Mideast Revolutions Spread: More Hypocrisy Exposed
March 1, 2011 16:58 by Simon Plosker
HonestReporting recently commented on how the coverage of the Egyptian uprising had revealed a significant double standard in the media’s coverage of Israel.
While the current events in Libya do not necessarily have any direct linkages to Israel, nonetheless, the situation has continued to further expose the hypocrisy of some of Israel’s detractors.
The Media and Anti-Israel Campaigners
Writing in the UK’s Observer, Nick Cohen notes how the absurd obesssion with Israel has been laid bare by developments in the Mideast:
To a generation of politically active if not morally consistent campaigners, the Middle East has meant Israel and only Israel. In theory, they should have been able to stick by universal principles and support a just settlement for the Palestinians while opposing the dictators who kept Arabs subjugated. Few, however, have been able to oppose oppression in all its forms consistently. The right has been no better than the liberal-left in its Jew obsessions. The briefest reading of Conservative newspapers shows that at all times their first concern about political changes in the Middle East is how they affect Israel. For both sides, the lives of hundreds of millions of Arabs, Berbers and Kurds who were not involved in the conflict could be forgotten.
Michael Coren, in the Toronto Sun, refers to the 2002 Jenin “massacre”:
The usual hysterical demonstrations took place, where Muslim radicals and leftist activists took to the streets in Europe and North America, and liberal media expressed incredulity at the sadism of Israeli soldiers. Then the detailed reports appeared, revealing most of the figures were untrue and no massacre occurred.
This was the verdict of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, hardly friends of the Jewish state.
I write this because in the past few weeks we have seen genuine massacres and gruesome brutality. Thousands of people have now been murdered by Arab and Iranian governments and Arab and Iranian soldiers. In Libya, ordinary mourners attending the funerals of people shot dead in the streets were themselves targeted by snipers. …
Yet where are the massive street protests in Europe’s large cities? Where are the calls to boycott countries? Where are the labour unions demanding action? Where are the student groups using words like “apartheid” and “Nazi”? Where are the moralistic editorials condemning Arab intolerance, Islamic barbarism and the need for Arab countries to be banned from international sporting, cultural and literary events?
All of that is said about Israel, whether it engages in conflict or not. When it responds to the slaughter of its children, it is labelled a terrorist state, and when it allows its people to settle in lands that are historically Jewish, the religion of Judaism is spoken of as archaic. Retired Israeli generals travelling to London or Madrid to raise money for handicapped children are told they may be arrested on landing, Israeli athletes are promised death if they dare to appear alongside “civilized” rivals.
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has been at the forefront of anti-Israel activities by so-called human rights organizations, producing dozens of one-sided and critical reports on Israel and putting its weight behind the discredited Goldstone Report on Israel’s Operation Cast Lead.
Now, Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s Director of the Middle East and North Africa Division and her organization’s blind obsession with Israel has been further exposed by the Libya situation. NGO Monitor notes:
In 2009, [she] visited Libya, claiming to have discovered a “Tripoli spring.” In particular, Whitson praised Muammar Qaddafi’s son Seif Islam as a leading reformer. In two articles promoting this façade of reform, she repeatedly praised him for creating an “expanded space for discussion and debate.” In reality, Whitson was advancing a fiction; Libya remained a closed totalitarian regime that kept its population under tight control. Seif Islam continued to be an integral part of the repression, even appearing on state television to warn the protesters that the regime would “fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet.”
Read more on how Whitson performed an about face in light of Libyan human rights abuses and the behavioral pattern of HRWs embrace of Arab dictatorships here.
The United Nations and UN Human Rights Council
Libya is a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which has spent a dispropotionate amount of time devoted to criticizing Israel at the expense of genuine human rights abuses. The UNHRC was also the source of the Goldstone Report.
Libya’s disgraceful treatment of its own citizens exposes the anacronism of a human rights body whose members include Libya, Bahrain, Qatar, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia – hardly models of freedom and virtue.
