United Church should come clean on anti-Palestinian accord
By Yves Engler · August 2, 2019
Toronto church Trinity-St. Paul’s shameful suppression of a Palestinian youth cultural event highlights anti-Palestinian rot festering in the United Church of Canada. It ought to also shine a light on a little discussed anti-Palestinian accord UCC leaders signed with Israel lobby groups five decades ago.
Under pressure from B’nai B’rith and the Jewish Defence League the Trinity-St. Paul Centre for Faith, Justice and the Arts recently canceled a room booking “to celebrate the artistic and cultural contributions of Palestinians in the diaspora.” The Palestinian Youth Movement’s spoken word event was to “showcase the winners of the Ghassan Kanafani Resistance Arts Scholarship”, which the JDL and B’nai B’rith chose to target on the grounds the famous novelist was a spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the early 1970s. After Kanafani and his 17-year old niece were assassinated by the Mossad in Beirut, Lebanon’s Daily Star labeled the novelist “a commando who never fired a gun, whose weapon was a ball-point pen, and his arena the newspaper pages.”
As I detailed in this article Trinity-St. Paul’s spiritual leader is anti-Palestinian leftist Cheri DiNovo. Since publishing that piece the former NDP MPP admitted — to vicious anti-Palestinian/Islamophobe Toronto Sun columnist Sue-Ann Levy, of all people — that she forwarded B’nai B’rith’s concerns to the church’s board, which then cancelled the event. Dropping her progressive standing further, DiNovo unfriended a number of individuals on Facebook who politely questioned her role in suppressing the Palestinian cultural event.
To be fair to DiNovo she isn’t the only Progressive Except for Palestine voice in the UCC. “What happened at Trinity St. Paul’s is not isolated”, wrote Karen Rodman, an ordained UCC minister and prominent Palestine solidarity activist. Last year the UCC seminary at the University of Toronto’s Victoria University withdrew from a Palestinian Liberation Theology program with Reverend Naim Ateek. According to Rodman, work had been underway on Emmanuel College’s continuous learning initiative with Ateek for a year when pressure was brought to bear by Israeli nationalist groups.
Resolutions endorsed at UCC conventions in the 2000s called on Palestinians to recognize Israel as an ethnic/religious supremacist state. The 2009 motion called for “the emergent State of Palestine” to recognize “Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state within safe and secure borders.” In an interview after the 2009 convention Palestinian Canadian journalist Hanna Kawas complained the UCC was asking the victims of a European colonial movement to endorse the supremacist ideology that dispossessed them. In 2012 the UCC “advised against the use of ‘the language of apartheid’ when applied to Israel” and called for a solution to the Palestinian refugees’ right of return so long as it “maintains the demographic integrity of Israel.”
In another sign of the church hierarchy’s encouragement of a colonial ideology, Rodman was harassed and bullied for supporting Palestinian rights. Church officials purportedly called her a “terrorist” for traveling to the West Bank. In response to attacks and biased review process, Rodman filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) against the UCC for discriminating against her anti-Zionist worldview. Last year the HRTO granted Rodman a hearing, which awaits scheduling, to show her anti-Zionist worldview/creed is not just a political view.
(The UCC has supported labelling settlement goods and condemned other aspect of Israel’s occupation. But these resolutions have not been implemented. As an example, no congregation or UCC body implemented a 2012 resolution calling for divestment from companies profiting or supporting the occupation even though a resolution was passed at the subsequent General Council requesting implementation of the 2012 resolution.)
An anti-Palestinian deal UCC leaders brokered decades ago has influenced the church’s indifference to the plight of Palestinians. In the 1950s and 60s the UCC passed a number of resolutions upholding the rights of Palestinians, including those of the refugees to return to their homes. More significantly, the UCC’s influential magazine championed the Palestinian cause. With a circulation of 350,000 in the early 1970s, The Observer criticized Israeli human rights violations. But editor Rev. A.C. Forrest’s support for Palestinians prompted vicious attacks. Emboldened by the blow Israel delivered against pan-Arabism in the 1967 war, B’nai B’rith dubbed Forrest a “Haman”, “Pharaoh” and “anti-Semitic”.
