A Quick Shout Out to the Jerusalem Post

Michael L.

Listen guys, you're taking a good product and wrecking it.

The problem is not the content.  You have plenty of excellent content and many fine journalists and writers.

The problem is that your website is so heavily laden with code and various pop-ups that it is exceedingly difficult to read from a home computer or private lap-top.  What is the point of going to the Jerusalem Post if the screen is going to constantly freeze-up?

I will not access that excellent content because you have made it too damn difficult for me to do so.

I will not read the Jerusalem Post if doing so is little more than an exercise in frustration, which is precisely what it is.

Look at the Times of Israel.  Leaving content aside, the browsing and reading experience is much, much better.  It's not even close.  The TOI is user-friendly while the Jerusalem Post is anything but.

You guys need to figure a way to trim back the excessive code so that people without high-speed corporate internet connections can read your material without it turning into a major hassle.

Let me know when you do.

Thanks.

The Single State?

Michael L.

{Cross-posted at the Elder of Ziyon and Jews Down Under.}

For years I thought that the only reasonable solution to the ongoing Arab war against the Jews was the two-state solution.  A single state solution, we were told, would either undermine Israel as a democratic state or it would undermine Israel as a Jewish state.  Israel could be Jewish, democratic, or with boundaries from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, but it could not be all three at once.

Those who insist upon this formulation - and I was one for years - are raising reasonable concerns, but there is one thing that proponents of the two-state solution seem never to take into account: the Arabs do not want it.  For almost one hundred years the Palestinian-Arabs have absolutely refused to share the land and tell us on a daily basis that they will never accept Jewish sovereignty on a bit of "historic Palestine."

There must come a point when we understand that no means no.

There must come a time when we take them at their word.  This being the case, Israel must act unilaterally because there is simply no other choice.  This should not be considered a burden.  It should be considered liberating.  Most of my readers will know that Palestinian-Arab dictator Mahmoud Abbas is, yet again, threatening to quit.  Well, I hope he does quit and I sincerely hope that after he does so Israel rips up the Oslo accords and henceforth refuses to acknowledge the PA, the PLO, Fatah, and Hamas.  It is absolutely pointless in negotiating with, or cooperating with, any of these groups because they are dishonest, utterly corrupt, and filled with the spirit of malice toward the Jewish people.

The Jews in Israel should not have to live with such violent and toxic hatred in their midst, coming from the children of the people who forced us into second and third-class non-citizenship for thirteen hundred years.  The Jews are no longer dhimmis in that part of the world - and are thus no longer required to ride mules, rather than horses - and the Arabs don't like it.

Well, I say, too bad.

The Land of Israel is the land of the Jewish people and has been for almost four thousand years, and that includes today's boundaries of Judea and Samaria.  We are willing to share, but no one is going to tell me that Judea is Arab rather than Jewish.

This being the case, I have argued in recent years that Israel should declare its final borders, remove the IDF to behind those borders, and - as we say - toss the keys over the shoulder.  I have usually been careful, however, not to advocate for the single-state solution.  I am not Israeli and believe that it should entirely be up to the Israelis to make that determination.

I still believe so.

However, I am becoming less and less convinced that a single state that includes Judea and Samaria, and the eastern section of Jerusalem, cannot be both Jewish and democratic.  What many on the hard-left would argue is that if Israel were to claim sovereignty over the ancient Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria then it is under an obligation to give the entire Arab population in those regions fulls rights to the franchise.  They believe, of course, that doing so would threaten the Jewish character of the state, which is precisely what they want to begin with.

But this is false.

What I would recommend, if Israel were to extend its authority onto the entirety of Judea and Samaria, is offering qualified local Arabs a pathway to Israeli citizenship.  Qualification would require that any particular family or individual under consideration would have no known violent history toward Jewish people and no known history of incitement of hatred toward Jews or Israel.

Those who are not qualified for citizenship, that is, individuals or families with a history of either violence or incitement to violence would be ejected from the country.  This is neither non-democratic, nor illiberal.  The Jews are among the most persecuted and oppressed people in the history of the world.  The Romans decimated our numbers two thousand years ago and the Europeans and Arabs have kept those numbers artificially low ever since.  This being the case it is only common sense, if not basic human decency, for the Jews of Israel to protect their children by removing the threats to them.

