UPDATED: Ha’aretz Indifferent to Journalistic Norms

Nov. 28 update follows.

Nov. 15, 2005 — For more than two decades, CAMERA has followed media coverage of Israel and the Middle East closely, contacting countless outlets with questions about factual accuracy and in many instances eliciting corrections. Virtually every major media outlet in America and some beyond U.S. shores have corrected errors in response to CAMERA, in accordance with professional journalistic standards asserting the paramount importance of accuracy — and accountability. Among those issuing corrections, often multiple times, have been the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, International Herald Tribune, National Public Radio, ABC News, and CNN.

Until recently CAMERA’s efforts have focused primarily on North America with few foreign media outlets monitored intensively for accurate coverage or challenged for corrections on erroneous reporting. Little attention was directed, for example, toward Ha’aretz, an Israeli daily newspaper printed in Hebrew and English and relied on by the Western press corps as well as Israel’s cultural and political elite. (Ha’aretz is sometimes described by its admirers as the New York Times of Israel.) With the opening of CAMERA’s Israel office last year, however, it was possible for the first time to monitor Ha’aretz in the same sustained way as U.S. newspapers are followed.

In the last year, CAMERA has contacted the paper’s editors concerning multiple factual errors, taking the identical approach used with U.S. publications — emailing editors behind the scenes, providing data substantiating why a report is incorrect, requesting a correction, following up with phone calls, and finally, posting an item on our Web site and/or sending out an alert. (In a particularly egregious case, we published an Op-Ed in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles about a serious and uncorrected error.)

However, unlike prominent American and international outlets, Ha’aretz apparently considers itself above criticism. Ha’aretz editors seem unaccustomed to responding to readers in a straightforward process and appear to believe readers have no right to fault them for shoddy, inaccurate coverage. Rather than considering the substance of CAMERA’s queries, Ha’aretz has stonewalled completely, refusing to correct errors. Indeed, the English edition of the newspaper, in contrast to almost every major American newspaper, has no regular corrections section; a lone correction appears once every few months.

Amira Hass Falsehood

CAMERA contacted Ha’aretz editors about an error that appeared Nov. 2 in an Op-Ed entitled “How the PA Failed” by columnist Amira Hass. She writes that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas “cannot prevent the expropriation of land for Jewish-only roads in the West Bank.” In fact, while there are roads prohibited to Palestinians in the West Bank, there are no “Jewish-only roads.” Israel’s Arab citizens and, indeed, Israeli citizens of any religion or ethnicity, have just as much right to travel on those restricted roads as do Israeli Jews. Israeli Arabs frequently use the bypass roads for business and to visit relatives. Moreover, at least one Israeli Arab was fatally shot by Palestinian terrorists on one of these roads. As the Los Angeles Times reported on Aug. 8, 2001:

Wael Ghanem, an Israeli Arab, was shot and killed as he drove toward the Jewish settlement of Tzofim in the West Bank, not far from where an Israeli woman was killed on Sunday. . . . However, he was driving a car with yellow license plates on a West Bank road where a similar shooting attack had taken place, raising the possibility that Palestinian gunmen thought they were targeting an Israeli settler.

Georgios Tsibouktzakis, a Greek Orthodox monk, shot on June 12, 2001, was another non-Jew killed by Palestinian terrorists while on these roads.

Even B’Tselem, an organization frequently critical of Israel, acknowledges that restricted roads are reserved for those with Israeli plates, (Jews and Arabs), as opposed to Jews only. Thus, an Aug. 9, 2004 hard-hitting report stated: “B’Tselem has divided the Forbidden Roads Regime into three categories of roads: ‘sterile roads’ where Palestinian traffic is completely prohibited, roads where Palestinians require special permits, and roads with restricted access. The regime applies only to Palestinians. Israeli vehicles are allowed to travel freely along these roadways.”  This false charge implying a racist policy on the part of Israel – allowing special privilege to Jews over other religious and ethnic groups – is particularly pernicious. When such a claim is made in a prominent Israeli newspaper it is often echoed in the media worldwide.

Ha’aretz Response

In response to CAMERA’s request for a correction on this issue, Ha’aretz assistant editor Ruth Meisels (inadvertently or perhaps intentionally) sent CAMERA’s Israel Director Tamar Sternthal an email addressed to a Ha’aretz employee, which warned (in Hebrew):

In the event that this [CAMERA complaint] gets to you: We have a quasi ‘policy,’ on the orders of [editor-in-chief] David [Landau], to ignore this organization and all of its complaints, including not responding to telephone messages and screening calls from Tamar Sternhal [sic], director of CAMERA. Otherwise, we will never finish with them.

Thus, Ha’aretz editors appear to have little interest in the accuracy of their coverage or the accepted standards of journalism – unlike their American counterparts – and seem to believe (wrongly) that not returning a phone call or responding to an email will deflect CAMERA’s efforts to redress false and inflammatory assertions.

Uncorrected Errors

Beyond the most recent Amira Hass error, numerous others remain uncorrected, including:

* In a July 18, 2004 column, Gideon Levy made a number of false claims, among them the allegation that Golda Meir once said: “After what the Nazis did to us, we can do whatever we want.” CAMERA was not able to track down any source for such a quote. Moreover, Levy himself sent an email to CAMERA admitting that he had no source. Nevertheless, Ha’aretz editors refused to correct.

* On Jan. 26, 2005, Ha’aretz ran a five-column color Reuters photograph above the fold on the front page, with the incorrect caption: “A Palestinian man inspecting buildings after they were demolished by Palestinian police in Gaza yesterday, the first time the PA has acted against illegal construction.” In actuality, the PA has repeatedly acted against illegal construction, and CAMERA provided Ha’aretz with news reports from Times of London, the Washington Post, and Israel’s Channel 2 substantiating earlier such action taken by the PA in 1994, 1995, and 1998, respectively.

* In a Feb. 10, 2005 Op-Ed about the current status of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Ha’aretz writer Sefi Rachlevsky alleged that there had been “four years in which the Palestinians preserved nearly absolute quiet.” The exact time of the four years is not entirely clear from Rachlevsky’s writing, but at no point during the 1990s was there a period in which “the Palestinians preserved nearly absolute quiet.” CAMERA provided Ha’aretz with a detailed list of the attacks which occurred throughout the decade. Ha’aretz again stonewalled.

