Month: October 2009

When you do a search of Google maps for “Israel,” you get a map that shows the entire area of mandate Palestine as Israel, despite the fact that the West Bank and Gaza Strip are not part of Israel and are, in fact, the Palestinian Territories — or, to be more precise, the Palestinian Occupied Territories, as the UN, the International Red Cross, and others refer to them.

Similarly, when you do a search of Google maps for “Palestine” or “Palestinian,” you only get Palestine, Texas. There is no result that gives the Palestinian Territories.

As a result, this not only gives incorrect results for people using Google maps, it also seems to result in maps being used by the Associated Press, AFP, etc. that incorrectly give the Palestinian Territories to Israel.

This needs to be fixed. I’m surprised that neither Google nor any of the news agencies have corrected this. Fortunately, in the meantime, many other organizations have excellent and accurate maps.
 

Yesterday, I discovered that Obama had signed a presidential memo changing a policy in which Israel, like almost all other nations, has been required to pay a protective tariff on dairy products exported to the U.S.

This tariff is to protect American farmers, who have been devastated in recent years, many losing their farms. This year has been particularly disastrous.

I phoned numerous officials at the Agriculture Department, the US Trade Representative, and the various dairy farmers’ organizations and discovered that no one had even heard about this change.

While the Israeli media have covered it, the American media have been completely silent on it.

I think people need to know about this policy change — created through an almost completely covered-up presidential memo — and so I wrote an article about it.

I think that American dairy farmers should be informed about this; I hope people will help get this information out.

Even people who are opposed to protective tariffs, I assume, dislike cover-ups and policies that smack of special interest favoritism.

I just received a phone call from Steve Schram, Director of Broadcasting for Michigan Radio. On the phone also was Rick Fitzgerald, from the University of Michigan Office of Public Affairs.

It was clear that Mr. Schram did not want to discuss Michigan Radio’s previous actions, and I decided not to push this.

The main point is that they are now willing “to consider” an ad from us. I told him the likely content of such an ad — basically, what we requested before — and he agreed “to consider it.”

I said that I would submit this before the end of the day, and he said that he would respond quickly. I asked that this be by the end of the week, at the latest, and he agreed.

I suspect that all the phone calls and emails that the station has been receiving from throughout Michigan and all over the US is the reason that management has finally been forced to do the correct thing.

While it would be satisfying to push the station to admit the inaccuracy of their public email — particularly since we have considerable evidence on this — I feel there is no need to so.

The bottom line is extremely exciting:  we have shown that when people join together and speak up, it is possible to get results.

Thank you to everyone who helped on this!

I’ll keep you posted as events continue to unfold.

 

I’m still waiting for a response from Michigan Radio.

I notice that among its $5,000-level sponsors is the Michigan chapter of the Nature Conservancy, which does advocacy work.

To reiterate: we’re not suggesting that Michigan Radio prohibit these groups from having ads; our point is that if some or all of these advocacy groups are allowed to be Michigan Radio sponsors, why is our organization — which does not even do lobbying — prohibited?

And now there is an additional, secondary point: Michigan Radio’s bizarre failure to respond to my phone calls and emails. This conduct is arrogant, and — particularly now that it is sending misleading emails about me to the public — highly unethical.

Yesterday afternoon I sent the following letter to Michigan Radio’s director, Stephen Schram:

Steve Schram
Director of Broadcasting
Michigan Radio

Dear Mr. Schram,

I am forwarding a message (below) that I sent to your station yesterday morning.

In addition, I have phoned your station numerous times over the past week, as I expect you’re aware. Yet, no one in your business department has returned my calls.

I find it bizarre — and highly unethical — for your station to send an email about me while refusing to communicate with me. Worse still, the email being sent to the public is highly misleading.

For the past week I have made continued efforts to obtain information and clarification from your company, to no avail.

In my email to Mr. Jonas I indicated that our organization is interested in becoming a sponsor. Yet, again, I have received no reply
.
I would expect more from a publicly funded institution.

I look forward to your response.

[My earlier letter to Jonas, published yesterday, then followed.]

Weeks ago our organization tried to place an ad with NPR’s affiliate in Ann Arbor, Michigan Radio, about my speaking tour in Michigan. (They officially call this a “sponsorship” — for $1,000 you receive about 10 announcements.)

