Most skewed and biased coverage of the Mideast conflict this year

Dishonest Reporter Award 2009

Our annual recognition of the most skewed and biased coverage of the Mideast conflict.

This year, a four-letter word dominated coverage of Israel on a near-daily basis.

Gaza.

The war — which began at the end of December in response to increased Palestinian rocket fire — ended on the 20th day of the year.

The media war was dizzying. A prominent Greek weekly called Jews “Christ killers.” Hamas terror leaders got soapboxes in prominent US and British papers. BBC Arabic hosted a wonk who justified the death of Israeli kids. Canadian and Aussie reporters had close calls with Qassams; Israel restricted media access to Gaza in large part because of the Hamas “CNN strategy.” Al-Aqsa TV writers killed off Assud the Rabbit. And when Hamas fired a rocket from a foreign press building, an Al-Arabiya journalist’s delighted reaction was caught on camera for YouTube posterity.

Perhaps the most definitive example of the spin games Israel confronted in the mainstream media was from South African editor Mondli Makhanya and his pernicious portrayal of Israel:

More at Honest Reporting.

STATE OF THE EPICENTER – Joel Rosenberg

STATE OF THE EPICENTER: Where does the Israel-Iran conflict stand at the end of 2009?

Yesterday, I met with another evangelical leader to discuss how we could work together to mobilize more Christian support for the Jewish State. He asked me what I thought would happen next between Israel and Iran. I began my answer by conceding, “I don’t know. As I keep saying, I’m praying for peace, but preparing for war.”

That said, here’s where I think we are at the moment:

More at Joel Rosenberg’s blog here.

CANADIAN BOYCOTT OF ISRAELI PRODUCTS FAILS!

CANADIAN BOYCOTT OF ISRAELI PRODUCTS FAILS!

ISRAELI PRODUCTS SELL LIKE HOT CAKES, AS CANADIAN BOYCOTT FAILS!
(Israel Today News)

Anti-Israel groups in Canada tried to organize a major national boycott against a leading hiking and sporting goods store chain because it sells Israeli-made products. The effort failed miserably, and in fact had the opposite of the desired effect, reports Israel National News.

The groups had hoped to have thousands show up to two boycott demonstrations in Toronto and Vancouver, but in the end only a handful of people showed up. And they were dwarfed by the hundreds and even thousands of pro-Israel Canadians alerted by Bnai Brith and the Canada-Israel Committee.

The pro-Israel counter-demonstrators went on to purchase just about every Israeli product carried by the numerous stores in the nationwide Mountain Equipment Co-op chain, resulting in much higher than normal sales for the company.

Source:

http://hftm.org/blog/?p=876

Obama administration ‘assures Jewish evacuation

Obama administration ‘assures Jewish evacuation’
PA official says U.S. won’t counter proposal giving Temple Mount to Palestinians
By Aaron Klein

JERUSALEM – Members of the Obama administration recently assured the Palestinian Authority that most Jewish communities in the strategic West Bank will be evacuated, a top PA official told WND yesterday.

The official also said Obama will soon offer the Palestinians a public pledge that a Palestinian state will encompass most of the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem with the exception of what is known as the three main settlement blocs – Ariel, Gush Etzion and Maale Adumim. The pledge will likely be oral and not in the form of a letter, said the PA official.

More here:

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=118495

Shock, outrage at Auschwitz sign theft

Shock, outrage at Auschwitz sign theft
Dec. 18, 2009
THE JERUSALEM POST

Lawmakers, officials and Holocaust survivors expressed their profound shock and outrage on Friday after the infamous iron sign over the gate to the Auschwitz memorial site with the cynical phrase “Arbeit Macht Frei” – German for “Work Sets You Free” – was stolen.

Police spokeswoman Katarzyna Padlo said police believe it was stolen between 3:30 a.m. and 5 a.m. Friday morning, when museum guards noticed that it was missing and alerted police.

More here:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1260930896719&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter

Modern anti-Semitism denies Israel’s existence

Lieberman: Modern anti-Semitism denies Israel’s existence

Speaking at Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem, foreign minister says phenomenon supported by Iranian funding and radical Islamic elements in order to inflame hatred against Jews and delegitimize State. Goldstone Report encouraged protest, he adds…

More here:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3820836,00.html

Related:

Anti-Semitism The Pipeline of Hatred
-slideshow

Activists planning Temple Mount ascent

Activists planning Temple Mount ascent

A group of activists dedicated to bringing Jews to the Temple Mount told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that they were hoping to see hundreds of participants take part in a planned “mass pilgrimage” to the site scheduled for Thursday morning in honor of Hannuka, which celebrates the rededication of the SecondTemple after it was recovered from Hellenist Greeks more than 2,000 years ago.

