[Note by Tom Gross]

Since there are a large number of journalists on this list, I occasionally send dispatches dealing mainly with developments in the media, of which this is one.

INTERNET USERS TRANSFORMED INTO NEWS REPORTERS

As photo and video-taking mobile (cell) phones and digital movie cameras grow ubiquitous, Internet users worldwide are being recruited to become “citizen news reporters.” Two new websites, NowPublic.com and YouWitnessNews (created by Yahoo), are sites that post offerings from users including pictures, videos, commentary and opinions.

NowPublic and YouWitnessNews have formed alliances with traditional international news wire services and provide them with photos and other content. Inspiration for YouWitnessNews came as Yahoo News editors were searching for pictures in the wake of the terror attacks on London underground trains in July 2005.

As a result, participatory journalism is expected to influence traditional news operations in the future as reporters receive tips or ideas from people online or respond to news broken by people in the right places at the right times.

“If a bomb went off in Budapest and you wanted to connect with someone within a mile of the scene, we find them for you,” NowPublic’s chief executive said. “Our job is to provide an army of people who are eyes and ears that journalists can build around.”

Vancouver-based NowPublic says it now has 60,000 contributing “reporters” in more than 140 countries, and is continuing to double in size every three months.

NEWSPAPER CIRCULATION IS GROWING DESPITE INTERNET

In spite of the Internet, and contrary to widespread negative assumptions about the newspaper industry, global newspaper circulation is growing – by 2.36% in 2005, and up by 9.95% since 2001 – according to new data from the World Association of Newspapers.

New newspaper titles are also being launched at a remarkable rate. Global newspaper circulation rose in 2005 (the most recent year for which data is available), as the number of titles passed 10,000 for the first time. The total number of paid-for daily newspaper titles worldwide rose to 10,104, up 13% from 2001, when there were 8,930 titles.

450 million copies of newspapers were sold daily in 2005. Free daily newspaper circulation was also up sharply, more than doubling from 2001 to 2005, from 12m copies in 2001 to 28m in 2005.

SULZBERGER: NY TIMES FOCUSING ON TRANSITION FROM PRINT TO INTERNET

The New York Times posted losses of $570 million this month and Arthur Sulzberger, owner, chairman and publisher of what leftists believe is the most respected newspaper in the world, is a worried man.

During a casual chat with a journalist from the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, Sulzberger said, “I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don’t care either... The Internet is a wonderful place to be, and we’re leading there.”

The New York Times has doubled its online readership to 1.5 million a day to complement its 1.1 million subscribers for its print edition. The average age of readers of the New York Times print edition is 42. The average age of readers of its Internet edition is 37. (It still falls far short of the circulation for the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, America’s two most read daily newspapers.)

“We are curators, curators of news. People don’t click onto the New York Times to read blogs. They want reliable news that they can trust,” Sulzberger said. I’m sure that what we wrote and what we’re about to write is right.”

* In today’s New York Times there are, as usual, many examples of how its coverage is far from thorough. For example, Fox News and other media today report on the Pakistani woman minister who was murdered yesterday by a religious fanatic.

This Fox item, which came via the London Times was titled “Female Pakistani Minister Shot Dead for Refusing to Wear Veil.” It starts: “Zilla Huma Usman, the minister for social welfare in Punjab province and an ally of President Pervez Musharraf, was killed as she was about to deliver a speech to dozens of party activists, by a ‘fanatic’, who believed that she was dressed inappropriately and that women should not be involved in politics, officials said.”

But the New York Times, instead of writing about this, leads with a story about Pakistani Islamic women who occupied a library to stop an illegally built mosque from being destroyed.

* For more on Sulzberger and the New York Times, please see “All the news that’s fit to print?”.

NBC MILITARY ANALYST QUITS, CITING LEFT-WING BIAS

NBC military analyst Ken Allard has resigned from the network after 10 years there, saying he could no longer put up with the left-wing bias at NBC News.

The final straw, he said, was NBC’s failure to criticize remarks made by another of its analysts, Bill Arkin, who implied the American military was full of “mercenaries” raking in “obscene amenities”.

STAR BBC PRESENTER SAYS HE HAS “FALLEN IN LOVE WITH IRAN”

Rageh Omaar, the former star BBC presenter made famous by his coverage of the run-up to the war in Iraq, where he was nicknamed the “Scud stud,” has told The Guardian newspaper that he has now “fallen in love with Iran.”

Omaar, the former BBC world affairs correspondent, is among many western journalists who have been lured to work at the English-language Al-Jazeera International.

But in a recent program he made in a freelance capacity for the BBC, titled “Rageh Inside Iran,” he describes Iran as a “Wonderland”. Omaar told The Guardian that “it is remarkable that here is an Islamic society ruled by a theocracy where drug addiction is openly discussed, there’s rehab, there’s HIV education. You wouldn’t find that in most pro-western ‘democratic’ Arab regimes. Here is an Islamic country that is being prodded and poked and held up to scrutiny by its own people.”

When asked by The Guardian about “the more troublesome parts of Iranian society,” Omaar replied that “there is oppression, people being stoned and hanged and all that” but “none of that is in the film.”

