Saturday, March 17, 2007

Palestinians unite behind extremist platform

There is every sign that the new Hamas government  means big trouble ahead for Israel and for peace. They "promise" "resistance" in all forms and "right of return" for Palestinian refugees, and there is no sign that the Hamas are disbanding their special "executive force." Abbas says he is extending the hand of peace to Israel. Gilad Shalit is still in in captivity, and might or might not be released in return for the release of over a thousand Palestinian prisoners.
 
From here, it looks more like Abbas is giving us the finger.   
 
For its part, the European Union is apparently going to reward the Palestinian government for standing firm on the principles of blowing people up and genocide. Read more: 
 
Ami Isseroff

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Death Cult Family Moments from Hamas TV

Death Cult Family Moments from Hamas TV
In a stomach-turning video clip from Al Aqsa TV (the Hamas television station) broadcast on March 8, 2007, the children of female suicide bomber Rim Al-Riyashi talk happily about their mother's act of mass murder. (Courtesy of MEMRI TV.)
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=24792_Death_Cult_Family_Moments_from_Hamas_TV&only
--
"Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment."  
Cowboy Saying.

Peace Now's complaints turn out to be exaggerated

Peace Now’s accusations of massive land confiscation were very inaccurate:

A military database released to the left-wing anti-settlement organization Peace Now under court pressure shows that very little private land was seized from Palestinians to build Israel’s largest West Bank settlement, the watchdog group reported on Wednesday.

The new numbers are vastly smaller than numbers Peace Now issued in a November report based on leaked information.

In November, Peace Now claimed that 86 percent of Ma’aleh Adumim was built on private Palestinian land. After successfully petitioning the court to see the database, the group reported Wednesday that data show that only 0.5% of the settlement was built on private land… (Jerusalem Post)

What were they thinking? Read the complete article at FresnoZionism.org
-- Vic Rosenthal




AIPAC should represent Israeli interests effectively

The Washington Israel lobby AIPAC, is not fulfilling its mission. It has made itself a lightning rod for attacks on "Zionism" without accomplishing much, and it is painting a rather unpleasant picture of Israel and Zionism to the American public. However, attempts to reform AIPAC need to come up with responsible, realistic and constructive suggestions for how to best make AIPAC further real Israeli and Zionist interests and represent Americans who support Israel.
 
More at Fixing AIPAC  

Saudi Peace Initiative - From Mideast On Target

Suddenly the Saudi Initiative peace proposal of March 2002 (supported by the moderate Arab states Jordan, Egypt and the Emirates) has gained new momentum and is all the rage.  The plan calls for a two state solution giving the Palestinians full sovereignty over the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem (to be its capital), a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines (incl. the Golan) and a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem as determined in UN Res. 194.  In return the Arab world is to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel and guarantee security for all peoples and states in the region, including Israel.
 

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

News coalition seeks to intervene in AIPAC espionage case

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- Contact: Lucy Dalglish, (703) 807-2100
News media coalition seeks to intervene in espionage trial

March 13, 2007

A coalition of media groups asked for permission to intervene in the AIPAC espionage case today, citing an apparent secret request by the U.S. government to hold a substantial portion of the criminal trial of two lobbyists in secret.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
and 12 other groups, including ABC, Inc., The Associated Press, Dow Jones & Co., Reuters, Time, Inc., and the Washington Post, asked to enter the case for the limited purpose of challenging the government's apparent request to close the upcoming trial in this matter, and any other pending or future motion seeking to restrict public access to the trial proceedings or record.

Two lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Stephen Rosen and Keith Weissman, were indicted in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria under the World War I-era Espionage Act. They were private individuals who were, according to the indictment, given confidential information from a Pentagon official and sought to publicize it, both by disclosing it to reporters and discussing it with Israeli embassy officials.

"Much of this case has been conducted in secret, as is the case with most espionage prosecutions," said Reporters Committee Executive Director Lucy A. Dalglish. "Based on a docket entry that appeared yesterday, however, it looks as if the government plans to ask the court to make this case even more secret than usual."

