New York Times and Washington Post bash Israel with false claims

 

The New York Times and the Washington Post have once again engaged in Israel bashing — spewing out fake maps and phony history about Israel, its origins and indeed its continued existence as the Jewish National Home — first articulated in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and confirmed in article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

The following maps:                                                                                                                                     

• captioned: “Illustration by The New York Times/Photographs via Getty”
• appeared in: an article in the New York Times headlined “The myth of co-existence in Israel”
• was written by: Diana Buttu — identified as “a lawyer, former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Palestinian citizen of Israel”

The Washington Post’s Glen Kessler — described as The Fact Checker — to his credit — was quick to point out the falsehoods in the maps:

“that showed a shrinking map of Palestine, from the borders of the British mandate for Palestine in 1947 to areas that would be under Palestinian control after adoption of a recent [Trump — ed] peace plan.”.

Kessler informed readers that:

“Patrick Healy, deputy opinion editor of the [New York] Times, issued a statement saying “it was not meant to be a literal, factual map ... this was an illustration conveying a sense of shrinking space for Palestinians. It is art.”

But obviously wanting to show up its arch competitor’s anti-Israel bias — Kessler then accurately pointed out:

“Still, a version of this map has been circulating for almost 20 years, supposedly showing how “Historic Palestine” had been taken over by Israel. As a technical matter, the map is a confusing mélange of images: it includes something that did not exist (Palestinian control over all the territory), something that did not happen (the proposed United Nations partition) and something odd (pre-1967 occupations by Jordan and Egypt are depicted as Palestinian-controlled).”

Fake maps such as these have been reproduced all over the media, internet and in textbooks published by respected publishers for decades.

McGraw Hill Publishing — in 2016—withdrew from sale and trashed unsold copies of one such textbook - Global Politics: Engaging a Complex World — containing these following maps:

McGraw’s Spokesperson — Catherine Mathis — then stated:

“As soon as we learned about the concerns with it, we placed sales of the book on hold and immediately initiated an academic review. The review determined that the map did not meet our academic standards. We have informed the authors and we are no longer selling the book. All existing inventory will be destroyed. We apologize and will refund payment to anyone who returns the book.”

The New York Times should be ashamed of itself for publishing their similarly false and misleading maps.

Brownie points earned by the Washington Post in exposing the New York Times anti-Israel bias were however forfeited when Kessler continued “to summarize the two versions of whether there was a historic Palestine for readers who want to hear both sides of the story.”

The Pro-Palestinian version — according to Kessler - maintains:

“In the 18th century, the area saw the emergence of a new Palestine-based autonomous rule, spurred in part by the region’s commercial dynamism, especially its trade in cotton and grain. In effect, between the 1720s and 1775 under the ruler Zahir al-Umar, there was an independent Palestinian state — longer than the British mandate."

Why publish such fabricated nonsense at all?

Palestine had then been part of the Ottoman Empire for 250 years and continued to remain so until the Allied and Central Powers made their decisions on its future at the 1920 San Remo Conference.

Ending the flow of false information published by “respectable publications” remains a continuing challenge for Israel to combat and finally defeat.


Author’s note: The cartoon — commissioned exclusively for this article — is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”—one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators — whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades.

Palestine - Politicians Peddling Propaganda Forfeit Credibility

[Published 19 May 2016]


Senator Lee Rhiannon - a member of the Greens Party holding a pivotal position in Australian politics - authorised and printed a deceptive and misleading pamphlet which was distributed at a protest rally addressed by her last Sunday in Sydney “against Israeli Apartheid and commemorating Al Nakba 68 years on.”

The pamphlet purported to quote a statement by Israel’s then Defense Minister Moshe Dayan in 1969:

“We came to a region of land that was inhabited by Arabs and we set up a Jewish State… Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages“

What Dayan actually said — which Senator Rhiannon was apparently not prepared to disclose — was:

“We came to a region that was inhabited by Arabs, and we set up a Jewish state. In many places, we purchased the land from Arabs and set up Jewish villages where there had once been Arab villages.”