* In a June 5, 2005 Op-Ed, Yossi
Beilin claimed that in Israel from 1957 to 1967 “only 20 people were killed from hostile operations.” In fact, at least 40 Israelis were killed in hostile acts during this period.

* In a Jan. 21, 2004 exposé in Ha’aretz Magazine, Meron Rapaport erred about the Absentee Property Law, stating: “The law stipulates that the property of such an absentee would be transferred to the Custodian of Absentee Property, with no possibility of appeal or compensation” (emphasis added). This is false, as both appeal and compensation are possible, and landowners have exercised these rights and been compensated. Though Ha’aretz ran a letter from CAMERA on this issue, a letter is no substitution for an acknowledgment from the newspaper that it had erred.

‘Personal Vendetta’

In July, the Israeli weekly Makor Rishon ran an article about CAMERA’s Israel office, focusing on its efforts with respect to Ha’aretz, quoting the editor:

David Landau, editor of Ha’aretz, says that his relationship to CAMERA’s complaints are different than his relationship to the complaints of others. “I confirm that we relate to CAMERA as if they have a personal vendetta against us. I have experience of many years with them. We encourage readers to write to us, and we publicize every day or two days corrections of errors according to need, but everything depends on the clean hands of the writer.”

Yet, it is totally untrue to suggest that in the English edition, which is the version Western journalists read, corrections run every day or two. Moreover, CAMERA is the only organization to press Ha’aretz for factual accountability in a systematic way. Thus, it is CAMERA’s unique agenda to promote accountability which makes Ha’aretz‘s relationship with us “different.”

Israeli Code of Ethics

Landau’s directive to disregard complaints from CAMERA not only stands in contrast to the attitudes and procedures of the U.S. arena but also, in fact, violates the Rules of Professional Ethics of Journalism as authorized by the Israel Press Council. These state:

Substantive mistakes, omissions or inaccuracies in the publication of facts must be corrected speedily, fairly and with the appropriate emphasis relative to the original publication. In addition, in suitable cases, an apology shall also be published. In suitable cases a person injured shall be given a fair opportunity to respond to a substantive mistake, omission or inaccuracy speedily and with the appropriate emphasis relative to the original publication.

Ha’aretz seems to believe it is above any such guidelines requiring accountability.

Nov. 28 Update: Ha’aretz Shoots Messenger Rather Than Correct Errors

In a Nov. 16 op-ed, entitled “The frog is exhausted,” Hass escalates the falsehood by specifying that  443, a major highway, is for “Jews only.” She writes: “there’s a road for Jews only, like the Modi’in-Givat Ze’ev road. . . .” While Palestinian access to 443 has been blocked after Palestinians murdered eight Israeli motorists on the highway, the road is regularly used by non-Jews, including Israeli Arabs and others. In fact, the only gas station between Modi’in and Givat Ze’ev is a Dor station owned and operated by the Hawaja family, Israeli Arabs. The outside of the gas station, photographed Nov. 23, is pictured below.  Its signs are in Hebrew and Arabic.

 

During a visit to the gas station, which is located close to the Palestinian village of Kharbata, CAMERA spoke with two Arab employees who confirmed that Palestinians do not have access to 443, but Israeli Arabs travel freely on the road. One worker explained that most of the Arab customers are residents of Lod and Ramle traveling to Jerusalem for work. (The gas station is on the Givat Ze’ev or Jerusalem-bound side.) Below are photographs of Israeli Arab patrons of the gas station and its convenience store, photographed on Nov. 21, 2005.

 

 

 

CAMERA also visited the 443 checkpoint approaching Jerusalem, just after the Atarot turnoff. Countless Arabs passed through the checkpoint. Below is a photograph of an Arab shuttle bus waiting in the same line as an army jeep.

 

 

Here is the Muslim woman in the backseat of the above car.

 

Also, every few minutes, Arab shuttle busses passed through, carrying passengers between Khalandia, Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Anata. along Route 443 — the road Amira Hass claims is confined to those of the Jewish religion. Privately owned by Israeli and Palestinian Arabs, they are licensed by Israel , and permitted to carry Palestinian passengers who carry the proper permits. (The yellow license plates are plainly visible.)

 

Also, because non-Jews frequently use the road, some are unfortunately the victims of a prevalent phenomenon in Israel – road accidents. The Modi’in region of ZAKA, the search and rescue unit, informed CAMERA that it transferred the body of an Arab car accident victim to the Abu Kabir Pathological Institute on July 7, 2003.

Truth “For All Practical Purposes”

Mr. Schocken has repeatedly insisted that the West Bank roads are “for all practical purposes” for Jews only. For instance, he wrote to one correspondent: “The Israeli license plates are for all practical purposes Jewish plates. This are roads [sic] mainly for the Jewish settlers and for their protection.” To assert that Israeli plates “are for all practical purposes Jewish plates” ignores the 20 percent non-Jewish minority which travels using the Israeli yellow license plate. In Ha’aretz‘s eyes, it is almost as though Israeli Arabs are irrelevant and don’t exist. Thus, apparently the Israeli daily regards the status of Israeli Arabs as so unimportant, that it deliberately and repeatedly ignores their existence. It is not uncommon to find columns in Ha’aretz which attack Israel for treating Israeli Arabs as though they are invisible; now it is Ha’aretz itself which is taking this exclusionary, even racist approach.

In the case of 443, the statement that the road was built “mainly for the Jewish settlers and their protection” is absolutely false. As the Boston Globe reported on Feb. 4, 2001, the road, built in the politically optimistic climate of the 1990s, was intended to build bridges and connect populations, not protect settlers, contrary to Ha’aretz‘s claims:

Until the new intifadah, the road carried all segments of Israeli life. Factory owners traveled it to reach the Atarot industrial area that employs many Palestinians. Salesman and professionals in the booming technology field used it to shuttle between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Students from Tel Aviv found it the best way to get to Jerusalem’s Hebrew University campus.

The road embraced ‘the new Middle East,’ where borders between Israel and the Palestinians would be blurred. There were plans to extend the road to the border of neighboring Jordan.It was supposed to weave together a new regional economy.

In his response to writers, Mr. Schocken acknowledges that some Arabs do use the roads, but nevertheless insists that the roads are still “Jews-only roads.” He dismisses the fact that non-Jews use the roads as “legalistic.” He therefore stands by what he believes is truth “for all practical purposes,” as opposed to the actual facts, which are so plainly visible to those who travel on the roads, not to mention the non-Jewish passengers themselves.

