"Welcome to Israel", but where are we?

In the last Guardian Weekend Magazine dated 26 November 2011, the Israeli Minister of the Tourism published a map of the State of Isreal, including the Gaza strip, East Jerusalem and the West Bank as if they were part of Israel proper - the advert was entitled "Welcome to the Northern Isreal". This issue has casued the reaction of the Palestinian authorities in London, which sustains that it is part of the broader campaign made by Israel to deny the rights of the Palestinian people on their territories. The underlying complaint is that the Guardian newspaper should not have accepted the advertisement as it was both provocative and misleading.

Jerusalem Post's bad behaviour

An extraordinary story sent to us by our Board member June Jacobs. It seems that an obscure right wing group is targeting the New Israel Fund because it has dared to speak on the Gaza War issue, AND AS A RESULT Jerusalem Post editor David Horovitz has caved in to pressure and sacked (by e-mail - presumably too frightened to face her) Naomi Chazan who writes a column for him and also happens to chair the New Israel Fund >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Israeli police raid peace radio station

This piece came in from Dajani of ATFP. Sometimes Israel goes crazy. I mean they complain about mosque broadcasts inciting violence on Palestinian State TV. So when they get a half-way decent broadcaster they HAMMER it into the ground. Meanwhile they give cart blanche to all the filth. Are Israelis insane or just plain stupid. They are certainly badly served by their government - unless that is their government has some sort of death wish. I have often wondered that. Else how do you explain this kind of inane policy?

JERUSALEM -- Israeli police raided the Jerusalem studio of Ram FM – an English-language peace radio station, based in the West Bank, which aims to find common ground between Israelis and Palestinians – on the grounds the station was operating without a license.

TO VIEW FULL ITEM CLICK HERE

Appeals against facilitating settler radio

Settler Radio has always been grossly racist in the past. Settler Radio Channel Seven I THINK it was that used to issue calls to "kill the arabs". And now we are to get these people back. Well that's an end to any legitimacy to Israeli complaints about PALESTINIAN TV BROADCASTS:

In an appeal to the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, the Gush Shalom movement asks the judges to halt government plans for creation of a “regional radio” intended for the use of West Bank settlers. The appellants say that the tender issued by the government is in fact meant to legalize pirate radio stations such as “Arutz 7”, and that the military government has moved to facilitate the creation of such a settler station without legal authority and while seriously undermining the due democratic procedures.

TO VIEW FULL ITEM CLICK HERE

Concerns over Islamist Website coverage

We have a constant problem with Memri, Israel's independant mid east media monitoring group. They often use unsourced pieces with regard to Islamist websites. This means that (a) the websites can't be closed down and (b) there is sometimes a concern that the websites highlighted may actually be security service managed for dissinformation purposes.


In the following instance (which was genuine) there was no creditable reason Memri couldn't have put the source link for this website. The site did exist but has since been closed by "site genie". Memri should be more careful to source all items where possible. Article Two of the International Media Council's Media Ethics Code (which we are always highlighting to the Arab Press) reads: "2. A story without a source is a source of trouble". Are Memri exempt from the standards we all expect from the Arabs? The story follows:

On August 26, Islamist websites posted an item titled "How to Join Al-Qaeda." It is not clear when the item was written; it was produced by the website Al-Thabitoun 'Ala Al-'Ahd, which is affiliated with Al-Qaeda in Egypt and is currently inactive. The item calls on every Muslim to regard jihad as a personal duty and to take initiative to establish a jihad cell without waiting for recognition from Al-Qaeda. It goes on to elaborate on how to form and run the cell, how to raise funds, and how to select a target, "for example, assassinating the American ambassador," which, it states, "takes no more than a gun and a bullet."

TO VIEW FULL ITEM CLICK HERE

Huntingdon: Racist or Rational?

