From ccramer@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu Thu Apr 8 16:47:05 1993 Subject: CAMERA on Campus, Vol. 4, No. 2 Date: Thu, 8 Apr 93 16:46:01 EDT From: charles cramer CAMERA ON CAMPUS The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America Vol.4, No.2 Spring 1993 In This Issue: McGill University Hamas The UN's Double Standard Just the Facts How to Counter Misinformation The 4th Geneva Convention For original copies and information, contact CAMERA: P.O. Box 428, Boston, MA, 02258. Tel (617) 789-3672 FAX (617) 787-7853 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vol. 4, No. 2 Spring 1993 The CAMERA Media Report is published by the CAMERA National Media Resource Center Editor: Andrea Levin Associate Editor:Tamara Indianer Contributors: Jon Haber, Leora Sallis, Rachel Temkin, David Wolf Electronic version prepared by: Charles S. Cramer Copyright (c) 1993 by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. All rights reserved. Permission granted to reproduce this information without changes or additions to individual stories, segments or articles. Reproduction may be in either mechanical or electronic form, provided that this copyright statement is included. ============================================================================== McGill Students Counter Pro-Palestinian Effort For many Jewish students at Montreal's McGill University, the 1992-1993 school year has been marked by the tension of frequent anti-Israel writings in the major campus publication, the McGill Daily, and by well-organized, pro-Palestinian events on campus. The _Daily_, which has a long-time reputation for anti-Israel bias, includes no Jewish students among its editorial staff, although Jews comprise a significant percentage of the student body. Many Jewish students have described the atmosphere at the _Daily_ as distinctly unfriendly because of the openly pro-Palestinian stance of the paper. Editor Fiona McCaw, for example, conducted a lengthy interview in late 1992 with Soraida Hussein, an employee of Bir Zeit University on the West Bank who had been brought to McGill by the Palestine Solidarity Committee. None of Hussein's many false accusations against Israel, of unprovoked school closures and restrictions on education, were challenged by McCaw or balanced by an Israeli perspective. That universities, most particularly Bir Zeit, have been centers of organized political agitation and violence was omitted. Even the Palestinian newspaper _Al-Quds_ acknowledged that during certain periods "actual academic activity [comprised] less than one percent of the overall agenda of the campuses." The abuse of educational settings to disseminate openly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel literature was similarly unmentioned. The _Daily_ has also provided a forum in its "hyde park" opinion section for inflammatory and outlandish attacks against Israel. A January 21, 1993, piece by Omar Sartawi and Mohammed Kadry claimed Israel's technological and industrial accomplishments have been won at the expense of the Palestinians. In fact, the opposite is true; Israel's increasing prosperity has served the interests of Palestinian Arabs. From the time of earliest Zionist development Jewish economic advances have not only benefitted local Arabs by providing employment but actually attracted tens of thousands of Arabs from Syria, Egypt and elsewhere. Even under Israeli control, West Bank and Gaza Arabs have seen dramatic improvements in health care (Infant mortality, for example, declined from 86 per thousand live births in Gaza in 1968 to 28 in 1988) and education (Prior to Israel's presence in the territories there were no institutes of higher learning; today there are 22). Moreover, Israel's development as a modern nation-state has occurred in spite of the Arab effort to defeat her militarily and to render her isolated and vulnerable through economic boycott. Recent estimates put the cost of the boycott at $45 billion. Despite the absence of Jewish students in positions of responsibility on the _Daily_ and the lack of opportunity to present a more realistic and balanced editorial perspective on the Middle East, Jewish groups and individuals on campus have persisted resolutely in efforts to set the record straight about Israel through letter-writing to the paper. The _Daily's_ policy of publishing all letters guarantees at least this format for a defense of Israel! >> Pro-Palestinian "student" and "cultural" events promote misinformation Students have also been confronted with a succession of so-called cultural events sponsored by the Palestine Solidarity Committee at which virulent leaflets and flyers denouncing Israel have been distributed. The Israeli deportation of 417 Hamas militants, in response to a wave of terror attacks against Jews, prompted an intensified Arab campaign. The General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) orchestrated a three-day hunger strike in early February. Coordinating the strike was a non-McGill student who mustered support from other student groups, notified local and national media and secured the endorsement of the Student Society of McGill