Not Bona-fide “Truth Seekers”

It is ironic that Mr. Schocken, who repeatedly excuses and justifies an allegation which is patently false, states that it ignores CAMERA’s concerns because CAMERA is “not a bona-fide truth seeker.” He fails, however, to give any example of how CAMERA’s concerns about Ha’aretz’s accuracy have been unfounded. In addition, he stands by the July 2004 Gideon Levy report which claims that Golda Meir once said, “After what the Nazis did to us, we can do whatever we want.” Schocken does not provide a source for the alleged quote, and denies Levy ever admitted he has no source.

Below is a copy of Gideon Levy’s response to Tamar Sternthal who had asked “Can you provide me with some more details [about the purported quote] – the exact, quote, date, source, etc.?” Levy emailed the following to Tamar on Aug. 12, 2004:

Dear Mrs. Sternthal, unfortunately not and therefore we dropped the quotation in the original version in Hebrew and by mistake it was printed in the English version. This does not meanthat [sic] she did not say it, but that we couldn’t find the reference. Gideon Levy.

In short, Ha’aretz publisher Schocken prefers to shoot the messenger rather than take the professional approach of examining the facts and issuing corrections accordingly.

PRESS RELEASE: Rep. Rothman Stresses Need for Public Broadcasting Oversight

WASHINGTON, D.C. (November 21) – The Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s obligation to safeguard public television and radio from political interference does not conflict with its mandate to ensure objectivity and balance, U.S. Representative Steven R. Rothman (D-N.J.) asserted Thursday. Rothman, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, spoke out as a House-Senate conference committee considered funding for Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and related agencies. The legislation included approximately $400 million for CPB to allocate to National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting Service and other non-commercial broadcast entities.

Rothman stated that he wanted “to call attention to CPB’s obligation to ensure unbiased and objective reporting.” The corporation’s legal mandate to protect public broadcasting from outside interference and to assure strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programming of a controversial nature “reinforce each other,” the congressman stressed.

“There should be no confusion … CPB must implement both [obligations] on behalf of Congress and the taxpayers,” Rothman added. “I strongly believe that the public’s trust in public broadcasting rests on just such standards and I will continue to fight to see that they are maintained.”

Andrea Levin, president and executive director of CAMERA – the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America – welcomed Rothman’s statement. Noting that former CPB chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson was criticized this week in a corporation inspector-general’s report for alleged partisan involvement in programming and hiring, Levin said: “It’s critical that Congress and CPB reaffirm their non-partisan oversight function. No one is entitled to tax funds without supervision – in this case the clear, legal requirement of meeting the objectivity and balance standard.”

Levin pointed out that CAMERA has documented a long pattern of anti-Israel coverage by NPR. “This chronic failure is just the kind of misuse of public money that makes non-partisan oversight, according to established journalistic standards of accuracy, comprehensiveness, objectivity and balance necessary. We applaud Rep. Rothman for his timely reminder.”

The Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies bill, including CPB funding, was returned to conference committee by the full House for revision. “We hope other members of Congress will reaffirm Rep. Rothman’s position – that protecting public broadcasting from political interference does not exempt it from objectivity and balance as it spends the public’s money,” Levin said.

Rothman’s complete statement is posted on CAMERA’s Web site, cameramainsite.dev.neptuneweb.com, which also includes extensive documentation of NPR’s anti-Israel bias.

CAMERA Prompts BBC Correction on Rafah

As noted by CAMERA’s blog yesterday, a BBC caption on the “In pictures” section incorrectly stated that Palestinians “took back” control of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. CAMERA staff notified BBC editors about the error, and the caption was corrected. The error and correction follow:

Error (BBC Web site, “In pictures” caption, 11/26/05): For the first time in nearly 40 years, Palestinians took back control of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. (Emphasis added.)

Correction (11/28/05): Palestinians took control of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt for the first time. The crossing is a vital gateway to the outside world for Gaza’s residents and the strip’s economy. (Emphasis added.)

One Day in September (1999)

One Day in September (1999)
Directed by Kevin Macdonald
Narrated by Michael Douglas
English, German, B&W, Color
94 min

1999 Academy Award Winner for Best Documentary

There has been much publicity surrounding Steven Spielberg’s 2005 film, “Munich,” which blurs the line between historical fiction and real events to tell the story of an Israeli hit team’s hunt for the planners and perpetrators of the 1972 Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes, casting doubt on the morality of counter-terrorist activity. (See Film Review: Munich)

By contrast, “One Day in September,” an Academy Award-winning1999 documentary, focuses on the massacre itself. The events of that day and their overall impact are told through live film clips, news broadcasts and interviews with police, close relatives of victims, and the sole surviving perpetrator. The film reveals the lack of vigilance on the part of the Germans, Israelis and Olympic authorities and exposes the cynicism and bungling that led to its tragic conclusion–all of which indicates the need for vigorous and aggressive counter-terrorist capabilities.

The film begins by tracing the separate paths of a victim and a perpetrator to their horrific convergence at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. Israeli fencing instructor Andre Spitzer was celebrating his first year of marriage and the recent birth of a daughter. Spitzer, who lived near the border of Israel and Lebanon, regarded fencing as a means of building character and respect. Participating in the Olympics was the fulfillment of a dream. In Lebanon’s Shatila refugee camp–close geographically to Spitzer, but a world apart–lived Jamal Al-Gashey, a young Palestinian born into a bleak existence and raised on the credo of vengeance from an early age, who yearned to “confront the Israelis.”

A home video and photographs accompany the commentary of Andre Spitzer’s wife, Ankie, as she wistfully recalls the joy she and Andre shared in their new life together, “It was the most beautiful and wonderful year of my life.” She describes how Andre’s confident nature had a stabilizing and captivating effect on her.

The film abruptly turns to the dark narrative of Jamal Al-Gashey, interviewed in an unspecified location many years later who appears on camera in disguise. Al-Gashey describes growing up in the physical and spiritual poverty of a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. “I thought there was no future for us, unless we returned to Palestine,” he explains. So he joined the Palestinian “liberation” movement and was given a gun and some training, feeling for the for the first time in his life truly “Palestinian.” There can hardly be a sharper contrast between the dour resentment that pervades Al-Gashey’s youth and the promise of Spitzer’s life.

At the start of the games, the Israeli team marches into the main stadium of the Munich Olympics, proudly bearing the Israeli flag, symbol of the Jewish people, in the birthplace of Nazism. The Germans, conscious of their violent militaristic past, had taken extra measures to create a relaxed and open environment. Police were banned from the Olympic village, and in their place were brightly jacketed unarmed security personnel.

