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“With the ‘J100’ list we tried to create something more meaningful, a list aligned with our core mission: the 100 people who have the most positive impact on Jewish life and Israel – men and women, Jew or non-Jew, who have lifted the quality of Jewish life in the past year,” Algemeiner noted about the list. “Think of it this way: Without these ‘J100’ – either the individuals or the organizations they represent – Jewish life would not be at the caliber it is today.”

Other honorees include prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, outgoing Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan, and NBA icon Enes Kanter Freedom. Read the full list here.

Hoffman officially assumed his position at HonestReporting on July 1, 2022. The former chief political correspondent of The Jerusalem Post, he brought nearly 25 years of experience as the leading political journalist in Israel to the organization, pushing our advocacy to the next level. Over the past five months, HonestReporting’s editorial team has scored success after success, holding reporters accountable while explaining Israel’s unique security situation to audiences worldwide.

“Strong democracies rely upon a sound press, and I believe my experience will help HonestReporting assist journalists, as well as help people to better understand how to critically read the news as it relates to Israel. HonestReporting is the perfect platform from which to pursue these goals and help Israel win the fight in the international media,” Gil said upon taking his new post.

With your support, together we will undoubtedly continue to go from strength to strength.

Related Video: HonestReporting Executive Director Gil Hoffman Discusses Escalating Terror Wave on CNN

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Ironically, Sarsour had been invited to speak at an event celebrating Middle Eastern and North African Heritage Month as part of Geico’s diversity and inclusion campaign.

What has one of the founders and former co-chair of the Women’s March, who was forced to step down because of her vocal support for the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanction) movement whose ultimate goal is the end of Israel, been up to since the Geico fiasco?

Nothing is creepier than Zionism.Challenge racism, #NormalizeJustice. Check out this video by @remroum http://t.co/q282BYT8

— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) October 31, 2012

Turns out that in order to decompress, Linda Sarsour has been enjoying the sights and sounds of a city renowned for its diversity.

But while images of San Francisco, Amsterdam or Paris may come to mind, Sarsour in fact visited one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse cities in Israel.

A guest post by Kweansmom for the Elder of Ziyon blog on August 30 broke the story. During a recent visit to her relatives in the West Bank, a woman famous for her deep-seated animus towards the Jewish state also spent some time in Israel, where she explored the northern city of Haifa.

And Sarsour revealed this part of her itinerary to no one. She chose not to mention her visit to Haifa to her 323,000 Twitter followers. On Facebook, there’s a rather vague August 10 post, where Sarsour writes that her daughters visited ‘Palestine,’ but not a word to her 221,000 virtual friends about her Haifa adventure. She does mention her stop over in Bethlehem on July 27, but this city is located in the West Bank and is administered by the Palestinian Authority.

Why the cover-up?

Related Video: Extreme Left or Right: It’s Still Antisemitism

Linda Sarsour has a history of echoing the age-old antisemitic trope that Jews believe they are a “superior” race. Sarsour has publicly declared that Israel was founded on the idea of “Jewish supremacy.”

On the issue of equality, Sarsour ignited a firestorm in 2017 when she declared that there’s no room for Zionism in the feminist movement.

Can You Be a Zionist Feminist? Linda Sarsour Says No via @thenation https://t.co/Y2I0ASnV9N

— Jewish Voice for Peace (@jvplive) March 13, 2017

Yet Sarsour’s views are in stark contrast to what she saw during her secret getaway to Israel. 

As noted by Kweansmom:

According to publicly available social media posts from others in her touring group, Linda Sarsour walked along Rehov Yefe Nof (literally, the Street with the Beautiful View) from where she could view Haifa Bay  and almost all of Haifa itself. The view includes the spectacular Bahai Gardens and the spiritual center of the Baha’i faith. The Bahai sect originated in Iran, where it is persecuted, but in Israel, the Bahai enjoy full freedom of religion.”

Sarsour could not have picked a worse place to confirm her biases against Israel. Muslim and Christian Arabs account for nearly 11 percent of Haifa’s population.

The city has welcomed Protestant migrants from Germany, Jews from Romania, Bahá í believers and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, a reformist movement founded in India. Haifa’s tapestry of backgrounds is enhanced even more by the presence of Muslim Sunni, Christians Catholic and Orthodox, as well as Druze.

The city is widely considered to be Israel’s most ethnically mixed.

And while Sarsour has in the past collaborated with Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, which has a long “record of antisemitism and bigotry,” over in Haifa, a “bubble of inclusivity, multiculturalism and co-existence that serves as an example to Israel, and indeed the world,” is in full flower.

Related Reading: Farrakhan’s Antisemitism Being spread by Celebrities

Israel experiences the same racial tensions as any other modern, Western-style, liberal democracy. However, the legal, state-sanctioned discrimination that is the essence of the apartheid libel that Linda Sarsour regularly tars Israel with is not only absent, but it is combatted by the country’s laws and court system.

The mainstream media doesn’t like centering Palestinian voices because they know we have the higher moral ground and have the ability to convince millions around the world of the truth – Israel is an Apartheid State and it is the aggressor and the oppressor.

— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) May 10, 2021

Maybe Linda Sarsour’s hush-hush summer detour to Haifa will affect her thinking about Israel.

If not — as we suspect — then it will be clear that she is even worse than a garden-variety antisemite and demonizer of Israel.

Because to simply negate everything she experienced in Israel would make Linda Sarsour guilty of rank hypocrisy.

Liked this article? Follow HonestReporting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to see even more posts and videos debunking news bias and smears, as well as other content explaining what’s really going on in Israel and the region. Get updates direct to your phone. Join our WhatsApp and Telegram channels!

Featured Image: Credits from Shutterstock: Haifa – Inspired By Maps;  Linda Sarsour – a katz

But not so much, it seems, in areas where the Palestinian Authority (PA) is in charge.

