Israel Perfects Time Travel

Unknown to most of the world until today it appears Israeli scientists have perfected a method of time travel. No details have been released nor have any scholarly papers been published but I know it must be true. How do I know this? The Syrians are the ones who revealed this startling breakthrough at the U.N. Security Council meeting today. In the words of Syrian diplomat Ahmed Alhariri:

If we examine the matter, we will find that Israel was behind the eruption of both World War I and World War II.

Israel was created in 1948. World War I started in 1914 and World War II started in 1939. Therefore the only way Israel could have started those wars was by sending it's people back in time. Brilliant! I mean, that has to be it, doesn't it? The Syrians would never engage in historical revisionism in the esteemed halls of the United Nations, would they?

In other developments Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Dan Gillerman warmly thanked Syria and Iran for bringing their unparalleled expertise to the Security Council. Ambassador Gillerman expressed his:

appreciation, which I hope is shared by members of the Security Council, for the opportunity afforded to all of us to hear lectures about terrorism by two of the world's greatest experts on that subject.

Unfortunately their expertise on terrorism is real even if their history is faulty.

UPDATE: Great minds think alike. Aussie Dave at Israellycool wrote about the Zionist Time Machine in a post titled Time Bandits, or at least his future self from 2026 did.

[NOTE: This piece also appears on Blogs of Zion, where I write under my Hebrew name.]

Technorati Tags: israel united nations middle east un syria iran terrorism time travel revisionist history

If Convergence Will Create a Terrorist State, What is the Alternative?

In 1967, when most Israelis were celebrating their victory in the Six Day War, my father saw nothing to celebrate. His words: "Occupation. Bad business." The last 39 years of history make him, in retrospect, seem prophetic.

Last Tuesday (23 May), an opinion piece by James Woolsey, the former Director of Central Intelligence, titled West Bank Terrorist State was published in the Wall Street Journal. He wrote, in part:

The approach Israel is preparing to take in the West Bank was tried in Gaza and has failed utterly. The Israeli withdrawal of last year has produced the worst set of results imaginable: a heavy presence by al Qaeda, Hezbollah and even some Iranian Revolutionary Guard units; street fighting between Hamas and Fatah, and now Hamas assassination attempts against Fatah's intelligence chief and Jordan's ambassador; rocket and mortar attacks against nearby towns inside Israel; and a perceived vindication for Hamas, which took credit for the withdrawal. This latter almost certainly contributed substantially to Hamas's victory in the Palestinian elections.

[...]

Israel is not the only pro-Western country that would be threatened. How does moderate Jordan, with its Palestinian majority, survive if bordered by a West Bank terrorist state? Israeli concessions will also make the U.S. look weak, because it will be inferred that we have urged them, and will suggest that we are reverting to earlier behavior patterns--fleeing Lebanon in 1983, acquiescing in Saddam's destruction of the Kurdish and Shiite rebels in 1991, fleeing Somalia in 1993, etc.

Three major Israeli efforts at accommodation in the last 13 years have not worked. Oslo and the 1993 handshake in the Rose Garden between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat produced only Arafat's rejection in 2000 of Ehud Barak's extremely generous settlement offer and the beginning of the second intifada. The Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 has enhanced Hezbollah's prestige and control there; and the withdrawal from Gaza has unleashed madness. These three accommodations have been based on the premise that only Israeli concessions can displace Palestinian despair. But it seems increasingly clear that the Palestinian cause is fueled by hatred and contempt.

I cannot disagree with Mr. Woolsey. I often find myself nodding when reading similar opinions coming from the Israeli right. The one question nobody answers is this: If withdrawal is the wrong answer, what is the right answer? Nobody seems to have one.

Clearly the occupation is not sustainable indefinitely. There is no way Israel can rule over millions of hostile Arabs and remain a majority Jewish state. For all it's failings fewer Jews are dying now in and near Gaza than were before Prime Minister Sharon's disengagement plan was executed.

