Aussie Dave Exposed ~ by Richard Silverstein (including update)

Dec 28, 2011 | Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place


For those who have a long memory here, one of my earliest prolonged blogging battles was with a far-right wing Islamophobic Australian-Israeli blogger who used the pseudonym, Aussie Dave and wrote an especially putrid blog, Israellycool. Originally, I went head to head with him over his Jewish blogging contest which he organized under the sponsorship of the Jerusalem Post. In taking him to task for the far right wing nature of the vast majority of the blogs nominated, I earned his eternal enmity. He’s now organizing a new version of the contest, the Pro-Israel Blog-Off, for only the farthest right of pro-Israel blogs.  To ensure the Zionist ideological kashrut of the project, the judges include the CEO of the pro-Israel media advocacy group, Honest Reporting (“Honest” should be in square quotes) and “the Embassy of Israel in Dublin.”  Don’t ask how an entire embassy can judge a blogging contest.  The nominees are a very veritable hate-fest of the right-wing Anglo-Israeli blog world including CIF Watch, Elders of Ziyon, My Right Word, etc.

Ever since the days of his first contest, he’s taken every chance he could to attempt (invariably unsuccessfully) to shame, embarrass, humiliate or insult me. I won’t go into the specifics since they’re so puerile and sophomoric.  Davey has threatened to sue me and warned me that he was a lawyer. But somehow, being the bully he is, he talked a good game never following through. I’ve always wondered why he refused to reveal his real identity, especially since he’d published my home address, phone number and my wife’s employer name and work phone at his blog. It seemed especially hypocritical under the circumstances.

David Loeb’s Facebook profile

David “Aussie” Loeb at the blackjack table

Now, due to a sloppy error on his part (thanks to an Israeli who finds him as repellant as I, who caught it), Aussie Dave has exposed his real identity. And since I believe that hypocrites deserve their comeuppance and that their dark secrets deserve to see the light, I’m exposing him for what and who he is: David Loeb, 23 Rashi Street Beit-Shemesh, Israel. In his Facebook profile he notes some sort of affiliation with Virgin Megastores, which may mean he works there. If anyone knows, I’d like to find out. Loeb’s FB photo indicates he likes to gamble as it shows him at what appears to be a casino blackjack table.

The last straw that determined my decision to expose him was his feeble attempt to link me to a couple from my home city sharing my last name, who were charged with welfare fraud. Loeb hoped at the very least that the cheat might be my brother or some other close relative. It’s bad enough when they implicate me personally in their scummy revenge fantasies. But when they attempt to ensnare innocent family members, that goes too far.

So Dave, I’m throwing you the coming out party you so richly deserve. Enjoy your moment the sun. Now that you’ve been outed you won’t have any more protection than the rest of us, who blog under our own name, have. I daren’t believe it will make you any more responsible or any less bilious. You and leopards, after all, cannot change your spots.

NOTE ABOUT CHANGES TO COMMENTING: I’ve been innundated by spam lately and disappointed that the Akismet anti-spam plugin, which had been doing a great job, began to perform so shoddily.  I’ve implemented a new system that requires commenters to check boxes before their comment is sent to the queue.  I didn’t want to implement a Captcha plugin because I thought that was too intrusive.  I hope this is a reasonable compromise.

Source and more at  Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place.

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Dec 29, 2011 | Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

The Sad Case of Aussie Dave

Yesterday, I reported in a post that I believed I had exposed the real identity of Aussie Dave, author of the Israellycool blog.  It appears that he invented a fake identity in order to perpetrate a hoax on me.  It boggles the mind that he went to the immense amount of trouble he did to perpetrate this hoax.  It tells you how much free time he has on his hands to engage in all the subterfuge that was necessary to fool me.  It tells you precious little about me, but quite a lot about him.

Dave thinks he’s a genius because I fooled me.  What he doesn’t realize is that in his blog post, he proudly admits that he created a hoax Facebook account for a non-existent person using the photo of a real person, a clear violation of Facebook rules.  Here’s how he bragged about it:

David Loeb is a fake name. The photo in the Facebook profile I set up is of basketballer Jordan Farmar…I used his photo deliberately…

I included in the profile my supposed address (Beit Shemesh)…as well as the URL of this blog to connect David Loeb to it.

I’ve reported him to Facebook for doing this.  I hope there will be repercussions and that he doesn’t have a real Facebook account.  If he does, perhaps Facebook will express its displeasure with idiots like him exploiting company for his own tomfoolish purposes.

Dave moans in his post that I not only violated his privacy by posting what he wanted me to believe was his home address, but that I potentially endangered him.  Which is funny because he doesn’t mention that he not only published my home address and phone number, but my wife’s employer and her work phone.

