This Year's Annual Ramadan Terror Spree

A variation of this was sent out as a PRIMER-Israel alert. There are three PRIMER groups, in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Israel. Check out their websites and consider getting on their alerts lists.

PRIMER-Connecticut    PRIMER-Massachusetts    PRIMER-Israel

While we mourn our victims, both murdered and injured, of this year’s Ramadan terror spree, and while our soldiers and police act to protect us all from the additional attacks we know are planned or will be planned, those of us who fight with our keyboards need to do our part to prevent Iran, the Palestinian Authority, the PLO, Fatah, Hamas, Hezbollah and the other terror groups from also getting a propaganda victory.

Almost all the reporting has been typically biased, using loaded language, terminology defined by Israel’s enemies, misinformation, disinformation and outright false information while often omitting important context. It’s up to us to do our best to provide it.

We will include some of our own thoughts below, but urge you to read the emails you get from so many other sources with more resources and also check their websites and write letters and social media posts to give the facts and your unique perspective as an Israeli living here in Israel.

Among the resources we recommend (forgive us for leaving out so many; we’ll just list a handful of our favorites):

For examples of media bias:

CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis)

HonestReporting

For fairly up-to-date information:

JNS (Jewish News Syndicate)

JTA (Jewish Telegraph Agency)

Jerusalem Post

Times of Israel

i24 News

Thoughts and observations:

• I heard this expressed on i24 News. I have not been able to find the video to watch again, so my recollection may not be exact.

The question came up regarding why the Muslim “worshippers” barricaded themselves in the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Tuesday night, arming themselves with the stones and fireworks, when they are generally allowed to stay overnight during the last ten days of Ramadan anyway.

The reason explained was that since the first Seder was Wednesday night, they knew many Jews would be visiting the Temple Mount on Wednesday, so it was a golden opportunity to attack a lot of Jews with the stones and fireworks.

It was also noted that the rockets started flying from Gaza as soon as videos of the confrontations with the Israeli police were posted on social media and this was not a coincidence. This was planned, almost certainly masterminded by Iran. The rockets were prepared in advance and people were ready in the mosque to take videos and post them as soon as the confrontations started, while the terrorists in Gaza were prepped and ready to launch the rockets as soon as those videos were posted.

My interpretation - this wasn’t clear from what I remember on i24 - was that Iran and its terrorists in the mosque were prepared for two possibilities:

The first: What happened. The police, knowing they were preparing to attack Jews on the Temple Mount with the stones and fireworks they had smuggled into the mosque, would enter the mosque to prevent the attacks, in which case they would start attacking the police, take videos, quickly edit them to make Israel look bad to the world, post them on social media and immediately launch rockets.

The second: The police wouldn’t enter the mosque, in which case they would attack Jews on the Temple Mount Wednesday morning, take videos, post them with the message they were protecting Al-Aqsa from the Jews, and immediately launch rockets.

• The media almost always describes Al-Aqsa as the third holiest site for Muslims. However, it’s only holy for Sunni Muslims; it has no significance for Shiite Muslims. Moti Kedar has also explained (there are many sources, both articles and videos) how the source of its holiness was a fraud and that the “Al Aqsa” mentioned just once in the Koran was actually in what’s now Saudi Arabia, not far from Mecca and Medina. (See, for one example out of many, “Why and When was the Myth of al-Aqsa Created?”)

• Media bias can be simultaneously blatant and subtle. Here’s one example taken from today’s Hartford Courant. (I used to live in Connecticut and keep an eye on that paper.)

The Hartford Courant published an Associated Press article on Friday’s murder of Maya and Rina Dee. (As I write this, their mother remains in critical condition.) The article was accompanied by a large photo of a seriously damaged automobile. But, although there are many photos available of the car ambushed by the terrorists, the photo accompanying the article wasn’t of that; rather, it was of a car in Gaza allegedly damaged by Israeli airstrikes. The text of the article similarly changed the focus from the fatal terror attack to Israel’s responses to all the terror attacks and was written in a way as to create sympathy for the terrorists.

• How holy can “worshippers” believe Al-Aqsa is if they use it as a weapons arsenal (storing stones and fireworks) and use it as a base from which to attack Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount?

• Although I personally think it’s rather meshuga to consider sacrificing a goat today, on the Temple Mount or anywhere else, there’s absolutely no reason for Arabs or Muslims to get upset about the possibility unless they’re animal activists and/or vegetarians. That they make an issue of the desire of some to do it on the Temple Mount - especially since they know the Israeli officials will not let them carry it out - is just another example of them looking for pretexts to launch attacks.

• There is invariably an uptick in terror attacks during Ramadan. There are also almost always serious attempts to perpetuate bloody terror attacks during Jewish holidays. It would thus have been astounding if the Palestinian Arabs didn’t do everything in their power this year, with Pesach being celebrated during Ramadan, to make sure Ramadan did not pass quietly.

Please check the newspapers you are familiar with, along with the examples provided by CAMERA, HonestReporting and other sources, and fight back with your keyboard.

This commentary was published in the CT Mirror on April 6, 2023.

The U.S. must end its 'pay-to-slay' incentive in Israeli-Palestinian conflict

by Mark Fishman and Alan Stein, Ph.D.