The annual ‘Palestine’ Marathon, held on March 18 this year, was ostensibly created in order that people from around the world could gather in Bethlehem to participate in one of the highlights of the city’s social and cultural calendar.

However, the race was used by its organizers — various branches of the PA — to target Israel.

‘Palestine’ Marathon Logo Is Map of Israel

For a supposedly apolitical event like a running race, this year’s ‘Palestine’ Marathon was noteworthy for its political agenda. For one thing, the official logo of the marathon was a map — but not of Bethlehem or various parts of the West Bank. Rather, the entirety of Israel was subsumed under the ‘Palestine’ moniker.

Furthermore, terms such as ‘country,’ ‘Palestine,’ and ‘State of Palestine’ were frequently used on the event’s official website.

For the record, there has never been a Palestinian state. While the United Nations General Assembly in 2012 voted to accept the PA as a “non-member observer state,” this did not confer full sovereignty upon the government in Ramallah. In fact, the PA does not meet the requirements for statehood as defined in international law.

To date, the Palestinian leadership has failed to live up to its obligations under the Oslo Accords that lay out a path to possibly establishing an independent Palestinian state.

Related Reading: New York Times, There Is No Palestinian State

The Plight of Christians in Bethlehem

The ‘Palestine’ Marathon was held in the city of Bethlehem. Ironically, a race whose motto is ‘freedom of movement’ was organized by the same PA that for years has made life virtually unliveable for the city’s Christian residents — the very place where one of the three great monotheistic religions began.

In addition to PA-sanctioned discrimination, local Christians have faced attacks by Palestinian gangs. For instance, on January 28th, a large group of Palestinian masked men assaulted a Christian family just south of Bethlehem with sticks and iron bars.

The result has been mass emigration. In 1947, Christians comprised about 85% of Bethlehem’s population. That figure has plunged to approximately 16%.

Related Reading: Reuters Blames Israel for Plight of Gaza Christians, Ignores Hamas Persecution

‘Palestine’ Marathon Route Includes ‘Apartheid Wall’

Notice how casually the ‘Palestine’ Marathon website works in the apartheid libel against Israel:

Starting at the Church of the Nativity, in the center of Bethlehem’s Old City, its route takes runners through the town, two refugee camps (Aida and Dheisheh), and along the apartheid Wall.”

Ever since its construction, the West Bank security barrier has been incorrectly depicted by Israel’s most vehement critics as an “apartheid” wall. In fact, it was built in 2002 in response to the Second Intifada, during which Palestinian terrorists killed more than 1,000 Israelis. Some 7,000 more were injured during this period of suicide bombings and shootings.

The Israeli government approved and began construction of the security fence — only about 10% is a concrete wall — in 2002 in an attempt to stop Palestinian terrorist infiltrations. As a result, the number of terror attacks originating from the West Bank has decreased by more than 90%.

Yet the claim that Israel is an “apartheid state” is intensifying worldwide. PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh in November of last year said that Israel risked perpetuating a system of “apartheid.” His remarks were parroted by many news outlets, which failed to even mention repeated Israeli peace overtures that have been rejected by the PA.

In reality, apartheid refers to the policy of racial segregation in pre-1990s South Africa — a construct that does not remotely apply to Israel, as HonestReporting has outlined in numerous articles (see for example here and here).

Related Reading: ‘Apartheid’ Myth and The Improper Use of False and Misleading Claims Regarding Israel

Specifically, since the signing of the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, the vast majority of Palestinians have been governed by either the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank or Hamas.

Meanwhile, in Israel, the legal, state-sanctioned discrimination that is the very definition of apartheid is not only absent, but it is combatted by the country’s laws and court system. Equal rights for all groups, including ethnic and religious minorities, are thus safeguarded in Israel – forming the basis of the Middle East’s only functioning democracy.

Running on Empty: PA’s Chronic Rejectionism

By infusing an event meant to bring people together with such divisive rhetoric, the PA is serving notice that it will continue to incite Palestinians to reject coexistence with Israel — hurting peace-seeking Palestinians in the process.

As a result, “I don’t run to add days to my life, I run to add life to my days,” takes on a special meaning in territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority.

With the PA rejecting Israel’s existence, an obvious barrier to any peace agreement, what kind of life can Palestinians in the West Bank expect to live?

Liked this article? Follow HonestReporting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to see even more posts and videos debunking news bias and smears, as well as other content explaining what’s really going on in Israel and the region. Get updates direct to your phone. Join our WhatsApp and Telegram channels!

Featured Image: Gettyimages: HAZEM BADER

Please join us in demanding that the NYT and BBC stop featuring antisemites and anti-Israel terrorism apologists. SIGN OUR PETITION TO THE NEW YORK TIMES AND THE BBC NOW.

On November 3, The Times announced that it was welcoming to its Jerusalem bureau Raja Abdulrahim, who while studying at the University of Florida penned a guest column for the school newspaper titled, “Palestinians driven to bombing.”

The article claimed:

Another suicide bomber has attacked and the finger pointing has begun in every direction. But the fact is that the finger belongs not on the Palestinian Authority or some ‘Islamic militant group,’ it belongs squarely on Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces.”

Between 2000 and 2005, 141 Palestinian suicide attacks killed 587 people. In 2002 alone, there were no fewer than 47 lethal suicide bombings, which left 238 dead and many more injured. Among those killed were Holocaust survivors and pregnant women along with their unborn babies, as perpetrators deliberately targeted civilians.

They struck buses, cafes, discos, shopping malls and busy streets in a bid to kill as many Israelis as possible.

The New York Times is not alone.

Please join us in demanding that the NYT and BBC stop featuring antisemites and anti-Israel terrorism apologists. SIGN OUR PETITION TO THE NEW YORK TIMES AND THE BBC NOW.

