Year in Review 2011: HP User Profiles

Our last year in review post is some of the worst user profiles we collected over the past year. Zach and I have cut down on these considerably, so when we do them you know they are bad. Half of these users are still on the HP, half are banned, which really says something about the Huffington Post.

W Richard Wagner

madsen26

Fred Ricardo

Techie Freak

kokobin

cliffhammond

Year in Review 2011: HP Bloggers

For today's year in review, we have the worst of the Huffington Post bloggers. Take a look at what the paid contributors and representatives of the Huffington Post have to say about Israel and Jews.

Overview: The Huffington Post's Jewish Problem

Sharmine Narwani accuses Israel of "exterminating" Palestinians

Robert Naiman used token Jews and Jewish values to help Hamas.

MJ Rosenberg stereotypes Jews

Sami Moubayed hoped for another war between Syria and Israel.


Sharmine Narwani warns Jewish Americans not to have Israel affect their vote...or else

Many Huffington Post bloggers strapped on their blinders when Goldstone changed his story.

Mya Guarnieri calls for destruction of Israel

Sharmine Narwani admits her only constant value is anti-Zionism

Clarence Jones allowed himself to be tricked into using Martin Luther King's legacy to help Palestinian terrorists.

Sharmine Narwani defends Holocaust denial

Cenk Uygur "Hates Judaism."

MJ Rosenberg lies about Palestinian prisoners by a factor of 10,000

Year in Review 2011: HP Bias

For today's year in review post, we have examples of Huffington Post bias. Examples include biased headlines, biased photos, and other editorial decisions. Have a look:

Palestinians vs Afghanis: Who Comes Out Better?

Palestinian Casualties Shown, Israeli Casualties Covered Up

Who is Wafa Al-Bis? (spoiler alert: a terrorist)


Palestinian Terrorist Gets the Picture, Israeli Civilian Gets the Shaft

Grapel vs. Dogan

Arrigoni vs. Viflic


Zionist Terrorists and Winston Churchill

Israelis and Palestinian Casualties as Depicted by the HP


Israel "Loses the Fight" to Move a Palestinian Girl

HP Links to Neo-Nazi Site

Year in Review 2011: Comments of the Day

Zach and I are on vacation this week, so we're giving you some blog posts that sum up the past year at Huffington Post Monitor. We had a great year ("great" being a relative term, of course) and big thanks to all who commented and/or emailed us. Today's year in review post is some of the most interesting/vile comments of the day. Take a walk down memory lane with us:

HuffPoster making the case for Hitler

Story of life with a Jew

"Excrement eating" Jews

Holocaust denial on a broad scale

How can you make a Jew jump in a lake?

The Devil is the God of the Jews

Nothing against Jewish money, just Jewish money used for nefarious means.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of our Christian readers! Hope you have a wonderful holiday.

Further Biased Moderation

Remember Richard Burden's article I wrote about an hour or so ago? Well, if you'd like to check it out now, the moderators have come down with a crushing hammer to remove all dissent from the talkback thread, while leaving the anti-Zionists free to comment as they like. Think I am exaggerating? Take a look:

And on another thread:

Finally just to confirm that they are in fact censoring by opinion and not be the aggressiveness of the comment:

And of course, feel free to go to the thread itself and look for yourself.

Comments of the Day

On the Huffington Posts' recent Hannukah article, this conversation appeared. See if you can find at which point they stop being serious. Click to zoom in:

The original link.

Richard Burden Back Again

You may remember Richard Burden (aka head of a British Palestinian propaganda organization) from his last article in which he demanded more services for convicted terrorists, he's talking about prisoners again. This time he makes a lot of strong attacks on Israel...if they are true. Since not a single link appears in his article backing up a single word that he says, it's hard to know if anything that he says is on the up and up. And given his position in Labour Friends of Palestine, I'm not going to take him at his word.

Burden begins by explaining that he is going to talk about "children," who are really 14-17 but because under Israeli law they are still "children" that is what he is going to call them. I'm glad to see that unlike some other Palestinian supporters he is willing to tell at least part of the truth before he waves the "poor Palestinian children" flag yet again. Jumping right into it:

"The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child requires member states to uphold standards of judicial behaviour in respect of children, including only using imprisonment as a last resort. According to Defence for Children International (DCI), however, even after Sunday, 106 Palestinian children still remain in Israeli detention."

This is one of those statements that sounds damning but when you stop and think about it it becomes less so. Is Burden saying that those 106 teenagers are not being held as a last resort? If he thinks that Israel has some alternative way of upholding judicial behavior, can he provide more information about it? What is the status of these children? What crimes are they accused of? Unfortunately he provides no information and he doesn't even have a link to the DCI for us to find out for ourselves. Maybe it's because he doesn't want us to dig too deep. As I believe I have said before, I would be happy to criticize Israel if they did something wrong, but not for something they didn't actually do.

Finally we get to the meat of MP Burden's argument, the horrible tortures inflicted upon Palestinian children:

"Children are frequently taken from their homes in the middle of the night, without telling their parents why they are being arrested or where they are being taken. Painful hand ties and blindfolds are used for extended periods of time. Prior to interrogation, children are often not informed of their right to silence or allowed to meet with a lawyer. Rarely are they even allowed to speak to their parents....Threats and physical and mental abuse during arrest, transfer and interrogation are widespread, making prosecutions based on evidence regularly extracted from confessions more than worrying."

