 By Charles Krauthammer What a surprise -- that someone who shouts "Allahu Akbar" (the "God is great" jihadist battle cry) as he is shooting up a room of American soldiers might have Islamist motives. It certainly was a surprise to the mainstream media, which spent the weekend after the Fort Hood massacre playing down Nidal Hasan's religious beliefs. "I cringe that he's a Muslim. . . . I think he's probably just a nut case," said Newsweek's Evan Thomas. Some were more adamant. Time's Joe Klein decried "odious attempts by Jewish extremists . . . to argue that the massacre perpetrated by Nidal Hasan was somehow a direct consequence of his Islamic beliefs." While none could match Klein's peculiar cherchez-le-juif motif, the popular story line was of an Army psychiatrist driven over the edge by terrible stories he had heard from soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. They suffered. He listened. He snapped. Really? What about the doctors and nurses, the counselors and physical therapists at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who every day hear and live with the pain and the suffering of returning soldiers? How many of them then picked up a gun and shot 51 innocents? Read more ...Source: The Washington PostH/T: A.E. Evan Thomas
Joe Klein
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 By Aaron Klein A column on a "right wing" website suggesting an Islamic motivation for last week's Fort Hood shooting massacre may help generate a backlash against American Muslim soldiers, according to CNN. On CNN's American Morning show yesterday, reporter Carol Costello quoted the mother of a Muslim U.S. soldier as fearing "a backlash against Muslim American soldiers." "She knows some are already reaching conclusions as to why Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly opened fire on his fellow soldiers," Costello stated. Continued Costello: "The right-wing website, Pajamas Media, is an example. Phyllis Chesler writing, 'I knew in my bones that the shooter or shooters were Muslim. We must connect the dots before it's too late.'" Costello was referring to a Pajamas Media column entitled "The Jihadist is always the victim," in which Chesler quoted from widespread reports of Hasan's ties to militant Islam. Chesler wrote, "The only answer most people want to hear is that a lone, psychiatrically deranged shooter did it. All by himself, on his own." "They may be right. Sometimes. And yet…The same Instant Personal Jihad Syndrome once led another Palestinian, Sirhan Sirhan, to shoot Robert Kennedy in cold blood." Newsbusters notes Chesler herself does not exactly fit with CNN's grouping of "right wing." Chesler, professor emerita of psychology and women's studies at the College of Staten Island, has been a noted feminist activist who co-founded the National Women's Health Network and the Association for Women in Psychology. She is the author of thirteen books, including "Women and Madness," "Woman's Inhumanity to Woman" and "The Death of Feminism." In a 1998 interview with Time magazine about feminism, Chesler stated that 'a woman’s body is her own, and she should not be invaded against her will by a rapist, nor should she be prevented from having an abortion." "Clearly, Chesler is no huge 'right-winger,' as Costello would have one believe," noted Newsbusters. Chesler is a prominent critic of Islamic extremism and is a supporter of Israel. In her 2003 book, "The New Anti-Semitism," Chesler argues that anti-Zionism and attacks against Israel are nearly indistinguishable from anti-Semitism. A website run by Revolution Muslim honored Hasan, the man accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas, as an "officer and a gentleman," saying his actions should not be denounced. The massacre, which also left more than two dozen injured, was called a "pre-emptive attack" by supporters of the group. Hasan, a Muslim psychiatrist who reportedly had been disciplined for pushing Islam on his patients at one point in his career, had given away his furniture and handed out Qurans before allegedly going to the military post and firing on soldiers at a processing center where soldiers prepared to deploy. "Get Well Soon Major Nidal We Love You," said the website run by radicals who follow an imam once jailed in Britain. "Major Nidal Hasan M.D. An officer and a gentleman was injured while partaking in a pre-emptive attack." Source: WND 
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 The fear of seeming racist has proved deadly: The Army psychiatrist believed to have killed 13 people at Fort Hood warned a roomful of senior Army physicians a year and a half ago that to avoid “adverse events,” the military should allow Muslim soldiers to be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars against other Muslims. . . . In late June 2007, he stood before his supervisors and about 25 other mental health staff members and lectured on Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, both Muslim countries, according to a copy of the presentation obtained by The Washington Post.
