Tag Archives: AlternativeFacts

NY Times Alternative Facts: Area C

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The New York Times has an aggressive re-education effort about the world. It distorts history and facts in its enterprise, particularly when it comes to Israel.

A March 21, 2021 article was designed to elicit empathy for Palestinian Arabs, which is the anti-Israel’s paper common practice and right. What is unfortunate is not simply the bias but distortion of truth.

March 21, 2021 New York Times article about Palestinian sheep hearders suffering under Israeli “occupation”

The paper’s background to the area commonly known as the “West Bank” was as follows:

“The Israeli government’s explanation for the demolitions dates back to the 1990s Oslo Accords with the Palestinians. The agreement gave Israel administrative control over more than 60 percent of the West Bank, including most of the Jordan Valley, pending further negotiations which were meant to be completed within five years.

“But over two decades of talks, the two sides have failed to agree on a deal, so Israel retains control of the lands – known as Area C – and has the right to demolish homes built there without planning permission.”

The 1993 and 1995 Oslo Accords did not “give Israel administrative control” over area C; the Accords gave the Palestinian Authority (PA) control over Areas A and B. Israel has had administrative control of the West Bank for over fifty years. The Israelis gave the Palestinians the opportunity to control an area for the first time in history.

The Israelis were willing to give the PA more lands, including the vast majority of Area C in 2000. Not getting 100% of their stated desires, the Palestinians launched what is gently described as the “Second Intifada,” a murderous guerilla war waged for four years until Israel was able to halt the Palestinian killers by constructing a security barrier.

Israel handed additional lands to the Palestinians in 2005, as it withdrew from the Gaza Strip. That action led to wars from Gaza in 2008, 2012 and 2014 followed by West Bank car ramming and stabbing attacks in 2015 and 2016. The Palestinian actions destroyed any notion of Israel ceding control of more land to an entity hell-bent on murder. This reality is a far cry from the Times narrative that “the two sides failed to agree on a deal.”

Lastly, the Times, which forever likes to use harsh terms like “occupation” and “illegal” for Israel, is loathe to point out Palestinian terrorism and illegal activities. Like “illegal aliens” in the United States being called “undocumented immigrants,” the Times sanitized the illegally built Arab structures by claiming they were simply completed “without planning permission.”

The New York Times is deliberately posting ahistorical information to sway its readership to take a positive view of Palestinian Arabs and a negative view of Israel. It is part of the left-wing mantra to engage globally by distancing America from allies like Israel and warming relationships with state sponsors of terrorism like Iran.

Related First One Through articles:

Names and Narrative: It is Called ‘Area C’

Importing Peaceful Ideas to the West Bank

The 1967 War Created Both the “West Bank” and the Notion of a Palestinian State

American Leaders Always Planned on Israel Absorbing Much of the West Bank

The New York Times Excuses Palestinian “Localized Expressions of Impatience.” I Mean Rockets.

Names and Narrative: The West Bank / Judea and Samaria

Extreme and Mainstream. Germany 1933; West Bank & Gaza Today

NY Times Alternative Facts on Palestinian Elections

NY Times Will Not Write About Arab Pogroms

The NY Times Will Not Write About the Preferred Violence of Palestinians

NY Times Disgraceful Journeys

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NY Times Tries Hard to Paint Obama/Biden as Pacifists and Trump as Mercenary

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It must be especially galling to the left-wing media that an outlandish person like Donald Trump could forge peace deals in the Middle East while its patron saints in the Obama administration could not.

Consider the deliberate twisting of facts in The New York Times on September 24, 2020 about U.S. arm sales to Saudi Arabia. In a “News Analysis” section called “A Fraying Rationale for U.S. Aid to the Saudis in Yemen,” the Times wrote that

“Mr. Trump decided in early 2017 to restart arms sales to the Gulf Arab nations that President Barack Obama had halted in late 2016.”

The sheer audacity of this line in the Times is outrageous.

Obama’s term ENDED in “late 2016.” From 2009 to 2015, the Obama administration sold more weapons to foreign countries than any administration in U.S. history – particularly to Saudi Arabia. Obama’s penchant for arms sales was so egregious that even liberal media firms like Vice were appalled, writing an article as Obama left office in January 2017, “Obama’s Administration Sold More Weapons Than Any Other Since World War II.” The sub-header to the article was “Many were sold to the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia.” The article noted that “Under Obama the overall sales, pending delivery of equipment and specialised training for troops, to Saudi Arabia alone has ballooned to $115 billion.” At the time of the article, the war Saudis were participating in in Yemen was well under way with “over 10,000 killed, 2.2 million displaced and nearly half a million children on the brink of famine from the ensuing crisis.”