God forbid that those present should learn that Jews had actually purchased land from its Arab owners. Better to maintain the canard repeated in Palestinian text books and media that:

“the Zionist gangs stole Palestine”

Moshe Aumann in his seminal work “Land ownership in Palestine 1880-1948” states that in 1948:

“8.6 per cent of the land was owned by Jews and 3.3 per cent by Israeli Arabs, while 16.9 per cent had been abandoned by Arab owners who imprudently heeded the call from neighbouring countries to “get out of the way” while the invading Arab armies made short shrift of Israel. The rest of the land — over 70 per cent — had been vested in the Mandatory Power, and accordingly reverted to the State of Israel as its legal heir. (Government of Palestine, Survey of Palestine, 1946, British Government Printer, p. 257.) The greater part of this 70 per cent consisted of the Negev, some 3,144,250 acres all told, or close to 50 per cent of the 6,580,000 acres in all of Mandatory Palestine. Known as Crown or State Lands, this was mostly uninhabited arid or semi-arid territory, inherited originally by the Mandatory Government from Turkey. In 1948 it passed to the Government of Israel. These lands had not been owned by Arab farmers — neither under the British Mandate nor under the preceding regime.”

Senator Rhiannon has a Parliamentary staff to assist her in ensuring everything that issues in her name as a Senator is totally and completely accurate.

She has let her emotions cloud her judgement in what can only be seen as a deliberate attempt to paper over the fact that Jews bought land in Palestine they settled on.

Another pamphlet containing four maps was handed out at the rally — supposedly documenting Palestinian loss of land between 1946 and 2000.

McGraw Hill Publishing only recently withdrew from sale and trashed unsold copies of one of its textbooks - Global Politics: Engaging a Complex World - containing those maps.

Spokesperson - Catherine Mathis - stated:

“As soon as we learned about the concerns with it, we placed sales of the book on hold and immediately initiated an academic review. The review determined that the map did not meet our academic standards. We have informed the authors and we are no longer selling the book. All existing inventory will be destroyed. We apologize and will refund payment to anyone who returns the book.”

Senator Rhiannon is perfectly entitled to express her support for the Palestinian Arabs.

It would be encouraging to know however that her support is based on fact — not fiction and partisan propaganda designed to deceive and mislead and possibly incite to violence and Jew-hatred.

Senator Rhiannon has badly blotted her copybook — and credibility.

Palestine - Perpetuating Propaganda Plagues Peace Process

[Published 8 May 2016]


McGraw Hill’s decision to trash copies of its textbook - Global Politics: Engaging a Complex World — has been subjected to intense criticism on web sites propagating the “Palestinian Narrative” of the 100 years old Arab-Jewish conflict.

The “Palestinian Narrative” is a concoction of lies and half-truths based on the 1964 PLO National Charter — as amended in 1968 - and the 1988 Hamas Covenant.

Catherine Mathis - a spokeswoman for McGraw-Hill - explained the Company’s reasons for destroying the textbook — which contained four misleading and inaccurate maps of “Palestine”:

“As soon as we learned about the concerns with it, we placed sales of the book on hold and immediately initiated an academic review. The review determined that the map did not meet our academic standards. We have informed the authors and we are no longer selling the book. All existing inventory will be destroyed. We apologize and will refund payment to anyone who returns the book.”

McGraw-Hill’s action follows similar criticism by MSNBC which aired the same series of maps last year on “MSNBC Live”. Host Kate Snow and her then guest Middle East expert Martin Fletcher made a return appearance to acknowledge that they realized after they went off the air that the maps were not factually accurate and they regretted using them.

Now Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) has published a letter signed by 35 “prominent academics” attacking McGraw Hill’s

“shocking and outrageous act of censorship of the Palestinian narrative from US schoolbooks”.