For the Israeli team there were painful collective memories of the previous Olympics in Germany in 1936 under the glare of Adolf Hitler. One member, coach Yakov Springer, had lost his entire family in the Holocaust. He saw his arrival in Munich as an act of defiance against the Germans who had not been able to kill him during the Holocaust. He did not survive the 1972 Olympics massacre.

Most of the Israelis, like Spitzer, were excited by the opportunity to reach out to others. Ankie Spitzer describes how Andre struck up a friendly conversation with the Lebanese team. “You see, this is what I was dreaming about,” Spitzer told his wife.

Meanwhile, a group of Palestinians had arrived on the scene, staked out the premises, casually dined and then watched an Olympic volleyball match while waiting for their instructions.

In the early morning of September 5, the terrorists entered the first room of Israelis. The film describes the heroic action of Israeli athlete Moshe Weinberg, who risked his life trying to block the entry of the terrorists, and then, after being wounded, attacked one of the terrorists in the hall, allowing a fellow Israeli wrestler to escape. The Palestinians shot and killed Weinberg and dumped his naked body on the pavement below the building. The terrorists went on to shoot Joseph Romano, who also resisted, and then left him to bleed to death on the floor in front of the others.

The Palestinians demanded the release of 234 convicted terrorists being held in Israel, Germany and other countries. The Israelis refused on principle. Golda Meir, then Prime Minister of Israel, announced resolutely, “If we should give in, then no Israeli anywhere in the world could feel that his life was safe. Blackmail of the worst kind.”

The film spotlights the poor, half-hearted performance by the German police.It becomes apparent that had the Germans been prepared (apparently, a psychologist named Sieber had warned of just such an event happening), the nine Israeli captives would have had a good chance of surviving. The Israelis wanted to send a team in, but the German government rejected the request. ITN (Independent Television Network) reporter Gerald Seymour recalls how unprepared the Germans were. “They did not understand, one, how to respond and two, the mind-set of the people they were dealing with.”

The terrorists, however, clearly understood what they were trying to achieve, as Issa, the leader of the group, declared, “You offered us a showcase, and we have to use the showcase to show our [possibilities] to millions, even billions of people in the world.”

A unique aspect which could only be conveyed by film is the body language and facial expressions of the various interviewees. For example, the German officials at times betrayed a disturbing stolidness about the situation. Olympic village head Walter Troger explains how he might have even liked Issa in other circumstances and tells how he discussed the roots of the situation with the terrorist leader. General Ulrich Wegener, who is the most honest of the German officials in discussing the tragic mishandling of the situation by the Germans, nevertheless manages to joke about a specific event. Among the Israelis, however, there are no stoic moments, only despair and disbelief.

The narrator tells also of the callousness of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) who, throughout the drama, were interested only in the success of the Olympic games. (This is not surprising considering then-IOC President Avery Brundage had 36 years earlier played a role in removing Jewish athletes from the American team at the Berlin Olympics in order not to offend the Nazi dictator.) While demonstrations were held around the world urging the release of the Israeli athletes, the IOC remained unmoved, and athletic events continued. Athletes are seen sunning themselves just 200 yards from the building where the Israelis were held.

Eventually, popular outcry forced the IOC to suspend the games but their the main objective and that of their German hosts was to resume the games as soon as possible. One official bluntly admitted, “The organizer of the games naturally wanted the games to resume as soon as possible, we had to find a resolution one way or another.” According to then-Israeli Mossad chief Zvi Zamir, “to move the team from the Olympic compound in order to let the games go on–this was the objective, the rescue was secondary.”

The Germans’s actions were fraught with missteps and miscalculations. The terrorists had requested an airplane to take them to an Arab country. Incredibly, a team of undercover officers, placed on the airplane to ambush the terrorists, voted to abandon their mission seconds before the terrorists arrived. This left only five improperly positioned police marksman on hand to deal with eight terrorists. Mossad chief Zamir, positioned near the snipers, doubted that the members of the sniper team were even sharpshooters. Meanwhile, the police chief “forgot” to call in armored car support that had been readied, until well after the fighting began. These failures doomed the Israeli captives. The marksmen missed their targets, and one of the surviving terrorists lobbed a grenade into one helicopter and fired his machine gun into the other killing all nine captives.

The tragedy was not over yet for the families of the captives. Erroneous reports indicated the Israelis had survived. The families’s hopes, buoyed by this report were dashed a few hours later when it was confirmed that all had been killed.

The documentary effectively transitions between a straightforward exposition of events and the tragedy’s impact on the athletes’ families. Schlomit Romano, Joseph Romano’s daughter, visibly restrains her emotions while discussing the father she never knew. Andre Spitzer’s daughter dutifully lays sunflowers at the grave of her father, whom she never knew.

The five slain terrorists were given heroes’funerals which were attended by a vast mob in Libya. The three surviving terrorists were exchanged for 12 male passengers who had been on board a German aircraft hijacked by Palestinians a few weeks later. It was widely believed, and later confirmed, that this was a setup engineered by the German government to extricate themselves from an embarrassing situation. Twenty six years later, the lone surviving terrorist, Al-Gashey, remained proud of his role in the murders because he believed it helped the Palestinian cause enormously.

“One Day in September” exposes the brutal face of terrorism and washes away the false equation of moral balance between the terrorists and the victims evident today in such films as Spielberg’s “Munich.” For anyone genuinely interested in what really happened at Munich, it is essential viewing.

Remarks by Representative Steve Rothman on The Importance of CPB’s Oversight Obligation

Extension of Remarks
The Importance of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Oversight Obligation
Representative Steve Rothman

November 17, 2005

Mr. Speaker:

During this debate on the Conference Report for the Fiscal Year 2006 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations bill, I want to call attention to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s (CPB) obligation to ensure unbiased and objective programming.

The U.S. Congress provides the CPB with approximately $400 million each year. CPB then allocates these funds to the Public Broadcasting Service, National Public Radio, and other recipients. It does so, as the Telecommunications Act makes clear, with the responsibility to ensure that recipients demonstrate “strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature.” CPB also must see to “maximum freedom of the public telecommunications entities and system from interference with, or control of, program content or other activities.”

