What passes for 'expert' Israel coverage in the Jewish Chronicle

Anshel Pfeffer is the Jewish Chronicle's Israel reporter. In fact he is their ONLY Israel reporter and has been for quite a while now.

In the latest issue he dominates the entire front page and pages 2-3.  But what few people in the Jewish community in the UK realise is that Pfeffer is a Haaretz journalist who represents a view of Israel that is no different from that presented by the anti-Israel Guardian newspaper.

But not only is Pfeffer the typical leftist useful idiot presenting his anti-Israel agenda "as an Israeli"; he is also an incredibly shoddy journalist.

Elder of Ziyon has this link showing Pfeffer repeating one of the Palestinian blood libels today

Also, one of the FOUR articles by him that appears in the current issue of the Jewish Chronicle is about Egypt's anti-Semitic Israel hating Muslim Brotherhood leader headlined:

"Even-handed Morsi is Israel's biggest win".

This article on Page 3 - surely one of the dumbest ever in the JC - appeared on the very day that Morsi assumed dictatorial powers that have led to widespread riots in Egypt.

Morsi is a man who has repeatedly vowed to tear up the Camp David accords and destroy Israel. He refuses to mention Israel by name. What is not in Pfeffer's ignorant analysis is that Morsi's role in 'brokering' the cease-fire has everything to do with the $10billion that Obama and the EU are giving him this year alone to save the collapsing Egyptian economy (that is the largest annual sum any country has been given in aid in the history of the world - and it is YOUR taxpayer money funding an anti-Semitic Islamist regime that is likely to become the next Iran). But leftists like Pfeffer can never see anything other than sweetness and light in Muslim Brotherhood fanatics.

With this kind of coverage of Israel in the Jewish press, is it any wonder that the Jewish community in the UK is the most limp-wristed supporters of Israel among Jewish communities in the Western world?

London Evening Standard is now Hamas mouthpiece

As readers of this blog will know the Western media has done sterling work over the years to suppress any news and images of atrocities committed by Hamas in Gaza.  So when a video and multiple photos emerged last work of the public lynching of six Palestinians accused of being  'Israeli collabroators' I was wondering how long it would take for the apologists to explain that actually this was all Israel's fault. It was no surprise that the London Evening Standard - of which some half-million copies are handed out free - came to the rescue of Hamas (they have form as being a Hamas mouthpiece). The 23 November issue has a massive 2-page spread to 'fnd out what drives young Palestinians in Gaza to kill six informers and tow their corpses around the street' . Nabila Ramdani 'investigates' "The real story behind this brutal picture". And you do not need to read all the article to see what that 'real story' is because it is stated in large print by the side of the photo:

"Expecting Hamas to respond to Israeli expansion and aggression with anything but ruthlessness is ridiculous."

And what kind of  in-depth 'investigation' has Nabila Ramdani conducted to discover the 'truth'. She relies on somebody called Eman Shakir, a 24-year-old law student who grew up in Gaza City but who actually lives now in Paris. Quoting Shakir, Ramdani confirms:

  "You only have to look at the pictures taken this week of young children lying on slabs in makeshift morgues to realise what Hamas is responding to. As Israel carries on with its killing, and continues to ignore demands for a proper Palestinian homeland, people have no option but to turn to Hamas.” 

Ramdani makes no attempt to inform readers that those  pictures (with the exception of one which was of a baby killed by a Hamas rocket) were actually from Syria.

And Ramdani displays her own clear biases and ignorance throughout the article with comments like:

"the kind of targeting of Arab civilians seen in Gaza this week had to be met with further bloodshed ..."

Funny how less than 40 civilians were killed from Israel's assaults if they were targeting civilians and even funnier how there is no mention of the real targeting of 3 million Israeli civilians by Hamas.

"Many (Gazans) are disaffected young men like those pictured on the motorbikes — the kind who have known nothing but unemployment, poverty and subjugation to an enormously powerful, American-backed enemy"

Note the casual attempt to delegitimize Israel by portraying it as nothing more than an American puppet, while ignoring the incredibly powerful backing from Qatar, Iran, Saudi Arabia and now Egypt that Hamas receives. 