He and his allies are trying to embarrass Jillian York, a staffer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who correctly warned me that his Facebook account appeared to be fake.  They’re claiming that I exposed the private details of an individual in violation of EFF guidelines and that York is somehow guilty of violating her employer’s mission statement in protecting the privacy of bloggers.  This is yet more nonsense since Aussie Dave created a publicly accessible Facebook account to which anyone had access and which displayed his alleged address for anyone to see.  Not only that, but the account is fake as is virtually all the information in it.
Dave of course doesn’t mention the recent incident when he hoaxed himself, seeking to believe that my brother had been arrested for being a welfare cheat.  The only truth to his fantasy was that someone with my extremely common last name had been arrested for such a crime.  He created an entire post in which he gleefully and hopefully speculated that the perpetrator might be my brother.  He even searched through my online photo galleries finding a photo of my brother-in-law and speculating that because he had the same first name as the welfare cheat that he might be the same person.  He wasn’t.  Not a word from Dave about this violation of the privacy of my brother-in-law, a totally innocent party in his charade.

There’s a larger point here as far as I’m concerned.  It’s that doing what I do is complicated because I have to trust my sources and go with my gut about their credibility.  Yes, I can do some elementary research to determine their credibility.  But in the end, you have to decide whether or not to take a jump.  Usually, the times when I’ve been hoaxed are when I decide to trust people I’ve never dealt with before and whose bona fides aren’t clear.  That’s what happened in this case.

I’ve said before that I’ve made mistakes in trusting a few hoaxsters (luckily only two as far as I know).  Luckily those mistakes have been few.  Now we can add this one to the previous ones.  When you report stories that I do, there is always the chance that you will make mistakes.  Some will involve discrete points in an overall story.  Others will be larger and more serious errors.  I’ve never claimed to be perfect.  In fact, I think conceding mistakes shows readers that you are human and have nothing to hide.

Dave wrote in his post that he believed I would take down my earlier post exposing him.  I certainly won’t.  Both because I want readers to know that I’m transparent; and because I want people to see what he has done and judge him for it.  I want people to understand the pains that the pro-Israel Islamophobic blog world takes to smear its opponents.  And the nastiness of their methods and outcomes.

Source and more at Tikun Olam


http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/aussie-dave-exposed-by-richard-silverstein/

Hasbara in Helsinki

Submitted by david on Tue, 09/27/2011 - 19:12

Here we go again. Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, is portraying the Israel-Palestine conflict as one between equals.

In a speech today, Ashton congratulated herself for increasing Europe’s involvement in something called the Middle East peace process. “I have worked to achieve a greater EUrole as I believe we are ideally placed as a friend of both parties,” she said.

What kind of friend is the EU leadership to the Palestinians? The kind that refuses to heed an appeal made by representatives of a wide cross-section of Palestinian society in 2005 for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

That is illustrated this week in Helsinki, where the European Union Contest for Young Scientists is taking place. Sponsored by the European Commission (a political body to which Ashton belongs), it features two finalists from Israel.

Greenwashing apartheid

Both of the qualifying projects chime with the propaganda of the Israeli state, or hasbara as it is known in Hebrew. The first one is in the social science category and seeks to demonstrate that fascism has roots in left-of-center politics. “Hopefully, this insight would be useful in fighting future fascism,” a blurb for the project says – without adding that Avigdor Lieberman and his ilk are nurturing a quasi-fascist intolerance in Israel.

The second project tries to reinforce the myth that Israel is ecologically responsible. Titled “Antileaks,” it designs a system for detecting leaks in water systems. I would be interested to find out if the system will be installed in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Israeli settlers consume an average of 280 liters per day (in a desert environment), whereas Palestinians living in the West Bank have to make do with 73 (less than the 100 liters minimum recommended by the World Health Organization).

The Commission has some nerve supporting Israeli water conservation projects. For – as I have written repeatedly – it is a generous contributor of grants to makers of Israeli weapons like Elbit, Israeli Aerospace Industries and Rafael. Those firms helped destroy 30 kilometers of water networks, 6,000 home water tanks and 11 wells during Israel’s assault on Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009.

“Avoid” Israel’s arms

On a more positive note, the European Parliament voted today that the EU should “avoid” involving countries that do not respect human rights, UN resolutions or international law in scientific research projects with potential military applications. This call was contained in aposition paper approved by the Parliament on the future of EU research policy. Even though Israel was not named, the call was clearly directed at the Zionist state. Israel is the most active non-European participant in the Union’s multi-annual research programme.