These two obligations do not contradict each other. Rather, together they circumscribe the lawful activity of tax-supported public broadcasting programmers and program providers. Public broadcasting should enjoy “maximum freedom” from outside “interference or control”…so long as it simultaneously demonstrates “strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature.”

Mr. Speaker, there should be no confusion. These obligations reinforce each other. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting must implement both on behalf of Congress and the taxpayers.

I commend CPB for creating a new unique office, the Office of Ombudsmen, as a step towards ensuring that these standards of fairness and independent reporting are upheld. Guaranteeing that basic journalistic requirements of objectivity and balance are maintained in public programming is hardly interference. In fact, I strongly believe that the public’s trust in public broadcasting rests on just such standards and I will continue to fight to see that they are maintained.

Thank you.

AP: Accuracy Problems

Various journalistic codes of ethics underscore that media reports must be both accurate and impartial. If the reporting is not accurate, these guidelines call on editors promptly to correct errors.

The Associated Press (AP), a wire service used by thousands of newspapers across the world, has its own code of ethics written by the Associated Press Managing Editors Association (APME). The “APME Statement of Ethical Principles” includes the following stipulations:

The newspaper should guard against inaccuracies, carelessness, bias or distortion through emphasis, omission or technological manipulation. It should acknowledge substantive errors and correct them promptly and prominently. The newspaper should strive for impartial treatment of issues and dispassionate handling of controversial subjects.

The AP, though, has shown a disturbing pattern of uncorrected inaccuracies and “distortion through emphasis” in its Middle East coverage.

The Spring 2004 issue of CAMERA’s Media Report described how AP reporters have justified suicide bombings as “revenge bombings”; fallaciously claimed that Israel confined three million Palestinians to their homes (despite numerous AP photos showing otherwise); described 86 American citizens killed by Palestinian terrorists as “49 Americans . . . caught in the crossfire”; and deceptively described terrorist groups that attack and kill innocent men, women and children as “militias.”

When provided with proof of AP factual errors, International Editor Debbie Seward and President/CEO Thomas Curley failed to address in any way, let alone correct, the errors.

Factual Errors

On Sept. 13, 2004, AP reporter Abdullah al-Shihri wrote of Israel’s alleged obligations under “U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for the return of Palestinian refugees and the restoration of 1967 pre-war borders.”

In fact, no Security Council resolutions call for the restoration of 1967 frontiers or the return of Palestinian refugees. (In addition, the 1967 lines with the West Bank and Gaza were armistice lines, not borders.) Al-Shihri’s misrepresentation related to U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, the key resolution relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

This carefully-worded resolution, crafted following the 1967 Six Day War with the aim of settling the ongoing conflict between Israel and surrounding Arab nations, calls for Israel to withdraw from an unspecified amount of territory to secure and recognized boundaries. Despite attempts by some Arabists to push the idea that 242 requires a withdrawal from all territory occupied by Israel in 1967, the framers of the resolution–including British Ambassador Lord Caradon and American Undersecretary of State Eugene Rostow–have emphasized time and again that such an interpretation is inaccurate. Caradon once noted:

It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial . . . . That’s why we didn’t demand that the Israelis return to them.

After similarly erring on the stipulations of 242, newspapers such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and Washington Times have all published corrections emphasizing that Resolution 242 does not call for Israel to withdraw to the 1967 lines. However, the AP did not run a correction.

Regarding the supposed call for “the return of Palestinian refugees,” 242 actually only affirms the necessity “for achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem.” It does not specify what this settlement should entail, and does not even suggest a return of refugees. (The other United Nations resolution that deals with Palestinian refugees–U.N. Resolution 194–is a General Assembly resolution, not a Security Council resolution. In any event, 194’s requirement that returnees first accept living “at peace with their neighbors” meant that Palestinian returnees would have to accept Israel’s right to exist, something that, even today, seems altogether uncertain.)

The Associated Press also misstated the facts regarding another major international accord–the Fourth Geneva Convention. Writing about this Convention, which deals with the protection of civilians in time of war, reporter Josef Federman erroneously claimed: “Since capturing the two territories in the 1967 Mideast War, Israeli has refused to accept the Geneva Accord” (Aug. 24, 2004).

In actuality, Israel signed the Fourth Geneva Convention on Aug. 12, 1949, and ratified it on July 6, 1951. Since then–including after the 1967 war–Israel has not withdrawn its commitment to the treaty. (Article 158 of the Geneva Convention permits signatories to unilaterally “denounce”–or formally abandon–the Convention).

To the contrary, even while contending that the Convention does not legally apply to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel nonetheless voluntarily abides by the humanitarian provisions of the Convention in these areas, a position articulated in 1971 by then-Attorney General of Israel Meir Shamgar.

Other recent errors, also uncorrected by AP, include erring on the name and gender of Israeli education minister Limor Livnat (reporter Mark Lavie called her “Limon”), understating the number of Palestinian rocket attacks that killed Israelis, and repeatedly referring to “several million [Palestinian] refugees and their descendants.” This unclear language implies that the number of actual refugees who left their homes was in the millions, even though estimates for that figure range from 450,000 to 700,000. More accurate language would be “hundreds of thousands of refugees and their millions of descendants.”

Whitewashing Terrorists

Another disturbing trend at AP is the repeated occurrence of inaccurate, imprecise, or misleading statements which downplay the deeds of terrorist groups.

For example, Hamas has proudly taken responsibility for dispatching dozens of suicide bombers who have murdered hundreds of civilians. Yet an assortment of AP writers in various reports have described Hamas as a group only “blamed” for attacks, implying Hamas’ responsibility for terrorism is disputed. (For example, one article noted: “Hamas has been blamed for dozens of suicide bombings in Israel.”) Since September 2004, after CAMERA protested this language, the AP seems to have discontinued use of this particular misleading phrase, but the whitewashing of Hamas continued.

For example, as reported in the Fall 2004 Media Report, in a report about the Beslan school hostage crisis, William Kole and Ibrahim Barzak observed: “Extremists have become chillingly brazen in singling out so-called “˜soft targets'”(Sept. 3, 2004). The article, however, identified one alleged exception to this trend: “Palestinian militant groups are unlikely to follow [the] lead” of the Beslan attackers, a terrorism analyst was quoted saying. A senior Hamas official asserted that “Women and children are not a target for Hamas.” An Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade spokesman added, “We never did such a thing and never would. When . . . children are killed, we are sorry for this because this was a mistake, not on purpose.”