Tweets recently unveiled by GnasherJew show that a presenter at BBC Radio Manchester, Nasima Begum, called for “Death to you Zionist scum” and made reference to a new “Holocaust” whose “perpetrators are you Zionist scum.” An HonestReporting investigation uncovered additional antisemitic social media posts such as the suggestion that Zionists have a “hold on mainstream media”.

This was not even the first time this year that HonestReporting outed contributors to the NYT and BBC for harboring deep-seated hatred of Israel and the Jewish people.

In May, we helped identify another BBC journalist, Tala Halawa, who tweeted the hashtag #HitlerWasRight. Our work went viral, resulting in widespread media coverage and the eventual termination of her employment.

In October, HonestReporting revealed that Refaat Alareer, whose writing appeared in The New York Times at the height of the 11-day Hamas-initiated conflict against Israel, had compared Israel to Nazi Germany over 100 times.

Giving a platform to such individuals not only serves to legitimize antisemitism, but it also undermines trust in the entire journalism industry.

This cannot be allowed to continue.

Please join us in demanding that the NYT and BBC stop featuring antisemites and anti-Israel terrorism apologists. SIGN OUR PETITION TO THE NEW YORK TIMES AND THE BBC NOW.

This petition is now closed. Thank you for your support.

In June, the BBC was forced to fire an employee after HonestReporting exposed her history of deeply antisemitic tweets, including one featuring the hashtag “HitlerWasRight.”

Now, the BBC is under the microscope once again as a result of a TV series description on its website that characterized Alfred Dreyfus as a “notorious Jewish spy.”

In fact, Dreyfus was a falsely accused officer in the French army who was initially stripped of his rank and then sentenced to life in prison on trumped-up charges of treason.

He was later fully exonerated.

As Martin Gilbert elucidated in his tome Israel: A History, what became known as the Dreyfus Affair had a significant impact on the advancement of Zionism:

One of those who had little knowledge of what had already been achieved in Palestine, especially by the Russian immigrants of the previous two decades, was a Hungarian-born Jew, Theodor Herzl. As a journalist in Paris since 1891, he was shocked by the anti-Semitism in France at the time of the Dreyfus case, when a Jewish officer was found guilty of treason, a charge later found to have been false. The harsh anti-Semitic tone of much of the criticism of Dreyfus appalled Herzl who also knew of the suffering of Jews in Russia. His calls for a return to Zion appealed above all to the Jews of Russia, for hundreds of thousands of whom the United States had hitherto been the main possible place of refuge and renewal.

The Dreyfus trial was a watershed in Jewish history. Jews everywhere asked themselves what had gone wrong with Jewish life. Why was there anti-Semitism? Three ways out of the trap seemed to present themselves: to become assimilated into the nation with whom one was living, to fight for a revolutionary socialism that would cure all the evils of the world including anti-Semitism, or to seek a ‘normal’ Jewish life in a Jewish land with a Jewish government. Herzl was drawn to the last option.

Therefore, for the BBC to describe Dreyfus as a “notorious Jewish spy” exhibits either staggering ignorance of history or a severe lack of interest in avoiding spreading long-discredited antisemitic tropes.

The error was first noticed by columnist Norman Lebrecht, who wrote on the Slipped Disc website that the mistake is “akin to calling Hitler ‘a successful German populist.'”

The same day, the error was brought to the attention of HonestReporting, and immediately after verifying that the false description indeed appeared on the BBC website we posted the following to Twitter:

Dreyfus was a Jewish officer in the French army who was baselessly accused of treason by a deeply antisemitic establishment.

After initially being convicted and humiliated, he was later exonerated of all charges.

Yet the @BBC refers to him as a "notorious Jewish spy". pic.twitter.com/woFbgdnztM

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) October 10, 2021

Our tweet about the shocking description was shared hundreds of times and recorded hundreds of thousands of views within 24 hours. Numerous prominent Twitter users shared our tweet, some adding their own comments:

In case you have no idea why this is a big deal: The entire Zionist movement was inspired, at least in part, in response to the awful story of the slander of Dreyfus. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. https://t.co/OMvoDj7Vky

— David Hazony (@davidhazony) October 10, 2021

If there was criminal sentence for bad journalism, calling Dreyfus "a notorious Jewish spy" would warrant life in prison without parole. The @BBC does it again. https://t.co/ZDHcAVfQdK

— Michele Chabin (@MicheleChabin1) October 11, 2021

Following the social media backlash, the blurb on the BBC website was edited to describe Dreyfus more accurately as “arrested for spying,” but not before the matter caught the attention of journalists at the Daily Express, the Jerusalem Post and popular British website Joe. The latter two specifically featured HonestReporting’s tweet.

The Jerusalem Post article included the following:

For the BBC to produce a series featuring Alfred Dreyfus, who was baselessly accused of treason, and then describe him as a ‘notorious Jewish spy’ is an insult to his memory and to the Jewish community in general,” Emanuel Miller, a media analyst at the media watchdog organization HonestReporting, told The Jerusalem Post.

“The Dreyfus case represented a key moment in Zionism’s history and in the eyes of many is a byword for the miscarriages of justice suffered by Jews throughout the ages. How many times must a Jew’s name be smeared?”

“While the website text was quietly changed, the BBC evidently feels it doesn’t owe Jews an apology, much less take serious steps to familiarize its staff with the basics of antisemitism in order to prevent such easily avoidable mishaps,” Miller said to the Post. “Unfortunately, judging by past experience, the BBC is unlikely to apologize for the insulting mischaracterization.”

For whatever unacceptable reason, the BBC has again failed to uphold basic journalistic standards and instead nearly helped fuel the dissemination of a century-old smear.

It’s time that the BBC takes antisemitism more seriously.

[/sc]

Today, we expose a pundit whose sheer volume of vile Judeophobic tweets towers over Halawa’s and Barghouti’s.