Undoubtedly, the BDS activists who have urged members of Parliament (MEPs) to take up the cudgels against Israel deserve a drink to celebrate this vote. But the activists should restrict their imbibing to one glass and get straight back to work. Democracy is routinely ignored in the EU’s corridors of power, so there is little immediate likelihood that Israeli arms companies will be deemed ineligible for further science grants just because that is what a majority of elected representatives advocate. The future, though, is unwritten. With enough public support, the momentum created by the BDS campaign should prove unstoppable.

http://electronicintifada.net/blog/david/hasbara-helsinki

Friends of Al-Aqsa and Israeli propaganda

Monday, 05 September 2011 18:00

 

A response to the deeply-misleading Meir Amit Report

It is the usual policy at Friends of Al-Aqsa (FOA) not to respond to blatant attempts to discredit our work by Israel's propaganda machine. Since 1997, many such attempts have been made, yet our organisation goes from strength to strength and our support base continues to grow. However, the Meir Amit Report on FOA is deeply and deliberately misleading and requires a response.

Since the inception of FOA almost 15 years ago, we have worked peacefully and tirelessly with individuals and organisations across the globe on highlighting the issue of Palestine, the Occupation and the threats posed to the sacred Al-Aqsa Sanctuary in Jerusalem. During this time we have witnessed innumerable human rights abuses, increasingly audacious attempts by Israel to "transfer" native Palestinians away from their homeland, and countless acts of aggression and escalating aggression labelled as "responses" to Palestinian threats.

Our data, literature and materials are all researched thoroughly and based on facts and statistics obtained by human rights organisations who work on the ground in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel itself. These include United Nations agencies and well-established and respected international human rights groups.

We also consult Israeli and Palestinian organisations for verification of the materials' accuracy where possible.
The staff and volunteers of Friends of Al-Aqsa are all British and based in Britain. Our views and narrative reflects this. We live in a real democracy and are able to decipher the difference between the equality afforded to, say, all British citizens, and Israel's brand of apartheid, which is a deliberate denial of equal rights to almost a quarter of its citizens based purely on ethnic and religious factors, and to the Palestinian population which it controls through its military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israel continues to flaunt itself as a democracy even though FOA's work, and the work of hundreds of organisations like us around the word, has revealed numerous Israeli policies which contradict fundamental democratic principles. As a result, Israel has escalated its propaganda war against Friends of Al-Aqsa, relying on its own distorted vision to push it forward. This is clear in the latest Meir Amit Report which seeks to highlight issues to do with religion and ethnic origin as a means of distinguishing FOA from other British organisations. Unfortunately, Meir Amit's internet-based research has failed to reveal the simple fact that FOA's membership spans a cross-section of British society. It seems we are not as concerned about racial and religious segregation as Meir Amit.

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre

The report by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre seeking to tarnish and discredit the work of FOA is an embarrassingly defective piece of work based; it would seem, wholly on internet research including our very own web-site.

Meir Amit is known unofficially as a branch of the Israeli Defence Forces; it peddles misinformation in a bid to make Israel's untenable political positions and military actions seem justifiable and therefore acceptable. It plays a big role in Israel's self-proclaimed drive against 'de-legitimisation', by attempting to discredit all those who take legitimate stands against Israel's Occupation and human rights abuses.

Thus, Meir Amit has produced an extremely poorly researched, deliberately misleading report on FOA.  It makes for embarrassing reading given that it has been produced by what is alleged to be one of the most sophisticated institutions supposedly monitoring terrorism. The report is inaccurate and deliberately obfuscatory, and attempts to place a sinister cloak over what is actually a very open organisation. Perhaps Meir Amit's "researchers" need to be reminded that Friends of Al-Aqsa is based in Britain, not Israel. We have laws which apply to everyone equally, and we abide by them.

All the information compiled by Meir Amit pertaining to FOA and our Chairman Ismail Patel is available widely on the internet. The only information apparently not available is Mr Patel's ethnicity, so Meir Amit seems to have decided to take a stab in the dark. Incidentally, he is not from Pakistan.

In order to confer the Report with credibility in the UK, Meir Amit has naively used the utterly vacuous blog "Harry's Place" as a source. Clearly, news of the many actions for defamation springing from that website hasn't filtered through. The sham articles on Harry's Place are regurgitated against anyone who dares to take up the mantle of the Palestinian cause. The spineless writers behind Harry's Place have no confidence in the veracity of their own output, so they cower behind pseudonyms in order to tarnish reputations without the need to substantiate their allegations.

Perhaps this is the new age of intelligence gathering which, rather like lazy journalism, can be accomplished by anyone with a laptop and access to the internet. We await eagerly Meir Amit's promise to provide further evidence of FOA's 'written material', but we rather suspect checking out www.aqsa.org.uk may provide all the information needed.