More here:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1260930874302&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Guardian Ed Publishes Ridiculous Untruths about Israel

Guardian Ed: “In Israel They Murder Each Other a Great Deal”
15 December 2009

“The Israeli Defense Forces murder people because they don’t like their political style…”

What does the IDF have to do with the recent assault on Italian PM Sylvio Berlusconi? Absolutely nothing. But that didn’t stop The Guardian’s Associate Editor Michael White from making the following comment during a discussion on BBC Radio London’s Breakfast Show concerning the physical vulnerability of political leaders:

In Israel they murder each other a great deal. The Israeli Defense Forces murder people because they don’t like their political style and what they’ve got to say and it only means that people more extreme come in and take their place.

More here:

http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/new/Guardian_Ed_In_Israel_They_Murder_Each_Other_a_Great_Deal.asp

The Arab-Israeli conflict is a family dispute

“Arab identity is not determined by religion. Most Arabs are Muslims, but not all; and all Muslims are certainly not Arabs.

Arab identity is determined by ethnic heritage. And the amazing thing is that all Arabs — like all Jews — are descended from the family of Abraham! That means the Arab-Israeli conflict is a family dispute — the longest running and most intense family squabble in history.”

-Dr. David R. Reagan
The Arabs in Prophecy
Fated for hope or despair?
http://www.lamblion.com/articles/articles_issues2.php

White House Hanukkah Party Spawns Anger

White House Hanukkah Party Spawns Anger

At the White House, as the Obama administration is learning all too well, a party is never a simple affair. (Just ask the Salahi-stricken Secret Service.)

The latest kerfuffle, the New York Times reports, involves the Obama administration’s first Hanukkah party.

One bone of contention has been the guest list: Administration officials say they are inviting 550 people, just 50 less than President Bush invited to his White House Hanukkah parties. But reports in the Israeli press spawned fast-spreading rumors that the Obama White House was only inviting 400 – and that the Bush White House had actually invited twice that number.

It was, some suggested, a snub – and one that critics said should not come as a surprise.

More here:

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/12/11/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5967024.shtml

Hanukkah candles reminder to hostile world that we’re not going anywhere

Jews are here to stay

Hanukkah candles reminder to hostile world that we’re not going anywhere

Naomi Ragen
Published: 12.11.09, 14:10 / Israel Opinion

Every single Jew living in the land of Israel is a modern day Macabee. Every Jew who has dared to wrench this re-born homeland from a callous world that would deny us Jews our birthright, while championing the birthrights of every other native people in the world – Tibetans, and Palestinians, and South African Blacks– is a Macabee.

Every Jew sitting in Israel, surrounded by the overwhelming power and numbers and evil designs of the hostile Moslem world, is a Macabee. With every candle we light – whether we are religious or secular – we celebrate those things that hold us together as a nation: our history and our culture and our faith.

We celebrate that these things have not been erased from the world, and are not now relics behind the glass cases of museum exhibits like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, and Samarians. With every light in our window shining out against the dark night we proclaim: We are still here and our very existence is a stunning victory of the weak against the strong, the many against the few, the just, who love and protect life, against the lawless, who have no respect for life.

With every candle we light, we reaffirm all those things that hold us together as a nation and a people:

More here:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3818432,00.html

Obama greets world’s Jews for Chanukah

Obama greets world’s Jews for Hanukka
Dec. 11, 2009
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST

“Michelle and I send our warmest wishes to all who are celebrating Hanukka around the world,” US President Barack Obama said in a holiday greeting issued Friday, addressed to worldwide Jewry.

“The Hanukkah story of the Maccabees and the miracles they witnessed reminds us that faith and perseverance are powerful forces that can sustain us in difficult times and help us overcome even the greatest odds,” he said, seeking to remind Jews that even thousands of years later there was strength to be drawn from their religious texts.

“Hanukkah is not only a time to celebrate the faith and customs of the Jewish people, but for people of all faiths to celebrate the common aspirations we share,” he said.

More here:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1260447417721&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter

“CHRISTIANS” OF THE HOLY LAND DENOUNCE ISRAEL!

“CHRISTIANS” OF THE HOLY LAND DENOUNCE ISRAEL!

In a lengthy declaration labeled as a message of “faith, hope and love,” dozens of Arab Christian leaders from various churches represented in the region denounced Israel as the main obstacle to peace and rejected the validity of the biblical link between the Jews and the land.

Published on by regional leaders of the Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican and Baptist churches, the document, titled “A Moment of Truth,” lamented that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process had reached an impasse, and that there was now little hope of reversing “Palestinian suffering.”

“We, a group of Christian Palestinians, after prayer, reflection and an exchange of opinion, cry out from within the suffering in our country, under the Israeli occupation, with a cry of hope in the absence of all hope, a cry full of prayer and faith in a God ever vigilant, in God’s divine providence for all the inhabitants of this land,” read the statement. “Today we have reached a dead end in the tragedy of the Palestinian people.”

More here:

http://hftm.org/blog/?p=868

Israel won’t surrender Christian sites to Vatican

Israel won’t surrender Christian sites to Vatican

A delegation headed by Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon departed for the Vatican on Wednesday to let the Catholic Church know it will not receive ownership of dozens of Christian holy sites throughout Israel and the Palestinian-ruled territories.