The bolded section is my modification, not Burden's, highlighted because this is a very common tactic among Arabists: Make a huge claim like this one (abuses on a wide scale) and then "forget" to back it up with links. Maybe what Burden is saying is on the up and up, but given the extremely long history of Palestinian lying, he's going to need something to convince me that what he is saying is true. As for the non bolded section, really? Is that really the best he has to say? Because considering the Palestinians' treatment of their own children, let alone Israeli children, that's pretty weak. And the weakness continues:

"It's shocking when you hear about these things. It's worse still when you see them for yourself and meet some of the young people who have been through it. I'll certainly never forget the sight of 13-year-old boys being led into Israel's military courtrooms at Ofer prison in leg shackles and handcuffs. The leg shackles stayed on throughout the hearing."

This kind of thing continues throughout the entire article. Apparently Burden finds it quite shocking that felons are shackled. Maybe this is a culture thing, since he is from Britain, but here in America prisoners are shackled a lot, for all sorts of crimes:

 And that's our own people, not even potential enemy combatants. Here's a 14-year-old child shackled while standing trial in another article from a newspaper in Britain:

Oh the humanity! Where is Richard Burden's article about this?

Unfortunately for Burden, this is where the accusations against Israel end, so he has to repeat them. He talks about meeting other Palestinians who were shackled, shackled in a bus, shackled here, shackled there, and so on and so forth. He can probably fool his amen corner, but those of us who pay attention know that children can commit crimes and when they do they are arrested. Here's another picture just to make my point:

Maybe you can say these things were isolated incidents, but these children in Florida sure aren't going to be getting any articles on the Huffington Post about them. They aren't Arab enough. Finally, Burden caps it all off with the ridiculous frosting on his weak cake of an article. Bolded sections are once again mine:

"That is why DCI calls for Palestinian children to have the same rights as Israeli children to recognised standards of juvenile justice rather than military courts. It is why they say all children should be accompanied by a lawyer and parent during questioning, and all interrogations of children should be audio-visually recorded as a means of independent oversight....And it is why - as we approach a new year in the 21st Century - Israel's shackling of child prisoners must stop."

Ha! What a freaking joke. Yeah, I'll expect Israel to treat Palestinians the same way. Just as soon as Al Qaeda gets treated the same way as those kids in Florida and the Taliban get access to lawyers too. This is not just hopelessly naive on the part of Burden, it's edging close to lawfare (or something like it). Don't get me wrong, I don't think the IDF should have free reign to do whatever they like, people can't be trusted with that kind of unchecked power. But I am also realistic enough not to expect them to baby potential terrorists just because they are young. The Palestinians grow terrorists young and Israel has to be ready to stop them. Demanding equality between your own people and the enemy is ridiculous, though it is a very common Palestinian tactic. I hope they keep doing trying it though because it won't get them anywhere.

And finally, the demand to "stop shackling" is a joke. You wouldn't ask that of any other country on earth, let alone Britain, so don't ask it of Israel. If these people behave like criminals they should be treated like criminals. I say that of every other country on earth, and I won't hold Israel to a higher standard. Maybe Richard Burden, and the Huffington Post, should try the same thing.

Anti-Peace Comment of the Day

Anti-Zionist "SamSeven" has been showing his true colors lately, and they aren't pretty:

What a "pro-Palestinian" point of view.

The original link.

MJ Rosenberg Takes Up the Baton

In what will hopefully be the last article about the Newt Gingrich "invented people" kerfuffle, MJ Rosenberg actually tries to argue on the merits! Good for him. Naturally he engages in the usual two step: The Palestinians aren't an invented people but if they are an invented people it doesn't matter because they are a people now and besides the Israelis are an invented people too. Personally if I were him I would take one argument and stick with it but he didn't consult me so there we are. 

He begins his article by discussing how Israel was formed by the hard work of its founders, and he approves of that. For example he says "The singular triumph of the Zionist movement is that it invented a state and a people -- Israel and Israelis -- from scratch." You're not going to find a single Zionist who will argue with that statement, though some would say that Israel was not invented but "recreated," but even the old kingdoms of the Jews weren't really states in the modern sense. Regardless, as I have said before, Zionists don't deny the history of the Jewish state. The Palestinians, on the other hand, do and continue to do so to this day.


After reiterating the history of the Jewish state, we finally get to the Palestinians and the actual point of the article:

"And the Palestinians are every bit as much a nation. If the ultimate definition of authentic nationhood is continuous residence in a land for thousands of years, the Palestinian claim to nationhood is ironclad. They never left Palestine (except for those who either emigrated or became refugees after the establishment of Israel)."

First of all, I'm not sure about that definition, I have never heard that before. I was always taught that nations of people are not dependent upon land or continuous residence. Secondly, the Palestinians themselves admit that they have not lived there for "thousands of years." They arrived 1300 years ago, specifically. And as we will get to in a minute, for 99% of those hundreds of years the Palestinians did not think of themselves as a nation until after their "continuous residence" is over.

Before you accuse me of anything, it's not that I don't consider the Palestinians to be a nation. They are now without a doubt. What I don't like is this attempt to rewrite history, which has been going on for decades and has now increased post-Gingrich.