“It’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims,” he said in the presentation.
“It was really strange,” said one staff member who attended the presentation and requested anonymity because of the investigation of Hasan. “The senior doctors looked really upset” at the end. These medical presentations occurred each Wednesday afternoon, and other students had lectured on new medications and treatment of specific mental illnesses. . . . The last bullet point on that page reads simply: “We love death more then (sic) you love life!” And no one dared to fire him. Read more ...Source: Andrew BoltH/T: Gramfan CNN
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 By Khaled Abu Toameh The article in the Swedish tabloid that suggested that Israel has been killing Palestinians to harvest their organs has caused huge damage to the Palestinians’ cause and the profession of journalism. If the tabloid’s goal was to help the Palestinians, then it is clear that the article has had a boomerang effect. As one Palestinian journalist put it, “This is a nice story, but it’s harmful to the Palestinians because it’s not based on any evidence. Who’s going to believe us the next time we cry ‘Wolf!’” The “investigative report,” which is based on a rumor that has been circulating among Palestinians for many years, makes it more difficult for Palestinians to market their perspectives and views to the world. The journalist who wrote the report has since admitted that he does not have any proof to back up his allegations. Even the family at the center of the article, the Ghanems from the village of Imattin in the West Bank, say that they do not recall that they had ever complained to a Swedish journalist that the organs of their son, Bilal, had been removed after his death. Read more ...Source: Hudson NYAftonbladet
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 Source: Andrew BoltH/T: Gramfan The Age
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 Anyone has April 20th issue? We'd love to see what The Age printed about Hitler.
 Aftonbladet editor Jan Helin The family and relatives of Bilal Ahmed Ghanem, the Palestinian at the center of the organ-theft story in the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, said on Monday that they didn't know if the accusations were true or not. The family lives in the tiny village of Imatin in the northern West Bank. Ghanem, 19, was killed by IDF soldiers during the first intifada on May 13, 1992. He was a Fatah activist who was wanted by the IDF for his involvement in violence. His mother, Sadeeka, said he was shot by an IDF sniper as he walked out of his home. "The bullets hit him directly in the heart," she said. Ghanem's younger brother, Jalal, said he could not confirm the allegations made by the Swedish newspaper that his brother's organs had been stolen. "I don't know if this is true," he said. "We don't have any evidence to support this." Jalal said his brother was evacuated by the IDF in a helicopter and delivered to the family only a few days later. The mother denied that she had told any foreign journalist that her son's organs had been stolen. However, she said that now she does not rule out the possibility that Israel was harvesting organs of Palestinians. Jalal and two cousins who claimed that they saw the body said the young man's teeth were missing. They also said they saw stitches that ran from the chest down to the bottom of the stomach. Read more here ... Source: JPost Jan Helin
Aftonbladet
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A Swedish newspaper publishes disgraceful accusations. Charging a mainstream media outlet with anti-Semitism is not something that we do lightly. Sometimes, however, an article appears that is so outrageous that we have to question the motivation or agenda behind the writer and the media that chooses to publish it. Ha'aretz reports: A leading Swedish newspaper reported this week that Israeli soldiers are abducting Palestinians in order to steal their organs, a claim that prompted furious condemnation and accusations of anti-Semitic blood libel from a rival publication. "They plunder the organs of our sons," read the headline in Sweden's largest daily newspaper, the left-leaning Aftonbladet, which devoted a double spread in its cultural section to the article. (Click here for the original article in Swedish) The report quotes Palestinian claims that young men from the West Bank and Gaza Strip had been seized by the Israel Defense Forces, and their bodies returned to the families with missing organs. "'Our sons are used as involuntary organ donors,' relatives of Khaled from Nablus said to me, as did the mother of Raed from Jenin as well as the uncles of Machmod and Nafes from Gaza, who all had disappeared for a few days and returned by night, dead and autopsied," writes author Donald Boström in his report. Boström's article makes a link to the recent exposure of an alleged crime syndicate in New Jersey. The syndicate includes several American rabbis, and one Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, who faces charges of conspiring to broker the sale of a human kidney for a transplant. ... But the liberal Sydsvenskan - southern Sweden's major daily - had harsh criticism for the rival paper, running an opinion piece under the headline "Antisemitbladet" (a play on the name Aftonbladet).