Friends of Al-Aqsa - The Facts

1. FOA Chairman Ismail Patel participated in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. He witnessed the murder of one Turkish peace activist who was shot right in front of him. His ordeal was detailed in a press conference and numerous interviews covered by dozens of TV Channels, radio stations and newspapers.

2. The website www.aqsa.org.uk attracts hundreds of visitors daily who are looking for news and updates on Palestine. It carries detailed information about our vision, aims and ethos.

3. FOA works with numerous organisations, including some run by Jews, Christians and people of no faith who share common goals. We all promote the boycott of Israeli goods as a means of opposing Israel's Occupation and human rights abuses. We organise demonstrations and pickets in London and elsewhere as a means of getting the voices of ordinary British people heard.

4. FOA has no need for 'fine-tuning its rhetoric for Western ears' and uses such terms as "peace in Palestine", "respect for international law", "respect for human rights", and "implementation of UN resolutions" as they are commonly understood in British society. These are clear mission statements. We are part of the fabric of our societies and communities and we live in the West. Clearly, this makes our 'ears' also 'Western'. We have no need to spin or 'fine-tune' propaganda the way Israel does.

5. FOA does not support any particular Palestinian political party. We believe that the Palestinian people have a right to choose their own leadership. FOA has met with several Palestinian political leaders, figures and peace activists from a cross-section of Palestinian society. It does not discriminate amongst them based on political leanings.

6. FOA supports the right of the Palestinian people to resist occupation strictly in accordance with international law. FOA strongly condemns all violence against civilians which have been perpetrated in the main by Israeli armed settlers and army personnel and to a lesser degree by armed Palestinian groups. The armed conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is unequal and the death toll on the Palestinian side bears testimony to this. Deaths of innocent civilians on both sides of this conflict are avoidable and this makes the losses even more tragic and damning.

7. FOA believes that Israel's policies against Palestinians who are Israeli citizens are discriminatory. Numerous policies including those relating to housing and schooling are racist in nature, providing Israel's Jewish citizens with far more rights than its Palestinian citizens (Christian and Muslim) although all are expected to pay the same taxes.

8. FOA believes that Israel's policies on the ground in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, including settlement building, land expropriation and the building of the Wall on occupied land, have made a two-state solution to the conflict unviable. However, the ultimate decision rests with the Palestinians.

About Meir Amit

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre is based in Tel Aviv and is headed by a former Israeli Army Colonel, Reuven Erlich. According to the Washington Post, Meir Amit maintains an office at the Israeli Defence Ministry, and has close and direct connections with the Israeli government and Israeli lobby; the centre acts as a conduit for Israeli government propaganda.

These facts reflect the defective and predictable narrative emanating from the Centre and anyone wishing to obtain accurate information about the work of Friends of Al-Aqsa should not hesitate to contact us or simply visit our website.

http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/articles/europe/2789-friends-of-al-aqsa-and-israeli-propaganda

And they did it again! IOF Spokesperson Caught Tweeting (Vanishing) Propaganda…

August 21, 2011 by occupiedpalestine 0 Comments

 

The tweet below was catched, just before it was removed again by IDFSpokesperson from twitter, so let’s analyze some #FACTS & #LIES by Israel’s most moral spokesperson




The Lies…

1. Hamas did not break any law, it was Israel starting the violence without any evidence nor connection, and even while Hamas  in Gaza denied any responsibility for any alleged attack.
2. Gaza does not have “mortar-shells with white phosphorus” maybe the Iron Dome took one of themselve down, OR, whenever it would have been true, let’s be fictional for a moment…..  they returned that which was send to them by Israel, written on it “Made in Israel”
3. Illegal substances in inhabited areas. Get real! The pro’s hitting highly densed areas and committing these crimes is Israel. Pounding indiscriminate tons of (illegal) weaponry on an air/ground/sea besieged dense populated area which is called Gaza aka world’s largest open air prison in the world.
4.  Watch it here. And here. And here.

To put things in perspective: This is what white phosphorus does shot by Israel during Cast Lead:




Shocked?

It gets worse. (Warning: Only click of you can bear it and if your stomach is really tough this from the hospital in Gaza)  DIME, depleted uranium,flechettes and more illegal weaponry… 3000 tons of bombs thrown on Gaza of which 100 tons on the 1st day of Cast Lead 2008-2009. To read more about the special and even experimental weaponry sponsored by US to Israel read the Special Topic: Israel’s Weapons a Crime on Humanity
To stay updated on the magnitude of destruction without any evidence nor reason on Gaza, watch the pictures Gaza Under Attack


You should be shocked!
These indiscriminate attacks and massacres go on for 63 years now.  To create the state of Israel is committed over 77 massacres, ongoing, recently updated and the ongoing massacre of Israeli occupation  in which 160 people we’re slained only this year 2011 until now…..  was neither covered by your media.