"[People who say that Palestinians aren't a nation say that] Palestinians never exercised self-determination in Palestine; they were always governed by others from ancient times to the present day. The answer to this is: so what?"

It matters for two reasons Mr. Rosenberg: The first reason is because self-determination is a key aspect of being a nation, which I just said. If the Palestinians did not consider themselves to be a nation for 1360 years, then why should we consider them to be a nation? Unlike the Jews, Palestinians did not think of themselves as Palestinians until very very recently. That's not to say this reason alone is enough to revoke their claim to being a nation, but it's telling about where Palestinians are coming from. The second reason, of course, is that the Palestinians claim that there has "always been" a "country of Palestine" until it was stolen by the Jews. This is a blatant lie that Gingrich was trying to disprove but went about it the completely wrong way. No surprise there.

At this point he tries to crossreference:

"Most nation/states in the world were, for long periods of history, under the domination of others. Did the Polish nation not exist between 1790 through 1918 when it was divided up between Russia and Austria-Hungary and erased from the map?"

I'm not sure actually, maybe? Probably not? This example would only apply to the Jews and not the Palestinian Arabs, since there never was a Palestinian state that then became dominated. His next example is closer to the Palestinians:

"Neither Germany nor Italy existed as national entities until the 19th century. Was there no such thing as Italians or Germans?"

Yes, MJ Rosenberg. That is exactly what that means. Before Germany existed, there were no Germans. Before America existed, there were no Americans. This is how the world works. And it is how it has always worked. No special treatment for the Palestinians. Let's move on, because at this point the lying/half-truths begin:

"Their second argument is that Palestinians never thought of themselves as Palestinians until Jews started moving into their territory. Again, so what?" 

Wow. If they weren't "Palestinians" then they didn't have a country and so Rosenberg is in no position to call Tel Aviv and Ashkelon "their territory." Those two words alone just indicate how far Rosenberg has fallen into the trap of Palestinian misinformation, even for someone who claims to be pro-Israel. He follows this up by saying that when Jews purchased land, Palestinians were the ones "who had to move out," thus reinforcing a myth that every single inch of Israel used to be Palestinian. Which, in turn, bolsters the Palestinians' claims that Israel is "occupied Palestine" and basis of the conflict. Well done MJ Rosenberg.

Now to answer his question about "so what," I'll quote myself:

"The Palestinians have always been of the opinion that "Palestine" from the river to the sea is "their country," which Israel "stole." Hence all the slogans like "Free Palestine," that sound like they are referring to the occupation of the West Bank but really are not. Just because some Palestinians are willing to live with the great crime Israel inflicted on them instead of fighting some more does not mean that they have given up this narrative. The Arab narrative is that the Palestinian people existed, were dealt this tremendous injustice by Israel, and now are trying to reclaim what is theirs. 

"That is why the comment by Newt Gingrich is such a problem for them. It hits their narrative right in the heart. It's hard to sell the Palestinians are a noble nation who were wiped off the map by Israel when you have to admit that the very idea of a Palestinian people was cooked up by Arab League Presidents somewhere in Moscow. And it's even harder to support the Palestinian Arabs' "right of return" to a country that never even existed. What about all the land they claim is theirs and always has been? If the Palestinians are really just a group of Arabs chilling in villages without a country, then what claim do they have to Jerusalem? Or Bethlehem? Or any territory at all?"

No doubt MJ Rosenberg finds these shots on the Palestinian mythology to be unnecessarily provocative and unhelpful to making peace. I say: the Palestinian mythology itself is why there is no peace. Sooner or later for peace to break out, it's going to have to go.

"Pinkwashing" Deconstructed

[Brilliant article that somehow made it onto the HuffPo.]

In 2007 the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs initiated a nation-branding campaign informally known as "Beyond the Conflict." The goal was to change people's perception of Israel from a war zone populated by the ultrareligious to a more normal place -- rich with culture, dominated by high-tech and scientific achievement, and grounded in identifiable, Western values.

American nonprofit organizations joined the effort by making sure non-conflict stories saw the light of day -- everything from Israeli companies being listed on the NASDAQ and Israeli-made computer chips powering everyday products to stories about Tel Aviv's nightlife and Israeli model Bar Rafaeli gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated's annual swimsuit Issue.

Nation-branding is practiced by many states, from established democracies like the U.S., Canada, France, Japan, South Korea, South Africa, and New Zealand to developing countries like Tanzania, Colombia, and Guatemala. It's not unique to Israel. In fact, earlier this year the Palestinians hired a number of PR firms in the U.S. for this same purpose.

In addition to the cultural and technology stories, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs sought ways to emphasize Israeli values. Israel's record on LGBT rights was smartly identified as a way to highlight its societal tolerance and diversity and draw contrast with more repressive regimes in the region and around the world. In reality, Israel is the only Middle Eastern country where people are not persecuted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Here are the facts for LGBTs in Israel:

• Israel has passed anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBTs
• Israel Recognizes same-sex marriages performed abroad
• Israel has legalized LGBT adoption rights
• LGBT soldiers serve openly in all military branches, including special units; discrimination is prohibited
• Same-sex couples have the same inheritance rights as heterosexual, married couples

LGBTs enjoy these rights nowhere else in the Middle East. In fact, in every other Middle Eastern country, either homosexuality is a crime punishable by death (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Yemen) or jail time (Gaza, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Morocco, Algeria), or LGBTs face risks of violence, torture, and "honor killings" by militias or their own families (the West Bank, Iraq, Turkey) or harassment and crackdowns from the government and non-state actors (Bahrain, Jordan). In fact, when compared to states outside the region -- including most Western democracies -- Israel has one of the strongest records for LGBT rights in the world.