While the Times was factually accurate that in Obama’s final month of his presidency he halted the sale of precision-guided munitions, it was only of that particular weaponry and only after eight years of selling the Saudis over $100 billion in arms!

New York Times article written to paint Obama and Biden as pacifists and Trump as a mercenary on September 24, 2020, coupling a picture of destruction in Yemen with one of Trump with the Saudis sitting comfortably in the White House striking deals.

The Times article stated that “current and former administration officials, as well as former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic presidential nominee, say American involvement [in selling Saudi’s weapons] must end.” That’s quite a bit of “malarkey” as Biden would say, having been second in command in an administration that sold $115 billion in arms to the Saudis.

The Times added that “the State Department, starting in the Obama administration, sent a senior level official, Larry Lewis, on frequent trips to Saudi Arabia to advise on civilian harm,” making the Democrats appear worried about the death to civilians, but “the next year Trump administration officials pushed him [Lewis] out of the agency,” making Team Trump appear callous.

The attack on Trump continued to cast him as a simple arms merchant and uncaring of the damage done by the weapons: “Mr. Trump has offered a more transactional rationale [for selling arms to the Saudis]: that the United States should continue to sell weapons for the money. “They have nothing but money. Nothing but cash, and they pay us now.“”

The foreign policy failures of the Obama administration in the Middle East were plentiful, ranging from giving Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, a legal pathway to nuclear weapons; selling more weapons to Arab countries that any administration in history as a counter-balance the blessing of a nuclear-emboldened Iran; watching the arms sales be used to pound Yemen, the poorest country in the world, into sand; watching the plane-loads of cash sent to Iran get funneled into terrorist groups; failing miserably in negotiating between Israel and the Palestinians leading to Gaza wars in 2012 and 2014 and the stabbing intifada of 2015, to name but a few.

While U.S. voters don’t rank foreign affairs high on their priority list, The Times doesn’t want to take a chance.

During this particularly contentious election, The Times is actively recasting Obama and Biden as pacifists and Trump as a cold mercenary when in fact it was the Obama administration which enabled death and destruction in the Middle East and Trump who forged peace agreements in the region.

Related First One Through articles:

Half Standards: Gun Control and the Iranian Nuclear Weapons Deal

Some Global Supporters of the P5+1 Iran Deal

The Gap between Fairness and Safety: WMDs in Iraq and Iran

The Arab Spring Blooms in the UAE

The United States Should NOT be a Neutral Mediator in the Arab-Israel Conflict

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The British and Arab Press Assail “Settlers” While the Israeli Media calls out “Right-Wing”

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Roman Abramovich is a Russian billionaire who owns the Chelsea premier league soccer team. His dealings often make it onto the UK papers which love to gossip about the ultra-wealthy, especially those entangled with their favorite sport.

The British media went after Abramovich this week as he completed the trifecta of British obsession: his support of the Jewish State.

The BBC posted a video on September 21, 2020 called “FinCEN Files: The Israeli settlers Chelsea boss Arbramovich helped fund.” The inverted English title was a pretty good indication of the inversion of facts presented in the ten minute video including never stating that it was Yemenite Jews who founded the Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan in the 19th century (not Arabs the way BBC presented) and that the archaeological findings in the City of David are historical treasures for the entire world, not booty for the Jewish people.

Roman Abramovich featured in BBC

The Guardian loved the story and published a piece “Leaks show Chelsea owner Abramovich funded Israeli settler group.” The article wrote that

“four companies he [Abramovich] either owns or controls in the British Virgin Islands have contributed more than $100m (£74m) to Elad, a group that supports settlements in the Palestinian neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem called Silwan, BBC News Arabic reported.”

This “Palestinian neighborhood” was never contemplated to be part of a Palestinian state, and the Oslo Accords which the Palestinian Authority signed in 1995 acknowledge that Israel rules Jerusalem.

The article continued:

“The group, which also receives backing from the Israeli government, has sought to strengthen the Jewish presence in the neighbourhood of Silwan at the expense of its Arab residents.