"..many of the Israeli communities based on land once filled with Palestinian houses just 20 miles from Gaza City ..."

So she is either under the impression that Israel is still occupying Gaza, or that is was Arabs and not Jews who built the communities of southern Israel like Sderot. What she certainly ignores is the FACT that Palestinians in Gaza now occupy houses and land built, developed and lived in by Jews who were forcibly expelled in 2005.

The Standard's entire coverage of the Gaza conflict is perfectly captured by the fact that every day they have published a diary/report from Hamas sympathiser Kim Sengupta 'in Gaza' which focuses purely on telling the story of the 'human agony' suffered by Palestinians, with headlines like "We wake on a quite morning and go out to see the destruction". There has been no attempt to balance this with any human stories from Israel.

The Standard also had a report on 23 Nov headlined "Israeli soldiers open fire on Palestinains at Gaza fence" without giving any indication in the story itself that this was a mob of 300 Hamas supporters - some armed - who actually were trying to break through the border to attack Israelis (incredibly, a fact which even Hamas has this morning admitted).

p.s. I have submiited a formal complaint to the Press Complaints Commission. Don't expect anything out of it - as per last time - but at least it ensures someone at the Standard has to respond.
I also note that  the online story actually no longer has the same headline or the major quote highlighted (maybe even the editorial morons at the Standard realised that this was taking Hamas propaganda a bit too far).

Update 26 November 2012: The Daily Mail reports that the lynched Gazans were Al Qaeda members who threaten Hamas's grip on Gaza rather than 'Israeli informers'.

Update 29 January 2013: As a result of my complaint to the Press Complaints Commission the Standard has published a letter by me.

Cease fire text

Here is the actual text:

Understanding Regarding Ceasefire in Gaza Strip

a. Israel shall stop all hostilities on the Gaza Strip land, sea and air including incursions and targeting of individuals.

b. One of the 38 different Palestinian factions shall stop all hostilities from the Gaza Strip against Israel for at least 30 minutes. The other 37 terrorist factions may continue firing rockets and mortars at will.

c. The ceasefire does not apply to any of the 68 terrorist groups now launching attacks from the Sinai.

d. The international media will apply a complete blackout on reporting of any firing by Palestinians into Israel. When Israel finally responds after the 10,000th rocket has landed the media must immediately report that Israel has broken the ceasefire.

e. Israel must supply food, medicine and energy to all of Gaza, without payment.

f. Egypt, Iran, Qatar and Libya must provide increasingly sophisticated weapon systems and missiles to each of the 38 terrorist organisations in Gaza.

Iron Dome: short-term benefit, long-term catastrophe

Israel's 'Iron Dome' system has performed remarkably well in intercepting about 30% of the 2000 rockets launched from Gaza in the last two weeks. But as a long-term 'deterrence' mechanism it is a total catastrophe for Israel. Apart from the incredible expense - and the fact that the number of rockets that still get through ensure that daily life is no less disrupted - putting your faith in a system like this is an acceptance of permanent cowering of an entire state to a bunch of terrorists.

No other country in the world would accept, even in principle, the concept of the Iron Dome as a long term defence/deterrent, because no other country in the world would accept a situation where it is subjected to continuous unprovoked rocket attacks from a bullying neighbour. Don't believe me? Then read the following from a commenter on Debbie Schlussel's blog this evening:

“Back in mid-June, during the great Paris weapons show, the Rafael pavilion was absolutely the busiest around, and everybody wanted to look at the new, exciting, Iron Dome system, the greatest achievement in rocket defense ever. But by the end of the show, Rafael hadn’t made a single sale. The Arrow sold well, other systems did great – Iron Dome wasn’t moving. So they contacted their big clients, the serious ones, and asked what gives. And those clients told them no one except Israel has any use for these things. Because in any normal, sane country, if some hooligans were to start targeting civilians with rockets – the army would go and kill them.”