Israel's enemies recognized how favorable this record was for Israel, and that it threatened their efforts to demonize the Jewish state, so they shrewdly maneuvered to use it against her, linking promotion of Israel's LGBT record to the conflict in the West Bank and Gaza -- even though there is no connection. The idea that the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs' campaign is part of a diabolical scheme to cover up abuses of the "occupation" is completely the invention of anti-Israel queer activists; it is their great lie.

Beginning in Toronto in 2008, and later in San Francisco and New York, LGBT anti-Israel groups formed and sought to make being anti-Israel a queer value. Some of these activists are anti-Semitic -- whether or not they admit it, even to themselves. The frustrating thing is that many more of them work to brand Israel an "apartheid state" for all the right reasons. They are being manipulated by the combination of deceptive Palestinian leadership, biased Western media, and anti-Semites into believing a counterfeit narrative where Israelis are the aggressors and Palestinians are her ultimate victims. It exploits LGBTs' natural empathy for the oppressed.

Activists who claim not to hate Israel and say they support her right to exist yet still accuse her of brutal oppression and apartheid are complicit in preventing a peace deal, propagating terror, and endangering Jews and the state of Israel.

The sad reality is that LGBT anti-Israel groups are throwing our queer Palestinian brothers and sisters under the bus. LGBT persecution in the disputed territories is horrendous -- it comes from Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, militias, and even the victims' own families. In the academic report "Nowhere to Run: Gay Palestinian Asylum Seekers in Israel," there is testimony from Palestinian LGBTs who escaped to Israel to seek asylum status. The torture they received in the West Bank is shocking (pp. 13-17). For example, one man recounts a horror story of being dragged from his home by Palestinian Authority officers because he was gay, then submerged in sewage water up to his neck for five hours at a time, every day for three weeks (p. 15). The report comes from Tel Aviv University's Public Interest Law Program, but it shouldn't be dismissed for that reason; it's critical of Israel for not accepting more LGBT Palestinian refugees.

Once peace comes and the IDF pulls out of the West Bank, queer Palestinians will be much worse off. Palestinian LGBT testimony confirms that this is what happened when the Palestinian Authority took over Gaza in 2005 (p. 10). Eighty-two percent of Palestinians support making homosexuality illegal. Many more queer people will die in Palestine once a state is achieved. I am not advocating for the status quo, but I do believe energy from queer anti-Israel activists would be better spent educating straight Palestinians not to kill their LGBT brothers and sisters once Israelis leave, instead of vilifying Israel.

Elsewhere in the region, Iran executed three men in September 2011 for being gay (and two in 2005). The Assad regime in Syria has now murdered over 5,000 of its own people. And Palestinians in Lebanese, Syrian, Egyptian, and Jordanian refugee camps face conditions much more akin to apartheid than anything experienced within Israel (where they are citizens with the same rights as Jewish Israelis) or the disputed territories (where they are governed by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas). Yet where are the Queers Against Iranian Persecution, Queers Against Syrian Torture, and Queers Against Lebanese Apartheid groups?

"Palestine is a queer issue," Israel's LGBT critics insist. But Iranian torture and execution of LGBT people is not a queer issue? Syrian brutality against its own people is not a queer issue? Lebaneseapartheid against Palestinians is not also a queer issue? Why not?

The fact that no LGBT groups protest any of these human rights abuses but we see a proliferation of queer groups against Israel meets one of the key criteria in Alan Dershowitz's list of "factors that tend to indicate anti-Semitism": "Singling out only Israel for sanctions for policies that are widespread among other nations, or demanding that Jews be better or more moral than others because of their history as victims." The rest of Dershowitz's list is worth reading, and he contrasts it to "factors that tend to indicate legitimate criticism of Israel."

Also worth reading is this letter from Dr. Denis MacEoin, senior editor of Middle East Quarterly, former professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Edinburgh University, and a non-Jew:

It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel and say nothing about countries like Iran, where gay men are hanged or stoned to death... [t]hinking it's better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?

Ironically, some of Israel's loudest queer critics are Palestinian LGBT organizations. How can this be true, given the documented atrocities LGBT people face from their own government and families inside the Palestinian territories? Perhaps they are looking to gain respect from homophobic, straight Palestinian organizations by bashing Israel, so that conditions for LGBT people inside the future Palestinian state will not meet the worst-case scenario. How's this for hypocrisy: do you know where the Palestinian queer group al-Qaws for Sexual & Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society has held their bimonthly "Palestinian Queer Party" for the past year? At a Tel Aviv club! Is the reason because it's not safe for LGBT people to congregate inside a public place in the West Bank at a pre-announced time and place? (That was rhetorical.) In fact, two of the three main Palestinian queer organizations, al-Qaws and ASWAT Palestinian Gay Women, are based in Israel. Al-Qaws has its headquarters in Jewish West Jerusalem, and ASWAT operates from the Israeli city of Haifa. A third organization, Palestinian Queers for BDS, conspicuously avoids stating its location.