Neither did the 2 year old Islam Qreqa’a get into the headlines.  Meet 5-yr-old Islam Qreqa’a – BEFORE & AFTER Israeli Attack

Shaheed Islam Qreqa'a - 2 Years Old

Speaking about Law…

• Disengaged Occupiers | Gisha | PDF | Israel’s violations of Int’l law
• Israel is target of at least 65 UN Resolutions| Palestine of none at all
• 80 Reasons for Gaza’s Right Self-defense
• 90% Prisoners denied lawyer
• From Settlement to Shelf: The Economic Occupation of the Syrian Golan | PDF
• Abusing Palestinian Children
• B’Tselem: Palestinians Abused
• B’Tselem: Child Torture
• Case: Child Torture
• Child Torture : They pissed on him & he got 8 months
• Children not exempt from widespread torture
• Illegal Detention of Children
• Israel developed over 100 torture methods against Palestinian prisoners
• Israel uses banned torture methods
• Israeli Culture of Drinking Urine
• Israeli Torture of Children
• Literally Breaking Bones – VIDEO
• Punishing the sick
• Torture Without Limits, Jail Without Cause
• Fundamental Right for Nationality
• Crimes Against Christianity
• Geneva Convention (1949)
• Golan Israeli Violations of International Law
• Hague Convention (1907)
• Illegal Trial of Palestinian Civilian Persons before Palestinian Military Courts
• Israel’s obligations under international law
• Right to Nationality | Human Right art 15 UDHR
• Silence Nakba Law encourages Racism
• The Hague Regulations: Obligations of Occupier
• The Stuttgart Decalaration
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights  and we could go one for several months compiling lists and facts…..

Maybe IOFSpokesperson did some soulsearching and decided to remove his tweet for it is a venomous LIE!  And because we do not want people to get punished in the hereafter we  want to remember the Tzahal to the following spoken by G-d:

He who speaks untruths shall not stand before My eyes’ Psalms 101:7

http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/08/21/and-they-did-it-again-iof-spokesperson-caught-tweeting-vanishing-propaganda/

81 House Members Enjoy Hiatus In Israel

August 16, 2011 by occupiedpalestine  

 

By James M. Wall * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz | Aug 16, 2011




Eighty-one members of the US House of Representatives-about 20 percent of the total membership-are enjoying a late summer week-long, all-expenses paid trip to Israel.

This hasbara (propaganda) trip happens every other summer (in non-election years), but this year’s excursion to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea comes at a time when voters back home are not thinking about Israel. They are worried about their under-water mortgages and disappearing 401Ks.
Instead of returning immediately to their home districts to answer questions about the US economy, 81 House members are flying to Tel Aviv to demonstrate their loyalty and devotion to a foreign power. They are hoping, of course, as they bolster their standing with AIPAC, that financially-stressed voters will not be told that the 81 are enjoying an all expenses paid visit to Israel.

So far, the main stream media (MSM) has protected them. The only way to find out if your congress person is living in Israeli luxury for a week is to call his or her office and ask. The MSM has not bothered to identify the 81, except when a single member is mentioned in a fawning local feature story.

Allison Weir describes this bi-annual summer all-expenses hiatus trip as “extraordinary”, because “no other lobby on behalf of a foreign country comes anywhere near controlling such wealth or taking so many of America’s elected representatives on a propaganda trip to its favorite country”.
Weir, writing for the Anti-War blog, notes that most US media outlets ignored the story.
I could not find a complete list of the 81. Since this is not a Codel (congressional delegation) trip, the House website does not offer any help. Phillip Weiss’ Mondoweiss found a picture released to the media from the Israeli Embassy, with no names attached.

Weiss assumes the picture is that of the Democratic delegation, since Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer shares front row honors with Israeli President Simon Peres. The picture is large enough for constituents to look for familiar faces.
(Sunday Update: Richard Silverstein, a dogged researcher who has been writing the liberal Jewish blog, Tikun Olam, since 2003, has identified 33 names on the list of 81.)

(Monday Update: Silverstein’s blog, for the moment, is off line. The original Silverstein posting of Tikun Olam with the 33 names is reprinted, in part, at the end of this posting as a Comment.)
The Washington Post provides the names of three Democratic travelers, Reps. Jesse Jackson Jr. (Ill.), Betty Sutton (Ohio) and Mark Critz (Pa).