Michigan Radio is a service of Michigan Public Media, the public broadcasting company at the University of Michigan, and consists of the following stations, licensed to the Regents of the University of Michigan:

• WUOM 91.7 Ann Arbor/Detroit
• WVGR 104.1 Grand Rapids
• WFUM-FM 91.1 Flint

Michigan Radio refused our ad, saying that our organization was “political,” even though:

• We are a 501c3 educational organization — our website provides facts on Israel-Palestine and does not advocate for or against any particular parties, candidates, or bills before Congress;

• It had run ads from the Jewish Federation of Detroit, which states on its website that it advocates for Israel;

• I am told that it has run ads from the Ann Arbor chapter of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, which lobbies for Israel and other issues. (Since Michigan Radio management has not returned my phone calls I have been unable to confirm this with them).

The company did eventually run an ad announcing my talks, but only when it was placed by another organization and as long as it did not give the name or website of our organization.

When I arrived in Michigan last Tuesday I phoned the station to try to clear this matter up, but received no return call to discuss this.

Later in the week I phoned again, but was unable to reach anyone beyond the receptionist. I left voicemails with a variety of individuals in the business department asking them to call me back about this matter.

When no one did, I finally sent out a press release and announcements about what I consider censorship of our organization. The station began to receive a growing number of phone calls and emails complaining about their censorship — including calls to its pledge line by individuals saying they were NOT donating because of this situation.

Michigan Radio’s Director of Development Larry Jonas replied to emails (but did not contact us) with a message claiming that the problem had basically been that the station was uncertain that the local chapter of If Americans Knew was indeed a local chapter of If Americans Knew (it was and is). He did mention something about “other reasons” but did not say what these were.

The fact is, however, that his purported explanation was very different from the one that had been given to our chapter on October 1st by their underwriting representative, and on October 16th by an individual at the station — that management’s refusal to run our ad was based on their determination that our organization was “political.”

I then phoned and emailed Mr. Jonas (see below) to clarify this matter. Since Mr. Jonas implied in his public message that the major problem was simply that they needed confirmation of the local chapter’s affiliation with us (something they had never requested), we can easily supply this. I wrote that we would like to place a new announcement.

It is now over 27 hours since I emailed Mr. Jonas, several days after I left voicemails with a number of people at Michigan Radio, and almost three hours since I left phone messages at Michigan Radio for Mr. Jonas and others asking for a response. I am still waiting.

Press releases with additional details can be seen at

http://www.israel-palestinenews.org/2009/10/michigan-public-radio-censoring.html

and

http://www.israel-palestinenews.org/2009/10/michigan-radio-censorship-controversy.html

 

Below is the email that I sent yesterday morning to Michigan Radio:

Dear Mr. Jonas,

Regarding your email (pasted below) about why Michigan Radio refused to run our announcement:

1. The individual who contacted Michigan Radio did indeed represent the Flint, Michigan chapter of If Americans Knew and possesses a letter stating that fact.

 

2. Your explanation is contradicted by the explanation Michigan Radio gave to our chapter at the time. It is also contracted by an explanation given to If Americans Knew since.

Below is the email correspondence on this matter:

 

From the If Americans Knew chapter, Thursday, October 01, 2009 5:17 PM:

 

Thank you for the call earlier today. I communicated the Michigan Radio decision back to our group. We are disappointed that the station declined to approve our announcement.

 

In order to be completely clear, please send me an e-mail stating the specific reason or reasons for the non-approval of the underwriting. As you stated, if our request did not meet an FCC guideline or rule, or the station rules or policy, please indicate which specific guideline or policy we did not meet.

 

From the station’s underwriting representative, Thursday, October 01, 2009 9:06 PM:

 

I’ll be glad to share with you what management discussed with me. In the underwriting packet (the first email attachment that I sent to you), on the page titled “MAKING YOUR CREDIT WORK FOR YOU MICHIGAN RADIO UNDERWRITING COPY GUIDELINES” (bottom paragraph):

 

“Michigan Radio reserves the right to refuse any request for underwriting that would violate an FCC rule or policy, violate station policies or adversely affect the reputation or financial condition of the station. No announcements will be aired on behalf of political organizations, political candidates or their committees, or that express a view on issues of public importance or interest or religious belief. No more than one (1) event may be listed in any underwriting announcement. No more than 6 underwriting announcements may air in one day (and may be less depending on inventory).”

 

In other words, the alleged problem was with our organization itself.

 

This explanation was also given to me directly on October 16th, when a person at Michigan Radio told me that the reason given by station management for refusing to run our announcement was their determination that If Americans Knew was “political.”