Israel's queer enemies can hurl "pinkwashing" claims at her all they want. I, for one, celebrate the fact that the Israel's government is proud enough of its LGBT rights record to use it for nation-banding. What would happen if the governments of Palestine, Iran, Uganda, and Russia bragged about their LGBT rights records, too? It would mean more LGBT people around the world would be protected and safe.

Israel's queer foes are the real "pinkwashers," because they conveniently ignore the horrors committed against LGBT people throughout the Middle East in order to focus only on the Jewish state. If the term "pinkwashing" is about covering up facts to push one's agenda, then anti-Israel queer activists are choking on their own hypocrisy and self-righteousness.

J Street Video

Remember when the Huffington Post was all up in arms about Berkeley's JSU rejecting J Street? Take a look at this video and let's see how "pro-Israel" the people who follow J Street really are:

Josh Ruebner's Obvious Agenda

There are three kinds of anti-Zionists: Those who try and pretend that they don't have anything against Israel, but merely are devoted to some cause which comes into conflict with Israel. Often they pretend to care about "human rights" or "democracy" or "freedom," or the even so common cause: "my tax dollars." Then there are those who come right out and admit that they have an ax to grind against Israel. They generally claim their motivations are personal, such as that they are Palestinians who have been mistreated by Israel in the past, or Jews with bleeding hearts. And then finally we have the third, which in my opinion are the lowest kind. These are the people who pretend to be the first kind of anti-Zionist but really are the second. These sorts of anti-Zionist pretend that their interests are humanitarian or moral but it doesn't take long at all before their true colors come out.

Some of them certainly hide it better than others, and Josh Ruebner does not hide it well at all. We can see right at the top of the page that his title is Advocacy Director (aka Head Propagandist) for the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. I like these guys, because they are honest, i.e. they admit that they don't want peace only a weakening of Israel. The same cannot be said of Ruenber, however. Listen to how quickly he goes to the lowest common denominator, pretending to actually care about American livelihoods:

"With the annual average $3 billion appropriation of U.S. military aid to Israel, the United States could provide instead each year 350,000 low-income families with affordable housing, or 500,000 unemployed workers with green jobs training, or 900,000 at-risk youth with early reading education, or 24 million uninsured people with access to primary health care, according to www.aidtoisrael.org, a project of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation."

Did you notice how he advertised for his own organization there at the end? You'd better get used to it because he does it the entire article, including referencing himself to backup his own claims. Very typical anti-Zionist behavior. As for this article itself, it's nothing we haven't seen before it but it remains dishonest in two ways:

First of all, I'm not sure if Ruebner has noticed but the American government does not very often go around handing out large (i.e. in the billions) sums of money. And if they do it's usually to bail out banks and automakers, not pet left-wing causes designed to make gullible Huffington Post readers swoon. So really Ruebner has no proof at all that should aid to Israel end hundreds of thousands of at risk youth will suddenly be handed education programs. That doesn't stop him from implying it, though. Hey if he were honest he never would have gotten where he is today.

Secondly is the fact that even if he is right, and that America does in fact need the money at home more than abroad, why does Israel alone need to be cut off? Again, Ruebner probably doesn't know this, but we give almost as much money to Egypt every year as we do to Israel, along with millions of dollars to other Arab nations that (unlike Israel) hate us and want us dead. So go on Mr. "Pro-America," explain to me why we have to keep financing the Arabs (and by extension your organization) and not Israel. Don't worry, he's actually going to try...eventually. First he has to whine about the aid some more.

HuffPo Digs Deep Again

In a story that's hard to find even on Ha'aretz, the Huffington Post politicized its "culture" section with a story about a possible bill that might if past could give money to build museums in settlements. Naturally, they gave the story the most confrontational picture possible as well as a biased headline:

Glad to see that the proud Huffington Post tradition of jumping down Israel's throat before they even do something unpopular continues to this day.

"Merely Critical of Israel's Policies" Comment of the Day

Thank goodness I'm told there's no such thing as anti-Semitism anymore, otherwise I would think that comment was anti-Semitic and be a little offended.

The original link.

News the HP Doesn't Cover: Synagogue Torched

Not all arson is created equal:

The Algriva synagogue in Ramle Old City near a school of the Islamic movement was set on fire and suffered heavy damage was caused to a car.

A synagogue and a car of a member of the Ramla Torah garin were torched probably by Arabs in what seemed the same action as the price tag of the Jews in Judea and Samaria. 

The two-story building and its second floor burned out including the supplies which were there. The electrical system of the synagogue was burned and only because of the actions of fire fighters shutdown avoided burning first-floor prayer area of the building. 

The synagogue is located near the homes of Arabs, and is bordered in the book "Do not admitted" of the Islamic movement. The owner of the building, the rabbi known in Ramle, threatened many times - by Arabs who were interested in the environment that would sell them the building. 

This event joins a car-burning of a member of Torah garin group two days ago.