Israeli soldier on a Palestine street.
JUSTIN MCINTOSH,, CC BY 2.0 ,
VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Since a reversal of long-standing American policy around the turn of the century, several American administrations have been obsessed with achieving a so-called "two-state solution" between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs for a final peace, including division of the land outside Israel's 1949 armistice line with Jordan, sometimes incorrectly called the "West Bank."

There have been numerous offers, all rejected by Palestinian leaders, who prefer rejectionism, terrorism and maybe Western funds instead of an end to the conflict. Their main objective remains the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state and the removal of all Jews. Thus, the signs proclaiming "Free Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea" at Palestinian rallies. In light of conflicting goals and objectives, it is no surprise that there is no agreement.

What is a surprise, however, is that American administrations rush to reward and incentivize Palestinian intransigence and murderous violence.

President Clinton hosted a summit at Camp David in 2000 with Prime Minister Barak and PLO Chairman Arafat. Israel offered almost all of the land which it had recaptured from Jordan in 1967 plus Gaza to form a sovereign Palestinian state. Not only did Arafat reject the offer, sparking Clinton's ire, but he launched years of terrorism and terror throughout Israel, the so-called "second intifada," in which over a thousand Israelis were killed.

After Arafat rejected the 2000 offer, Israel made an even more generous offer in 2001. Then, in 2008, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered then-President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority the equivalent of 100 percent of the disputed territories and even part of Jerusalem.

Since then, we have given large sums of money to the Palestinians, directly through the PA and indirectly through UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency), in a vain attempt at a solution the Palestinians have repeatedly rejected, while never abandoning terrorism or their goal of destroying Israel.

Each time, rather than pressuring the party which initiated and refuses to end the conflict, our government has pressured Israel instead to make more concessions, including releasing 78 murderers and freezing housing construction upon request of President Obama, effectively rewarding the Palestinians for their intransigence and deadly violence.

The fact that the PLO, which is affiliated with the PA, has never changed its charter provisions calling for the destruction of Israel and proclaiming there is no alternative to use of terrorism has not made a difference.

The fact that Abbas told President Obama that he would never accept the core concept of the two-state solution, two states for two peoples, has not made a difference.

The fact that in 2016 the foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority declared the PA would never again negotiate directly with Israel has not made a difference.

The fact that Palestinian terrorists have murdered countless Israeli and American civilians over the years and 13 already this year through February, including West Hartford native Elan Ganeles, has made no difference.

Palestinian towns grotesquely celebrate deadly terror attacks with candy. The PA lauds terrorists as heroes. It names schools, stadiums and public squares after mass murderers. It produces textbooks which demonize Israel and Jews, glorify terrorism and deny Israel's existence. These textbooks are also used by UNRWA, of which we are the largest supporter. We stopped funding UNRWA but resumed in 2021, making us again complicit in radicalizing Arab youth, especially since many UNRWA teachers are members of Palestinian terror groups.

The Palestinian Authority also spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on its infamous "pay-to-slay" program. When a terrorist murders Israelis, he is rewarded with a salary by the PA. If the terrorist is killed, the PA rewards his family. If the terrorist murders more Israelis, he or his family are paid more.

Our Taylor Force Act is named after a young American murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in Tel Aviv in 2016. It prohibits assistance to the PA until it ends pay-to-slay. Most funding was terminated when the Act was passed. However, like UNRWA funding, it resumed in 2021 and has increased several times despite greater Palestinian terrorism.

We need to resume compliance with the Act. Pay-to-slay doesn't only lead to more Israelis and Americans, including Connecticut natives, being murdered. Many terrorists themselves are killed while attacking Israeli civilians. They become martyrs, are glorified by the PA, and their example is followed by Palestinian youth.

If we want to save lives, both Palestinian and Israeli, and bring closer a Palestinian-Israeli peace, whether the so-called two-state solution or some other, perhaps more workable scenario, then ending the rewarding  and incentivizing of Palestinian rejectionism and terrorism is a necessary first step.

Mark Fishman of New Haven is President and Alan Stein, a former long-time resident of Waterbury, is President Emeritus of PRIMER-Connecticut, Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting.

Response to The Wellesley News editorial supporting genocide against Jews in Eretz Yisrael

Following the publication of an editorial in The Wellesley News effectively supporting genocide against the indigenous people who have returned to their homeland, the Land of Israel, Fred Bauman wrote a thoughtful letter to Paula Johnson, president of Wellesley College.

His letter is reproduced here with the permission of the author.

Dear President Johnson:

The Wellesley News has published an editorial coming out foursquare against the "occupation of Palestine."  This is not even a euphemism for the destruction of Israel, the Jewish state, and the oft-boasted and promised slaughter of its Jewish people at the hands of the two organizations that rule the Palestinians, Hamas and the PA.  More than that, the editorial expresses support for the notorious "Mapping Project," which pinpoints every Jewish organization that has any ties to Israel and calls for them to be "dismantled and disrupted."

It should be obvious even to those who, like you, have a huge interest in not seeing the elephant in the room, that this is where "anti-Zionism" loses every trace of its "who us? We're not against Jews," mask.  Even you and your Trustees surely see  that "dismantling and disrupting" means intimidation, threats, bullying, and if those don't work, vandalism and further violence of the kind that is already too commonly directed against American synagogues, campus Hillels and other Jewish institutions and individual Jews.