IRAQI GOVERNMENT: AL-JAZEERA CONTRIBUTING TO “DEATH AND DESTRUCTION”

The Iraqi government has accused the Al-Jazeera satellite channel of “contributing to the spread of death and destruction” through its news coverage of the events in Iraq.

In a statement, the Iraqi cabinet said that the “Al-Jazeera channel continues to adopt a clear and blatant hostile position towards the Iraqi public, contributing to the spread of death and destruction on Iraq’s noble land through its adoption of an antagonistic project that is obviously against Iraq and its people.”

The Iraqi government believes that “Al-Jazeera channel aired programs through which it tried to spread confusion and distort the facts, in addition to diverting international public opinion away from the catastrophic crimes committed by the death squads and the rampant destruction and organized terrorism on Iraqi land.”

In response Al-Jazeera described the Iraqi cabinet’s statement as “without justification or basis” and that the Iraqi government was “searching for a scapegoat to justify its failure to achieve security and stability for the Iraqi people.” For more, see the first article attached below, from the Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.

YOUTUBE: THE PROPAGANDA OUTLET FOR IRAQI INSURGENTS

As is noted in a recent study by The Associated Press, “With the global spread of high-speed Internet connections and the relative anonymity afforded by the world’s biggest and busiest sites, extremists have found a new theater to display violence and anti-American propaganda.”

Iraqi insurgents are now using mainstream sites such as YouTube to post videos of bombings and sniper attacks against U.S. forces – shot and edited by Islamic militants and broadcast on the world’s largest video-sharing Web site.

Until recently, videos shot by terrorist groups were posted predominantly on specialist Internet forums, which often only those knowing what to look for could find. But more are turning to mainstream sites like YouTube, which draw millions of visitors around the world each day.

Mark Rasch, a former U.S. Justice Department computer crimes prosecutor, said the videos at YouTube and other sites are evidence of “a new front in the propaganda battle.” “It’s here to stay. It’s going to get worse – we are going to see real-time executions with higher production values.”

Jeremy Curtin, a U.S. State Department official responsible for monitoring Internet propaganda, said authorities were aware of the footage on sites like YouTube but had not made any real headway in tackling the problem.

YouTube – which was recently bought by Google Inc. – receives some 65,000 new clips to post each day. Users collectively watch more than 100 million videos on YouTube daily.

YouTube says it reserves the right to remove videos that users flag as unsuitable. “YouTube has clear terms and conditions which prohibit, amongst other things, hateful content,” the company said in a statement. “Our community has been highly effective in policing the site, and YouTube removes videos if our community flags them as inappropriate.”

A recent search conducted by The Associated Press, points to many problematic examples. For instance, in a video carrying the logo of the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of Sunni insurgent groups including al-Qaeda in Iraq, a man stands in a deserted field beside a blue car.

Speaking in Arabic, he gives what he describes as his final testament before a suicide car bombing that he claims will target a U.S. convoy in Tal Afar, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad. Moments later, the footage shows what appears to be a checkpoint, followed by an explosion. The man shooting the film screams, “Allahu akbar. (God is great.)”

Tens of thousands of people have viewed these kind of videos since they were posted in the last three months, according to YouTube’s view counter on the site.

In another video entitled “Qanaas Baghdad Episode II,” a man purporting to be an Iraqi sniper offers tips on attacking U.S. soldiers. As music plays, a group of soldiers stand at the side of a bustling, dusty street. The sniper locks on to one of them. A second later, the soldier falls to the ground.

An example of one of these terrorist videos can be seen here.

A list of some of the other insurgent and propaganda videos from YouTube can be seen here.

MOHAMMED CARTOONS PUBLISHED FOR FIRST TIME IN ENGLAND

A cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed has appeared for the first time in a publication in England, reports the Cambridge News.

The cartoon was printed in a Cambridge University student magazine, in the Clare College’s special edition on religious satire. The 19-year-old student who printed the cartoon has since gone into hiding after threats. Asim Mumtaz, president of the Muslim Association, said: “I’m horrified and shocked. In such a seat of learning, I am horrified that things could stoop to this level.”

The cartoon was printed alongside a picture of the president of the Union of Clare Students, with the captions switched. There was also a comment suggesting one was a “violent paedophile” and the other was “a prophet of God, great leader and an example to us all”.

The college has called a rare Court of Discipline to decide how the student should be brought to account.

* For more on the Mohammed cartoons, please see this newly designed page on my website, which among other things includes the Mohammed cartoons originally featured in the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten: “To be or not to be”.

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS: “AN EXPENSIVE INDULGENCE”

The second article below, from the Washington Post, examines what the writer, Pamela Constable, calls the “demise of the foreign correspondent”. Due to the rise of the Internet, some newspapers have struggled and as a result “they see foreign coverage as an indulgence they can’t afford.”

Constable argues that “newspapers can also fill an important niche between television and academe, offering an accessible way for busy people to learn about distant events and an outlet for writing that captures the essence of a time and place without polemics or pedantry. They can put events in context, explain human behavior and belief, evoke a way of life. Foreign correspondents can burrow into a society, cultivate strangers’ trust, follow meandering trails and dig beneath layers of diplomatic spin and government propaganda.”