This is no more non-democratic than throwing a rapist in prison.

As for the rest of the local Arab population in the annexed Jewish regions I recommend a pathway to full citizenship.  Like pretty much everyone else in Israel they would be required, if they wish citizenship, to give two or three years of community service.  If after that period the individual has shown himself to be free of malice toward either Jews or Israel then that individual should be offered the franchise.

This broad plan - and, yes, obviously, the "devil would be in the details" - would keep Israel Jewish on traditional Jewish land while remaining a democratic country.

Democracy, it should be noted, is never a perfect system in implementation, nor is it a suicide pact.  There are always restrictions, which is why Puerto Ricans are denied the right to vote in US national elections.  They are under American sovereignty, but they do not have full rights to American citizenship, yet no one sane is claiming that the United States is a non-democratic country.

Israel is in a very tough spot, however.  It has a hostile American president who is about to turn an enemy country, Iran, into a nuclear regional power that will rearrange relationships and alliances throughout the region as the Sunni Arab states race to get their own nuclear weaponry.  Zionism is undermined because if Zionism means anything it means that no longer will non-Jews get to determine whether Jewish people live or die.

The significance of Obama's deal with Iran from a Jewish perspective is that Obama has basically handed Zionism over to the ayatollahs.  In two years or ten years they will decide the fate of the Jewish people, simply because Barack Obama is handing them the car keys.

In the mean time, Israel should solidify its position by declaring its final borders as it plans, and perhaps implements, its response to the Iran deal.

Broken Ribs: A Personal Note

Michael L.

Little Charlie Buckets

Well, now I've done it.

I am laid up.

I have a small terrier mutt named Little Charlie Buckets.  Buckets is fifteen pounds of pure terror.  He's a little hellion, and Laurie and I love him, but he's also a perfect pain in the ass.  The other night around 11PM - as I was watching television and kanoodling around the web - he suddenly leaped up like a crazed maniac, howling into our backyard like he was chasing the Babadook.

I tend to have high blood pressure (shocking, I know) and when he does that kind of spontaneous screaming into the night it shoots my blood pressure through the roof.  So I jumped from the couch and ran outside to make sure that he was not having a confrontation with, if not the Babadook, a friendly local skunk.

My backyard is small, but two-tiered.  Directly off the dining room is our patio, where my smoker-grill stands at the ready, and a short wooden stairway that leads up to garden beds.  As I went running up those stairs I tripped, fell, and snapped two ribs.

{Stupid Charlie Buckets.}

Nonetheless, I can't help but notice that Corbyn took Labour.

This does not bode well.

Standing Up

Michael L.

{Also published at The Jewish Press and Jews Down Under.}

Writing in the Times of Israel, Elhanan Miller tells us:

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon on Wednesday declared as “unlawful organizations” two Islamic Movement groups who harass Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount, rendering membership or financing of the groups illegal.

The move came in response to an appeal by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan last month, following an increase in verbal and physical violence by activists from the Murabitun and Murabitat groups, composed of men and women respectively, against religious Jews visiting the holiest site in Jewish tradition, where the first and second Temples once stood.

Israel's policies on the Temple Mount represent its integrity as a nation.

Israel's current policies of forbidding non-Muslim prayer on the Mount and limiting non-Muslim access to the site represents a measure of national uncertainty.  It is symbolic of a major crack that goes right down the Zionist vision of a free and secure Jewish national home.  It represents the measure of Jewish resolve... or lack of it.

This news story, however, is hopeful.

That Israel maintains a prejudicial policy in regards the Mount is a disgrace.  All people of any religion should be allowed access to the site for the purpose of prayer, if they so wish.  It should not matter whether the individual is Muslim or Christian or Jewish or Rosicrucian or Pastafarian.  Any other policy is illiberal, unjust, and not representative of the kind of Enlightenment political principals that Israel is grounded upon.

These Muslim groups that are organized specifically to harass Jews on the Mount, or at least all non-Muslims, are absolutely despicable.  I almost hesitate to embed a video of their behavior because I find it heinous and hard to watch, plus I know that my readership is likely well aware of it.  The one below is a little something that I nabbed from the Elder.



It is utterly obnoxious for these hideous women in their full burqas to scream "Alahu Akbar" at Jews visiting the holiest site to the Jewish people and I sincerely hope that Israel is honestly committed to preventing this kind of behavior in the future.