In response, Forrest threatened to sue for libel. B’nai B’rith countersued. A high-profile battle between B’nai B’rith and the UCC ensued. But, new UCC leaders didn’t care much about Palestinians and opposed Forrest, as well as a pro-Palestinian resolution passed at the 1972 UCC convention. Moderator Bruce McLeod and General Secretary George Morris soon sought a “gentleman’s agreement” in which both the UCC and B’nai B’rith would drop the lawsuits. Couched in the language of interfaith sensitivity, the 1973 “peace pact” was about deterring criticism of Israel. As then Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) President Sol Kanee wrote in a private letter, “it would appear the United Church is determined to chart a more positive course with regard to Israel and the Jewish people, which we hope will be reflected in the ‘Observer.’”
Dozens of pages detail the B’nai B’rith-UCC battle at the Canadian Jewish Archives in Montréal. In one internal file CJC officials say only part of the B’nai B’rith-UCC agreement was published (a similar agreement is thought to have been made between the UCC and CJC and/or Canadian Council of Churches). Part of the “peace pact” published noted, “we recognize and appreciate the interests of Jews everywhere and of the United Church for the events in the Middle East and in the survival of Israel.”
As part of the agreement, the UCC seems to have committed to inform B’nai B’rith/CJC about Israel related affairs or even seek their consent before implementing policy approved by the grassroots. A 2009 Globe and Mail article reported that UCC general council officer Bruce Gregersen indicated that CJC president Bernie Farber “gave his blessing to the UCC resolution” on Israel.
Rodman and others have pushed the church hierarchy to reveal whether the anti-Palestinian agreement is still respected. But UCC leaders have failed to release the full agreement or say it is no longer being followed.
The agreement with B’nai B’rith/CJC has undercut grassroots initiatives within the church that challenge Canada’s complicity in Palestinian dispossession. But, the decision to succumb to B’nai B’rith’s disingenuous attacks 45 years ago has had another equally damaging impact on Palestinians. It has emboldened the anti-Palestinian group to make evermore outrageous demands.
After a half-century more of Israeli land theft and violence, B’nai B’rith demanded a Toronto church suppress an event because it included the name of a famous novelist driven from his home as a child and then blown up by Israel (a quintessential victim of terrorism). If Kanafani’s name “glorifies terrorists and murderers”, as B’nai B’rith claims, then what should we say of a group that defends every act of Israeli violence, including the assassination of a novelist and his niece?
If the UCC won’t have anything to do with a Palestinian youth group that mentions Kanafani’s name they sure better sever all ties to groups promoting Israeli “terrorists and murderers”.
Israel lobbied US to drop F-35 deal with Turkey
MEMO | August 2, 2019
Israel secretly lobbied the US to block Turkey from purchasing its F-35 fighter jets in an effort to maintain its military edge in the region, according to Israeli media reports.
Tel Aviv began urging the White House to drop Ankara from its F-35 program soon after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan approved the purchase of the S-400 missile defence system from Russia, Israeli Channel 12 reported yesterday.
“It put pressure on Washington to cancel the sale of advanced aircraft to Turkey,” it said.
Turkey was suspended from the F-35 program in July, with the US administration claiming the Russian S-400 would compromise the security of its F-35 jets. Turkey denies the claim, adding that for years it tried unsuccessfully to buy US Patriot missile defence before it turned to the S-400s.
While US President Donald Trump has resisted penalising Turkey over the S-400 issue, there has been pressure from Congress as well as his own administration to take measures against Turkey, including sanctions.
In the last two years, Israel started purchasing F-35s from the US, making it the only country in Middle East to own this type of fighter jet.
The Israeli government has signed agreements with US defence contractor Lockheed Martin to purchase at least 50 F-35 aircraft using US aid.
The aircraft will be delivered in batches of twos and threes through 2024.
Israel summons 8-year-old Palestinian girl for interrogation
MEMO | August 1, 2019
Israeli authorities yesterday summoned an eight-year-old Palestinian girl from the occupied West Bank city of Hebron for interrogation, making her the third minor to be called in for questioning this week.