It is unfortunate that you did not send your email to us as well as to the public, so that we might have corrected these errors. In fact, if Michigan Radio had contacted us directly, as we had requested in numerous voicemails, we could have cleared up your confusion on this matter quite easily and spared your organization the embarrassment of sending out inaccurate information.

 

Regarding Michigan Radio’s decision not to air an announcement by our organization:

I find it inconsistent and unethical for Michigan Radio to refuse to run an announcement by our organization when it appears that you have run announcements by pro-Israel organizations that are political and that even publicly lobby for specific legislation. I find such a double standard unconscionable.

I am told that Michigan Radio has aired announcements by the Ann Arbor chapter of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of American, an organization that advocates publicly and actively on legislation, and by the Jewish Federation of Detroit, whose website says that it “advocates for Israel.” Yet you refused an announcement by If Americans Knew, even though we are not a lobbying organization and our website’s mission is to provide facts to the American public. I find such logic perplexing.

However, if Michigan Radio’s current position is that the only problem is uncertainty over the local group’s affiliation with If Americans Knew, as your email suggests, this obstacle, I assume, has now been cleared up.

We would now like to place a new announcement with Michigan Radio.

Michigan radio’s action on this matter has been particularly disturbing, given that a study of NPR by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) showed extremely Israeli-centric reporting by the network. For example, it found a pattern in which NPR reported on Israeli children’s deaths 89 percent of the time while reporting on Palestinian children’s deaths only 20 percent of the time.

 

The study also found that while NPR reported on the deaths of Israeli civilians in higher proportions than it reported on deaths of Israeli soldiers, the network did the opposite in its reporting on Palestinian deaths, reporting on the deaths of Palestinian combatants at greater rates than it reported on the deaths of Palestinian civilians, giving an extremely skewed view of the conflict.

 

Similarly, NPR claimed that Hamas had been the first to violate a 2009 ceasefire, despite the fact that it had actually been Israel that had first violated the ceasefire. Even when evidence was provided to NPR for this fact, and even though CNN eventually ran a report correcting its similar error on a 2008 ceasefire breach, NPR refused to run a correction, leaving its listeners significantly misinformed on the situation.

I look forward to working with you on our new announcement.

Sincerely,

Alison Weir

Below is the message Jonas had sent to the public (but not to us):

This issue has been miscast by Ms. Weir, when in fact the issue is about adherence to FCC underwriting regulations.

 

Michigan Radio was initially contacted by a gentleman in the Flint area who indicated that he was interested in establishing an underwriting schedule of announcements that would include information about Ms. Weir’s talk.

 

The gentleman initially asked that the sponsorship be attributed to an organization to which he appeared to have no apparent affiliation. Michigan Radio is required by FCC rules to identify the sponsoring entity in an underwriting announcement and not a third party.

 

For that and other reasons, we were concerned that accepting the sponsorship may put us afoul of FCC regulations.

 

He subsequently indicated that the Flint Islamic Center, the organization that would be hosting her talk, and of which he is a member, should be identified as the sponsoring organization. Those announcements identifying that organization and Ms. Weir’s talk have aired as ordered.

 

Please remember to check Israel-Palestine Uncensored, our news blog, for daily (almost) updates on events in the region largely going uncovered by US media…

[petition calling for an investigation]

A few weeks ago, following my article in CounterPunch “Israeli Organ Harvesting: The New ‘Blood Libel’?”(now available in Spanish, French, and Italian), the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs asked me to write a piece on this topic for their publication.

In conducting research for this — largely from Israeli media, Congressional testimony, BBC reports, etc — I found considerably more information.

As a result, I have now produced two new footnoted articles — one that is in the print edition of the November Washington Report (I urge people to subscribe to the magazine in order to get this shorter, more concise article) and a longer one that is on their website:

Following are some excerpts from the website version: 

Nancy Scheper-Hughes is Chancellor’s Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of California Berkeley, the founder of Organ Watch, and the author of scholarly books and articles on organ trafficking. She is the pundit mainstream media call upon when they need expert commentary on the topic.⁵

While Scheper-Hughes emphasizes that traffickers and procurers come from numerous nations and ethnicities, including Americans and Arabs, she is unflinchingly honest in speaking about the Israeli connection:

“Israel is at the top,” she states. “It has tentacles reaching out worldwide.”

*  *  * 

… In her Forum 13 lecture Scheper-Hughes discussed the two motivations of Israeli traffickers. One was greed, she said. The other was somewhat chilling: “Revenge, restitution—reparation for the Holocaust.”

She described speaking with Israeli brokers who told her “it’s kind of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. We’re going to get every single kidney and liver and heart that we can. The world owes it to us.’”