On May 13, at the height of the 11-day Hamas-initiated conflict against the Jewish state, The New York Times published a guest essay by Refaat Alareer titled, “My Child Asks, ‘Can Israel Destroy Our Building if the Power Is Out?’” The article falsely alleged that the Israel Defense Forces hit targets in the Gaza Strip with “no strategic value,” while implying that Israelis “draw straws” or “roll a dice” to decide “which block to annihilate” — essentially promoting a modern-day blood libel.

Related Reading: NYT Collaborates With Terror-linked Palestinian NGO to Push Antisemitic Blood Libel About Children

Nevertheless, Alareer’s malicious propaganda piece was included in a lesson plan for high schools by the NYT’s Learning Network. The writer and literature professor has also been cited or interviewed by The Washington Post, The Guardian, NBC News, NPR, PBS, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Qatar’s Al Jazeera (see here, here, here, here and here).

The New York Times simply identified Alareer as “the editor of ‘Gaza Writes Back,’ a collection of short stories.” However, a modicum of research reveals that he’s also a raging antisemite.

An analysis of Alareer’s Twitter profile shows that over the last two years he posted at least 115 tweets comparing the Jewish state and Israelis to Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler.

Ironically, Alareer in January denounced The New York Times for supporting “nazi Israel” — just months before the “newspaper of record” provided him with a platform to spew his venom.

Alareer has furthermore asserted that Israel is “nazi Germany on steriods [sic]” and that Zionism — the movement for Jewish self-determination — and Nazism “are two cheeks of the same dirty arse.” He insisted that “Israel is following nazism to the letter” and that proponents of the nation are part of a “far more dangerous cult than nazism.”

Hitler is as peaceful as any Israeli leader.

— Refaat (@itranslate123) September 25, 2020

According to Alareer, “Hitler is as peaceful as any Israeli leader” because the Jewish state is carrying out a “second Holocaust.” He has moreover promoted the scandalous, baseless claim that Israel “starves Holocaust victims and steals their money to slaughter and occupy native Palestinians,” while simultaneously engaging in Holocaust revisionism.

Even Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, which saves both Israeli and Palestinian lives by preventing military escalations, is, in Alareer’s view, a “nazi-like Israeli killing machine.”

At the same time, he has expressed support for Palestinian terrorism, “no matter how the means.” The day after his NYT piece was published, Alareer boasted how he spent “half his childhood” throwing stones at Israeli military jeeps. “No form, act, or means of Palestinian resistance whatsoever is terror,” Alreer has asserted, adding that all Israelis are “soldiers.” He has criticized Hamas, the US-designated terror group that rules Gaza, for engaging in prisoner-swap negotiations with “terrorists” and “nazis” [i.e., Israel].

there must be no shame in resistance, no matter how the means.

— Refaat (@itranslate123) August 27, 2021

When writers espouse such grotesque antisemitism, their reporting on the Arab-Israeli conflict cannot be trusted. In fact, it should discount them from being published at all.

As such, HonestReporting calls on The New York Times and other outlets to stop relying on avid Jew-haters like Alareer to misinform their readerships.

To register a complaint with The New York Times editorial board please contact editorial@nytimes.com. Letters to the editor can be sent to letters@nytimes.com.

Liked this article? Follow HonestReporting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to see even more posts and videos debunking news bias and smears, as well as other content explaining what’s really going on in Israel and the region. Get updates direct to your phone. Join our WhatsApp and Telegram channels!

They also burned a model of an Israeli village in consonance with their stated goal to “burn you [Israelis] alive.”

Our exclusive research has revealed that the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) and its ruling Fatah faction are actively backing Beita’s extremists. In fact, a senior Palestinian official praised them just hours after they had set alight the first swastika. Two days later, Fatah’s legislative body held a meeting in Beita to “support the popular resistance.”

Palestinian rioters from the Samarian town of Beita, who previously burned makeshift Nazi swastikas juxtaposed against a Star of David, last night set fire to an effigy of an Orthodox Jew.

Yet @EUpalestinians remains silent about this PA-backed Jew-hatred pic.twitter.com/EVnxWeYrX9

— Akiva van Koningsveld (@koningsveld) September 10, 2021

Related Reading: HonestReporting EXCLUSIVE: Western-backed Palestinian Authority Supporting West Bank Rioters That Erected Burning Swastikas

Nevertheless, nations that support Ramallah diplomatically and financially have remained silent.

There has been a near-total media blackout.

But thanks to HonestReporting’s work and social media campaign, European politicians and governments are taking action to counter the PA’s encouragement of Nazi-like antisemitism.

Following the publication of our investigative article, Dutch lawmaker Raymond de Roon on August 22 submitted written questions in parliament that demanded to know whether Foreign Minister Sigrid Kaag would denounce the PA’s backing for the Jew-hatred espoused by Beita residents.

In her response published on Friday, Kaag did exactly that while confirming that the Dutch representative to the PA, Cees van Baar, had raised the issue in a meeting with PA officials.

Kaag formally answered de Roon’s questions:

1. How do you assess the support of the Palestinian Authority for the expressions of antisemitism in Samaria [a Biblical term denoting a part of the West Bank], accompanied by burning Stars of David and swastikas? [1] [2]

The Netherlands always condemns expressions of antisemitism. It is worrying that such expressions took place during demonstrations on the West Bank.

2. Do you recall the motion passed by the House of Representatives (32735-219) that calls on the government to condemn statements by heads of government that contribute to growing antisemitism? [3]

Yes.

3. Are you willing to forcefully condemn the aforementioned support, both in bilateral contacts with the Palestinian authorities and in public? How will you act?

The government is fully committed to combating antisemitism. The Netherlands and the EU continue to urge the responsible parties to curb hatred and violence, in accordance with UNSCR Resolution 2334. In response to the aforementioned events during the demonstrations in the West Bank, the Dutch representative in Ramallah on September 1 again conveyed this message in a bilateral conversation with the Palestinian authorities.