According to sources who informed the Palestinian news agency Wafa, Israeli soldiers raided the home of Hebron resident Shadi Sadr last night and gave him a summons for his eight-year-old daughter Malak to appear at an interrogation centre. Her crime, the father was told, was allegedly harassing the military-backed Israeli settlers.
The incident comes amid a recent spate of summons and interrogations of extremely young Palestinian children this past week for a number of alleged crimes including throwing cartons at occupation forces and “harassing” settlers and settlement projects. The first arrest was that of four-year-old Muhammad Rabi’ Elayyan on Tuesday and the second was issued to the father of six-year-old Qais Firas Obaid yesterday, both of whom were residents of the same east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Issawiya.
According to the Palestine branch of the rights group Defence for Children International, at least 8,000 Palestinian children have been arrested and prosecuted in the Israeli military detention system since 2000.
Prince Harry in Overpopulation ‘Doomsday Cult’
Sputnik – August 1, 2019
Prince Harry, who became a father this year, prompted a Twitter storm after he professed a desire to only have two children in order to help save the planet. After mouthy UK journalist Piers Morgan mocked him over the statement, his colleague Julia Hartley-Brewer also weighed in with a critical remark.
“TalkRADIO” host Julia Hartley-Brewer has insisted that there is no evidence of looming overpopulation when she discussed Prince Harry’s pledge to father only two children for the planet’s sake with Green Party peer Baroness Jenny Jones.
“In what way do we think there is any evidence to claim that this planet can’t sustain the population we’ve got right now? Or indeed a bigger population with predictions of it hitting nine or ten billion before it plateaus out in the next, say, 50 years?” the journalist asked.
She also showed some bewilderment over the overpopulation alarmists, apparently including the prince, who, with his wife Meghan, became a parent of a baby boy only recently. The journalist said that she cannot perceive how it might feel “to go through life basically as part of a doomsday cult, thinking the world is in such a terrible position”.
“I understand being concerned about renewable energy and replacing fossil fuels and clean the air and polluting the sea and all that. Absolutely that all makes sense to me but I find this idea that this view that human beings are effectively parasites on the planet, I find it such a depressing thought… I am really glad that I have a much more positive view of life”, she noted.
Co-host of Good Morning Britain Piers Morgan earlier also mocked the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, referring to rumours about the then-pregnant Meghan Markle flying back home to Prince Harry on board a private jet after a baby shower in a plush New York hotel.
“Is this the same Harry who uses helicopters to go from London to Birmingham & whose wife uses celebrity mates’ private jets to cross the Atlantic?” Morgan tweeted, while some commenters supported his stance, branding the prince’s remarks “hypocrisy at its finest”.
Israel Has “The Most Moral Army in the World”?
The creepy French “intellectual” Bernard-Henri Levy gets it wrong
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • July 30, 2019
Eight days ago eleven Palestinian buildings containing seventy family apartments located in the illegally Israeli occupied East Jerusalem village of Wadi al-Hummus were demolished in a military-led operation by more than 1,000 Israeli soldiers, policemen and municipal workers using bulldozers, backhoes and explosives. Residents who resisted were beaten by the soldiers, kicked down flights of stairs and even shot at close range with rubber bullets. The soldiers were recorded laughing and celebrating as they did their dirty work. Occupants who did not resist and who held their hands up in surrender were also not spared the rod, as were also foreign observers who were present to add their voices to those who were protesting the outrage. The injuries sustained by some of the victims have been photographed and are available online.
Twelve Palestinians and four British observers were injured badly enough to be hospitalized. The British reported that they were “stamped on, dragged by the hair, strangled with a scarf and pepper sprayed by Israeli border police.” One who was hospitalized described how Israeli soldiers dragged him by his feet, lifting him up, and kicking him in the stomach, while one soldier stamped on his head four times “at full force” before standing on his head and pulling his hair. Another suffered a fractured rib after “[the policeman] then stamped on my throat and others started punching my torso. It was a sadistic display of violence…”
Yet another foreign observer was dragged out of the house, “… her hands were crushed so badly that she suffered a fractured knuckle on her left hand, and her right hand suffered severe tissue damage ‘which will be permanently misshapen unless she gets cosmetic surgery.’”