In fact, of course, Palestinian groups have a long history of targeting Israeli youth, including most notoriously the 1974 hostage taking of schoolchildren in Ma’alot, 21 of whom were murdered; the 2001 bombing of teens at the Dolphinarium disco in Tel Aviv, in which 21 mostly young people were killed; and the 2004 point blank shooting of Tali Hatuel’s four young daughters.

The Associated Press has also whitewashed Hezbollah by distorting the Lebanese terrorist group’s rocket attacks on Israeli villages during the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, which ended in 2000. Two stories in November 2004 by AP’s Hussein Dakroub stated:

During the Israeli occupation, Hezbollah guerrill
as fired Katyusha rockets into northern Israel in response to Israeli attacks on civilians in southern Lebanon.

This statement is neither accurate nor balanced. First, Israel did not launch “attacks on civilians” in southern Lebanon. When civilians were inadvertently harmed during Israeli military actions, it was during Israeli attacks on Lebanese fighters who, in violation of international law, used their civilian countrymen as human shields. In addition, Hezbollah, a group which openly seeks the destruction of Israel, fired rockets at Israel irrespective of any so-called Israeli attacks on civilians. Furthermore, it was widely understood that Israeli military action in southern Lebanon–both during the occupation and since–was in reaction to Hezbollah provocations, and not vice-versa.

For example, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said at a Jan. 20, 2004 news conference

that Hezbollah once again has caused this need for [an Israeli] response . . . . The deliberate action that they took, which resulted in the loss of life, once again demonstrates the nature of that organization.

Although the AP reported the claim that Hezbollah only responds to Israeli “attacks on civilians,” the wire service has in the past recounted Hezbollah rocket attacks that were not in response to any Israeli “attacks on civilians.” For example, after an Oct. 25, 1992 Hezbollah roadside bomb attack killed five Israeli soldiers, Israel retaliated with an air raid on a Hezbollah base. An AP report covered the Israeli reprisal, clearly noting that only Hezbollah “guerrillas” were harmed, and that, nonetheless, Hezbollah “retaliated” with a rocket attack on an Israeli town:

On Sunday, Israeli warplanes destroyed a Hezbollah base in an east Lebanon village, killing four guerrillas and wounding six. The village . . . is in the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley, where Hezbollah operates guerrilla training bases. Hezbollah, retaliating for the air raid, unleashed seven Katyusha rockets that hit Israel’s northern coastal town of Nahariya . . . . (“Israel Shells South Lebanon In New Cycle Of Violence,” Nov. 9, 1992.)

To be objective, the AP should have reported that Hezbollah merely claims its Katyusha attacks on Israel are in response to Israeli aggression on civilians instead of passing this off as fact. To be accurate, the news organization should have noted that Hezbollah has in fact fired Katyushas into Israeli without any prior Israeli “attacks on civilians.” To be balanced, it should have given voice to Israeli or independent observers who dispute the accusation put forth by Hezbollah.

Instead, by choosing to report only Hezbollah’s rationalization for Katyusha attacks, the AP has in effect chosen sides in the dispute and ignored its obligation to be impartial.

Associated Press reporting similarly dovetailed with Hezbollah claims regarding a region along Israel’s northern border know as the Chebaa Farms. Although Israel fully withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah contends that the Chebaa Farms is Lebanese land, and that consequently its attacks on Israel are justified. The United Nations disagrees, and ruled that Israel had fully withdrawn from Lebanese territory. According to the United Nations, Chebaa Farms is Golan Heights land which Israel conquered from Syria in the 1967 war, and thus is not part of Lebanon at all. Nonetheless, on Jan. 9, 2005, after Hezbollah terrorists crossed the border and detonated a bomb that killed an Israeli soldier in Chebaa Farms, the AP chose Hezbollah’s narrative over the U.N. findings. Numerous AP reports erroneously stated: “a Hezbollah bomb attack killed an Israeli soldier near the border in southern Lebanon.”

UNRWA Damage Control

AP also engaged in damage control for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) after a controversial statement by agency chief Peter Hansen. On Oct. 3, 2004, Hansen told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, “I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don’t see that as a crime.” When AP picked up the story, reporter Peter Enav erased Hansen’s certainty and excised the reference to Hamas “members.” According to Enav, Hansen only “acknowledged that Hamas sympathizers might be working for the agency.” (Emphasis added.)

The Associated Press’ self-declared mission is to provide “news services of the highest quality, reliability and objectivity with reports that are accurate, balanced and informed.” Presently the news agency falls far short of this. While accuracy, for instance, may not be possible 100 percent of the time, accountability is. Errors should be corrected promptly. Nor is there any ethical or professional justification for AP’s repeated distortion of the facts about terror groups. The reputation of Associated Press’s International Desk will continue to suffer until standards are finally tightened and enforced.

Sign Up for Chicago CAMERA Fellows!

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Sign up today for the CAMERA Fellows at University of Chicago and become one of twenty-five students to earn a free trip to Israel!

Learn from media experts how to communicate through the media to educate Americans about Israel.

The program, which includes lunch on Sunday and dinner on Monday evening,  is free and will  take place on Sunday, Nov. 20 (1:30) off-campus and Monday, Nov. 21 (5:30) at University of Chicago. Students from all area colleges are encouraged to participate.

Twenty-five students who participate in the program will be selected for a free trip to Israel this summer with CAMERA to tour the country and to meet with government leaders, foreign correspondents and policy experts.  Students will be selected on the basis of the extent of their participation in the program and what they’ve done as a result — i.e. writing letters, op-eds, broadcasting commentary in either the student or the general media.

To sign up, please call (888) 736-3672 or email campus@cameramainsite.dev.neptuneweb.com with the following information:

Full name

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Telephone number

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Major or area of concentration

 

 

 

The Inner Tour (2001)

The Inner Tour (2001)
Directed by Ra’anan Alexandrowicz
Arabic,Hebrew with English subtitles, Color
94 minutes

“The Inner Tour” follows a group of Palestinians on a three-day bus tour in Israel. Each member of the group is said to have lost a family member to death or imprisonment because of Israel.

Each participant recounts his or her tale of personal loss. Israelis are depicted as interlopers and colonizers. The speakers express their bitter perception that Israel is trying to supercede them and obliterate their existence. While the film’s depiction of these stories is cinematically compelling, it is entirely one-sided and lacking in context. By narrowing his focus to the personal feelings of the travelers and injecting no corrective commentary, challenge or background information, the director gives viewers a severely skewed picture of a complex and difficult subject.