Now, I am well aware that The Wellesley News is an independent organization and not under your control.  But that doesn't get you off the hook in the slightest.  That is because campus newspapers do not publish editorials of this kind unless they are quite sure that there is considerable campus support for them.  That editorial tells everyone that Wellesley has become a pretty reliably anti-Jewish campus with a student body that is just fine with calls for what would amount to a second genocide of the Jews.  That is something you are in part responsible for, if only because you have done nothing serious to oppose it.

Half a century ago or so, my good friend, the late Victor Baras, taught at Wellesley.  He was born in a DP (displaced persons in case you aren't familiar with the acronym) camp in Bamberg, Germany.  His parents had survived the Holocaust in Galicia, hidden in the potato cellar of a local farmer, and had headed west with the Red Army and, wisely, past it.  He was a specialist in 20th century European and especially Russian history and politics.  I recall that he used to tell me that he taught his Wellesley students, who at the time were of course horrified that anyone could have become a Nazi, that in fact, in that time and place they would have been enthusiastic Nazis as well.  Their privilege, their idealism, their sense that things were in a bad state, would have led them, he explained, to embrace causes that promised drastic, simple solutions and that focused on one or a few wicked enemies who merely had to be destroyed for all to be well.  And of course the archetype of such an enemy in Christian culture has been the Jew.  So if Vic had been told that in a half century Wellesley students would in fact have, though with a slightly altered rationale, become passionate, idealistic and utterly vicious Jew-haters, I don't think he would have been in the least surprised.

But I do think that, like me, he would have been saddened.  He too would have expected that people like you would have been in denial until it was almost or even wholly too late.  Who wants to reopen that can of worms?  Who wants to admit that the high-sounding rationales for Jew-hate, all the talk about "anti-colonialism" and the like, is dishonest and merely masks the same old murderous evil?  And who, above all, dares to be called "racist" or "neo-colonialist" for having the guts to call haters what they are?  Not you, no more than the respectable leaders of the German universities in the late 1920's and 1930's, who feared being called "socialists" or "Jewish catspaws."    He would even have understood, I believe, that many respectable Jews in high positions in American universities would also have been in denial.  The "Herr Wendriner"  syndrome (look it up if you are interested enough) that Kurt Tucholsky mercilessly savaged, is with us today, leading Jewish figures who are desperate not to be singled out and attacked and who hope that the new Jew-hate is just a passing phenomenon that will mercifully disappear or at least not affect them.

In any case, however slim the chance is that you and your administration and Trustees will ever go past vague and formulaic disavowals of "anti-Semitism." you need to do it.  Perhaps thinking of how contemptible you will look to those who come later, to those Wellesley students in another half century who will look back on you with horror and incomprehension, might help.  Look at yourselves in the mirror and ask yourself who you are, who you still want to be.  I have few hopes for you and those like you.  But you still have a chance not to fit the old, ugly, vile pattern of those who avert their eyes when the Nazis ride high.

Sincerely,

Fred Bauman

Censored by Facebook Again

 When the Associated Press wrote about the announcement by the Israeli army about its investigation of the death of the Al Jazeera propagandist - er, "reporter" - Shireen Abu Akleh, an announcement that its conclusion was that there was a high probability that she was killed accidentally by fire from an Israeli soldier rather than from all those wild shots from Palestinian Arab terrorists, rather than straight reporting or, if it was going to insert opinion and/or analysis, noting there really was no evidence to back that up and it seemed far more likely the fatal bullet was shot by one of the terrorists, the AP article was written as if it was a propaganda piece coming from the organization whose initials are the transposition of those of the Associated Press.

I wrote a letter to the AP and posted it to the AP monitor Facebook group <https://www.facebook.com/groups/apmonitor>. Within minutes, Facebook's AI (Artificially Idiotic) bot had  absurdly deleted it as spam.

I have, of course, appealed that decision, but not only don't expect anything to come of that appeal, but don't expect it to even be acknowledged.

In any case, since Facebook censored it, I'm posting the letter here.

I'm also including, after the letter itself, screenshots of the messages from Facebook informing me of their bot's idiocy.

The letter sent to the Associated Press with the subject September 6 Article "Israeli army: ‘High probability’ soldier killed reporter":

Dear Editor, Mr. Daniszewski, Mr. Federman, Ms. Goldenberg and Mr. Krauss:

The September 6 article ""Israeli army: ‘High probability’ soldier killed reporter" (https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-israel-journalists-veterans-al-jazeera-0e33ab0025cf06ee498ab83445e39733) takes the results of an Israeli investigation which, if reported on honestly and objectively, would make clear the stark contrast between the morality and integrity shown by the Israeli government and its military and the mendaciousness of the Palestinian Authority and its leadership.

The essence of what happened was that after a rash of terror attacks by Palestinian Arabs who killed at least 19 civilians, including several Americans (something that is downplayed by the Associated Press, as is always the case when Arab terrorists murder Americans), Israel was forced to go into the Palestinian Authority-governed areas, particularly Jenin, to capture perpetrators and to stop additional attacks.

This context was missing from the AP story, but that's just the beginning.