Elad runs an archaeological site in Silwan called the City of David that has become a huge tourist attraction. The dig has been criticised by European Union diplomats as seeking to ignore the ancient city’s diverse history in favour of “an exclusively Jewish narrative, while detaching the place from its Palestinian surroundings”.”

The statement is ridiculous on many fronts. Arabs dwarf the number of Jews in the neighborhood today. Before the Yemenite Jews settled this area outside the Old City of Jerusalem’s walls in the 1880’s, no one lived in that land for centuries; the Arab history on the site is only 100 years old.

Outside of the British press, the biased story was repeated almost verbatim by Arab media outlets:

The left-wing Israeli press ran their own stories:

The TOI piece included this doozy:

“Elad also purchases homes in the surrounding Arab village of Silwan — sometimes via Muslim middlemen — and rents them to Jews, a move that has led to charges that it is fueling tensions in the city.”

The use of “Muslim middlemen” to procure property stems from the fact that the Palestinian Authority considers selling land to Jews a capital crime. Rather than denounce the sick anti-Semitic Palestinian law which kills Arabs for a natural human right of selling property to another person in the spirit of coexistence and commerce, the article inverted the charge against the group, Elad, claiming that it caused the tensions.

It is a sad commentary on the world today that a non-profit group which helps uncover the beauty of Jewish history and facilitates Jews buying homes in their holiest city in an area founded by Jews is controversial. That the British and Arab press held common cause in vilifying support for such “settler group” while the Israeli news called out the “right-wing group” says quite a bit about the racial and nationalistic lens shared by the UK and Arab world, as well as the partisan political orientation in Israel today.

Related First One Through articles:

The New York Times All Out Assault on Jewish Jerusalem

Real and Imagined Laws of Living in Silwan

The Subtle Discoloration of History: Shuafat

Obama’s Select Religious Compassion

Obama supports Anti-Semitic Palestinian Agenda of Jew-Free State

“Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”

Ending Apartheid in Jerusalem

The New York Times Inverts the History of Jerusalem

The Nerve of ‘Judaizing’ Neighborhoods

BBC Welcomes Release of British Muslim Accused of Beheading Daniel Pearl

Al Jazeera’s Lies Call for Jihad Against the Jewish State

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CNN and Democratic Politicians Recraft and Redraft MLK’S Mountaintop Speech

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Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) went on CNN and told Anderson Cooper that Joe Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris as the Vice Presidential running mate was the attainment of Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of reaching the mountaintop.

“There was much reflection, but a lot of tears and a lot of reflection on the history of what we’re making today. What I would say is that so many women have tried to climb that mountaintop that Dr. Martin Luther King spoke of.”

There are a number of problems with this quote by the Black Congresswoman.

First, MLK used the mountaintop as a metaphor for himself in seeing the Promised Land (freedom) but NOT being able to reach it, much like Moses climbed to the top of the mountain but could not cross over to the Jewish Promised Land. The Congresswoman thought that reaching the mountaintop was the pinnacle of success, when MLK actually used it to describe it as coming up short of one’s goals.

Second, to use this particular quote on CNN is horrific. CNN edited MLK’s Mountaintop speech in a particularly noxious antisemitic fashion to cut Jews out of the story in a seemingly poor attempt to disassociate “God’s children” as MLK called the Jews, with the land of Israel.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee on CNN with Anderson Cooper Aug 11, 2020

Eleanor Holmes Norton of Washington, D.C. also contributed nonsense to the CNN segment stating “We have had White women on the ticket. We have never had an African American woman.” The issue is that Harris is not African American but of southeast Asian descent. CNN did not fact-check the statement nor print any clarification when it reprinted the story. It’s not a surprise as the media outlet which claims that “CNN holds elected officials and candidates accountable by pointing out what’s true and what’s not,” only does so for Republicans and the conservative media.

How far will CNN go to modify facts and history to fit its liberal narrative? #AlternativeFactChecks

Related First One Through articles:

For CNN, The Critical Israeli Facts Have No Murdered Jews

CNN Changes Its Black Transgender Story to Target Police

CNN’s Politicization of Antisemitic Murder

CNN Will Not Report Islamic Terrorism

CNN’s Embrace of Hamas

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CNN Changes Its Black Transgender Story to Target Police

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On June 15, 2020, CNN published an article “Thousands show up for black trans people in nationwide protests” which picked up a theme of the Black Lives Matter movement protesting police brutality. It referenced a “Black Trans Lives Matter rally in New York,” which “took place amid global demonstrations in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, which has surged in the wake of George Floyd’s death.” It also wrote about a protest in Los Angeles regarding the killing of “Tony McDade, a black transgender man who was shot by a Tallahassee police officer last week” and one in Chicago which held a “Drag March for Change this weekend. They demanded justice for victims of police brutality.”