I see no reasonable alternative to Prime Minister Olmert's convergence plan. Yes, it should be scaled back. There is no way a nation can share its capital with a hostile enemy and any division of Jerusalem under present circumstances would be a serious mistake. Similarly, I think the security fence should be rerouted in southern Judea to include the settlements in the Hebron hills and the Jewish quarter of Hebron itself. The Tomb of the Patriarchs should not be turned over to anyone who will not respect the religious, historical, and cultural significance of the place to the Jewish people and Jewish worship there must always be allowed.

In addition the Palestinians must be made to understand that attacks and terrorism will be met with overwhelming force. The IDF incursion into Gaza is a good start but it is not enough. The Palestinians must be made to understand that the price for attacking Israel is so very high that they are no longer willing to pay it.

Having said all that I still see no alternative to unilateral separation, or, as then Prime Minister Barak put it, "Us over here, them over there."

Technorati Tags: james woolsey israel middle east palestine convergence disengagement terrorist state

More on the Proposed British University Boycott of Israel

David Hirsh has written a rather long piece responding to one of the advocates of boycotting Israeli universities and academicians. It's well written and worth reading. A couple of excerpts:
Steven Rose recycles a number of libels and half-truths from last year's failed and rejected boycott campaign in the AUT but he is smart enough to leave out the specifics this year. Last year when his campaign accused Haifa University of being a racist institution, this sorry package of libels nearly bankrupted our union; when the boycott campaign falsely accused the Hebrew University of building its new dorm block on occupied land it exposed AUT to an equally serious libel threat. Israeli higher education is not segregated. Both Haifa University and Hebrew University have about 20 per cent Arab students and have significant numbers of Arab faculty members. This is a rate of inclusion of minorities that would shame many elite British institutions.

[...]

The truth is that the universities are spaces in Israel where conflict is persued through words and ideas rather than guns and bombs. They are amongst the most anti-racist spaces in Israel, spaces where ideas for peace are forged, taught and practised. Some academics will indeed be right wing, some may be profoundly reactionary. That is the nature of an open, democratic and free education system.There are some things Hirsh writes which I strongly disagree with and which do not help his cause. He claims the occupation is sustained by systematic Israeli violence. He neglects to point out that the current Israeli government of Ehud Olmert is committed to withdrawing from 93% of the West Bank with or without any concessions or agreement from the Palestinians. He also fails to mention that whatever violent acts Israel may carry out against Palestinian targets is a response to ongoing and daily attempts to commit terrorist attacks on the civilian population of Israel.

Hirsh goes on to blame the failure of Oslo on "Israeli and Palestinian extremists". Former President Bill Clinton, former U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis Ross, and even Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of Yasser Arafat. Israel didn't decide to abandon the peace process and start a war. The Palestinians did. It was also the Palestinians who elected Hamas, who oppose any agreement with Israel.

It seems to me Mr. Hirsh could have done a much better job and has bought into some of the self same misinformation and propaganda his opponents push. Nonetheless, Mr. Hirsh is definitely on the right side of this issue and his efforts within Engage to stop this boycott need to be supported. A vote on the proposed boycott will come next week.

Technorati Tags: academia israel uk palestine natfhe anti-semitism bias boycott occupation

Jimmy Carter Blunders In USA Today

Once again I've received a piece of e-mail from CAMERA that I think is important and that I think a lot of my readers will want to see and act upon. Yes, there is something you can do that's positive with just a few minutes of your time by simply sending an e-mail. Since I can't just link to a web page I'm going to post the whole thing here:

JIMMY CARTER'S BLUNDERS IN USA TODAY

When it comes to Arab-Israeli affairs, is former U.S. President Jimmy Carter a) uninformed, b) misinformed, or c) blinded by an anti-Israel animus? His USA Today Op-Ed, "Israel's new plan: A land grab" (May 16 print edition) makes a strong case for "all of the above."