The Obama administration is right now trying to force Israel to stop a ground invasion with the promise of an extra 250 million dollars to pay for more Irone Dome batteries. This is the ultimate indication that Obama believes Israel has to simply allow the Islamist bully to carry on doing what the Islamist bully does best while Israel has to pay for the privilege of only being struck by 140 rockets a day rather than 200. This is back to the mentality of living in a ghetto under the Nazis. Obama is going to 'allow' Israel to have a half-baked defensive capability but no offensive capability. That's like allowing your 'friend' to wear a gum shield to protect him from the school bully but not allowing him to wear boxing gloves.

With 'friends' like these...

I see the anti-Israel far-left Jewish goons Yachad (who laughingly call themselves 'pro-Israel' to lull other unsuspecting Jews) are running a meeting at the London Jewish Cultural Centre this week (and having the chutzpah to charge people £10). Note the announcement for the event below blames Israel for the start of the current conflict; it says "Since Israel launched Operation Pillar of Defence..."

To give a feel for the speakers Richard Hermer QC works for 'Lawyers for Human Rights of Palestinians', Professor Beverley Milton-Edwards is a Hamas apologist , and Daniel Levy is leader of Yachad's notorious American sister organisation J-Street who declared in 2010 that Israel's creation was a mistake. And the chair is the ultimate self-hating Jew himself Jonathan Freedland.

So why is the LJCC hosting an anti-Israel hate-fest under such false pretences?

Not enough dead Jews

I just sent this to LBC (self-explanatory).

It's enough that we have to put up with the incessant and ignorant ant-Israel obsession of LBC's regular presenters David Mellor, Ken Livinstone and James O'Brien and the rantings of pure anti-Semitic bigots like Yasmin Alibi Brown and Mehdi Hassan who always seem to be guests.

But increasingly Nick Ferrari - so-called 'pro-Israeli' presenter on LBC - seems to have fallen under the general spell of anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, he performed a valuable service this morning when he unwittingly revealed what underlies the media's relentless hatred of Israel in his interview with Daniel Taub the Israeli ambassador. "Only 3 Israelis have died, Mr Ambassador so why are you killing so many Palestinians....and why did you kill the Hamas military leader last week ..."

So you see Israel is clearly making a big mistake in spending billions on its Iron Dome system, on shelters, and on closing down half the country. If only they would simply allow Hamas to murder a lot more Israelis then "pro-Israeli" media presenters like Nick Ferrari might be able to bring themselves to accept that Israel has a right to defend itself from the constant terrorist aggression.

And if LBC's "24-hour news" had even ONCE found the time in the two weeks leading up to the killing of the Hamas leader last week to mention the 100 rockets a day being fired at Israel by Hamas, then some its presenters might not have been so surprised to discover why Israel had finally responded. 

And finally perhaps Nick Ferrai - who stated today that he "mourned every death in the conflict" before pointing out that so few Jews had died - would like to explain why he mourns the death of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who make up the vast majority of Palestinian casualties. I don't recall him 'mourning the death' of every Taliban or Al Quaeda leader killed by US and UK forces in Afghanistan even though none of those were aiming rockets at the UK.

It seems Ferrari must have taken lessons from his co-presenter Andrew Pierce (who stands in for him when he is away). On 29 Dec 2008 Pierce interviewed the then Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor and sarcastically and repeatedly asked why so few Israelis had died if the attacks against them were as serious as the Israelis claimed ("come on Mr Ambassador just tell me how many dead Israelis are there from these so-called rockets?").

Gaza: The pure anti-Semitism of the Western Media

The narrative in the UK media is that they do not understand why Israel chose 'this time' to launch attacks against Hamas. In the words on Nick Ferrari, LBC's top talk show host (laughably considered 'pro-Israel'): "why did this suddenly kick off again?"  before inviting a host of Islamists to tell London listeners about Israel's 'war crimes'.  This is the very same media who, in the two weeks leading up to Israel finally responding, failed to report any of the unprovoked hundreds of rocket attacks against Israeli civilians as well as a dozen lethal attacks along the border against Israel army outposts.

If anybody wants proof that this obsession to cast Israel in a bad light is anything other than pure anti-Semitism then you need only compare the media's response to what Turkey did last week as pointed out here.