CNN crafted its 2020 story to fit the backdrop of BLM and effectively paint the police as not only racist, but as people who discriminate against the transgender community as well.

Picture from CNN website with sub-header “Thousands rallied outside Brooklyn Museum in New York to support trans rights on Sunday, June 14, 2020.”

This was in sharp contrast to the story CNN published about transgender deaths on November 18, 2019.

That story never mentioned the police. It wrote that “Half of transgender and gender non-conforming people killed since 2013 have been killed by an acquaintance, friend, family member or intimate partner, according to the Human Rights Campaign.” This is a critical fact that was completely omitted from the 2020 story which sought to frame the police for the murder of Black transgender people.

What was also left out of the story is that most transgender people are attacked by Blacks according to statistics by the FBI.

Chart 1: FBI Hate Crimes Against Transgender People, by Race

         5.71x
White Black W/B Ratio Black Likelihood
2013 8 18          0.44        12.85
2014 37 36          1.03          5.55
2015 34 38          0.89          6.38
2016 30 57          0.53        10.85
2017 41 43          0.95          5.99
2018 57 76          0.75          7.61

Since the FBI began tracking information about hate crimes against transgender people in 2013, Black people have been greater offenders in every year except for one, 2014. In considering that there are 5.7 times as many Whites as Blacks in the United States, the Black community is much more disproportionately likely to attack a transgender person, by as much as 5 to 12 times.

That statistic is left out by CNN, even when it breaks down statistics by likelihood (events per X people) comparing the United States to other countries and the use of police force against both Blacks and Whites.

CNN rewrote the latest story of attacks on Black transgender people to feed the anti-police narrative of the moment, even though most of those attacks are from the Black community, including from friends and family members, not the police. It is a form of incitement and junkyard journalism that gives protesters fuel and a false sense of moral superiority. #MainstreamMediaIsFullofCrap

Related First One through articles:

For CNN, The Critical Israeli Facts Have No Murdered Jews

CNN Will Not Report Islamic Terrorism

CNN’s Embrace of Hamas

YouTube Enhances Hatred of Israel and Extinguishes Hate for Palestinians

Anti-Semitism Is Harder to Recognize Than Racism

The Press Are Not Guardians of the Galaxy

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Where the Virus is Killing the Most: Countries with Socialist Leaders

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The increasingly Socialist media outlet, The New York Times, ran an article on June 2, 2020 called “Where the Virus is Growing the Most: Countries with ‘Illiberal Populist’ Leaders.” The article pushed the notion that countries with the worst record of combating COVID-19 are “all run by populist male leaders who cast themselves as anti-elite and anti-establishment” who subscribe to “radical right illiberal populism.” It added that “the flip side of the pattern involving illiberal populists is that countries run by women appear to have been more successful in fighting the virus.”

Here’s the actual data on the coronavirus and where its most deadly: it is in countries with liberal/ socialist leaders, not conservative.

Deaths/
Country 1M pop Leader Party Gender
San Marino 1,238
Belgium 820 Sophie Wilmès Reformist (liberal) Female
Andorra 660
Spain 580 Pedro Sánchez Socialist Male
UK 575 Boris Johnson Conservative Male
Italy 554 Giuseppe Conte Independent Male
France 442 Emmanuel Macron Socialist Male
Sweden 436 Stefan Löfven Socialist Male
Sint Maarten 350
Netherlands 348 Mark Rutte Freedom and Democracy (center-right) Male
Ireland 334 Michael D. Higgins Labour (liberal) Male

The coronavirus is a terrible pandemic which should be beyond politics but we’re in 2020 and the mainstream liberal media is hard-pressing the notion that conservative men will destroy democracy and literally cause death and destruction wherever they lead. So the NY Times again pushed #AlternativeFacts about COVID-19 and will not point out that the countries worst hit are led by far-left leaders. It goes without saying that the MSM will not print that the most deadly country by far – Belgium, with a mortality rate 2.5 times the United States – is headed by a liberal woman.

