Everything you need to know about today’s coverage of Israel and the Mideast. Join the Israel Daily News Stream on Facebook.

Today’s Top Stories

1. Big Media’s interest in the Mohammed al-Dura affair continued. Martin Fletcher’s report for NBC News especially impressed me. More coverage at the Daily Mail, BBC, The Independent, Times of London, Irish Times, and UPI. Thumbs up to The Lede for embedding the Kuperwasser report.

One report that stood out for the worse was the Daily Telegraph. It quoted a very critical comment by Yitzhak Be’er, of Keshev, an Israeli media-monitoring site. But as HonestReporting pointed out, the Telegraph didn’t disclose that Charles Enderlin — the France 2 reporter at the heart of the al-Dura affair — is a member of Keshev’s board of directors.

See also al-Dura commentary/analysis by photographer and imagery adviser David Katz, plus Israel HaYom, Jerusalem Post, The Guardian, and AP.

2. Israeli diplomacy continues to suffer because of the labor dispute between ministries of foreign affairs (MFA) and finance. Now, Israel HaYom reports that the MFA is refusing to issue or renew diplomatic passports.

So it’s uncertain whether Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon will be able to visit the Paris Air Show, as is Tzipi Livni’s ability to attend peace talks outside the country. Israel’s new cabinet ministers can’t represent the country abroad either. Call it a first rate fashla.

3. EU diplomats to AFP: Britain formally requested that Hezbollah be designated a terror group; we’re poised for an agreement to blacklist it by the end of the June.

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Israel and the Palestinians

• Israel doubled the Gaza fishing zone from three to six miles. More on the story at Reuters.

• US lawmakers blast critics of visa waivers for Israelis

• EU lawmakers deny they’re delaying plans to label products from Israeli settlements. Times of Israel coverage.

• Worth reading: Lyn Julius tells off Palestinian refugees and Maysoon Zayid:

So throw away that rusty key, Maysoon. This obsession with the past is unhealthy. Get over it. We Jewish refugees did.

Arab Spring Winter

• IDF unit shoots at Syrian post in retaliation for gunfire:

The IDF estimated that due to a recurring pattern of gunfire from the same Syrian area, directed at the same Israeli target and executed at roughly the same time at night, the gunfire was not the result of unintentional overspill and decided therefore to fire back.

• Lot of Big Media attention on Hezbollah’s deepening involvement in Syria. For looks at the fighting, the casualties and how it’s playing out in Lebanon, see take your pick of AP, Washington Post, and NY Times.

• Worth reading: “Chaos caused by Libyan war delaying intervention in Syria”

• NY Times: Brazil arrested a Hezbollah figure who defrauded Lebanese nationals in South America and embezzled money for the terror group. Naughty, naughty.

•  AP: Jordan’s Prime Minister told the Vienna-based International Press Institute that the Arab Spring has forced Arab governments to expand press freedom. I haven’t seen any trickle down effect in the Palestinian Authority. Quite the opposite, actually.

• The Irish Times talked to Palestinians from the Yarmouk refugee camp, who are trapped between the Syrian army and rebels.

Rest O’ the Roundup

• Brazil is spending nearly $25 million on Israeli drones for World Cup security.

• JTA: Iran formally confirmed deal with Argentina for joint “truth commission” to investigate the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community headquarters in Buenos Aires.

For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream.

The Daily Telegraph’s coverage of the Israeli government’s Al-Dura report rightly includes comment from France 2′s Charles Enderlin, one of the main protagonists and the journalist under the most scrutiny for his role in the original Al-Dura story.

The Telegraph article also includes the following criticism of the Israeli government report:

Yizhar Be’er, the executive director of Keshev, an Israeli media monitoring group that has extensively studied the case, dismissed the government report as “conspiracy theory” and said Mohammad al-Durra’s death was real.

“I believe that what we saw on the France 2 news item was exactly what happened and the camera caught exactly what happened,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “It is mission impossible to fake such a huge event. Nobody, least of all the Palestinians, can create such a fabrication.

A look at Keshev’s website reveals a prominent board member of the organization… Charles Enderlin.

Irrespective of Keshev’s credibility or otherwise in commenting on the story, there is a clear conflict of interest for the organization to be quoted in a case that one of their board members is deeply involved in. That the Telegraph failed to disclose this is wholly unprofessional.

The Telegraph should come clean with this information or remove Keshev’s quotes from its story.

You can send your comments to the Telegraph – dtletters@telegraph.co.uk

Panelists Gerald Steinberg, David Olesker, Simon Plosker, debate moderator Leah Zinder. Photo: Courtesy David E. Kaplan

HR Managing Editor Simon Plosker recently appeared on a guest panel in front of some 265 English-speakers in Herzliya, Israel. The Jerusalem Post reports:

Moderated by Israel Broadcasting Authority English News anchor Leah Zinder, the four panelists were Trevor Asserson, a Jerusalem-based international lawyer who successfully challenged the BBC on issues of media bias, David Olesker (founder and director of the Jerusalem Center for Communication and Advocacy Training), Simon Plosker (managing editor of Honest Reporting) and Gerald Steinberg (president of NGO Monitor and professor of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University).