Edmond Sichrovsky, an Austrian activist of Jewish origin, who was in one of the houses, described how Israeli forces broke the door down, first dragging out the Palestinians, “knocking the grandfather to the floor in front of his crying and screaming grandchildren.” Cell phones were forcibly removed to eliminate any picture taking or filming before soldiers began attacking him and four other activists. “I was repeatedly kicked and kneed, which left a bloody nose and multiple cuts, as well breaking my glasses from a knee in the face. Once outside, they slammed me against a car while shouting verbal insults at me and women activists, calling them whores.”
The buildings were destroyed due to claims that they were too close to Israel’s illegal separation wall, with the Benjamin Netanyahu government citing “security concerns.” The families living in the buildings that did not have either the time or ability to remove their furniture and other personal items will now have to comb through the rubble to see what they can recover, if the Israeli soldiers will even allow them that grace. They will also have to find new places to live as the Israelis have made no provision for housing them.
The homes were legally constructed on land that is nominally controlled by the Palestinian Authority (PA), a fine point that the Israeli authorities chose to consider irrelevant. When the Palestinians object to such arbitrary behavior, they are sent to Israeli military courts that always endorse the government decisions. And the Netanyahu regime of kleptocrats has made clear that it does not recognize international law about treatment of people who are under occupation.
The buildings were destroyed a few days after rampaging Israeli settlers on the West Bank continued their campaign to destroy the livelihoods of their Palestinian neighbors. Hundreds of olive trees were burned on the West Bank on July 10th, a deliberate attempt to drive the Arabs from their land by making it impossible to farm, strangling the local economy. Olive trees are particularly targeted as they are a cash crop and the trees take many years to mature and produce. The Israeli settlers have also been known to kill livestock, poison water, destroy crops, burn down buildings, and beat and even kill the Palestinian farmers and their families. And in Hebron the settlers have surrounded the old town, dumping excrement and other refuse on the Palestinians shops below that are still trying to do business. It should surprise no one that the Jewish settlers who engage in the violence are rarely caught, even less often tried, and almost never punished. The ghastly Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has declared that what was once Palestine is now a country called Israel and it is only for Jews. Killing a Palestinian by a Jewish Israeli is considered de facto to be a misdemeanor.
And meanwhile the carnage continues in Gaza, with the death toll of unarmed demonstrating Palestinians now at more than 200 plus several thousand wounded, many of them children and medical workers. Recently, orders to the Israeli army snipers direct them to shoot demonstrators in the ankles so they will be crippled for life. This is what it takes to be the “most moral army” in the world as defined by French fop pseudo intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy, demonstrating only yet again that the tribe knows how to stick together. But the war crimes carried out by Israel also require unlimited support from the United States, both in money and political cover to allow it all to happen. Israel would not be killing Palestinians with such impunity if it were not for the green light from Donald Trump and his settler-loving mock Ambassador David Friedman backed up by a congress that seems to cherish Israelis more than Americans.
How is it that the horrific treatment of the Palestinians by the Israelis as aided and abetted by the worldwide Jewish diaspora is not featured in headlines all over the world? Why isn’t my government with its highly suspect but nevertheless declared agenda of bringing democracy and freedom to all saying anything about the Palestinians? Or condemning Israeli behavior as it once did regarding South Africa?
Can one even imagine what The New York Times and Washington Post would be headlining if American soldiers and police were evicting and beating the residents of a housing project in a U.S. city? But somehow Israel always gets a pass, no matter what it does and politicians from both parties delight in describing how the “special relationship” with the Jewish state is cast in stone.