"We have heard the story before, in one form or the other. It follows the traditional pattern of conspiracy theory: a great number of loose threads that the theorist tempts the reader to tie into a neat knot without having been provided with any proven connection whatsoever," writes leading columnist Mats Skogkär of Sydsvenskan.
"Whispers in the dark. Anonymous sources. Rumors. That is all it takes. After all we all know what they [the Jews] are like, don't we: inhuman, hardened. Capable of anything," the opinion piece says. "Now all that remains is the defense, equally predictable: 'Anti-Semitism' No, no, just criticism of Israel." Read full coverage of this story in Ha'aretz. This latest blood libel joins an all too long list of false charges and accusations against Israel and the IDF and would not look out of place on a neo-Nazi website or the pages of the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion. While this article may have been published in Swedish, previous experience shows that even such outlandish stories take on a life of their own as translations appear on the Internet preserved for Israel's enemies to dig up in the battle to delegitimize and demonize the Jewish state. Even though credible rebuttals may appear, as was the case with the Jenin "massacre" and The Independent's "secret uranium bombs" (see HonestReporting's Big Lies interactive resource), these stories continue to fester online and, sadly, it is likely to be the case with Aftonbladet's disgraceful article. Source: Honest Reporting
Aftonbladet
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 By Robert Spencer In his “The Faith Divide” blog at the Washington Post’s website, Eboo Patel took umbrage Monday at two recent reviews in the New York Times Book Review charging “Dishonesty About Islam in the NYT Book Review.” Patel was angry at favorable reviews of what he called “Bruce Bawer’s alarmist book Surrender” (about which he huffed, “the subtitle says it all: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom”) and Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (which was reviewed by Fouad Ajami). Yet while making the improbable claim that the New York Times printed material that was dishonest and negative about Islam, Patel showed himself to be not a little disingenuous – suggesting that before he call these reviewers on their alleged dishonesty, he should look to his own. “Ajami,” complains Patel, “opens his piece by juxtaposing two disparate pieces of history: the departure of Spain’s last Muslim ruler in 1492, and the terrorist attacks on Madrid in 2004. ‘A circle was closed,’ Ajami writes, ‘and Islam was, once again, a matter of Western Europe.’” What is wrong with this? “The Muslim presence in medieval Spain,” asserts Patel, “is widely regarded as a time of tolerance, good government and support for the arts and education. In fact, Ajami himself wrote a positive review of one of the many books on that era, Maria Rosa Menocal’s The Ornament of the World. Placing Al-Andalus, as it was known, in the same breath as a ghastly terrorist attack - as if to say ‘Here’s what happens when Muslims are around’ - is beyond questionable. A dead fish wouldn’t want to be wrapped in a newspaper article with that level of intellectual dishonesty.” Read more ...Source: FPMEboo Patel
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 By Daniel Pipes The Italian newspaper Il Foglio asked for a reaction to a 1,500-word analysis by William Underhill, "Why Fears Of A Muslim Takeover Are All Wrong," in the Newsweek dated today. My response: Three schools of thought compete to predict the future of Europe, those of "Eurabia," "expulsion," and "symbiosis." The first two make grimly plausible arguments about an ancient civilization either disappearing or standing up for itself, but these pessimistic expectations remain minority viewpoints. In elite European circles, especially, a wide consensus holds that symbiosis, assimilation, good feeling, compromise, and muddling through will prevail. Underhill, a hitherto little-known reporter, has got the fur flying with a provocatively titled article that argues for a happy outcome on the basis of two points: Muslim birthrates in Europe are declining and many Muslims "appear strangely content with the established [European] order." Even granting his arguments, however, Underhill ignores so many other factors as to render his analysis useless. He says not a word about Muslim immigration, legal or illegal, nor about European emigration; nothing about the development of Muslim no-go zones, enclaves, street muscle, Shar'i courts, madrassahs, and slaveholding; not a peep about hijabs, jilbabs, niqabs, burqas, nor honor killings and harems; and he stays silent about Islamist intimidation in schools and hospitals, about the curtailment of freedom of speech, and government patronage of Islam. In brief, while we may not know where Europe will end up, Underhill's implied symbiosis is a fantasy. Source: Daniel Pipes' BlogH/T: IPT BlogWilliam Underhill