University. Although the SSMU ostensibly refrains from involvement in political issues, the organization~s president deemed the event a purely "human rights" matter and allowed the imprimatur of the mainstream group to be used on flyers denouncing Israel. Students may want to know whether the SSMU is now prepared to attach its name and prestige to protests against the mass deportation of nearly 800,000 Yemenis from Saudi Arabia, the expulsion of 53,000 black Mauritanians to Senegal as part of an Arabization policy, and the expulsion into the desert of 400,000-800,000 black Sudanese Christians by the Islamic fundamentalist government of Sudan? Given the similarity in numbers and timing the SSMU will surely want to affix its name to condemnations of Greece for ejecting 400 Albanians at almost precisely the moment the hunger strike occurred. The strike, which observers say involved only a handful of students, drew national Canadian television coverage of youths waving the PLO flag, as well as local electronic and print media reports on the well-executed public relations event. As in the case of the letter-writing campaign to offset the bias of the McGill _Daily_, Jewish groups such as the McGill Israel Public Affairs Committee have countered the many staged pro-Palestinian events with celebrations of Israel such as "Israel Week," during which aspects of Israeli life, including food and dress, were presented. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hamas Opposes Peace, Advocates Violence and Jihad {News accounts of the deportation by Israel of 417 Hamas extremists almost invariably omit crucial information about the nature of the Islamic organization which the men lead. Most often the media present the deportees as refugees pathetically stranded on a Lebanese hillside without describing the grisly crimes committed by Hamas and the suffering of their Jewish and Arab victims and without reporting the violent goals of the burgeoning organization}. What is Hamas? Hamas (The Islamic Resistance Movement) is a fundamentalist Islamic organization that first appeared in Gaza and the West Bank in the 1970's. Originally, the organization concentrated on urging people to be observant Muslims, and it gained influence and power in universities, educational institutions, and mosques. The outbreak of the intifada in 1987 and the emergence of "Islamic Jihad," a rival organization advocating violence, spurred Hamas to emphasize militant activity. The ideology of Hamas combines zealous, pan-Arab Islamic religious notions, Palestinian nationalism, and virulent demonization of the Jewish people. Hamas, which views Palestine as a sacred trust (waqf) belonging exclusively to Muslims for all eternity, is sworn to the destruction of Israel and to the killing of Jews. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- *The 10 Hamas Principles of Faith: 1. Hamas has vowed to wage a holy war for Palestine, against the Jews, until the victory of Allah is attained. 2. The land must be cleansed from the impurity and evil of the tyrant conquerors. 3. Under the wings of Islam, coexistence with members of other religions is possible. When Islam is not ruling, hypocrisy, hatred, division, corruption, and oppression prevail. 4. According to the prophet's order, the Muslims must fight the Jews and kill them wherever they may be. 5. Hamas aspires to establish an entity in which Allah is the supreme goal, the Koran is the constitution, jihad (holy war) is the mean, and death for the sake of Allah is the supreme aspiration. 6. Palestine is a holy Islamic asset (waqf) until the end of time. Therefore, no one may negotiate or forsake it. 7. It is a personal religious rite for every Muslim to carry on with jihad until the land has been salvaged. 8. Hamas opposes international discussions, negotiations, and peace arrangements of any kind. Sovereignty over the land is a religious matter, and negotiations about it mean giving up on part of the believers' control over it. 9. The Jews have taken hold of the world media and financial centers. Through revolutions, wars, and movements such as the Freemasons, communism, capitalism, Zionism, Rotary, Lions, B'nai B'rith, and so forth, they aspire to undermine the foundations of the entire human society in order to destroy it, cultivate their evil and corruption, and conquer the world through their favored institutions such as the League of Nations, the United Nations, and the Security Council. Their plots are described in detail in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. 10. Hamas opposes the secular state which the PLO wishes to set up in Palestine because it would be an anti-Islamic state by nature. However, if the PLO were to adopt Islam and make it its guiding light, all members of the Hamas movement would become soldiers of the liberation and 'set the fire that would quell the enemy.' *The 10 _Principles of Faith_ as summarized by Raphael Israeli of the Hebrew University's Truman Institute, HA'ARETZ 1 Jan 1993, FBIS 5 Jan 1993 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Charter of HAMAS: Introduction: ..."The Islamic Resistance Movement emerged to carry out its role through striving for the sake of the Creator, its arms intertwined with those of all the fighters for the liberation of Palestine...Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious...The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah's victory is realized..." Article 6:..."[The Islamic Resistance Movement] strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine..." Article 7: ..."The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: `The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslem, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him...'" Article 8: "Allah is the target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution; Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of wishes." Article 11: ..."Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [sacred property] land...It, or any part of it, should not be given up..." Article 13:..."There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors..." Article 14..."Liberation of Palestine is then an individual duty for every Moslem wherever he may be..." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hamas and the kidnap-murder of Israeli policeman Nissim Toledano: o Hamas termed Toledano's murder the latest phase in its aim to "liberate Palestine from Zionist occupation." The killing was said to be the "first in a series the organization plans to take to force Israelis to `leave Palestine.'" (Amman, Jordan Times, December 15, 1992, as quoted in FBIS 16 Dec 92) Hamas and peace negotiations: o Ibrahim Ghawshah, spokesman for Hamas in Amman, '...has said that Hamas denounces the negotiations and announces to the world that dialogue with the Israeli enemy can only be held through the barrel of a gun...He said that the recent operation by Hamas [the murder of Nissim Toledano] was aimed at breaking the arrogance of the Israeli occupation in front of world, Arab, and Palestinian public opinion and at proving that occupation troops can be pursued and killed...'(Amman SAWT AL-SHA'B 17 Dec 92, as quoted in FBIS 17 Dec 92) Hamas and the murder of Shin Bet officer Haim Nahmani: o The "Islamic Resistance Movement-Hamas issued a statement today affirming that the Israeli government understands only the language of bayonets and that the jihad against the Israeli soldiers and border guards is legitimate and acknowledged by all norms and values and is recognized by the UN charter." (Paris Radio Monte Carlo in Arabic 4 Jan 93, as quoted in FBIS 5 Jan 93) Examples of leaflets distributed by Hamas: o Leaflet #65 (October 21, 1990): "Every Jew and settler will be a target for murder; his blood and possessions are expendable." (IDF Spokesman, Information Branch, 17 Dec 90) A special leaflet distributed in the Gaza district (mid-November 1990): "We call upon all the strength of our people and our fighters to increase their attacks with knives, grenades and guns against the cowardly Jews wherever they may be...The attacks of our fighters will reach the Jews within their homes and will turn their days into darkness and their lives into an intolerable hell." (IDF Spokesman, Information Branch, 17 Dec 90) In an interview in Britain in May 1990, the official spokesman of HAMAS stated that "`We cannot avoid the fact that the time has come for the struggle against the enemy to be fought not only with the machine-gun and the bomb, but also with the plane and the rocket. This is the way that it will be possible to reach an understanding with the Zionist enemy.'" (IDF Spokesman's Unit, The HAMAS Background, Dec 1992) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- UN's Double Standard Targets Israel {Arab spokesmen and their supporters have recently charged the international community with applying a double standard when it imposed UN sanctions against Iraq for the invasion of Kuwait but not against Israel for deporting Hamas militants to Lebanon. The outlandish charges are the latest chapter in the Arab campaign to delegitimize Israel in the forum of the United Nations. It is Israel, not Iraq, that has been subjected to a relentless and pernicious double standard.} o No similarity whatever exists between the defensive Israeli action that removed known leaders of Hamas, an organization openly professing responsibility for terrorist killings and dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Iraq's bloody, unprovoked aggression and annexation of a sovereign state cost hundreds of thousands of lives and vast global disruption. Israel's deportation of Islamic extremists sworn to fight "until the last Jew in the world is exterminated" has not cost a single life. o Not a word of criticism ushered from the halls of the UN when more than 300,000 Palestinians were driven out of Kuwait. No UN voice was heard in condemnation of Saudi Arabia for its peremptory expulsion of nearly 800,000 Yemenis in the wake of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The desperate condition of black Sudanese Christians and animists, more than 400,000 of whom were driven into the desert in early 1992 by their Islamic overlords, was greeted with total silence by the minions of the UN. (The decades-old slaughter of black Christians that has