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Sunday, April 13, 2008

Washington Post Correspondent Weaves Misrepresentations, Distortions and Omissions Into Article Critical of Israel for Sealing Gaza Border & Claiming Hamas Is Thereby Strengthened

An article in Sunday's Washington Post by its correspondent in Jerusalem, Griff Witte, was an example of slanted and agenda based reporting. (Gaza's Unemployed Have Handouts or Hamas, Factory Closings Under Israeli Siege Have Strengthened Islamist Group, Critics Say, 4-13-08, A14) Post readers have a right to information necessary to evaluate the political impact in Gaza of economic hardships brought about by the closure of Israel's and Egypt's borders with Gaza. Whether Hamas is being weakened or strengthened by these policies is a matter of concern to all. Available alternatives to these policies are also a matter of concern. These were all fair topics that in the right hands provided an opportunity for top flight journalism. Unfortunately, that was not to be had from the Washington Post. Instead, the Post's correspondent injected his own opinion that Hamas is being strengthened by economic adversity in Gaza and then failed to provide any evidence to support it. Mr. Witte declared:

"Although Israel intended for the siege to weaken Hamas, factory owners, workers and international aid officials in Gaza say the rise in unemployment and the dwindling influence of the private sector have had the opposite effect, allowing the group to consolidate its control over the lives of Gaza's 1.5 million people."

But Mr. Witte blatantly misrepresented what almost all of the people he interviewed said. The international aid worker commented only on the impact of poor economic conditions on the children of Gaza.

"'For a Gazan youngster, the question is what do you want to be when you grow up,' said Conal Urquhart, a U.N. humanitarian affairs officer based in Gaza. 'Your options are very limited.'"

Mr. Witte then offers in support of his thesis a handful of quotes of Gazans, only one of which touched upon whether harsh economic conditions in Gaza are strengthening or weakening Hamas.

There were only six Gazans quoted by Mr. Witte in the article. Four of them were factory owners, and only one of those factory owners, 25 year old Ammar Yazegi, actually supported Mr. Witte's thesis that Hamas has been strengthened by the border closings. The others either didn't comment at all or supported a contrary view. "Mohammed T. Yazegi, the company chairman and family patriarch" of the 25 year old Yazegi's own family, stated that he was sick of factional fighting among Palestinians and that it was playing into the hands of Israelis. This was hardly an opinion that Hamas is being strengthened by efforts to isolate it. In fact, it reflects opposition to Hamas's policies. Mr. Witte also quoted Hassan al-Hayek, a paving stone factory owner whose factories are currently not operating, but al-Hayak offered no opinions at all about Hamas or the impact on Hamas of poor economic conditions in Gaza. Similarly, Mr. Witte quotes Abu Dan, a garment factory owner whose plant is currently closed, but Dan offers no comment about Hamas or the impact of the border restrictions on Hamas's strength.

So much for the 4 factory owners. What about rank and file Gazans? Does this Washington Post journalist try to find out whether Hamas is being strengthened or weakened as a result of economic adversity caused by border restrictions? Mr. Witte quotes Abu Hammed, a former garment factory worker who now works as a policeman for Hamas, saying he would go back to work at the garment factory in a heartbeat if he could, because the pay is better. He didn't give his real name for fear of Hamas reprisal. Does this sound like Israel's policies of isolation are strengthening Hamas among Gazans? The other rank and file Gazan who is quoted by Mr. Witte, Sabari al-Naggar, refuses economic assistance from Hamas, because he despises the group. So much for Mr. Witte's thesis that Hamas is being strengthened by the border restrictions.

Mr. Witte conspicuously avoids any direct examination of whether a gradual erosion of Hamas's power base among Gaza residents is, in fact, taking place. In addition, while doing his best to criticize and erroneously depict Israel as alone in pursuing this policy of isolating Hamas, Mr. Witte never asks or attempts to answer the question whether any available alternatives exist for Israel, Egypt, Mahmoud Abbas's PA and the US, all of whom support the policy of isolating and thereby weakening Hamas. For instance, would lifting border restrictions result in a return of prosperity to Gaza? If so, what effect, if any, would that have on Hamas and future prospects for peace? Mr. Witte didn't ask and he made no effort to even point to the issue. So, while Mr. Witte was given the opportunity to provide quality journalistic coverage of a topic that is on the minds of everyone concerned with the future of Israel and the disputed territories, he dropped the ball.

There is more wrong with this article. The following letter by Leo Rennert goes into detail.

From: Leo Rennert
To: Washington Post Editors, Ombudsman, Publisher and Reporter
Date: April 13, 2008
Subject: WASHINGTON POST PINS GAZA ECONOMIC WOES ON ISRAEL -- NOT HAMAS

In its Sunday, April 13 editions, the Washington Post runs an article by Griff Witte, headlined "Gaza's Unemployed Have Handouts or Hamas -- Factory Closings Under ISRAELI SIEGE Have Strengthened Islamist Group, Critics Say," which blames Israel -- and only Israel -- for the impact of the economic blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza.

It's an article with multiple distortions, omissions and selective quotes -- all designed to paint a picture of Israeli culpability for rising unemployment in Gaza and for Hamas's supposed consolidation of power.

Here's how Witte spins the article against Israel, starting with an outright falsehood:

1. Contrary to Witte's article, the economic blockade of Gaza is not just an ''ISRAELI SIEGE." It's actually an ISRAELI-EGYPTIAN SIEGE. There would be no effective blockade if Egypt hadn't also shut the Rafah border crossing into Egyptian Sinai. But Witte makes absolutely no mention of Egypt's crucial collaboration with Israel in isolating Gaza. Strange that he didn't get in touch with Egyptian officials and asked the obvious, elementary, Journalism 101 question: Why does Cairo participate in the blockade? It's as if Witte has come down with total amnesia that just a few weeks ago, Hamas engineered a violent breach of the Rafah crossing, which lasted several days while Gazans poured across to buy all kinds of provisions. Nor does he mention that in recent days, in response to Hamas threats of another violent breach, Egypt sent massive numbers of troops toward the Gaza border with stern warnings to Hamas not to try to breach Rafah again. If Witte would consult a map, he would find that Gaza borders on BOTH Israel and Egypt.

2. While Witte falsely portrays the embargo as a unilateral Israeli move, it's actually a TRILATERAL affair -- with Israel and Egypt overtly keeping the crossings closed, except for humanitarian assistance by Israel, plus covert, passive acquiescence by Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. While Abbas publicly calls for an end to the Gaza embargo, his regime has been all too happy to let Hamas stew in its own juices in Gaza. The worst thing for Abbas would be a lifting of the embargo, which Hamas would proclaim as validating its terrorist strategy by demonstrating that its violent methods are more successful than PA talks with Israel. Yet, there's not a hint of the Abbas-PA aspect of the Gaza siege in Witte's article. Nor is there any mention of how reopening of the crossings under terrorist rocket fire would obviously weaken Abbas in Palestinian eyes.

3. The lion's share of Witte's six-column article is devoted to quotes from unemployed Gazans and factory owners facing shutdowns for lack of material. But it also peddles the notion that Hamas has been the primary beneficiary of its own isolation because it's the only employer left to offer jobs to jobless Gazans. Here's how Witte seeks to turn this spin into incontrovertible fact:

"Although Israel intended for the siege to weaken Hamas, factory owners, workers and international aid officials in Gaza say the rise in unemployment and the dwindling influence of the private sector have had the opposite effect, allow the group to consolidate its control over the lives of 1.5 million people."

Never mind that even a Gaza employer, a Pepsi bottler interviewed by Witte who's facing closure of his factory, doesn't buy Witte's spin: "For this, we have to blame OURSELVES. We're giving the Israelis an excuse to do whatever they want." Witte just leaves the quote hanging as he fails to spell out why Gazans -- not Israel -- bear the blame for the economic crisis in the territory. But what else could this employer be alluding to except that Gazans overwhelmingly voted for Hamas and now have to bear the consequences of intensified rocket attacks against Israel from Hamas-ruled Gaza? Not exactly what Witte really wants to convey.

In his eagerness to celebrate Hamas' alleged consolidation of power, Witte also overlooks other inconvenient facts -- polls which show a drop in popular support of Hamas and sporadic protests blaming rocket launchers -- not Israel -- for Gaza's woes. Hamas still exercises a totalitarian grip on Gaza, but instead of celebrating Hamas's ruthless power to score a point against Israel, shouldn't Witte instead have highlighted some of the courageous Gaza voices protesting against their terrorist rulers?

4. Witte also doesn't come clean with readers about WHY Israel imposed an embargo in the first place. The first slight hint comes in the FIFTH paragraph when Witte mentions that the "Israeli siege followed the Hamas takeover of Gaza last June." There's much more to it than that, of course, but Witte doesn't want to spoil his anti-Israel theme by telling readers the real reasons for Israel's decision to isolate Hamas.

It's not until 9 paragraphs later -- in the 14th PARAGRAPH, when many readers already may have moved on to other pages -- that Witte briefly quotes a spokesman for Prime Minister Olmert as saying that the economic restrictions are undermining Hamas. And you have to wait until the 16th PARAGRAPH to get to Israel's reasons for imposing an embargo when the Israeli spokesman talks about risks of weapons shipments through the border crossings, daily rocket attacks, and cross-border infiltrations like last week's raid that killed 2 Israeli civilians at a fuel terminal on the Israeli side of the border.