Palestinian dispossession and Israeli takeover are the motifs that connect each of the scenes on the tour. Some of the Israelis encountered appear strikingly callous. For example, during a visit to Kibbutz Hanita, one of the Jewish founders of the community shows the group around a museum that documents the efforts of the early pioneers to defend themselves against gangs of Arab attackers. The scene emphasizes how the Palestinians feel degraded by the tour guide’s insensitive depiction of the Arabs. In presenting the episode from the Palestinian vantage point, the film shifts the story of Hanita’s founding from one of Jewish renewal and determination in the face of violent opposition (two kibbutz members were killed on the first day of its founding) to one of Palestinian alienation.

As the bus crisscrosses Israel, the visible achievement and modernity of Israel overwhelm the Palestinian travelers who view Israeli development of the land as a foreign intrusion. The visits to Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jaffa appear to sharpen the tour members’ resentment and envy over what they believe was taken from them. And as though Israel weren’t in reality one of the tiniest nations in the world, the filmmaker presents panoramic views of Tel Aviv to create a perception of immensity.

While the film conveys a deep sense of Palestinian heritage and attachment to the land, it offers no mention of Jewish historical ties to the area. One member of the group shows a picture of his home that he claims was taken by a Jewish family. The eldest member of the tour, Abu Muhammad Yihya, tells of how he fought the Jews and then fled with his family in the face of Jewish attacks in 1948. There is no discussion of Arab responsibility for launching the war, nor, of course, of the huge losses in Jewish life in that struggle.

In the last scene, Abu Muhammad–apparently “by chance”–happens to locate his childhood home in Anabu alongside the highway on which the bus is traveling. He wanders from the bus up a hill where he stumbles on the remains of a building and certain vegetation he says he recalls. At a mosque in Haifa, it is also Abu Muhammad who articulates the Palestinians’ refusal to put resentment behind: “Years and days pass and for us time stands still.”

While Abu Muhammad’s nostalgia may be understandable, there is no discussion as to why second, third and fourth generation Palestinians continue to cling to this irredentist sentiment when so many other people the world over, including most Israelis, have left behind the homes of their fathers or grandfathers and built new lives. There is unsurprisingly no mention of the destitute Jewish refugees driven from their Arab homelands, whose numbers in the hundreds of thousands likely exceeded those of Palestinian refugees. The film makes no attempt to explain why a beleaguered Israel was able to absorb those Jewish refugees, while the vast surrounding Arab states blocked any effort to absorb and resettle the Palestinians.

“The Inner Tour” provides an image of Palestinian nostalgia and loss that stirs natural feelings of compassion. American and European viewers may be reminded of injustices heaped upon native peoples from their own history. But these comparisons are erroneous because they distort the true historical context and circumstances in the Middle East.

CAMERA Op-Ed: Redford’s Poison

Unlike American journalists who subscribe in principle, if not always practice, to a high-minded code of ethics calling for accuracy, balance and accountability in news coverage, documentary filmmakers of various nationalities often freely blend fact, distortion, ideology and even fiction and defamation without pretense of adherence to any such standards.

Evidence of the indifference to fairness and fact has been a lineup of startlingly one-sided and sometimes blatantly propagandistic anti-Israel documentaries airing in the summer and fall on the Sundance Channel, a popular premium cable channel said to be “under the creative direction of Robert Redford.” The works are often broadcast multiple times in multiple cycles reaching viewers at all hours of the day.

Checkpoint, for instance, as described by Sundance on its own Web site, looks at “the petty humiliations, absurdist interrogations and abusive uses of power Palestinians encounter daily … ” The brief historical background given by the director never bothers to mention that checkpoints were erected in recent years to halt a surge of West Bank Palestinian terrorists from crossing into Israel and killing innocents – and they have worked, helping to save lives.

Ford Transit by Hany Abu-Assad similarly presents Palestinians as victims of Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints. Unmentioned by Sundance in its Web site blurb on the work is the director’s controversial use of actors and staged events to cast Israel and its military as abusive. One scripted scene had an actor dressed as an Israeli soldier punch a Palestinian driver – also an actor. According to Daily Variety, a Dutch public broadcaster that co-produced the film withdrew it from the nation’s most prestigious film competition on learning of the fabrications.

The Inner Tour follows a busload of Palestinians who have “either lost a family member in the conflict or know someone imprisoned by the Israelis.” The theme is one of alleged dispossession.

Numerous other productions cast Israel, its leaders, its military or its society as either grossly unjust and brutal or reprehensible and tainted. Detained, My Terrorist, Aftershock, and Raging Dove are among these.

But few equal in sheer malevolence the propaganda film entitled Writers on the Borders, an account of the visit of eight international writers to Ramallah and Gaza in March 2002.The documentary by Samir Abdallah and Jose Reynes was part of a full-blown campaign in which the authors, including two Nobel prize winners, joined in condemning Israel at the height of the terrorist bombings against the Jewish state. The participants, after shooting the documentary, then published articles in which they elaborated on their abhorrence of Israel.

Under the aegis of the International Parliament of Writers, a group founded in 1993 “as a human rights organization that would create awareness of writers living in oppressed circumstances,” the writers participated ostensibly in response to a plea from Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.

Each offers his own on-camera denunciation of Israel as the party addresses local audiences or passes scenes of bulldozers, tanks, and rubble. The denunciations never once hint at the Palestinian terrorist onslaught that had spawned Israeli reaction. The American head of the IPW, Russell Banks, declares: “I’ve seen a lot of forms of violence but I’ve never seen such a grotesque – and I don’t know what else to call it but – diabolical form of violence as what’s been imposed here.”

The French writer, Christian Salmon, announces: “The Israeli colonization of the occupied territories is not only unjust and illegal, it is also impossible.” South African Breyten Breytenbach reads from an open letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon subsequently published: “General Sharon, past injustices suffered cannot justify or excuse your present fascist actions. A viable state cannot be built on the expulsion of another people who have as much claim to that territory as you have. Might is not right. In the long run, your immoral and shortsighted (and finally stupid) policies will furthermore weaken Israel’s legitimacy as a state.”

It is Portuguese bestseller Jose Saramago who creates headlines for the delegation, observing on March 25, 2002, that “What is happening in Palestine is a crime on the same plane as Auschwitz.” Unfazed by the outrage from Israelis of every political stripe, he explains months later that they had not been sufficiently pained by the condemnations of the other writers. “It was the fact that I put my finger in the Auschwitz wound that made them jump.”