Based on the public docket entries, it appears that the court has scheduled a hearing for Thursday to address procedures under the Classified Intelligence Procedures Act (CIPA), which courts invoke when classified information is expected to be used at trial. On February 16, the government filed a motion under CIPA, the contents of which are sealed from public view. Apparently in response to that filing, defendants on Friday filed an "Under Seal and In Camera Motion to Strike the Government's CIPA 6(c) Requests and to Strike the Government's Request to Close the Trial," which likewise is unavailable to the public.

The motion by Rosen and Weissman, which was docketed Monday, provided the first notice to non-parties that there was a request before the Court to restrict public access to the trial, which presently is set for June 4. The court entered an order granting "defendants' motion to suspend the CIPA schedule pending resolution of defendants' motion opposing the government's proposed trial procedures" and specifying that "the hearing now scheduled for March 15-16 will first address defendants' challenge to the government's proposed trial proceedings." The order did not indicate whether this hearing would be open to members of the press and the public.

"The media is particularly interested in the prosecution of the AIPAC lobbyists because it is the first time the government has indicted for espionage private individuals who received classified information from a government source and passed it along to others. Functionally, this is not much different from what journalists covering national security issues do," Dalglish said.

The media organizations are represented by Jay Ward Brown and John O'Keefe of Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz LLP in Washington, D.C.

In addition to the Reporters Committee, the coalition of media groups seeking to intervene includes ABC, Inc., The Associated Press, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the American Society of Newspaper Editors; Dow Jones & Company, Inc.; the Newspaper Association of America; the Newspaper Guild; the Radio-Television News Directors Association, Reuters America LLC; the Society of Professional Journalists; Time Inc.; and The Washington Post.

The filing is available at: http://www.rcfp.org/news/documents/20070313-motiontoin.html

The new Israeli CoS

Gabi Ashkenazi, the new IDF Chief of Staff, is somewhat of an enigma as far as mass media is concerned. During his military career he was mostly avoiding the press, and since the announcement of his new post he seems to continue with this tradition.

More about him here.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Senator Lieberman at AIPAC conference

The heart of the speech is perhaps this:
 
The fact is we can't afford anything less than honesty at a time like this—a time when, as citizens of America and supporters of Israel, we confront grave and growing dangers to the nations we care so much about.
 
The threats I am referring to are directed not just against the security of our societies, but against the values that define who we are and who we hope to be.
 
They are threats to the universal principles of freedom, of democracy, of the rule of law--threats to the fundamental human rights that we believe are not just cherished by, but endowed to everyone on earth.
 
I do not need to tell you about the nature of these threats. I do not need to tell you about the regime in Iran--about its determination to acquire nuclear weapons, about its sponsorship of terrorism, about its repression of its own citizens.
 
I do not need to tell you about Al Qaeda and Hezbollah and Hamas—about their addiction to violence, about their pathological hatred of America and Israel, about their ambitions for conquest.
 
And I do not need to tell you about the fanatical ideology that links these different groups—the ideology of Islamist extremism, a totalitarian ideology as violent and vicious as the fascism and communism we Americans and our allies fought and defeated in the last century.
 
I do not need to tell you about these threats because you in AIPAC already understand them. That is why you work so hard and so well not just to preserve a strong U.S.-Israeli relationship but to uphold the cause of freedom.
 
Unfortunately, many in our country today do not seem to share that critical understanding of the threats we face.
 
Increasingly, the debate over our foreign policy is becoming so polarized, so partisan, so bound up in the battles we are having here in Washington, that it seems blind to the real battle outside of America, the challenge of our time from the Islamist extremists who want to destroy us all, who attacked America on September 11, 2001, and intend to do so again.
 
Any fair-minded person has to agree. That is why it is vital to get the policy goals right and make sure they are implemented. Fighting terrorism and fighting for the right of Israel to exist doesn't necessarily mean supporting Jewish settlements in Hebron, and the war in Iraq will never be won with current policies.
 