The fact that JVP openly acknowledges the offending maps are part of the “Palestinian narrative” is surely more than sufficient justification for trashing the text book - because no disclosure was made by the contributing editors that the maps they used were partisan in nature.

But the academics letter goes even further in claiming:

1. “The maps in question are historically accurate” - but gives no evidence to back up that claim.

2. ”If there were in fact any minor errors with the maps they should have been corrected rather than removed altogether”- but fails to list such minor errors.
I contacted JVP requesting to know what those “minor errors” were.

Rather than listing those “minor errors” — JVP referred me to the fact sheet of another web site propagating the same maps and claiming they were accurate.

I then sent JVP my detailed reasons for questioning the accuracy of these four maps — adding:

“I know it would be very difficult to withdraw your letter signed by so many distinguished people but it needs to be qualified if their integrity and yours is to be maintained.

McGraw Publishing had the intellectual strength to remove the offending text book from sale when inaccuracies in the maps were brought to its attention.

I believe you now need to issue an appropriately worded supplementary letter that:

1. errors appearing in the published maps drawn to your attention after your letter was published were regrettably incapable of being corrected thereby necessitating their withdrawal and the textbook from sale.

2. McGraw Hill’s decision to do so was justified.

Please give this letter your serious consideration and let me know what you intend doing.”

No response has been received to this and two subsequent e mails.

Misleading maps — like misleading statements - allowed to go unchallenged - soon become accepted as gospel truth if repeated often enough in text books and in the media.

Anti-Israel websites peddling the “Palestinian narrative” and refusing to publish comments seeking to correct unsubstantiated and untrue statements are increasing.

Jewish Voice For Peace does itself no credit in aligning with these insidious web sites by maintaining its deafening silence and knowingly propagating these totally discredited maps.

Palestine - Internet Manipulation Fuels Anti-Israel And Jew-hatred

[Published 6 April 2016]


Internet manipulation of readers’ comments in response to articles published on overtly anti-Israel and anti-Jewish web sites is allowing those web sites to spew out their venom unchecked and uncontrolled.

Freedom of speech on these web sites is non-existent - and its absence is playing a large part in influencing the opinions of those who visit these sites and see no readers’ comments that act as a counterbalance or rebuttal to the article published or readers’ comments supporting such articles.

Such manipulation has until now taken either of the following forms:

1. Simply not publishing a reader’s comment

2. The editor can claim to exercise editorial control of what appears on his web-site – and there is nothing you can really do about it.

I received this treatment when seeking to comment on the decision by McGraw Hill to trash the remaining copies of a text book “Global Politics: engaging a complex world “ – after four maps of “Palestine” in 1946, 1947, 1948-1967 and 2000 were subsequently determined by McGraw Hill to be inaccurate and misleading.

My comment detailing why McGraw Hill’s decision was justified was not published.

This rejection motivated me to write an article “Palestine – Internet Intifada Denies Free Speech” - which was published on many web sites - and subsequently went viral.

Publishing readers’ comments – overwhelmingly anonymous - that do not address the subject matter of the article but comprise general comments repeated over and over again - such as “ethnic cleansing”, apartheid” and “stealing Palestinian land” - denigrating and delegitimising both Israel and Jews.

A web site using both of these manipulative practices in tandem represents a web site where only the Arab narrative of the Jewish-Arab conflict is presented and the Jewish narrative is deliberately suppressed and excluded.

Now a far more serious form of manipulation to those outlined above has been exposed - involving the initial publication - but subsequent deletion - of readers’ comments some considerable time after they have first been published.

Again – I have been the recipient of this highly offensive and objectionable practice in relation to the identical comment posted by me supporting McGraw Hill’s decision on another anti-Israel and anti-Jewish web site.

Two comments were initially posted by two other people on this website criticising the McGraw Hill decision to trash – and were published on 20 March and 26 March. So far – no problem.

My comment was published on 29 March – no problem.