*  *  * 

… For many years the Israeli health system subsidized its citizens’ “transplant holidays,” … In addition, Israel’s Ministry of Defense was directly involved.

*  *  * 

… Journalist Khalid Amayreh, recently investigating this topic further, found that “several other Palestinians gave a similar narrative, recounting how they received the bodies of their murdered relatives, mostly men in their early twenties, with vital organs taken away by the Israeli authorities.”

Israel has consistently characterized such accusations as “anti-Semitic,” and numerous other journalists have discounted them as exaggerations.

However, according to the pro-Israel Forward magazine, the truth of these charges was, in fact, confirmed by an Israeli governmental investigation a number of years ago.

*  *  * 

… In 1996, Jewish Week reported that Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh, a leader of the Lubavitch sect of Judaism and the dean of a religious Jewish school in a West Bank settlement, stated: “If a Jew needs a liver, can you take the liver of an innocent non-Jew passing by to save him? The Torah would probably permit that.” Ginzburgh elaborated: “Jewish life has infinite value. There is something infinitely more holy and unique about Jewish life than non-Jewish life.” [The Jewish Week, April 26, 1996, pp. 12, 31]

*  *  * 

Still in denial?

Finally, it is interesting that some writers with friendly and family ties to Israel, who are slowly overcoming their denial on Israeli war crimes, still quite often leap to Israel’s defense against evidence of Israeli wrongdoing.

Some of these bloggers attempt to cover up Israeli actions by alleging that facts in some of my articles are incorrect — for example, like other Israel partisans, some claim that Israeli Professor Ariel Toaff, a preeminent Israeli historian who wrote a book initially suggesting that there had apparently been cases of ritual killings of Christians during the Middle Ages (after massive pressure he later recanted) is actually — they allege — not an expert.

However, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz and other Israeli sourcees refer to Dr. Toaff as “an international expert on Italian Jewry,” “an expert on the history of medieval Italian Jewry“, “who is considered an international expert on Italian Jewry“, “one of the greatest scholars in his field‘”, “the university also reiterated that Toaff was among the senior lecturers in his field in Israel and internationally“; reviews of earlier books noted his “scholarly rigour” and stated, “Toaff is the acknowledge master of the social history of Umbrian Jewry“

It is interesting to note that Professor Toaff, who is also a rabbi, initially said: “I will not give up my devotion to the truth and academic freedom even if the world crucifies me.” Following multiple and diverse threats, he recanted.

Ha’aretz reports some of Toaff’s statements:

“I tried to show that the Jewish world at that time was also violent, among other things because it had been hurt by Christian violence,” the Bar-Ilan history professor said. Of course I do not claim that Judaism condones murder. But within Ashkenazi Judaism there were extremist groups that could have committed such an act and justified it,” he said…

“Over many dozens of pages I proved the centrality of blood on Passover,” Toaff said. “Based on many sermons, I concluded that blood was used, especially by Ashkenazi Jews, and that there was a belief in the special curative powers of children’s blood. It turns out that among the remedies of Ashkenazi Jews were powders made of blood.”

Although the use of blood is prohibited by Jewish law, Toaff says he found proof of rabbinic permission to use blood, even human blood. “The rabbis permitted it both because the blood was already dried,” and because in Ashkenazi communities it was an accepted custom that took on the force of law, Toaff said. There is no proof of acts of murder, Toaff said, but there were curses and hatred of Christians, and prayers inciting to cruel vengeance against Christians. “There was always the possibility that some crazy person would do something.”

As I wrote earlier, people who wish to take the time to delve into this further and to determine whether or not Toaff’s evidence supported his initial conclusions can read an unauthorized translation of his book here. (This book, despite an enthusiastic review by Italian Jewish historian Sergio Luzzatto, was withdrawn by Toaff following pressure from the Israeli Knesset, the ADL, death threats, etc.)

Unfortuntely, his new, revised book has not yet been translated into English. In the meantime, parts of it are available. For example, Toaff’s detailed description of the attacks on him and his defense of his work is available here. It is well worth scanning.

Ha’aretz reported that, at least before his book came out, “Faculty members described Toaff as a unique lecturer who is well-liked by students.” 

(By the way, it’s probably worthwhile to point out that despite the immense focus from some quarters on Toaff, information on his book and the massive attacks on him were actually a minor part of my CounterPunch article; he is not even mentioned in my recent ones. People who wish to look into this further might wish to view this analysis of Toaff’s research.)