Sophie Wilmès, Prime Minister of Belgium, head of the liberal Reformist Movement

Related First One Through articles:

The CoronavirUS is Not Us Versus Them

Bahrain Takes All the COVID-19 Tests But Doesn’t Give a Cent to the WHO

Toronto Star Sanitizes Hamas During Pandemic

The U.N. Doesn’t Care About Middle-Aged White Male Victims of Covid-19

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Join Facebook group: FirstOne Through  Israel Analysis

The Palestinian-American You Never Heard Of: Issam Akel

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The mainstream media often reports on a handful of Palestinian-Americans. The most dominant two are women who live in America: freshman member of Congress Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Linda Sarsour, a co-chair of the 2017 Women’s March. The outspoken women often attack the the State of Israel and Zionists who support the Jewish State and they get to enjoy the press coverage which magnifies their prominence.

The press also highlights certain Palestinian Americans who live in the Middle East to portray a particular narrative of events between Israel and the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs).

Consider Tariq Abu Kheidar, a 15-year old who was beaten by Israeli police for taking part in riots. The New York Times featured a picture of the Palestinian American teenager in a huge color photo on its front page on July 7, 2014. For the paper, it symbolized the conflict of an aggressive Israeli force beating up on Arab teenagers.

Tariq Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian-American teenager who was beaten up by an Israeli border police officer in 2014. Oded Balilty/Associated Press

The Times would cover the story again in November 2015 in a follow up article “Israeli Officer Sentenced to Community Service in Beating of Palestinian American.” The Times not only got to rehash the story, but highlight that Israeli courts did not aggressively prosecute zealous law enforcement officials who beat up Arabs, in an attempt to make a parallel to police officers in the United States attacking minorities.

However, the Times never reported on another Palestinian American who was the focus of international diplomacy, a man sentenced to a life in prison with hard labor by the Palestinian Authority for the “crime” of selling land to a Jew.

Issam Akel, a 55-year old man with American citizenship who lived in the eastern part of Jerusalem, was arrested by the Palestinian Authority in October 2018. His crime of selling his house to a Jew could have carried a death sentence, but he “only” received a life sentence, possibly because he was an American. The Trump administration secured his release to American authorities in January 2019. The Times would neither report on his arrest nor his release.

(Screenshot/Wattan News Agency)

The Times will not write about the vile antisemitism and suffering of Palestinian Americans under the Palestinian Authority as doing so undermines the narrative that the PA is moderate. The Times will only write stories where Palestinian Americans are victims of right-wing Americans and Israelis.

Related First.One.Through articles:

For The NY Times, Antisemitism Exists Because the Alt-Right is Racist and Israel is Racist

A Review of the The New York Times Anti-Israel Bias

The New York Times Knows It’s Israeli Right from It’s Palestinian Moderates

NY Times Disgraceful Journeys

The New York Times Whitewashes Motivation of Palestinian Assassin of Robert Kennedy

Thomas Friedman is a Peddler of Racist Fiction and Adolescent Fantasy

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Israeli Arabs SUPPORT Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People

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On a good day, the mainstream media will spin narratives of alternative facts. On bad days, they will completely lie to their readership, either deliberately or through indifference to doing research which might reveal facts counter to their preferred narratives.

A favorite repeated lie for the New York Times is that Israel’s Nation State Law was anti-Arab, racist and loudly condemned by Israel Arabs (or as the Times prefers to call them, “Palestinian citizens of Israel.”). It simply is not true.

At the same time that Israel was debating and passing the new Basic Law on July 18, 2018, detailed polling was going on among Palestinians, Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs on a wide range of issues. The splits between the various groups on different topics were interesting, but perhaps nothing was more revealing than the questions which garnered almost unanimous approvals.

The Palestinians and the Israeli Jews were divided among themselves on every issue. However, the Israeli Arabs showed overwhelming consensus on four questions:

  1. Support for the recognition that Israel is the home for Jewish people and Palestine is the home for Arab people received 84.8% approval (compared to Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews who only favored it by 42.9% and 61.9%, respectively).
  2. Palestinian refugees will return to Palestine and a cap of 100,000 refugees will move to Israel as part of family reunification. The balance of refugees will receive compensation, got 84.1% approval (compared to Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews who only favored it by 47.5% and 21.3%, respectively).
  3. The future Palestinian state and the state of Israel will both have a democratic
    political system based on rule of law, periodic elections, free press, strong parliament, independent judiciary and equal rights for religious and ethnic minorities as well as strong anti-corruption measures received 91.2% approval (compared to Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews who only favored it by 48.2% and 61.7%, respectively).
  4. The Israeli-Palestinian agreement will be part of a larger peace agreement
    with all Arab states according to the Arab Peace Initiative received 84.5% approval (compared to Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews who only favored it by 45.8% and 50.8%, respectively).