taken at least 600,000 lives has never been addressed at the UN) o The genocidal mass deportations of Tibetans from their homeland and mass murder of Cambodians under thrall of the Khmer Rouge were ignored by the United Nations. o Israel's limited action to halt the surge of attacks by Muslim fundamentalists is a dramatic counterpoint to the ruthless policies pursued by other states in the region against rising indigenous fundamentalism. In the aftermath of the killings of a half dozen of its soldiers in 1982, Syria slew 20,000 people in the Muslim stronghold of Hama. In Egypt, according to Amnesty International and Middle East Watch, fundamentalists have been rounded up, imprisoned and tortured. Algeria has engaged in mass arrests, long-term detention and the abrupt suspension of democratic reforms. The UN's response in each instance: silence. o In UN debates dictators, military strongmen and feudal monarchs denounce the Middle East's sole democracy, while vetoing discussion of their own crimes. Among actions taken in the UN over many years have been efforts by the erstwhile Soviet bloc in collusion with Arab states to eject Israel from the organization; efforts to prevent international trade with Israel; exclusion of Israel from UN committees and secretarial bodies; exclusion of Israel from the same UN councils in which the PLO has been permitted to participate; the slandering of Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, as a form of racism; condemnation of Israel for archeological digs in Jerusalem deemed justifiable by the UN's own experts; relentless condemnation of Israel for responding to terror assaults against her Jewish and Arab citizens; refusal to permit Israel its rightful turn as a member of the Security Council; and on and on. o Never in the decades of terrorist attack - whether at the Munich Olympics, on the beaches of Tel Aviv, in tourist hotels, in kibbutz classrooms, on commuter buses, in Jerusalem marketplaces and throughout the Jewish state - has the United Nations ever denounced an Arab or PLO assault against Israelis. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- JUST THE FACTS Committee whose secretary stated in September, 1948 that "The fact that there are these [Palestinian Arab] refugees is the direct consequence of the act of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously, and they must share in the solution of the problem.": Palestine Arab Higher Committee (Emile Ghoury) Proclamation which stated "In the midst of wanton aggression, we yet call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to return to the ways of peace and to play their part in the development of the state, with full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its bodies and institutions, provisional or permanent": Israel's Proclamation of Independence, May 14, 1948 Organization which distributed leaflets asking the Arabs to return to Israel: the Histadrut Group that urged Arabs to evacuate Palestine for two weeks in 1948, stating that "`A cannon cannot differentiate between a Jew and an Arab.'": the Arab High Command Estimated number of children from Bangladesh sold into Arab slavery in recent years: 95,000 Amount of money Yasir Arafat gave Erich Honecker as a parting gift when the East German dictator went into exile: $150,000 UN-member nation never elected to the Security Council: Israel Number of Arab League members elected to the Security Council: 15 Number of Security Council resolutions and drafts condemning Israel between 1967-1991: 69 Number of UN General Assembly resolutions criticizing Israel within a week of repealing resolution 3379 (equating Zionism with racism): 4 Number of Security Council resolutions condemning PLO or Arab terror attacks against Israel: 0 Number of Security Council resolutions condemning Iraq for gassing of 5,000 Kurds: 0 Number of Security Council resolutions condemning Syria for killing of 20,000 at Hama: 0 Organization that observes every November 29 as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People: the United Nations Reason why the UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali was never permitted to hold the full title of Foreign Minister of Egypt: Religion (He is not Muslim) Nation in which school songs have been changed to Islamic absolutist anthems in praise of jihad: Sudan Spiritual leader of Egypt's outlawed Jihad revolutionary group who issued the fatwa, or Islamic sanction, for the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat: Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman City in which Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman preaches jihad from local mosques: Brooklyn, NY Number of Nigerians deported from Saudi Arabia in August 1992: 600 Number of Albanians expelled from Greece in February 1993: 400 Government expelling 2 Palestinians suspected of terrorism: Sweden Number of Palestinians under the age of 15 deported from Kuwait and other Gulf states after the Gulf War : 135,000 Nation in which a Muslim newspaper claims that "`Israel ... is training Serb fighters to massacre Muslims in Bosnia'": Egypt Number of Muslim refugees absorbed by Israel in February 1993 