Witte sandwiches (overwhelms, really) these Israeli points between much lengthier descriptions of Gaza's economic misery, rising at one point to sheer poetic heights: "On some blocks, the silence is broken only by the braying of a donkey or the turn of a rusty bicyle wheel."

5. Strange that Witte and the Post demonstrate no such empathy for hundreds of thousands of Israelis within range of rocket attacks from Hamas-ruled Gaza. No such plaintive narratives about the traumatic lives of Sderot residents who have to worry about much more than losing a job when the sirens sound and the next Qassam may end their lives.

Witte ends his piece with a quote from the owner of a garment factory: "'I consider this factory a cemetery.'" If Witte ever decides to make his first visit to Sderot, he could find many a resident who could tell him and Post readers: "I consider this house, this schoolyard, this playground a cemetery."

Leo Rennert
[Leo Rennert is a journalist and former White House correspondent]

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Washington Post More Concerned Over Impact On Palestinians of Suspension of Fuel Than On Israeli Victims of Palestinian Gas Terminal Terror Attack

As usual, in reporting on this week's Palestinian terrorist attack on the Nahal Oz gas terminal in Israel, the Washington Post skipped right over the Israeli victims of terrorism and focused its attention and its critical, opinionated reporting almost exclusively on Israel's response. (Gaza's Fuel Is Cut Off After Palestinian Attack on Terminal, Investigators Study How Four Gunmen Crossed Into Israel, 4-11-08, A16) The Post did accompany its article with a photograph taken at the funeral of one of the victims. However, it should not be surprising that this was a wire service photograph, because the best the Post's reporter could muster was to stay in Jerusalem, sip coffee with representatives of so-called "human rights" groups, and then dutifully quote their shrill cries that Israel is "'chok[ing] the life out of Gaza.'"

The Nahal Oz gas terminal supplies "all the fuel for Gaza's 1.5 million residents." In seeking to focus attention and blame on Israel, the Post virtually ignores the fact that Hamas and the other terrorist groups in Gaza (who recent polls clearly show enjoy the support of a strong majority of the Palestinian population of Gaza), themselves attacked this gas terminal. The Post's reporter failed to do what any good journalist should have done, which is to ask and try to answer for readers why the Palestinian leadership in Gaza would themselves or through their proxies have attacked their own fuel supply. By turning a blind eye to the motives behind this act of terrorism and instead focusing only on the Israeli reaction, the Post has once again lent itself as a tool to a cynical Palestinian propaganda ploy.

Leo Rennert's letter focuses on the Post's skewed focus on Palestinian discomfort and its indifference to Israeli suffering.

From: Leo Rennert
To: Washington Post Editors, Publisher, Ombudsman, and Reporter
Subject: WASHINGTON POST WEEPS FOR GAZA FUEL SHORTAGE BUT NOT FOR ISRAELIS MURDERED BY TERRORISTS
Date: April 11, 2008

One day after four terrorists crossed from Gaza into Israel and raided a fuel-supply terminal that killed 2 civilian employees working on providing fuel for Gazans, Griff Witte, the Washington Post's Jerusalem correspondent, filed an article, headlined "Gaza's Fuel Is Cut Off After Palestinian Attack on Terminal."

Witte's article, spread over four columns, deals exclusively with what he portrays as the impact of Israel's decision to suspend temporarily further fuel deliveries to Gaza while security is beefed up at the terminal. Its single thrust is to sound the alarm about terrible consequences to Gazans from such a power shutoff.

"Gaza is already suffering from a severe economic blockade that has reduced the flow of goods into the territory to only humanitarian essentials," Witte writes. He quotes human-rights advocates who warn that even a short stoppage of fuel shipments "could have drastic consequences in a place where RESERVES ARE NON-EXISTENT" Witte also passes on a comment from one of those advocates that "'to close (the terminal) is to choke the life out of Gaza.'"

And he ends his piece with a quote from a spokesman of a Gaza association of gas store owners: "'More and more it's a disastrous situation here in Gaza.'"

Well, you get the drift.

SO LET'S EXAMINE HOW WITTE'S ARTICLE GOES OFF PROPER JOURNALISTIC RAILS AND TURNS INTO OUTRIGHT PALESTINIAN PROPAGANDA:

1. Not only does Witte hype the impact of a temporary fuel cutoff, but he gins it up beyond any semblance of truth. Unlike Witte and the Post, the Reuters news service reported the following: "An official of the European Union, which provides fuel to Gaza's lone power plant, said the plant had ENOUGH FUEL ON HAND TO LAST ABOUT A WEEK." Keep in mind that Israel immediately signaled that the terminal would be back in operation by then. And with a week's reserve, it's clear that there would be no diminution in the Gaza plant's operation.

So why tell Post readers that fuel reserves in Gaza are NON-EXISTENT? Why publish such a canard when the likely impact of Israel's brief closure of the fuel terminal on Gazans is basically NIL. NADA. But Witte isn't interested in facts. His job and purpose are to give Israel a black eye -- facts notwithstanding.

2. And while Witte confines his coverage exclusively to pumping up Palestinian pain, it's fair to ask where is his coverage of greater suffering by the Israeli families of the two murdered terminal workers? Doesn't their pain exceed that of Gazans having to wait in long lines to fill up gas tanks or having to cope with occasional blackouts? Does Witte even weigh the asymmetrical differences in human suffering between the murder of Israeli civilians helping to keep the lights on in Gaza and Palestinians importuned by a blockade of non-essential goods.? Did Witte seek out the families of these 2 civilian workers to get their reactions? Of course, not.

3. Did Witte take the trouble to interview members of a kibbutz near the Gaza border which sustained a heavy mortar bombardment unleashed by Gaza terrorists to divert attention from the raid on the terminal? The kibbutz residents had to stay put for hours in shelters while mortar shells rained down on them. Did Witte bother to record and report their pain and utter panic at not knowing if the next shell would spell death? Of course not.

4. Or has Witte bothered to spend some time in Sderot -- the most rocket-battered town on the face of the globe -- to report the suffering of its residents under constant missile barrages? Or what it feels like when a parent finds out that a rocket has just landed next to a school yard or a kindergarten? Doesn't the pain of Sderot's residents at least equal that of Gazans deprived of non-essential goods because their terrorist masters assign a higher priority to shattering or snuffing out the lives of Israeli civilians?

When will Witte and the Post finally run a major piece about Israeli pain at the hands of terrorists -- especially after the paper has spared no effort or news space to record Palestinian pain in recent years?

Leo Rennert
[Leo Rennert is a journalist and former White House correspondent]

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Washington Post Continues to Refer to Terrorists Everywhere in the World Except Israel as Terrorists - Continues To Alter Wire Service Reports to Refer to Palestinian Terrorists As "Fighters"

The Post long ago stopped referring to Palestinian terrorists committing terrorist acts against Israel as "terrorists," and for the last several years has referred to them as "militants." At the same time the Post continues to accurately refer to terrorists in other regions of the world by what they are, "terrorists." The most recent examples of the Post's discriminatory reporting policy on Israel are in Saturday's edition of the Post. An article about the risk of terrorist attacks on US cities bore the headline "Terrorism Study Drops a Bombshell on Boise." An article on page A10 bore the headline "British Jury in Terror Case Shown 'Martyrdom Tapes.'" In an ironic twist, while not hesitating to call these British targeted acts "terrorism," the article notes that the videotapes introduced into evidence in this case showed the terrorists describing their purpose as being "to protest U.S. and British policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories."

"'This is revenge for the actions of the U.S.A. in the Muslim lands and their accomplices, such as the British and the Jews," said a man identified by Wright as defendant Umar Islam, 29, one of the eight men charged with trying to destroy at least seven United Airlines, American Airlines and Air Canada jets bound for the United States and Canada.'"

Readers of the Post should have no doubt that if this same trial were taking place today in Israel, and if the targets of the planned attacks were Israelis, the Washington Post would eliminate all references to terrorists and terrorism and substitute in their place language to make the heinous acts and their perpetrators more acceptable to readers.

And what would the Washington Post's euphemism of the day be for Palestinian terrorists? "Militant" is now considered by the Post to be too harsh. Where it once euphemized "terrorists" to "militants," The Post now actively alters wire service reports to eliminate all references to Palestinian "militants" and to substitute in their place "fighters."

Today's Post had an excellent example. In its "Around the World" section the Post reprinted a brief AP article in which it changed the AP's reference to "Islamic militants" to "Islamist fighters." In addition, The Washington Post eliminated from its version of the article the AP's description of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades as being "known for some of the most serious suicide bombings and shootings in the conflict" and retained only the AP's statement that the group is "blamed" for 1,100 Israeli deaths. Here are the Post's two altered sentences:

"A dozen Islamist fighters who had agreed to serve jail time as a way to get taken off Israel's wanted list escaped from a Palestinian prison in the West Bank late Friday, alleging that guards beat them."

"The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of the Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, is blamed for the deaths of more than 1,100 Israelis."

The AP's version ran in newspapers around the world, but we've selected a paper in the United Arab Emirates to show that the Post's pro-Palestinian terrorist slant is so blatant as to surpass even that of news outlets in Arab lands. This is the AP's original version of the same two sentences, as reported without alteration in the Khaleej Times:

"A dozen Islamic militants who had agreed to serve jail time as a way to get taken off Israel’s wanted list escaped from a Palestinian prison in the West Bank late Friday, charging that guards beat them."