In the wake of the home demolitions, Washington yet again shielded Israel from a United Nations censure for its behavior by casting a Security Council veto. The Jewish state is consequently never held accountable for its bad behavior, and let us be completely honest, Israel is the ultimate rogue regime, dedicated to turning its neighbors into smoking ruins with U.S. assistance. It is evil manifest and it is not in America’s own interest to continue to be dragged down that road.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org
Study finds 50-year history of anti-Palestinian bias in mainstream news reporting
CONTEXT matters, and CONTEXT is often missing in news reports about Israel-Palestine
By Kathryn Shihadah – If Americans Knew – January 19, 2019
A recent media study based on analysis of 50 years of data found that major U.S. newspapers have provided consistently skewed, pro-Israel reporting on Israel-Palestine.
The study, conducted by 416Labs, a Toronto-based consulting and research firm, is the largest of its kind.
Using computer analysis, researchers evaluated the headlines of five influential U.S. newspapers: the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal from 1967 to 2017.
The study period begins in June 1967, the date when Israel began its military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip – now officially termed the Occupied Palestinian Territories – following its Six Day War against Jordan, Egypt and Syria.
Methodology involved the use of Natural Language Processing (NLP), a type of computer analysis that sifts through large amounts of natural language data and investigates the vocabulary. NLP tabulated the most commonly used words and word pairs, as well as the positive or negative sentiment associated with the headlines.
Using NLP to analyze 100,000 headlines, the study revealed that the coverage favored Israel in the “sheer quantity of stories covered,” by presenting Palestinian-centric stories from a more negative point of view, as well as by grossly under-representing the Palestinian narrative, and by omitting or downplaying “key topics that help to identify the conflict in all its significance.”
Four times more headlines mentioned Israel than Palestine
The Fifty Years of Occupation study reveals a clear media bias first in the quantity of headlines: over the half-century period in question, headlines mentioned Israel 4 times more frequently than Palestine.
The study revealed other discrepancies in coverage of Israel and Palestine/Palestinians as well.
Sentiment
For all 5 newspapers studied, Israel-centric headlines were on average more positive than the Palestinian-centric headlines.
Sentiment analysis measures “the degree to which ideological loyalty colors analysis.”
In order to measure sentiment, the study employed a “dictionary” of words classified as either positive or negative; each headline was scored based on its use of these words.
The report explains that journalistic standards require news stories to be “neutral, objective, and derived from facts,” but the reports on Israel-Palestine “exhibit some form of institutionalized ideological posturing and reflect a slant.” [See graphs below post]
Under-representation of the Palestinian voice
The study also found Palestinians marginalized as sources of news and information.
A simple case in point: The fact-checking organization Pundit Fact examined CNN guests during a segment of the 2014 Israeli incursion into Gaza, Operation Protective Edge. Pundit Fact reported that during this time, 20 Israeli officials were interviewed, compared to only 4 Palestinians, although Palestinians were overwhelmingly victims of the incursion with 2,251 deaths vs. 73 Israeli deaths.
The study’s data reveal what it calls “the privileging of Israeli voices and, invariably, Israeli narratives”: the phrases “Israel Says” and “Says Israel” occurred at a higher frequency than any other bigram (2-word phrase) throughout the 50 years of headlines – in fact, at a rate 250% higher than “Palestinian Says” and similar phrases. This indicates that not only are Israeli perspectives covered more often, but Palestinians rarely have an opportunity to defend or explain their actions.
The report explains the significance of such asymmetry:
This imbalance matters, as official Israeli government policy is effectively made an intrinsic part of the discussion of the conflict, while the views of Palestinians living under occupation are subordinated to the margins.
Sins of omission and de-emphasis
The analysis turned up yet another significant problem with the newspapers’ coverage: failure to report, or to report adequately, on important aspects of the Palestine-Israel conflict.
The study found several critical topics that the 5 newspapers failed to cover adequately, resulting in reader misperceptions.
Peace process?
One misperception revolves around the alleged existence of an ongoing “peace process.”
The study points out the consistent use of bigrams such as “peace talks,” in spite of the fact that since 1993, peace talks have been essentially nonexistent. And,
A hallmark of the conflict has been the perception that there is an ongoing peace process which, from time to time, breaks down, thereby delaying resolution of the conflict…the dispute is effectively portrayed as being one between two equal warring sides, not one where one group is an occupier and the other the occupied.
