“Every six months or so a report comes out detailing the woeful state of geographical knowledge held by many Americans. Usually people chuckle and wonder how it is that so many Americans think California is on the East Coast. After all, every rightly educated American knows it’s on the Left Coast.” Mike Brown writes about what happens when the New York Times sits in on a Middle East geography test. Read more about The New York Times gets an 'F' for geography
Bernard Lewis
Veteran analyst Lamis Andoni examines the views of Bernard Lewis, the man who coined the phrase “clash of civilisations” and inspiration for much of the current US administration’s Middle East policy, in this article based on her UC Berkeley course, “The War on Terrorism: The US, Islam and the Arab World”. Read more about Bernard Lewis: In the service of empire
Ali Abunimah, Peter Novick, Arnold Wolf and Emily Hauser16 December 2002
On 3 December 2002, EI’s Ali Abunimah, historian Peter Novick, writer Emily Hauser and Rabbi Arnold Wolf met at the University of Chicago to consider the differences between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism. EI presents the text of the opening remarks of the four panelists. Read more about Panel: Is criticism of Israel anti-Semitism?
NPR loudly reported highly dubious, anonymous claims that Palestinian “extremists” linked to Al-Qaida had obtained a deadly nerve agent from Iraq. When Pentagon sources poured cold water on the charges, which came from a Washington Post journalist who had previously concealed news at the government’s request, NPR fell silent. EI’s Ali Abunimah takes NPR to task. Read more about NPR allows dubious, sensational claims to stand
On Wednesday 11th December 2002, the social arm of Lebanese resistance group Hizbullah was one of three organisations to be added to Canada’s official list of “terrorist entities”. Canadian newspapers and politicians cited, as the ultimate deciding factor for Canada’s policy change towards Hizbullah, a statement attributed to its leader Hassan Nasrallah last month in which he allegedly urged Palestinians to undertake suicide bombings outside of Israel/Palestine, in locations around the world. But it has now emerged that the source of the remarks is suspect, meaning that an organisation widely recognised for its humanitarian contributions in desperate areas of the Middle East has been cut off from a considerable number of donors on the basis of a false account. EI’s Nigel Parry reports. Read more about False Washington Times report convinces Canada to ban Hizbullah
The Reuters article “Double standards” that appeared in the Oct 10th edition of the Economist was been widely circulated and lauded by pro-Israeli media monitoring groups as “seminal” (Honest Reporting, Oct 17) and “highly informative and balanced” (CAMERA alert, Oct 16). This dubious praise was only garnered because the article avoided a rather important fact… Read more about Economist: Main reason for UN inaction against Israel glossed over
NPR demonstrated a complete lack of skepticism about a report in the Washington Post citing shadowy and anonymous government sources claiming that Lebanon-based Al-Qaida-lined extremists obtained a deadly chemical weapon from Iraq. By failing to ask any hard questions, NPR served essentially as a transcription service for the government, rather than as an independent source of news and analysis. EI’s Ali Abunimah explains. Read more about NPR confuses irresponsible speculation for hard news
Benjamin J Doherty and Ali Abunimah10 December 2002
Above: Elia Suleiman in the director’s chair.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences operates a double standard that may have kept Elia Suleiman’s award-winning feature film “Divine Intervention” out of the competition for the Oscars, EI has learned. The film, a dark comedy about a love affair between two people on opposite sides of an Israeli military checkpoint, won a prestigious jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and the European Film Award. EI’s Ali Abunimah and Benjamin Doherty investigate. Read more about Oscars' double standard turns Palestinian film into refugee
When a Palestinian attack kills Israelis, the TV news networks are quick to cut to “breaking news” reports. Harrowing footage from the scene and interviews with outraged Israeli government officials are swiftly broadcast, and harsh statements are quickly issued by government and UN officials to appear in tomorrow’s front page newspaper stories. Meanwhile, the relentless killing of Palestinian civilians, many of them children, by the Israeli occupation army goes largely unnoticed and unreported. Read more about Invisible killings: Israel's daily toll of Palestinian children
The recent attacks on an Israeli hotel and the firing of missiles on an Israeli plane taking off from Mombassa, Kenya, indicate again that terrorism has neither been defeated, exhausted nor even intimidated by the loudly acclaimed American-led “war on terror.” On the contrary, terrorist activities seem to be gathering strength, spreading faster and hitting harder than the most cynical assessments predicted. Hasan Abu Nimah, in this contribution to EI, explains why America’s failure to distinguish among the difference causes of violence is making things worse. At the same time, he warns Palestinians not to allow their just cause to be hijacked by those who carry out atrocities against civilians. Read more about Back to square one: the derailed "war on terror" after the Mombasa attacks