"The Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, an offshoot of Abbas’ Fatah Party, is known for some of the most serious suicide bombings and shootings in the conflict that broke out in 2001, being blamed for the deaths of more than 1,100 Israelis."

This is just one more example of the effort of many reporters and editors at the Washington Post to inject their own anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian opinions and agenda into the Post's news reporting.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Why Did Washington Post Reporter Do An Overnight Reversal In The Terminology He Employs By Changing "Disputed Territory" To "Palestinian Territory?"

Date: April 2, 2008
From: Leo Rennert
Subject: WASHINGTON POST TRANSFORMS "DISPUTED" LANDS INTO "PALESTINIAN" LANDS -- IN 24 HOURS!
To: Washington Post Reporter, Editors, Publisher and Ombudsman

What an amazing overnight switcheroo you performed from one edition to the next in writing about Betar Illit, a Jewish city of 35,000 near Jerusalem, and Pisgat Zeev, a predominantly Jewish neighborhood within the municipal boundaries of the Jewish capital! It really boggles the mind that the Washington Post can turn "disputed" places into "Palestinian" lands with such dizzying rapidity.

In the April 1 editions of the Post, the headline informed readers that Betar Illit and Pisgat Zeev are on "DISPUTED LAND." Your article referred to them as "CONTESTED TERRITORY."

In describing Betar Illit, you called it a "West Bank settlement" that Israel plans to retain "UNDER ANY FUTURE PEACE DEAL." You explained that Betar Illit, "within an easy drive of Jerusalem," is exactly the kind of built-up Jewish community that President Bush referred to when, in a letter to then-Prime Minister Sharon, he assured Israel that the U.S. did not expect it to withdraw completely from the West Bank.

Similarly, in describing Pisgat Zeev, you called it a "NORTHEASTERN JERUSALEM NEIGHBORHOOD" within expanded but internationally unrecognized boundaries of the city that were set after the 1967 war.

Twenty-four hours ago, I sent you and your editors an e-mail commending you on making it clear that, amid all the controversy over Israel building more homes within these 2 places, the fact is that they're on DISPUTED lands -- territory that is neither internationally recognized as "Israeli" or "Palestinian."

But lo and behold, in your very next article, in today's April 2 editions of the Washington Post, you seem to have forgotten what you wrote a day earlier and you suddenly and unexplainedly convert these DISPUTED LANDS into PALESTINIAN LANDS. Are you and the Post a day late in playing April's Fool?

The lead paragraph in your April 2 article now refers to Pisgat Zeev and Betar Illit as "OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN LAND." Pisgat Zeev no longer is a northeastern Jerusalem neighborhood within the city's expanded boundaries, but now has become a "West Bank settlement" with no connection to Jerusalem whatsoever.

Is this a case of geographic alchemy? What accounts for this startling semantic switcheroo? Did you experience a sudden epiphany that forced you to grant "Palestinian" sovereignty and ownership to these 2 places? Or did an editor remind you that you went off the reservation on April 1 and that you're expected to adhere henceforth to the news department's pro-Palestinian agenda in future dispatches?

Whatever accounts for your egregious change of designations for Pisgat Zeev and Betar Illit, the fact is that YOU WERE RIGHT ON APRIL 1 AND YOU WERE WRONG ON APRIL 2.

You were right on April 1 because as you seemed to know at the time, Israel did not capture "Palestinian" lands in the 1967 war. There was no sovereign "Palestinian" entity in the West Bank before 1967 for anyone to occupy. Nor has there been one since then. The West Bank's last sovereign was the Ottoman Empire. I doubt that even your misguided editors would countenance the Post describing Pisgat Zeev and Betar Illit as built on OCCUPIED OTTOMAN LAND. Before Israel captured the West Bank in a six-day war against Arab armies determined to wipe it off the map, Jordan occupied the West Bank for nearly 20 years. And before Jordan occupied the West Bank during Israel's Independence War in 1948-49 (a war also fought by Arab armies determined to eliminate Israel), the West Bank was part of British-ruled Palestine Mandate, which the League of Nations assigned to London pending the advent of a new sovereign occupant that would replace the defunct Ottoman Empire -- a quest that continues to this very day.

But at no time was the West Bank "PALESTINIAN LAND" -- nor has there been a "Palestinian" state, nation, or sovereignty at any time throughout recorded history.

So I would hope that in any future articles about Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem that lie beyond the 1949 armistice line or Jewish communities in the West Bank, you'll insist on reverting to your accurate April 1 terminology and not perpetuate the historical fallacies of your April 2 piece. Your reputation as a professional journalist is on the line.

Leo Rennert
[Leo Rennert is a journalist and former White House correspondent]

Friday, March 28, 2008

The Post Is Passionate In Its Effort To Humanize Palestinian Terrorists And Comparatively Inattentive To The Humanity Of Israeli Victims Of Terror

From: Andrew Cooper
To: Letters to the Editor
CC: Reporter, Foreign Editor and Ombudsman, The Washington Post
Date: Sunday, March 9, 2008

To the Editors:

After reading yesterday's (Israel Mourns Eight Slain Students, Thousands Attend Service for Victims of Gunman Described as Despondent Over Gaza, 3-8-08, A9) coverage of the vicious terrorist attack in Jerusalem, I knew quite a bit more about the terrorist who opened fire in a library, murdering eight students and seriously injuring many more. I knew about his family's reactions, the celebrations of the murders that took place within his community, his background, his supposed motivations, and even what he and his family looked like from two prominent photographs.

But, oddly enough, an article entitled "Israel Mourns Eight Slain Students" forced me to leave the newspaper and surf the Internet last night to find even the names and hometowns of those merely described by the article as "victims, who ranged in age from 15 to 26." Perhaps other current Post readers are interested to learn their names, see their photos, and read about them, as well:

Yohai Lifshitz, 18, from Jerusalem; Yonatan Yitzhak Eldar, 16, from Shilo; Yonadav Haim Hirschfeld, 19, from Kohav Hashahar, Neria Cohen, 15, also from the capital, Segev Peniel Avihail, 15, from Neve Daniel, Avraham David Moses, 16, from Efrat, Roee Roth, 18, from Elkana and Doron Meherete, 26, from Ashdod.

As Publisher and CEO of the Washington Post, Bo Jones recently wrote : "But looking at the Post's coverage of this conflict over the long term, I am confident that readers have been fairly informed." By its unfortunate failure to provide such basic information, the Post undermines such confidence.

Andrew Cooper

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Washington Post Reporter Commended For Returning To Fair Definition Of Hamas and For Adding To It Accurate Statement Noting That Increasing Rocket Fire From Gaza Threatens Peace Talks

In our March 15, 2008 Alert we published a letter to Post reporter Griff Witte criticizing his use of the following definition of Hamas:

"Hamas, which calls for a state governed by Islamic law across territory that now includes Israel."

We noted that with the words "by Islamic law" removed, the same definition could apply to any number of peaceful and tolerant political groups and parties within Israel and that this definition inappropriately left out the hate and violence preached and actually practiced by Hamas. In our letter we noted that Mr. Witte had previously used an accurate definition of Hamas and only recently had softened his description. We asked why. We didn't receive a direct response from Mr. Witte, but in today's article by Mr. Witte the following definition of Hamas was used:

"Hamas, a radical Islamist movement that has declared its intention to destroy Israel, seized control of Gaza from Abbas's government last June. Since then, intensifying rocket fire from the coastal strip into Israel has dampened hopes for a settlement between Israel and the more moderate Palestinian Authority, which still holds sway in the West Bank." (U.S. Urged to Push Hamas-Israel Truce, Fatah's Abbas, Cheney Meet in West Bank, 3-24-08, A9)

Mr. Witte should be doubly commended, first for his return to "straight talk" in describing Hamas, and second for a rare instance in which Post readers are directly told the truth about Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza being the source of the violence that threatens peace talks. All too often Post reporters describe the violence in Gaza and Southern Israel as tit for tat or as a cycle of violence, depriving it of context. They often describe a barrage of Palestinian rockets as in retaliation for an Israeli military action that day or the day before, without noting events that preceded and provoked the Israeli action. Ever since Israel withdrew its military and civilian presence from Gaza, it has faced a steady stream of terrorist rockets launched from within Gaza across the border into Israeli civilian population centers. As Israel has said repeatedly, stop the planning and launching of terrorist attacks against Israel and Israel will stop its military response. No one would expect a reporter to go into that much detail in each and every article, but there's no reason why Post reporters should not provide a clear statement that the violence originates with Palestinian rockets launched from Gaza against Israeli civilian population centers.

Washington Times Publishes Apt Contrast Between Palestinian Citizens Celebrating Terrorist Killings of Israelis And The Absence Throughout The Entire History of Israel of Any Such Israeli Celebrations of Palestinian Deaths

The following was seen in the March 11 edition of the Washington Times, quoting from the Weekly Standard.

"THE STREETS OF GAZA were packed with thousands of joyous revelers on Thursday following the terrorist attack at a Jerusalem rabbinical seminary that killed eight people. In mosques throughout Gaza, according to news reports, many residents went to perform the prayers of thanksgiving. Armed men fired machine gun bursts into the air in celebration. Others passed out candies to random passersby on the streets.