Otherwise, according to a survey by Weir, the Main Street Media has been respectfully silent and protective on the matter of the 81 who used their time away from Washington to visit sites holy to Jews and Christians, and to listen to lectures by Israeli leaders. Here is what Weir found in her survey:

The Associated Press, America’s number one news service, has decided not to report on a lobbying group taking 81 representatives to a foreign country in order to influence their votes.
Even though the trips are being reported by news media in Britain, Iran, India, Israel, Lebanon, and elsewhere, AP has decided to give the story a pass. When contacted about this, an AP editor in Washington, D.C., said AP knew about the trips and was “looking into it.”
Taking a similar tack, The New York Times, USA Today, Fox News, CNN, ABC, et al., failed to inform Americans about the trips.

When the Chicago Tribune learned that Jesse Jackson, Jr., was on the Israeli trip, it treated the visit as a human interest, feel good, story.

The Tribune used a short item from the Associated Press to inform its readers that Jackson was traveling abroad to evaluate how well Israel was handling US tax dollars which Jackson and his colleagues so generously send to Tel Aviv.

The Tribune story is a case study for a Journalism 101 class on how not to write a story involving a major congressional figure. Here is the soft story the Tribune ran on August 7:

Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. is headed to Israel for an eight-day visit. Jackson’s office says he leaves Sunday and returns Aug. 15.

The Illinois Democrat is scheduled to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders as he discusses what he calls “the quest for a lasting peace in the region.” He has meetings set with Israeli President Shimon Peres, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, prime ministers and others.

Jackson says he’s looking forward to learning about Israel’s business and commercial sectors as well as the latest tools and technology the country is using in its fight against terror.

The trip is being arranged and paid for by the American Israel Educational Foundation, a privately funded charity.

And that is all Tribune readers know about the journey of the 81. The AIEF is a “privately funded charity”? Nothing about the AIPAC parentage of the “charity”, and nothing at all about Jackson’s large number of traveling companions.

Josh Ruebner, national advocacy director of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, reports that in spite of the media’s protective cover, at least one Jackson constituent, is on the case.

Yali Amit, an Israeli-American constituent of Rep. Jackson, Jr. called his office to oppose his participation in the trip to Israel. He was told that Rep. Jackson, Jr. wants to learn what is happening there because of his position on the appropriations subcommittee that approves military aid to Israel.

Amit retorted that “you can’t learn what goes on there on a paid trip of a propaganda arm of the Israeli government.” And [Reuben adds] you certainly can’t learn about the devastating impact that these U.S. weapons have on unarmed Palestinian civilians, nearly 3,000 of whom were killed by the Israeli military over the last decade.

This year’s hasbara trip involved three separate delegations, two Republican and one Democratic; no bipartisanship here after those ugly DC scenes involving the debt ceiling. The 81 members will visit with Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was last greeted enthusiastically by 29 standing ovations when he spoke before a joint session of Congress earlier this year.

The Jerusalem Post was quick to assure American tax payers that no US tax dollars would be used on the trips. (“Move along folks, nothing to see here”.)

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All expenses for the 81 members and any spouses and staff members who choose to travel, are covered by the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), better known as AIPAC’s education arm. We know all about AIPAC, but what is this AIEF?

The AIEF was created in 1990 as a supporting organization of AIPAC, America’s foremost pro-Israel lobby. Financial support for AIEF, a non-profit organization, comes from tax-exempt contributions, most notably from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation.
AIEF, according to its mission statement, “provides grant monies to educate opinion leaders about the U.S.-Israel relationship, to expand public awareness about issues affecting the Middle East and to encourage participation in public affairs, especially by students on college campuses where anti-Israel propaganda is rampant.”

So, strictly speaking, no direct US tax dollars are funding the 81 House members on their summer outing. But it is also true that the members are traveling on round-trip first class airline tickets ($8,000 per traveler) and enjoying an all-expenses tax-free paid trip with funds from a US tax-free non-profit organization.

But the question lingers: Do these transactions meet the requirements of the US tax code. The answer, from Legistorm, a website that tracks congressional travel, suggests that these clever partners, AIEF, which is in the education business, and AIPAC, which lobbies on behalf of the state of Israel, have found themselves a convenient “sleight of hand” tax loophole.

According to the latest publicly available tax return of AIEF, the organization has no paid employees – an astounding feat in itself for an organization that raked in more than $26 million in 2009 and a mind-blowing accomplishment for an organization running three huge congressional delegations in one month.

AIEF’s partner, AIPAC, reports that in 2009, it very generously contributed more than $3.2 million of employee salaries to cover the staff costs of AIEF.

Legistorm also reports that two years ago, during the 2009 summer congressional recess, AIEF sent 50 lawmakers and staff members from both parties on a fully funded trip to Israel. Included in the 2009 delegation were House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who returned with this year’s even larger delegation of 81 House members, and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who had business in Iowa and did not make it to Israel this August.