Occupation
The researchers emphasize the fact that as the occupation of the West Bank (and de facto occupation of Gaza) drags on past 50 years, the brutality of the Israeli occupation is becoming normalized and its illegality forgotten.
They draw this conclusion from their analysis of the unigram “occupation,” which has appeared in headlines less and less frequently, dropping by 85% in Israel-centric headlines, and by 65% in Palestinian-centric headlines over the 50-year period.
Gaza
The blockade of Gaza, and the economic hardships of Gazans under the blockade, were mentioned in Palestine-centric headlines just 30 and 63 times respectively, in the 11 years since the blockade began.
In Covering Gaza: is the mainstream media discourse changing on Palestine-Israel?, Tamara Kharroub of the Arab Center in Washington DC censures mainstream media coverage of the Great Return March – a nonviolent demonstration by Palestinian Gazans for justice and the end of the blockade – for failing to report the names of Gazan civilians killed by Israeli snipers, “in stark contrast to the usual reporting on Israeli victims, in which their pictures, lives, and grieving families are repeatedly shown and discussed.”
… and more
As another example, Palestinian refugees – still waiting to be repatriated according to UN Resolution 242 of 1949 – have been forgotten as a group: the words “Palestine Refugee(s)” in headlines has declined by 93% over the last 50 years, reflecting a decline in concern from media.
The study reveals similar underreporting on topics including the illegality of Israeli settlements and Palestinians’ designation of East Jerusalem as the future capital of the future Palestinian state.
According to Siham Rashid, formerly of the Palestinian Counseling Center, these accumulated flaws characterize the Israel-Palestine issue as
a conflict revolving around security and terrorism, with Israel being the victim…So, for many people, the conflict is understood as a conflict of land and borders between two peoples who have equal claims, not as a conflict between an oppressed and oppressor and colonized and colonizer.
International consensus
As cited by the researchers, Marda Dunsky’s 2008 book, Pens and Swords: How the American Mainstream Media Report the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, analyzed US media over a 4-year period. One of her most significant findings was the lack of coverage of the international consensus on important issues, for example the almost-universal conclusions that Israeli settlements are illegal, and that Palestinian refugees should be allowed to return to their homes.
Greg Shupak’s The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel, and the Media offers an example from Operation Protective Edge, the Israeli aggression of 2014 into Gaza. He points out that the blockade of Gaza, a key antecedent to the violence, was mentioned only once in the many New York Times editorials on the conflict published just before and during the war.
Shupak’s work shows how NYT “frequently omits important details that would better contextualize the conflict.”
In More Bad News From Israel, Glasgow University researchers Greg Philo and Mike Berry examined British mainstream media coverage of Israel-Palestine. In a study of BBC coverage, the lack of adequate context resulted in
the failure to convey adequately the disparity in the Israeli and Palestinian experience, reflecting the fact that one side is in control and the other lives under occupation…BBC output does not consistently give a full and fair account of the conflict. In some ways the picture is incomplete and, in that sense, misleading.
Alison Weir of If Americans Knew has published extensive studies of American media coverage of Israel-Palestine which reveal “daily reporting [that is] profoundly skewed” and a “pervasive pattern of distortion” in which “[t]he favored population was the Israeli one.”
If Americans Knew has conducted six major studies and one shorter study on coverage of Israel-Palestine news and found that media had reported on Israeli deaths at far greater rates than they reported on Palestinian deaths. The studies also revealed the palpable pro-Israel bias, under-representation of the Palestinian voice and the omission or downplaying of critical topics.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a lobbying group that advocates pro-Israel policies to the Congress and Executive Branch of the United States.
Causation?
The Canadian researchers found a “systemic problem in coverage,” but did not study the causation. Nevertheless, they excluded the possibility of “deliberate planned bias,” attributing the biased coverage to “the U.S. media’s affinity to broadly align and support their government’s foreign policy objectives.”
