Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #687, 3/2/14

To:          Brith Sholom Media Watch Subscribers
From:      Jerry Verlin, Editor  (jverlin1234@verizon.net)
Subj:       Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #687, 3/2/14
 
 
WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG:  The Philly Inquirer (“Inq”) ran a misleading headline on Israel this week, but first two messages.  One is directed specifically to ZOA members, but all believers in balanced portrayal of Israel should find it of interest.  The second’s a link to an article Lee and I wrote on a critical subject that Katz in Battleground called an “astonishing area of Jewish neglect.” 
                                                                                     
BSMW Editorial:  ZOA Members Should Come Out Next Sunday to Support Mort’s Re-election
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Next Sunday, delegates, of which I have the privilege to be one, elected by the local chapters of the Zionist Organization of America will convene the ZOA’s national convention in Philadelphia to elect its new national officers in a contested election.  I’ll be voting for Mort Klein’s re-election as ZOA national president, and if you belong to ZOA you should come out and support this long-time tireless champion of the Jewish homeland of Israel.  Contact the New York or Philly ZOA office to register your attendance.
 
Many years ago, Brith Sholom invited to address its Israel Activities committee a member of the Philly Jewish community who, in a trip to Europe, had just convinced the publisher of a premier international travel guide to rectify imbalances in its portrayal of Israel. Mort Klein told us that night of his unsuccessful efforts to enlist leaders of Jewish organizations to join him. That was in a time of greater reticence to protest such imbalances.  In 1988 and 2002, ZOA was a leading force in organizing the two Jewish community protests on the Philly Inquirer’s sidewalk.  I was in both, the second time as one of the three speakers.  Mort Klein was among the longest and last implorers of American Jews not to join in bestowing upon Palestinian Arabs the coveted but undeserved mantle of “the Palestinians,” as though Palestine’s Jews and Christians were not.  Even the AP (12/11/11, Inq, A4) has acknowledged that during the Mandate “Muslims, Christians and Jews living there were all referred to as Palestinians.”
 
ZOA was in gravely dire financial and organizational straits when Mort Klein took over its leadership. His tireless efforts restored its vitality and made it a leading pro-Israel Diaspora advocate in a world of increasing hostility.  We need Mort’s steadfast inspiring voice, as ZOA national president, in the pro-Israel Diaspora leadership.  If you belong to ZOA, register to come to the national convention here in Philly next Sunday if you can.
 
 
This Week on Algemeiner.com:  Lee and Me on Post-Biblical Jewish Homeland Presence
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Jimmy Carter voiced a widely-held misperception when he wrote in Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid that when the Romans finally defeated the Jews’ Bar Kochba revolt in 135 CE, they exiled Judaea’s surviving Jews.  The chronology at the start of Carter’s book doesn’t mention Jews again until “`1917.”  On the contrary, the forgotten fact is that the homeland’s Jews – the organized, openly Jewish, homeland-claiming Yishuv –never left.  The significance of our tenacious, continuous post-biblical homeland presence, as British historian Parkes put it, is that it wrote the Zionists’ “real title deeds.”  Katz in his introduction to Battleground, acknowledging Parkes, called the Jews’ failure to appreciate their continuous homeland presence and its significance an “astonishing area of Jewish neglect.”
 
This Algemeiner article we wrote (our fifth contribution it published) briefly traces that post-biblical homeland presence through the Roman-Byzantine, Muslim dynasty, Crusader, Mamluk and Turk foreign rule periods, culminating in modern Israel becoming the land’s next native state after Jewish Judaea. 
 
So do this, if you will.  Click or paste this Algemeiner link:
 
http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/02/26/forgotten-even-by-us-judaisms-historic-ties-to-israel/  
 
or browse to algemeiner.com and click “Commentary,” then “Opinion” and scroll down by date to February 26 and our article, “Forgotten Even By Us: Judaism’s Historic Ties to Israel.”  If you like, leave a comment.
 