There is much to admire in Moshe Dayan, but his decision to hand over the Mount to the Waqf - whatever that is, exactly - does not speak well for the man and Israel has been paying for it ever since.  The Arabs use the site as a sort-of wedge.  They want to dislocate us from wherever we are within our traditional home and the Temple Mount, given its significance, is the perfect place to start.

The ironic thing, of course, is that even as they seek to make non-Muslim lives miserable anyplace within the Arab world, they simultaneously claim that Jews are trying to oust them from the Mount, even as Israeli policy favors them above everyone else.

What I would love to see is for Israel to simply take over the site.  Start by expelling every soul and then implement a policy of access that is fair and equal to all.  They will scream bloody murder from the Muslim capitals throughout the world, but so what?  They hate us already - and have continually done so for fourteen centuries due to religious reasons - so what difference does it make?  If they complain to the Europeans or the Obama administration, simply tell them in a straight-forward manner that it is Israel's new policy to allow everyone equal access.  Even hostile elements like the Obama Administration are in no position to suggest that a just policy is somehow unjust... maybe.

Meanwhile, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, former mufti of Jerusalem, called the decision “illegal, illegitimate and inhumane.”

“This is an assault on al-Aqsa, because these women defend al-Aqsa,” the Muslim cleric told The Times of Israel in a phone interview Wednesday. “It shows that the Jews covet al-Aqsa mosque and want to drive all Muslims out of it.”

Sabri dubbed the decision “a dangerous precedent that takes place nowhere but in the occupation state of Israel.”

The racism embedded in such a statement is obvious and sincere.  "These women defend al-Aqsa"?  Yes they defend it from the filthy Jewish presence on the holiest site to the Jewish people.

In any case, I am pleased to see Israel beginning to stand up for itself on this issue.  It is, at least, a step in the right direction.

From the comments:

Joel Mayes

You Jews learned alot from the Nazis.

Well, there you have it.  Jews seeking equal access to the holiest site of the Jewish people means that we are just like Nazis.

The logic is impeccable.

The eternal question, of course, is, "Why do they hate us so much?"

In the case of the "Arab street" it is due to religious reasons.  These are not good reasons, but at least they are comprehensible reasons.

The Europeans have no excuses and I am sure that they will do well to trade their tiny Jewish minority for a large influx of refugees from throughout the Arab world.

How you can help strike a blow against BDS

Sar Shalom

One of the critical elements in promoting BDS is the misinformation that the movement spreads about how boycotting Israel will help the Arabs. One person working diligently to counter this misinformation is Maxwell Federman who is working on a documentary titled Working Together about Arabs and Jews working together. He has a kickstarter campaign for the funds needed to produce this documentary. I'll simply state that if you want a project like this to happen, that there's another two days to help see that it does.

{Editor's note - Kickstarter, for those of you who may not know, is simply an app for people to raise cash for projects and even small businesses.  I am not yet sold on this kind of thing when it comes to small businesses, but it makes sense when standing up for something that you believe in.}

Can We Trust the Reporting of News Agencies Vis-à-Vis the Arab-Israel Conflict?

Guest Post by Chris Goff

{This is a guest post by author and journalist Chris Goff.  Goff has a new thriller coming out in about a week, or so, entitled Dark Waters that takes place in Israel and is, as they say, a true "page turner."  I read the book and intend to write about it as well this coming weekend.  It's a fun ride and I definitely recommend it.  I think that it will make Dershowitz jealous. - Michael L.}

The short answer? No. But understanding why requires taking a closer look at how the media works.

When I visited Israel in 2001, the circumstances were stressful. We were there getting alternative medical therapy for our eleven year-old daughter, who at the time was extremely sick. Originally there for six weeks, we ended up staying two months. Our time there served as the catalyst for my international thriller, DARK WATERS. As my daughter began to get stronger, we explored Tel Aviv, then moved outside to visit Haifa, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Masada, Tiberias and the Dead Sea. Venturing out took a lot of resolve. In 2001, Israel experienced over 40 suicide bombings, including a car bombing in Tiberias involving a vehicle we had parked close to when visiting the marketplace that morning. It was the first time I had ever been afraid to leave the house, go to the movies, eat at a restaurant or ride a city bus.