Key Errors

Carter falsely claims that:

1) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's plan to establish Israel's permanent eastern border in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) "would take about half of the Palestinian West Bank ...."

According to the Israeli Supreme Court decision calling for the realignment of the route of the security barrier to lessen impact on Arabs in Judea and Samaria, the barrier will encompass only 7 percent (not "half") of the West Bank. Olmert's "convergence" proposal --- to be enacted if Palestinian Arabs do not negotiate a final agreement in good faith --- would lead to withdrawal from the more isolated Jewish communities to the east of Israel's security barrier. The residents of those settlements would be consolidated in the major settlement blocs west (on the Israeli side) of the barrier.

2) "The barrier is not located on the internationally recognized boundary between Israel and Palestine, but entirely within and deeply penetrating the occupied territories." There is no "internationally recognized boundary between Israel and Palestine." The 1949 - 1967 "green line" separating Israel from the Jordanian-o ccupied West Bank was and remains a temporary armistice line. The Arabs, refusing to recognize Israel, refused to negotiate a permanent border. Given the impermanent nature of the armistice lines, U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973) called for, among other things, negotiations to establish "secure and recognized" boundaries. The authors did not expect Israel to return to the vulnerable pre-'67 armistice lines.

While there may be a sovereign nation of "Palestine" in the future, currently there is no "Palestine." The British Mandate for Palestine terminated in 1948. The West Bank is not "Palestinian" but disputed land and subject to negotiations, as Resolutions 242 and 338, and subsequent diplomatic intitiatives like the "road map" made clear. Jordan and Israel are successor states to "Palestine," and the West Bank and Gaza Strip await final allocation.

3) The only internationally recognized "division of territory between Israel and the Palestinian ... awarded 77 percent of the land to the nation of Israel ...." Land alloted to the original British Mandate included what became Jordan (77.5 percent), the Golan Heights (later transferred to the French Mandate for Syria), what became Israel (17.5 percent), and the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the remaining five percent.

4) "Gaza is now...almost completely isolated from the West Bank, Israel and the outside world."

Carter appears to have forgotten that the Gaza Strip shares a border with Egypt and, through it, the rest of the world. That may have something to do with recently reported al Qaeda infiltration of Gaza, on which the former president is silent. And of course, if the terrorism emanating from Gaza stopped, there would be no need for the security measures that restrict movement between Gaza and Israel.

5) "Deep [Israeli] intrusions would effectively divide [the West Bank] into three portions."

The security barrier's route and an Israeli proposal to connect the suburb-settlement of Ma'ale Adumim to Jerusalem still would leave the West Bank as one contigous area. In fact, at its narrowest the West Bank would be about nine miles wide --- the same as Israel at one of its most constricted points inside the pre-'67 "green line."

6) "This confiscation of land is to be carried out without resorting to peace talks with the Palestinians, and in direct contravention of the 'road map for peace' ...."

Despite constant, material Palestinian Arab violations (including terrorism and anti-Jewish incitement) of the Oslo Accords and related agreement, Israel persisted in negotiations from 1993 to 2001. This effort included the 2000 Israeli-U.S. offer of a state on 95 percent-plus of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and on 97 percent-plus in 2001. In violation of the Oslo agreements, the Palestinians launched the "al-Aqsa intifada" terrorist war in 2000. Attempted terrorism continues at a high level, with occasional deadly attacks. Olmert is still offering negotiations -- provided the Palestinian Arabs put forth a serious partner. But he said Israel will not wait much longer.

7) "Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the Israeli government rejected the key provisions of the 'road map' by the ... the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia ...."

Sharon and his government accepted the "road map," but included a list of concerns that stressed that Palestinian obligations to halt terrorism and destroy terrorist infrastructure had to be carried out, not just Israeli obligations.

8) The " 'road map' has been endorsed unequivocally by the moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas."

