Tamar Sternthal

December 20, 2003

CAMERA Letter-to-the-Editor Published in the Boston Globe

The following CAMERA letter-to-the-editor correcting a letter about Israel's security barrier appeared today in the Boston Globe:

IN HER Dec. 5 letter lambasting Israel's security barrier ("Motives behind Israel's wall"), Ellen Cantarow admonishes: "The Globe owes its readers commentaries that don't make up the facts." Yet Cantarow does just that.

December 15, 2003

Dissembling Demolitions

Why do photo services feature images of forlorn Palestinian children scampering across rubble if the structures were uninhabited?
December 12, 2003

WSJ Columnist Overstates U.S. Aid to Israel by Almost $1 Trillion

In an Oct. 8 column entitled "Getting to Know Our New Buddy: OPEC," Wall Street Journal opinion writer Holman Jenkins overstated U.S. aid to Israel by almost a trillion dollars. His number is based on a study by economist Thomas Stauffer, which cannot be considered a credible source given that, among other absurdities, it includes aid to Arab countries as part of aid to Israel.

November 14, 2003

The Los Angeles Times’ Unreal Reality

In an article Nov. 10 about Israeli youth traveling to India, the Los Angeles Times' Megan Stack inserted unsubstantiated and hostile editorializing ("Israel's Dose of Unreality"). She made erroneous statements about the number of students studying in America and Israeli public support for the government's policies vis-í -vis the Palestinians.
November 14, 2003

Lebanon’s Civil War and Jennings’ Historical Revisionism

In his Oct. 23 report on the twentieth anniversary of the Marine barracks bombing, Peter Jennings provided a highly slanted account of Lebanon's tumultuous civil war years, twice mentioning Israel as a destabilizing factor but not mentioning the Syrian occupation or the Palestinians' role in fomenting violence and chaos.
October 22, 2003

UPDATED: Finally Getting It Straight at Lawrence Eagle-Tribune

A headline in the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune erroneously suggested that Israeli troops carelessly killed a Palestinian child when, in fact, Israeli troops destroyed the home of a Palestinian gunman who had killed an Israeli baby. Apparently, the headline writer's operating assumption was that when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a dead baby, the Israelis are culpable and the tiny victim is, of course, Palestinian. No matter what the articles themselves say.

October 22, 2003

Palestinian Leadership Committing the “Unthinkable”

In their Oct. 17 Los Angeles Times article entitled "U.S. Shifts From Ally to Target in Gaza Strip," Megan Stack and Henry Chu wrote: "Presidents such as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton remain icons of American friendship, and the idea of attacking an American has been unthinkable to the Palestinian leadership, akin to throwing away one's last, best hope." How do the reporters know what Palestinian leaders have historically found thinkable or unthinkable? Perhaps such speculation would be better left to the editorial pages.
October 17, 2003

CAMERA Column: Alienating Readers at the Times

"The harm done by Jayson Blair in The New York Times newsroom may, in the end, be offset by a bit of good it does elsewhere. The incident is serving as a wake-up call for journalism, prompting many papers ... to redouble efforts at accuracy and accountability," wrote Christine Chinlund, the Boston Globe ombudsman, in a soul-searching column on media accountability.

October 17, 2003

Judt Labels Israel “Anachronistic,” Calls for Binational State

"Israel, in short, is an anachronism" charges Tony Judt in the Los Angeles Times and the New York Review of Books in arguing for the elimination of the Jewish state in favor of a binational secular state. He falsely singles out Israel as being the only modern, democratic nation based on "ethno-religious criteria."