In January, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Baltimore Sun all announced that they were to close down their offices in Israel. This comes hot on the heels of Newsday who also recently shut its bureau in Israel. In spite of this, each and every action of Israel continues to be scrutinized by international media to a much greater extent than any other nation on the planet.

-- Tom Gross

 

TEL AVIV BOMBING PREVENTED YESTERDAY

As not reported by the international media properly today:

Israeli police yesterday discovered an eight-pound bomb in a trash can in a city close to Tel Aviv. Following a tip off from Israeli intelligence, officers raided an apartment just south of Tel Aviv where they picked up a young Palestinian. He is said to have taken them to a place where he dropped off the device, for a second person to carry to its final destination in Tel Aviv. It is understood he was working on the orders of Islamic Jihad and entered Israel through an area near Jerusalem where Israel’s security barrier has not yet been completed. Three other Palestinians were arrested in connection with the foiled plot.

There was no mention of the thwarted Tel Aviv terror attack in the Washington Post, the Independent, Daily Telegraph, and Times of London, among other newspapers I checked. The BBC only mentioned it in passing on their website after reporting on the death of a leader of Islamic Jihad.

 

UPDATES

These are updates to three of the items in Monday’s dispatch (Stanford University to show Turkish blood libel film (& Saudi Prince to build hotel in Tel Aviv)).

UPDATE: ELIE WIESEL ATTACKER APPREHENDED

Eric Hunt, the man accused of attacking the Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, has now been arrested in New Jersey. He will soon be transferred to San Francisco to stand trial.

UPDATE: PRINCE BIN TALAL DENIES INVOLVEMENT IN TEL AVIV HOTEL PROJECT

I was sent this Press Release from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s office:

RIYADH, 20 February 2007 - Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s office at Kingdom Holding Company termed a recent report in Yediot Ahronot, an Israeli newspaper, as “false and baseless.” In a clarification issued by the office yesterday, the office said: “We at KHC clarify that the information in a recent article in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot about a hotel project in Tel Aviv published on Feb. 15 is false and baseless.

We would like to thank the local, regional and international media for their news coverage about KHC and Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. However, we at KHC urge writers to verify information related to significant/important news before publishing, to maintain the integrity and credibility of their reputable publication. Media queries can be sent to fax: +966 1 211 1205 e-mail: mfn@kingdom.net.

With this, KHC confirms its commitment to support the Middle East peace process and will base its investment strategies in accordance with the international community’s ambition to achieve long lasting peace in the region.”

UPDATE: PROF. ARIEL TOAFF DENIES “BLOOD LIBELS”

Prof. Ariel Toaff, of Bar-Ilan University, near Tel Aviv, has asked his Italian publisher to halt distribution of his book (“Easter of Blood: European Jews and ritual homicides”) so that “clarifications” can be inserted. Prof. Toaff says his research and writings, which he claimed had been misinterpreted, were not in any way meant to be used as a justification for blood libel.

In a statement he added: “I feel deeply responsible for the recent events which have transpired, and in order to express my profound regret regarding the misrepresentations that were attributed to me and which hurt the Jewish people, I have decided to donate all the funds forthcoming from the sale of this publication to further the activities of the Anti-Defamation League.

“I will never allow any Jew-hater to use me or my research as an instrument for fanning the flames, once again, of the hatred that led to the murder of millions of Jews... I have decided to ask my publisher to stop the book’s distribution, so that I can insert the requisite clarifications as speedily as possible. I am taking these steps in order to prevent the further misuse of my book as anti-Semitic propaganda.”

Tom Gross adds: Newspapers around the world reported leading Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera’s claims that “a Jewish academic has shocked Italy by stating that Jews murdered Christians during the Middle Ages so that their blood could be used in ritualistic ceremonies.” Toaff has been widely criticized by many leading figures, including the former chief rabbi of Rome.

Despite Toaff’s apology, it seems the damage has already been done. For example, the (London) Daily Telegraph reported: “In the book, Prof Toaff describes the mutilation and crucification of a two-year-old boy to recreate Christ’s execution at Pesach, the Jewish Easter. The festival marks the fleeing of the Jews from Egypt and Prof Toaff says Christian blood was used for ‘magic and therapeutic practices.’ In some cases the blood was mixed with dough to make the azzimo, unleavened bread, eaten at Pesach.”

Other historians have dismissed Prof. Toaff’s claims as “complete lies”. One said: “The only blood split in these stories was that of many innocent Jews killed for unjust accusations.”

[Note by Tom Gross]

A “JEWISH ANTI-SEMITE”

The first part of this dispatch is a follow-up to last week’s “Israeli Apartheid week” dispatch. That dispatch was widely quoted around the world, both in newspapers (for example, in this editorial in the Jerusalem Post) and on weblogs (for example, that of Times of London columnist Stephen Pollard and that of Times cultural critic Clive Davis.) I would also like to thank former (London) Daily Telegraph editor, Charles Moore, for his kind reference to this email list and website in this week’s Spectator magazine.

