How can it be possible for Western media to ignore the highest ideal in Israeli society, which is to save a life?

How can it be possible for Western media to ignore the highest ideal in Arab society, which is to TAKE a life?

Does the truth mean so little to these people?

What an amazing reflection on Western culture. We actively ignore the vilest, most awful examples of depravity in Israel’s enemies while vilifying and calling awful, EVERYTHING about Israeli society.

If we didn’t accept this stuff as fact, they wouldn’t be able to make any money.

Hmmmm….

Which might account for the reason why so many of these media outlets are losing money.

Maybe there’s hope for us, after all.

Terrifying Video Shows Young Saudi Arabian Man Auctioned Off as ‘Sacred Sacrifice’

May 17, 2012 by Mytheos Holt, The Blaze

Picture this: A festive, affluent gathering of rich men, many dressed in flowing white robes, in a country dominated by religious fervor. In their midst stands a father, whose son stands next to him, impassive in a black uniform as the father declares that the son shall be a “sacred sacrifice” just like his brothers. A chatty auctioneer then begins to open bidding for the young man’s life, all while people cheerfully shout out bids, and the father looks on in pride.

If you thought this scene took place in some sort of horrific, pre-medieval time, long before the advent of running water, video cameras or the internet, then we’re sorry to report that you were completely mistaken. Not only is this scene not from an ancient and rightly defunct civilization, but it actually took place this year, in the back yard of a country that the United States still considers an ally. Specifically, it took place early this year in Saudi Arabia, and was caught on-camera in a Youtube video that is going viral due to the horrific nature of what is depicted.

If you have a strong stomach, you can watch the video below, courtesy of Gateway Pundit:

The “auction” in question bears very little context, but a few disturbing details should suffice to explain it. We know that the young man being offered up for auction is quite literally being offered up as a suicide bomber – a “martyr” or “sacrifice” for Islam. As to why he’s being auctioned off, this event is sort of a twisted charity auction to compensate the father for his loss. That’s right – this man is literally selling his son’s life in order to get money to live off of.

For those of you who don’t want to watch through the video, we’ll spoil the ending. The final bid is the Saudi equivalent of roughly $400,000 – far less than the settlement numbers on most wrongful death lawsuits in the United States. Apparently, devaluing human life means diminishing market returns for the sort of monsters who want to sell their own children into suicide.

Probably not.

Journalism has been on a downward spiral for the last century, and they only have journalists and their editors to fault for this decline. When you distort the truth (i.e., lie) for long enough, people start to figure this out, and then start to look elsewhere to be informed.

That’s why established newspapers are losing subscribers everywhere, and why advertising dollars are fleeing to alternative media and the blogosphere. And, it all starts with Journalism School.

Because it’s in Journalism School where you learn to lie. Okay, so maybe you started lying when you were three years old and blamed the cat for the cookies on the kitchen floor. But, it was in Journalism school where you learned to lie professionally.

We have a prime example in the Columbia School of Journalism. Congratulations on taking the craft of lying to a new level.

Do you wonder why we don’t listen to you anymore?

Lies, Damned Lies, and the Columbia Journalism Review’s Statistics

April 3, 2012 by Pesach Benson

As Mark Twain put it, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”

No kidding. It’s amazing what one can do with numbers. Take for example, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which published its annual census of imprisoned journalists.

Justin Martin, a blogger at the Columbia Journalism Review seized on the CPJ’s findings to create a new “statistic,” which he calls jailed journalists per capita.

These data are very helpful, but I think we can consider them under a new lamp by taking into account each country’s size. China and Eritrea, for example, have about the same number of journalists rotting in prison, 27 and 28 respectively. But the population of China is over 250 times that of the small dictatorship.

After crunching the numbers, Martin concludes that Israel ranks behind only Eritrea for jailing the most journalists per capita.

Martin’s point?

Israel, though, wants to be called a modern democracy and gets cranky when critics point out that it is not. Turkey, too, is a country that has responded to external pressure about its human rights record. Noting that these nations imprison more journalists for their size than Yemen and Iran is a powerful statement.

But there are two big problems here.

First, as Elder of Ziyon aptly points out:

The size of the country’s population has nothing to do with how many journalists are in the country. Israel has far more journalists than most countries that are much larger, because there is such intense interest in Israel. Moreover, Israel is liberal in allowing journalists to have access to the nation, as opposed to, say, practically every other nation in the Middle East.

