What is “terrorism”? We’re used to hearing the media describe well recognized terror organizations with euphemisms like, militants, extremists, or sometimes even obscenely activists. One might reasonably come to believe that terrorism has no definition at all, or that it’s all a matter of subjective opinion. After all, “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” […]
Unsurprisingly there has been a rash of media articles focusing on the 71st anniversary, not of Israel’s independence, but what Palestinians call the “Nakba” or “Catastrophe.” Reuters’ contribution is “Gaza fisherman clings to dream of return to Jaffa home,” which reads like the typical emotion-ridden Palestinian plea for a “right of return” to villages, towns […]
A BBC documentary, One Day In Gaza, examining the events of May 14, 2018, when tens of thousands of people in Gaza protested along the border with Israel, confirmed Israel’s version of events and explanations for what went on that day at the Gaza border. Directed by award-winning documentary maker Olly Lambert, the program details […]
Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell has plenty of previous form when it comes to producing poisonous anti-Israel imagery that crosses the line into antisemitism. His latest cartoon “Mike Pompeo’s prayer for Middle East peace” raises similar questions. We see caricatures of US President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. […]
There is nothing notorious about Israel’s Iron Dome unless you are a disappointed Palestinian terrorist. Not according to the Daily Mail’s Mail Online: Israel has reportedly deployed its notorious Iron Dome defence system ahead of the Eurovision Song Contest later this week. Notorious? What on earth was the writer thinking? Israel’s Iron Dome is, of course, […]
The Law of Return is an Israeli law giving any Jew the right to live in Israel and obtain Israeli citizenship. Unanimously passed into law by the Knesset in 1950, this law is based on the Zionist philosophy establishing Israel as a Jewish state. Since Israel’s founding, Jews of all stripes have immigrated to Israel. […]
A BBC documentary, One Day In Gaza (also to be shown on PBS in the US), makes a decent attempt of examining the events of May 14, 2018, when tens of thousands of people in Gaza protested along the border with Israel, but sadly fails in its attempts to be balanced and tell the full […]
One of the most pervasive myths appearing in the international media is the accusation that the outbreak of Palestinian violence against Israel known as the Second Intifada was caused by Ariel Sharon’s September 2000 visit to the Temple Mount. The charge against Sharon is often brought up by those who wish to downplay or erase […]
Any journalist worth their salt knows that their work requires describing what has happened, and reporting the whole story. When reporters are unable to determine exactly what happened, standard procedure is to report what the various parties claim, and let the readers make their own judgments. Those simple standards, however, were repeatedly not met by […]
This article is part of a series on news literacy, to educate readers to better judge the reliability of news reports and other sources of information. Teaching our children news literacy is tricky. Most parents don’t fully grasp it, so gauging kids’ growth isn’t simple. More vexing is the ever-changing technology: our kids are often more […]