 
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 12, 2007
 Contact: Marshall Wittmann, 202-224-4041
 http://www.lieberman.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=270526
 
 
Lieberman Speech to AIPAC National Policy Conference 
 
 
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Senator Joe Lieberman spoke to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) National Policy Conference yesterday.
 
The text of the speech, as prepared for delivery, is below:
 
Thank you so much. Thank you, Lonny, for that kind introduction. It's a pleasure to be here among so many friends.
 
I don't know if I can ever sufficiently thank Lonny and so many of you who stood with me throughout the long journey that was my 2006 re-election campaign.
 
But trust me. I will try—for as long as God gives me life, and the good people of Connecticut give me the privilege of service.
 
And besides, now AIPAC can say it not only has bipartisan support. It has tripartisan support.
 
In the great policy discussions in Washington, I've learned, there are opponents on the one side, and on the other, there are allies, and friends, and then, there is family.
 
For me and many others, AIPAC is family—united in our shared history, our shared values, and our shared vision for the future. As family, we can talk frankly with each other, and that is what I would like to do with you today.
 
The fact is we can't afford anything less than honesty at a time like this—a time when, as citizens of America and supporters of Israel, we confront grave and growing dangers to the nations we care so much about.
 
The threats I am referring to are directed not just against the security of our societies, but against the values that define who we are and who we hope to be.
 
They are threats to the universal principles of freedom, of democracy, of the rule of law--threats to the fundamental human rights that we believe are not just cherished by, but endowed to everyone on earth.
 
I do not need to tell you about the nature of these threats. I do not need to tell you about the regime in Iran--about its determination to acquire nuclear weapons, about its sponsorship of terrorism, about its repression of its own citizens.
 
I do not need to tell you about Al Qaeda and Hezbollah and Hamas—about their addiction to violence, about their pathological hatred of America and Israel, about their ambitions for conquest.
 
And I do not need to tell you about the fanatical ideology that links these different groups—the ideology of Islamist extremism, a totalitarian ideology as violent and vicious as the fascism and communism we Americans and our allies fought and defeated in the last century.
 
I do not need to tell you about these threats because you in AIPAC already understand them. That is why you work so hard and so well not just to preserve a strong U.S.-Israeli relationship but to uphold the cause of freedom.
 
Unfortunately, many in our country today do not seem to share that critical understanding of the threats we face.
 
Increasingly, the debate over our foreign policy is becoming so polarized, so partisan, so bound up in the battles we are having here in Washington, that it seems blind to the real battle outside of America, the challenge of our time from the Islamist extremists who want to destroy us all, who attacked America on September 11, 2001, and intend to do so again.
 
In this regard, if I may have a point of personal privilege, as we say in the Senate, I'd like to talk with you about my own experience over the past year.
 
First, let me again say thank you. Your support helped me win an election, and even more importantly, to continue the fight for the principles and policies we believe in.
 
I don't think it's any secret that much of my fight for reelection was about the war in Iraq.
 
Given all the mistakes made in Iraq, all of the setbacks and disappointments, I understand how well-intentioned people have come to disagree about the war.
 
I also understand the frustration and exhaustion that so many people feel about Iraq, the desire just to throw up our hands and say, "Enough."
 
But I continue to believe that a withdrawal from Iraq, as many are now urging, would be a victory for Iran and Al Qaeda and the cause of Islamist extremism, and a catastrophic defeat for the United States and all who desire peace and security and freedom in the Middle East and here at home.
 
We are now implementing a new plan for success in Iraq, with new troops under a new commander. That is why I have called for a six-month truce in the political wars in Washington to give that new plan, those new troops, and that new commander a chance to succeed. And I call on all who care about security and peace in the Middle East, and security from terrorism here at home, to do the same.
 