[It] must be noted there has never been a recorded celebration in the Israeli streets over a counterterrorism incursion into the Gaza Strip. Indeed, Israelis are typically saddened by the necessity of such operations. Meanwhile, the international community takes great pains to cast the Palestinians and Israelis as having equal responsibility in the ongoing bloodshed, but the culture of violence among the Palestinians goes largely unnoticed."

Mr. Witte was quick to comment in his news report following the recent Jerusalem Yeshiva murders that the Yeshiva terrorist "was reminiscent of" the 14 year old Baruch Goldstein rampage by a deranged Israeli settler. Many readers were outraged by the comparison, because it was a transparent effort to soften the savagery of the Palestinian act of terrorism by searching for and noting an act that the reporter believed was comparable. Mr. Witte's parallel to the Baruch Goldstein rampage skipped over hundreds of Palestinian terrorist murders in the intervening 14 years and made no differentiation between a single, isolated attack of an Israeli madman and a terrorist mission that was preconceived, planned and carried out with the assistance of terrorist groups. It also drew no distinction between Palestinian society, which celebrates the murder of Jews, and Israeli society, which views all death, even that of its enemy, as a tragedy. That would have been an apt contrast for Mr. Witte to make.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Even The Post's Letters To The Editor Section Is Used to Falsely Portray Events, While Creating An Illusion of Balance

From: Dr. Michael Berenhaus
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008
To: Letters to the Editor, The Washington Post

Dear Editor,

Martha Baine (Free for all March 15, 2008) complains that the lack of equal mention in The Washington Post of Israel's military strike which killed 5 Gazans, which garnered no coverage, and the story of the Palestinian "gunman" who murdered eight youths, which received front page coverage, is indication of coverage that is not balanced. Ms. Baine doesn't mention that the 5 Gazans who were killed were not ordinary noncombatants but terrorists shooting rockets at Israeli civilians, a recognized war crime. Is it that Ms. Baine can't tell the difference between students killed while going to school and the killing of terrorists who seek to murder Jewish women and children by firing rockets indiscriminately? Or is it that she feels that these are legally and morally equivalent?

The Washington Post chose to publish Baine's letter as balance to Yaffa Klugerman, who criticized the Post for saying that the murder of eight Jewish students "was reminiscent of a 1994 attack by Baruch Goldstein, a Jew who shot a group of Palestinians at prayer." The Goldstein murders were an aberration for Israeli/Jewish society. The seminary massacre was in keeping with 'normal' Palestinian practice, as seen in the hundreds of attacks (and thousands of aborted attempts) since the start of the Oslo "peace process" in '93, that have murdered more than 1,100 Israelis and wounded, often grievously, thousands more. There is no comparison.

The Post placement of Baine's propaganda piece relying on the glaring omission of the identity of the Gazans killed shows that false balance is a poor substitute for accuracy.

Michael Berenhaus

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Post Reporter Crops Vice President Cheney's Remarks Supporting and Praising Israel - Selectively Seeks and Reports Quotes Critical of Israel - Converts Favorable Diplomatic Visit Into Attack on Israel

Leo Rennert's letter below provides a detailed analysis of how Griff Witte, the Post's new reporter in Israel, slanted the Post's report on Vice President Cheney's visit to Israel by editing the Vice President's comments in support and praise of Israel and by searching for and selectively employing his own choice of quotes of public officials. (Cheney Focuses on Mideast Talks, Meetings With Olmert, Abbas Aimed at Reinvigorating Process, 3-23-08, A13) Mr. Witte converted a diplomatic event that was highly favorable to Israel into a news report that was critical of Israel. A comparison of the Post's report to the AP's coverage, which ran in the Washington Times and many other news publications, shows the Post reporter to have deliberately blunted the favorable atmosphere surrounding the Vice Presidential visit. While the Times and other publications that ran the AP story accompanied it with a photograph of Vice President Cheney together with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the Post inexplicably accompanied its story with a photograph of Vice President Cheney meeting with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah the day before. Mr. Rennert's letter details the manner in which the Post's correspondent clipped all of the Vice President's praise of Israel, and used his report as a springboard into a critique of Israel. An examination of the AP's report shows it to have more faithfully reported the substance of the Cheney visit.
____________

From: Leo Rennert
To: Editors, Publisher and Ombudsman, The Washington Post
Subject: WASHINGTON POST TURNS CHENEY'S VISIT INTO AN ISRAEL-BASHING SCREED
Date: Sunday, March 23, 2008

As part of his trip to the Middle East, Vice President Cheney stopped off in Jerusalem on Saturday, March 22. During a joint appearance with Prime Minister Olmert, Cheney issued a ringing endorsement of Israel's need to fight terrorism and missile attacks. The vice president also highlighted the multiple security threats faced by Israel -- specifically from Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

But if you're a Washington Post reader, you wouldn't know that. Post correspondent Griff Witte instead turns Cheney's visit into an opportunity to blame Israel for a faltering peace process. [Cheney Focuses on Mideast Talks, Meetings With Olmert, Abbas Aimed at Reinvigorating Process, 3-23-08, A13] That's quite a trick, considering that the Veep is one of Israel's staunchest supporters and admirers.

But here's how Witte manages this bit of journalistic alchemy. If you read the entirety of Cheney's remarks (see full text), you find that he focused primarily on Israel's great achievements since its founding 60 years ago, its close friendship and alliance with the U.S. as two democracies with similar values fighting against a common enemy -- terrorism. In addition, Cheney relayed the Bush administration's commitment to a two-state solution and a willingness to act as an honest broker to move the peace process forward.

Witte, however, shifts the focus away from the main thrust of Cheney's remarks because he and the Post are not all that concerned about Israel's security and are much more interested in knocking Israel for lack of progress in the peace process.

Start with the headline: "Cheney Focuses on Mideast Talks." (Cheney's remarks arguably focus as much, if not more, on Israel's security needs).

The lead paragraph reads in a similar vein -- that Cheney has come to talk to Israeli and Palestinian leaders about a peace process that has yielded scant progress. The following paragraphs quote Cheney as talking about U.S. commitment to the peace process, wanting to see a resolution of the conflict, an end to terrorism, a new beginning for the Palestinians, and telling Olmert that the U.S. will never pressure Israel to take steps that threaten its security.

And that's it: FOUR paragraphs about Cheney's statements in Jerusalem in a NINETEEN PARAGRAPH article -- with Israel's security in a subsidiary position.

So let's start by checking which of Cheney's remarks were so inconvenient as far as Witte's anti-Israel agenda is concerned that he censored them out of his piece:

1. "America's commitment to Israel's security is enduring and unshakable, as is our commitment to Israel's right to defend itself always against terrorism, rocket attacks and other threats from forces dedicated to Israel's destruction. "

2. "As we continue to work for peace, we must not and will not ignore the darkening shadows of the situations in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Syria, and in Iran, and the forces there that are working to derail the hopes of the world."

3. And Cheney's bouquet to Israel on its 60th anniversary: "The state of Israel's rise out of the ashes of World War II is one of history's great miracles."

Having found no space or shown any interest in these Cheney remarks, what else did Witte write about? Basically, the remainder of the article deals with the peace process and why Israel bears the main -- almost exclusive -- burden for lack of visible progress.

Witte tells readers that the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians are designed to create a Palestinian state "in a way that does not compromise security in Israel." So far so good. But from then on, it's all downhill.

Here's how Witte puts the monkey on Israel's back for "growing disenchantment" with the way the peace process has stalled since the Annapolis conference in November:

1. "Israel has announced plans to EXPAND SETTLEMENTS." (False. Olmert has imposed a freeze on settlement expansion in the West Bank and only authorized additional home construction INSIDE existing settlements.)

2. "Major violence has flared in the Gaza Strip" (presumably a reference to Israeli ground and air operations against rocket launchers, but Witte doesn't say so))

3. "The Palestinians temporarily walked away from the negotiating table."

And that's it.

NOTE THAT THE HUNDREDS OF ROCKETS AND MORTAR ROUNDS THAT HAVE FALLEN ON SDEROT, ASHKELON AND OTHER ISRAELI COMMUNITIES SINCE NOVEMBER ARE NEVER MENTIONED IN WITTE'S ENUMERATION OF FACTORS RESPONSIBLE FOR LACK OF PROGRESS ON THE PEACE FRONT! They just don't count.

To buttress his anti-Israel fault-finding, Witte then devotes FOUR PARAGRAPHS to an interview with Palestinian Prime Minister Fayyad, who complaints that it's all Israel's fault for not carrying out its obligations under Bush's "road map" -- (the same amount of space the article devotes to Cheney's remarks.)

But that's not the end of it. Witte is determined to pile it on with more Israel-bashing stuff. He treats readers to another complaint about Israel -- this time from Mahmoud Abbas.

At this point, Witte inserts a short, quickie paragraph about Israel countering that the Palestinians haven't met their obligations, particularly when it comes to a "crackdown on militancy," (leaving the readers to guess that this euphemism refers to continuing severe terrorist threats.)

