It sounded quite unthinkable, but Knesset member Haneen Zoabi (Balad) blamed Israel for the recent slaying of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria. “Israel is not a victim, not even when civilians are killed,” she declared in an interview with Channel 10.

Zoabi elaborated: “Israel’s policy of occupation is at fault. If there was no occupation, no repression and no blockade, then this wouldn’t have happened.”

Her comments failed to rouse furor among the Israeli public, which has grown inured to brazen provocation from Arab MKs bankrolled by Israeli taxpayers. Our local media reported the story, but on the whole abstained from comment. Continue reading →

Candid Camera-like pranks can be more telling than they might be funny. Egypt’s Al-Nahar TV featured separate interviews with three popular actors – two men and one woman – who were each told at some point that their appearances were being screened on Israel’s Channel 2. That alone sufficed to trigger violence and/or vituperation.

It matters little whether each of the three was genuinely outraged or just thought it prudent to defend his/her reputation from any possible perceived Israeli contamination. The remotest and most indirect connection to Israel was presented as justifying fury. Continue reading →

The British Broadcasting Corporation could never be accused of showering Israel with sympathy. Indeed the BBC could never be credited with gracing Israel with the rudiments of objectivity. Nonetheless, the BBC has managed to flabbergast even those Israelis who hadn’t expected minimal fairness from it.

The BBC has devoted a web page to the Olympics participating nations. Most of the entries are straightforward enough, but not so the ones devoted to Israel and “Palestine,” which, though not a sovereign state, did win recognition as a member of the Olympic Council of Asia since 1986 and the International Olympic Committee since 1995. Continue reading →

Some tall tales refuse to die. In the Arab Mideast they even grow – often to gargantuan proportions, usually proportionate to their inherent preposterousness.

This is the case with insinuations about the cause of Yasser Arafat’s death eight years ago, at the age of 75. Conspiracy theories abound. The only scenario serially discounted is natural cause.

The years haven’t mitigated the plethora of wacky suspicions/fabrications. Continue reading →