It was December 6, 2001, after I was home, that I encountered my first experience of unreliable reporting on the Arab-Israel conflict. A Palestinian suicide bomber had blown himself up outside the Dolphinarium discotheque in Tel Aviv killing twenty-five people. My daughter and I used to sit on the sea wall in front of the disco, listening to the music and watching the sea lap at the beach. It was a place filled with young people out to enjoy the night, to make friends, to dance. The news reporter spoke of how it was thought that the suicide bomber had chosen his target based on the number of Israeli soldiers known to frequent the disco. As though that somehow justified the violence? He then supported his claim by extrapolating that since all Israeli citizens were required to serve in the IDF that everyone in the discotheque could be viewed as an Israeli soldier or soon-to-be soldier. A bit of stretch. The majority of those killed that night were young teenage girls well under the age of eighteen.

Forty years ago, in my first class at the University of Colorado, we learned the basic tenets of ethical journalism: truth and accuracy; independence; fairness and impartiality; humanity; and accountability.  A sizable order! And while they still teach the same principles today, they tend to serve more as guidelines than rules. I would also venture to say most journalists feel they follow the tenets. Reporters still fact-check. But often they only present one version of the truth, and therein lies the problem.

The lines get a little blurry when it comes to the last four tenets. It's no secret that most of us perceive there is media bias. The best breakdown I've found detailing this phenomenon comes from a Student News Daily blog article  that lays out the various types. There's bias by omission, where the reporter leaves one side out of the equation; bias by selection of sources, where the sources cited support one particular view over another; bias by story selection, where the reporter highlights additional news stories coinciding with his agenda; bias by placement, which lends weight to a the story by where it appears; bias by labeling, where certain sources are tagged or labeled, with other sources are never identified; and bias by spin, when a reporter slants the tone of the piece by making subjective comments. "Creative nonfiction," where a reporter uses story form to impart facts in a colorful, thought-provoking manner, lends itself especially well to bias. A story also tends to end with a moral, providing a natural pathway for reporters to place their own personal spin on the telling.

News reporting is big business these days. The competition is keen and reporters have had to adjust to the times. With the onset of the internet and social media, more papers are going under, while more and more consumers pull their news from specialty sources and blogs and information is quickly disseminated around the globe. As consumers, we have been conditioned to receive our news in sound bites, and reporters are expected to deliver information in smaller, more consumable pieces. Tasked with entertaining their audience, reporters turn to sensationalism to grab attention, exploiting even the less exciting news bites for some type of intrinsic value. And, as in all good business, the news venue caters to the consumer. If feedback says the audience likes a particular-type of story or a particular slant, the reporter does his best to deliver.

On April 3, 2002, we watched on the news as Palestinians took refuge inside the Church of Nativity and the IDF rolled their tank into Manger Square and pointed its cannon at the Door of Humility, where inside 200 monks provided refuge and care to 120 Palestinians. At least, that's the way it was presented. There was no initial mention that the Palestinians were suspected militants fleeing arrest, or that they were suspected of having ties to the terrorist organizations sponsoring the rash of suicide bombings plaguing Israel, or that the IDF operation itself was in response to a bombing during Passover Seder that killed 23 mostly elderly vacationers. Instead, with graphic, emotionally-ladened photographs, the reporter painted a picture that tugged at the heartstrings of millions of Americans and brought us back clambering for more.

In her book, STONEWALLED, Sharyl Attkisson, an ex-CBS reporter, raised the idea that a general cultural change has occurred within journalism whereby reporters too often go along with the powers that be, whether they're corporate, political or other special interests.  A good example of this is the media's handling of Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's reference to the Holocaust when he cited his opposition to the Iran Deal. Regardless of whether or not he crossed the line in invoking a reference to the Holocaust, it didn't take any time for the news media to pull the focus away from his opposition to the brokered deal. As if choreographed, the media immediately compared his remark to those of Donald Trump's, spinning the story to be about the myriad contenders for the Republican nomination rather than allowing Huckabee's remark to fuel the debate on the important, controversial issue of whether or not the Iran Deal is in the best interests of our country and the world.