During the course of one operation trying to arrest terrorists in Jenin, the Israeli forces came under constant fire and, during those firefights, a reporter got hit by a bullet and died.

What happened was analogous to a not-terribly-uncommon situation where crimes are committed, police come under fire when they try to arrest the criminals and bystanders get caught in the crossfire. Under those circumstances, it is understood and accepted that, regardless of the source of the bullet, ultimate blame lies with the criminals, not the police.

Analogously, regardless of the source of the bullet, ultimate blame for the death of Shireen Abu Akleh lies with the terrorists, not the Israeli forces trying to arrest them. Yet not once in the myriad articles written by the Associated Press about this incident, has that basic fact been even hinted at!

Immediately after her death, clearly without even a scintilla of evidence, the Palestinian Authority insisted not only that Abu Akleh was hit by an Israeli bullet, but against all reason that she was deliberately targeted. This nonsensical insistence was repeated by the media, including by the AP, which repeatedly treated the unreliable testimony of alleged witnesses as if it was trustworthy while using loaded language to cast aspersions against the very reasoned statements coming from Israelis, who did not jump to baseless conclusions.

The AP repeated that irresponsible "reporting" in this article, for example opining that "the military revealed no new evidence to back its claim that the Palestinian-American journalist might have been killed by Palestinian fire." That "claim" is rather obviously true, while the AP has never pointed out the Palestinian Arab sources have never revealed any evidence to back their insistence that she was hit by an Israeli bullet.

What a double standard!

The article reports "Both Palestinian officials and Abu Akleh’s family accused the army of evading responsibility for her killing," but fails to mention that Palestinian Arab officials repeatedly deliberately make blatantly false accusations or that Jenin is famous for being the site of the massacre that never was, with Saeb Erekat telling CNN that Israel "massacred" 500 people in a refugee camp there.

In the Abu Akleh incident, rather than making irresponsible and baseless accusations, the Israeli army acted extremely responsibly, investigating what happened for four months, handicapped by the very suspicious way the Palestinian Authority hid all the forensic evidence, and did something that the Palestinian Authority would never do: announce that it appeared she was probably hit by a bullet fired by an Israeli.

Given the lack of any forensic evidence and the explanations included in the AP article, it would appear the main basis for that conclusion was that a soldier reported he had shot in that direction at the time she was apparently hit, while - not very surprisingly - none of the terrorists reported firing in that direction at that time. Of course, none of the terrorists would report doing that, even if they deliberately killed her.

Perhaps, in straight reporting, it might be assumed that latter reality would be understood by the reader and omitted. However, given all the gratuitous commentary that infuses AP reporting about Israel, to leave out any reference to that reality compounds the irresponsibility.

Later, the article again casts doubt on clearly responsibility statements from Israeli sources and gives undeserved credibility to unreliable sources, the article pretends "the military provided no evidence to support its claim that a fierce gunbattle was under way at the time that Abu Akleh was shot" while writing "amateur videos as well as witness accounts have shown no evidence of militants in the vicinity and the area appeared to be quiet for several minutes before she was shot." Of course, if anyone in Jenin produced a video showing what the AP euphemistically calls "militants" (being afraid to accurately referring to Palestinian terrorists) in the vicinity or gave testimony to that effect, that person would almost certainly find his or her life suddenly became very difficult, to put it euphemistically.

Although I've never served in the military myself, it seems pretty obvious that it would be very possible for a soldier under fire to not notice a potential threat suddenly coming into view was "wearing a helmet and vest marked 'press.'" It would also have been responsible for the Associated Press to note that Palestinian Arab terrorists are known to disguise themselves as members of the press and thus it can be dangerous for an Israeli soldier, in a violent situation, to assume someone "wearing a helmet and vest marked 'press'" is not going to attack.

In contrast to casting doubt on just about anything from an Israeli source, the AP repeatedly quotes unreliable sources, such as a spokesperson for Holocaust denier Manhoud Abbas dismissing Israel's report as "another Israeli attempt to evade responsibility" and saying "all evidence process that 'Israel is the culprit, that it killed'" Abu Akleh, despite the fact no such evidence has ever been produced or the obvious fact that the Palestinian Authority has kept all the forensic evidence to itself (except for the bullet it claimed was responsible but which, curiously, was too damaged to prove anything) if that evidence backed up his accusation the PA certainly would have shared it.

The article repeats something the AP has included in many earlier articles, a statement that investigations by the AP and other organizations have found that "Israeli troops most likely fired the fatal bullet," but again failed to mention that all those conclusions were based on testimony from highly unreliable sources. In contrast, it unreasonably casts doubt on the obvious conclusion by the United States that if she was hit by an Israeli bullet, there was no evidence that it was anything other than a mistake. The AP does that by adding a statement that "it did not explain how it reached that conclusion."

The article continued in that irresponsible vein and then finished by stating Israeli police "beat mourners and pallbearers" at Abu Akleh's funeral without pointing out the supposed mourners both hijacked the casket and attacked the Israeli police trying to restore order.

It then concludes by opining "the Palestinians want the territory [Judea and Samaria] to form the main part of a future state."

Curiously, to use the AP's own language, the article "did not explain how it reached that conclusion," despite the fact that, given their repeated rejection of proposals that would have given them just that and that it conflicts with the content of the charters of the main Palestinian Arab groups, including the PLO, Fatah and Hamas, the evidence strongly indicates that statement is grossly incorrect.