As if to demonstrate how the UNHRC has been abused by the abusers (and to abuse Israel), UN Watch reports:
Despite having just voted to suspend Libya from its ranks, the UN Human Rights Council, according to the agenda of its current session, is planning to “consider and adopt the final outcome of the review of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.” According to the council’s timetable, the lengthy report hailing Libya’s human rights record will be presented on March 18, and then adopted by the council at the end of the month. The report, which the UN has published on the council website, is the outcome of a recent session that was meant to review Libya’s human rights record.
“Although the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism is often described by council defenders as its saving grace, the vast majority of council members used it to falsely praise the Gaddafi regime for its alleged promotion of human rights,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights monitoring organization. “The report is a fraud, an insult to Libya’s victims, and should be withdrawn immediately.”
Read more here.
Tom Gross asks:
Why did almost the entire world media ignore the excesses of Arab dictatorships until recently, ferociously attacking instead the Middle East’s only democracy, Israel?
Why in a secret ballot at the UN General Assembly last year, did no less than 155 countries, representing 80 percent of UN members, decide Libya would be a superb choice and voted it on to the UN Human Rights Council. Why did websites like this one express concern when this happened but large media organizations such as the BBC didn’t?
Read more here.
The Death of Linkage
Writing in the Washington Times, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon says:
The last few weeks and months have finally proven the fallacy of one of the most mistaken theories about development and peace in the Middle East. For a number of years, foreign officials, experts and commentators have claimed that if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was solved, then there would be peace in the Middle East. This was coined “linkage.” …
Furthermore, the linkage argument has allowed a dereliction of responsibility for anything that happens outside of Israel’s few square kilometers, which is equivalent to less than one seven-hundredth of the Arab world. Even the term “Middle East conflict” is negligent in that it stresses the singularity and uniqueness of our conflict, perhaps even one of the least bloody and destructive, in a region that has seen dozens of recent and ongoing conflicts.
In fact, of the 11 million Muslims that have been killed in violent conflicts since the middle of the last century when the state of Israel was created, less than one-tenth of 1 percent of Muslims were killed in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian or Israeli-Arab conflict. However, more than 90 percent of all Muslims killed during the same time period were killed by fellow Muslims.
Will the revolutions sweeping the Arab world signal the precursor to a reassessment of how Israel is treated by the media, non-governmental organizations, UN bodies and others? We are under no illusions. Recent events in the Mideast have exposed the hypocrisy and double standards applied to Israel.
The battle against anti-Israel bias will, however, continue for the foreseeable future. And HonestReporting will be there.
steve mann
8:42 pm
Mar 01, 2011
So what dose this tell us-
The world, with few exceptions, outside of the Zionist supporters sees the Israelis of doing things in two ways-
And both are wrong.
#
With few exceptions we stand alone. And Israel negotiates giving up more land! Be strong – do not appease-
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
114 
1
Mid
8:51 pm
Mar 01, 2011
Steve is so right! It’s hard to see Israel’s leaders cave to world opinion once again…and for the lies to dominate the headlines, while Israel continues to be maligned. I know all I can do is pray…but maybe that’s more effective in the long run!!
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
74 
1
Menachem Chazan
8:59 pm
Mar 01, 2011
All praise to the Tunisian/Egyptian/Libian young progressives who have handed their
nations an opportunity to join the Democratic societies of the world and bestow upon
themselves an equitable form of governance.
Regretfully, very little is being achieved, through diplomacy, to resolve the
Israel/Palestinian fiasco.
Both the Palestinians and the Israelis are victims of the Middle East Despots’
Agenda aimed at perpetuating their regimes through the elimination of
encroaching Democracy.
Another Democratic Palestinian State is not-at-all a Despot priority.
They, readily, exploited and harnessed the Palestinians to achieve their end.
They, initially, through the years, financed the “Freedom Fighters” and the
teaching of hatred in the Mosques and Madras and later embraced with their Fundamentalist cohorts the campaign for instituting Sharia Law throughout the world.
Sixty years of victimization and frustration have not brought the Palestinians anything.
Notwithstanding the Egyptian example, it is doubtful that the Palestinians will have the fortitude to awaken to the need of ridding themselves of their true “enslavers”.