Is the Huntingdon doctrine thinly veiled racism or rational thinking? You decide. This from Rafi Dajani of ATFP who sends us a particularly interesting alternative view from Avraham Burg:

In Haaretz former Israeli Knesset speaker Avraham Burg uses the example of Israel to reject the Huntington 'clash of civilizations' theory, instead finding the clash as one between 'democratic' and 'theocratic' civilizations, with Muslims, Christians and Jews on both sides of the divide

TIME TO ATTACK By Avraham Burg Haaretz, Opinion (Israel) August 15, 2007
The system of "sacred balance" is Israel's way of surviving and feeling normal. If something happens on the left, it immediately must be canceled out by an event on the right - and then everyone can relax. These equations create the illusion of sanity and save the sticky majority, which is searching for the warm and opinionless center, from having to relate to matters in a matter-of-fact way. It is from there, from the wide open spaces of a valueless and content-free consensus, that Israel's ruin will come - because if everything is balanced and canceled out, there is no need to take a position, or to do anything. It is therefore not surprising that Israel, with all its equations, cannot make decisions on matters of morality and state. The latest equation bridges between draft-dodgers and the soldiers who refuse to evacuate homes in Hebron. On the face of it, we have draft-dodgers - the left-wing bleeding hearts from greater Tel Aviv - and evacuation refuseniks - nationalistic and idealistic, but "a little" too extreme, too patriotic and too religious. And we are in the middle: We live outside Tel Aviv, but not in Hebron; we want peace but are not prepared to pay the Arabs the price. Instead of being flooded with concern over the fanatics and rabbis who have penetrated the fabric of Israeli statehood like cancerous cells, we have created an equation. We were furious for two days, we condemned them - and we went on our merry way. Everything is balanced, thank God.

TO VIEW FULL ITEM CLICK HERE

Arab Press Roundup

Rafi Dajani of ATFP sends this United Press International review of the Arab press on the possibilities of peace:

Palestinian Authority at a crossroads
By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL - AMMAN, Jordan, July 19 -- The Palestinian al-Quds remarked in its editorial Thursday on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' speech to the Palestine Central Council in which he insisted he wouldn't speak to Hamas after its "coup d'etat" in the Gaza Strip and called for early elections. The mainstream daily said just as Abbas had reached a decisive position, so has Hamas in Gaza as it repeatedly calls for unconditional dialogue with Fatah, which the latter opposes. "We now stand before a real strategic crossroad as the call for elections carries many problems and repercussions," said the Jerusalem-based daily, close to Fatah. "And remaining in this status quo carries even more problems and repercussions."

TO VIEW FULL ITEM CLICK HERE

The battle for hearts and minds

Dr. Reuven Erlich sends this diatribe against Hizbollah - and perhaps he has a point - certainly with regard to explicitly ant-semitic Al Manah TV. Reuven states:

The flagship of Hezbollah's media empire is its TV satellite channel, Al-Manar , which was set up in 1991 with aid from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The channel's broadcasts are slanted toward propaganda and reflect Hezbollah's Iranian-inspired ideology and political agenda. From the very beginning Hezbollah specialized in mixing propaganda with factual information, including visual material from the battlefield . To that end, it established a body called “ battle information, ” which embedded professional photographers in the squads attacking the IDF and the South Lebanese Army. Al-Manar is professional and effective, and it is extremely popular not only in Lebanon but throughout the entire Arab-Muslim world, the Middle East (including the Palestinian Authority) and abroad.

TO VIEW FULL ITEM CLICK HERE

Huge Gulf in Mid East Narratives

Rafi Dajani sends this item from the BBC (UK) which reports on individual Israeli and Palestinian efforts to address the severe lack of official acknowledgment of the other's history and narrative by both sides

HUGE GULF IN MIDEAST NARRATIVES By Claire Bolderson BBC (UK) May 2, 2007

Israel's independence celebrations gloss over parts of historyIf you watch the introductory video at Tel Aviv's Independence Hall Museum you will hear barely a mention of the Arabs who lived in Palestine before Israel became a state.
If you look at a map in an Israeli school text book you are unlikely to find the Green Line, the ceasefire line which until 1967 separated Israel from the Palestinian territories.
Israel stretches to the border with Jordan. It is as if the Palestinians don't exist.