[H/T My Right Word]

Sharmine Narwani Rediscovers Skepticism

In her latest article, Sharmine "Dignity Rockets" Narwani solidifies her credentials as firmly in the anti-Western, pro-Islamist camp. How does she do that you ask? By writing an article firmly in defense of the Assad regime in Syria and demanding to know why everyone isn't criticizing the opposition! Naturally she calls the nature of the uprisings in the streets of Syria to be a "narrative" (her favorite word) that has been challenged by a new NGO report. And what about the poor pro-Assad civilians?

"Nor do you hear about the numbers of pro-regime civilians killed by the armed opposition - some of them allegedly while "demonstrating" in support of the Syrian regime."

Could her agenda be any clearer? But that's not really what we care about. No, what we care about is that Ms. Narwani, who is ready to believe just about anything an Islamist terrorist tells her, suddenly becomes skeptical when faced with the ugly truth about her buddy Assad. The kicker is this paragraph here:

"How unstable is Syria, really? How widespread is opposition to the regime of Bashar al-Assad? The death-toll that has us riveted with disgust - today, the highest daily death rate yet - how accurate are those numbers? Who do they include and are they verifiable? Are local activists even capable of distinguishing between a dead pro-regime civilian and a dead anti-regime civilian - especially now that both sides are armed and firing?...I cannot begin to dispute those numbers and details, so I will not try. But I will ask the question: where are all the "facts" coming from?"

Hm. Funny how this suspicious nature was nowhere to be found when you were interviewing Meshaal or the flotilla fools. Amazing how she won't believe anything bad about a dictator in Syria yet continues to cling to widely discredited myths about Israel and Gaza, such as her claim that it is "an impoverished hellhole" that somehow manages to have a higher standard of living than most Arab states.

It's beginning to look like how easily Narwani believes a piece of information is directly proportional to how much she wants to believe it and the subject which it is about. There's a word for that: ideologue. Also known as: A Huffington Post blogger.

New Video

Good video on the Newt Gingrich controversy, taking on people who actually tried to defend the Palestinians on the history:

Cognitive Dissonance of the Day

As I mentioned before, cognitive dissonance is where a person possess two contradictory beliefs at the same time, yet believes them both to be true. We saw a recent example of this in a Huffington Post thread:

All right. So all Israel has to do is return occupied lands and then there will be peace. Not really a new idea  but okay...

But then a comment that says Israel shouldn't exist (and therefore there shouldn't be peace) gets an equal number of favorites. Either cognitive dissonance is happening, or the Huffington Posters will just fav anything that is remotely anti-Israel. I'm going with the latter.

Editorials the HP Doesn't Publish: Palestinian Incitement

Here's an article from the New York Times that the Huffington Post isn't going to publish and MJ Rosenberg isn't going to write an op ed about anytime soon:

JERUSALEM — A new book by an Israeli watchdog group catalogs dozens of examples of messages broadcast by the Palestinian Authority for its domestic audience that would seem at odds with the pursuit of peace and a two-state solution.

Instead, the authors say, their findings show a pattern of non-recognition of Israel’s right to exist, demonization of Israel and promotion of violence.

Of course, this is nothing new. For years, many Israeli and Palestinian analysts have said that what Palestinian leaders tell their own people in their own language — as opposed to English-language statements tailored to opinion in the rest of the world — is the truest reflection of their actual beliefs. This has had the effect of further entrenching the sides to the conflict and undermining confidence that it can ever be resolved.

“There is no doubt in my mind that in the mainstream of the Palestinian national movement, Israel is not considered legitimate,” said Shlomo Avineri, an Israeli professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, reflecting a widespread sense of disillusionment. “This is the inner truth of the Palestinians,” he said. “They really mean it. It is not what they say on CNN, but it is what they teach their children.”

But for many, the subject of incitement and media monitoring has become as contentious as some of the messages, especially since these pronouncements are often used to score propaganda points.

The book goes to the heart of this debate. Its authors — Itamar Marcus, the founder and director of the privately financed Palestinian Media Watch, and an analyst from the group, Nan Jacques Zilberdik — called their book “Deception: Betraying the Peace Process.”

“There is no preparation for living with Israel as neighbors,” Ms. Jacques Zilberdik said. “Instead, we see the opposite.”

Mr. Marcus, who set up Palestinian Media Watch in 1996, says that he wants to foster genuine reconciliation. His critics, however, note that he is a settler who lives in the Gush Etzion bloc south of Jerusalem, a contested area of the West Bank that Israel intends to keep under any agreement with the Palestinians.

The book is a compilation of samples gathered over a year starting in May 2010, the month that the Obama administration began brokering indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks. That round culminated in September 2010 with a few direct but inconclusive meetings. Since then, the negotiations have stalled.

While Palestinian Media Watch acknowledges that there is less blatant incitement than in the past, with fewer direct calls for violence, it says that the Palestinian Authority still glorifies terrorists, “libels” Israel and promotes a culture of violence. 

HP Links to Stormfront Video

It started out as a typical anti-Israel spam post:

But what do you see if you click on the link:

Check out that bottom right hand corner: "As Seen On: Stormfront".

Once again, the far left and far right meet in a perfect Jew oops I mean Zionist hating sandwich.

On the HuffPo, You Really Can Blame the Jews For Everything

Yesterday there was a new article about an alleged American spy confessing in Iran. In addition to the usual deflections and ranting you usually see on an Iran related thread, we had quite a few users dragging Israel into it. Most notably we have this guy:

HuffPost approved. Follow the original link to find others tripping over themselves to agree with him.

