Fallout from Amira Hass’s article on Palestinian stone-throwing shows that as far as Israelis are concerned, any and every form of resistance against the occupation is illegitimate. The Yesha Council – the regional council for West Bank settlements, which operates also as the settlers’ political and lobbying arm – filed a complaint with the Jerusalem Police against the Haaretz daily newspaper and its reporter in the occupied territories, Amira Hass. Hass this morning published a piece discussing the logic of stone-throwing and persecution in the occupied territories. Quotes: Throwing stones is the birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule. Throwing stones…

Using cold logic to explain the killings of civilians is an attempt to deaden our emotions and detach us from inexplicable tragedy. By Jake Meth When I was younger, I always hoped that my older self would have a great explanation for why innocent civilians kept getting killed in violent conflicts. But as Israel began another air campaign against the Gaza Strip last week, I suddenly realized that this explanation for which I had waited so long was nowhere to be found. I was 15 when the U.S. invaded Iraq, when it seemed as if every other headline in the…

A lie of omission is as good a lie as any other.  It's amazing how blatantly, how shamelessly a Jewish Agency official named Avi Mayer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the Jerusalem Post, Canada's National Post and I don't know how many other "pro-Israel" entities have slandered Greta Berlin, a prominent spokeswoman of the Free Gaza Movement, as an advocate of the worst, sickest kind of anti-Semitism. They've deliberately left out Berlin's explanation for a tweet she sent out a few days ago, and without her explanation, one is indeed left to conclude that she's a crazed Jew-hater. A lot of people,…

In fact, it could be the best thing a Jew can do these days. The Jerusalem Post has published an op-ed titled, "Yes, all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic!" As any philosophy student can recognize, it's one of those arguments that makes the entire debate meaningless - if something is everything then it's also nothing - but the piece is worth reading (and responding to) nonetheless. The author captures – unintentionally – the zeitgeist in Israeli politics, and also in large parts of the Jewish world. Both have ceased to differentiate between diplomacy, politics, and anti-Semitism as a special form…

By publishing an op-ed whose sole purpose is to demonize the editor of The New Yorker, the Jerusalem Post is positioning itself in direct odds with liberal values - not to mention  journalistic integrity. The Jerusalem Post ran an op-ed yesterday (Monday) by a writer and attorney from Washington, D.C. explaining why he is canceling his 50-year subscription to the New Yorker magazine. The poorly-argued and belligerent article directly implicates the magazine's editor of 14 years, David Remnick, for being "unabashedly anti-Israel," and personally attacks him as being unfit for the job and its salary since his "only previous editorial…

Jerusalem Post's deputy editor wants Jews to put Israel before the interests of their own country, while Daily Beast's Eli Lake demands that Israelis stay out of the debate on Israel There is a heated debate going on in the US regarding the application of the term "Israeli Firster," meaning a person who puts Israel's interest before those of his own country. Some people argue that the term itself is anti-Semitic; the Israeli right, on the other hand, explicitly expects Jews to be loyal to Israel first and foremost, even if it means confronting their own society. Caroline B. Glick,…

NGO Monitor tries to silence us by going after our donors. Supporting +972 is the best response!  By Noam Sheizaf   Dear Readers, +972 Magazine is at the center of a negative piece published today in the Jerusalem Post. According to the piece, a right-wing watchdog group called NGO Monitor has launched a public attack on the German Heinrich Böll Foundation for supporting the site with a grant of 6,000 euros, received last year. In recent years, NGO Monitor has systematically targeted human right organizations, academics and progressive groups in Israel. A recent piece in Haaretz reported that right-wing groups…

+972's Ami Kaufman writes that he found "particularly heart-warming" the flashmob in Beit Shemesh, noting that it shows the ultra-Orthodox "who wears the pants in this town."  I'm guessing it's obvious who wears the pants: the woman in the middle front row.   I cannot identify her, but I think it is safe to guess that is the choreographer herself, since everyone is looking at her.  And somewhere in there is Miri Shalem, the organizer.  It is also worth noting that she has organized women-only "disco nights" (as reported in Hebrew by Ma'ariv/NRG in 2004) in neighboring Ramat Beit Shemesh…

The Jerusalem Post fired its last prominent progressive columnist over a controversial blog post, without even offering him the possibility to apologise; meanwhile, its ultra-right writers enjoy complete unaccountability. This is a watershed moment for the once-respectable publication. News came in earlier today that the Jerusalem Post fired Larry Derfner, its last remaining prominent progressive columnist, over a post Larry wrote on his private blog, Israel Reconsidered (proper disclosure: I joined him as a co-author on the blog a few months ago). In the post, Larry expressed the not uncommon observation that the root cause of Palestinian political violence was…

It took them almost two weeks, but the Jerusalem Post finally apologized for the crazy editorial in which the paper called upon its readers to use the opportunity created by Anders Brievik's terror attack to discuss Europe's immigration policies. Perhaps Brievik’s inexcusable act of vicious terror should serve not only as a warning that there may be more elements on the extreme Right willing to use violence to further their goals, but also as an opportunity to seriously reevaluate policies for immigrant integration in Norway and elsewhere. Better late than never, I guess. Still, even in this apology there is…

Have you ever seen an editor in-chief attempt to explain what his newspaper actually meant in its editorial? After calling readers to use Andreas Behring Brievik's horrific terror attack as an opportunity to discuss the failure of multiculturalism and integration, the Jerusalem Post added the following paragraph to the online version of the text: The editor-in-chief adds: As a newspaper, The Jerusalem Post strongly denounces all acts of violence against innocent civilians. This editorial is not aimed at deflecting attention from the horrific massacre perpetuated in Norway, nor the need to take greater precautions against extremists from all sides. Oh,…

The Jerusalem Post, an Israeli English-language newspaper, has published an op-ed by British History professor Geoffery Alderman. In this op-ed, Alderman argues that academics in Israel should not be free to criticize the government's policy, because the country is at war: In peacetime, an academic should indeed be free to criticize, castigate, chastise and/or condemn not just the government of the country in which he lives and works, but the country itself. This freedom cannot be claimed when the country is at war and its very survival is at issue. … ISRAEL IS at war… In this deplorable situation I…

+972 is hosting today an op-ed written by B'Tselem chief Jessica Montell, in response to particularly insidious accusations levelled at the organisation by The Jerusalem Post star columnist, Caroline Glick. Montell's op-ed doesn't mince words - she calls Glick "a hack journalist who parrots any drivel" - but neither, to be fair, did Glick. Among other things, Glick claimed that a Palestinian shepherd whose complaint of a settler attack was monitored by B'Tselem "admitted he made the attack up", a claim the shepherd has since consistently denied. She also accused B'Tselem of forging a video documenting a settler attack on Palestinians:…