TO VIEW FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE

Qaradawi damages Palestine’s cause

Mona sends this and says: "Below is my latest SaudiDebate.com column in which I lay out an argument that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a Muslim issue but a human one."

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a Muslim issue. It is a dispute over land, it is about an occupation that must end and it is about a people who deserve a state. But it is not a religious dispute. Clerics, rabbis, priests and any one else who claims religious authority for his opinion should stay out of it. As a Muslim, I’m particularly eager to keep our clerics away from Palestine. For too long the easiest Friday sermon to give began and ended by cursing the “Zionists”, often interchanging Zionist with Jew, stopping along the way to enflame the worshippers with news of the latest humiliations or atrocities committed by the Israelis against the Palestinians.

TO VIEW FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE

Israeli spokesman Regev on 18 Doughty Street TV

HERE

Israel seeks image makeover

By Dan Williams
Thu Oct 26, 11:52 AM ET

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - After decades of battling to win foreign support for its two-fisted policies against Arab foes, Israel is trying a new approach with a campaign aimed at creating a less warlike and more welcoming national image.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who has argued that the protracted conflict with the Palestinians is sapping Israel's international legitimacy, this week convened diplomats and PR executives to come up with ways of "rebranding" the country.

FOR FULL REPORT CLICK HERE

Islamist Websites

Felix sends us this interesting Memri item on Islamist websites. Nine unsourced items are offered. On the basis of our maxim: "A story without a source is a source of trouble", we have asked Memri to provide details of the source websites (web address and date). We will let you know if we receive these in due course.

Mujahideen Gather Information on Anchorage International Airport

On October 17, 2006, an Islamist website posted a message titled "You Can Spy on the Enemies' Airports Directly by Controlling the Cameras' Direction." The message contains a link to a screen showing what it claims to be a live view of various areas within Anchorage International Airport
via several cameras. The message gives directions for how to control the cameras and promises to provide links in the future for other airports as well.

To view screenshots from the five sources - North View, South Terminal, Lake Hood, Cargo Area View, and Quad Stream - please see this link.

To view previous Islamist Websites Monitors, please see:

Islamist Websites Monitor No. 8

Islamist Websites Monitor No. 7

Islamist Websites Monitor No. 6

Islamist Websites Monitor No. 5

Islamist Websites Monitor No. 4

Islamist Websites Monitor No. 3

Islamist Websites Monitor No. 2

Islamist Websites Monitor No. 1

Israel's Image

The following item was submitted to us by R. Dajani. It offers a controversial alternative perspective -

ISRAEL'S IMAGE - WHY THE ALL-TIME LOW

By Evelyn Gordon Jerusalem Post, Opinion (Israel) June 8, 2006

Conventional wisdom holds that Israel's international standing is directly related to its willingness to move toward peace with the Palestinians. Yet in recent years, despite previously unimaginable concessions, its international standing, far from improving, has hit an all-time low.

Consider some of the past few years' developments:

# It has become acceptable in academic and media circles to question whether Israel even has a right to exist. Yet 13 years ago, at the height of the"occupation" - before Israel had recognized the PLO, transferred land to the Palestinian Authority or evacuated a single settlement- such discourse was considered beyond the pale.

# It has become increasingly common to speak of Israel as an "apartheid state."That, too, would have been unthinkable 13 years ago.

# Decisions to boycott and/or divest from Israel - virtually unknown 13 years ago outside the Arab world - are now commonplace in the West. Several churches, for instance, have decided to divest from Israel; and in the last two weeks alone, both the largest British lecturers' association and a leading Canadian union voted to boycott Israel.

#Most Europeans, according to polls, consider Israel the leading threat to world peace. That, too, is a new development.