Unless the Democracies of the world and the Secular Arab nations, of the Middle East, unite in conveying to the benighted Despots “an offer they can’t refuse” – we all have to go on suffering the indignities of a World shaped by a Destructive Culture and prepare for the “encroaching Dark Ages”.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
42 
6
Dr. Emanuel Sphardi Lombard
9:09 pm
Mar 01, 2011
Agreed! Agreed! But it is the Israeli Ashkenazi establishment that has allowed the world to fixate on the Palestinian refugees (collaborators with Arab League) rather than the Mizrahi refugee issue. Is it some form of superiority of Ashkenazi over Mizrahi? Is it some form of jealousy: Shoah as more important than the Mizrahi murders, riots and expulsions.
The Arab League has always been complicit in (1) ordering five Arab armies to attack the new state, (2)ordering Palestinians out of the path of invading Arabs, (3) ordering all Arab League states to prohibit granting citizenship and privileges to Palestinians, (4)engineering of the unique, outrageous UNRWA creation as a propaganda ploy at the expense of the refugees and 62 years of world financial support, and (5) a vetoer of all efforts at peace provisions between Israel and Arabs.
Why hasn’t Israel publicized the link between Grand Mufti Husseini, the Shoah,Hitler, first head of Arab League 1945, uncle of Arafat and why Hussedini was never prosecuted as a war criminal, etc….all opportunities that Israel has failed to use. The world’s liberals, the Arabs, Jew haters have had no exposure to the need for justice for the Jews from Arab countries. How much bad press has Israel had to suffer while ignoring these impressive issues!
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
57 
5
Sussman
10:53 pm
Mar 01, 2011
re: “…it is the Israeli Ashkenazi establishment that has allowed the world to fixate on the Palestinian refugees (collaborators with Arab League) rather than the Mizrahi refugee issue. Is it some form of superiority of Ashkenazi over Mizrahi? Is it some form of jealousy: Shoah as more important than the Mizrahi murders, riots and expulsions.”
Dr. Lombard,`
With all due respect, I really think that we have enough problems without trying to pit this as an Ashkenazi/Sephard issue.
For the record: yes, the Sephardim/Mizrahim did suffer as dhimmis under Moslem rule. Yes, they were expelled in great numbers from several countries. Yes, that *might* be equivalent to the plight of the European Jewry up until the mid 20th century, who were also expelled from one country to the next and suffered terrible pogroms from time to time. But no, sorry, that does not compare with the murder of some 6 million Jews at the hands of the Germans, their allies, collaborators, and apologists.
All people, Jew and non-jew alike should see this distinction and understand its importance, rather than try to create divisiveness when we need unity, and aggravate old wounds (and open new ones) by trying to lay blame on one half of the Jewish people and create a contest of who suffered the most.
That being said, we are one people who have suffered plenty, and we deserve a return to our homeland in order to achieve self determination and take our place on the stage of modern peoples and civilizations.
Please do not misunderstand me, I do agree with you that the Jewish/Arab refugee fact is one that is not being leveraged and explained, and that it should indeed be better publicized in order to provide context and explain the cynicism of a ‘law of return’ (shudder) for ‘Palestinians’, but I assert strongly that you need not have taken the rhetorical route you chose in order to make this case.
-DS
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
35 
2
Steven L
9:30 pm
Mar 01, 2011
It is pure, simple and fundamental antisemitism.Many words are used to mislead people in believing that it is something else. They hope to weaken the Jews by dividing them in different categories. At the end of the day (time) it boils down to primeval ANTISEMITISM.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
57 
1
The double standard in the media’s coverage of Israel « Olive Press
9:44 pm
Mar 01, 2011
[...] http://honestreporting.com/mideast-revolutions-spread-more-hypocrisy-exposed/ [...]
