The President gets slammed by the Washington Post, which endorsed him twice....
The BDS movement presents little real threat to Israel currently, while the European governments do present a potential threat, but it is a diplomatic, not boycott, threat. Kerry, and the boycott movement, conflate the two.The problem is that despite the fact that there's no evidence that the BDS movement is gaining mainstream acceptance there are many who pretend that it has. Let's look at the New York Times coverage of some recent BDS activity. Last May the paper reported, Stephen Hawking Joins Boycott Against Israel:
The academic and cultural boycott, organized by international activists to protest Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians, is a heated and contentious issue; having Dr. Hawking join it is likely to help the anti-Israel campaigners significantly.There are two items of note. The first is that the BDS movement is described in terms of being a "protest" against "Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians." It is not described as a movement to delegitimize Israel. The second is the assertion that Hawking's action "is likely to help the anti-Israel campaigners significantly." This is a judgment, but it is also somewhat quantifiable. Will subsequent reporting use similar standards? The article later noted that the Oxford student union overwhelmingly voted against an academic boycott of Israel. Later that month when Alicia Keys announced that she would defy the anti-Israel activists two months later, the New York Times reported:
Repeat "Blame Bush" ad infinitum -- it works!...
NY Times has not a bad word to say about a boycott condemned by almost all of academia....
What Barry Rubin meant to pro-Israel bloggers....
That the NY Times' failed Benghazi blockbuster went through "layers of editing" makes claims of bias more, not less, credible....
Bully Boy of Bayonne...
An A&E statement to The Hollywood Reporter read: As a global media content company, A+E Networks’ core values are centered around creativity, inclusion and mutual respect. We believe it is a privilege for our brands to be invited into people’s home and we operate with a strong sense of integrity and deep commitment to these principals. That is why we reacted so quickly and strongly to a recent interview with Phil Robertson. While Phil’s comments made in the interview reflect his personal views based on his own beliefs, and his own personal journey, he and his family have publicly stated they regret the “coarse language” he used and the mis-interpretation of his core beliefs based only on the article. He also made it clear he would “never incite or encourage hate.” We at A+E Networks expressed our disappointment with his statements in the article, and reiterate that they are not views we hold.
I've had my disagreements with Glenn Greenwald as to the term Israel Firsters and the Snowden damage to our foreign intelligence operations, but this is pretty funny. Via Mediaite, Greenwald Snarks at MSNBC: I Defend Snowden Like You Defend Obama ’24 Hours a Day’ (h/t...
The Palestinians have developed an independent, self-regulating government that controls their lives as well as their foreign policy. Indeed, they have accumulated all the trappings of independence and have recently been recognized as an independent state by the United Nations. They have diplomatic relations with almost as many nations as Israel does. They have their own security forces, central bank, top-level Internet domain name, and a foreign policy entirely uncontrolled by Israel. The Palestinians govern themselves. To anticipate the inevitable comparison, this is not an Israeli-puppet “Bantustan.” From their educational curriculum to their television content to their terrorist pensions, they implement their own policies by their own lights without any subservience to Israel. They pass their own legislation, such as the measure prohibiting real estate transactions with Jews on pain of death. If Israel truly “ruled over” the Palestinians, all these features of their lives would be quite different. Indeed, the Bantustans never won international recognition because they were puppets. “The State of Palestine” just got a nod from the General Assembly because it is not.
When does 30,000 equal 70,000? When you report for the New York Times and you're reporting about Israel....
It will stand the test of time. Those who were willing to stand against Obamacare despite all the name calling, and who are proven to have been correct. Obama and Democrats now are scrambling to delay various portions of the Obamacare rollout, even though such delays when...
Mideast Media Sampler 11/18/2013 - Thomas Friedman: The Incredible Shrinking Columnist...
The proposal under consideration in Geneva was to have been the first stage of a multipart agreement. It called for Iran to freeze its nuclear program for up to six months to allow negotiations on a long-term agreement without the worry that Iran was racing ahead to build a bomb. In exchange, the West was to have provided some easing of the international sanctions that have battered Iran’s economy. After years of off-again, on-again talks, the deal would have been the first to brake Iran’s nuclear program.Despite the diplomats’ insistence on progress, the failure to clinch an agreement raised questions about the future of the nuclear talks, given the fierce criticism that the mere prospect of a deal whipped up in Israel and among Republicans and some Democrats in Congress.Unfortunately, this frames the scuttling of the talks in terms of those looking for a compromise versus pro-Israel ideologues. Subsequent reporting in the article is more specific about some, but not all, of the real issues involved.
Mideast Media Sampler 11/08/2013 -- Yasser, that's a conspiracy theory....
With talks over Iran’s nuclear program set to resume in Geneva this week, both sides engaged in a bit of public diplomacy Sunday: Iran’s supreme leader moved to quiet hard-liners in his country by expressing support for his negotiating team, while the chief American negotiator reiterated in an Israeli television interview that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds Iran’s final word on the nuclear talks, told a group of students here that he was not optimistic the negotiations would succeed, but he also sent a negative message to the conservative clerics and military commanders who in recent weeks have attacked the diplomatic initiative.
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) is a valuable resource on which we frequently rely for news tips and information regarding the Middle East. I'm not sure how I ended up on CAMERA's email update list, and I'm not even sure...
One group of people was happy as murderers went free while others wept. But the gulf here is more than emotional or merely, as the Times seemed to describe it, a difficult process that is part of the price Israel must pay for the chance of peace. In fact, the “emotional gulf” is indicative of a vast cultural divide between these two peoples that explains more about the absence of peace than any lecture about history, borders, or refugees. Simply put, so long as the Palestinians honor murderers, there is no reason to believe they are willing to end the conflict.Consider the way the New York Times in the article cited by Tobin portrayed the Israeli reaction to the prisoner release:
In Israel, where the returnees are widely viewed as terrorists, the release on Tuesday, like the one in August, has stirred protests and anguish. Many said it was too heavy a price to pay for entering negotiations with no guarantee of a peace accord."[W]idely viewed?!?!" This statement is incredible. It's not only in Israel that they are "viewed as terrorists," but by definition. Only in the crazy New York Times worldview is the definition of terrorists subjective.
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