The Vatican has been demanding for decades that Israel surrender ownership of the holy sites, exempt the church of taxes on those properties, and waive its right to ever expropriate the land on which they sit. During that time, the Vatican has refused to pay taxes on the properties it does own in Israel.

One of the main sites being demanded by the Vatican is the traditional location of Jesus’ Last Supper on Mount Zion just outside the present-day walls of the Old City.

Ayalon told reporters that Israel will not relinquish ownership of the room of the Last Supper or any of the other 28 holy sites under its direct sovereignty, but is willing to make some concessions on taxes and to waive its right to nationalize church property.

SOURCE:

http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=20137

Ancient Hall Opened in Jerusalem

Ancient Hall Opened in Jerusalem
December 5, 2009 – 11:24 AM | by: Michael Tobin

The fact that there is a hall of ages within the haphazard maze of tunnels and aqueducts beneath Jerusalem’s old city is not a great discovery. Archeologists knew this hall existed for more than 30 years. They Just could not enter the hall because ancient building techniques and materials left the place unstable. The walls were buckling in and part of the ceiling had collapsed. Since thousands of years with no particular strategy in city planning left rooms, hallways and chambers stacked on each other, a collapse of this room could have meant a substantial cave in.

More @ Fox News HERE.

OBAMA DELAYS MOVING US EMBASSY TO JERUSALEM!

OBAMA DELAYS MOVING US EMBASSY TO JERUSALEM!

OBAMA AGAIN DELAYS US EMBASSY MOVE TO JERUSALEM!

US President Barack Obama on Thursday again invoked a six-month delay on the move of the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. The US Congress in 1995 passed a law recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and demanding that the embassy, which is currently in Tel Aviv, be relocated there. But the law also allowed the president the ability to delay the move for a period of six months if national security concerns warranted.

Former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both renewed the delay every six months for the duration of their presidencies. Obama first ordered the delay in June.

The White House has failed to approve the move out of fears that it would upset the Palestinians and the Arab world, which claim the eastern side of Jerusalem for themselves, and reject the legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty there.

SOURCE:

http://hftm.org/blog/?p=860

What is Replacement Theology?

What is Replacement Theology?
Dr. Thomas Ice

Replacementtheology “is the view that the church is the new or true Israel that haspermanently replaced or superseded Israel as the people of God.”[1] Another term, often found in academic circles,for replacement theology is supersessionism. Replacement theology has been the fuel that has energized Medieval anti-Semitism, Eastern European pogroms, the Holocaust and contemporary disdain for the modern state of Israel. Mike Vlach notes: “The acceptance or rejection ofsupersessionism may also influence how one views the modern state of Israel and events in the Middle East.”[2] Wherever replacement theology has flourished, the Jews have had to run for cover.

More @ SOURCE:
http://www.pre-trib.org/article-view.php?id=249

Answering Those Who Oppose Israel

Answering Those Who Oppose Israel

“Then I willlet you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers foreverand ever.”

—Jeremiah7:7

I have on more than one occasion heard Bible teacher Chuck Missler say that there is only one piece of real estate on planet earth where God has specifically said that it belongs to a specific people and that is Israel. Yet, that specified land is the most contested on the entire planet. This is true because God has spoken specifically on the matter. The fact that God’s clear Word is contested by so many means that Satan is behind such a consensus.

The dispersion of the Jewish people in a.d.70, their preservation as an ethnically distinct people during the nineteen hundred years of their scattering, and their regathering to form the modern state of Israel is a miracle brought about by the hand of God. The arrival of the modern state of Israel on the world scene in 1948 was a big boon to the premillennial understanding of the Bible. This vindicates—in history—our biblical belief that God has a future plan for the land of Israel and the Jewish people. In spite of these developments, there are a group of evangelicals who think that the current state of Israel has nothing to do with God’s biblical promises. How could anyone who claims to believe the Bible hold to such error? [...]

Click here to read the rest of this article by Dr. Thomas Ice.

Related:

Is The Modern State Of Israel Prophetically Significant?
by Dr. Randell Price

EU calls for Jerusalem to be Divided

Israel: EU stance on Jerusalem harms peace talks
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent

The Foreign Ministry on Tuesday lashed out at a European Union plan to call for the division of Jerusalem between Israel and the Palestinians, saying such a move would harm the chances of renewing Middle East peace negotiations.

EU foreign ministers are expected to issue an official call next week for Jerusalem to be divided, in order to serve as the capitals of both Israel and a Palestinian state. A draft document authored by the current holder of the rotating EU presidency, Sweden, and implying that the EU would recognize a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood, has been obtained by Haaretz.

“The process being led by Sweden harms the European Union’s ability to take part as a significant mediator in the political process between Israel and the Palestinians,” said a statement by Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

More here:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1131926.html

Related:

Myths About Israel and Palestine
by Dr. Thomas Ice