Our fate is now inextricably linked to Iraq's. And our divisions cannot be allowed to become so deep that we cannot find unity in the face of Islamist extremism. Suicide bombers who kill civilians to make a political statement should not be allowed to triumph—in New York or Tel Aviv or Samarra. We must stand strong and united against barbarism—and, with your help, we will.
 
I understand the anger about Iraq, but I am deeply troubled by how this anger, and the feelings of animosity that many people have for President Bush, have begun to affect the way we talk and think about what is happening in the world beyond Iraq and America's role in it.
 
There is something profoundly wrong when opposition to the war in Iraq seems to inspire greater passion than opposition to Islamist extremism.
 
There is something profoundly wrong when there is so much distrust of our intelligence community that some Americans doubt the plain and ominous facts about the threat to us posed by Iran.
 
And there is something profoundly wrong when, in the face of attacks by radical Islam, we think we can find safety and stability by pulling back, by talking to and accommodating our enemies, and abandoning our friends and allies.
 
Some of this wrong-headed thinking about the world is happening because we're in a political climate where, for many people, when George Bush says "yes," their reflex reaction is to say "no."
 
That is unacceptable.
 
It's time to step back and start thinking together about our national interest again, to say "yes" when we agree and "no" when we don't, and to find ways to disagree without dividing ourselves from one another.
 
It's time to step back and remember that there is a real enemy out there—an enemy violently opposed to human rights and women's rights and gay rights and the basic political rights of each one of us.
 
It's time to step back and see that America's interests lie with the interests of free people everywhere, and that the response to radical Islam is not to abandon them but to stand with them—whether they are in Baghdad or Teheran or Jerusalem.
 
And that is precisely why I believe AIPAC's mission is more important today than ever before. Your organization embodies an ideal that in the struggle for the defense of freedom, we are not Democrats or Republicans—we are Americans, we are citizens of the same world.
 
I know some people do not appreciate just how deeply American your organization is. They attack AIPAC as if it were an external force in our body politic—an "Israel lobby."
 
These people are outrageously wrong. AIPAC is an American lobby, fighting for the best ideals, values, and interests that the United States of America and Israel share.
 
In supporting the U.S.-Israeli relationship, AIPAC has been internationalist, strong, and nonpartisan. That is precisely what America's foreign policy—and our domestic political debates about it—desperately needs to be right now: internationalist, strong, and non-partisan—not isolationist, weak, and partisan.
 
You have an opportunity and an imperative here in Washington this week—to combat the partisanship that threatens to elevate party interests over the national interest—to fight the fallacy that we can withdraw from the fight against radical Islam and make peace by sweet-talking people who shout "Death to America" and call for the destruction of Israel. That has never worked, and it will never work.
 
I want each of you here today to recognize that you are on the frontlines of this war. It is a war for security but also a war about ideas. In your meetings on Capitol Hill, in your discussions when you return home to your communities across America, I ask you to be proud of what you stand for, of what you are doing, and of the ideas and the organization you represent.
 
And when you are challenged about your beliefs, do not let the charges go unanswered. Do not shy from this fight. Do not retreat from the battlefield of ideas.
 
You know that the struggle for freedom is indivisible. You know that freedom itself is indivisible.
 
That is why we stand united—as Americans, as Israelis, as children of God, as children of freedom.
 
The esteemed historian of the Middle East, Bernard Lewis, was in Washington this past week. He said that, when he looks at the world today and the threats we face, it reminds him of the 1930s—and that he hears far more voices that sound like Chamberlain than like Churchill.
 
And so I challenge each of you to find the voice of Churchill inside yourself, and let it be heard this week on Capitol Hill and throughout the nation in the days and years ahead.
 
Stand up for your arguments. Stand up for your principles. Stand up for your values.
 
Stand up for America. Stand up for Israel. Stand up for freedom. And have confidence that in the end, our cause will, with God's help, prevail.
 
Thank you so much.
 