Readers have also pointed out further remarks made by some of the anti-Israeli Israeli academics cited in last week’s dispatch. Yitzhak Laor, the Israeli journalist and poet speaking at “Israeli Apartheid Week,” last year branded the Israeli army “terrorists” in an article for The London Review of Books (another publication edited and published by an anti-Israeli Jew). At the same time Laor referred to Arab terrorists as “partisans”.

Paris-based Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan (also referred to in last week’s dispatch) has lost a court case in France. He had sued leading French intellectual Alain Finkielkraut who accused Sivan of being a “Jewish anti-Semite”. The court dismissed Sivan’s case against Finkielkraut.

“I’M BEING CRUCIFIED!”

Meanwhile, Bar-Ilan University (near Tel Aviv) has issued an official statement distancing itself from its Professor Ariel Toaff’s “research” on blood libels.

While Bar-Ilan University “champions freedom of academic and scientific expression as the basis for its research activity,” it said, we “express our strongest reservations regarding Prof. Toaff’s latest research regarding blood libels against European Jews in the Middle Ages. Bar-Ilan University – its officers and researchers – have condemned, and condemn, any attempt to justify the awful blood libels against Jews.”

“As of yet, there has been no contact with Prof. Toaff, who is traveling abroad. Immediately upon his return to the country in the coming days, Bar-Ilan University President Prof. Moshe Kaveh will summon Prof. Toaff and ask from him explanations regarding his research.”

In a new book published in Italy, Toaff has bizarrely claimed that medieval anti-Semitic blood libels were true. Toaff has been widely criticized by European Jewish leaders, and some have accused Toaff of promoting anti-Semitism. In response, Toaff told Ha’aretz: “I will not give up my devotion to academic freedom even if the world crucifies me.”

A DELUSIONAL AMERICAN RABBI

It is not just academics who have started to express empathy with conspiracy theorists and hatemongerers. Some delusional left-wing rabbis have too. The weekly Forward newspaper reports that Rabbi Michael Lerner, the American activist and editor of Tikkun magazine, has published an essay saying he is open to the possibility that the American government may have been behind the September 11 terrorist attacks.

“I would not be surprised to learn that some branch of our government conspired either actively to promote or passively to allow the attack on 9/11,” Lerner has written in an essay published in the new book, “9/11 and American Empire: Christians, Jews, and Muslims Speak Out.”

“I am agnostic on the question of what happened on 9/11,” the Berkeley, California-based rabbi wrote in his essay for the book, which includes articles by other more openly conspiracy-mongering contributors.

Lerner, the founder of the newly formed Network of Spiritual Progressives, gained national attention in the U.S. in the 1990s after a meeting with then-first lady Hillary Clinton, during which they discussed his ideas about the need for a new “politics of meaning.” Since then, he has emerged as a leader of efforts to reconcile left-wing politics and religious belief, calling for a “Spiritual Covenant” to transform America.

The book in which Lerner’s essay appears is billed as having been “inspired by” David Ray Griffin’s “The New Pearl Harbor,” a seminal text of the so-called “9/11 Truth” movement.

Lerner told the Forward that he has good reason to be suspicious of the government. “I’ve had a lot of personal experience of government lying and doing things that are very destructive and pretending that they weren’t doing it.” Lerner added that he thought the American government may have had some hand in 9/11, not the Israeli one.

STANFORD UNIVERSITY TO SHOW TURKISH BLOOD LIBEL FILM

Stanford University, also in California, is to show the virulently anti-Semitic and anti-American Turkish film, Valley of the Wolves.

Valley of the Wolves, made a year ago, is the most expensive movie ever made in Turkey. In the film, American soldiers in Iraq crash a wedding and pump a little boy full of lead in front of his mother. They kill dozens of innocent people with random machine gun-fire, shoot the groom in the head, and drag those left alive to prison, where a Jewish doctor cuts out their organs, and sells them to rich clients in New York, London and Tel Aviv.

It has been billed at Stanford as “the action movie you were not meant to see” and its showing “a service to the Stanford academic community at large.”

Stanford University students are urged “to see this important film for yourself. Non-stop screen action, intellectual stimulation, and real political controversy in one program! This is an event not to be missed.” For more see here.

* For more information on Valley of the Wolves, see my article “To be or not to be”.

* For more on Stanford University, see the first note in the dispatch David Irving: Auschwitz “was a tourist attraction” (& British Muslims scrap Holocaust Day) (Jan. 31, 2007).

QARADAWI TO ATTEND CONFERENCE AS “NO ISRAELIS WILL BE PRESENT”

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the nearest thing Sunni Islam has to a pope, agreed to participate in the ongoing U.S.-Islamic World Forum currently taking place in Doha on 18-20 February, having first clarified that no Israelis will attend. This forum is a joint project of the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Saban Center at Brookings.

On his website (www.qaradawi.net) Qaradawi announced in Arabic that he would “participate in the America Forum [The U.S.-Islamic World forum], after it was verified that no Israelis will be present.” His announcement can be read here.

It is unclear whether Haim Saban, who funds the Saban Center and is an Israeli, will be attending. The forum aims to explore over three days, ways to improve U.S.-Islamic relations.