One should be able to expect better of the Associated Press.

Sincerely,

Alan Stein

The screenshots from Facebook's censorship and threat:

Facebook Deleted This ... and threatened to cancel me

I sent the letter below to the Associated Press with the subject August 29 article "Palestinian toll mounts as Israel steps up West Bank raids" and posted it to the AP Monitor Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/apmonitor) with the introduction consisting of what I wrote in this paragraph up until the word "and."

Within a few minutes, while checking for a friend's post on Facebook, I saw a warning that my post had been censored for either violating community standards or being spam (neither made any sense to me) and threatening me with exile if I repeated such offensive behavior.

And then, as soon as I clicked on a box to appeal, expecting to then get a way of explaining why, everything vanished.

(Plug: Check out the AP Monitor group. Join it. Participate it. Spread the word. Fight the pervasive anti-Israel bias.)

This is the letter I sent to the (systemically anti-Israel) Associated Press:

Dear Editor, Mr. Daniszewski and Mr. Krauss:

The absurdities in the August 29 article "Palestinian toll mounts as Israel steps up West Bank raids" (https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-israel-west-bank-ac683a6fbb4f2893ecdf1b1bbe1362ef) begins with the very first sentence, which misleadingly implies that Israel killed at least 85 Palestinian Arabs in its counterterrorism actions in the Palestinian Authority, an implication contradicted by the very next paragraph, which notes (a) the figure comes from the Palestinian Authority, a notoriously unreliable source and, more importantly, (b) it includes terrorists who were killed inside Israel in the course of carrying out terror attacks.

The third paragraph refers to Abu Akleh (without using her name), an unnamed lawyer, and local youths getting killed and implies they were killed by Israeli actions, although that's far from certain and, if one actually analyzes what was written, the youths who were killed were probably engaged in violence at the time.

The fourth paragraph repeats the lie that the nearly three million Palestinian Arabs who have self-government "live under a decades-long occupation." I somehow doubt the Associated Press would write that Canadians live under an occupation were the following to occur, something clearly almost impossible to conceive since, unlike the Palestinian Arabs, Canadians are relatively peaceful: The Canadian government harbors terror groups and rewards terrorists for murdering American citizens. This forces the American government to repeatedly enter Canadian territory to capture terrorists who have murdered Americans and also to prevent additional terror attacks. This is analogous to what Israel has been forced to do in the Palestinian Authority governed territories, but, as I wrote, I doubt that in such a case the Associated Press would repeatedly refer to Canada as being occupied by the United States.

Later in the article, referring to Abu Akleh and an unnamed 58-year-old-man, states "The Israeli military says both might have been hit by Palestinian gunfire but has not provided evidence to substantiate its claims." This is clearly biased, deliberately casting doubt on the information from the Israeli military and cleverly omitting the fact that there is no evidence to contradict those very reasonable and sober Israeli statements.

Abu Akleh is referred to a third time a few paragraphs later, and refers to supposedly but hardly "independent" investigations concluding that her death was likely caused by Israeli fire, without mentioning that those investigations all relied on highly unreliable sources who would be in danger if they said anything to suggest the bullet that hit her came from one of the Arab terrorists in Jenin.

The article later refers to so-called "rights groups," and quotes Ori Givati of Breaking the Silence, but fails to mention the heavy financing of those groups by anti-Israel NGOs and governments which implicitly and sometimes explicitly condition funding on creating reports demonizing Israel.

The section regarding the death of Salah Sawafta was effectively self-contradictory. On the one hand referring to her being killed as Israeli counter-terror forces (of course, the AP never refers to them that way) being engaged in a firefight with Palestinian Arab terrorists, euphemistically referred to as "gunmen." On the other hand, it quotes an alleged witness saying there were no Arab "gunmen" or "stone-throwers" in the area.

The article also contained the following boilerplate Associated Press use of biased and loaded language, false or incorrect information, misleading terminology and statements to the same effect:

Militant. The Associated Press almost always uses euphemisms whenever reporting on terrorism related to terrorism against Israel. Palestinian and other Arab terror groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Fatah and the PLO are referred to as "militant" and terrorists are referred to by terms such as "militants" or "assailants."

Occupation. The Associated Press incorrectly refers to disputed territories as "occupied." Legally, there has never been an Israeli "occupation," since under international law all the disputed territories fell within Israel's legal borders upon its declaration of independence in 1948. In practical terms, even what had incorrectly been called "occupation" after 1967 ended with the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in the early 1990s.

Palestinians. The Associated Press fails to mention that Palestinian is an identity assumed only relatively recently, in the 1960s, by the Arabs living in Palestine. It fails to mention that prior to the creation of the modern state of Israel, it was the Jews who were referred to as Palestinians.

Peace Talks. The Associated Press frequently refers to peace talks being stalled, or being stalled since 2014, but by leaving out context falsely implies Israel and the Palestinian Arabs share blame. It does not mention that Mahmoud Abbas walked out after being offered the equivalent of all the disputed territories - as he himself has acknowledged - back in 2008 and, for all practical purposes, has refused to negotiate seriously ever since. Nor does the Associated Press ever mention that Abbas' foreign minister announced in February, 2016, that the Palestinian Authority would never again negotiate directly with Israel.