Each, battle-hardened in the trenches of media warfare, addressed the audience on his experiences and tactics in fighting this unrelenting onslaught on the character of the Jewish state. Underlying the debate was the realization among today’s Israelis that “despite what Israel does or Israel does not do; it is simply a case that Israel is.”

…

However, today with the conflict depicted as a Palestinian- Israel conflict, Israel is easily portrayed by the global media as the brutal Goliath and the Palestinians as the vulnerable and defenseless David. Today’s narrative has cunningly switched the imagery of these iconic biblical characters. In the eyes of most the world media, Israel is the arch-villain.

All speakers agreed on the need not only to be reactive but to go on the offensive, and welcomed everyone to enlist in Israel’s “citizen’s army.”

One of the most pertinent and poignant comments by an inspired participant was “I felt it was not a political evening; it was an Israel evening.”

Read the full Jerusalem Report article here.

You can also view Simon Plosker’s opening remarks here:

Did World Press Photo give its photo of the year award to a doctored photo? WPP and the photographer, Paul Hansen, both insist no.

After Neil Krawetz claimed that Hansen’s image of Gaza mourners was a composite of several images, World Press Photo announced that it sent the image to two independent experts for analysis. The experts disagreed with Krawetz’s assessment of the image:

We have reviewed the RAW image, as supplied by World Press Photo, and the resulting published JPEG image. It is clear that the published photo was retouched with respect to both global and local color and tone. Beyond this, however, we find no evidence of significant photo manipulation or compositing. Furthermore, the analysis purporting photo manipulation is deeply flawed . . .

Hansen also stood by his photo. He then explained to Anthony Sharwood how he processed the image. “Developing a file over itself” sounds a little dodgy, but I don’t understand any of this technical jargon:

“In the post-process toning and balancing of the uneven light in the alleyway, I developed the raw file with different density to use the natural light instead of dodging and burning. In effect to recreate what the eye sees and get a larger dynamic range.

“To put it simply, it’s the same file – developed over itself – the same thing you did with negatives when you scanned them.”

For its part, Krawetz’s original post Extremetech has been updated several times responding to WPP’s experts.

Certain digital enhancements with light, color, and contrast are considered acceptable within the media industry.But at what point do the enhancements make the image dishonest?

This image of a Gaza funeral appeared in many media outlets. ExtremeTech now reports:

It turns out that the 2013 World Press Photo of the Year — the largest and most prestigious press photography award — was, in actual fact, a fake. The World Press Photo association hasn’t yet stripped the photographer, Paul Hansen, of the title, but presumably it’s just a matter of time. Rather than discussing the politics of photo manipulation, though — is it faked, or is it merely enhanced? — we’re going to look at how Hansen managed to trick a panel of experienced judges with his shooping skillz, and how a seasoned computer scientist spotted the fraudulent forgery from a mile off.

The photo, dubbed Gaza Burial, was purportedly captured on November 20, 2012 by Paul Hansen. Hansen was in Gaza City when Israeli forces retaliated in response to rocket fire from Palestinian rocket fire. The photo shows two of the casualties of the Israeli attack, carried to their funeral by their uncles. Now, the event itself isn’t a fake — there are lots of other photos online that show the children being carried through the streets of Gaza — but the photo itself is almost certainly a composite of three different photos, with various regions spliced together from each of the images, and then further manipulation to illuminate the mourners’ faces.

The remainder of the article reveals exactly how this was done.

There is no question that the funeral itself took place. But how many times have we seen the manipulation of images from the Middle East conflict?

In our Shattered Lens study of photo bias, we took a look at how the use of cropping and angles were used to create a dramatic perception of a funeral.

In general the study identified distortions of images that mostly fell into the following categories:

1. Deliberate Staging
2. Use of wide-angle lenses and photographer positions to make photos appear more dramatic than the reality
3. Photographers choosing positions that affect the events they are shooting
4. Editorializing in photo captions.

In the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict, manipulating photos to create a dramatic perception goes far beyond a simple touch up of a nature scene or the removal of red eye from a family portrait. Images are, arguably, more powerful than any headline or text in an article and leave a deep and lasting impression.

When it comes to reporting of Israel, those impressions are important in how the world views the country.

The World Press Photo Association should immediately revoke Paul Hansen’s award and demonstrate that unethical and unprofessional photography is unacceptable.

Looks like Newseum’s trying to climb down from a limb it went way out on. The Washington-based media museum announced that it’s reconsidering including two Hamas “journalists” in its memorial to reporters killed in action.

Serious questions have been raised as to whether two of the individuals included on our initial list of journalists who died covering the news this past year were truly journalists or whether they were engaged in terrorist activities.

We take the concerns raised about these two men seriously and have decided to re-evaluate their inclusion as journalists on our memorial wall pending further investigation.

Terrorism has altered the landscape in many areas, including the rules of war and engagement, law, investigative and interrogation techniques, and the detention of enemy combatants. Journalism is no exception.

As HonestReporting already pointed out,  Mahmoud Al-Kumi and Hussam Salama were known Hamas operatives.