The website Qaradawi.net conveys Qaradawi’s Islamic views. The site is one of the most popular Islamic websites on the net. Qaradawi is a preacher best known for his al-Jazeera program “ash-Shariah wal Hayat” (“Shariah and life”) and Islam Online a website he helped found in 1997. His fatwas, or religious edicts on matters personal or political, are widely considered definitive among Sunnis. Among his most infamous fatwas was one encouraging Palestinians to carry out suicide bombings.

Qaradawi spoke yesterday, at the opening of the conference, on “five factors that block America from negotiating with the Muslim world.” According to him they are “injustice, transcendence, ignorance, greed and malignity.”

Haim Saban is a television and media mogul, ranked by Forbes as the 98th richest person in America. Saban and his family were forced to flee Egypt in 1956, he moved to Israel and then the United States. In the U.S. he is best known for his adaptation of the popular Power Rangers TV programme for children. It was noted in a recent dispatch that Saban, who has donated at least $13 million to U.S. politicians, now tops the list of donors to political campaigns in America.

ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTORS ATTEMPT TO BLOCK FLOWERS FOR VALENTINE’S DAY

To coincide with the high-volume sales of Israeli flowers in Britain on Valentine’s Day, three anti-Israel protesters last week chained themselves to a fence outside the distribution site of Carmel-Agrexco in Middlesex, near London. Police arrested them. Some 90 other demonstrators blocked trucks from leaving Carmel-Agrexco’s distribution site. (Most of the trucks actually carried Coral strawberries grown by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.)

The protest was launched by the UK-based Boycott Israeli Goods (BIG) Campaign who waged a five-day campaign against the sale of Israeli flowers.

The campaign was ultimately unsuccessful, the demonstrators did not succeed in causing any disruptions and all consignments reached their destinations safely. The boycott group says they will continue to lobby supermarkets not to sell Israeli flowers.

A new Jewish group has emerged to support BIG. Deborah Fink, a member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JfJfP), has set up Jews for Boycott of Israel Goods (J-BIG). Fink told the Jerusalem Post, “I wanted to do more on the boycott and wanted JfJfP to do it but couldn’t push them into doing it so in the end I started my own group and agreed last month to join up with BIG. I have about 30 signatories, which I know sounds small, but we have only just started.”

Last November, JfJfP disassociated the group from comments Fink made on an anti-Zionist blog in which she said: “Israel does not deserve to be called ‘the Jewish state.’ It should be called ‘the Satanic state.’ I really don’t see the point of doing anything else other than boycott it in every possible way.”

KNESSET EVENT HONORING DRUZE AND CIRCASSIAN COMMUNITIES

Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert attended a special event at the Knesset (Israeli parliament) in honor of Israel’s Druze and Circassian communities. At the event, a special Knesset lobby for the integration of the Druze and Circassian communities into Israeli society was established.

Olmert promised the communities that action would be taken “so that the reality of life for the Druze and Circassian communities reflects their activity and their dedication on behalf of the State of Israel, and so that they will know that they are an inseparable part of us.”

He also congratulated the officers and soldiers of the IDF Druze battalion, which recently received a special Ground Forces Command commendation for their bravery against Hizbullah in south Lebanon last year, and praised the battalion’s “exemplary fighting spirit.”

ISRAELI PROFESSOR REBUKES IRISH SCHOLARS ON ACADEMIC BOYCOTT

Asher Susser, an Israeli professor from Tel Aviv University, has sharply criticized a group of Irish scholars for advocating an academic boycott of Israel.

South African-born Susser, who was on a visit to Ireland said the 61 professors and lecturers who called for a boycott in a letter to the Irish Times unfairly singled out Israel for criticism. “What surprises me is that these academics choose to focus on Israel as the only focus of their criticism of the entire international community,” Susser said.

He added, “I’ve never heard them talking about boycotting Sudan, for example, for committing genocide.” Susser also rejected the charge that Israel is an “apartheid state”, calling comparisons to South Africa “ignorant, propagandistic or both.”

DORON ALMOG’S SON PASSES AWAY

In September 2005, Doron Almog, a retired Israeli soldier, declined to disembark a plane at London’s Heathrow airport after learning a warrant had been issued for his arrest in Britain as a result of his time commanding troops in Gaza. Almog was due to give a fundraising talk in Britain for the Aleh Negev Rehabilitation Village that helps both Israeli Jews and Arabs with severe mental and physical disabilities. (For more, see Islamic militant Hizb ut-Tahrir infiltrates Reuters (& Prince Harry apologizes), Sept. 15, 2005.)

Almog’s own son who was mentally disabled, has now died. Eran Almog, 23, who suffered from sever autism, lost his battle with Castleman’s syndrome, a rare and fatal disease which strikes the lymph nodes. The Almog family was extremely open about their son’s disability, which helped dispel some of the stigmas associated with autism and retardation in Israeli society.