Newsweek
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 By Carol Gould It was with astonishment that I read William Underhill’s report in the July 20 issue of Newsweek, “Why Fears of a Muslim Takeover Are All Wrong,” decrying the scaremongers of the world who think radical Islam is a threat to our way of life. Underhill names and shames Mark Steyn but one assumes he would also condemn Melanie Phillips, Phyllis Chesler, Nidra Poller, Bat Ye’or, Daniel Pipes, and little old me writing from London. Melanie, Nidra, Bat, and I have a premium on firsthand experience of radical Islam because we happen to live in Europe. It is difficult to establish from Underhill’s screed where he lives and from what shore he writes, but his cynical piece appears to trash the views of many of the world’s most eminent scholars of modern radicalism. He asserts that the predictions by experts that Europe will soon have a significant Muslim population should be put into perspective, but then says, “Fertility rates remain higher among Muslim immigrants than among other Europeans, and Muslims may continue to arrive in Europe in large numbers.“ Being the descendant of immigrants I do not condemn this, but it is the emerging radicalism that is so perilous. Underhill quotes a professor from Exeter University, the home of Ilan Pappe, the Israeli revisionist historian. According to Grace Davie, who is described as an expert on Europe and Islam, “The worst of the scaremongering is based on the assumption that current behavior will continue.” Read more ...Source: PJMWilliam Underhill
Newsweek
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 CNN ran a report Monday about Youssef Megahed, the Egyptian resident alien and former University of South Florida student (where convicted terror supporter Sami Al-Arian was once a professor and the current leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ramadan Shallah, also taught). Megahed was acquitted in U.S. District Court in Tampa of federal explosives charges stemming from an ill-fated road trip to South Carolina with an associate who pled guilty to providing material support to terrorists. After Megahed's acquittal, the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Tampa took Megahed into custody and charged him with removal (deportation) violations, ostensibly on terrorism/security related violations that are believed to rely on evidence related to his criminal case, even though he was not convicted.
As reported by the IPT in April and again in June, Megahed's supporters and apologists argue Megahed is being treated unfairly. Some even claim the immigration case amounts to double jeopardy. The law, however, is clear. Deportation proceedings are civil/administrative in nature, not criminal, and foreign nationals (aliens) in the United States may be subject to removal based on a lesser standard of evidence than "beyond a reasonable doubt" in criminal cases, even if the evidence is very similar.
There is no double jeopardy. This process is not used by the government frequently and a decision to proceed requires significant review by high-ranking officials within DHS, sometimes in consultation with the Department of Justice.
Today's CNN article contained 55 paragraphs. Of those, only five reflected the U.S. Government's position in the case. The rest of the article describe Megahed's "plight" and how the former foreman of Megahed's criminal case jury traveled to the Florida detention center to personally visit with Megahed and his family.
The network report did identify a few facts that are worth noting, including that a government search of a computer found at Megahed's residence found "numerous videos, documents and an internet search history that supports Islamic extremism, jihad against the United States..." Also, CNN quotes a former Miami U.S. Attorney as saying, "The government doesn't use this a lot, but I think this is an arrow in the quiver that needs to stay because there are those cases where the government needs to do everything in its power to keep us safe, from some of those same individuals." Also, Guy Lewis states, "In one context, the real question is, are you going to jail for a long time. The other context is, are you going to get to live among us?"