Endorsed, maybe; implemented, rarely. The PA under Abbas and his Fatah movement often promised to curtail anti-Israel terrorism and the PA's pervasive anti-Israeli incitement, but for the most part did not. Now with Hamas leading the PA cabinet and legislature, Abbas wields even less influence.

9) "Although the recently elected Hamas legislators will neither recognize nor negotiate with Israel while Palestinian land is being occupied, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has expressed approval for direct Olmert-Abbas peace talks."

The "Palestinian land" Hamas considers occupied by Israel includes not just the West Bank but all of pre-'67 Israel as well. Hamas' charter and its campaign this January make that clear. A gesture of approval by the Hamas prime minister "for direct Olmert-Abbas peace talks" might help soften international opposition to funding the PA government of terrorists. It costs Haniyeh nothing; meanwhile, Hamas leader Khaled Mesha'al, "urged supporters around the world ... to send it arms, fighters and money to back its fight against arch-foe Israel," Reuters news agency reported recently. Is Palestinian rejectionism, terrorism and realpolitick over Carter's head, or does he not care?

10) Lack of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement is "one of the major causes of international terrorism ...."

Nonsense. Fanatical Islamists reject modernism and religious freedom. Any country or government that is not a theocracy practicing their particular extreme interpretation of Islam would be on the Islamist terrorists' enemies' list. Israel is just one of many hated countries and moderate Muslims are also targets. Numerous commentators have pointed out that al Qaeda's terrorism stemmed primarily from Osama bin Laden's desire to oust the "infidel" U.S. presence from Saudi Arabia and overthrow the "sacriligeous" Saudi dynasty; destroying the Jewish state was low on the priority list until bin Laden expanded his targets to include other pro-Western Arab regimes like Jordan and Egypt. Islamic fundamentalism, personified by Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution in Iran, has always seen the United States as "the Great Satan," Israel as only "the Little Satan." Carter's failure to recognize that threat, or to resp ond forcefully during the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, helped drive him from office. He appears to have learned little in the subsequent quarter-century.

Action Item:

Write to editors@usatoday.com; Op-Ed Page Editor Glen Nishimura, gnishimura@usatoday.com; Editor Ken Paulson, kpaulson@usatoday.com; and Publisher Craig Moon at cmoon@usatoday.com.

Please send CAMERA a blind copy: letters@camera.org

Highlight Carter's numerous errors. Stress that these mistakes are basic and --- made by someone in a position to know better --- reveal a deeply distorted view of the subject. Question whether the same commentary, riddled with falsehood as it is, would have been published if submitted by someone without Carter's name recognition. Insist that the ex-president's column ill-served USA Today readers and urge the newspaper to seek a qualified commentator to set the record straight.

With thanks, Eric Rozenman Washington Director CAMERA

Please also share this with anyone you know who you think would be interested.

Technorati Tags: jimmy carter israel middle east palestine convergence usa today anti-israel animus

Tonecluster on Iran

From the blog Tonecluster on Iran, from a post dated 15 May:At the moment Iran is well on the way to the bomb, and will not be stopped by any means short of war. That is not just a curmudgeonly opinion, it is a historical one. Tyrants have never been stopped by words, words only indicate weakness to them. As was the scene in 1938 so it is now. The europeans think and act as if deals can be made and "peace in our time" declared by appeasing.

To return to Churchill then and borrow a few words: the West must choose between war and appeasement; if it chooses appeasement, it will get war.Wise words, yet it sometimes seems our leaders just don't see it. The left certainly does not.

Technorati Tags: iran nuclear threat middle east europeans churchill appeasement peace in our time

Israeli Bloggers Rally Around Jailed Egyptian

On 7 May 2006 at a peaceful pro-Democracy rally in Cairo 11 Egyptian pro-democracy activists were arrested, part of 49 in total in a two week period. Among them was a well known blogger, Alaa Abd El Fattah, who writes for Manal and Alaa's Bit Bucket. (Manal is Alaa's wife.) Bloggers around the world are rallying in support of Alaa demanding he be freed. A Free Alaa blog has been started for their campaign and an an online interactive petition is also up and running.