A Questionable Picture Choice

I know that we don't generally talk about radical vs non radical Islam in America much on this blog, but many other Zionist blogs do, so if you've read them you probably already know about the controversy surrounding Lowe's and its decision to stop advertising for the reality show All American Muslim. Huffington Post blogger Ahmed Rehab published a response to it and what caught my eye was this choice of picture, originally posted on his website:

Yep, that's a star and crescent being pinned to someone's suit in an obvious reference to how the Nazis would pin Stars of David to the clothes of Jews to mark them as such. In other words, the Huffington Post editors consider a controversy over a television show to be on par with the Holocaust. I don't know if Mr. Rehab was the one who decided to include the picture in his article, but I for one strongly don't agree with that decision.

Also noteworthy is that no one in the talkback thread (at least as far as I can tell) had something to say about the picture. Now I should probably clarify what I mean: It's not that I have a problem with the choice of picture. It's not an appropriate reaction to the events in the article, of course, but that's hardly a new aspect of journalism.

What bothers me is that if a Jewish person published a picture like that on an article about anti-Semitism, we'd get a thousand comments shrieking about how "it was a long time ago" and "this is not at all similar," and so on and so forth. Despite the reality that anti-Semitism is many times more prevalent in America than anti-Islamic hatred. Don't say that wouldn't happen because we've seen it many times before. But I guess Muslims get a free pass to mine the Holocaust for sympathy. On the Huffington Post, at least.

Jewish Love Turns Into Jewish Baiting

Rabbi Bradley Shavit wrote a new article for the Huffington Post about Jewish love. Awww! You can read it if you like but since this is the Huffington Post not everyone was feeling loving, as a couple of our resident Israel bashers polished their "merely anti-Zionist" credentials by attacking an article about Jews:

By the way if you check out our page for the user "RubalKhali," I for one find it very unlikely that his claim about marrying a Jewish woman is true. Especially since at some point he told us he was from Dubai.

Comments of the Day

I saw something very interesting recently. Huffington Post UK had a story about a British lawmaker getting into trouble for hosting a Nazi-themed costume party. Most of the responses were cracks about conservatives, but I did think these were interesting (especially coming from a known anti-Zionist):

Hm. Demanding that Jews "get over" the Holocaust, demanding Britain "get over" a war in which five hundred thousand of their citizens died. Maybe it's not that these Huffington Post don't like Jews, maybe it's that they don't like seeing the Nazis getting criticized. That would explain a lot.

And of course we had "MarcEdward" there pushing his agenda:

MJ Rosenberg Climbs On the Cross

Even though it has been more than a week since the Simon Weisenthal Center and others put down MJ Rosenberg and his friends at Media Matters, he hasn't gotten over it and decided to publish a second article defending himself and crying crocodile tears. Naturally the Huffington Post didn't hesitate to give him all the articles he wants, while denying any opportunities for anyone to disagree with him. We're going to see most of the same arguments from last time, only in this case the SWC has apparently joined "the lobby," just like everyone who disagrees with Rosenberg in a true conspiracy theory fashion. And the faintest hint that he might actually be wrong this time is gone. Let's take a look:

"It has been over a week since the lobby that deems itself "pro-Israel" began its recent effort to suppress the views of those of us it considers Israel haters, self-hating Jews or -- in a most ridiculous twist given that most of us are Jews -- "anti-Semites.""

Now unfortunately, since Rosenberg didn't link to what exactly he is referring to here, it's impossible to know what exactly he is talking about. But given the timestamp, it sounds like the subject of his attack is the SWC statement. Go and take a look, here is the link again. See if you can find the phrase "Israel hater," "self-hating Jew," or "anti-Semite," in the statement. You won't be able to, because they don't use them. They do indirectly call Rosenberg and his fellow bloggers "Israel lasters," which in my mind he deserves. And of course he is the last one to complain, since literally his entire life right now is spent trying to suppress the views of those he considers to be "Israel firsters." I'm surprised he doesn't choke on his own hypocrisy, seriously.

Next comes a statement that, for the first time in a long time, I actually agree with:

"I am one of the least significant figures to come under attack."

How very very true. Then we have a new tactic: Strawmanning his opposition.

"The bill of particulars against me is that I use the term "Israel firster" to describe those who consistently -- and without exception -- thwart the efforts of U.S. Presidents to achieve Middle East peace."

A couple questions: First, how exactly is it a "bill" if you proudly admit that you do it? It sounds like Rosenberg is playing the innocent here, or maybe I am simply misunderstanding what he is saying. Secondly, it's a strawman to pretend that you are being "charged" with using that term against those who "thwart peace." We have seen many times Rosenberg use that term to describe anyone who disagrees with him, no matter what the topic. Even though he feels like he only uses it against people who are "anti-peace," that isn't what the SWC said. Hence, a strawman. I hope I made that clear, sorry if it's confusing.

At this point he goes off a tangent against Jennifer Rubin (who I don't care about) and takes up the laughable claim that "these people" (yes, his words) all behave and think the same way. After being criticized by the SWC for making things up, he proceeds to fix this by making more things up, this time that "these people" never ever ever criticize Netanyahu and always always always criticize Obama boo hoo hoo. It's an incredibly childlike argument which is also simply not true, as the SWC commented on in their column last week. It is beginning to become clear to me that Rosenberg didn't actually read their statement, or maybe he did and simply forgot everything that it said five minutes later. All the better with which to play the victim I suppose.