"The Palestinians seek the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, for a future state." The Associated Press routinely includes statements along these lines. This is an expression of an opinion, making it inappropriate for a news article. It also flies in the face of the fact that the Palestinian Arabs have repeatedly been offered virtually all of that, including 2000, 2001, 2008 and reportedly 2014, and chose not establish their own state in that territory. It also fails to mention that the PLO itself proclaims, in its own charter, that it has no claim to any of those areas! It ignores the fact that almost all of Gaza was turned over to the Palestinian Arabs in 1995 and turned over the rest of Gaza in 2005. It refers to the portion of Israel's capital that had been occupied by Jordan from 1948-1967 as if it were a separate city.

West Bank. The Associated Press invariably refers to the heartland of the Jewish homeland by the name given to it by Jordan when that state invaded Israel in 1948 and militarily captured Judea, Samaria and portions of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount and the rest of the Old City. It never refers to it by its historical names, never mentions that "West Bank" implicitly refers to a portion of Palestine to the west of the Jordan River in contrast to the portion on the east bank, that is, Jordan, which comprises 77-78% of Palestine.

It remains curious that the Associated Press repeatedly writes sympathetically about Palestinian Arabs who got killed during Israeli counter-terror operations, but not about the innocent Israeli civilians who get murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists.

Sincerely,

Alan Stein

My Second Ode to the New York Times (by Elinor Weiss)

Elinor Weiss wrote this second ode to The New York Times. It's posted here with her permission.

 My Second Ode to the New York Times

(My second apology to John Keats)

The NYTimes 
Is in a tizzy,
Over a fashion queen 
Named Hoda Katebi.

She loves to hate
The Jewish State
Using BDS
To annihilate.

Ms. Katebi promotes 
Iranian fashion
The Ayatollah’s laws
Have her positive reaction.

Terrorist theocracy
Is a big win
But democratic Israel
A terrible sin.

No questions, no follow ups
To the law student’s views,
Her pro BDS stance
Is a plus for the paper’s news.

Yet the Times does shows fairness 
In its Israel reports
Because the bias is shared
Among all the cohorts.

From food, to movies
Business and fashion
The pieces have a common
Hate Israel passion.

Consistency is there
For all to see
Israel is covered
Without accuracy.

So Hoda Katebi,
Writer and speaker
A future lawyer
Whose goal 
Is to make Israel weaker.

Is the kind of person
The paper admires
That its journalists promotes
That its editors aspires.

Ode to The New York Times

(Posted here with the permission of the poet.)

Ode to The New York Times

By Elinor Weiss

(with apologies to John Keats)

The New York Times

Seems to hate the Jews

But for many of us

That’s really not news.

Take the Holocaust

The terrible genocide

When Jews were slaughtered

Simply a paragraph inside.

But now it’s not correct

To be an anti Semite

So the grey old lady

Tries to make it look right.

It turns its words

Against the Jewish nation

Israel is demonized

As a repulsive sensation.

Reporters like Yazbek

Filled with hate

Write  lies about

The Jewish State.

Yazbek loves Hamas

Terrorists supreme

Yazbek’s views of Jews

Are quite extreme.

She justifies violence

Against Israelis

The pay to slay ethics

Is never reported in the daily.

Terrorist attacks

Against Israelis in the cities

Don’t merit the Times’ journalists

Sympathies or pities.

The Times is clueless,

It doesn’t seem to know

That Hamas wants all of Israel

To go.

Any evil,

Anything bad,

Is blamed on Israel,

Just sad, sad, sad!

Misleading subheadings,

Misuse of words

So that its readers will think

Israel as a turd.

But to be fair

When holidays come around

Jews hating being Jewish

Are the ones Times has found.

You can be sure to read

Why Hanukkah is overrated

Or a put down on Passover

Jews against God are celebrated.

Defaming Jewish holidays

Encouraging Israel’s demise

Anti semites at the New York Times?

Definitely not a surprise!

Israel Updates: 3 People Reported Killed in Attack-headline and article in The New York Times

Daniel Trigoboff submitted the following letter to The New York Times on May 6, 2022. Not surprisingly, given their heavy anti-Israel bias, they chose not to publish it. It's posted here with the permission of Dr. Trigoboff.

The article itself is on The New York Times website at https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/05/05/world/israel-attack, with the headline "At Least 3 People Reported Killed in Israel Attack" and subhead "The attack follows a wave of violence by Arab assailants that has already killed 14 people in Israel since mid-March."

Dear Editor,

There’s so much wrong with the headline and content of this NY Times article that the question of a deliberate anti-Israel cant is strongly raised. To begin with, the 3 people referenced in the headline were not “reported” killed; they were in fact murdered, there is no doubt about their unfortunate deaths, reported as such by multiple media sources. For a constructive comparison, did The NY Times headline about the 9/11 attacks state that “Almost 3,000 People Reported Killed in Attack?” Of course not.

And, who killed the three people in Israel? Why did this headline omit the widely known and publicized identifications of the murderers as Palestinian Arab terrorists? Why the passive voice? Why not use an accurate headline like “Israel Updates: Palestinian Arab Terrorists Murder Three Israeli Civilians, Wound Six?”