The other 50 paragraphs clearly side with Megahed. Source: IPT BlogCNN
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 A prominent Muslim American leader issued a stern warning to the FBI. Informants should never breach the grounds of a mosque. No matter what. "Our Koran is off limits," said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Los Angeles office said at an Anaheim mosque in April. "Our youth, who they try to radicalize, are off limits. Now is the time to tell them, 'we're not going to let this happen anymore.' " It was the lead element in a Los Angeles Times story by Paloma Esquivel. The story described the sense of betrayal felt by Muslim activists like Ayloush after "the FBI sent an informant into a mosque in Orange County, surveilled community leaders and sent an agent to UC Irvine – caus[ing] some to begin questioning the FBI's real intentions." The story never names the person agents wanted the informant to approach; much less the man's family ties to Osama bin Laden or his efforts to conceal his continuing relationship with the relative. Nor does it explain to readers that CAIR may have some sour grapes toward the FBI, which cut off access to CAIR last summer in light of court evidence showing the group, which touts itself as the nation's largest Muslim civil rights organization, was born to serve a Hamas-support network in the U.S. Read more ...Source: IPT NewsPaloma Esquivel
Los Angeles Times
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 By Phyllis Chesler Menacing anti-Israel demonstrations in the street, rabid anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations, obsessive anti-Israel boycott resolutions among western academics, relentless anti-Israel headlines in the world media are “politics as usual,” involving the young and the fanatic. Most civilians barely notice it. They are worried about employment, health insurance, college tuition for their children—or about celebrities, whose decadent rise and fall distracts them from their own more ordinary miseries. What worries me more are the movies and plays that subtly and inexorably shift the civilian point of view, movies which glamorize Arab tyrants and terrorists and demonize Israeli soldiers, “settlers” and politicians. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, ordinary people have come to believe that the Muslim world is peaceful, friendly, safe; that its “rough edges” are due to it’s having formerly been oppressed by Europe; that Islamist terrorism has probably been caused by the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan; that much of this is Israel’s fault—or rather, that much of this may now be solved if only America sacrifices Israel for the sake of world peace, including its own survival. Take the pre-eminent, planet-friendly magazine, National Geographic. It boasts a readership of nearly eight million people. Courtesy of a gift subscription, it arrives faithfully. Sometimes I look at it, often I don’t. So many glossy photos, so little time. But this issue immediately caught my eye because the cover story is titled: “The Christian Exodus from the Holy Land.” What ho! I thought. So, the animal-friendly magazine “gets” it. My hopes raised, I turned to the article which is also titled “The Forgotten Faithful: Arab Christians.” Read more ...Source: Pajamas MediaDon Belt
National Geographic
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Time reporter blames Israel and the West for Muslim intolerance.  Pope Benedict’s visit to Israel this week has increased media attention on the plight of Christians in the Middle East and their declining numbers. But while the visit should serve as an opportunity for an honest look at Christian flight, one reporter blamed Israel and the West instead.In an article describing Christian apprehensions over Pope Benedict’s visit, Time magazine’s Andrew Lee Butters calls the presence of Christians in the region “a reminder of the multi-sectarian and tolerant history of Arab and Islamic culture.” However, this tolerance is threatened, he writes, “from the rise of religious extremism.” At this point, one would assume Butters would delve into largely overlooked issues such as
But instead, Butters points his finger in the opposite direction: “Clash-of-civilizations pundits and Western leaders like the Pope often ignore how the West helped spark such intolerance, especially through its one-sided support of Israel.”
Butters would be hard pressed to prove that Europe has been “one-sided” in its support for Israel. More importantly, however, Butters’ statement implies that Muslims are not responsible for their actions because the West backs Israel’s right to exist in peace with its neighbors. In fact, Butters goes even further, calling Israel’s creation “a disaster for Christians in the Middle East.”
Many of the Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced from their homes in 1948 — never to be allowed back — were Christians. The flood of Palestinian refugees into Lebanon helped spark a civil war between Muslims and Christians there. And the ongoing occupation of the West Bank is strangling the life out of those Christian communities that are left.
