"Right" Is Not Only Right But Correct

Found here:-

Dershowitz also had a heated encounter with another [CAMERA] conference presenter, Melanie Phillips, later in the day.

The fierce critic of radical Islam and author of Londonistan outlined what she termed “a mass derangement, a complete departure from reason altogether over the issue of Israel.”

She said the trend goes beyond “conventional” explanations like anti-Semitism to being part of “a much wider repudiation of reason, particularly among people on the Left who consider themselves to be progressive,” including on issues such as global warming and the war in Iraq.

Dershowitz objected to her tying the issue of Israel to a set of stances associated with one part of the ideological spectrum, which he contended would alienate the very college students he and others hoped to reach.

“Don’t you think that the worst way to try to get young people to support Israel is to give them a litmus test on global warming?” he asked to applause. “You’re turning Israel into an extreme, rightwing-driven agenda issue, and that’s not Israel.”

Phillips countered, also to applause, that Dershowitz was in essence saying that “right-wing is a synonym for ‘don’t listen to her, don’t go there, she shouldn’t even be on the platform.’ I don’t think that’s an enlightened way to behave. I don’t think it’s helpful.”

She continued, “The suggestion that I can’t possibly influence young Jewish people to have a more sympathetic, helpful attitude towards Israel because they will be so upset by all these terrible right-wing things that I’m saying presupposes that no young person could possibly agree with me. I have to tell Professor Dershowitz, I’m sure he’ll be horrified to learn this, that a very large number of people do.”

And look who is upset about lies - the lying head of J Street:

Dershowitz enumerated several “lies” that he said campus detractors frequently used against Israel, including that it doesn’t want peace, that it is risking US soldiers’ lives in the Middle East and that it has one of the worst human rights records in the world.

“One of the lies that facilitates these lies on college campuses is that J Street is a pro-Israel organization,” he charged. “That has become a tragic, tragic lie on American campuses.”

He seized on the recent revelations that billionaire financier George Soros – whom Dershowitz described as unwilling to support pro-Israel organizations – as shedding doubt on the credibility of the organization’s claim to support Israel.

In response, J Street executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami said that he was “gravely disappointed” with Dershowitz’s “spiral of halftruths and outright lies.”

“These ad hominem attacks hardly befit a professor at Harvard Law School, but the real tragedy here is that his nonsense distracts attention from the dire choices Israel now faces and turns off a whole new generation to pro- Israel activism.”

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Goldstone Goes "Out-Camera"; Goldstones Criticism

Camera challenged Goldstone to specifically respond to selected specific questions but he refused:

UPDATE: Justice Goldstone "Answers" CAMERA's Letter

Dec. 7, 2009 — Justice Goldstone has consistently tried to defend his eponymous report from criticism by claiming that "no one has been able to show any error of substance in the report nor any of its findings" (see, for example, South Africa's Sunday Times, Nov. 15), but when faced directly with the above questions, how did he respond?

In answer to a follow-up call by CAMERA on Dec. 7th about whether he had received our letter, Justice Goldstone responded:

Dear Ms. Hollander,

I confirm receipt of your letter. I have no intention of responding to your open letter.

Sincerely,
Richard Goldstone

In the same type of double standard that typifies the report, Justice Goldstone refuses himself to answer questions or provide clarification about the substance of his mission's findings, yet slams Israel for having refused to cooperate with or answer the questions of his investigating team.

The real question now is how long can Justice Goldstone continue to hide behind the deceptive argument that no one has addressed the substance or findings of the report?

CAMERA Combats WashPost Anti-settlement Story

Washington Post on Settlements: Obsessive Compulsive Coverage

In "Mutual Dismay Over Jewish Settlements; Israeli Premier Seeks To Balance Growth" (May 20), The Washington Post leads its World news section with a long article, accompanied by a large chart and larger, top-of-the-page color photograph, on Israel's continued construction of new Jewish neighborhoods and communities in the disputed West Bank (Judea and Samaria). Errors of commission, omission and editorial judgment render Jerusalem Bureau Chief Griff Witte's dispatch more promotional writing than reporting.

Major flaws

1. The Post quotes "Hagit Ofran, settlement expert for the Israeli advocacy group Peace Now," that "the [Ma'ale Adumim expansion] development would 'isolate East Jerusalem and cut the northern West Bank from the southern West Bank.'"

