Vice News is now carrying water for the Israeli army. The the self-proclaimed “news organization for a connected generation” published a report yesterday from what is claimed to be a “leaked” Israeli military document into the investigation of Elor Azarya, the soldier-medic who summarily executed Palestinian man Abd Al-Fattah Al-Sharif in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron last month. The report lists the main claims of the document: * The soldier said before the shooting that the subdued Palestinian “needs to die.” * After the shooting, he told a commander: “He’s a terrorist, he needs to die.” * The soldier “changed his version [of events] in the different investigations,” according to one investigator, telling a commander: “I shot because I felt there was a threat to life.” * The incident “severely hurts the IDF and Israel’s image.” None of this is new or exclusive information – it’s actually a regurgitation of the official Israeli government line disseminated shortly after...

Last month, the BBC sent an email to the UK-based campaigning organization Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), which was almost comical in its arrogance. It was a response to a complaint made by PSC in October that BBC online reports were referring to the Gaza ceasefire as holding, despite the fact that by the end of October, Israel had breached the ceasefire numerous times since it was signed on 26 August. In fact, Israel has fired on Palestinians in Gaza almost on a daily basis. In its initial complaint, PSC referred to the website of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), which documents incidents of ceasefire breaches. These breaches had been collated in an article published by Middle East Monitor (MEMO), which reported that there was more than one Israeli attack on Gaza every day in September. The MEMO article was also included in PSC’s submission. At the beginning of November, the BBC emailed to say: “You direct us to a non-BBC online report as evidence that the ce...

JERUSALEM (AFP) -- The Palestine Liberation Organisation said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blatantly manipulated the facts when he compared Hamas with the Islamic State group in a UN speech on Monday. "Netanyahu's speech at the UN was a blatant manipulation of facts and attempted at misleading the audience through a combination of hate language, slander, and argument of obfuscation," PLO executive member Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement in English. "Obviously Netanyahu has lost touch with reality, particularly in refusing to acknowledge the fact of the occupation itself or the actions of the Israeli army of occupation in committing massacres and war crimes," she added. Addressing the United Nations General Assembly earlier, Netanyahu denied accusations of Israeli war crimes during its July-August offensive on the Gaza Strip that killed 2,140 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and left the enclave in ruins. He instead said that Palestinian preside...

In late July while Israel’s 50-day offensive Operation Protective Edge was in its final weeks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-hand man met with a group of journalists in Jerusalem. Tensions were at a peak; the ground invasion had just ended and the air campaign was at an unstable pause. The Israeli Minister of Intelligence Yuval Steinitz was about to give the first political strategy briefing on what the Jewish state would want for the future of Gaza, what it would go on to lobby for in truce talks once reconvened in Cairo. Meanwhile in another part of the Middle East, ISIS carried out its first public decapitations that grabbed Western headlines– they killed over 50 Syrian soldiers and mounted their heads in a town square. Gaza and Israel were overshadowed by the Islamic group that had declared a new caliphate. Back in Jerusalem on that July afternoon the Steinitz made the case for the de-militarization of Gaza and to strategically turn the besieged coastal strip “into R...

From The Electronic Intifada - As a possibly historic People’s Climate March in New York City approaches this weekend, a debate among participants and the organizers over Israel-aligned co-sponsors smolders below the surface... ...The story reaches far beyond several Israel-aligned groups sponsoring a single climate march. Faced with consistent negative global perceptions over state policies in the occupied Palestinian territories and in the region, the Israeli foreign ministry officially launched the “Brand Israel” campaign in 2006. With the help of US marketing executives, the Israeli government poured in enormous resources to “rebrand” Israel in a positive light upon the world. By 2010, the ministry allotted some $26 million for branding efforts. Part of the spin campaign comes under the guise of protecting the environment. In June 2012, Israel, for the first time, launched “an international television campaign on CNN to brand itself as a green country which pioneers ‘green techn...

UN PRESS RELEASE, 23 August 2014, East Jerusalem - Israeli officials retracted this morning their earlier claim on Friday that the rocket that killed a four-year-old child in Southern Israel was launched from an UNRWA school in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli news reports that the rocket was launched from an UNRWA school were false. The same media outlets that rushed to report the incident without seeking confirmation from UNRWA are required and called upon to also report the Israeli army retraction. We also call on Israeli military spokespersons and other official sources to ensure the accuracy of their facts before going public. UNRWA deplores the killing of all children during this conflict, including the killing of the four-year-old Israeli child yesterday and the hundreds of Palestinian children killed since the start of the current fighting. We call on all parties to ensure protection and care of children affected by armed conflict, in accordance with their obligations under inte...

Any newspaper that published an advertisement accusing Jews of “child sacrifice” would rightly be condemned as anti-Semitic. How is it, then, that Britain’s leading “liberal” newspaper is set to publish just such an ad about Palestinians on Monday? The Guardian’s media columnist yesterday justified publishing the ad, saying it does not mean “that it endorses the views and claims made within it.” This holds no water. Newspapers can pick and choose the ads they run, and often turn down offensive submissions. As The Guardian notes, right-wing London newspaper The Times has, to its credit, rejected the ad. The ad was composed by US TV personality Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and Nobel prize-winning author Elie Wiesel. Wiesel has been a chair of the advisory board of Elad, a group of fanatical religious Israeli setters actively involved in ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the eastern sector of occupied Jerusalem. The ad, already run in some US newspapers, is incitement to genocide. I...