[1] https://honestreporting.com/honestreporting-exclusive-western-backed-palestinian-authority-supporting-west-bank-rioters-that-erected-burning-swastikas/

[2] https://www.cidi.nl/swastika-davidster-verbranden-geen-probleem-vindt-de-palestijnse-autoriteit/

[3] https://www.parlementairemonitor.nl/9353000/1/j9vvij5epmj1ey0/vkt8dbq35ezp

As outlined in HonestReporting’s previous impact report, our proactive approach to ensuring accuracy and fairness in journalism — specifically as it relates to coverage of Israel — is consistently garnering results and, now, translating into political action.

In this respect, on August 17 we produced, “As Media Berate Israel, Hamas Reportedly Hiding Enough Funds to Fully Rebuild Gaza Strip,” which amplified an exposé on Hamas’ secret foreign investment portfolio, reportedly worth more than $500 million. While the initial investigation by Die Welt gained little attention outside of Germany, after the publication of our piece Belgian lawmaker Kathleen Depoorter announced that she would similarly be submitting questions to the government related to Brussels’ development aid to the Gaza Strip.

As HonestReporting continues to make waves, we urge you to partner with us by subscribing to our IsraBites newsletter; notifying us when you identify anti-Israel bias in the media; circulating our materials via your own channels; or through a donation.

Featured image: Sigrid Kaag chairs the UN Security Council

In addition to a detailed article, HonestReporting produced an extensive Twitter thread to detail its findings. In response, Palestinian commentator Mariam Barghouti lashed out instead of apologizing for her blatant antisemitism.

I knew it was a matter of time before I get specifically targeted on social media as an antisemite.#Israel is still an apartheid regime.
Still a settler colonial power.
Still a nuclear power playing victim.
Don’t let weaponizing of Jewish pains be normalized. So sinister. https://t.co/dRu7GSdWLX

— مريم البرغوثي (@MariamBarghouti) August 4, 2021

Ironically, Barghouti claimed she “knew it was a matter of time before I get specifically targeted on social media as an antisemite.” Yet, had she really been aware or repentant, then surely she would have deleted some of her most offensive posts — such as comparing Israel to Nazi Germany.

That she failed to do so indicates a lack of understanding of what constitutes antisemitism; or, alternatively, perhaps she was proud to disseminate explicit Jew-hatred. Instead, Barghouti doubled down instead of backtracking, thereby indicating a total lack of contrition.

HonestReporting quickly drew attention back to the point: Barghouti had repeatedly called Israel and Israeli figures “Nazi.”

We're calling you an antisemite because you repeatedly called Israel and Israeli figures "Nazi."

If you aren't antisemitic, you would apologise for your earlier tweets and publicly retract.

But you're not. Evidently you still think such antisemitic comparisons are legitimate. https://t.co/A69YfZffAH

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 4, 2021

A number of other prominent pro-Israel Twitter users joined the conversation:

You are absolutely right. If you keep spewing the same hatred nazi's did in the 1930s, it's just a matter of time before people start calling you a nazi.

— Bart Schut (@bpschut) August 4, 2021

so basically you are just annoyed you've been found out.

got it.

— David Collier (@mishtal) August 4, 2021

Hi @MariamBarghouti. This was you, right? Asking for 6 million friends … https://t.co/abmWeoIsgg pic.twitter.com/tBn0Rg3RSK

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) August 4, 2021

Oh @MariamBarghouti… You are a trainwreck. Don’t forget, screenshots are forever.

And really? Reductio ad Hitlerum? Even you can do better than that. https://t.co/fnJDfaVJ14 pic.twitter.com/sUcaM0n4Zx

— Emily Schrader – אמילי שריידר (@emilykschrader) August 4, 2021

Among Barghouti’s 74k-strong following on Twitter is a Who’s Who of influential left-wing and right-wing individuals known for their ferocious hostility to Israel and the Jewish people, including Jeremy Corbyn, Linda Sarsour, Rashida Tlaib, Mehdi Hasan and Sarah Jeong.

As Barghouti reacted to HonestReporting’s investigation by pretending to be the victim, many of her followers responded by supporting her. Numerous respondents even attempted to justify her comparisons with Nazis. Clearly, Barghouti has attracted a toxic, deeply antisemitic following.

Yikes. Israeli Ministries have been funding social media experts to belittle and attack Palestinian voices on social media. Nonetheless I’ll take this as an opportunity to ask, why are there not more Palestinian voices that don’t “look” western on mainstream media? https://t.co/hj5wwXKLUO

— مريم البرغوثي (@MariamBarghouti) August 4, 2021

Notably, Barghouti started her diatribe by baselessly attempting to link HonestReporting with the Israeli government. For the record, HonestReporting is not funded by any government ministry. But Barghouti is right about one thing, though: We do understand social media very well.

We also understand that the traditional media play a vital role in the functioning of a healthy democracy. The platform they provide must not be granted to those who callously throw about Nazi comparisons, spread hatred, and make light of genocide.

So, a message to Barghouti and all other media personalities, journalists and those in the industry who fail to understand the difference between legitimate criticism and hate speech: HonestReporting will continue to call out everyone who crosses this fine line. People who disseminate hate in the media are doing the entire journalism profession and, by extension, the public a grave disservice.

And it shouldn’t be tolerated any longer.

The tweet, originally found by the GnasherJew Twitter account, which works to investigate and expose antisemites from across the spectrum, was shared by HonestReporting and followed up with an article detailing some of the many instances of clear antisemitic content uploaded by journalist Tala Halawa. HonestReporting’s tweet provoked an avalanche of angry and shocked comments directed at the BBC.

Responding to the backlash, a spokesman for the BBC was cited by numerous media sources as saying, “These tweets predate the individual’s employment with the BBC but we are nevertheless taking this very seriously and are investigating.”