Israeli Arabs – more than Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs – want distinct Jewish and Arab states and want to be a protected minority in the Jewish State. They DO NOT want to see millions of refugees descend and transform Israel into a bi-national state. They want those refugees to go to a new Palestinian Arab state while they remain citizens of the nation state of the Jewish people.

That is what the Israeli Arabs say. Would you rather believe them or a media industry intent on telling you that Israel is a racist apartheid state?

Related First.One.Through articles:

What the Palestinians Were Thinking While Israelis Were Voting

An Inconvenient Truth: Palestinian Polls

The Real “Symbol of the Conflict” is Neta Sorek

Names and Narrative: “Palestinians” versus Palestinian Arabs / Israeli Arabs

The Basic Law’s “Unique” Problem

Deciphering the 2018 Basic Law in Israel – The Nation State of the Jewish People

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Israeli Arabs in the Galilee
(photo: FirstOneThrough)

Anti-Israel Lobbyists Dwarf Pro-Israel Lobbyists

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As AIPAC kicks off its 2019 conference in Washington, D.C., it is worth reviewing some basic statistics about this pro-Israel lobbying group.

Biden_at_AIPAC, once upon a time

According to Open Secrets, AIPAC spent $3.5 million on lobbying in 2018, slightly more than the $3.4 million it spent in 2017. This is a relatively small number compared to the anti-Israel Open Society Foundation (OSF) which spent $31.5 million in 2018 – NINE TIMES what AIPAC spent. That figure is also almost four times the $16 million that OSF spent on US lobbying in 2017. This huge jump in lobbying dollars may coincide with George Soros’s transfer of $18 BILLION into OSF, making it the second largest “charity”/ largest lobbying group in the United States. (By calling itself a charity instead of a lobbying group, Soros was able to avoid paying any capital gains on the billions of investment dollars in his hedge fund.)

In addition to its work lobbying the US government, the OSF directly funds many anti-Israel organizations according to NGO Monitor, including Adalah, Breaking the Silence, Ir Amim and Al-Haq.

That’s just one giant far left-wing lobbying group countering most of AIPAC’s agenda.

The left-wing J Street has likewise repeatedly fought the current Israeli administration and lobbied aggressively against it, and spent more money lobbying Congress in 2018 than AIPAC, a total of $4 million. Not one dollar of J Street went to Republican candidates, which is not surprising as it is really an alternative to the Republic Jewish Coalition, not a broad-based bipartisan group like AIPAC.

When it comes to foreign countries lobbying the US government, the number one country was South Korea, spending $82.5 million in 2018. I do not recall hearing any of the Democratic candidates for president who ran to the defense of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s remarks about AIPAC talking about South Korea.

Perhaps that is because foreign governments and their companies are mostly lobbying about trade deals which are critical for their economies. The top governments lobbying the US are:

South Korea
Bermuda
Japan
Ireland
Israel
Marshall Islands
Bahamas
Saudi Arabia
Qatar
China

That’s Israel at number five- behind Bermuda and Ireland.

But the liberal media will print articles about the pro-Israel lobby as if it’s a right-wing money machine – even though AIPAC doesn’t give money to candidates while J Street and the OSF do. It will try to defend Ilhan Omar’s AIPAC lobbying comments, while refusing to actually point out that it’s the left-wing groups like OSF and J Street that are really powerful and spending the money to trash Israel.

Perhaps the New York Times is getting money from J Street and George Soros too?

