaled for ambulances to rev up their engines, set off their sirens and drive noisily down the street. The scene was orchestrated, designed to provide a photo op, and reporters went along for the ride."

"So far as we know" Kalb and Saivetz stated, all of the reporters on the tour only CNN's Anderson Cooper reported on the "attempt to create and control a story." The rest of the press "followed the Hizbullah script."

Read the full JPost article here. The full Harvard publication (in pdf format) can be found on HonestReporting's Media Bias Research page.

HonestReporting addressed many of the mainstream media's failings during the Lebanon War, including doctored photography, the reporting of staged incidents as fact, and biased or inaccurate journalism. This comprehensive Harvard publication should be read by all media organizations that value high journalistic standards.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Harvard Report and Marvin Kalb and Lebanon War and Hezbollah and Honest Reporting and Media Bias and Dr. Carol Saivetz.

UK JOURNALISTS BRIBED TO BOYCOTT? II: Following Adloyada's post on the topic, here is a Media Critique from HonestReporting UK on the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and their defense of their boycott.

Technorati Tag: National Union of Journalists and Boycott.

YOU CAN TELL THIS BOYCOTT IS BY JOURNALISTS: HonestReporting has an article on the boycott of Israel by UK Journalists. In it they quote Tom Gross of Mideast Media Analysis:

Just to show what disregard British (and indeed most European) journalists have for the truth about Israel "The motion called for the end of Israeli aggression in Gaza." In case they haven’t noticed, Israel withdrew from Gaza in the summer of 2005, and indeed is maintaining a ceasefire even while Palestinian rockets continue to be fired from Gaza on an almost daily basis into Israel, aimed at civilians.

This of course is nothing new--British journalists have been boycotting the truth for years.

Technorati Tag: HonestReporting and Boycott.

HONESTREPORTING TALKING POINTS ON ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIGS: In response to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle by Omar Ahmad claiming that, "Israeli government excavations and construction projects continue to chip away at the mosque's foundation," HonestReporting's latest article provides the facts and talking points Ahmad ignores about both the excavations and freedom of religion.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Archaeology and Freedom of Religion.

PALESTINIANS' SINGULAR PLACE IN HISTORY: Judea Pearl of the Daniel Pearl Foundation writes:

Never in the history of nations has a society defined itself on the ruins of a neighboring democracy and never has such society sought sovereignty and international legitimacy while admitting its intent.

[Hat tip: HonestReporting]

Technorati Tag: Israel and Saree Makdisi and Judea Pearl and Daniel Pearl Foundation.

THE ABC'S OF ANTI-ZIONISM: HonestReporting discusses the acceptance of left-wing anti-Zionism by the media. One example is an interview on ABC Radio in Australia with Marxist Lenni Brenner about a new book.

An example of Brenner's thought processes: he brings his favorite quote to prove the commonality between early Zionism and Fascism:

'Nations with racial differences appear to have instincts which work against their fusion. The assimilation of the Jews of the European nations among whom they live in language, in customs, and to some extent even in the forms of religious organisation, could not eradicate the feeling of lack of kinship between them and those among whom they live. In the last resort, this instinctive feeling of lack of kinship is referable to the law of conservation of energy. For this reason it cannot be eradicated by any amount of well-meaning pressure. Nationalities do not want to be fused, they want to go each its own way.' [emphasis added]

and then declares that the author of the quote is:

Albert Einstein, none other than Albert Einstein, and that's complete pseudo-science, I mean there is no law of conservation of energy and biology, races intermarry constantly. And that was typical not only of the Zionist movement but of the upper class and middle class of Europe and America of that time, and even Australia. I mean in other words they were living in the age of white imperialism, colonies all over the world. So that affected everybody in the intellectual world. [emphasis added]

Pity poor Mr. Brenner, who cannot distinguish between a metaphor and pseudo-science.
And pity the Australians who have to be subject to such obvious ignorance.

Read the rest of the HonestReporting article.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Zionism and Lenni Brenner and Honest Reporting.

Islam Rocks!