In the body of the article is the heinous misrepresentation of the Temple Mount as “the Aqsa Mosque compound”, supposedly revered by Muslims and Jews alike, and then a statement that Jews refer to it as the Temple Mount, as though the Muslim Arab nomenclature is universally accepted except by Jews. Absolute balderdash on steroids. In fact there is the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock, and the flat plaza which surrounds them which was the site of the First and Second Temples. This elevated plaza which sits on the Temple Mount is Judaism’s holiest site, whereas the Al-Aqsa Mosque is only the third holiest site to Sunni Muslims, not to Shia Muslims. In no sense is Judaism’s holiest site, this plaza, a part of any “Aqsa Mosque compound” which does not exist.

In fact it can be argued that by terming it this way, The NY Times is using discriminatory settler colonialist language since Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock were built on top of the site of the First and Second Temples by Arab invaders, who arrived and displaced indigenous Jews many centuries after the Temples were built and then destroyed. 

In considering these faults in this article’s headline and content, I am reminded of the famous Ian Fleming quote: “Once is happenstance, twice is circumstance, three times is enemy action.” What is cause of the obvious enmity borne towards Israel by The NY Times?

Daniel H. Trigoboff, Ph.D.

A Jewish Perspective: The Short Version - By Larry Shapiro

A Jewish perspective

The short version

By Larry Shapiro

From a Jew's standpoint, a good part of our history is how people blamed us for natural and manmade disasters. In 1095, Pope Urban called for Christians to go to the Middle East to reoccupy Jerusalem. On the way, crusaders who thought of Jews as infidels went into Jewish areas and tried to convert them. Those who refused were killed, So great was the cruelty, Jews unwilling to abandon their beliefs killed their own families to keep them from falling into the hands of the Crusaders. 

This was not the first time that Jews committed mass suicide. In 74 Ad, Jews holed up in the hillside fort called Masada committed mass suicide rather than fall into the hands of the Roman invaders. 

The first suicide in Jewish history was committed by King Saul who impaled himself on is sword rather than be seized by the Philistine army that defeated him in battle on Mount Gilboa. It was not the last suicide as many times throughout history Jews chose to do away with themselves rather than be tortured and killed by the powers of the day. 

In the 12th Century, Jews were accused of poisoning water wells causing the black death that was decimating Europe. Under torture, a handful of Jews confessed to creating the plague leading cities all over Europe particularly in Germany to burn Jews in a rehearsal for what their descendants did to the Jews in the 20th Century.  

In the case of Christianity, the prevailing reason to hate Jews was because Jews were blamed for deicide, i.e. killing Christ. In some fundamentalist circles, this belief exists to this day. Some suggest that it is more widespread than just a few fundamentalist voices. 

Islam's hatred of Jews started around the time of Muhammad. Muslims accused Jews of believing in the wrong deities and have hated Jews ever since. 

In the 21st Century, when religion is on the wane, a secular world understands that Jews shouldn't be punished for killing Christ or for worshiping the wrong Gods, but many among the where there's smoke there's fire folks think Jews have too much power and are basically untrustworthy, prejudices that are vestiges of the religious beliefs they abandoned.  

During times of peace and achievement, Jews live in what is called a golden Age in which they are free to live their lives and pursue their aspirations. When many calamities confront mankind such as these days when a growing pandemic, demolition of the political order, messy war endings, climate change leading to the burning of the world and mass deaths from opioid addictions, make life more uncertain, people carrying the anti-Jew virus start sucker punching Jews in the streets. 

Jews aware of their history understand that they will be blamed for calamities. Jews who are in denial about their own history (we should never have irritated the crusaders) support the blamers, encouraging elected officials like Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar to freely perform their Jew scapegoat dance. Many millions swallow the Palestinian victimhood narrative which is text book scapegoating of the Jews. 

I guess there comes a point where some Jews worn out from the unfairness stop resisting making them and their offspring more vulnerable to their pariah status. While they may not convert, they internalize the hatred of Jews even going as far as creating organizations that they hope will set them apart, like Jews for the Restoration of Jewish Ethics. As far as I know it's not a real organization but maybe it's on the way. 

Of course nothing is black and white. Israel has been reborn and for the first time in 2000 years Jews have an army. Jews are tough and resilient and are still healing the world. Jewish names are all over hospitals and on letterheads of charitable organizations. It may be that we will never be the world's most favorite people, but we're truckin on. 

It's time to stop demonizing Israel

This was published in the Connecticut Mirror on July 13, 2021. It may be found on the Connecticut Mirror website at https://ctmirror.org/category/ct-viewpoints/its-time-to-stop-demonizing-israel/.

 Connecticut Mirror

CT VIEWPOINTS -- opinions from around Connecticut

It's time to stop demonizing Israel

by MARK FISHMAN AND ALAN STEIN, PH.D.

Debris from a Hamas rocket fell in Winter Pond Park in Netanya where Stein, one of the writers of this piece, was prevented by the Israel Defense Forces from riding his bike around the pond because it was deemed too dangerous.