But having given one little paragraph to a vague, grossly incomplete summary of Israel's beefs, Witte immediately returns with more Israel bashing, this time with a FOUR PARAGRAPH critique by Ami Ayalon, who accuses Israel of not doing more to prop up Abbas -- (after Israel OKd Russian delivery of 25 armored vehicles to Abbas and provided amnesty and early release from prison for hundreds of Palestinian terrorists -- events which don't figure in Witte's equation).

In Witte's article, Ayalon is identified as an "Israeli minister" as he sounds the alarm that Abbas may soon go under less Israel comes quickly to the rescue -- "He believes in two states. He believes in diplomacy. And he was elected by the Palestinian people. This is all I care about." (Presumably, Ayalon doesn't care that Abbas-controlled TV and other media continue to spew out anti-Israel incitement or that Abbas eulogizes Palestinian terrorist kingpins, or lets his own security services be used as safe havens for moonlighting terrorists -- a side of Abbas that doesn't interest Witte).

But what role does Ayalon play in Olmert's cabinet? Yes, he's a Labor Party minister, but he's the only minister without portfolio among the 25 members of Olmert's cabinet. In other words, Ayalon has the most junior, least important cabinet position; he's not in charge of a single Israeli agency -- something Witte conveniently overlooks. Because with his cherry-picking of quotable folks who will bash Israel, sometimes he's reduced to finding one in the bottom of the barrel.

If Witte had been even remotely interested in getting Israel's take on why the peace process has stalled, he might have interviewed Olmert, or Foreign Minister Livni, or Defense Minister Barak, or Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter -- all grown-ups who could have given him lots of reasons why Israel feels that Abbas and the Palestinians have fallen way short of their obligations under the peace process.

But that would have been inconvenient for Witte's determined pursuit of Israel bashers, whose comments comprise the bulk of an article supposedly devoted to Cheney's visit.

While Witte gives ample space for criticism of Israel by Fayyad, Abbas and Ayalon, his article DOESN'T QUOTE A SINGLE ISRAELI OFFICIAL IN DEFENSE OF ISRAEL'S VIEWS OF WHY THE PEACE PROCESS HAS STALLED BECAUSE OF OBSTACLES THROWN UP BY THE PALESTINIAN SIDE.

Selective journalism? You bet. Agenda journalism? For sure. Fair, balanced journalism? No way when it comes to Israel.

Leo Rennert
[Leo Rennert is a journalist and former White House correspondent]

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Washington Post Managing Editor Says Post Wants More Muslim Readers and More Muslim Journalists; Says Lack of Understanding of Islam Contributes to Faulty Media Coverage

We wish to thank Mark Lazerson for alerting us to this recent "window" into the thinking of a top Post editor.

Philip Bennett, the Washington Post’s Managing Editor, in addressing an audience at the University of California at Irvine, Center for the Study of Democracy, on March 3, 2008 spoke of the need for greater understanding of the tenets of the Islamic faith and its terminology. Bennett claims poor Arabic translations give rise to "confusion." Reminiscent of the Post's decision to stop calling Palestinian terrorists "terrorists" (now, they're just "fighters" to the Post), Bennett reported that Washington Post editors are now having a difficult time deciding whether they ought to call Islamists "Islamists." (Media to Blame for Islamic Misconceptions, Daily Pilot, 3-3-08). We can't wait to see the Orwellian distortion that will emerge from this internal debate.

In an earlier letter to the Post, Leo Rennert reminded Post editors of the fundamental journalistic principle against referring to a banana as an "elongated yellow fruit," yet that is precisely the type of nonsense in which Post reporters and editors seem driven to engage. Terrorists are transformed into "militants," "gunmen" and "fighters." A goal to destroy Israel becomes a "call for a state governed by Islamic law across territory that now includes Israel." Words are avoided and discarded like so much trash, solely to support the political agendas of certain reporters and editors.

Bennett stated:

"At the Post I want more Muslim readers and I want more Muslim journalists."

Many readers think that regardless of motive, the Washington Post is doing much to further those objectives. The Post often uses Arab reporters and Arab photographers in Arab communities such as Gaza and Lebanon to give its readers up close and personal photographs and news coverage slanted in favor of Muslim communities and against the victims of Islamic extremists in those communities. The Post's ongoing whitewashing of Islamist terror organizations, its critical coverage of efforts to eliminate such organizations and its failure to differentiate between innocent civilian victims of violence instigated by these organizations and culpable civilians who support, house, nurture and hide the terrorists, all add to the Post's approval ratings among Muslim readers.

Daniel Pipes had this to say of Bennett's comments:

"It's all very well for Bennett to sniff patronizingly at the knowledge of Islam among average Americans, but I am impressed with their learning curve since 9/11 as well as their common sense. Far less impressive to me is a group of sophisticated editors that cannot even, after all these years, decide to use the word Islamist. Someone has a problem understanding Islam, but it's Philip Bennett, not his readers."

Sunday, March 16, 2008

The Washington Post's Incremental Whitewashing of Palestinian Terrorism

Step 1. Several years ago the Washington Post was among the leaders of the media pack in whitewashing Palestinian terrorism by refusing to apply the term "terrorist" to Palestinian terrorists. The Post renamed them "militants," while it continued to refer to non-Palestinian terrorists as "terrorists," regardless of whether they were from London, Spain, Bali or Chechnya ... just not Israel or the disputed territories. Other media outlets soon followed, and as far as most of the world's media outlets are now concerned, there are no longer any Palestinian terrorists.

Step 2. Now the Post again leads the pack in further whitewashing Palestinian terrorists. In all of the Post's recent dispatches from the Middle East, Palestinian terrorists are called "fighters," as if to invoke the image of "freedom fighters" for readers. And that would probably suit the Post just fine as the next step in its incremental whitewashing of Palestinian terrorists. If allowed free reign to say what they want about the Israeli Palestinian conflict, certain reporters and editors of the Washington Post might well refer to Palestinian terrorists as freedom fighters.

What follows is a clear instance of the Post editing the term "militants" to "fighters" in a wire service report on Sunday, March 16.

WASHINGTON TIMES
Israeli Air Strikes Kill 3 Militants

GAZA CITY — Israeli air strikes killed three Palestinian militants and wounded six yesterday, Palestinian medical and security officials said. They said the dead and wounded were all members of the Islamic Jihad group, hit in three separate raids in central and northern Gaza.

The Israeli military confirmed two strikes, in which it said five armed men preparing to launch rockets at Israeli targets were hit. Earlier, the military said, three Palestinian rockets fell in Israel but there were no reported casualties.

WASHINGTON POST
Israeli Strikes in Gaza Kill 3 Palestinian Fighters

Israeli airstrikes in the central and northern Gaza Strip killed three Palestinian fighters and wounded six, Palestinian medical and security officials said. They identified the dead and wounded as members of Islamic Jihad. Israel confirmed two strikes, in which it said five men preparing to launch rockets at Israeli targets were hit.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Whitewashing Hamas - Washington Post's New Reporter In Israel Learning the Post's Orwell Shuffle

To: Griff Witte, Washington Post Publisher, Editors & Ombudsman
From: Robert G. Samet, Eye On The Post, Inc.
Date: Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Subject: Whitewashing Hamas

Mr. Witte:

In "Uneasy Calm Emerges in Gaza as U.S., Egypt Push Talks, Israel and Hamas Have Largely Been Holding Their Fire," March 11, 2008, you describe Hamas as follows:

"Hamas, which calls for a state governed by Islamic law across territory that now includes Israel."

One could say of any number of peaceful and tolerant political groups and parties within Israel that they "call for a state governed by [fill in one's favorite religious or secular political agenda] across the territory that now includes Israel."

The phrase "calls for" inappropriately leaves out the hate and violence preached and actually practiced by Hamas. The fact that so many non-violent and mainstream groups could be substituted in your description illustrates that your description falls far short of telling the truth about Hamas.

None of these other mainstream groups would do as Hamas does, which is to advocate and incite its members and supporters to violence toward achieving its goal. None of these other groups would support killing innocent civilians -- Jewish only, which therefore makes it genocide, and civilian, non-combatants, which makes it terrorism -- to achieve its goals. And since Israel was openly established by the world community as a Jewish homeland, what Hamas is really doing is engaging in genocidal terrorism toward its goal of the destruction of Israel.

In your news reports over the past couple of weeks you have explicitly stated that Hamas's goal is to destroy Israel. Suddenly you're not telling it as it is. Why the sudden whitewash?

Robert G. Samet
Chairman
EyeOnThePost, Inc.
http://www.EyeOnThePost.org

No response has been received to this letter to date.

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Washington Post Reporter Compares Jerusalem Yeshiva Terrorist to Baruch Goldstein, An Israeli Who Attacked and Killed Palestinians In A Mosque 14 Years Earlier - Post Publishes Up Close Photo of Terrorist's Mother, Surrounded by Family Members, Swooning in Grief

If you read the linked articles below you will find many more examples of the Washington Post's objectionable reporting about Israel, Palestinians, terrorism and terrorists, but in the interest of avoiding overload we're limiting our Alerts to the most egregious of these recent examples.

