Doc's Talk

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Thanks to CAMERA.org

NPR's Six-Day War Series - Agenda-Driven and Biased

National Public Radio has done it again! A series ostensibly about the Six-Day War was, instead, a line-up of broadcasts largely denouncing Israel for occupation, settlements and allegedly wrongful house demolition and land seizure in the West Bank. It ran Monday, June 4, through Friday, June 8, on Morning Edition, "the most widely heard radio news program in the United States," according to NPR. The message of the series is that a powerful Israel vanquished its adversaries and went on to become an abusive occupier and exploiter of indigenous Palestinians.

This alert is focused on the Morning Edition series.

Day One - June 4, 2007 "Shaping the Modern Middle East"
This is the only series segment that actually presented any substantial formal history of the war. Those parts of the segment featuring Michael Oren, author of Six Days of War; June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East, provided useful information about the war with Egypt, Syria and Jordan. However, the segment was framed - beginning and end - with editorial comment that contradicted Oren's own thesis about the "core issues" of the war and its aftermath.

*** NPR's Eric Westervelt says at the outset: "Israel no longer occupies the Sinai or Gaza, but its continued hold over other territories has stymied efforts to bring comprehensive peace to the Middle East." This is the NPR thesis reiterated during the week in one form or another - that Israeli "occupation" and its alleged abuses have "stymied efforts to bring comprehensive peace."

*** There is, of course, another view of what has "stymied efforts" to achieve peace and it is one Oren spelled out explicitly in a symposium just days earlier on May 28 at Jerusalem's Shalem Center. Listing issues of significance related to the war, he said: "But above all, [there is] that core issue: The refusal of the overwhelming majority of the peoples of this region to accept a permanent and legitimate Jewish state here. It is with a sense of both deja vu and horror that I see demonstrations in the streets of Amman, of Cairo and in Lebanon against Israel, calling for the destruction of the Jewish state."

Nowhere in NPR's one-dimensional, blame-Israel series is there a single reference to the idea of "deja vu and horror" with regard to the Six-Day War- the idea that the Arabs continue, as in 1967, to call for Israel's destruction.

*** Day one of the series concludes with Dror Etkes, director of "Settlement Watch" for Peace Now, saying:"It's tragic more than anything else because it's a story of waste of energy, of waste of life, waste of so much potential in both sides -Palestinian and Israeli. It's a story which cannot end well. Occupation cannot last."

Again, nowhere in the entire week with its explicit and implicit focus on "the occupation" is there any mention of the fact that barely seven years ago Israel's Ehud Barak offered to end the occupation-to cede all of Gaza and virtually all of the West Bank (with a land-swap making it 100%), to divide Jerusalem and so on.

Such information would undermine the message that Israel has been an obdurate occupier and the Palestinians blameless victims with no responsibility for their own difficulties.

Day Two -June 5, 2007 "The East Jerusalem Controversy"
This segment is another instance of the journalistically indefensible practice common on NPR of airing one-sided segments in which Israel stands accused but is given no right of response. Anecdotal charges are leveled by Arabs regarding land, housing, permits and house demolition, but not a single rejoinder to the charges is permitted by a mainstream Israeli spokesperson. The only Israeli heard is Gershom Gorenberg, a frequent critic of Israeli policy, who echos NPR's accusations of Israeli wrongdoing.

The message of the segment in which an Arab man's house is demolished by Israel because "the Daud's hadn't gotten the proper building permits" is that Israel ruthlessly destroys Arab housing. In fact, the opposite is true; Arab building in and around Jerusalem has boomed in recent years. Justus Reid Weiner, an International Human Rights Lawyer at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, authored a study on Arab building issues. Among his findings:

** Illegal construction has reached epidemic proportions. A senior Palestinian official boasted that they have built 6,000 homes without permits during the last 4 years, of which less than 200 were demolished by the city.

** This frantic pace of illegal construction continues despite the fact that the city has authorized more than 36,000 permits for new housing units in the Arab sector, more than enough to meet the needs of Arab residents through legal construction until 2020.

NPR listeners were prevented from hearing such essential information on the general construction issue, as well as specific counterpoint to the charges leveled against Israel.

Day Three - Wed June 6, 2007 "Jerusalem, United in Theory"
This segment is apparently supposed to be the counterpoint to the previous one - focusing on western Jerusalem. While it presents only Israelis - as Tuesday's presented Palestinians - the difference is these speakers are not accusing the other side. In fact, the main Israeli voices are each critical of Israel in some way.

They recall the brief euphoric days after the war and hopes for openness and coexistence, but deplore that Jerusalem is still divided. One Israeli declares: "40 years of unification [of Jerusalem] is a joke" and also laments that: "It's becoming more and more oppressive [because of the religious Jews]."

Another longtime resident says: "The gun is not the answer; we've tried it for a long time, so let's start something else" as though, once more, Israel hadn't tried in 2000-2001 at the Camp David/Taba talks and through all the years of the Oslo process to "start something else."

Day Four, Thurs June 7, 2007 "Land Ownership Disputes Arise"
This NPR segment supposedly focused on the Six-Day War is actually just another NPR critique of settlements, advancing uncritically the positions of Peace Now that Jewish settlements are built in substantial amount on private Palestinian land. NPR's Linda Gradstein interviews an Arab who claims his land was taken to build Shiloh. Once more, the segment relies on the anecdotal charges of an individual which are unanswered.

CAMERA exposed gross misinformation in the recent Peace Now study on this issue of private land versus state land. The group had claimed, for instance, that 86.4% of land in Maale Adumim, the largest West Bank settlement, was privately held Palestinian land. In fact, only .54% (that's point 54, less than 1%) of the land of the settlement had been privately owned - Peace Now was off by 15,900%.

Gradstein is apparently untroubled by the possibility of other gross errors in Peace Now's allegations.

Day Five, June 8, 2007 "Legality of Settlements Debated"
Amazingly, the fifth day of a series ostensibly devoted to the Six-Day War is yet another segment on settlements and the issue of building on private land. This time the emphasis is on settlement outposts. Once more Dror Etkes and Peace Now, along with Gershom Gorenberg, frame the issues for NPR's Eric Westervelt.

Summary

NPR's reprehensible bias has rarely been more on display than in this series supposedly about the Six-Day War but actually largely about the network's obsession - settlements. While it would have been reasonable to devote some time to the subject as part of the aftermath of the Six-Day War, the network reveals a distorted fixation with the subject. Inexcusably, there is no reference at all in the series to the vast hate-mongering against Israel and the Jewish people in a region intolerant of any non-Arab, non-Muslim nation, nor to the current calls for Israel's annihilation that, as Oren notes, echo 1967.

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The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
More...

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.