We thank the many HonestReporting members who continue to monitor their local media and send alerts to us through the form at https://honestreporting.com/a/Submit_an_Article.asp.
This week, we offer a digest of 6 alerts from HonestReporting members. Keep up the good work — you are the lifeblood of our battle against media bias!
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===== (1) REUTERS’ DOOZY OF THE WEEK =====
A recent Reuters refers to “suicide bombers killed by Israeli forces.” Only in the wacky world of Reuters can Israel be blamed for killing Palestinians who commit suicide.
Read it here (last paragraph):
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030110/wl_nm/iraq_palestinians_dc_1
Comments to:
[email protected]
For the record, the Reuters article reports that Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the leader of Hamas, has issued the call for suicide operations against Americans. At a rally attended by tens of thousands in Gaza, Rantisi said: “I call on all Arab nations to burn the ground underneath the feet of the Americans in all capitals.”
Shouting “Death to America,” the demonstrators burned U.S., Israeli, and British flags. Rantisi declared: “I call on Iraq to prepare an army of would-be martyrs and prepare tens of thousands of explosive belts… Blow yourselves up against the American army. Bomb them in Baghdad.”
Was this reported in your local media?
===== (2) AP’S DOOZY OF THE WEEK =====
After 15,000 terror attacks against Israelis, the Associated Press is — incredibly — still heralding Palestinians as peace-lovers. Consider this recent report about candidate for prime minister, Amram Mitzna:
“When I was in uniform, I said you cannot win against the will of 3 million people just by military measures,” Mitzna said in the interview. “You have to negotiate, you have to talk.”
Then AP adds its own view:
“Palestinian leaders embrace that as a way out of a conflict that in 28 months has cost the lives of more than 2,700 people…”
Which Palestinian leaders is AP referring to? Yasser Arafat? Marwan Barghouti? Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi?
Read the AP article:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=540&ncid=736&e=5&u=/ap/20030113/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_fateful_choice
Comments to:
[email protected]
===== (3) CANADA’S RESPONSE TO TERROR =====
They’re taking off the gloves in Canada.
Norman Spector, Canada’s former ambassador to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, has gone public in his criticism of the CBC’s Mideast coverage. He says that CBC policy is not to use the word “terrorist” to describe Palestinian suicide bombers, and it pulled a doozy by describing Hizbullah as a “national liberation movement.”
Read Norman Spector’s scathing letter to Tony Burman, CBC news chief (published in the National Post):
http://www.nationalpost.com/search/site/story.asp?id=C4DB4723-0487-47C2-84DA-1AA050DC8902
Read a background article on Hizbullah activity in Canada:
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/watch/Policywatch/policywatch2003/698.htm
===== (4) SAUDIS’ SECRET ADS ======
Time magazine (Jan. 20, 2003) reports:
When radio ads critical of Israel ran in 15 U.S. cities last spring, they identified the Alliance for Peace and Justice as sponsor. The alliance was described by its Washington p.r. firm, Qorvis Communications, as a consortium of Middle East — policy groups based in the U.S. But when Qorvis reported its ad work to the Justice Department last month, it revealed that funding for the $679,000 media buy actually came from another source: the Saudi government.
As home to all but four of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Saudi Arabia had good reason to hide its p.r. offensive. A knowledgeable source tells TIME the alliance was created by the p.r. firm to disguise the role of the Saudis, who pay Qorvis more than $200,000 a month for its services. In a footnote to its Justice report, the firm said Riyadh helped fund the ads with a loan to the alliance, which was later repaid by a council representing Saudi business interests. But the source tells TIME most of the “repayments” came from businesses controlled by or close to the Saudi government and were solicited by Adel al-Jubeir, foreign-policy adviser to the Crown Prince and architect of the Saudi p.r. offensive.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030120-407359,00.html
===== (5) BASHING IN SANTA CRUZ =====
When it comes to Palestinians, some people in Santa Cruz, California, can’t bend over far enough to defend them. On January 5, Free Radio Santa Cruz 96.3FM broadcast an interview with Alison Weir and Adam Shapiro. Weir is the founder of If Americans Knew, an anti-Israel group, and Shapiro is an American Jew who gained notoriety last spring by sneaking into Arafat’s Ramallah compound for breakfast — just a few weeks before Shapiro married his Palestinian girlfriend.
Astonishingly, the Santa Cruz broadcast happened 7 hours after the horrific double-suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. Neither of the guests mentioned the massacre, though they spent much of their time bashing Israel. “When people say Israel has a right to exist, it means Israel has a right to discriminate,” Weir declared.
The show’s host, George Cadman, asked, “Well, isn’t Israel justified in having all these military arms? Aren’t they surrounded by Arab nations who are hostile to them?”
Weir’s answer: “They would not need such a strong military if they gave human rights to everyone.” She then explained that Arab countries have no desire to attack Israel, and that with one exception, Israel attacked first in the wars of 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973.
Weir says that in Israel “There is an enormous apartheid system.” Yet she doesn’t explain that Israel has an 18 percent Arab population who enjoy religious freedoms and full citizenship rights — as well as 12 members of Knesset.
Just like apartheid? Really.
Comments to: [email protected]
Phone: (831) 427-4523
Thanks to Becky Johnson for the alert.