On the morning of March 6 the Washington Post ran yet another up close and personal feature article complaining about the inconvenience and humiliation Israel's security barriers and checkpoints are causing Palestinians. (West Bank Barriers Keep Rising Despite Promises of Relief, Commute Becomes 'Daily Humiliation', 3-6-08, A14) Typical of the Post's reporting, the article employed slanted language to cast doubt on the need for such security measures. Griff Witte, the latest of the Post's correspondents to distort the news from the region, wrote that Israel's security measures were "imposed in the name of security" and quoted Palestinians referring to Israel's West Bank security barriers as "a breach of trust," a "system of suffocation," and "a policy of harassment." It isn't until paragraph 12 of the article, long after a headline and much language sympathetic to Palestinians and harshly critical of Israel, that this reporter deigned to provide the Israeli side; Palestinians have done little to uphold their Annapolis promise to improve their security services, and although Israel would like to reduce and eliminate entirely the need for such measures, it is too soon to do either.

Ironically, this story preceded the same day Palestinian attack on a Jerusalem Yeshiva in which 8 Israelis, mostly young teenagers, were slaughtered. It is unknown how or where the terrorist secured his weapons, but the very fact that Palestinian Arabs in East Jerusalem are planning mass murders of Israelis clearly points to the continuing need for those barriers that Witte complained about in his article.

But Griff Witte either missed that point or deliberately ignored it in his report of the attack. (Gunman Kills Eight at Seminary in Jerusalem, Attack Could Strain Already Faltering Peace Negotiations, 3-7-08, A01) In search of moral equivalence and in an effort to soften the crime of the Yeshiva murders, Griff Witte inserted into his news report his own thoughts comparing the Yeshiva terrorist to Baruch Goldstein, the Israeli who attacked and killed 29 Palestinians in a mosque 14 years earlier. This was Witte's strange rumination:

"The attack was reminiscent of an earlier instance of a gunman killing people at prayer: In 1994, Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein shot dead 29 Palestinians at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron before he himself was killed."

It's telling that Witte had to leap backwards over time and over the multitude of terrorist suicide bombings of Israeli men, women and children at work, school, and play who were slaughtered over the last 14 years to come up with the lone example of Goldstein.

Another item of interest about this article was caught by Leo Rennert. His letter below points out how Griff Witte's earlier, web site version of this article referred to the Jerusalem Yeshiva attack as a "terrorist" attack but was later edited to remove the reference to the T word -- "terrorist." The original version uploaded to the Post's web site on the day of the attack read:

"It was the highest Israeli death toll in a terrorist attack since April 17, 2006, when nine people were killed in a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, according to statistics kept by the Anti-Defamation League"

The edited version in the newspaper the next morning read:

"The deadliest attack in Israel in recent years was in April 2006, when 11 people were killed in a suicide strike at a falafel stand in Tel Aviv."

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive...” Sir Walter Scott

Finally, the Post continued today its "Palestinian-Terrorists-Are-Only-People-
With-Grieving-Mothers-And-Good-Reasons-For-Killing-Israelis" agenda. The only problem is it's only Palestinian terrorists who warrant such propagandized treatment by the Post. If the Post treated terrorists in London, Iraq, Afghanistan, Spain, Russia or Bali with the same deference it treats Palestinian terrorists, it would be widely condemned and run out of town by its readership. But it can get away with this kind of treatment when only Israelis are the victims. Leo Rennert's letter discusses the photo in today's paper of the Yeshiva attacker's mother swooning in grief in the protective embrace of family members as well as a family photo of the attacker himself. What the Post doesn't show are the Hamas flags erected by the grieving family of the Yeshiva attacker or the throngs of Palestinians dancing in the streets and celebrating the Yeshiva attack. Readers might wonder why the Post would not show such photos?

The following letters were sent to the Post:

From: Judge Herbert Grossman
To: Washington Post Editors, Publisher, Reporter and Ombudsman
Date: March 6, 2008

To the Editor:

Yet another sob story about hardships facing West Bank Arabs because of Israeli checkpoints?

Is there any value to continuing to run articles like “West Bank Barriers Keep Rising Despite Promises of Relief?”

You can’t really believe that there is someone in the public with the ability to read a newspaper who doesn’t know by now that the checkpoints are there to provide security; that if they were removed there would be a spate of attacks and suicide bombings; that such increased bloodshed would hinder, not help peace efforts; and, that it is within the power of the Palestinians to remove the barriers, merely by ceasing their attempted attacks. Everyone knows by now, even those that may publicly state otherwise, that Israeli security measures are there to protect against attacks, which they do effectively, and do not cause them.

These sob stories, at this late date, are an insult to the intelligence of the public and do not say much for yours. You should be embarrassed.

Sincerely,

Judge Herbert Grossman
[Herbert Grossman, author of the book "J'Accuse the N.Y. Times and Washington Post: Biased Reporting from the Middle East," is a full time Federal Administrative Law Judge]

From: Charles Katz
To: The Editors of the Washington Post
Date: March 6, 2008

On March 6, 2008 the Washington Post published yet another article on how terrible and horrible the Israelis are for daring to try and protect themselves with checkpoints and barriers. The article argues that common and standard worldwide defensive countermeasures are humiliations and collective punishment; something which it complains about with great frequency when the actor is Israel, but remains silent otherwise. At the same time the article withholds from the readership any information about the incidents behind these Israeli countermeasures, including the many recent attacks by Palestinians upon Israelis, such as the recent gang assaults in Jerusalem, the drive by shootings, the stonings, the firebombings, and the welling background of incitement. There are certainly terms for this type of writing. However, I don't believe that journalism is one of them.

I look forward to the day that the Editors of the Post, in between their bouts of suffering the humiliations of the TSA and the collective punishment of stoplights, fences, and locked doors, consider actually differentiating Washington Post reporting from Fatah agitprop.

Charles Katz

From: Leo Rennert
To: Washington Post Editors, Publisher, Reporter and Ombudsman
Date: March 7, 2008
Subject: WASHINGTON POST EXPUNGES "TERRORISM" FROM ITS REPORT ON YESHIVA
MASSACRE IN JERUSALEM

At 4:33 PM on Thursday, March 6, the Washington Post put on its website an initial draft by its Jerusalem correspondent, Griff Witte, about the attack on a Jerusalem yeshiva in which eight people were killed.

The second paragraph of Witte's story read: "It was the highest death toll in a TERRORIST attack since April 17, 2006, when nine people were killed in a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv."

Witte thus acknowledged that Israel not only was a one-day target of TERRORISM but has a history of such attacks in recent years.

But a curious thing happened between Witte's initial draft and the final version that appeared in the Post's print editions the following morning of March 7:

''TERRORISM'' disappeared from his copy. Not once did the print edition of the Post refer to this deliberate attack on peaceful students at the yeshiva as an ACT OF TERRORISM, although the circumstances fit perfectly with the definition of TERRORISM.

When it comes right down to it, the Post has been able to attach a TERRORIST label on 9/11, the London subway bombings, the train bombings in Madrid and other terrorist outrages from Bali to Morocco -- but never when TERRORIST attacks happen in Israel. Which tells you something about the pervasive anti-Israel bias in its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

And when it comes to biased reporting, there's another telling indicator in Witte's piece, as he seeks to draw a parallel between the yeshiva attack and previous attacks on civilians. Does he recall the lengthy spate of terrorist attacks in Jerusalem in recent years when young people also were murdered in a pizzeria, at market places, on buses? NO. There are no such parallels in his article with the March 6 yeshiva massacre.

The ONLY parallel Witte is able to summon up is the following:

The real historical facts, of course, belie any such parallel or comparison. Goldstein's horrific act was immediately condemned and renounced by Israeli leaders and the vast gamut of Israeli society as utterly repugnant and completely indefensible In sharp contrast, the killings at the Jerusalem yeshiva were immediately applauded by Hamas, the reigning regime in Gaza, and by thousands of Palestinians who jubilantly fired guns in the air and passed out sweets.

If Witte and the Post had any real sense of history and wanted to draw a real parallel with students or worshippers being mowed down in an act of terrorism, they might have gone back to Hebron in 1929 when an Arab pogrom killed scores of observant Jews and ravaged their places of prayer.

Unfortunately, real history -- today's and yesterday's -- remains conspicuously absent from the Post's warped dispatches from the Holy Land.

Leo Rennert

From: Leo Rennert
To: Washington Post Editors, Publisher, Reporter and Ombudsman
Date: March 8, 2008
Subject: WASHINGTON POST - AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY MOURNER FOR A TERRORIST AND HIS VICTIMS

On March 7, there were separate family funerals in Israel for the 8 Jerusalem yeshiva students killed a day earlier by a terrorist who fired hundreds of bullets as the students were poring over biblical texts. In addition, there was a memorial service attended by thousands at the yeshiva. And an East Jerusalem Palestinian family also mourned for the slain terrorist amid flags of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah.

The way the Washington Post covered these events tells you all you need to know not just about the paper's pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel bias, but also about its eagerness to whitewash terrorists and their despicable deeds.

For starters, the Post, in its print edition, features 3 color photos alongside the article by Griff Witte, its Jerusalem correspondent. (Israel Mourns Eight Slain Students, Thousands Attend Service for Victims of Gunman Described as Despondent Over Gaza, 3-8-08, A09) Of the 3 photos, ONLY ONE pictures throngs of mourners in the yeshiva library. Since this was a top-down, wide angle shot, not a single face of a single mourner is visible -- only a big crowd. The other 2 photos are devoted to the terrorist and his family. In one picture, a family member holds up a big photo of the terrorist (HIS face you can see). In the other photo, his grieving mother is shown being comforted by relatives. Her weeping face you can also see very clearly. What the photos don't show you is the mother hoisting Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah flags in celebration of her son's "martyrdom."