How tight is the Israel Lobby’s grip on Congress? What keeps these elected representatives coming back, year after year, like so many obedient children making their mandatory holiday visit to visit aging parents?

Allison Weir discovered one poignant story about an earlier traveler:

Not all those going on these trips are enthusiastic. The wife of one congressman who made a similar trip some years ago said that she and her husband had never been exposed to such pressure in all their lives. She said that at one point on their trip, her husband – a normally extremely tough man – was curled up in a fetal position.

There have been several internet hints that a few of the 81 will try and escape their Israeli minders long enough to cross over into the Occupied Palestinian Territories where they hope to experience the Palestinian narrative.

That could be a risky move, not for security reasons, but for their return flight home. It is an abrupt shift from El Al Business Class to a middle seat in Coach. What happens to the campaign contributions these “escapees” had hoped to gain from making the trip in the first place? These funds will dry up, quickly.

For their troubles any “escapee” who is exposed by the hasbara police, will still have the enormous advantage of bringing home pictures and memories of talking to real Palestinians, not Uncle Toms. Inshallah, they will also bring back to the voters, a congress member with a heightened sense of self-worth.

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* James M. Wall is currently a Contributing Editor of The Christian Century magazine, based in Chicago, Illinois. From 1972 through 1999, he was editor and publisher of the Christian Century magazine. Jim launched personal blog April 24, 2008. 

http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/81-house-members-enjoy-hiatus-in-israel/

French journal of record peddles Zionist propaganda

Submitted by david on Sun, 08/14/2011 - 06:44

 

Is it impossible to escape from Israel-related propaganda?

Yesterday, I was in a Brussels coffee shop, where I picked up a copy of Le Monde. In a section marked “The laboratories of the future”, the French daily had a full-page feature about the Israeli Institute for Technology in Haifa, which is better known as the Technion.

Described by the paper’s headline writer as a “high-tech Eden”, the university was lavished with praise for its innovative work on treating Parkinson’s disease and sending microsatellites into Space. Peretz Lavie, the university’s president, was quoted as arguing that the Technion was a model for coexistence between Israeli and Palestinian students and that there would be peace in the Middle East if everyone else could follow the Technion’s example. Indeed, the only hint that the region’s problems may encroach on the campus was in a paragraph about how students sometimes have to drop their books to fight Israel’s wars (such as the attack on Lebanon in 2006).

It seems clear that Laurent Zecchini, the author of this piece, either relied entirely on the university’s authorities for information or had no interest in exploring its military links further. For if he did a little googling, he should have easily found a comprehensive study on the Technion by Tadamon!, a Palestine solidarity organization based in Canada.

Harmony in Haifa?

That study confronts the Technion’s official drivel. Far from being a place of harmony, Palestinian students in Haifa have been treated in an overtly racist manner. Last year, 10 such students were arrested when they staged a protest against Israel’s murder of nine activists on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. Yet there were no arrests of Zionist students who organized a larger counter-demonstration, which unlike the Palestinian one, was not authorized by the police.

Furthermore, the Technion has a history of close cooperation with the Israeli arms companies Rafael and Elbit, both of which supplied weapons used in the offensive against Gaza in 2008 and 2009. Technion has even joined forces with Rafael to run a business administration course specifically geared for that company’s managers.

Had Zecchini felt inclined to do a little more homework, he might also have got in touch with the Alternative Information Center, a campaign group working in Jerusalem and the West Bank. It has drawn attention to how Technion’s inventions include a remote-controlled bulldozer, designed to help the Israeli military demolish Palestinian homes.

The Technion, incidentally, is taking part in numerous EU-financed scientific research activities. And these activities have been enjoying some uncritical media attention of their own lately.

Mesmerized by murder

Home in Dublin last month, I saw an article in The Irish Times celebrating how the EU will be devoting a mammoth €7 billion to research in 2012. As the author of the article, Conor O’Carroll from the Irish Universities Association, didn’t acknowledge that Israel (including its arms industry) will be among the beneficiaries of this largesse, I contacted the paper’s editors asking if I could write an opinion piece rectifying this omission. Not a chance, I was told; the news agenda is way too crowded at the moment.

Somehow, though, The Irish Times has been able to find space in the not-too-distant past to promote Israel’s scientific triumphs. In May, it ran a puff piece about how Israel has “the highest density of start-ups in the world” and how it has been able to turn its “intermittent wars” to its advantage. “Military units often act as incubators for tech start-ups,” journalist Ian Campbell wrote. Mesmerized by this success story, Campbell forgot to trace how the products of this enterprising culture end up as tools of oppression.