from war-torn Bosnia: 84 City to which a 35 member Israeli medical team is scheduled to travel in early 1993 to treat casualties of ongoing civil war: Sarajevo Sources: 1-4 Midstream, June/July 1992; 5 Boston Globe, 12/16/92; 6 Washington Post, 1/14/93; 7-11Myths and Facts, 1992; 12-13 St. Petersburg Times, 2/4/93; 14 "For the Rights of the Palestinians: The Work of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People," UN, 12/1992; 15-16 "Sudan: The Copts: Passive Survivors under Threat," Africa Watch, 2/10/93; 17-18 Wall Street Journal, 1/6/93; 19 Xinhua New Service, 8/23/92; 20 Boston Globe, 2/7/93; 21 Asociated Press, 12/11/92; 22 World Refugee Survey, 1992; 23 The Economist, 8/1/92; 24 New York Times, 2/18/93; 25 Jerusalem Report , 2/25/93 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Facts About Israel and the Fourth Geneva Convention {Israel has been accused of violating the Fourth Geneva Convention when it periodically deports those involved either directly or indirectly in terrorism against Jewish and Arab Israelis. The temporary expulsion of 417 adherents of Hamas in December 1992 again triggered these false assertions.} What is the "Fourth Geneva Convention"? The Geneva Conventions were first instituted in 1864 in an effort to ensure humane treatment of civilians and military personnel in times of war. After World War II, and the Nazi atrocities involving mass transfers of populations to slave labor and death camps, additional protocols were added, including the Fourth Geneva Convention in August, 1949. Does the Convention apply in the West Bank and Gaza? Many experts, including Eugene Rostow and Yehuda Blum, argue the Fourth Geneva Convention does not, in fact, apply to these areas because the Convention requires the occupying power to comply with the pre-existing laws governing the territory in question. The laws relevant to the West Bank and Gaza are those of the last recognized sovereign, the British Mandatory authority, which permit deportations in times of emergency (Regulation 112, Defense Regulations of 1945). Israel's Supreme Court, known for its independence and willingness to rule against government decisions, upheld the legality of Israel~s recent deportation of Hamas adherents. Has Israel violated the Convention? If the Convention did legally apply to the West Bank and Gaza Israel would, nevertheless, not have violated its tenets in deporting the Hamas militants. First, the Convention stipulates that expulsions may occur if "the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand." The terrorist killings of five Israeli soldiers and a policeman that triggered the expulsions presented an unprecedented internal challenge to the state's ability to protect its citizens and its security forces. Second, the Fourth Geneva Convention was not meant to hobble a responsible democracy acting in self-defense but to prevent any future genocidal campaign by Hitlerite dictators. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section III, Article 49 (excerpt) Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive. Nevertheless, the Occupying Power may undertake total or partial evacuation of a given area if the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand. Such evacuations may not involve the displacement of protected persons outside the bounds of the occupied territory except when for material reasons it is impossible to avoid such displacement. Persons thus evacuated shall be transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- How to Counter Misinformation 1. _Write a letter_ to campus newspapers, magazines and other publications. 2. _Monitor your newspaper_. How many articles, editorials, letters and photos give the Israeli version of events versus the Arab version? Keep track for a month. Then, if you find a problem, hold a meeting with the editors to share your concerns. 3. _Join the staff_ of campus publications needing better balance in their Middle East articles. 4. _Encourage sympathetic faculty members and alumni_ to write letters and provide you help and advice. 5. _Let us know what's happening on campus_. Are your college publications providing accurate and balanced coverage of Israel and the Middle East? How have students responded when coverage has been one-sided and unfair? Write us at CAMERA, Box 428, Boston, MA 02258. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- JOIN CAMERA CAMERA is a non-denominational, non-partisan, educational media-watch group dedicated to the promotion of fair and balanced coverage of the Middle East. The CAMERA National Media Resource Center documents print and electronic coverage of the Middle East and provides information, programs and support to other concerned organizations and individuals around the country. PLEASE SUPPORT THIS ESSENTIAL WORK. Send your tax-deductible contribution to: CAMERA PO Box 428 Boston, MA 02258 (617) 789-3672 Voice (617) 787-7853 Fax Charter $1000 Sponsor $100 Patron $500 Regular $45 Friend $250 Senior/Student$25 CAMERA also accepts MasterCard & Visa CAMERA is an IRS recognized 501(c)3, non-profit organization. Contributions are tax deductable to the full extent allowed by law.