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
12 
0
Sydell R Gross
11:34 pm
Mar 01, 2011
I already submitted my comment i am correcting my address.as you requested
Agree or Disagree:
0 
0
Reality
12:26 am
Mar 02, 2011
They dont’t print the truth about the mooslims because they know they will either loose their reporting privilages with the mooslem world, or they will be raped and beaten by out of control mooslems (oh, I forgot that already happened). They obviously don’t realize that they are whitewashing the barbaric, immoral behavior of many in the mooslem world at the expense of world opinion of Jews (and Israelis) and even any hope for peace in the middle east.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
21 
1
Susan
1:46 am
Mar 02, 2011
To Reality and others,
They obviously realize what they are doing. BIAS it is called. And they perfectly know that they are breaking the Ethics Code for professional journalists. BUT , they fear losing their jobs.Because they would if the wrote the truth.
Oil money buys everything: TV stations , newspapers, journalists ,etc.
There is no mystery related to BIAS .They are useful idiots .Once in power, their Muslim bosses
will stab them from behind .They ignore the danger they are in in case Sharia is imposed.
Muslims never keep their word .They are the biggest liers round the world.
Western journalists are just doing their “homework”.
On the other hand, they have wasted millions to support Obama’s campaign.YES.Several media outlets invested large amounts of money and NOW they have to keep on writing lies as a way to back up their investment.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
17 
0
Yael
6:32 am
Mar 02, 2011
On the whole, I am happy for the Arab dissidents who do acchieve something due to their fighting and protests in the face of violent crackdowns. (In Libya, the opposition is in control of the local oil refineries…)
However, the passage of democratic elections in Arab countries is no guarantee of a government that is good for Israel, the Jews, or any Western (or Eastern) non-Muslim country. Democracy is not synonymous with a lack of xenophobia, so suppose the will of the people is against those people and groups?
Nor do I think the about-face of former dictator-huggers is due entirely to concern for world opinion, no matter how outraged. Note that the removal of Libya from the UN Human Rights Council was only done after the opposition in Libya was in control of the country’s oil assets. God forbid the prestigious world body should refuse to help the dissidents NOW (as opposed to 2,000 bodies ago), right?
Oil is money. Now, I’m just an end-user news-reader… But it seems to me that, yet again, it’s all about the money.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
14 
0
chris dekker
12:17 pm
Mar 02, 2011
I think that all the troulbe in the middle east is part of a gobal plan to enseare mankine. go to www new world order + read there palns.
Agree or Disagree:
2 
5
Will
6:47 am
Mar 02, 2011
There’s a single fact in all the misinformation about Israel that really crystalizes the situation for me. Of the nearly 500 journalists that cover the Middle East region, almost every one of them lives in Israel. If you could put them on the spot (with a sodium pentathol cocktail to ensure a truthful response), you’d probably get an answer like this, “Israel is the only democratic 1st world country in this entire region that is like my own (note that nearly all of these journalists are from Western nations). Sure my territory is to cover the Middle East and yes 99% of that region consists of oppressive autocratic or dictatorial regimes. But let’s be clear, I’m not crazy enough to actually LIVE in any of those places. I mean seriously, I could be kidnapped, raped, tortured etc!”
Then these are the same journalists from BBC or elsewhere that every day put pen to paper and describe Israel as brutal and apartheid. The sheer hypocrasy baffles me…
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
21 
0
Mike
7:17 am
Mar 02, 2011
The Arab/Muslim states have stayed afloat on an ocean of oil which has greased the hands and brains of the world and allows them to slide away from the criticisms they so soundly deserve. Their air is filled with the stench of anti-semitism which is like perfume to so many others in the world, academia and the press that they are are ready and willing to overlook and appease the Arab/Muslim tyrannies, incivilities, violence, terrorism, wars, anti-western/democracy and intolerance while condemning Israel/Zionism/Judaism the only democratic, just, free, liberal, progressive and tolerant country in the middle east. This appeasement doesn’t make sense except in the context of a pervasive anti-semitism and subordination of fairness and reality to oil.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
16 
0
sandy
12:00 pm
Mar 02, 2011
I am a Jew and would live in no other country than Israel which I call my home.
I love Israel and am proud to be a Jew and an Israeli.