From Mondoweiss - An important journalistic pattern is beginning right now that must be countered by people who care about human rights: The New York Times is trying to rewrite the history of the Gaza conflict to treat it as a cycle of violence set off by Hamas in June by allegedly orchestrating the teen kidnappings on the West Bank– rather than as a war begun by Israel against Hamas. The Times whites out Israel’s interest: to destroy the unity government between Hamas and Fatah that was announced in May, a government the U.S. was prepared to work with, thereby defying Israel. And as for the seven-year siege of Gaza that has put 1.8 million people in an open-air prison, the Times has nothing to say. The pattern is evident in Steven Erlanger’s piece in the New York Times two days ago: “Arrest by Israel in Abduction of 3 Youths Is Made Public.” Erlanger said that Hamas abducted and killed the three Israeli teens June 12, and that this abduction set off the Gaza onslaught. The abduct...

Pro-Israeli broadcasters are finding it ever harder to defend Israel in the face of the large-scale massacres and destruction in Gaza, but the BBC is determined to do its best, sacrificing all claims to impartiality and journalistic integrity in the process. In addition to flooding its radio and television programs with Israeli spokespeople, while keeping Palestinian voices to a minimum, the BBC, as it did during Israel’s 2012 assault on Gaza, has taken to presenting pro-Israel commentators as independent. BBC audiences are, therefore, given strong doses of pro-Israeli propaganda — being told that Hamas is using civilians as human shields, that Israel has shown nothing but restraint in the face of constant rocket attacks, that it is defending its citizens and so on — while under the impression that they are hearing neutral, independent comment. These key Israeli messages are, of course, more likely to be believed by viewers and listeners if they think they are impartial observation...

From New York Magazine - In many ways, the story of this month's eruption of violence in Israel and Palestine has been depressingly familiar. But in one interesting way it has been a little bit different from the beginning: American audiences are seeing the story of the conflict, perhaps more than ever before, through Palestinian eyes. That this is the case is probably something of an accident. But after Israeli extremists kidnapped and murdered a Palestinian kid named Mohammed Abu Khdeir, apparently in retribution for the earlier murder of three Israeli teenagers, police detained and beat up his cousin, Tariq Abu Khdeir, a 15-year old Palestinian-American from Tampa, vacationing with his family*. It is common for television news broadcasts to carry sympathetic stories of a local American kid tragically caught up in Middle Eastern violence. It is not so common for that kid to be Palestinian. Soon the networks were broadcasting sympathetic interviews with Tariq Abu Khdeir's an...

Approximately 5,000 protesters brought the roads around the BBC’s London headquarters to a standstill on 15 July, forcing the news organization to confront its one-sided coverage of Israel’s current assault on Gaza. As the protesters shouted “BBC, shame on you,” Hugh Lanning, Chair of Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), handed in a letter to the BBC’s Director General, Tony Hall. The letter calls on the BBC to reflect the reality of Gaza’s occupation and siege in its reporting. The open letter had been signed by 45,000 people in under a week. Signatories include scholar Noam Chomsky, filmmaker John Pilger, film director Ken Loach, musician Brian Eno, journalist Owen Jones and comedian and filmmaker Jeremy Hardy. Protesters held up placards bearing statements from the letter, including: “We would like to remind the BBC that Gaza has no army, air force or navy” and “The BBC’s reporting of Israel’s assaults on Gaza is entirely devoid of context or background.” Speakers from organizati...

From The Electronic Intifada - The above spoof of an advertisement by pro-Israel group the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has gone viral after its creator, activist Daniel Sieradski, posted it on Twitter. Here is the original ad Sieradski mocks, calling the ADL’s campaign to justify the bombing of Gaza “just the latest act in a storied history of shameful behavior”: The point of the original ADL ad is to encourage the target audience – Americans – to identify with Israel and see Israel’s brutal violence that targets Palestinian family homes and kills children – as natural, reasonable and justified “self-defense.” Sieradski’s subversion of the ad brings to the fore the reality that Palestinians experience, and which is rarely heard in US mainstream media. more

In what might be justified by the New York Times as an attempt to “depoliticize” and “humanize” Palestinian women in Gaza the paper ran a photo essay this past Sunday titled “Female in Gaza.” However the article obfuscates, covering up Israeli oppression and obscuring Gaza’s connection to the West Bank and to Palestinians in general. The introductory text for the article mentions Gaza eight times, but never uses the word “Palestinian” or “Palestine” and mentions Israel only once, despite mentioning towering concrete blast walls, barbed wire, drones, patrolling soldiers, border controls, etc.. ”I have been photographing in Gaza for several years, initially to cover the conflict with Israel, but over time returning because I am mesmerized by the women, and their strength,” author Monique Jaques explained. Gaza is portrayed as a disconnected disembodied place in conflict with Israel where residents seem to have some undefined interest in the West Bank, “Her dream is to sing in Ramallah...