In this context, Peace Now is not an "advocacy group" but an anti-settlement organization. Peace Now once made international headlines with a report charging that 86.4 percent of Ma'ale Adumim was built on private Arab land; the correct figure was less than 1 percent (0.54 percent). Quoting the group without opposing, informed sources is misleading.

The allegation that Ma'ale Adumim expansion would isolate eastern Jerusalem and cut the West Bank in half, a staple of Palestinian Arab propaganda -- and Post coverage -- was exposed long before "Mutual Dismay Over Jewish Settlements." CAMERA rebutted these claims when reported, for example, by former Post Jerusalem Bureau Chief John Ward Anderson in "Israel Hems In a Sacred City; Encircling of Jerusalem" (Feb. 12, 2004) and a repetitious sequel "Israelis Act to Encircle East Jerusalem," (Feb. 7, 2005). West Bank Arabs can reach eastern Jerusalem through Arab neighborhoods including Abu Dis, Ezariya, Hizma and Anata; gates permit legitimate passage where the security barrier separates the city from the territories.

As for north-south West Bank "contiguity," an unbroken area 15 to 21 kilometers (9 to 12 miles) wide remains east of Ma'ale Adumim, with three routes open to Palestinian travelers and a fourth possible. This is the same "contiguity" as pre-1967 Israel just north of Tel Aviv.

2. The Post's description of Ma'ale Adumim as "a settlement due east of Jerusalem" is misleading. Ma'ale Adumim is four miles from downtown Jerusalem, closer to the Knesset than suburban Bethesda, Md. is to the U.S. Capitol.

3. The Post declares, without attribution, that "the Palestinian nation, when and if it is created, will include the West Bank and Gaza, with Palestinians hoping to secure East Jerusalem as their capital."

The West Bank and Gaza Strip remain disputed territories, the unallocated five percent (Jordan comprising 77.5 percent, pre-’67 Israel 17.5 percent) of the original British Mandate for Palestine. According to U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the 1993 Oslo accords and related agreements, and the 2003 international "road map," their final status will be determined in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Some of this territory -- see President George W. Bush's 2004 letter to then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- may well be retained by Israel. The Post pre-judges the outcome of future events. Recall also that the Palestinian leadership rejected similar proposals at the 2000 Camp David and 2001 Taba talks.

4. The Post writes that "to the Palestinians, the expansion of settlements represents proof that Israel is not serious about wanting a deal."

There's no mention at all about Palestinian behavior - including the thousands of rockets and scores of other terrorist attacks launched from the Gaza Strip (after Israel razed two dozen settlements and evacuated nearly 9,000 settlers in 2005) that prove to Israelis that the Palestinian Arabs "are not serious about wanting a deal.”

Reinforcing this one-sided coverage, the accompanying chart notes, among other things, that in 2007 "the Quartet called on both parties to make progress on their Phase One Raodmap obligations, including an Israeli freeze on settlements." Glaringly omitted is the Palestinians' phase one "road map" obligation to eliminate terrorist attacks on Israel and the terrorist organizations (one of which, Hamas, controls the Gaza Strip).

5. The Post alleges that "at stake is the future of land that has been in dispute since 1967, when Israeli forces conquered Arab territory - and soon thereafter began to settle it."

The territory is not Arab, though approximately two million Palestinian Arabs live in the West Bank. It's legal status and sovereignty over it has been in dispute since the British Mandate ended in 1948. Jordan then illegally occupied it, though Jewish rights to "close settlement on the land," recognized by the original League of Nations' mandate to Britain and later adopted by the United Nations, have never lapsed. Here The Post again commits Middle East revisionism.

Minor positives

Witte cites relevant Israeli government and settler sources. An instance of accurate language - acknowledging that the "land has been in dispute" - is an important exception to The Post's over-riding bias. The settlers are not dehumanized, though the undefined label "ultra-Orthodox" appears four times. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's political balancing act is noted.

But none of this offsets the article's major flaws.

They Couldn't Ask My Opinion?

CAMERA reports:-

Day Four, Thurs June 7, 2007 "Land Ownership Disputes Arise"

This NPR segment supposedly focused on the Six-Day War is actually just another NPR critique of settlements, advancing uncritically the positions of Peace Now that Jewish settlements are built in substantial amount on private Palestinian land. NPR's Linda Gradstein interviews an Arab who claims his land was taken to build Shiloh. Once more, the segment relies on the anecdotal charges of an individual which are unanswered.

But is this fully correct?