SO WHY have years of Israeli concessions produced not acclaim, but unprecedented international opprobrium? The answer is twofold. One part relates to the general public, and the other to a small but influential group of opinion leaders. I will discuss the first now, and the second next week. Among the general public, the growing view of Israel as a pariah would be impossible had Israeli (and international Jewish) leaders not abandoned one simple tenet that all of them maintained prior to the 1993 Oslo Accords: that Israel has a valid claim to the WestBank and Gaza.

This claim does not necessitate Israel's retention of these areas; countries throughout history have occasionally ceded land to secure peace agreements. But only if Israel has a valid claim to the territories can giving them up be a "painful concession" that merits reward by the international community. If Israel has noclaim, it is merely a thief. And no one would admire, much less compensate, a thief for the "painful concession" of returning some, though not all, of his ill-gotten gains - or for offering to return some, but again not all, of the remainder in exchange forsufficient reward. On the contrary: The thief deserves opprobrium, boycotts and divestment. Indeed, if Israel has no claim to this land, even its seemingly unassailable demand that the Palestinians end terror in exchange for Israel's withdrawal loses validity. Israel can reasonably refuse to cede land to which it has a valid claim without receiving peace in exchange. But if the land belongs to the Palestinians, then Palestinian violence, ostensibly aimed at retrieving their stolen property, becomes understandable - and so does their claim that Israel has no right to impose conditions on its return. This, however, is precisely the picture that Israeli (and international Jewish) leaders have painted for the past 13 years.

No Israeli leader talks any longer about Israel's right to the territories; instead, they talk about the Palestinians' "right" to statehood and the need to end "the occupation." But if the Palestinians have a "right" to a state on this land, it must belong to them; similarly, if Israel is "occupying" the Palestinians, the land must be theirs. That is what "right" and "occupation" mean.

Then, as if this were not bad enough, the unilateral withdrawal craze compounded the problem.

Until three years ago, Israel deemed uprooting settlements a national and personal tragedy - a painful (and expensive) move that merited sympathy and compensation. And the human portion of this tragedy - tens of thousands of people thrown out of their homes -would arguably be undiminished even if the territories were stolen Palestinian land. But now, two successive Israeli leaders have declared that far from being a tragedy, uprooting settlements is an Israeli interest, because they constitute a demographic and security burden. And if dismantling settlements serves Israel's interests, how can this possibly constitute a "painful concession" that merits either sympathy or compensation? THUS IF Israel is to have any hope of reversing the rising tide of worldwide antipathy, it must start by reiterating the basic truths that have disappeared from its discourse over the last 13 years: that Israel has a valid claim to this land, and that ceding this claim is not an Israeli "interest," but a wrenching move conceivable only in exchange for suitable recompense.

The case, briefly, is as follows:

# First, this is the historic Jewish homeland: Jerusalem and Hebron, not Tel Aviv and Haifa, were the heart of the biblical Jewish kingdom. This is vital, because the fact that this was our historic homeland is what justifies establishing a modern Jewish state here at all. Otherwise, we are indeed mere foreign interlopers.

# Second, this land was unequivocally allotted to the future Jewish state by the 1922 League of Nations Mandate, which was never legally superseded. The 1947 UN partition plan was no more than a non-binding "recommendation" (the plan's own language) - as are all General Assembly (as opposed to Security Council) resolutions. Thus once the Arabs rejected the plan, it had no more validity than any other unsigned deal. (Were this not true, incidentally, much of pre-1967 Israel would also constitute "occupied Arab land.")

# Third, no sovereign state ever replaced the Mandate on this territory. Jordan and Egypt conquered the West Bank and Gaza, respectively, in 1948, but neither conquest ever received international recognition.

Legally, the territories remained stateless lands whose ownership was disputed. The only change that has occurred since is that the Palestinians have replaced Egypt and Jordan as the Arab claimants. And finally, Israel acquired these lands not in a war of conquest, but in a defensive war.

At this late date, reversing the international perception of Israel as a thief rather than a legitimate claimant will be a Herculean task. But unless Israel makes the effort, it will increasingly be treated as a criminal rather than a seeker of peace.