JAKARTA (AFP) -- Iran's foreign minister on Friday sharply rejected an Israeli allegation that Tehran tried to ship missiles to the Gaza Strip, calling it a "lie". Israel has said it captured a Gaza-bound ship Wednesday carrying dozens of Syrian-made rockets "capable of striking anywhere in Israel". The raid coincided with a high-profile US trip by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who met with US President Barack Obama for discussions on a Middle East peace deal. "Netanyahu is in Washington ... and all of a sudden as a godsend, they capture a ship from Iran with missiles. Just a coincidence?" Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said during an official visit to Jakarta. "If Netanyahu is a saint and can produce miracles I believe the Israelis themselves will be amused by that," he said. "So if you cannot believe in miracles by Netanyahu, the only thing that you can believe is that this is a lie. And it is a lie." Th...

Propagandists seem determined to find new ways of presenting a “positive image” of Israel in Scotland — a country where they have encountered a frosty response on several occasions. In October last year, Israeli ambassador Daniel Taub’s talk at the University of Edinburgh was disrupted by a crowd of 200 protestors, and ended up with the ambassador fleeing to his car. Just a few hours before that talk, Taub was voicing concern over “elements of extreme hostility to Israel in parts of Scottish society” during a meeting with the Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond. The same thing happened a year earlier when Israeli diplomat Ismail Khaldi was invited to give a talk to students at Edinburgh University; his event was disrupted and shut down due to protest. When politicians and diplomats failed to sell Israel as the one and only democracy in the Middle East, a medical center’s public relations officer seemed keen to give it a shot. American-born Larry Rich, director of development at th...

In 2011, then Israeli deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon released an outrageous propaganda video called “The Truth About the West Bank.” The video was anything but the truth: it denied the land was Palestinian and that it was occupied. Today Visualizing Palestine released the above video as a rejoinder. more

GAZA CITY (AFP) -- Palestinians in the Gaza Strip said they received phone calls on Friday from the Israeli army accusing Hamas of failing to provide for civilians. "To the residents of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army warns you against obeying the orders of the terrorist Hamas or having any contact with it," the recipient of one such pre-recorded message quoted it as saying. "Know that Hamas is spending millions of dollars on tunnels used for hostile and terrorist acts against the state of Israel," it said. "This money should have gone to infrastructure, education and health projects." The movement's interior ministry said that dozens of Palestinians received the calls. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. more

The BBC has admitted it breached its own editorial guidelines in presenting a pro-Israeli commentator as an independent analyst during Israel’s assault on Gaza in November 2012. Over the course of just two days, the strongly Zionist Jonathan Sacerdoti made four separate appearances on the BBC’s rolling news channel, BBC News 24, to give his assessment of the events leading up to Israel’s assault. On each occasion, he was presented as a neutral expert on Palestine and Israel, the director of an independent think-tank, The Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy. However, Sacerdoti is far from neutral on the subject of Israel. He previously worked as director of public affairs at the Zionist Federation and, in 2012, he was elected to the International Division of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. The International Division’s primary work is to promote Israel. In August 2011, the BBC’s “independent expert” spoke at a pro-Israel rally in Trafalgar Square organized by the British...

Dozens of young journalists, including at least one working for the BBC, are in Israel this week for a government-backed junket designed to give them “a more positive attitude” toward Israel’s policies. The journalists are attending the Media in Conflicts Seminar (MICS) at the Interdisciplinary Center at Herzliya (IDC Herzliya). Now in its fifth year, the seminar is the brainchild of the advocacy group StandWithUs. The Media in Conflicts Seminar is “hasbara for foreign media personnel, diplomats and youth from all over the world,” according to the website of Israel’s Ministry for Public Diplomacy (which was recently absorbed into the prime minister’s office). Hasbara is a Hebrew word that literally translates as “explaining” but is used specifically to describe government propaganda and outreach efforts to gain support for Israel’s policies. According to the ministry, the Media in Conflicts Seminar specifically targets non-Jewish Europeans. more

By Ali Abunimah co founder of The Electronic Intifada The Israeli government is launching a new international propaganda campaign, featuring ads on CNN International, that seeks to brand Israel as a haven of green technologies and environmentalism. But don’t expect the campaign to talk about the environmental catastrophes brought about by Israeli occupation and apartheid. The campaign, which includes sponsorship of CNN International’s world weather bulletins, is being launched to coincide with the UN’s Rio +20 Summit on Sustainable Development.... Some of the things the Green Israel ad campaign is unlikely to talk about: According to the OECD, Israeli “water quality” is ranked 35 out of 36 countries, better only than the Russian Federation. Israel’s water score “is much lower than the OECD average” according to the OECD, “and suggests Israel still faces difficulties in providing good quality water to its inhabitants.” Similar problems face air quality: Israel is ranked 27 out of 36 for...