He then gets into the Commentary magazine vs Thomas Friedman thing, which honestly I don't care about because unlike Rosenberg I know that Commentary speaks only for themselves and not some kind of amorphous "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" type organization. Maybe they said something stupid and maybe they didn't, but it doesn't have anything to do with Rosenberg or the comeuppance he so richly received last week. Perhaps we can discuss the topic in more depth in another post.

Finally we get into some politics, in which Rosenberg is simply wrong:

"[The Emergency Committee for Israel has run ads saying that] the administration's sin, as always, is that it has (intermittently, in my opinion) tried to get Israel back to negotiations and has (very intermittently) cited Israel for human rights violations. The attack on all three is particularly dumb but the one on Hillary Clinton takes the cake (has there ever been an American political figure more outspokenly pro-Israel?)."

Now I'm no fan of the ECI, but I am a fan of telling the truth so let's take a look at the ads themselves. Rosenberg is criticizing the ads for something that they did not say. The ads are saying that in recent weeks a lot of the subordinates in the Obama administration have been saying things about Israel that are (in their opinion) out of line. I don't need to elaborate, just click the link for details. They didn't say anything about Obama's political decisions, in fact they hardly reference Obama at all, except for his personal insult toward Netanyahu. This is Rosenberg's second strawman of the column, and it really doesn't help him make his argument. Of course, he will defend every statement made in the ad because he loves the Obama administration and believes they can do no wrong, but the point is that he is criticizing the ECI for something they didn't say. As usual. But that's still not as bad as what he says next:

"As for treating Israel like a punching bag, what a joke! The pro-Israel peace camp (of which I am a member in good standing) has consistently denounced the Obama administration for never criticizing Israeli policies."

What a joke indeed. It must be nice to declare yourself "the peace camp" and accordingly everyone who disagrees with you is the "anti-peace camp." But really, this statement is absurd. The Obama administration never criticizes Israel? Seriously? Let's do some actual research:

Obama Criticizes Israel's Settlements
Obama criticized Israel in his first UN speech.
Joe Biden also criticizes Israel's settlements
And of course the Panetta, Clinton, and Obama statements that were all detailed in the ad.

The sad part is that MJ Rosenberg wouldn't even consider all those to be criticism, he'd probably just pull a cognitive dissonance and call it "truth telling" or something equally ridiculous. It's becoming clear to me that skimping on the truth is activity favored by ideologues on both sides of the aisle.

I know this post is already getting a little long, but Rosenberg's next bout with logic comes in the form of a history lesson. Let's take a look:

"I often recall a similar situation back in 1971. Israel at that time was riding high and feeling pretty invulnerable....President Anwar Sadat, already contemplating a peace deal with Israel, sent word to the Israeli government that if Israel would pull back two miles from the Suez Canal (allowing Egypt to reopen it), he would commence negotiations with Israel....Israel said absolutely not. It was strong; Egypt was weak. The United States told the Israelis that if it refused to consider Sadat's offer, he might go to war to recover the land. The Israelis scoffed....Two years later, on October 6, 1973, Sadat led an Egyptian attack to regain the Sinai and came very close to conquering Israel itself."

Hm. How interesting. First of all, did this offer even exist? I wonder if Rosenberg is referring to the Jarring Initiative. If so, he is misrepresenting what it was (surprise surprise). Sadat said that if Israel committed itself to "withdrawal of its armed forces from Sinai and the Gaza Strip", to "achievement of a just settlement for the refugee problem", to "the withdrawal of the Israeli armed forces from all the territories occupied since 5 June 1967", and to implementation of other provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 242 as requested by Jarring, Egypt would then "be ready to enter into a peace agreement with Israel." Even if you think that was a fair request, it is still very different from Rosenberg's....interpretation of it. What a surprise.


Furthermore, Israel did not straight up reject it. If you would like to read the whole article I linked to above, you will find that like Egypt they thought it was a good sign but laid out their position for there to be peace. Just like Egypt did, and just like both Arabs and Israelis have done at many points. It's nice to know we can still rely on MJ Rosenberg to rewrite history, just like his Arab friends.


I will leave you with some historical references of my own: Do you remember the Oslo Accords? I wasn't reading MJ Rosenberg then, but I can't imagine that he was screaming at Israel to stop negotiating with Arafat at the time. How did the Oslo Accords turn out? Oh that's right, they weakened Israel and let to a second Intifada with thousands of dead on both sides. How wonderful. I'm sure the "pro-Israel peace camp" has safeguards in place to ensure that such a thing won't happen again, right?


Do you remember the withdrawal from Gaza?  I wasn't reading MJ Rosenberg then, but I can't imagine that he was screaming at Israel to stop removing the settlers from their homes. How did that turn out? Oh that's right, Gaza is more radicalized and violent than ever. I guess that decision really helped Israel out a lot, didn't it Mr. "pro-Israel pro-peace?" 


This is what passes for journalism on the Huffington Post.


Update: MJ's brilliant counter argument:

Thank you for perfectly making my point that everyone who disagrees with you is labeled that way, Mr. Rosenberg.