The bipartisan group AIPAC spends less on lobbying than the far left-wing J Street, and a small fraction of what George Soros’s Open Society spends on US lobbyists. The Democratic machine has taken notice what the money spigot is demanding and is taking their anti-Israel talking points to line their pockets. Not that the media will tell you what’s actually going on. #AlternativeFacts

Related First.One.Through articles:

J Street is a Partisan Left-Wing Group, NOT an Alternative to AIPAC

Ilhan Omar Isn’t Debating Israeli Policy, She is Attacking Americans

J Street’s Select Appreciation of Transparency

J Street: Going Bigger and Bolder than BDS

Enduring Peace versus Peace Now

The Anger from the Zionist Center

The Democratic Party is Tacking to the Far Left-Wing Anti-Semitic Fringe

The Evil Architects at J Street Take a Bow

A Basic Lesson of How to be Supportive

The Impossible Liberal Standard

Liberals’ Biggest Enemies of 2015

The Illogic of Land Swaps

The Real “Symbol of the Conflict” is Neta Sorek

When Power Talks the Truth

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Reuters Can’t Spare Ink on Iranian Anti-Semitism

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There are very few news services that remain unbiased in the Arab-Israel Conflict. Progressive media like The New York Times report over and again that Israel is a far right-wing racist country while the Arab countries are moderates. Meanwhile, Fox News will forever take Israel’s side in the conflict. It often seems that the only party to report on the news while providing context in a neutral fashion is Reuters.

That had been the hope anyway.

On February 16, 2019, Reuters posted an article called “Iran Rejects Anti-Semitism Allegation by Pence.”  In the first two paragraphs, Reuters relayed the charge by the US Vice President against Iran, without including a single word of an actual quote. Over the next three paragraphs, the media outlet relayed the response by Iran that the Pence accusation was ridiculous and quoted two Iranian officials, using 71 of their own words.


US Vice President visits Auschwitz Death Camp in Poland

Reuters had quoted a few words from Pence a few days earlier when he made the comments about Iran after to visiting the Auschwitz Nazi Death Camp in Poland. In that article, Reuters sought to give some context to the state of Jews in Iran:

“Iran’s ancient Jewish community has slumped to an estimated 10,000-20,000 from 85,000 at the time of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but it is believed to be the biggest in the Middle East outside Israel.”

It would repeat the exact sentence in the February 19 article.

How is a drop in the Jewish population by 82% over the past 40 years not underscored with horror? Why did Reuters add the word “but,” to make it sound that the Islamic Republic of Iran isn’t ruthless and horrible in its treatment of the minority Jewish population? First, the only reason why Iran has more Jews than other Arab countries in the region including Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Iraq was that those countries wiped out their ancient Jewish populations between 1948 and 1978, while the pre-1979 Islamic Revolution Iran (headed by the American ally, the Shah) retained most its Jews. But once Iran declared war on the West in 1979, it has been rapidly ridding its Jews. Second, to put the 82% decline of the Jewish population in perspective, the Arab population in Israel over the past 40 years has grown by 166%, from 706,000 to 1.88 million. If the Israeli Arab population had gone the way of Iranian Jews for the past 40 years, the current Arab population in Israel would be just 127,000, less than 7% of the current total. Where is the false outcry of ethnic cleansing and where is it actually happening, and why is Reuters failing to point it out?

The February 19 article went on to quote an Iranian leader that “the Holocaust was a disaster,” seemingly refuting Pence’s charge. However Reuters would write nothing about the annual Holocaust cartoon contest  that Iran holds each year. It made no mention of the Supreme Islamic Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei questioning whether the Holocaust ever happened. A curious omission, considering the basis of Pence’s comment stemmed from his visit to a Nazi Death Camp.

The February 19 article would continue with another paragraph meant to provide context for the reader, this one about the nature of Iran’s threats against Israel:

“A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander in January threatened Israel, which Iran does not recognize, with destruction if it attacks Iran, state media reported.”

Note that Reuters wrote that Iran said it would destroy Israel as a matter of self defense, seemingly a reasonable stance. Reuters neglected to write about Khamenei’s comment that Israel is a “cancerous tumor” that must be fought and removed to realize the “complete liberation of Palestine.” Those vile Iranian comments from its Supreme Leader have absolutely nothing to do with Iran responding to an Israeli attack; they were simply threats of destruction.

Biased reporting against Israel is a hallmark of outfits like The New York Times and CNN. It is distressing to see more balanced media like Reuters whitewashing the genocidal calls and actions from Iran. #AlternativeFacts

Related First.One.Through articles:

Paying to Murder Jews: From Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Iran to the Palestinian Authority

In the Shadow of the Holocaust, The New York Times Fails to Flag Muslim Anti-Semitism

The Holocaust and the Nakba

Abbas’s Speech and the Window into Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism

The New York Times Thinks that the Jews from Arab Countries Simply “Immigrated”

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