Among those rallying around Alaa are a large number of Israeli and Jewish bloggers (updated 16 May) including:

• On The Face
  
• Shalom Israel
  
• Dry Bones
  
• Yaeli In Israel
  
• Moving On Up
  
• WestBank Blog
  
• Dutchblog Israel
  
• Step By Step - Making Aliyah
  
• Abba Gav
  
• The Mad Bad Crazee Life of Me
  
• The Muqata
  
• Cousin Lucy's Spoon
  
• Something Something
  
• Adloyada
  
• Soccer Dad
  
• and now my own Israel, Zionism, and Aliya
  
• and Blogs of Zion, where I am a contributing writer

Lisa Goldman. who writes On The Face, has been particularly active in getting word out.

While I am personally not sure about the idea of Google bombing I do happen to think this is a worthwhile cause and we all need to spread the word and make our voices heard.

Yesterday on Blogs of Zion Aharon raised the issue of racism in Israel. The current conflict with the Palestinians has hardened many Israeli attitudes towards Arabs. Watching Israelis and Jews rally to help an Egyptian, a man who, as a blogger, we think of as one of our own somehow, shows that tolerance is alive and well in Israel and that we Jews can find common cause with Muslim Arabs. My one hope from all this is that some Arabs are aware of this and start finding common cause with us. The one thing that can certainly end a conflict is if there would no longer be public support for violence and terrorism.

Technorati Tags: egypt alaa alaa abd el fattah israel democracy free alaa bloggers israeli+bloggers

Fear of Action vs. the Consequences of Inaction

Yesterday AP reported that traces of highly enriched uranium were found in Iran at a facility linked to the Iranian military. The uranium was enriched to near or above the level needed for nuclear weapons. This further validates the claim made by the Bush administration, some in Europe, and Israel that Iran is indeed actively developing nuclear weapons. This came just two days after Iranian President Ahmadinejad's latest promise of genocide for Israel, in which he said Israel "cannot continue and one day will vanish."

On the same day, on NPR's On Point program, President Bush's record low approval rating was the topic of discussion. One of the guests (I honestly don't know which) expressed the "fear" the President Bush would "precipitate a war with Iran" to boost his sagging polls before the midterm election.

Precipitate a war? It seems to me the Iranians are the ones precipitating a war. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is providing arms to al-Qaeda in Iraq and Iran has offered to share nuclear technology with Sudan, a nation which has been committing genocide in Darfur and previously in southern Sudan. Iran has also been providing Katyusha rockets to Hamas, some of which were seized by the Jordanians. Is there any doubt that Iran would also gladly provide weapons, including radiological or even nuclear weapons, for al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups to use against the United States?

Rather than fearing war with Iran all of us in the free world should fear the consequences of inaction. One day we could wake up and find that Cleveland or Miami, Tel Aviv or Birmingham could be a radioactive crater with millions dead or dying courtesy of the Iranian regime. Two thirds of Americans see Iran as a threat according to a recent Zogby poll, with 58% believing Iran will inevitably use nuclear weapons if it obtains them. I have no clue what the other 42% are thinking with all the evidence in front of them.

Yes, war is horrible to contemplate and innocent people will die. Yes, many nations will side with Iran, from Hugo Chavez' government in Venezuela to most of the Muslim world. Oil supplies will undoubtedly be disrupted and their will certainly be economic hardships. Considering the likely alternative: nuclear annihilation for Israel and an eventual nuclear attack on the United States, those hardships seem like a small price to pay and the casualties of a conventional war, as tragic as they would be, are mild by comparison.

Technorati Tags: iran nuclear threat middle east terrorism israel

That Didn't Take Long...

That didn't take long... not long at all. The Bush Administration, following the lead of the European Union and the United Nations, is funding the Hamas government in the territories. Of course this is for "humanitarian aid", aid the Palestinians have a long history of diverting to corrupt officials and to terrorism. It is also for Palestinian Authority salaries. The P.A., of course, is run by Hamas. The aid will flow through the office of President Mahmoud Abbas, as if that would make any difference.

While all this wonderful humanitarianism was going on Hamas reminded the world that it will never recognize Israel and claims all of Israel, not just territories captured in 1967. In the words of Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy head of Hamas's political bureau:

One of Hamas's founding principals is that it does not recognize Israel. We [participated in] the elections and the people voted for us based on this platform. Therefore, the question of recognizing Israel is definitely not on the table unless it withdraws from ALL the Palestinian lands, not only to the 1967 borders.

[...]

The resistance is Hamas's agenda, and we will coordinate in the upcoming period with all the factions in order to rally the Palestinian people around the resistance as a strategic option.

Hamas also appealed to the world to provide the things it really wants: arms, fighters, and money for it's war against Israel. Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, speaking in Qatar, said:

We ask all the people in surrounding Arab countries, the Muslim world and everyone who wants to support us to send weapons, money and men

George Santayana's famous quotation, "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.", has never been more true. The Bush administration and the Europeans need to look at what the Palestinians did with their funds up until now. You can never win a war on terrorism by funding the self same terrorists you are fighting.

Technorati Tags: hamas israel united nations palestine EU terrorists terrorism war on terror

British University Union Considers Boycott of Israel

Jon Pike of Engage is reporting:

The union that covers staff in the newer universities is to consider a further resolution on boycotting Israeli universities at its conference in Blackpool later this month.

The text of resolution before NATFHE reads, in part:

Conference notes continuing Israeli apartheid policies, including construction of the exclusion wall, and discriminatory educational practices. It recalls its motion of solidarity last year for the AUT resolution to exercise moral and professional responsibility.

Mr. Pike goes on to say:

198C is inaccurate, dishonest, and in conflict with NATFHE's constitution. Let's take the central point first. 198C seeks NATFHE endorsement for a private or individual boycott of Israeli academia. It doesn't say which universities, so we must presume that it refers to all the universities in Israel. It does so, disingenuously, because it couches the boycott call in terms of individual responsibility, but the foul discriminatory language is there: it asks that people consider their responsibility (in relation to) "contacts with Israeli individuals".

[...]

Let's be stone cold clear about this: what the proposers of this resolution want is union endorsement for actions that are, in effect, anti-Semitic. They aim to endorse the actions of Mona Baker, who sacked members of the editorial board of her journal because they were affiliated to Israeli Universities. We know that Mona Baker's policy is, in effect, anti-Semitic: she doesn't want to have contact with any individuals who are affiliated with Israeli institutions, and those people will largely be Jews. And we know, of course, that Mona Baker thinks these actions are 'appropriate' (and, when criticised, complains bitterly about the Jewish press). We know, too that concerned supporters of Palestinian rights like Prof. Judith Butler clearly distance themselves from Baker. Yet the South East region of Natfhe want their union to endorse Baker-type actions.

Please read Mr. Pike's complete piece here. A vote on the resolution will be held later this month.

Mona Baker is one of the academics in the U.K. cited by Dr. Alan Dershowitz in his book The Case For Peace as part of a campaign to villify Israel in academia and create a generation of leaders utterly opposed to the Jewish state. I described this in my post Poisoning The Well last month. Here Israeli academia is possibly faced with yet more tangible results of the bias against her in British and American academia.

Oh, and if anyone actually believes Israel somehow practices anything even vaguely resembling apartheid, I refer you to this piece I wrote last year and the excellent New York Times article on the security fence it refers to.

Huges thanks to Yael K. for the link to Mr. Pike's post. I've also posted this on Blogs of Zion as it seems that the mainstream British and American press aren't about to report on this. Perhaps if we get the word out far and wide they will have to take notice.

Technorati Tags: academia israel uk palestine natfhe anti-semitism bias boycott

More Media Bias: At Least PBS Corrects Their Website

Did you know that "the state of Palestine" already exists? Did you know its "history in the region stretches back 6,000 years"? No? Neither did I. In all of history there has never been a state of Palestine, not even for six minutes. The name Palestine was first given to the region by the Romans less than 2,000 years ago. Arabs didn't come to what is now Israel and the territories until the Mohammedan conquests in the 7th century. Arab leaders during the British mandatory period from King Feisal or Jordan and Iraq to Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini (the Palestinian Arab leader) referred to the people we now call Palestinians as Syrians. Indeed even today's Hamas leaders want a pan-Arab Islamic state, not an independent Palestine. So when did these 6,000 years come from? Somehow that didn't stop PBS from including that statement in the background web page for the recent Frontline special on Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, entitled The Unexpected Candidate.

Don't look for the statement on the PBS website. Thankfully it's gone, replaced with a much more accurate history. On 10 May 2006 CAMERA, The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America , sent an e-mail to it's membership taking credit for this and eight other corrections on the PBS website. Since they haven't been posted to the CAMERA web page yet I thought I'd share:

ORIGINAL: Civil war erupted, with Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq supporting the Palestinians . Nevertheless the Israelis prevailed and in ensuing years captured more territory west of the Jordan River.

REVISED: Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq joined the Palestinians in attacking and trying to eliminate the nascent state.

ORIGINAL: Waves of Jewish refugees flooded the country, more than doubling the Israeli population.

REVISED: Waves of Jewish refugees flooded the country, many from Europe, but most fleeing Arab countries, and more than doubling the Israeli population.

ORIGINAL: In 1955, a new Egyptian government closed the Straits of Tiran and the Suez Canal to Israeli ships in response to a perceived spy threat. The following year, Shimon Peres led Israel to invade the Sinai Peninsula, aided secretly by Britain and France...< BR>

REVISED: In 1955, a new Egyptian government closed the Straits of Tiran and the Suez Canal to Israeli ships in response to a perceived spy threat. The following year, Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula, backed by Britain and France....

ORIGINAL: Tension continued, however, and fighting broke out again in 1967. A young Yasser Arafat had stirred up liberation hopes in occupied Palestine, and border skirmishes began to escalate. In May that year...

REVISED: Tension continued, however, and fighting broke out again in 1967. In May that year...

ORIGINAL: In the days that followed, Israeli troops conquered the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian troops defending Sinai.

REVISED: In the days that followed, Israeli troops conquered the Egyptians troops defending Sinai. Israel also defeated assaults by Jordan from the east and Syria from the north.

ORIGINAL: In the late 1980s, fed up with occupation and Jewish settlements in former Palestinian territories, the Arafat-led Fatah party began the first intifada in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

REVISED: In the late 1980s, fed up with occupation and Jewish settlements in former Palestinian territories, local Palestinians began the first intifada in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, later joined by Yasser Arafat's Fatah militants.

ORIGINAL: The emergence of suicide bombers and the increasing instability within the Palestinian leadership further derailed the talks....

REVISED: Palestinian suicide bombers began attacking Israeli civilians, and the increasing instability within Palestinian leadership further derailed the talks...

ORIGINAL: It remains to be seen if Israel and the international community will accept the militant group Hamas in any future peace negotiations, following the group's landslide victory in the January elections.

REVISED: It remains to be seen if Israel and the international community will accept the militant group Hamas in any future peace negotiations, following the group's landslide victory in the January elections. Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist, and is regarded as a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union.

While I applaud CAMERA's work I have to wonder how much damage the PBS site already did. In light of this and the ongoing and persistent media bias I've previously reported, mainly from mainstream and left-leaning media, is it any wonder that people who trust these news sources often have wildly distorted views of the conflict?

Huge thanks to my mom for sending this along to me. I first published it on Blogs of Zion and cross-posted it here.

Technorati Tags: media bias israel revisionist history palestine camera pbs frontline middle east