Brit Tzedek v’Shalom’s strange petition

Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, an American Jewish organization which claims to be "pro-Israel and pro-Peace" is asking people — especially Jews — to sign a petition which says:

I call on your Administration to urgently promote talks between Israel and any party - including the Palestinians, Lebanon, and Syria - that accepts Israel's right to exist by engaging in direct negotiations, back-channel contacts, and/or an international peace conference.

At first glance, this is ambiguous. Does it mean that Israel should talk to anyone who accepts her right to exist, and should do so in any of several ways? Or does it mean that anyone who engages in negotiations, back-channel contacts, or a peace conference thereby accepts Israel's right to exist and Israel should talk to them?

Read more at FresnoZionism.org

Is AIPAC in danger of making itself irrelevant??

Is AIPAC in danger of making itself irrelevant? If it is under the control of the extreme right, it will become the "Israel Lobby" caricatured by anti-Semites and anti-Zionists. It won't represent Israeli interests or the will of US Jews.
Is that "good for the Jews?"


Hagee at AIPAC: Is AIPAC veering to the right??

http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2007/03/hagee-at-aipac-is-aipac-veering-to.html

Jim Hagee will apear at AIPAC. Well OK, he is entitled to his opinion. Perhaps George Soros should be there too. What is more worrying than the appearance of Hagee, who is just one speaker, is the general background given here:
Pro-peace groups say they will not press AIPAC to soften its language about the Palestinians, as they have done in the past. Morton Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), will come to the executive committee meeting loaded with amendments aimed at toughening them....

Kahn said AIPAC has also strengthened itself by aggressively "pushing the Orthodox community to engage. You have more and more Orthodox rabbis who are touting AIPAC and touting joining AIPAC. AIPAC understands that if you get the rabbis on board, they in turn will press the community to get involved."

That "dramatic shift," he said, may make AIPAC "less representative, but it also strengthens the group as voices on Mideast policy become more diverse.
It is hard to see how the group becomes "more diverse" if it is going to be run by orthodox Jews and Jim Hagee.

Marvin Kalb on media as weapon in Israel-Hezbollah war

Here is an excerpt from Marvin Kalb's paper on the news media as a weapon in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

Kalb, a former U.S. television correspondent, is a senior fellow of Harvard University's Shorenstein Center.

The paper, published in February, deals with asymmetrical conflict and "shows how an open society, Israel, is victimized by its own openness and how a closed sect, Hezbollah, can retain almost total control of the daily message of journalism and propaganda."

The following excerpt discusses the media theme that Israel's response was disproportionate.

[begin excerpt]
No theme resonated through the coverage of the Lebanese war more forcefully than the repeated assertion by Arab and Western reporters that Israel responded “disproportionately” to Hezbollah’s initial provocation. Though eight soldiers had been killed and two captured, it was said that the provocation was similar in style to others that took place over the years, both sides expecting the U.N. or the U.S. to intervene and negotiate first a ceasefire and then a prisoner swap, and that the Israeli response thus seemed wildly out of kilter—and, therefore, “disproportionate.”

Whether it was first the media focusing on this theme and then Hezbollah exploiting its propaganda value, or whether it was Hezbollah deliberately drawing journalists to this story day after day (though given the almost daily damage, this was hardly necessary, since journalists would have focused on it anyway) there appears to be little doubt that the media everywhere emphasized the theme of “disproportionality” from the opening day of the conflict, as though nothing else measured up to it in importance.

The theme was obvious in most of the reporting. Let us engage for a moment in what scholars call “content analysis.” Look at the headlines, the photographs and the television reports, measure the time devoted to them on television and the space set aside for them in newspapers, check the nationality of the “victims” (sometimes referred to as “martyrs” by Arab reporters)—and you are quickly able to spot the media’s approach in covering this war. Was it, as Fox President Roger Ailes might ask, “fair and balanced?” Or, was it tilted or biased in one direction or another?

