An anti-Israel lie was printed recently in both the New York Times and the Brattleboro Reformer.
The fabrication first appeared in the Times Jan. 8 in an opinion piece by Rashid Khalidi, a former Palestine Liberation Organization spokesman. He is now at Columbia University, occupying the Professor of Arab Studies chair which is endowed with $4 million by the Untied Arab Emirates and 18 individuals, mostly Palestinians.
In his Op-Ed commenting on the war in Gaza, Rashid Khalidi wrote that Moshe Yaalon, the Israeli Defense Forces Chief of staff, in 2002, said in a Haaretz newspaper interview during the second Palestinian Intifada: "The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recess of their consciousness that they are a defeated people."
But that is not what General Yaalon said. He did not say that Palestinians must be made to understand that they are a defeated people but rather that the Palestinians must be made to understand "that terrorism and violence will not defeat us, will not make us fold." (This lie found its way to the Reformer two weeks later when Professor Khalidi's fabrication was quoted in a letter.) On Jan. 30, in response to many complaints about Professor Khalidi's fabrication, the New York Times printed this "Editors' Note" on its Op-Ed page: "This quotation ... does not appear in the Israeli newspaper interview ... and thus should not have appeared in the article."
This is but one example of the lies, boldfaced lies, dehumanizing and demeaning Israel and Jews. Most are told by Palestinian officials and by officials from Israel's Arab neighbors. The number is simply overwhelming. In my files I have the details of just 116 of them -- mostly only those since 2001. Here are just a few: (1) An Egyptian TV movie showing sultry Israeli women deliberately infecting Egyptian men with the AIDS virus. (2) Reports in the Egyptian government press that Israeli planes dropped chewing gum laced with hormones to drive Arab teenagers into a sexual frenzy. (3) Palestinian claims that Israeli helicopters kill Palestinian children by dropping poisoned candies in front of their schools. (4) The blood libel: Jews murder Arab children at Passover to use their blood when making Matza. (5) Palestinian claims that Israel's Mossad carried out the bombing of the World Trade Center to promote American hatred of Muslims. (6) A children's play broadcast on Palestinian Authority TV included a horrific scene of child actors depicting "dead" Palestinian children claiming that Israelis burned Palestinians in ovens. (7) PA TV reports that Israel is making "bombs and mines designed as toys" and dropping them from planes in populated areas where children play with them and are blown up.
But so few of these fabrications find their way into the western media. Why is that? Check out MEMRI: Middle East Media Research Institute (memri@memri.com) and the Palestinian Media Watch (pmw@pmw.org.il).