Worship changes the worshipper into the image of the One worshipped
Jack Hayford

From Friday's Opinion Journal

A Funny Way of Worshipping
"Israeli police stormed the grounds of Islam's third-holiest shrine Friday, firing stun grenades and tear gas to disperse thousands of Muslim worshippers who hurled stones, bottles and trash in an eruption of outrage over Israeli renovation nearby."--Associated Press, Feb. 9 [OpinionJournal's emphasis]

Throwing stones at Jews is rather popular among Muslims. Sam Harris notes in his book The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason:

In parts of the Arab world it has been a local custom for Muslim children to throw stones at Jews and spit upon them. (page 114)

More to the point, what is it that triggered another Muslim attack on Jews this time?

In Temple Mount Truths, Honest Reporting quotes the Jerusalem Post on the background to this incident:

What is Israel doing that has sparked such violent threats? Some years ago, the pedestrian ramp leading up to Jerusalem's Temple Mount fell apart. Now municipal authorities plan to build a permanent ramp to maintain access to this holy site, and are conducting, as required by law, an archeological salvage dig to make sure no artifacts are destroyed in the process.

All of this is completely outside the Temple Mount platform, and bears no relation or threat to that structure, let alone to the Aksa mosque. Why would Israel dream of undermining the Temple Mount, which is Judaism's holiest site? The claim that Israel is doing so is patently absurd, as anyone familiar with the area can immediately see. ...

What is going on now, of course, is a rerun of the violent riots of September 1996, over the opening of an additional exit to the then already existing Western Wall Tunnels, well outside the Temple Mount. Today this tunnel is a popular tourist attraction. It too had as much to do with the "foundations" of Al Aksa as does the reconstruction of the World Trade Center in New York.

Honest Reporting also quotes Caroline Glick, about the steps that the Israeli government took in advance--coordinating the project with the Islamic Wakf and the Jordanian government, in addition to any other relevant groups.

The Muslim attack this time is the result of fear--but since Muslim leaders in the Wakf and Jordan were warned in advanced about the renovations, and the project is done in coordination with them, just what is it that these Islamists are afraid of? The truth.

Muslims fear these excavations, not because they physically endanger al-Aqsa's foundations, but because they undermine the tissue of lies proclaiming that the Jews have no valid historical roots in the city and its holy sites.

In spite of claims by CAIR to the contrary, the biggest enemies of Islam and Muslims today are such Islamists.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Islam and Mugrabi Bridge.

Honest Reporting and The Blogosphere Revolution

If you haven't caught the Honest Reporting post, then you may not know about the conference in Israel this past December 17 and 18:

Recognizing HonestReporting's role in multiplying the effect of this internet revolution, HR's Joe Hyams addressed a conference entitled Media as Theater of War, the Blogosphere, and the Global Battle for Civil Society, part of the prestigious Annual Herzliya Conference on the Balance of Israel's National Security.

The conference was organized by Professor Richard Landes of The Second Draft, which comprehensively debunked the Mohammed al-Dura case and drew attention to the staged events of "Pallywood".

Hyams discussed the implications of the media's reporting of the Qana incident during the Lebanon war. The panel also included Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mark Regev, former advisor to PM Ariel Sharon Ra'anan Gissin, and former IDF Spokesman Nachman Shai.

Many bloggers were also represented at the conference, a number of whom can be found on HonestReporting's Links page. Don't forget that HonestReporting has its own Backspin blog where you can comment on many of the media issues of the day as well as respond to our regular communiques (including this one).

We are sure that 2007 will see a further expansion of the blogosphere's influence and HonestReporting intends to be at the forefront of the latest internet technology, such as podcasts and other technological initiatives.

Augean Stables has links to information about the conference:

• Conceptual Principles
• Program (as of December 13, 2006)
• Bibliography

The link to the program gives a good overview of the speakers and their topics.
The bibliography has links to interesting articles.
Also, check out the right hand column for relevant sources.

Personally, I would like to see Honest Reporting step in as a source, and clearing house, for podcasts and video that bloggers can use on their blogs--for enriching their content and strengthening their presentation.

We'll see in the coming months what Honest Reporting has planned.

There is a page for comments on the Honest Reporting article here.

Technorati Tag: Honest Reporting and JBlogosphere