So, as far as the Post's use of photos is concerned, it's 2 for the terrorist and his family and only one for the 8 slain yeshiva students. To compound the Post's pro-terrorist distortion, THE PHOTO LAYOUT DOES NOT SHOW A SINGLE FACE OF ANY OF THE ISRAELI MOURNERS. THERE ALSO IS NO PHOTO OF ANY MEMBERS OF THE STUDENTS' FAMILIES.

Witte's article is no better and also is geared to minimize Israeli suffering and sympathize with the terrorist and his family.

Witte devotes his first 3 paragraphs to the memorial service at the yeshiva, then immediately devotes the next 3 paragraphs to the mourning of the terrorist in East Jerusalem and the praise lavished by Hamas on this mass killer.

Thus, for the first 6 paragraphs, IT'S 3 PARAGRAPHS FOR INNOCENT STUDENTS, 3 PARAGRAPHS FOR THEIR KILLER. PERFECT EQUIVALENCE!

The next 8 paragraphs are devoted to matters other than mourning by either side -- mainly about Israel's difficulties in halting attacks on its citizens, peace negotiations, etc.

After that, Witte pumps in another 3 paragraphs of close-ups of the terrorists' family mourning service, with due emphasis on relatives' accounts that the killer became "despondent" over Israel's recent offensive in Gaza against Hamas rocket-launchers.

So far, readers are treated to 3 paragraphs for the slain students and 6 paragraphs for the killer and his family.

Witte then ends his article by granting back-of-the-bus notice to the slain students and their mourners at the yeshiva -- devoting the final 5 paragraphs to the memorial service at the yeshiva.

If you count these final paragraphs (which most Post readers may not even have gotten to), Witte ends up devoting 6 PARAGRAPHS to a lamented terrorist and 9 PARAGRAPHS to his victims.

AND NOT ONCE DOES THE POST ARTICLE MAKE ANY MENTION THAT THIS WAS AN ACT OF TERRORISM. At the Post, TERRORISM occurs in many places on this earth -- but never in Israel.

ALSO, THE POST FAILS TO COVER A SINGLE FAMILY FUNERAL FOR ANY OF THE SLAIN STUDENTS. Thus, their parents and other relatives are entirely missing from both the Post's photos and its article. Not one grieving Jewish mother -- pictorially or in the article. The only grieving mother is the terrorist's. At the Post, the pain of a terrorist mother evidently counts more than the pain of a Jewish mother.

AND WHILE THE POST PUTS A NAME TO THE TERRORIST AND TO THE TERRORIST'S MOTHER, IT NOT ONCE NAMES ANY OF THE STUDENT VICTIMS.

So let's compare the Post's coverage with the New York Times version:

1. The Times has a single, black and white photo of the funeral procession for the yeshiva students, in which, in contrast to the Post, grief-stricken faces of mourners are clearly visible.

2. Unlike the Post, which limited its coverage to the memorial service at the yeshiva, the Times starts its article from Gush Etzion and devotes the first 5 PARAGRAPHS to the family funeral service for Avraham David Moses, a 16-year-old, and to the grieving comments of his stepmother who calls him "a really good kid -- an incredible blessing." While the Times provides its readers with a personal profile of one of the dead boys and lets readers know how his stepmother felt, such solicitude and empathy are reserved in the Post to the killer and his mother.

3. The Times devotes a total of 14 PARAGRAPHS to the mourning for Israel's dead and only TWO paragraphs to the terrorist and his family.

4. So, strictly in quantitative terms, while the Post has a 9-to-6 paragraph ratio in its coverage of the mourning for the 8 students vis a vis the mourning for the terrorist, at the New York Times, the ratio is 14 to 2 paragraphs.

5. Finally, the fifth paragraph in the Times reads as follows: "Avraham David was one of eight seminary students killed Thursday night IN AN ACT OF TERRORISM, shot by a Palestinians from East Jerusalem who sprayed them with hundreds of rounds of automatic weapons fire before being killed himself. Ten other students were wounded, three of them seriously."

The Post makes no mention of the wounded and NO MENTION OF TERRORISM.

Does one need any more evidence of the Post's anti-Israel bias or how the paper stretches to establish EQUIVALENCE between TERRORISTS AND THEIR VICTIMS?

Leo Rennert
[Leo Rennert is a journalist and former White House correspondent]

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Washington Post Beats Palestinians for Mendacity Award - Israel Says Only 10% of Gaza Casualties in Recent Israeli Offensive Were Civilians - Palestinians Say 1/3 to 1/2 Were Civilians - Washington Post Reporter Says "MOST" Were Civilians

Date: March 5, 2008
From: Leo Rennert
Subject: BLAME-ISRAEL-FIRST ARTICLE IN WASHINGTON POST -- WITH PHONY STATISTICS
To: Reporter, Editors, Publisher, Ombudsman, Washington Post

In its March 5 editions, the Washington Post runs a story by Glenn Kessler from Ramallah, "Abbas Stays Noncommittal on Peace Talks," that's emblematic of a reporter putting together a dispatch not to fit the facts, but to fit an agenda (in this instance, anti-Israel).

Kessler begins by trying to explain why Mahmoud Abbas suspended peace talks with Israel: "The Israeli offensive, which began last Wednesday, left 126 Palestinians dead and nearly 400 wounded, MOST OF THEM CIVILIANS," Kessler writes.

Why, one might ask, doesn't Kessler provide the source for his "civilian" casualty count? Is it because the source is really Kessler and nobody else?

Because his source couldn't be Palestinian officials in Gaza, whose estimates of "civilian" casualties have run from about ONE THIRD (according to the BBC, no great friend of Israel either) to ABOUT HALF. A review of various media accounts over the last several days fails to show up any Palestinian claims that A MAJORITY -- MOST -- casualties were "civilian."

And his source certainly couldn't be the Israeli side, which estimated that ONLY 10 PERCENT of Palestinian fatalities were civilians.

But if you're determined to pin the blame on Israel, why not pump up "civilian" casualty counts to give your story more heft.

A responsible reporter not only would have checked what each side has put out in terms of civilian casualty figures, but also inquire about how each defines "civilian" in this type of asymmetrical warfare where one side (Hamas) commingles "civilians" and "combatants." Is a youngster who runs to retrieve a rocket launcher for later refire a civilian or a combatant? Is a family that proudly harbors a Hamas terrorist a group of civilians or combatants?

A responsible reporter would try to find out more precisely how many Hamas and other terrorist operatives and activists were among the 126 Palestinian fatalities as well as among the wounded.

And a responsible reporter would point out to Post readers that ALL ISRAELI CASUALTIES DURING THIS PERIOD WERE CIVILIANS -- 100 PERCENT.

But that's not Kessler's concern, as he makes clear when he again later in his article baldly puts the monkey on Israel for messing up Secretary of State Rice's trip to the region. Here's how he puts it:

"BUT HER PLANS WERE UPENDED BY THE SUDDEN ISRAELI ASSAULT, FORCING HER TO SPEND MUCH OF HER TIME ON THE GAZA CRISIS DURING HER 32-HOUR VISIT TO THE REGION."

According to Kessler there's a Gaza crisis solely because of a SUDDEN ISRAELI ASSAULT. Not because Hamas upped the stakes and started using longer-range, more accurate missiles to hit Ashkelon. Not because Hamas escalated its rocket attacks against Sderot. Take it from Kessler, Rice's peace-brokering agenda was upended exclusively by Israel exercising its right to self-defense. The Palestinians, according to Kessler, are left blameless.

And this passes for fair, objective, even-handed journalism at the Washington Post.

Leo Rennert
[Leo Rennert is a journalist and former White House correspondent]

Monday, March 3, 2008

Post Ombudsman Discourages Use of Euphemisms By Reporters Because They Obscure Reporting the Truth ... Except In the Case of Palestinian Terrorists Killing Israelis, In Which Case They're Acceptable

From: Leo Rennert
To: Washington Post Ombudsman, Deborah Howell
Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2008
Subject: THE IMPORTANCE AND MEANING OF WORDS IN THE WASHINGTON POST

Dear Deborah:

Congratulations on your Sunday (March 2) ombudsman column about the Washington Post's coverage of illegal immigrants.

I fully agree with you and the Post's stylebook that "illegal immigrant" -- not "undocumented worker" -- is the correct way to describe people who are illegally in this country.

As you point out: "Undocumented worker" is discouraged at the Post. "The Post style book says of 'undocumented': 'When used to describe immigrants, this is a EUPHEMISM THAT OBSCURES AN IMPORTANT FACT -- THAT THEY ARE IN THIS COUNTRY ILLEGALLY."

So, I would hope that you and Posts editors would apply the same descriptive test to Palestinian groups and individuals who to kill, injure, maim, traumatize, terrorize civilian populations in pursuit of a political agenda to eliminate the Jewish state. These people are NOT "fighters," as the Post currently describes them, or even "militants" as it used to describe them.

My dictionary defines "fighter" as someone who takes part in a physical struggle or battle, who is pugnacious, a prizefighter, a pugilist. It defines "militant" as someone who's ready to fight, warlike, combative.