Blaming Israel for the civil war in Lebanon ignores the complex political arrangements in Lebanon at the time and the destabilizing effect of the PLO inside Lebanon’s borders. He also neglects to mention what might be strangling the life out of the 2,000 Christians living in Gaza. But Butters doesn’t stop there. He also holds Israel responsible for Muslim abuses of Christians in Egypt:
The ongoing Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories has also helped fuel the rise of Islamic extremism, especially in countries that have unpopular peace agreements with Israel. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition to the American-backed Mubarak dictatorship, waged a small-scale terror campaign against both the government and the country's Coptic Christians during the 1990s.
According to Butters, therefore, the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t ultimately responsible for “small-scale terror” against the Christians it carries out. It’s really Israel’s presence in the Palestinian territories that is behind it all.  The BBC’s Tim Franks also covered the decline of Arab Christians in Bethlehem. In his article, Franks quoted several Palestinians who claim that Christians are leaving the city because of Israel’s security barrier. However, Franks also acknowledges that there could be another reason for the exodus. Privately, some Christians in Bethlehem say another factor sometimes motivates their decision to leave - concern about the rise of radical Islam - but they are unwilling to put such views on the record.
Indeed, Frank’s admission is consistent with finding from Justus Reid Weiner, who has researched the plight of Christians in the Palestinian territories extensively. According to Weiner, Arab Christians rarely speak about their situation in public: The human rights crimes against the Christian Arabs in the disputed territories are committed by Muslims. Yet many Palestinian Christian leaders accuse Israel of these crimes rather than the actual perpetrators. This motif has been adopted by a variety of Christian leaders in the Western world. Others who are aware of the human rights crimes choose to remain silent about them.
The media has an obligation to report the truth. Insist that reporters tell the whole story when they cover the plight of Christians in the Middle East.
Andrew Lee Butters
Time
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 Kurt Westergaard said he was disappointed 'on behalf of freedom of speech'
if the BBC did not show his interviewBy Paul Revoir The BBC has been accused of appeasement of radical Islam by the artist behind one of the infamous cartoons of Mohammed. Kurt Westergaard claims the corporation's decision not to air a recent interview with him came because they are petrified of upsetting Muslims extremists. Westergaard was one of the 12 cartoonists commissioned by the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper in 2005 to produce caricatures of the Muslim prophet. Islamic tradition says no image of him should be produced or shown. Read more ...Source: Daily MailBBC
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 By Damian Thompson You may have wondered, at times, whether the Guardian-Islamist entente cordiale was a figment of Melanie Phillips's imagination. Well, wonder no more. Today's Guardian leader on the Government's counter-terrorism strategy is sprinkled with little clues that the multiculturalists have won their battle with the secularists at the newspaper. The editorial thinks Hazel Blears was wrong to cut ties with the compromised and self-important Muslim Council of Britain. (So do several of Ms Blears's cabinet colleagues, whose views are reflected in the leader.) "It is not up to ministers whom Muslims choose as their spokesmen," says the newspaper. (Actually, it's not up to ordinary Muslims, either.) Also, it's glad that the Government doesn't regard support for Sharia law as an indication of extremism because, as we all know, there's nothing extreme about Sharia, is there? Likewise, it's good that there is no conflation of "Islamism" (note: not Islam) and terrorism - what an absurd notion! Read more ...Source: Telegraph BlogsThe Guardian
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Browsing the Israeli press can provide a broader and more informed picture of events in Israel than the narrower and sometimes slanted international media coverage. Indeed, Israel's press is hardly monolithic with a variety of competing political narratives and a penchant for self-criticism, so much so that many of the most negative stories appearing in the international press are first broken by the Israeli newspapers. Unfortunately, Israeli journalists, like their Western counterparts, also have their own biases and journalistic lapses. Such is the case of a recent Ha'aretz story alleging "war crimes" and serious ethical failures on the part of the IDF in Gaza. Predictably, many international media outlets, including the New York Times, The Guardian, The Independent, Australian, and Globe & Mail to name but a few, repeated the allegations without bothering to do any rudimentary checks. Read more ...Source: Honest ReportingH/T: Gramfan Haaretz
The Guardian
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If you chose "No," please consider providing your solution to Gaza crisis in the comments.
