An Arab member of the Israeli parliament is demanding that a newspaper be allowed to publish an investigative report that was suppressed days before Israel attacked Gaza in winter 2008. The investigation by Uri Blau, who has been in hiding since December to avoid arrest, concerned Israeli preparations for the impending assault on Gaza, known as Operation Cast Lead. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Did banned media report foretell of Gaza war crimes?
There is considerable speculation following the removal of Lady Jenny Tonge on 14 February from her position as health critic for the Liberal Democratic Party in the UK’s House of Lords following her statement calling for an inquiry into claims that the Israeli military stole organs during its relief work in Haiti last month. Jillian York reports for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Israeli media first to report Haitian organ theft rumor
The New York Times has all but confirmed to The Electronic Intifada (EI) that the son of its Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner was recently inducted into the Israeli army. Over the weekend, EI received a tip suggesting this had been the case and wrote to Bronner to ask him to confirm or deny the information and to seek his opinion on whether, if true, he thought it would be a conflict of interest. Read more about New York Times fails to disclose Jerusalem bureau chief's conflict of interest
For the first time a mainstream British television program has tackled the Zionist lobby head-on. Channel 4’s Dispatches, broadcast on 16 November, promised to hold the pro-Israel lobby up to rigorous public scrutiny and it succeeded. Presented by Peter Oborne, former political editor of the right-wing weekly The Spectator, Dispatches revealed the cozy relationship between Britain’s pro-Israel lobby and both the Conservative and Labour parties as well as its attempts to stifle criticism of Israel in the press. Diane Langford reports for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about British TV documentary tackles taboo of Israel's lobby
Last month South Africa’s premier investigative journalism TV show, Carte Blanche, aired an investigation of allegations that security personnel from Israel’s national carrier, El Al Airlines, were acting dubiously at Johannesburg’s airport. Carte Blanche conducted an experiment, sending an undercover reporter into the airport, expecting him to be targeted simply because he was Muslim. Sayed Dhansay comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Report: Israeli intelligence illegally profiling travelers in South Africa
This month marked six months since the “official” conclusion to Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip, “Operation Cast Lead.” Electronic Intifada contributor Ben White looks at some of the strategies of Israel’s campaign of disinformation, confusion, and lies — and the reality of its war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Read more about Lies and Israel's war crimes
“Just as it is apparently impossible for the President of the United States to visit the Middle East without a corresponding visit to Buchenwald, it is apparently also impossible to have a news article on Palestinian humanity without a corresponding reminder that Arabs do not understand the Holocaust.” So writes Belén Fernández in a comment on how The New York Times covers the work of Palestinian musicians. Read more about Music, The New York Times and the politics of a Palestinian state
A February 2008 report by the pro-Israel media watchdog CAMERA claimed the existence of an overwhelming pro-Arab, anti-Israel agenda in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times in “guest op-eds” over a 19-month period. The Electronic Intifada found CAMER ignored articles that undermined its claims. CAMERA responded with another report reaffirming most of its findings, but The Electronic Intifada finds that once again, CAMERA’s analysis fails to pass the credibility test. Read more about CAMERA's broken lens revisited
Given their influence on world opinion and the vital importance of the settlement issue in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, can readers depend on the news agencies to provide fair coverage? The answer, sadly, is: no. Even on the most basic fact about the settlers — the number living on occupied Palestinian territory — the agencies regularly get it wrong. Jonathan Cook analyzes. Read more about Media agencies annex 200,000 settlers
A new study by Arab Media Watch demonstrates a strong tendency in the British press to represent Israel as “retaliating” in coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The study, the first to investigate this aspect of British press coverage of the conflict, examined a period from January to June 2008. It found that when the British press represents a party as retaliating or responding in the conflict, that party is Israel 72 percent of the time. The tabloid press showed a particularly marked bias, representing Israel as retaliating in 100 percent of all representations of “retaliation.” Read more about Study: Israel "retaliates" to Palestinian "provocation" in UK press