Meanwhile, during her visit to Israel earlier this month, British Foreign Minister Margaret Becket promised Ehud Olmert that British authorities will enact a similar law to the one now in effect in Belgium, so that people who had served in foreign armies couldn’t be targeted for arrest in the UK. The Belgian law transferred the authority to issue arrest warrants to foreign citizens on accusations of war crimes from the courts to the government, after Belgian anti-Israel activists issued warrants for the arrest of then-prime minister Ariel Sharon.

TEL AVIV MARKETS REACH RECORD HIGH

Trading on the Tel Aviv stock exchange ended on a record high last Wednesday. The TA-100 index, which groups the exchange’s top 100 listed companies, peaked at 1,001.68 points, a growth of 8.68 percent so far this year.

SAUDI PRINCE TO BUILD HOTEL IN TEL AVIV

Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is in negotiations to build a hotel on Tel Aviv’s coastline. The planned project is a joint venture with the (Arab-Israeli) Abulafya family, which owns a structure on a plot on Herbert Samuel Street. According to the blueprints submitted to the Tel Aviv Municipality, an eight-story, 150-room hotel is planned for the site.

Bin Talal, the nephew of the late Saudi King Faisal, is believed to be worth $26.4 billion.

Two architects have already started working on the project. One is Bin Talal’s private architect, Basel al-Beiti, who has worked with him on oriental hotels across the world. The other is former Tel Aviv Chief City Engineer, Yisrael Gudovich.

SYRIAN GROUP CLAIMS THEY ARE HOLDING MISSING ISRAELI SOLDIER GUY HEVER

A Syrian group has claimed that they are holding missing Israeli soldier Guy Hever, who disappeared in 1997. The group claims that they “have a Zionist soldier captive.” Israeli officials say they are examining the reports.

A source involved in the Guy Hever affair told the Israeli paper Yediot Ahronot that “The Syrians are known for holding many people in cellars and prisons for no reason, without a trial and with no end in sight. Hundreds of people have spent dozens of years without anyone knowing about them. We are talking about Lebanese, Jordanian, Iraqis and Europeans, as well as Israelis who spend a long time there. The Syrians are failing to provide any information on those being held by them and are not cooperating.”

Hever’s mother said she believed her son had been in Syrian hands for a decade and criticized the Israeli government for seemingly doing nothing about it.

ISRAEL SUCCESSFULLY TEST FIRES ARROW MISSILE

In what is being hailed as an extremely important development for Israel’s defense, the IDF has test fired the anti-ballistic missile Arrow system for the first time during the night. The test was conducted simultaneously in two different fields and was deemed a success. The test took the anti-missile missile to its highest altitude so far, where it intercepted a virtual target. The Arrow is said to be the only defensive missile capable of taking out incoming missiles in the earth’s stratosphere.

The test was considered significant as it was carried out under extreme conditions and showed how the system could hopefully deal with enemy missiles, including those fired from Iran, possibly armed with chemical or nuclear warheads.

The Arrow system has been under development jointly by Israel and the United States for the past 19 years. It is meant to intercept medium and long-range ballistic missiles and is considered the most advanced of its kind in the world. The previous test of the Arrow system was carried out in daylight conditions in Israel in December 2005 and was also successful.

SUSPECT NAMED IN ELIE WIESEL ATTACK

The following note is an update to the dispatch Ilan Halimi brought to rest in Jerusalem (& Elie Wiesel assaulted in a San Francisco hotel) (Feb. 11, 2007).

Police have identified the man they believe attacked Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel at a San Francisco hotel earlier this month and issued an arrest warrant for him. He has been named as Eric Hunt, 22. San Francisco police say that they intend to charge Hunt with “kidnapping, false imprisonment, elder abuse, stalking, battery and committing a hate crime.”

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Wiesel, 78, said the incident made him fear for his life and left him shaken. It is essential to find who the perpetrator was and whether he acted alone or as part of a group, Wiesel said. Wiesel is a survivor of the Auschwitz and Buchenwald Nazi death camps. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.

ZUNDEL GETS MAXIMUM TERM FOR HOLOCAUST DENIAL; PAPON DIES

Separately, in Germany on Thursday, the Mannheim state court convicted far-right activist Ernst Zundel of incitement for denying the Holocaust, and sentenced him to the maximum five years in prison.

The 67-year-old, who was deported from Canada in 2005, was convicted on 14 counts of incitement for years of anti-Semitic activities, including denying the Holocaust (a crime in Germany), in documents and on the Internet.

Zundel showed no emotion when the verdict was read. His lawyer quoted from “Mein Kampf” and from Nazi race laws in his closing statements in order to somehow persuade the court that Zundel should be acquitted.

Another of Zundel’s five attorneys, Herbert Schaller, accused the court of not wanting to face a “scientific analysis” of the Holocaust, which he said could not be proven to have occurred.

Unpersuaded, the court then handed down Zundel the maximum sentence.

The French wartime Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in deporting Jews to Nazi death camps, died on Saturday, aged 96. In spite of Papon’s role in carrying out the Holocaust, he was appointed budget minister in the French government after the war. His lawyer said he “died peacefully in his sleep.”