Here's a transcript extract:-

In the West Bank, Israel confiscated large chunks of agricultural land where settlements were eventually built. For some Israelis, the occupation meant a chance to return to the homeland of their ancestors.

The Palestinian village of Turmus Aya and the neighboring Jewish settlement of Shilo were among those areas affected. As in other areas, land ownership disputes are many.

"My land is where the pine trees are that you can see right here," says Mahmoud Hazameh, 68. "These pine trees I planted myself. There's also another piece of land on the other side of the mountain, which has been taken also from me."

Hazameh said he grew grapes, chickpeas and wheat on that land, before the 1967 war – and continued to farm it after. He takes out yellowing documents dating back to the Ottoman Empire that he claims prove his ownership.

But in the mid-1970s, Israel confiscated most of his land, he said. Hazameh hired a lawyer and tried to get it back. Even after he lost in court, he still tried to farm the land that was no longer his, he said.

"I didn't stop," Hazameh says. "I started taking six and seven tractors with a lot of workers and I started marching towards my land — the land that had fed my whole community and my ancestors."

But the settlers uprooted his crops and the police refused to help him, he said. Eventually, he gave up.

Even today, 40 years after the 1967 war, the question of land ownership in the West Bank is one of the most highly charged and complex issues.

An Israeli government spokesman says the land of Shilo was built exclusively on what is known as "state land." That means it either belonged to the Jordanian government before 1967 or to Palestinians who fled the West Bank during or after the war.

But there is a response from Shiloh:-

Shilo has grown to 250 families, and the settlement now has its own yeshiva, or rabbinical training institute. One of Shilo's founders, Shevach Stern, said the settlers always hoped to have good relations with their Arab neighbors. At the beginning, the villagers of Turmus Aya welcomed them, he says.

"They liked the idea that we were here," Stern says. "Because they knew, from other places, that wherever the Israel comes, progress comes. They knew that the village would get electricity and water – they would get work here and that's how it was for quite a few years."

Settlers say that all changed with the first intifada. Since then, eight settlers from Shilo and five Palestinians from Turmus Aya have been killed. Dozens have been wounded, among them David Rubin. Five years ago, he was on his way home from Jerusalem when his car came under a hail of bullets. Both he and his then 3-year-old son were gravely wounded.

Today, Rubin spends his days teaching Christian groups about the Biblical importance of Shilo. Living in the settlement means a daily connection to Jewish history, he says.

"When my children walk down to school every day, they go down the hill and every day I think, 'Wow. This is amazing. My children are walking down the same rocks that Samuel the prophet walked on when he grew up in Shilo,'" Rubin says.

Rubin, and many other settlers, say the entire West Bank should be placed under permanent Israeli sovereignty. But their Palestinian neighbors in TurMus Aya say there can be no peace unless all of the Jewish settlers leave.

Jamil Hammad

Jammil Hammad visited us at Shiloh when we were newcomers. I'll never forget is funny, high-pitched laugh. He came with Ricki Rosen, the photographer, and a TIME magazine editor. My wife always tells the story of how they tried to take a picture of her holding my rifle and she steadfatstly refused saying she never holds a rifle and therefore, such a picture would be staged and unethical.

Anyway, Jamil is in hot water with CAMERA which informs us that on March 5th, Time Magazine published "No Room for Civility at the Checkpoint," by Jamil Hamad. Hamad writes that checkpoints are "humiliating," "collective punishment," that they encourage Palestinians to vote for terrorist groups, that they are " 'an invitation for the terrorists to try another way' ", and finally, that they are useless since he personally has never seen a bomber caught at the checkpoint he often goes through.

But what really caught my eye was this, which I confess, I never knew:-

Hamad confessed to hiring kidnapper of his boss. Victim never found.

This isn't the first time that Hamad has made himself the subject of news stories. In 1975, Hamad confessed to hiring Yasser Karaki to kidnap Hamad's boss, Yusef Nasr, editor of the Al Fajr newspaper. (Jerusalem Post, April 28, 1975) Nasr reportedly had been about to fire Hamad from his deputy editor position. (Jerusalem Post, March 14). Nasr has never been heard from again and his body has never been found. The Post confirmed that Hamad had testified in court as a state witness and hence was not charged. (Jerusalem Post, June 13, 1975)

It's odd that Time magazine would employ someone who confessed to arranging and paying for the kidnapping of his own boss (presumed also to be a murder victim).

Is Hamad's boss perhaps afraid to challenge him, afraid to say no to outrageously biased reporting, lest he too suddenly disappear?