If you want to see which nations jail the most reporters per-something, you must compare it to the total number of reporters – not the total population of the nation.

And secondly, a look at the seven journalists imprisoned in CPJ’s Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territory, shows that three of them — Ziyad Awad, Mahmoud al-Barbar, and Hani al-Agha — are actually in Hamas custody.

Read the rest of the article here.

For Israel?

Well, here’s your chance.

HonestReporting.com has put together a series of useful (and short) lessons on how to defend Israel from all the attacks leveled against her every single day. Whether it’s a coworker that you meet for lunch, or your weekend golfing buddies, it isn’t hard to become an expert at defeating the mindless rhetoric dished out by the media, and make it an opportunity to present the truth.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’re already halfway there. But, here’s your chance to go all the way.

You ready to become a Digital Diplomat? Get started today.

As you know, ethnic cleansing is a horrendous act that should be stopped immediately. Here is the definition of Ethnic Cleansing:

ethnic cleansing, the attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups. Ethnic cleansing sometimes involves the removal of all physical vestiges of the targeted group through the destruction of monuments, cemeteries, and houses of worship.

 - Encyclopedia Britannica

The GMJ accuses Israel of that heinous crime of ethnic cleansing, and I would like to lend my own voice to this accusation.

WARNING: Please do not read further unless you are sitting down. The data is irrefutable and shocking.

Here are the shocking facts:

Since 1967, when Israel united Jerusalem, (based on the Israel Central bureau of Statistics) there were:

• Jews: 195,700
• Muslims: 54,963
• Christians: 12,646

Then, by 2009:

• Jews: 479,756
• Muslims: 278,568
• Christians: 15,476

So, far from being driven out of Jerusalem, the Muslim population of the city has increased roughly 5 fold, while the Jewish population has increased roughly by a factor of 2.8.  So, the Muslim population has grown dramatically faster [than] the Jewish population.

 - from Guardian Gives Platform to Promote Terrorist-Organized “Global March to Jerusalem”

That’s right. It is clear that the shocking allegations are true. There HAS been ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem.

Against the Jews.

Guardian Gives Platform to Promote Terrorist-Organized “Global March to Jerusalem”
March 28, 2012 12:27

This article is cross-posted courtesy of CiF Watch.

Global March to Jerusalem, scheduled for this Friday, March 30, is an anti-Israel publicity stunt that aims to have a million people marching on Israel’s borders from surrounding countries – Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt – with the aim of reaching Jerusalem. Concurrently, demonstrations are planned against Israel’s diplomatic missions in major cities throughout the world.

The organizers of GMJ are made up of members of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, far-left extremist groups and are backed by the Iranian government. Senior organizers include:

• Ahmed Abo Halabiya, a Hamas MP
• Zaher Birawi, a prominent Hamas activist in the UK and senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood linked Palestinian Return Center.
• Abdul Maqri, head of the Algerian delegation aboard the Mavi Marmara who in 2010 said “all our blood is Palestine” and declared that “Israel will be annihilated soon”.

Advisory board members include George Galloway, Mahathir Mohammed and Sheikh Raed Salah.

Official statements of the organizers of GMJ attempt to portray the movement as a peaceful protest aimed at highlighting the so-called “Judaization of Jerusalem”.

In 2011, GMJ general coordinator, Ribhi  Halloum stated “[t]he protest aims to move the right of return possessed by Palestinian refugees from theory to practice”.

In practice, the right of return is subterfuge for the destruction of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Coupled with that, employment of the term “Judaization of Jerusalem” is hateful rhetoric designed to negate thousands of years of Jewish history and incite the Muslim world.

Combined with the terror groups behind GMJ and the rallying cry of “saving Al Aqsa (Jerusalem) from the Jews”, it seems likely that sufficient numbers the organizers will seek violent confrontation with Israeli forces with the aim of sparking another Intifada.

The Guardian, undeterred by such quotidian concerns as the possibly deadly results of such a terrorist provocation on Israel’s borders, provided a platform to Palestinian Solidarity Campaign’s Sarah Colborne, “Jerusalem is at the heart of the Palestinian struggle“, CiF, March 27.

Sarah Colborne is both a member of the GMJ International Executive Committee, its International Central Committee, and is also the GMJ national co-ordinator for the UK.