Alan Stein and Mark Fishman

The immoral drumbeats of the BDS movement keep getting shriller. A highly misleading screed by Haddiyyah Ali appeared in CT Viewpoints July 2. Readers deserve the truth, so we will respond to Ali and shed light on the true nature and aims of the BDS movement as well as the Arab-Israeli conflict. We will also take some of what Ali wrote and provide an honest, truthful version.

BDS stands for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. It claims it seeks justice for the Palestinian Arabs, but its true goal, as made clear by the founders and leaders of the movement, is quite different and quite unjust.

Omar Barghouti, the most prominent of the founders and leaders of the BDS movement, said the following: "Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No Palestinian, rational Palestinian, not a sell out Palestinian, would ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine."

In other words, as admitted in a rare moment of honesty by Norman Finkelstein, who goes around America maligning Israel, "There's no Israel. That's what it's [BDS] really about."

That is the true, evil goal for which the BDS movement was created; its strategy is to abuse the language of justice to demonize and delegitimize Israel and perversely tar Israel with the label of apartheid. The misuse of that term is an insult to those who actually suffered from apartheid in South Africa.

While Ali writes "It is time for State Treasurer Shawn Wooden to divest from Israel once and for all," she knows that's not going to happen, since Wooden is a responsible public servant, but that's not what she's after. Her purpose is to make use of that core BDS strategy of demonization and delegitimization.

A handful of inconvenient (for the BDSers) truths about Israel:

Israel is a liberal democracy, the only real democracy in the Middle East. This is a truly amazing achievement given that it was recreated predominately by people who fled from countries with no history of democracy and has not been able to enjoy a single day of peace since being invaded by regular armies from five established Arab states the day after declaring its independence.

Today, the majority of Israeli Jews would be called people of color if they lived in the United States. Their families were forced from homes in Arab countries.

Israel is the only country in the world which ever brought Blacks from Africa to freedom rather than chains. They were welcomed with singing and dancing and many of those Ethiopian Jews kissed the soil when they were brought home to Zion.

Ali uses the words "On May 10, Israel began an 11-day assault on the Gaza strip after Palestinians protested Israeli settlers attempting to seize their homes in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan" to begin her misrepresentations regarding the recent war Hamas started. During that war, Hamas targeted Israeli civilians with 4,300 rockets in just 11 days; nothing can justify such an onslaught on a civilian population.

Prior to 1948, Shimon HaTzadik/Sheikh Jarrah was a Jewish neighborhood. It was captured by Jordan in the 1948 war and, as was the case with all the territory captured by Jordan, all its Jewish residents were expelled. In some cases Jordan transferred ownership in its records when it took over the homes of Jews; this was not done in Shimon HaTzadik/Sheikh Jarrah.

In 1967, when Israel recaptured territory Jordan had captured in 1948, it made a decision to accept Jordan's land records, even regarding property that had been taken from Jews without compensation. The Jordanian records for Shimon HaTzadik/Sheikh Jarrah still recorded the property as owned by Jews. Still, Israel compassionately decided to confer "protected tenant" status on the Arabs living on that Jewish-owned property, while stipulating that the owners were entitled to receive some rent from those tenants. Many of those Arab tenants agreed to pay the rent, which was below market because of their status as protected tenants.

The current case involves tenants who have refused to pay rent. It is now in the courts. Only in Jerusalem does it become an international incident when property owners go to court over tenants who have refused to pay rent for 50 years, but both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have been using this as a vehicle for increasing their popularity by trying to show they are more radical than the other.

They encouraged violent demonstrations in Shimon HaTzadik/Sheikh Jarrah. Next came the stockpiling of rocks and firebombs in the Al Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount, attacking Israeli police with them and then falsely accusing the police of "storming" the mosque they themselves had desecrated.

This was followed by rockets fired on Jerusalem from Gaza as Israelis were celebrating the 1967 reunification of their capital, at which point Israel finally targeted some of the rockets, rocket launchers and other terror facilities in Gaza.

During an 11-day period, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah and other terror groups launched 4,300 rockets targeting Israeli civilians. Roughly 15% of those either misfired or fell short, killing and wounding a significant number of people in Gaza.

Unlike Hamas, Israel puts tremendous resources into defensive measures, particularly the very expensive Iron Dome missile defense system and the bomb shelters in every residential building and, since the SCUD attacks during the first Gulf War, in every new apartment and house. This has saved many lives. Those 4,300 rockets probably killed far more Arabs in Gaza than Jews in Israel!

Of course, not a single person, Arab or Jew, civilian or soldier or terrorist, would have been killed if the Gaza terrorists had not started their onslaught of rockets and kept them going for 11 days.

Ali closes with the mantra "there is no justice without a free Palestine."

The injustice of more than seven decades of Arab war, terrorism and attempted genocide can never be rectified, but we can see from Hamas-governed Gaza and the PA-governed Areas A and B of Judea and Samaria what a "free Palestine" would look like. There are no Jews living in either place and one demand of the "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas is that any additional territory handed over to the Palestinian Arabs be ethnically cleansed of their Jews.

Horrendous as was the discrimination practiced in Apartheid South Africa, even that rogue country didn't force out the Blacks living there!

Ali's mantra really should be "Free the Palestinian Arabs from Hamas and Fatah."

Mark Fishman is President and Alan Stein is President Emeritus of PRIMER-Connecticut. (Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting)