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Israeli propaganda group HonestReporting denies encouraging employee to smear UK professor

My recent article exposing a smear by an Israeli pressure group worker seems to have touched a nerve. Israeli masters student Smadar Bakovic claimed in the Jewish Chronicle last month that Warwick University professor Nicola Pratt had given her a lower grade for her dissertation than she deserved because of anti-Israeli bias. But Warwick university strongly denied her story, saying that the new higher mark given was in fact for a revised version of her dissertation. A university spokesperson told me that Bakovic’s story was untrue, and has subsequently issued a press release with further details. The Jewish Chronicle’s reporter Marcus Dysch didn’t seem to think it relevant to mention that Bakovic works for MediaCentral  — a “free or low-cost” pro-Israel fixer agency in Jerusalem. But now her employer has defended her actions. 

Popular Palestine activism outreach tool reappears: "Loss of Land" map cards available again

I first saw these cards at a Palestine activism conference around 2002, when they were still quite new, being distributed by the Ann Arbor Friends Meeting’s Palestine Israel Action Group (PIAG). With the front side featuring a set of maps depicting Palestinian loss of land from pre-Nakba times to present, and the back featuring a contemporary map showing the fragmentation of the West Bank (alongside various statistics and quotes), these cards are simple, convenient, and effective tools which remain popular a decade after their introduction.