HonestReporting’s expose caught the BBC at a particularly sensitive time. Its reputation has already suffered greatly over the last week, with news emerging that a journalist had faked documents in order to obtain an interview with the late Princess Diana.

Related Reading: BBC Journalist’s “Hitler Was Right,” Other Antisemitic Tweets Exposed

Extensive Media Coverage

The revelation made waves in the United Kingdom particularly, with numerous media outlets covering the development that the BBC has launched a probe.

Dozens of sites around the world ran the story, including:

BBC journalist is blasted for online post saying #HitlerWasRight and ‘Israel is more Nazi than Hitler!’ (Henry Martin, Daily Mail)

BBC reporter comes under fire for tweet saying ‘Hitler was right’ (The Jerusalem Post)

BBC investigating journalist who tweeted ‘Hitler was right’ (Adam Forrest, The Independent)

BEEB PROBE BBC investigating one of its journalists who wrote: ‘Hitler was right’ (James Somper, The Sun)

BBC investigating Palestinian journalist who tweeted ‘Hitler was right’ (Dominic Penna, Daily Telegraph)

BBC Investigates Ramallah-Based Journalist For Reportedly Saying ‘Hitler Was Right’ (Shakhzod Yuldoshboev, Daily Caller)

BBC journalist exposed for tweeting ‘HitlerWasRight’ (Hannah Nightingale, The Post Millenial)

BBC journalist: ‘Hitler was right’ (Steerpike, The Spectator)

BBC investigating journalist who wrote ‘Hitler was right’ (London Jewish News)

Who is Tala Halawa? BBC journalist slammed for ‘Hitler Was Better’ tweet from 2014 (Alakananda Bandyopadhyay, MEAWW)

HonestReporting was also credited in the Arabic and Japanese versions of Russia’s Sputnik News, and featured in countless other websites around the world.

At the time of posting, HonestReporting’s tweet has been viewed over 1.4 million times. It has been shared over 2,000 times and received in excess of 3,000 likes, generating hundreds of responses and comments. Among those sharing the tweet were Donald Trump, Jr. and editor of the Jewish Chronicle Stephen Pollard. It was also embedded in a number of the articles listed above.

UPDATE: (13 June, 2021) Following the public backlash, the BBC has announced that Tala Halawa is no longer by the corporation. Read more here.

However, fighting this anti-Israeli tide is another group of public figures. More than 130 entertainment industry leaders this week signed an open letter calling on fellow entertainers to use their platforms to combat the divisive rhetoric that is pushing misleading and one-sided accounts of the conflict.

Hollywood Stars Call for Peace Between Israel, Palestine – Variety https://t.co/mtaeg36inq

— Gene Simmons (@genesimmons) May 17, 2021

“Throw the Jews in the Sea”: Celebrities Who Are Inflaming The Conflict

Actor Mark Ruffalo, who has for years voiced support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement that aims to delegitimize the Jewish state’s global standing by isolating it as a pariah among nations, recently compared Israel to apartheid South Africa:

Over 30 children killed. Mothers dead. Hundreds injured. We are on the brink of a full-scale war. Sanctions on South Africa helped free its Black people – it’s time for sanctions on Israel to free Palestinians. Join the call. #GazaUnderAttack https://t.co/N72e0xLvX5

— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) May 15, 2021

Model Bella Hadid was filmed chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” effectively calling for the dismantling of Israel, as these ‘lyrics’ echo those included in the founding charter of the Gaza-based Hamas terrorist organization that is committed to the Jewish state’s destruction.

Where does she say this?

pic.twitter.com/c6anl8E3JF

— Tammi (@TLaTela) May 16, 2021

Related Reading: John Oliver Blames Israel for Hamas War Crimes

“Israel Deserves to Be Free”: Public Figures Combatting Anti-Israel Bias

With the aim of dousing the flames of online hatred that have real life consequences, entertainment leaders have come together to combat the distorted version of reality that is being spread by celebrities such as Ruffalo and Hadid.

‘Wonder Woman’ star Gal Gadot: Israel deserves to be free, safe:

pic.twitter.com/cLgDdn70No

— Gal Gadot (@GalGadot) May 12, 2021

Actress Mayim Bialik: “There are profound misunderstandings about the motivations and operations of Hamas.”

pic.twitter.com/FKD6A3cYR2

— Mayim Bialik (@missmayim) May 14, 2021

Comedian Elon Gold: “World should be lauding Israel for its restraint and precision strikes.”

The world should be lauding Israel for its restraint and precision strikes on non civilian terrorists. Instead it is vilified and called terrorists in a cruel, unjust twist of narrative. These headlines are as insane as; ‘11 Saudis have been killed by American buildings.’ https://t.co/ho6whmAsMT

— Elon Gold (@ElonGold) May 20, 2021

Actress and author Noa Tishby: Anti-Israel activists have “more followers than the entire Jewish population of the world.”

Some of these people who post these antisemitic anti the single consistent democracy in the entire Middle East, the only country which share the same values as western civilizations, have more followers than the entire Jewish population of the world. #freegazafromhamas

— (((noa tishby))) (@noatishby) May 13, 2021

Singer-songwriter David Draiman, an “outspoken defender of the Jewish state” and a signatory to the petition to stop spreading misinformation about the Gaza conflict, had this to say about the worldwide BDS movement to target, isolate and demean Israel:

Boycotting an entire society, an entire people, based on the actions of its government is absolutely ridiculous. I don’t see boycotts happening of Russia … I don’t see people boycotting China for what they’re doing to their Muslim population. It’s just Israel that gets this treatment, and I think we all know the reason behind that.”

As such, the battle for Israel is engaged – both inside the Jewish state and around the world.

To be clear, the total number of stories on this topic has not decreased, remaining constant at about 4,000 to 5,000 per day, but the percent of those stories that mention Palestinians has decreased. In other words, the news cycle did not merely fade away, but in fact fundamentally changed over time.