“THE ARABS KNOW THE TRUTH, BUT THIS DOESN’T CHANGE A THING”

The first article attached below concerns the recent excavations which have taken place at the Mugrabi Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Whilst the affair has caused outrage in the Muslim world, many in Israel, including Elyakim Haetzni, writing below, argue that it proves “the futility of the dream of reconciliation with the Arabs. After all, it is clear to all, even to Leftist Jews, that the Arabs know the truth, but this doesn’t change a thing.”

Whilst many Imams have claimed Israel is “destroying part of the al-Aqsa Mosque,” the Israeli Aniquities Authority is merely replacing an access ramp that collapsed three years ago, for the benefit and safety of all visitors.

It should be noted that this ramp is being built for the safety of visitors, 97 percent of whom are non-Jewish, and that Israel has a second-to-none record of preserving and protecting the holy sites of all three major religions in Jerusalem.

A short video explaining the Israeli construction can be seen here.

***

In the second article attached below, Gwynne Dyer, a London-based independent journalist, argues that “walls are going up all over the world, and most of them will not come down for a long time, if ever.”

Whilst Israel’s (successful) security fence received widespread media attention, the latest country to build itself a fence, Thailand (to stop terrorists from crossing into Thailand’s restive Muslim-majority southern provinces from northern Malaysia), has received virtually no criticism. Surprisingly, this article was run on the website of an Arab paper (Arab News), albeit an English-language Arab newspaper.

This list/website has previously discussed the fence Saudi Arabia is building along the full length of its porous border with Yemen (at a cost of $8.5 billion). The Saudis are also now building a high-tech barrier along its 900-km (550-mile) border with Iraq, but no one is boycotting Saudi flowers as a result.

-- Tom Gross

[Note by Tom Gross]

“ISRAELI APARTHEID WEEK” KICKS OFF

Following on from the success of Jimmy Carter’s recent book which defames the state of Israel with various untruths, an international “Israeli Apartheid Week” began yesterday. It will last until Sunday, and be held jointly in New York, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, London, and at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

“Israel Apartheid Week” is comprised of several events featuring professors, students and economists. These include lectures, information booths, cultural events, film screenings and demonstrations.

On the official website (www.endisraeliapartheid.net), organizers claim “The past few years have seen an explosion of literature and analysis that has placed Israel alongside other settler-colonial states like South Africa, arguing that Israel is in fact an apartheid state, not just a belligerent occupying power.”

They say that the aim of the week is to “push forward the analysis of Israel as an apartheid state and to bolster support for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign.”

AN INSULT TO BLACK SOUTH AFRICANS

Israel is, of course, not an apartheid state. Indeed it is the opposite. It is by far the most egalitarian state in the Middle East. Arab Israelis enjoy social and political freedoms and benefits only dreamed of by minority groups in most other countries in the world.

Israel grants full freedom of speech to its Arab parliamentarians, even when they call for Israel to be dismantled and for Hizbullah to bomb Israeli Jews. There is almost no another country in the world which permits such a degree of freedom to its internal opposition groups.

By saying that Israeli Arabs and Palestinians are being subjected to apartheid, Carter and others not only insult Israeli Jews, but also grossly malign black South Africans. Nelson Mandela and other black South Africans have been an inspiration to the world in the way they have demonstrated peaceful coexistence with the white population, whereas both the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas leadership and their supporters have repeatedly called for the mass murder of Jews, and taught kindergarten children that blowing up buses full of Israeli children is a glorious objective.

TORONTO UNIVERSITY OFFICIALLY HOSTS WEB PAGE ADVERTISING “ISRAEL APARTHEID WEEK”

The official University of Toronto web site includes a web page advertising the upcoming events. It can be seen here.

This page labels the entire current state of Israel as “Palestine” and places it next to a map of South Africa.

In response, the University of Toronto issued an official statement, “Concerns have been raised by some members of the community about an upcoming series of events to be held on campus by the Arab Students’ Collective under the title Israeli Apartheid Week... all University activity is subject to the laws of Canada, and behaviour or speech that constitutes hatred or incitement to hatred against any group will be dealt with quickly and appropriately.”

Presumably, advocating the destruction of a whole nation does not fall under the term “hate speech”.

The itinerary for the planned events at Toronto can be seen here.

Amongst the organizers of the events in England at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) are Israeli Arab students who have their education subsidized by the government of Israel, and whose air fares to London for “Apartheid week” are being partly funded by the British Embassy in Tel Aviv.

WHEN IS “SAUDI APARTHEID WEEK”?

Only last month, Israel appointed Ghaleb Majadleh, a Muslim Arab, to the cabinet. For more, see the dispatch Israel appoints its first Arab cabinet minister (& Mossad-KGB double agent dies) (Jan. 11, 2007).

There are Arabs represented in many different political parties of both right and left in the Israeli Knesset and local councils. In fact, Arabs in Israel have the opportunity to progress in virtually every sector of society, from economics to politics to culture to sport. The Israeli soccer team, for example, has for many years included Israeli-Arab players. For more, see the dispatch Scoring goals against the “Israeli apartheid” myth (March 31, 2005). One of the players mentioned in this dispatch, Walid Badir, only last week scored for Israel in its game against Ukraine.