Turkish air force jets and attack helicopters pounded Kurdish militants along the border with Iraq and Iran for three days, killing 42 militants, the local governor's office said on Friday.

Did you hear about that in the media? Did Sky News and BBC suddenly switch off reporting all other news when Turkey was killing 'militants' in far greater numbers and without any provocation? Then why Israel?

Sultan Knish sums it all up very well:

A few things to remember about what is going on in Israel. And this may sound cynical, but unfortunately recent history bears me out.

1. This is not a war. This is what happens when you cede territory to a terrorist group with plenty of eager Muslim regimes supplying it with weapons. This is what happens when that terrorist group is supported by Egypt and Qatar.

2. Israel ethnically cleansed its Jewish population from Gaza and pulled out, and we were told this would improve Israel's strategic position. Like every other withdrawal and pullout, it worsened it.

3. This is still not a war. What will most likely happen is that Israel will carry out some more air strikes and possibly even a limited ground operation. Some Hamas terrorists will die along with some Israeli civilians.

4. After some brief support for Israel's actions in the international community, there will be some incident, real or faked, the Hamas stooges will brandish some bodies for the camera, the media will cry about disproportionate force and Washington Post pundits will say that Israel overreacted and lost the sympathy of the world.

5. Phone calls from Washington and London will warn Netanyahu to wind down the operation. Turkey or Egypt will offer to negotiate a truce. Israel will pull out. Hamas will celebrate the usual victory of insurgencies, that of surviving the war they began. Israeli generals and politicians will boast that Hamas knows better than to try the same thing again, as they have after every such operation. Hamas will hold funerals for its martyrs and begin firing rockets again to show that they can. Egypt, Turkey and Qatar will smell Israeli weakness.

6. Western terrorist supporters will begin making the next set of documentaries about Israeli atrocities and distributing them on campus. Israeli politicians will blame Netanyahu's fumbling for losing the sympathy of the world. Israeli supporters will begin discussing new Hasbara methods to get Israel's message out. The message: "Israel wants peace, but sometimes has to defend itself again attacks. Israel will happily withdraw from everywhere so long as it isn't being bombed."

7. Israeli and American newspapers will run editorials urging another round of peace negotiations and withdrawals to stave off another such conflict... even though their urgings, their negotiations and their withdrawals are why the conflict exists.

8. Every Israeli general who gets face time on television during the conflict will shortly retire and run for office in a party with a platform dedicated to security, negotiations and more withdrawals. All of them will butch up and growl that their experience will allow Israel to have peace with security.

9. Next time around Hamas' missiles will be bigger and better aimed.

And don't forget that the bigger missiles Hamas is getting from Libya (as well as Iran) coming through Egypt are all thanks to Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood he installed in Egypt and Libya.

On stuffing snakes

Every UK media outlet this morning is making a very big story of the news that the Foreign Office has paid a £10,000 taxidermy bill for a 20ft anaconda snake called Albert hanging in its library.

At the time of a spending squeeze all round, with major welfare cuts  affecting the poorest in society this kind of reckless spending is indeed reprehensible.

But not a single UK media outlet has picked up on the story of far more UK tax payers' money being spent by the Foreign Office (through the Government's Overseas Aid budget) on stuffing a far more dangerous set of snakes. As Douglas Murray reports in the Washington Post Britain is directly funding the payment of 'salaries' to Palestinians convicted of terrorism by courts in Israel. Of the £86 million per year which the UK inexplicably donates to the Palestinian Authority (and which is not immediately channelled into the foreign bank accounts of  PA and even Hamas leaders) much goes directly to pay these convicted terrorists. Their monthly 'salary' is as high as £2000 - about 10 times what an average worker in the private sector of the Palestinian Authority territories earns and 20 times that of such a worker in Hamas controlled Gaza.

But of course - as David Cameron keeps saying - to 'stop people around the world dying' the annual UK overseas aid budget of £9 billion must not only be protected (unlike any other government department budget) but is the only one guaranteed to grow year on year. At least it will ensure that Palestinian terrorists will be very well equipped to kill Jews when they get out of jail.