Some other researchers, however, report a wider range of factors, many connected to the pro-Israel lobby in the United States. For example, Alison Weir discovered deep links between US media and Israel (e.g. here, here, here, and here). Mearsheimer and Walt reported on the power of pro-Israel pressure in their book The Israel Lobby; Paul Findley in his book They Dare to Speak Out, and others report a wider range of factors, many connected to the pro-Israel lobby in the United States. In many cases, pressure from pro-Israel groups in the Israel lobby, contributed significantly to the consistent slant in mainstream media.
Conclusion
As the authors point out:
Whether online, television, or print, the mainstream media serves to provide most Americans with their daily news. How the media frames the news and presents it to viewers can profoundly shape their perception of current events.
Yet numerous analysts, across time and region, have established that this media consistently skews the news when it comes to Israel-Palestine. This results in nations and their governments upholding Israeli priorities rather than those of their own people, and perpetuating injustice toward Palestinians.
RELATED READING:
Why we urgently need alternative news sources
Mainstream media repeatedly shows its Israel bias
Keeping an eye on the curators of the news
Correcting a few distortions about Gaza
Associated Press Double Standard in Israel-Palestine Reporting
Media selectively report on Jerusalem unrest; the clock keeps ticking…
Vancouver City Council Won’t Set Precedent in Endorsing IHRA Definition
By Marion Kawas | Palestine Chronicle | July 28, 2019
The City of Vancouver, Canada might seem to be an odd place for a battle over the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of Anti-Semitism. But that is exactly what happened in the last week, and it all concluded with at least a temporary victory for free speech, human rights and common sense.
At the end of June, the federal government of Canada endorsed the IHRA definition as part of its new official “Anti-Racism Strategy” announced by minister Pablo Rodriguez. This was a unilateral move by the government which did not involve a vote in the House of Commons. The Israeli lobby, however, in their ecstatic gloating over the endorsement, made it clear they would be pushing to have the IHRA definition adopted at all levels of government, including provincial and municipal.
Which brings us to the Vancouver City Council, where one Non-Partisan Association (NPA) councilor introduced a motion to be heard at the last meeting before summer break. The motion contained the standard reasoning that one has come to expect from the Israeli lobby promoting the IHRA definition and concluded with adoption of the definition and its examples; it also explicitly instructed staff to share the definition with various city departments including the Police Department, School Board, Parks Board and the Public Library for “review and consideration as an additional practical tool.”
What the outcome would be of this “additional practical tool”, especially by the Police Department, one could only speculate. The history of what has transpired so far in other countries regarding the IHRA definition is extremely troubling and was called out a year ago by over 40 Jewish groups in an open letter. They noted that the definition is “intentionally worded such that it equates legitimate criticisms of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights with antisemitism, as a means to suppress the former.”
The IHRA definition includes several parts, two vaguely worded sentences that are accompanied by 11 illustrative examples; it is the examples and the way they have been applied that are the focus of most of the critique, including from one of the original authors of the document. As noted by Independent Jewish Voices Canada, the initial sentences fail to even clearly “identify antisemitism as a form of prejudice or racism, instead calling antisemitism ‘a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews’.” They add that “7 of the 11 examples refer not just to Jewish people, but to the state of Israel, a deliberate rhetorical strategy to label criticism of Israel and of Zionism antisemitic.”
In fact, some of these examples have been included almost verbatim in the justification for the anti-BDS bills that have been passed or are winding their way through several U.S. states, including Florida.
Passing this motion would have set a dangerous precedent as being the first municipal council in Canada to endorse the IHRA definition. Vancouver, however, has a long and proud tradition of being both anti-racist and defending free speech and Palestinian rights. A popular campaign was immediately launched to tell Vancouver City Council why this motion should not be adopted – letter writing, social media and articles in local papers all happened.
People from both within the Jewish community and other sectors were adamant in stating that this definition had more to do with squashing criticism of Israel than it did with contributing to the fight against racism.
The Palestinian community also pointed out that the definition actually promotes anti-Palestinian racism, as it severely limits and defines what the Palestinian narrative can be. The Vancouver & District Labour Council (VDLC), the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) and civic parties like the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) all took the position that adopting the IHRA definition would be divisive and harmful.