Colborne’s Lie #1

Jerusalem is a city that embodies the cultural heritage of three religions: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Yet Palestinians – both Christian and Muslim – are being driven out of Jerusalem….Just one example of this ethnic cleansing.

Since 1967, when Israel united Jerusalem, (based on the Israel Central bureau of Statistics) there were:

• Jews: 195,700
• Muslims: 54,963
• Christians: 12,646

Then, by 2009:

• Jews: 479,756
• Muslims: 278,568
• Christians: 15,476

So, far from being driven out of Jerusalem, the Muslim population of the city has increased roughly 5 fold, while the Jewish population has increased roughly by a factor of 2.8.  So, the Muslim population has grown dramatically faster as the Jewish population.

Obviously, there is nothing resembling ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem.

Read the rest of the article here.

Now, he doesn’t.

The reason why he doesn’t hate Israel anymore comes from his honest attempt to create a documentary film exposing Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians. When he went and interviewed both Israelis and Palestinians… and, when he looked into the situation…

He changed.

Or, maybe he hadn’t changed. His eyes just opened.

This is a fascinating story – a journey of discovery that I have seen many, many times from many sides. I’ve even made a couple journeys like that myself. This is why I’d rather have honest criticism than dishonest support.

You can work with honesty, and we have an example of that here.

His film, Forty Shades of Grey, premiers in Dublin, in May.

Here’s the trailer:

Here’s the article that grabbed my attention:

Nicky Larkin: Israel is a refuge, but a refuge under siege
Through making a film about the Israeli-Arab conflict, artist Nicky Larkin found his allegiances swaying

Sunday March 11 2012, Independent.ie

I used to hate Israel. I used to think the Left was always right. Not any more. Now I loathe Palestinian terrorists. Now I see why Israel has to be hard. Now I see the Left can be Right — as in right-wing. So why did I change my mind so completely?

Strangely, it began with my anger at Israel’s incursion into Gaza in December 2008 which left over 1,200 Palestinians dead, compared to only 13 Israelis. I was so angered by this massacre I posed in the striped scarf of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation for an art show catalogue.

Shortly after posing in that PLO scarf, I applied for funding from the Irish Arts Council to make a film in Israel and Palestine. I wanted to talk to these soldiers, to challenge their actions — and challenge the Israeli citizens who supported them.

I spent seven weeks in the area, dividing my time evenly between Israel and the West Bank. I started in Israel. The locals were suspicious. We were Irish — from a country which is one of Israel’s chief critics — and we were filmmakers. We were the enemy.

Then I crossed over into the West Bank. Suddenly, being Irish wasn’t a problem. Provo graffiti adorned The Wall. Bethlehem was Las Vegas for Jesus-freaks — neon crucifixes punctuated by posters of martyrs.

These martyrs followed us throughout the West Bank. They watched from lamp-posts and walls wherever we went. Like Jesus in the old Sacred Heart pictures.

But the more I felt the martyrs watching me, the more confused I became. After all, the Palestinian mantra was one of “non-violent resistance”. It was their motto, repeated over and over like responses at a Catholic mass.

Yet when I interviewed Hind Khoury, a former Palestinian government member, she sat forward angrily in her chair as she refused to condemn the actions of the suicide bombers. She was all aggression.

This aggression continued in Hebron, where I witnessed swastikas on a wall. As I set up my camera, an Israeli soldier shouted down from his rooftop position. A few months previously I might have ignored him as my political enemy. But now I stopped to talk. He only talked about Taybeh, the local Palestinian beer.

Back in Tel Aviv in the summer of 2011, I began to listen more closely to the Israeli side. I remember one conversation in Shenkin Street — Tel Aviv’s most fashionable quarter, a street where everybody looks as if they went to art college. I was outside a cafe interviewing a former soldier.

He talked slowly about his time in Gaza. He spoke about 20 Arab teenagers filled with ecstasy tablets and sent running towards the base he’d patrolled. Each strapped with a bomb and carrying a hand-held detonator.

The pills in their bloodstream meant they felt no pain. Only a headshot would take them down.

Conversations like this are normal in Tel Aviv. I began to experience the sense of isolation Israelis feel. An isolation that began in the ghettos of Europe and ended in Auschwitz.

Israel is a refuge — but a refuge under siege, a refuge where rockets rain death from the skies. And as I made the effort to empathise, to look at the world through their eyes. I began a new intellectual journey. One that would not be welcome back home.

Read the rest of the article here.