Asharq Al-Awsat is one of the two Arabic-language newspapers published in London and then distributed throughout the Middle East. From July 13 to August 16, the paper ran 24 photographs related to the war on the front page; all but two of them showed the death and destruction in Lebanon caused by Israeli attacks.20 The Arab reader of this paper could have drawn only one conclusion—that Israel was guilty of converting Lebanon into a “killing field.” Only once, July 31, did Asharq Al-Awsat show a photograph of the destruction that Hezbollah rockets were causing in Israel. This imbalance (22 to 1) could hardly be defined by a Western yardstick as “objective journalism,” but it could still be explained in the context of Middle East journalism, where many Arab reporters feel a nationalistic, religious or cultural prejudice against Israel. Therefore, by featuring 22 front-page photographs of the devastation caused by Israeli bombing of Lebanon and essentially ignoring Hezbollah’s attacks against Israel, Asharq Al-Awsat was only doing what came naturally—it was playing to the prejudices of its readers, who felt sympathy for their Arab brethren under Israeli fire. Asharq Al-Awsat was selling papers.

Further, if you were watching Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, and switching back and fourth, and if on occasion you asked the question, “Who is really the aggressor in this war?” (which started when Hezbollah staged a cross-border raid and killed eight Israelis) your answer would be Israel, and the answer would surprise no one. Media Tenor, the highly-respected media research organization in Germany, found, first, that Al-Arabiya ran 214 stories on the subject, and, second, that 94 percent of them referred to Israel as the “aggressor.”21 Al-Jazeera ran 83 stories on the subject and 78 percent of them reached the same conclusion. All of these stories, showing pictures of Israeli attacks against Lebanese targets, were presented as examples of “disproportionality.” Why Al-Arabiya ran twice as many stories on the subject was not explored or explained.

Another survey by Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy examined headlines and photos on Al-Jazeera’s website. Fifty percent of the photos portrayed Israel as the aggressor, only six percent portrayed Hezbollah as the aggressor. The headlines made an attempt to strike a more balanced picture but did not get far: Israel, labeled as the aggressor 39 percent of the time, Hezbollah 13 percent of the time.22 Most Arab news organizations now have their own websites, which provide a separate universe of news, information and opinion but reflect essentially the same editorial opinion. While not yet profitable, these websites are moving from loss leader status to profit centers.

By comparison, if you were watching the BBC for war coverage, you would have seen a somewhat more balanced approach. The BBC ran 117 stories. Thirty-eight percent fingered Israel as the aggressor, only four percent fingered Hezbollah. The BBC then said that both Israel and Hezbollah were equally to blame for the war. BBC coverage generally tipped against Israel, perhaps in response to public opinion. According to a YouGov poll of British viewers and voters, 63 percent believed that Israel’s response to Hezbollah’s attack had been “disproportionate.” Only 17 percent thought it was “proportionate.”23

However, if you were watching American television, you would quickly have concluded that Fox cable news favored Israel, CNN tried to be balanced, and the three major evening news programs on ABC, CBS and NBC were more critical of Israel than of Hezbollah. It was a time of saturation coverage. In the first two weeks of the war, they ran 258 stories, an average of 18 stories a night, representing the heaviest period of international coverage since the failed coup attempt against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in the summer of 1991. More than half of the stories (133) focused on Israeli attacks against Lebanon, 89 of them on Hezbollah attacks against Israel.24 Negative-sounding judgments of Israel’s attacks and counter-attacks permeated most network coverage, except on Fox, where the coverage of Hezbollah’s activities was decidedly negative.

A man-in-the-street interview on the NBC Nightly News on 7/21/06: “They (Israelis) are destroying everything. We do not understand for what, because they kidnapped two soldiers? It’s not a reason.”25

Reporter David Wright on ABC World News Tonight on 7/17/06: “That kind of destruction is what leads many ordinary Lebanese to view the Israelis as villains. Whether or not they approve of Hezbollah, they hear the bombs raining down.”26

On the front pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post, Israel was portrayed as the aggressor nearly twice as often in the headlines and exactly three times as often in the photos, according to another Shorenstein Center survey.27 Although neither The Times nor The Post stressed the theme of “disproportionality” on their front pages, both made frequent references to it in their stories, analyses and editorial columns.