Like "undocumented worker," "fighter" and "militant" are -- to borrow your words -- "euphemisms that obscure an important fact" -- in this instance, that suicide bombers and/or rocket-launching crews deliberately target CIVILIANS and hide among CIVILIANS in carrying out their lethal attacks.

As you know, the Post has not shied away from using TERRORIST to describe the 9/11 bombers, or the London subway bombers, or the Madrid train bombers. So what's the semantic difference when civilians in Sderot and Ashkelon come under rocket barrages fired by terrorists in Gaza?

Isn't it finally time to put aside "fighters" and "militants" and acknowledge that they are EUPHEMISMS THAT OBSCURE IMPORTANT FACTS?

Leo Rennert
[Leo Rennert is a journalist and former White House correspondent]

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Changes at the Washington Post - Scott Wilson, Middle East Reporter With Anti-Israel, Pro-Palestinian Agenda, Promoted to Foreign Editor - Bo Jones Replaced by Katherine Weymouth As Publisher - New Reporter In Israel Starts Out With Distortions But Quickly Corrects A Few

Although a prominent announcement by the Post has yet to be made, in October 2007 the Post named Scott Wilson as its new Foreign Editor. Readers hoping for some fairness and balance in the Post's reporting about Israel and the disputed territories should expect no help from the level of foreign editor down. Mr. Wilson, during his stint as the Post's bureau chief in Jerusalem, brazenly distorted his news reports to advance a political agenda blaming Israel for the conflict, airbrushing and justifying terrorists and terrorist organizations and depicting Palestinians as the innocent victims of Israeli aggression.

At the same time, Katherine Weymouth, daughter of Newsweek Senior Editor Lally Weymouth and granddaughter of chairman Katharine Graham, has replaced Bo Jones as Publisher of the Post and in addition, will head a new division called Washington Post Media, that will oversee the Post's web site and newspaper. (Post Co. Names Weymouth Media Chief and Publisher, 2-8-08, A1)

The appointment of Scott Wilson to the position of Foreign Editor despite his demonstrably and harshly anti-Israel agenda demonstrates a meeting of the minds at some upper level of the Post, but precisely how high up this animus toward Israel goes is unknown. One can only hope that Ms. Weymouth, after a period of acclimation, will exercise some leadership from the top down in bringing a semblance of fairness to the Post's reporting.

The Post's latest reporter in Israel and the disputed territories is Griff Witte. His early reports have demonstrated some of the same distorted language and slanted reporting that have characterized the Post's reporting from the region. For instance, one of his earliest reports contained the following description of Hamas:

"Hamas, an armed movement with a network of social services, has vowed to continue the attacks, saying it is carrying out legitimate resistance to Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank. The Hamas charter calls for the creation of an Islamic state across territory that now includes Israel, although its military focus is to end the Israeli occupation of land taken in the 1967 Middle East war." (Strikes Destroy Ministry in Gaza, Kill 10 Palestinians; Rocket Attacks By Hamas Leave One Israeli Dead, 2-28-08, A11)

Letters from readers alerting Mr. Witte to facts about the nature of Hamas and its dedication to the destruction of all of Israel apparently brought a slight adjustment to his reports. The very next day his report described Hamas as follows:

"Last June, Hamas seized control, ending a power-sharing deal with the secular Fatah party, which favors negotiations with Israel. Since then, the volume of rocket fire has increased and pressure has grown on the Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to topple Hamas, a radical Islamic movement that has both a military wing and a network of social services and that seeks to eradicate Israel." (Strikes in Gaza Kill 18 Palestinians; Hamas Rocket Barrage Injures 2 Israelis, 2-29-08, A15)

Mr. Witte still accepts and reports without question Palestinian characterizations and numeric counts of civilian versus terrorist injuries and deaths. He hypes the civilian death toll and fails to point out that many of the so-called "civilians" are providing a support role to the terrorists. However, his early willingness to reconsider the fairness of some of his descriptions may provide readers with hope for increased accuracy and balance in future reporting.

The following letter from Leo Rennert provides an analysis of Mr. Witte's report in this morning's paper. Of particular interest is Mr. Rennert's closing comment in which he notes that one possible reason for some of the imbalance and inaccuracy in the Post's reporting from Gaza may be the use of "Special Correspondents" Islam Abdulkarim and Reyham Abdulkarim in contributing to his reports. Mr. Rennert asks a fair question: Why, if the Post is not going to report with equal intimacy and detail Israeli suffering in Sderot, can't the Post use "Special Correspondents" stationed in and reporting from Sderot.

From: Leo Rennert
To: Griff Witte & Publisher, Editors, and Ombudsman of Washington Post
Date: March 1, 2008
Subject: Washington Post Hypes Palestinian Casualties, Downplays Israeli Ones

Dear Griff Witte:

I was just reading your March 1 dispatch on the Washington Post website about the escalation of violent clashes around Gaza -- a dispatch slated for publication in the Sunday, March 2 print editions of the Post. (60 Gazans Killed in Incursion By Israel, Operation Follows Use of Longer-Range Rockets by Hamas, 3-2-08, A01)

In reporting Palestinian casualties from Saturday's Israel ground and air operations, you mention a grand total of 45 Palestinian fatalities, then add that half of them were "civilians." If that were the case, the number of "civilian" fatalities would be about 22 or 23. Yet, based entirely on Palestinian sources, you come up with only 18 "civilian" deaths.

The reason I put "civilian" between quotes when it comes to Palestinian casualties is that there's a long history of Palestinian officials being quick to count as "civilians" Palestinians who are Hamas or Islamic Jihad cadres, or teenagers who help with rocket attacks against Israel by retrieving launchers for reuse after rockets are fired. In their respective roles, some of these "civilians" really are combatants.

I do not doubt that among the 18 "civilian" fatalities in your report there were some innocent civilians. But even in their case, what you fail to report -- as the NY Times, for example, does report in its editions tomorrow -- is that Israeli special forces moved into Gaza a couple of miles in an area "where rockets are launched from among the civilian population."

This terrorist tactic of rocket launchings from amid populated areas is missing from your piece, which thus leaves an unfair and erroneous impression that the entire onus of Palestinian civilian casualties falls on Israel.

For example, missing from your report is a telling comment by Hussein Dardeouna while burying his 14-year-old son, who, according to the NY Times, "was killed while playing with friends by an Israeli air strike aimed at rocket launching teams." How did the NY Times know that the real targets were the rocket launchers? Here's what the distraught father, helpless in the face of Hamas intimidation, had to say: "I'M AGAINST THESE ROCKETS. BUT I AM AFRAID. WHAT CAN I DO? IF I PROTEST, THEY WILL HIT ME, THEY WILL KILL ME."

And that's precisely what's so conspicuously absent from your article -- the self-inflicted aspect of Palestinian casualties, due to Hamas & Co. using innocent Palestinians as human shields for their rocket barrages against civilians in Israel.

Another example: Reuters reports a telephone call from a Palestinian in a Jabaliya building, who informs the wire service that "the building is SHAKEN BY MINES THE PALESTINIANS ARE SETTING OFF AGAINST THE SOLDIERS."

Here, again, Hamas has no compunction about the lives of Palestinian civilians when it sets off mines in their midst. Why would you ignore that aspect of Saturday's fighting?

And when you do mention that there were seven children among the Palestinian fatalities, you seem to have included the death of a six-year-old girl, which Hamas sought to pin on Israeli forces, but which local residents told foreign correspondents was due to a Hamas rocket aimed at Israel, which fell short and ended up killing this girl.

Is this why you find it possible to report that 7 Palestinian children were killed, while the New York Times reports a total of only 4?

Finally, you include in your article up-close and personal accounts of frantic activities in a Gaza hospital treating many of the wounded, which is perfectly pertinent.. Except you show no similar interest and empathy for Israelis who were wounded by rockets on Saturday. You quickly pass over their hurts by merely reporting that 40 rockets were fired from Gaza, including 7 that reached Ashkelon, and 6 Israeli civilians were wounded. Period.

But if only 6 Israeli civilians were wounded, how come 22 residents of Sderot and Ashkelon had to be treated in an Ashkelon hospital? And why is there absolutely no mention whatsoever of Sderot at all and no up-close and personal accounts of the wounded in either Sderot or Ashkelon, as there is about the wounded in Gaza?

Could it be that, as you point out at the end of your article, that Islam Abdulkarim and Reyham Abdulkarim are Post special correspondents in Gaza who assisted in your report? Again, very commendable. But then why doesn't the Post also have special correspondents in Sderot and Ashkelon, who might help provide a balanced coverage that remains sorely missing?

Leo Rennert
[Leo Rennert is a journalist and former White House correspondent]

Monday, February 18, 2008

Washington Post Steps Up Its Effort To Protect Hamas's Image - The Term "Militants" is Now Being Replaced By "Fighters"

Leo Rennert, in a letter today to the Washington Post, noted that the Post is now sanitizing AP wire service reports. Where the AP refers to Hamas terrorists as "militants," the Post selectively airbrushes the AP dispatch with its own euphemism du jour, "fighters:"

"What is especially instructive -- and gives away the Post's semantic game -- is that the Feb. 18 article in the Post was not written by Post staff. It's word for word -- with one notable exception -- the exact version sent to client newspapers by the Associated Press. Except the AP's lead was that Olmert had given his military a "free hand" to attack MILITANTS.

And the third paragraph, where the AP reported that three Pal