Similar to most other Arab Muslim countries, Saudi Arabia does not afford equal (or virtually any) rights to women, Christians, Jews, Hindus and others. To see Saudi apartheid in action please look at the first picture on this page, depicting a road for “Muslims only”.

AVI SHLAIM AND NORMAN FINKELSTEIN

A host of Jewish left-wing extremists will be participating in the “Israeli Apartheid Week” events. For example, at Oxford University, speakers include Israeli-born academic Avi Shlaim, who has based virtually his whole career on slandering Israel.

At Hamilton University in Ontario Canada, Professor Norman Finkelstein will be speaking on “Palestine & Israel: Roots of Conflict, Prospects for Peace.”

For Finkelstein’s views on the Holocaust, see the first note in the dispatch David Irving: Auschwitz “was a tourist attraction” (& British Muslims scrap Holocaust Day) (Jan. 31, 2007).

Also speaking in Montreal is Israeli-Arab Member of the Knesset (Israeli parliament) Jamal Zahalka. He told Yediot Ahronot (article attached below) that “Calling the occupation apartheid isn’t an overstatement, it’s an understatement... The Israeli occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are worse than apartheid.”

Zahalka apparently doesn’t see the irony that he is a freely elected member of the Israeli Knesset yet claims Israel is like apartheid in South Africa. Apparently he is unaware of what apartheid actually was.

He also seems to have “forgotten” that Israel withdrew entirely from Gaza in 2005, and that Gaza, for only the second time in two millennia has now been ethnically cleansed of any Jewish presence (other than a young Israeli, Gilad Shalit, kidnapped by the Hamas-led Palestinian government he apparently so admires). For more, see: Exodus from Gaza.

SOME MIGHT CALL THEM SELF-LOATHING

Among Israeli left-wing agitators taking part in the “Israeli Apartheid Week” events are the writer Yitzhak Laor (a poet, playwright and journalist for Ha’aretz), the filmmaker Eyal Sivan (who also teaches in the cinema department of Israel’s Sapir college in the Negev in southern Israel), the historian Dr Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin (from Ben Gurion University also of the Negev), who will speak at SOAS on “De-Arabization of Jews” (whatever that is), and Ryvka Bar Zohar, who is helping to organize the New York part of Israeli Apartheid Week.

Ilan Pappe from Haifa University, an advocate of ending the state of Israel and before that of boycotting Israeli institutions (including his own), will speak at Oxford University on “Resisting Apartheid: Divestment and Solidarity” on Friday. Chairing the meeting is Prof. Steven Rose, a British Jew who has led calls for a worldwide boycott of the Jewish state.

Other possible speakers mentioned include Prof. Gabi Piterberg, an Israeli from the University of California at Los Angeles, who has previously spoken on “Zionism and Apartheid.”

The participation of these Jewish academics has been warmly welcomed by many non-Jewish haters of Israel.

ILAN PAPPE: IRAN SHOULD GET THE BOMB

Last Sunday, at the American Colony Hotel in east Jerusalem, the unofficial base for the PLO in Jerusalem, Ilan Pappe received several standing ovations as he addressed a packed crowd to launch his new book, “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”.

According to my sources present, the audience included many western journalists, European diplomats, publicly-funded local UN staff, and anti-Israeli Jews including Mordechai Vanunu.

In his talk, Pappe, made an attack on Israeli Jewish politicians of left and right, and said it was “horrible” that Shimon Peres had received a Nobel peace prize. (He did not criticize Yasser Arafat for getting one.)

According to my sources present, Pappe said he was sympathetic to the idea of Iran getting a nuclear weapon, and “Arab states should have one too.”

He received rousing lengthy applause and many standing ovations.

“ONE OF THE MOST PROGRESSIVE STATES IN THE WORLD”

Partly in response to Jimmy Carter’s recent critique of Israel as an apartheid state, Irshad Manji, a brave Muslim woman who has dared to speak out against Muslim extremists and their fellow travelers, has in a new article labeled Israel “one of the most progressive states in the world.”

In her article (attached below), Manji (who is a long time subscriber to this email list) asks a number of important questions such as “Would an apartheid state award its top literary prize to an Arab? Israel honoured Emile Habibi in 1986, before the intifada might have made such a choice politically shrewd. Would an apartheid state encourage Hebrew-speaking schoolchildren to learn Arabic? Would road signs throughout the land appear in both languages? Even my country, the proudly bilingual Canada, doesn’t meet that standard.”

She continues: “Would a Hebrew newspaper in an apartheid state run an article by an Arab Israeli about why the Zionist adventure has been a total failure? Would it run that article on Israel’s independence day? Would an apartheid state ensure conditions for the freest Arabic press in the Middle East, a press so free that it can demonstrably abuse its liberties and keep on rolling? To this day, the East Jerusalem daily Al-Quds hasn’t retracted an anti-Israel letter supposedly penned by Nelson Mandela but proven to have been written by an Arab living in The Netherlands.”

Her article, from The Australian, should be read in full if you have time.

For more on Manji, who is author of “The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim’s Call for Reform in Her Faith,” see the dispatch “How I learned to love the wall” & more on Wafa Sultan, other Muslim “dissidents” (March 21, 2006).

-- Tom Gross