The Times of London (subscription only) publishes a story under the following headline:

The article explains:

A call for religious freedom in Jerusalem by Baroness Ashton of Upholland, the EU foreign policy chief, has been seized upon by extremist Jewish organisations and religious leaders as a statement of support for a controversial third temple on the hilltop in the Old City.

Yet, only two paragraphs later:

Now, some hardline groups are calling for Jews to be allowed to pray on the site they call the “holy of holies” and are interpreting a call for religious freedom in Jerusalem by Lady Ashton as tacit support for the right of Jews to pray at the site.

A representative of Lady Ashton said at the weekend: “It is essential that access to the holy sites in Jerusalem for peaceful worship for all denominations is fully respected.”

There are indeed demands that Jews should be allowed to worship on the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site as well as the religious belief that a third temple will arise in the future.

However, the article and the headline appear to be making a bold and dangerous presumption beyond the evidence provided in the article text itself.

Just how did a call for freedom of worship on the Temple Mount morph into a headline and claim surrounding the building of a third temple?

In what could be a significant turn of events the Jerusalem Post reports:

Not only was 12-year-old Gazan Muhammad al-Dura not killed by IDF fire in 2000 – he was not even hurt.

That was the preliminary finding of a special commit- tee formed several years ago by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and headed by Brig.- Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, the former head of the Research and Analysis Division of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate, and the current director-general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry.

…

In the meantime, 13 years have passed, during which various and sundry conspiracy theories have been suggest- ed, including claims that the boy was never even injured.

A few days ago, MK Nachman Shai met with Ya’alon to give him a copy of his new book, Media War Reaching for Hearts and Minds , which deals with the role of media in current military conflicts, including the Dura affair. Ya’alon then surprised Shai by saying that an investigation carried out by Israel shows that Dura was never hurt.

This theory has been circulating on the Internet for a few years already, but this was the first time that an Israeli defense minister was stating so publicly.

Today, Dura should be about 25-years-old, alive and kicking somewhere (unless he was killed later in a separate incident).

Kuperwasser confirmed the committee’s conclusion that that Dura had not been hurt at all and that the video clip, which was filmed by France 2 TV and aired around the world, had indeed been staged. This means that the France 2 TV channel report was erroneous, perhaps even knowingly.

Kuperwasser added that the full results of the investigation would be ready in the near future, and that most of the work had already been completed.

To recall, Al-Dura was the “poster boy” of the so-called Second Intifada and the libel of Israeli responsibility for his death and the iconic imagery of the incident have had a major impact on subsequent events and Israel’s image in the media.

We believe that we must never give up trying to find out the truth, even 13 years after the incident, and the same applies to all of those times when Israel has been falsely accused in the media.

We look forward to seeing the full report in the near future and to see if the mainstream media and France 2 in particular, will finally acknowledge their part in propagating a libel.

For more on the Al-Dura case and other media libels, view our interactive Big Lies presentation.

On Monday, we asked you to send your complaints to the BBC over this headline:

We pointed out that the headline was taking Syrian propaganda at face value, making it appear as if Israel was associated with terrorists. The BBC has responded with a new headline and a correction:

Correction (7 May 2013): The headline of this report has been amended to make clear that the claim that Israeli air strikes had been co-ordinated with the rebels was made by Syrian officials.

While it is unfortunate that Syrian propaganda was deemed to be so newsworthy and we are still less than happy with the story itself, the updated headline is an improvement on the original.

The BBC may not always act on complaints in the way that we would like but your actions prove that they are listening. Together we can make a difference.

One way to measure media groupthink is to find out which papers  journalists are reading.

And for the second year in a row, the most widely read newspaper by the BBC staff is The Guardian, a left-wing paper with a declining print circulation and a regular contender for HonestReporting’s Dishonest Reporting Awards.  Heh. That sentence also describes the BBC.

The Commentator filed a Freedom of Information request to find out how much the publicly funded BBC spends on newspapers.

The news comes despite the continuing decline of the Guardian newspaper circulation amongst the general public. The paper, which openly declares its Left-wing editorial line, is one of the least read outlets in the United Kingdom, chalking up around 215,000 sales per day in 2012, compared with the Daily Telegraph’s 518,000.

Despite these statistics, the BBC continues to purchase more copies of The Guardian (68,307 copies) than both the Telegraph (57,763) and The Times (59,490) and manages to pick up 50,398 copies of The Independent over the course of a year, a paper which registered an average of just 75,802 sales per day so far this year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The Commentator further questions why the Beeb increased its spending on newspapers by 17 percent when most UK papers continue to freely provide their content online.

Indeed, while The Guardian’s print circulation is indeed tumbling, the paper’s real influence comes from its online presence. Last year, it was the third most-read online paper in the world — 38,931,000  unique visitors, to be precise. (I’d like to know what percentage of the web site’s readers are from the UK.)

It’s old news that The Guardian and BBC are like-minded and out of touch with the British mainstream. But the Beeb’s also out of touch with the rest of the online world. If nearly 39 million Guardian fans are smart enough to read online for free, why can’t the BBC tighten its belt like the rest of us?