This might seem surprising to Israel supporters. After all, when a news story seems unfair or infuriating it can draw our focus away from the broader picture. But “big data”  depicts the true reality, and an exceptional one at that.  

How do we know?

This year, HonestReporting developed the capacity to harness the power of “big data,” examining hundreds of thousands of articles and social media posts in real time. (For those unfamiliar, “big data” is a term used to describe the use of large data sets to identify major trends in complex situations, a tool best known for its use in social media advertising.) And we can see a clear trend: In early January, 59.91% of all stories and social media posts about Israel’s vaccine effort discussed Palestinians — and now only 7.71% do.*

The chart below shows the pronounced effect. Specifically, this is a 15 day “moving average,” a tool used by professionals ranging from data scientists to stock traders in order to organize complex information and identify underlying trends. We have superimposed the dates when HonestReporting did its work, which helps us to identify our role in impacting the overall media conversation worldwide, and to build strategy accordingly.

*The 59.91% and 7.71% figures are visible in the raw data in the second graph, but not within the moving average data.

Such a consequential development begs the question: What happened to alter the conversation?

Palestinian Vaccine Blood Libel Goes Viral, HonestReporting Goes to Work

In late December, as Israel rolled out a major initiative to vaccinate the country’s population against COVID-19, Reuters, Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and ABC News, among other outlets, plastered headlines implying or outright declaring that Jerusalem was responsible for the Palestinians’ purported lack of access to vaccines. Some even claimed Israel was violating international law or enacting a system of “medical apartheid.”

New York Times, February 8, 2021

In response, HonestReporting took action. On December 21, we published a piece, Media: Israel Leaves Palestinians Waiting For Vaccines; Truth: Palestinians Never Asked Israel for Help, which painted an accurate picture of the situation on the ground. The same day, our MediaCentral project quickly organized a press conference, Inside Israel’s COVID 19 Vaccination Drive, which featured Prof. Jonathan Halevy.

And we were just getting started. On January 7, January 19 and February 2, HonestReporting published additional fact-based rebuttals to the anti-Israel narrative. Meanwhile, MediaCentral held a series of teleconferences on December 23, January 5, January 16, January 21 and February 11 that immediately provided local and foreign journalists with truthful information about the latest developments regarding the Jewish state’s efforts to curb the pandemic.

Our multi-pronged approach also included calling out the media on its own turf. On January 11, Newsweek published an article by HonestReporting CEO Daniel Pomerantz, Here is What America Can Learn from Israel’s Vaccination Triumph. In addition, he appeared in television segments on Voice of America News (January 13), and RT News (February 8).

Results? The data speaks for itself

Over the approximately two months since Israel began its vaccination campaign, HonestReporting has tracked 403,662 articles and social media posts. During that period, the total percentage of related stories that included discussion of Palestinians has dropped from a high of 59.91% on January 3 to 7.71% on February 14. Note that the raw data shows a pattern that data professionals call “lower highs and lower lows,” indicating a clear trend that is even more evident in the moving average.

The figures allow us to identify a correlation between the work done by HonestReporting/MediaCentral and the huge reduction in stories across a wide spectrum of media platforms that could have tarred the Jewish state’s image despite the Palestinian leadership’s missteps in procuring inoculations for its own people.

Of course, as the saying goes, “correlation does not prove causation,” and there may be additional factors at play. But using a “big data” approach, we can clearly identify the major trends and see  precisely when and how our work fits into those trends. This allows us to precisely focus our timing and efforts to achieve maximum impact, for Israel and for Jewish communities across the globe.

We know from speaking privately to journalists that we are having an impact on the way they view and write about this story, and it is partly attributable to our increasingly proactive approach: in addition to our core work of achieving media corrections after biased articles have already been published, we are also influencing  the way that journalists report about Israel from the onset.

But while the Israeli vaccination narrative has seemingly turned a corner, the battle against anti-Israel bias and online antisemitism continues.

The good news is that we are now better positioned to directly hold news outlets to account whenever they cross the red line marking the boundary between responsible and accurate reporting and anti-Israel advocacy.

The above video is an edited highlight clip. You can click here to watch the full interview.

***

RT, formerly called Russia Today, is an international English language television network that is terribly hostile toward Israel and has an enormous global audience. Networks like this are the reason why Israel has an unfair global reputation. HonestReporting CEO Daniel Pomerantz came on the channel to talk vaccines, Iran, Abraham Accords — and in the process debunked false claims by former Palestinian political leader Hanan Ashrawi and also by the program’s own host.

The interview came just days after Jerusalem began transferring 5,000 COVID-19 inoculations to Ramallah and, in doing so, the Jewish state became the first nation in the world to share coronavirus vaccines with any external population. Meanwhile, Israel this month also facilitated the delivery to the Palestinians of 10,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine.

Furthermore, Ramallah is set to receive 37,000 vaccines through the World Health Organization’s global program around mid-February, followed by an additional 240,000 to 405,600 by the end of the month.

Pomerantz’s appearance came on the backdrop of an RT interview with Ashrawi, who not only accused Israel of shirking its responsibilities to the Palestinians during the pandemic, but also of this year conducting a land invasion of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

There was no such offensive.

Ashrawi also stated that Israeli forces had killed hundreds of Palestinians in 2020.

Also not true.

What is true is that Ashrawi promoted the destruction of the Jewish state by expressing support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement.

Pomerantz debunked this and other blatant lies, thereby painting an accurate  picture of Israel’s situation. On a channel like RT, reactive criticism won’t be likely to induce a correction, but proactively speaking directly to RT’s audience on their own broadcast can make a real difference: for Israel and for Jewish communities worldwide.

Click here to watch the entire video.

Recently, Mosaic magazine and the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) highlighted on their websites HonestReporting’s articles detailing, respectively, the Palestinian Authority’s sanctions on the Gaza Strip as well as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror group.