The same sadism evident in Mr. Saramago’s tormenting of Israel is implicit in the often stunningly ignorant and baseless verbal assaults of all the strutting writers who came to embrace the Palestinians and excoriate Israel at a moment when the Jewish state was under the worst terrorist assault in its history.

While the unbridled ill will of many European elites has become all too apparent, it is worrisome, indeed, that Mr. Redford and Sundance – with their reputation for innovation and independence – would be a party to amplifying the poison and airing as well other shoddy and distorted productions.

This article originally appeared in the New York Sun on October 14, 2005.

Michigan Muslim Leader Defends Iranian President’s Call to Wipe Out Israel

On November 5th, the Detroit News featured one of the strongest editorials published to date condemning the Iranian President’s call for Israel to be wiped off the map. It not only condemned it, but reminded the public that Iran is deadly serious in its genocidal threat and its nuclear program must be stopped at all costs:

Iran must be stopped at all costs from developing nuclear capability…if Iran gets the bomb, it will use it on Jews…Understanding that genocide remains the ultimate goal of at least some of Israel’s neighbors, the United States must stand unshakably opposed to any measure that would leave Israel less secure if and when the peace talks move forward. Israel must not be left vulnerable for the sake of a peace deal that only serves to buy time for those plotting its ultimate destruction…The world has an obligation to stop pretending that the nut cases in the Middle East and elsewhere don’t mean what they say when they shout over and over, ‘Death to Israel.’ That is exactly what they mean, and the implications are ignored at the risk of another holocaust.

Oddly, on the same day, the newspaper published an Op-Ed by Mohammad Ali Elahi, imam of a major mosque in Dearborn Heights, Michigan. He sought to explain the context regarding Iranian President Ahmedinejad’s call to wipe Israel off the map. Unfortunately, Imam Elahi’s column is laced with outright falsehoods and unsubstantiated accusations and even tries to justify the Iranian President’s words by comparing it to a passage from the American Declaration of Independence!

Mr. Elahi contends he is only providing context for President Ahmedinejad’s remarks. In fact the content of his article is a litany of misrepresentations and falsehoods that demonize Israel. Below is a list of the inaccuracies. We have commented on some [in brackets], but there are too many to go into detail on each, and some need no explanation.

Imam Elahi claims that:

1. “Israel…on numerous occasions threatened Iran with military and possibly nuclear attacks.”
[Former Iranian President Rafsanjani threatened to use nuclear weapons against Israel. No Israeli leader has threatened Iran with a nuclear attack.]

2. “Why was there no similar media frenzy when Israel called for regime change in Iran?”
[ Israel has expressed the need for regime change in Iran — a change in leadership, not for the extermination of all Iranians.]

3. “After almost 60 years of United Nations resolutions on the occupation, Israel continues to refuse to abide by international law.”
[ Virtually all of the anti-Israel UN resolutions are non-binding.]

4. ” ‘One man, one vote’ worked for us here in the United States, and it is worth a try in the Holy Land.”
[ Every citizen of Israel, including its more than one million Muslim and Christian citizens, has equal voting rights. Arabs vote and have elected representatives in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. ]

5. “Israel was created by war and the expulsion of the Palestinian people.”
[ Israel was created out of the partition of Palestine approved by the UN in 1947 and its declaration of Independence on May 15, 1948. The next day the Arab armies invaded Israel in an attempt to destroy the new state. Many Palestinians fled out of fear and/or at the urging of Arab leaders despite pleas by Israeli leaders to remain as equal citizens of Israel.]

6. “It is very clear that Ahmadinejad was not making an anti-Semitic statement.”

7. “Jews live in Iran and have representatives in Parliament.”
[ * 3/4 of Iran’s Jewish community fled after the Islamic regime was established. Those that remain are subject to discrimination and intimidation. In July 2000, 11 Jews were wrongly convicted of spying for Israel in what was widely regarded as a show trial.

* Under the laws of the Islamic Republic, the words or actions of an individual Jew may legally affect the well being of the entire Jewish community.

* Iranian courts refuse to accept the testimony of a Jew against a Muslim and in the case of murder or accidental death, a Jew’s life is valued at one eighth that of a Muslim.

*The Jewish representative in Parliament is required by the Islamic state as the Jewish community is a recognized minority in Iran. The representative is severely restricted in what he can say and must support Iranian policy. ]

8. “The Iranian president’s quip can best be understood in the American context of the Declaration of Independence..”

9. “Iran’s provocative words offer a basis for a real dialogue and lasting peace.”

10. “During ….the Khatami presidency in Iran, he tried repeatedly to engage…Israel in a meaningful dialogue about the Palestinian issue.”

11. “Israel must end the property confiscation of ethnic groups considered ‘inferior’ to Jews.”
[No Israeli policy describes any ethnic group as inferior. It is Islamic law (as practiced in Iran) that codifies treatment of Jews and Christians as second class citizens, called “dhimmis.”]

12. “Israel must stop instigating violent conflicts in the Muslim world.”

13. “Israel must return the occupied territories back to its original owners. “
[ Who exactly are these original owners – the Canaanites, the Jews, Arab invaders, Crusaders, or the Ottoman Turks? In 1947, and still true today, the vast majority of land in question was state owned land, not privately owned land.]

The newspaper has previously featured several op-eds by Imam Elahi. His views are well known to the staff:

* One op-ed described the assassinated Hamas founder, Ahmed Yassin as a “Palestinian spiritual leader, [who] had a heart full of love for humanity, especially for the poor and suffering. This was one of the worst and ugliest crimes Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ever committed.”

* After the attack on the World Trade Center, in an exchange reported by Arnaud de Borchgrave, the Imam claimed that “It was Mossad and Israel that perpetrated those horrible crimes of Sept. 11.”

Would the Detroit News publish an Op-Ed defending a call by the head of a radical state to wipe out the entire population of a Muslim country? Why is it ok to provide a forum to defend a head of state who calls for wiping out all Israelis?

Virtually the entire world outside of some hardline Muslim nations have condemned the remarks of President Ahmedinejad, including even the United Nations and moderate Arab states. As noted above, the paper printed a strong editorial condemning President Ahmadinejad’s statement on the same day. But by including Imam Elahi’s distorted, inflammatory piece, the Detroit News unacceptably signals that the call to exterminate Israel is a topic of legitimate debate where both points of view are given equal weight.