 
This Week In The Inq:  “Israel: American Inmate Dies In Raid” [not exactly]
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On Monday this week (Inq, Mon, 2/24/14, A6) the Inq ran an AP piece as its top ‘Around the World’ brief that it headlined
 
Israel: American Inmate Dies in Raid
 
Not exactly.  The Inq’s own AP piece led: “A U.S.-born inmate shot and wounded three guards Sunday before being killed by a SWAT team that responded to the attack.” “Raid,” connoting aggressive action, is a word the Inq’s used before on Israel, as in “Outcry, Crisis After Deadly Raid by Israel” on an “aid flotilla” bound for Gaza” (Inq, A1, 6/1/10, and ad nauseam thereafter, which the UN concluded was legal,  which the Inq told readers about on page eighteen (9/2/11), and then the very next day, 9/3/11, ran above the fold on A1, “Turks Oust Top Israeli Diplomat; They Want an Apology for a Raid Last Year”)
 
Here’show Israel Hayom that same day this week, 2/24/14, headlined and summarized this week’s Israeli “raid” on its own prison:
 
Israeli-American Murderer Killed in Prison Shootout
 
Israel Hayom sub-head:  “Samuel Sheinbein, serving a life sentence for a gruesome 1997 murder in Maryland, shoots eight people at Rimonim Prison before being killed by police special forces….”
 
There was no “raid” in which trigger-happy Israelis wantonly killed someone.  It was a response to a convicted murderer having whipped out a smuggled-in gun and wounded eight people.
 
So add this week’s to the Inq’s long list of distorted headlines on Israelis and people around them  dying under other than Inq-headlined circumstances:  E.g.,
 
***Palestinian Arab sneaks into Israel, approaches two guards at a border industrial park at which “Israeli factories employ Palestinians,” and shoots dead two Israeli factory guards. Inq headlines (4/26/08): “Two Israeli Factory Guards Die.”
 
***  Arab terrorists enter Israel from Sinai, slaughter four and wound 30 Israelis on Eilat-Beersheva roadway, Israel pursues attackers back into Sinai, killing four. Inq headlines (8/18/11), oozing moral equivalence:  “Day of Killings on Israeli Border.” 
 
***  Rocket fired at Israelis from Gaza falls short, kills two Arab school girls.  AP headlines its article: “Palestinian Rocket Misfires, Kills 2 Girls in Gaza.”  Inq (12/27/08)  headlines AP’s article: “2 Palestinian Girls Killed in Attack.”
 
***  AP reports: “The Israeli army shot four Palestinian militants who were trying to plant explosives near the Gaza border fence,” quoting Hamas calling them its members “on a jihad mission.”  The Inq (4/29/08) might have headlined its AP article “Israel Kills Four Hamas Militants [i.e., Terrorists] Planting Bombs on Jihad Mission.”  The Inq did headline “Israeli Army Shoots Four Palestinians.”
 
***  A 4/7/05 Inq article shed light on an anguishing aspect of Israel’s impending Gaza withdrawal: the “settlers” would have to dig-up and rebury their dead. The story was accompanied by a poignant photo of a woman gazing down at a grave.  The caption explained that her husband had “died in January.”   Not exactly.  The Inq’s own article text stated he’d been “killed in January by a planted bomb [i.e., by the terrorists who had planted the bomb] as he surveyed a fence.”
 
***  Mother of All Inquirer Israel-Palestinian Arab death distortion headlines:  On July 12, 2001, the Inquirer ran an A.P.article (emphasis added throughout) leading: “A Palestinian woman in labor was barred from passing an Israeli military checkpoint for an hour and gave birth to a baby boy who died before reaching a medical clinic, a doctor said yesterday.”  The Inquirer’s headline, leaving out “a doctor said,” stated as fact: “Birth—and Death—at Israeli Checkpoint; A Palestinian Newborn Died After an Hour-long Delay.”  That evening, the A.P. corrected its initial version, which the Inquirer ran the next day, leading: “Israeli soldiers did not bar a Palestinian woman in labor from passing an Israeli checkpoint, her relatives said Thursday, contradicting initial claims by two Palestinian doctors who blamed a check point delay for the newborn’s death.” The A.P.’s own corrected headline was “Relatives of Woman who Gave Birth at Israeli Checkpoint Say They Were Not Held Up By Troops.”  The Inquirer’s next day headline?  “Story Shifts on Baby Born at Checkpoint.” 
 
Regards,
Jerry