Another major theme in the coverage of the Lebanon war had to do with traditional Arab feelings of “victimization.” Both Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya hit this theme frequently. Al-Arabiya, for example, stressed Lebanese victimization in 95 percent of its stories, according to Media Tenor.28 In other words, the viewer could not escape the belief that Israel was the aggressor and the Lebanese were the victims. Al-Jazeera, though, hit this theme in 70 percent of its broadcasts about Lebanon, a high percentage but still 25 percent less than Al-Arabiya, which coincidentally meant Al-Jazeera was emphasizing this theme with the same frequency as the four top television programs in Germany.29 Most television networks around the world ran many more stories from Lebanon than from Israel, and the stories all focused on Lebanese deaths, destruction and devastation, which led to the obvious conclusion: in this war, as in other Arab-Israeli conflicts, the Arabs were portrayed as the victims.

On the other side of the coin of victimization is said to be an equally strong Arab feeling of humiliation, which often finds its expression in the question: how come Israel consistently defeats the Arab nation? Al-Jazeera’s editor, Ahmed Sheikh, recently addressed this question in the German weekly Die Weltwoche: “It gnaws at the people in the Middle East,” he said, “that such a small country as Israel, with only about seven million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million people. That hurts our collective ego.”30 Sheikh sees the Arab nation as one nation, which is interesting and even understandable within the context of romantic 20th century nationalism. Until the Lebanon war, Israel defeated one, two or three Arab states at a time. Now, it faces not just states but tribal sects, religious factions and “states within states,” such as Hezbollah. Asymmetrical warfare has added a critical new factor to any calculation of winners and losers. In strictly military terms, Israel did not lose to Hezbollah in this war, but it clearly did not win. In the war of information, news and propaganda, the battlefield central to Hezbollah’s strategy, Israel lost this war. How it will attempt to control the media message in the next war is likely to be a hot topic of discussion in Israeli war councils. One question is whether a democracy can—and should—make such an effort.

NOTES:

20 Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. (2006). Statistical Survey of Arab and American Daily News Coverage.

21 Media Tenor. (2006).“Picturing War: Media Content Analysis of the Coverage of the 2006 Lebanon War in International TV News,” p. 33.

22 Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. (2006). Statistical Survey of Arab and American Daily News Coverage. 23 Bloomberg News. (2006/August 12).“TV News Reflects Nations’ Differences over Lebanon.”

24 Media Monitor. (July/August 2006).“The War in Lebanon.”

25 Richard Engel and Martin Fletcher, “Civilian Deaths Mount in Lebanon as Israel Moves Troops to Lebanese Border,” NBC Nightly News, July 21, 2006.

26 David Wright, “War Zone: Line of Fire,” ABC World News Tonight, July 17, 2006.

27 Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. (2006). Statistical Survey of Arab and American Daily News Coverage.

28 Media Tenor. (2006).“Picturing War: Media Content Analysis of the Coverage of the 2006 Lebanon War in International TV News,” p. 26.

29 Ibid.

30 Pierre Heumann, “An Interview with Al-Jazeera Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Sheikh,” Die Weltwoche, November 23, 2006, English translation by John Rosenthal.
[end excerpt]

-- posted by Joseph M. Hochstein, Tel Aviv

Monday, March 12, 2007

Anti-Semitism or Legitimate criticism of Israeli Policy?


Some anti-Zionists can't believe that anti-Zionism is racism. They insist that all attempts to conflate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are simply propaganda of the "Israel Lobby" designed to shut them up.

Reality is stronger than their fantasies however. Two attempts to pass motions against Anti-Semitism in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign failed. How could it be otherwise? How could a movement that denies the Jewish people the right to self-determination not be racist?

See also - this evaluation from a pro-Palestinian academic:
"On the whole Ant-Zionism is close to, or a mask for, Anti-Semitism."
Continued at http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2007/03/legitimate-criticism-of-israel.html