My comment drew a very virulent and hate-filled response from an anonymous third reader on 29 March – resulting in the exchange of a further seven published comments from each of us to the other - ending on 2 April with the following post by me:

“You seem intent on not wanting to answer this one simple question:

“Do you consider the maps withdrawn by McGraw Hill to be inaccurate and misleading because they did not show the Negev to be “desert bedouin land” as you yourself have claimed?

All you need do is answer “Yes” or “No”.

That is not too hard for you is it?”

Imagine my complete surprise - when I visited the site the following day to see if a response had been posted – to find that all eleven comments published between 20 March – 2 April had been deleted by the web editor and the comments section totally removed.

Luckily I had taken a photo shot of all eleven comments posted.

Otherwise you might not have believed it possible that hostility and antagonism towards Israel and Jews could stoop to such low levels.

Beware hate-filled Arab propagandists who want to conceal the truth at any cost.

Palestine - Internet Intifada Denies Free Speech

[Published 27 March 2016]


Many Palestinian websites are stifling free speech by refusing to publish comments answering anti-Israel articles published on their sites.

The latest example is an article written by Rania Khalek on Electronic Intifada

Responding to the decision by McGraw Hill Education to destroy all copies of its text book Global Politics: engaging a complex world - containing the accompanying maps - Khalek claimed:

“The maps, which appear in chronological succession on page 123, show Palestinian land loss from 1946, one year before Zionist militias initiated the displacement of more than 750,000 indigenous Palestinians from historic Palestine, to the year 2000, by which point Palestinian land had been reduced to a handful of tiny non-contiguous enclaves in the occupied West Bank and a sliver of Gaza.”

I endeavoured to post the following comment in response on 21 March pointing out the misleading nature of these maps:

“Map 1:
The heading - “Palestinian and Jewish Land 1946” - is misleading for the following reasons:
(i) The map excludes Transjordan which in 1946 still comprised 78% of the territory of the Mandate for Palestine until granted independence by Great Britain in May 1946.

(ii) The land described as “Palestinian land” misleadingly implies legal ownership by the Palestinian Arabs of that land when in fact about 90% of it was State land under British Mandatory control and legal power of disposition.

Map 2:
(i) The legend “Palestinian land” is misleading.

(ii) The legend should have said “proposed Jewish State” and “proposed Arab State” - the terms used in the UN Partition Plan.

Map 3:
The heading “1949-1967” is misleading.

The map should have shown the unification of the West Bank with Transjordan between 1949 and 1967 and the change of name of Transjordan to Jordan in 1950.

It should also have designated the Gaza Strip as being under Egyptian military administration between 1948-1967.

Map 4:
One can only wonder why the year 2000 was chosen. Why not 2015 after Israel had already withdrawn from Gaza and four settlements in the West Bank in 2005 and dismantled many illegal outposts?

In any event the legend “Palestinian land” and “Israeli land” is again wrong and misleading in so far as it relates to the West Bank. The land there should have been shown as Areas “A”, “B” and “C”

As maps designed to be taught to students they are totally lacking in accuracy and ignore basic facts in their compilation.

Designating land as “Palestinian land” in any event implies that such land belongs to the “Palestinians”. Since there were no persons designated as “Palestinians” until the 1964 PLO Charter defined that term—the use of the term in maps before then smacks of an attempt to re-write history.

Mc Graw Hill had no option but to discard these maps”

My comments have not yet been published - and comes at a particularly sensitive time as Electronic Intifada Editor Ali Abunimah - a US citizen - has recently received a visa from the Australian Government - after waiting two months - to speak at a four day Marxism Conference and at other venues in Australia.

Abunimah posted the following tweet thanking the thousands who had petitioned the Australian Government supporting the grant of his visa:

“I’m so grateful to every person who stood up for free speech. Delighted that I just received my visa for Australia. See you Down Under!”

4:44 AM - 16 Mar 2016

Perhaps my comment inadvertently slipped through the cracks as Mr Abunimah was busy packing his bags for his visit to Australia.

Free speech means free speech for all Mr Abunimah.

Stand up, be counted, publish my comment.