Christian Persecution in the Middle East, not in Israel

The Pope is coming to Israel, Judea & Samaria/west bank of the Jordan River and Jordan this weekend.  A rebuttal on the claim that Israel persecutes Christians.

Israel, the “green” country

From Netafim drip irrigation in 1967 to SodaStream today, Israel leads the Middle East in environmentally-friendly projects.

 

 

Frightening New York Times 4/27/14 article on “Mahmoud Abbas Shifts on Holocaust”

  1. Abbas new statement that the Holocaust was bad does nothing to negate his various prior comments, phd paper and published book that claim: 1) that 6 million Jews were not murdered in the Holocaust; and 2) that Zionists conspired with Nazis so that more Jews would move to Palestine (so Zionists are at least partially to blame for the Holocaust).
  2. (By way of comparison, If Abbas would have reversed his prior statements and negated his research, that would have been a “shift”.  OR, if Abbas would have come out and said that the Palestinian Arabs of 1936-46 who fought successfully against the Zionists and British who then limited Jewish immigration to Palestine before and during WWII were responsible for 100,000+ Jews dying in the Holocaust, that would have been a shift).
  3. NYT claims that Abbas’s latest comment “goes further” in back-tracking from his Holocaust denial and attacks on Zionism because he claims that Palestinians understand suffering from Israeli “ethnic discrimination and racism”. Not only does the Abbas comment not negate his offensive comments, but it further insults Jews and Israelis by calling them racists, and suggests that the Holocaust is similar to the situation of stateless Arabs.
  4. Hamas is called a “militant Islamist faction” and not a terrorist organization
  5. No NYT mention of the fact that the Hamas Charter calls for the death of Jews
  6. No NYT mention that Hamas refuses to allow Holocaust education in the schools of Gaza against the wishes of the United Nations
  7. Thank you New York Times, for posting an article on Holocaust Remembrance Day about Abbas, the Holocaust denier, and his latest anti-Israel comments, and for phrasing the headline and article to try to make him look like a progressive.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/27/world/middleeast/palestinian-leader-shifts-on-holocaust.html?_r=0

Biased New York Times report on recent Gaza blockade boat

NYT April 30, 2014 on explosion that sank potential blockade-busting boat from Gaza:
1. No mention that the Israeli blockade of Gaza has been deemed legal by international law

2. The boat is called “small” in keeping with the David v. Goliath imagery the NYT likes to impart in the conflict

3. No mention that the terrorist group Hamas runs Gaza. Instead we see terms of “Palestinian activists”, “Palestinian fishing boats” and “Palestinian goods” to make this terrorist haven sound like Bermuda

4. The “clashes that broke out” were not passive, they were Turks trying to kill soldiers who reacted in self-defense.

BDS and Christian Persecution

It is a curious phenomenon that some Christian groups are considering a BDS of Israel.  Israel is one of the only countries in the Middle East: which has seen an increase in its Christian population; where the number of Christian tourists exceeds every other religion; has complete freedom of religion including protecting Christian holy places.

There are over 100 countries that have a terrible record in their treatment of Christians, yet no Christian groups are considering boycotting them.

New York Times coverage of Anti-Semitism Report

NYT May 13, 2014: “26 Percent of World’s Adults Are Anti-Semitic, Survey Finds”

1. The NYT quotes the results of the poll on global anti-Semitism that the largest percentage of anti-Semites comes from the West Bank and Gaza; Iraq; Yemen; Algeria; Libya and Tunisia. It then says that “the Middle East results were not particularly surprising, the Anti-Defamation League said that the overall result — more than one in four adults are anti-Semitic — was a major finding.” – implying that the ADL did not find Middle East anti-Semitism to be surprising. In fact, what the ADL did state was “It is very evident that the Middle East conflict matters with regard to anti-Semitism. It just is not clear whether the Middle East conflict is the cause of or the excuse for anti-Semitism” – a very different statement then the ambiguous NYT posting. The NYT could lead a reader to believe that the cause-and-effect is Arabs hate Jews because of Israel, rather than because Arabs hate Jews, they hate Israel, which may be the underlying cause according to Foxman.

2. The NYT article does not mention the Hamas Charter, which is the most anti-Semitic document of a ruling party in the world today, complete with conspiracy theories and calls to kill Jews, which would clearly call out the cause-and-effect.

3. Also notable for its absence was the finding that 70% of anti-Semitic people never even met a Jew, and that Muslims are the most anti-Semitic religious group, with 49% with anti-Semitic views – points covered in other periodicals.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/world/26-percent-of-worlds-adults-are-anti-semitic-survey-finds.html?_r=0