And if journalists are swayed by outside interest, I'm sure the same can be said for individuals. Just like Pavlov's dogs, if we are constantly presented with information biased toward a specific point of view, we will likely begin to accept that perspective. For those of us living in the United States, that means we are more apt to be exposed to left-leaning perspectives. An American Trends Panel Survey conducted in 2014 and published in the Washington Post  showed that the majority of survey responders leaned to the left of center and that news stations (CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC) and newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post and USA Today) leaned even slightly further left than the average responder.

So where does Israel fit in all of this?

Currently the left-leaning media leans away from Israel, and the same might be said for the rest of the world. Writer Zack Beauchamp stated in a recent Vox article that the latest BBC World Service poll showed that "most countries have a pretty dim view of Israel's influence on the world."  After doing some digging, I discovered that the poll covered the years from 2012 to 2014 and was composed of answers from 24, 542 people across twenty-two countries.  With the world's population currently exceeding seven billion, it appears likely there's a margin for error. Yet, the BBC poll is presented as definitive proof that support for Israel is dwindling.

Is it any wonder, then, that nearly every article I found on the 2012 Gaza-Israel Conflict from major news media sources began with statements similar to this one from an ABC News via World News report published July 31, 2014?  The ABC News report first cites heavy shelling by Israel Defense Forces that "left much of Gaza City damaged." Factual, but could be construed as leading readers to empathize with the citizens of Gaza. The next paragraph opens with, "The conflict broke out on July 8, when Israel launched 'Operation Protective Edge' in response to Hamas launching rockets toward Israel." Again, while the sentence acknowledges that Hamas launched rockets first, the order and tone of the presentation left me—and I would imagine most readers—with the initial impression—that Israel started the conflict. The next sentence states, "Since the conflict began, 1,423 Gazans have died and 8,265 have been injured while 59 Israelis have died, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry and IDF, respectively." Again, while I'm sure these are accurate numbers, the manner of presentation leads the reader toward the conclusion that Israel is a mighty force pummeling a weak and defenseless victim.

So is there a fix?

Israel faces a tough challenge. Few Americans can understand the vulnerability Israel feels surrounded by so many Arab countries that have pledged to eradicate its people. Fewer still understand the intricacies that exist in the relationships between the multiple factions of Jews, Christians and the Israeli-Arabs residing there. I didn't, until I spent two months living in Tel Aviv. Then, you have to take into account the media images we see on our televisions, and in our newspapers and magazines. We're shown photographs of cute Palestinian children standing atop bombed out rubble, pictures of IDF soldiers guarding a wall that separates families, or pictures of Israeli settlers holding fast to land they've been ordered by their own government to vacate—because those photos are sensational and evoke emotional response. Applying individual biases, many Americans see a young boy in need of help, or are reminded of the Berlin Wall, or of our own problems struggling to sort out U.S. immigration policy.

The way I see it, Israel has limited choices. First, it can simply wait for the pendulum to swing in the opposite direction. It's bound to happen at some point as the issues we're faced with in the Middle East continue to escalate. Second, Israel can work to improve its image. In social studies classes across America, kids are being taught about "presentism," defined as "an attitude toward the past dominated by present-day attitudes and experiences."  To illustrate, children are shown a picture of a soldier with a gun near the heads of a young boy and his mother, evoking negative feelings toward the soldier. Pan out and show the whole picture, and we see the soldier is actually standing guard over the boy, his mother and a group of villagers as other soldiers pass out food and water. Somehow Israel needs to work with the media panning out on the photographs, putting a new spin on its image and showing more of the positives—perhaps by highlighting areas where Israelis, both Jews and Arabs, live together and thrive.

Notes:

  http://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/en/contents/5-principles-of-journalism

  http://www.studentnewsdaily.com/types-of-media-bias/

  http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/28/sharyl-attkisson-mainstream-media-too-swayed-by-propaganda-video/

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/10/21/lets-rank-the-media-from-liberal-to-conservative-based-on-their-audiences/

  http://www.vox.com/2014/7/29/5948255/israel-world-opinion

  http://www.bbc.com/news/27685494

  http://abcnews.go.com/International/israel-gaza-conflict/story?id=24552237

  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/presentism

Chris Goff is the author of DARK WATERS (September 15, 2015; Crooked Lane Books), an international thriller set amid the Israel-Palestine conflict. A former journalist, she is also the author of the critically acclaimed ecologically-themed Bird Watchers mysteries, and has served as board member for the Mystery Writers of America. For more: www.christinegoff.com