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Our latest analysis reveals more BBC anti-Israel bias. Previous Charges of BiasLast year, we released an in-depth report analyzing one year of the BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We found that the BBC has a consistent record of portraying Israeli actions in a negative light while increasing sympathy for the Palestinian point of view. Rather than respond to the criticisms in our report, the BBC chose to accuse us of bias: HonestReporting has a particular view of the conflict and cannot be seen as an independent arbiter of our output. That previous analysis examined the BBC's reporting, based not on subjective opinion, but on the very journalistic standards that the BBC claims to uphold. We presented hard facts but our work was summarily rejected by the BBC, which has failed to provide its own analysis as to why HonestReporting should be considered an unsuitable judge. Read more ...Source: Honest ReportingBBC
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If you chose "No," please consider providing your solution to Gaza crisis in the comments.
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 While one refers to the "foreign press" in Israel, most employees are local Israelis or Palestinians who are hired for their language skills, access and local knowledge. Sometimes it isn't enough just to monitor only the news stories and critique the media. The hiring practices of the media organizations can also impact significantly on what news is reported and how decisions are made as to the information reaching Western audiences. It isn't only the personal attitudes or potential bias of a journalist influencing the final article or television report. Other media professionals can also have a major bearing on the construction and direction of a story. Palestinian translators and fixers may be necessary but those with a political agenda can be selective with the information they feed the journalist or, at worst, mistranslate the words of the interview subjects. Writing on the influence of Palestinian organizations on foreign news reporting, the JCPA's Dan Diker noted: According to senior foreign news sources based in Jerusalem, the vast majority of Palestinian fixers - often close friends of Palestinian employees of Jerusalem-based foreign news agencies - are ideologically motivated by the Palestinian cause, and actively encourage journalists to report exclusively on the "evils" of the Israeli occupation, rather than on the lack of democratic freedoms or human rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza. Read more ... Source: Honest ReportingCNN
Christiane Amanpour
John Pilger
Nidal Rafa
Talal Abu Rahmeh
Fayad Abu Shamala
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 By Valentina Colombo The appalling sentence “Radical Islam is a fact of life. How to live with it,” appears on the green cover of the present issue of Newsweek magazine (international edition). You can read it either in Arabic or in English. The title refers to a worrisome article written by Fareed Zakaria, editor of the magazine. Islam is complex reality. Nearly one and a half billion Muslims live on our planet; they cannot be the same and no doubt only a minority is radical and linked to terrorism. However it was astonishing to read that we do not have to generalize even when it comes to radical Islam because “it’s time to stop treating all Islamists as potential terrorists.” It was March 2007 when I last felt the same kind of disappointment while reading in “Foreign Affairs” Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke’s article, “The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood.” Their aim was to demonstrate that inside the Muslim Brotherhood along with an extremist wing there is a “moderate” group of new leaders. The American scholars totally trusted what they were told personally by some members of the movement. Unfortunately they forgot that the Muslim Brotherhood’s members are allowed to dissimulate, that is to tell lies if necessary to their survival. Fareed Zakaria goes many steps further: he admits the existence of radical Islamists, like the Taliban and the Islamic courts in Somalia and Nigeria, and he writes we have to cope with them, but not in the same way the Bush administration did. If during Bush’s presidency “all Islamist groups were one and the same” and any distinctions or nuances were regarded as a form of appeasement”, now in Zakaria’s view “it’s also worth stepping back and trying to understand the phenomenon of Islamic radicalism” because “not all these Islamists advocate global jihad, host terrorists or launch operations against the outside world - in fact, most do not.” Then comes the shocking example: “Consider the most difficult example, the Taliban. The Taliban have done all kinds of terrible things in Afghanistan. But so far, no Afghan Taliban has participated at any significant level in a global terrorist attack… Most Taliban want Islamic rule locally, not violent jihad globally.” I have a few questions: What about Afghanis? What about Afghani women? What about universal human rights? Does Mr. Zakaria mean that radical Islam can be understood as long as it stays away from us? Read more ...Source: Hudson InstituteH/T: A.L. Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek
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