It seems City Council heard the message. In a vote of 6-5 (the 5 were all NPA councilors), the Council decided to not proceed with the motion and instead referred it to committee for recommendations on how to combat ALL forms of racism.
“THAT Council refer this motion to the Racial and Ethno-Cultural Equity Advisory Committee to provide recommendations to Council on how the City of Vancouver can increase action to combat all forms of racism and hatred, including Antisemitism.”
Although referral to committee is often the bureaucratic tactic to not deal with issues, in this case, the instructions in the referral made it more meaningful. And most importantly, Vancouver City Council refused to set a precedent as the first Canadian city to endorse the IHRA definition.
Activists know that the struggle will continue at the committee level but the small amount of time they had to prepare for the council vote allowed them to educate many people on the dangers of the IHRA definition; they feel confident that more time is only to their advantage.
Canada’s main Israel lobby group, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), was not happy with the outcome. They had invested heavily in promoting the motion and one of their officials stated he would be at City Hall when it was introduced.
They issued a statement expressing their “disappointment”, claiming that this was a “setback in the struggle against racism and bigotry”.
They went on to allege that,
“By delaying the initiative to protect Jewish community members at a time of rising antisemitism, those councilors who voted against the motion are on the wrong side of history.”
Vancouver residents do not need these lectures by a lobby group that is more interested in punishing critics of Israel than it is in fighting racism. Members of the Jewish community in Vancouver made this exact point in their submissions to Council.
The active involvement of many progressive Jews against this motion endorsing the IHRA definition was one of the more uplifting aspects of this campaign, along with the support from broader sections of Vancouver society. This was also reflective of the majority of Canadians who support Palestinian human and national rights.
Palestinian activists have not had many occasions lately to be optimistic, especially in the Canadian political arena. Hopefully, what happened at Vancouver City Council is just the first step in pushing back against the censoring of free speech and the bullying of activists who support Palestinian rights.
– Marion Kawas is a member of the Canada Palestine Association and co-host of Voice of Palestine. Visit: www.cpavancouver.org.
Abbas must take practical measures concerning suspension of all deals with Israel: Hamas
Press TV – July 28, 2019
A senior official from the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement says the recent decision made by President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) Mahmoud Abbas to suspend all agreements signed with the Israeli regime needs practical steps.
Mousa Abu Marzouk, in a post published on his official Twitter page on Saturday, described the move as “a step reflecting the wishes of Palestinian people, who aspire for freedom and independence.”
He added that Abbas’s decision to stop implementing agreements signed with the Israeli regime needs practical steps, national unity and internal reconciliation in order to yield results, and to confront potential risks facing Palestinians.
On Thursday, the 84-year-old Palestinian president declared the suspension of all agreements with the Tel Aviv regime.
The measure came after an emergency meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the wake of recent demolition of a cluster of Palestinian homes in Sur Baher neighborhood on the southeastern outskirts of occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds.
“We announce the leadership’s decision to stop implementing the agreements signed with the Israeli side,” Abbas said at a speech in the central occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
He added that a committee would be formed in order to implement the decision, but did not provide further details.
“We will not bow to dictates and imposing a fait accompli by force in al-Quds (Jerusalem) and elsewhere,” Abbas stated.
Abbas said the move comes as Israeli authorities “ignore” all the signed agreements with the PA.
The Palestinian Authority and the Israeli regime work together on various matters, including water distribution, electricity, economic relations and security coordination.
Hundreds of Israeli troops with bulldozers tore down about 70 homes in 10 apartment buildings in Sur Baher on July 22, despite local protests and international criticism.
On Wednesday, the United States blocked the United Nations Security Council from passing a resolution condemning Israel’s demolitions.
Indonesia, Kuwait and South Africa had earlier circulated a draft statement, expressing grave concern over the demolitions. They stated that such practice would undermine the viability of the so-called two-state solution, and the prospect for a just and lasting resolution of the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
Aletho News 