Almost 1,000,000 Jews were thrown out of Arab countries where the governments conviscated their property and Jews left with nothing. Israel absorbed Jewish refugees from Egypt, Tunisia, Iraq, Yemen, Ethiopia, etc. No one talks about this.
On the other hand, Arab countries give no rights to refugees into their country. Lebanon has had Palestinians living in squalor refugee camps for the past 62 years. They were not even allowed to buy land or work in some fields. They need passes to come and go from the camps. When King Hussein killed thousands of Palestinians in Jordan during what was called Black September no one called this a massacre – “it was a regrettable mistake” as King Hussein put it.
I am so sick and tired of the world blaming Jews and Israel for the problems they have caused and take no responsibility for.
Israel was a desert that we made bloom. The Palestinain authority in Gaza spends all the billions of dollars from Europe and the world on propaganda and weapons in the hopes of destroying Israel. Most of the people who run the UNRWA are Arabs. The Arab world doesn’t care about the Palestinians – only destroying Israel. That is what unites them.
If not for their hatred of Israel, they would all kill each other. Look at what is going on in this world. Most of the massacreds all over the world are being carried out by Muslims.
In Israel, I have met Muslims from Dafour who fled to Israel after being beaten, raped and some tortured by their Muslim brother in the Sinai. The world remains silent to the suffering of people in Africa. Hypocrisy is an understatement!
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
30 
0
Brent Pudsey
4:05 pm
Mar 02, 2011
It is not right that Israel continued to be maligned and assaulted by the media. The media needs to be more of a news outlet and less of an editorial board.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
11 
1
RonaldV
4:59 pm
Mar 02, 2011
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Agree or Disagree:
0 
10
Teofilo Venegas
9:59 pm
Mar 02, 2011
I want the people to know that we in Mexico are suffering violence. I think USA people are introducing weapons for the bad guys, the people of drugs bussiness. brothers are fighting between themselves for drugs, guns or money.
Corruption are made by USA money people. I think they are the sons of the people who betrayed Moses and his God over there down the Sinai mountain.
Agree or Disagree:
0 
6
Alexander
10:18 pm
Mar 02, 2011
I grew up to know that the only uniting factor amongst Arabs is hatred-for-Israel and, hypocritical journalism feeds from their oil via lobby, inducement or the case of who-pays-the-Piper or out-rightly prejudiced by fear of their jungle justice. Everyone knows that should this Israeli-Palestinian dispute be resolved, the usual wars amongst them will resume with vigor. Our prayers is for Israel to pull through.
This favor-currying Journalists cannot live in those Arab countries and write about them the way they do about Israel, they cannot dare fatwa
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
5 
1
Alan S
8:35 am
Mar 03, 2011
Precisely. If a journalist gets kidnapped by Islamists, the terrorists first action will be to google the hacks stories – if they’ve been critical of Muslims then its Goodnight Vienna.
Since Islam is well known all over the world as the ‘ religion of peace’ I cannot fathom this. After all Mohammed , being ‘Gods Best Mate’ TM , wouldn’t have killed someone simply for saying something he disagreed with, would he?
Must dash anyhow, I have a poem to write.
Agree or Disagree:
1 
0
The Jewish People’s best friend | In A Good Place
10:11 am
Mar 03, 2011
[...] – if you’re right one day, then you’re wrong the next. Or, maybe not, because as Honest Reporting explains – some things never change: Will the revolutions sweeping the Arab world signal the [...]
Agree or Disagree:
1 
0
The Jewish People’s best friend | In A Good Place
10:12 am
Mar 03, 2011
[...] – if you’re right one day, then you’re wrong the next. Or, maybe not, because as Honest Reporting explains – some things never change: Will the revolutions sweeping the Arab world signal the [...]
Agree or Disagree:
0 
0
Rochelle
10:23 am
Mar 03, 2011
Human Rights Watch and the Human Rights Council are merely moronic oxymorons. They are shocked, shocked that the Ghadafis are not champions of humanitarianism after all. Sarah Leah Whitson should be renamed Sorry I’m Witless.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
4 
0