Mosaic featured as an Editors’ Pick the critique, Invisible Blockade: Media Silent on Palestinian Authority’s Gaza Sanctions. The piece debunked the false narrative that the conditions in Gaza are solely to be blamed on the Israeli-Egyptian blockade. As Mosaic summarizes:

“A far greater contribution to Gaza’s woes comes from the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has imposed a blockade of its own—a result of the feud between Hamas and the PA’s ruling Fatah party. Gidon Ben-Zvi writes that the PA president Mahmoud Abbas has cut welfare payments in Gaza (which still run through Ramallah) and slashed funding for electricity.”

Also, the prestigious Tel Aviv-based INSS included in its online archives HonestReporting’s eye-opening piece on the PFLP. The article, which cited INSS research, appears on the think tank’s page on terrorism and low-intensity conflict.

HonestReporting continues to challenge media bias  — and our work continues to move the needle on fair coverage of Israel. You can help us by subscribing to our daily newsletter, notifying HR when you identify bias in the news, or supporting our work through a donation.

On January 3, 2021, HonestReporting, in conjunction with UNRWA: Stop Teaching Hate, launched a “We the People” White House petition with the goal of inducing the Trump Administration to reveal the true number of Palestinian refugees alive today that were displaced during the 1948 war following Israel’s declaration of independence.

Now, with our help, the truth has been exposed by outgoing US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The revelation came after a concerted campaign by HonestReporting that garnered widespread media attention (see here, here and here, for example).

We also produced a related video that, to date, has garnered some 1 million views and spurred people to action at the grassroots level.

Taxpayers deserve basic truths: most Palestinians under UNRWA’s jurisdiction aren’t refugees, and UNRWA is a hurdle to peace. America supports peace and Palestinian human rights; UNRWA supports neither. It's time to end UNRWA's mandate. pic.twitter.com/zEsEXLaAbk

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) January 14, 2021

Indeed, the United Nations treats Palestinians differently from all other refugees, whose needs are attended to by the body’s High Commissioner for Refugees. But the Palestinians are under the auspices of UNRWA, created uniquely for them and which reinvented the concept of refugee as an inherited characteristic.

Today, therefore, UNRWA counts four generations of Palestinian “refugees” — more than 5 million people —  all descendants of the original 750,000-odd Palestinians who fled in 1948.

In this respect, the Palestinian leadership has long insisted that these “refugees” be granted the “Right of Return” to what is now the State of Israel, which would effectively end Jewish self-determination.

Clearly, this distorted, if not malicious, figure serves to diminish the prospects of a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

Accordingly, in 2012, the US Congress prompted the Department of State to conduct a study to determine the exact number of Palestinian refugees but the report was subsequently “classified,” effectively burying it.

But Pompeo has now dispelled a 70-year-old myth, prompting Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies who has dealt with the issue extensively, to explain:

One of the most important statements on Mideast policy over the past four years. It's more than eight years in the making. USG finally upends the fiction of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Numbers & policy statements to be cited by scholars for years. Thread. https://t.co/r4fJX4sVf5

— Richard Goldberg (@rich_goldberg) January 14, 2021

The ramifications of this development are liable to reshape the manner in which the international community views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and thus its approach to peacemaking.

HonestReporting is extremely proud to have played a role in an initiative that stands to positively impact Israel, millions of Palestinians who have not been afforded the opportunity to fulfill their potential, and the broader Middle East.

Featured Image: Palestinian UN Guard Closes UNRWA School via Shutterstock.

The Associated Press (AP) recently published an article entitled Leading human rights group calls Israel an ‘apartheid’ state, based on a widely reported claim in a document compiled by B’tselem.

Immediately, HonestReporting sprang to action, reaching out to the AP while in parallel publishing this critique (excerpt):

By uncritically portraying this group as a leading proponent of human rights, the media have effectively facilitated the hijacking of the word apartheid by anti-Israeli activists whose goal is to foster doubt about the legitimacy of the Jewish state….

Not a single country other than South Africa has ever been charged by the international community with imposing apartheid on its people. None of the world’s worst human rights violators have been placed in this docket…

By subjecting Israel to a double standard, B’Tselem and, in turn, the media have blurred the fine line between legitimate criticism of Israeli policies and antisemitism.

Liked this article? Follow HonestReporting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to see even more posts and videos debunking news bias and smears, as well as other content explaining what’s really going on in Israel and the region. Get updates direct to your phone. Join our WhatsApp and Telegram channels!

To its credit, the AP responded by adding the following three paragraphs to its original piece, thereby providing readers with a more balanced picture of the story:

Eugene Kontorovich, director of international law at the Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum, says the fact that the Palestinians have their own government makes any talk of apartheid “inapplicable,” calling the B’Tselem report “shockingly weak, dishonest and misleading.”

Palestinian leaders agreed to the current territorial divisions in the Oslo accords in the 1990s, and the Palestinian Authority is recognized as a state by dozens of nations. That, Kontorovich says, is a far cry from the territories designated for Black South Africans under apartheid — known as bantustans — to which many Palestinians compare the areas governed by the PA.

Kontorovich said the use of the word “apartheid” was instead aimed at demonizing Israel in a way that “resonates with racial sensitivities and debates in America and the West.”

By uncritically portraying B’Tselem as a leading proponent of human rights, some media outlets have effectively facilitated the hijacking of the word apartheid by anti-Israeli activists whose goal is to foster doubt about the legitimacy of the Jewish state.

But because AP stories are reprinted in many other publications, its update appeared in the Washington Post, ABC News, the LA Times and many others.

We commend the AP for incorporating into its article another voice to ensure that all interpretations of a complex issue are heard.

Liked this article? Follow HonestReporting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to see even more posts and videos debunking news bias and smears, as well as other content explaining what’s really going on in Israel and the region. Get updates direct to your phone. Join our WhatsApp and Telegram channels!