Both Le Monde and The Irish Times are considered journals of record in their respective countries. It is a measure of how amenable they are to Israeli spin that they are happy to present Zionist canards as undisputed facts.

Reading them often reminds me of my favorite comment from George Orwell: “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

David Cronin is the author of Europe’s Alliance With Israel: Aiding the Occupation (Pluto Press, 2011). He has written for a wide variety of publications, including The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal Europe, European Voice, the Inter Press Service, The Irish Times and The Sunday Tribune. As a political activist, he has attempted to place both Tony Blair and Avigdor Lieberman under citizen’s arrest for crimes against humanity.

http://electronicintifada.net/blog/david/french-journal-record-peddles-zionist-propaganda

Israeli Hasbara Team Unable to Travel Carefree in South Africa: BDS Movement Credited

South Africa: Joburg airport goes into lockdown Israeli delegation’s arrival disrupted

Report by BDS Working Group (SA)

Published: 11/08/11

Johannesburg’s international airport was put on red alert after its National Key Point status was activated this morning due to the expected arrival of a delegation from Israel. Plans of the delegation’s local host, the South African Union of Jewish Students, to welcome their Israeli “Hasbara” delegation were thwarted, with the Israeli delegation arriving at OR Tambo International Airport amidst much controversy.

Last week, the South African Students Congress (SASCO) issued a communiqué to its provincial branches urging “all students in all institutions of higher learning across Gauteng to boycott any activity organised by these [Israeli] agents. Any student who chooses to cooperate with the apartheid [Israel] regime is an enemy of progress.”

Expecting that their arrival to Johannesburg would not be a welcome affair, the Israeli delegation was forced to change their travel arrangements:

• the expected welcoming committee had to be cancelled;
• the airport was placed on high security alert, with the National Key Points Act being activated;
• members of the Israeli ’hasbara’ group had to be escorted through back entrances and under disguises. None were able to walk freely into the public area of the terminal sporting any Israeli paraphernalia.

SASCO and the Young Communist League, who had called for its members to be present at the airport, creatively bypassed all the obstacles put in place to limit any actions. SASCO had a 50 person strong team deployed from 06h00 at strategic points in the arrivals terminal of the airport. SASCO members were instructed to converge in pickets if the local hosts had made any attempts to welcome their Israeli counterparts.

On hearing that the Israeli delegation had to “come in like spies,” SASCO and YCL students rejoiced outside the international arrivals terminal. Joined by students from Wits University and the University of Johannesburg, the group simultaneously revealed red T-shirts (under their jackets) stencilled with various bold messages, including “Israeli apartheid unwelcome!”; “Israeli war criminals unwelcome!”; and “Israel guilty of war crimes”. They carried hand-crafted posters with similar messages and chanted in celebration.

Themba Masondo, a student at Wits University addressed the crowd: “Today we have made clear to these Israeli propagandists and indeed any supporters of Israeli apartheid that this agenda is not welcome in South Africa. We will protest. We will boycott. And we will call on our prosecuting authorities to arrest those involved in Israeli war crimes. . . [W]e are many, our cause is just and we will win.”

The visiting Israeli delegation advertises to be a group of students wanting to dialogue, however the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Working Group (a Johannesburg based organization) challenged this framing and revealed at a press conference last week Thursday that most of the Israeli delegates were not in fact students but part of an Israeli government trained PR group. For example, they showed that two of the Israeli student delegates claiming to be students worked at the Israeli parliament. One is a deputy spokesperson and another is an official policy advisor.

Further, the BDS Working Group pointed out that virtually the entire delegation have served or are serving in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), several in elite combat units and one even in the Israeli assault on Gaza in 2009.

On Monday, a progressive Israeli organization together with a European Union Human Rights laureate delivered a letter to the South African prosecuting authorities also reiterating the visiting Israeli group’s involvement in the IDF and probable connection to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Kate Joseph, Wits Palestine Solidarity Committee member present at the airport commented: “If this [Hasbara] group came to do Israeli PR, they are doing a hopeless job. If anything, their arrival in South Africa has bolstered Palestine solidarity in general, and the growing call on our campuses for a broad-based boycott of Israel.”

Students at Wits, UJ, UCT and elsewhere have committed themselves to non-violent, direct actions in the coming days as the Israeli delegates are expected to attempt campus visits.

PHOTOS: www.flickr.com/bdssouthafrica

VIDEOS: www.youtube.com/bdssouthafrica

ISSUED BY BDS WORKING GROUP (www.bdssouthafrica.com)

For Comment

Muhammed Desai: 084 211 9988
Nurina Ally: 071 862 0076

 
http://refrainplayingisrael.posterous.com/israeli-hasbara-team-unable-to-travel-carefre