Only Man Banned by the AP was an Israeli Professor Monitoring Leftist Groups

Steinberg

The AP will interview and quote absolutely everyone including Hamas leaders. But everyone has to draw the line somewhere. And the AP draws the line at Professor Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor.

So reports Matti Friedman, a former AP man dishing some of the dirt on how the news is made.

Around this time, a Jerusalem-based group called NGO Monitor was battling the international organizations condemning Israel after the Gaza conflict, and though the group was very much a pro-Israel outfit and by no means an objective observer, it could have offered some partisan counterpoint in our articles to charges by NGOs that Israel had committed “war crimes.” But the bureau’s explicit orders to reporters were to never quote the group or its director, an American-born professor named Gerald Steinberg. In my time as an AP writer moving through the local conflict, with its myriad lunatics, bigots, and killers, the only person I ever saw subjected to an interview ban was this professor.

Friedman discusses that the reason for this is the thin white line between NGOs, various non-profit groups and the media.

This confusion is very much present in Israel and the Palestinian territories, where foreign activists are a notable feature of the landscape, and where international NGOs and numerous arms of the United Nations are among the most powerful players, wielding billions of dollars and employing many thousands of foreign and local employees. Their SUVs dominate sections of East Jerusalem and their expense accounts keep Ramallah afloat. They provide reporters with social circles, romantic partners, and alternative employment—a fact that is more important to reporters now than it has ever been, given the disintegration of many newspapers and the shoestring nature of their Internet successors.

In my time in the press corps, I learned that our relationship with these groups was not journalistic. My colleagues and I did not, that is, seek to analyze or criticize them. For many foreign journalists, these were not targets but sources and friends—fellow members, in a sense, of an informal alliance. This alliance consists of activists and international staffers from the UN and the NGOs; the Western diplomatic corps, particularly in East Jerusalem; and foreign reporters. (There is also a local component, consisting of a small number of Israeli human-rights activists who are themselves largely funded by European governments, and Palestinian staffers from the Palestinian Authority, the NGOs, and the UN.)…

In these circles, in my experience, a distaste for Israel has come to be something between an acceptable prejudice and a prerequisite for entry.

It’s an interesting point and perspective. Friedman, who has plenty of experience on the ground, essentially argues that correspondents join an emigre community dominated by leftist NGOs who are anti-Israel. The bias is essentially baked in.

The international correspondent is embedded with the NGOs and one of the important points that Friedman makes is that of the “invisible camera”. The press doesn’t report on its own methods of reporting. It also doesn’t report on the NGOs who have become part of its infrastructure.

Many foreign journalists have come to see themselves as part of this world of international organizations, and specifically as the media arm of this world. They have decided not just to describe and explain, which is hard enough, and important enough, but to “help.”…

while international organizations are among the most powerful actors in the Israel story, they are almost never reported on. Are they bloated, ineffective, or corrupt? Are they helping, or hurting? We don’t know, because these groups are to be quoted, not covered. Journalists cross from places like the BBC to organizations like Oxfam and back. The current spokesman at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, for example, is a former BBC man. A Palestinian woman who participated in protests against Israel and tweeted furiously about Israel a few years ago served at the same time as a spokesperson for a UN office, and was close friends with a few reporters I know…

International organizations in the Palestinian territories have largely assumed a role of advocacy on behalf of the Palestinians and against Israel, and much of the press has allowed this political role to supplant its journalistic function…

Think of the foreign correspondent as interchangeable with the activist. No wonder there was a ban on Professor Gerald Steinberg.

  • Dan Knight

    Thank you Daniel. So Matti decided to engage in a random of act of journalism. Good for him as far as it goes. Now all he needs to do is realize these ‘journalists’ are just paid shills for the ‘naughty’ team.

  • SoCalMike

    Israel should throw the NGOs out along with any Falestinians who refuse a loyalty oath.
    The US should do the same with Leftists. Give them the choice.
    Take a loyalty oath or you get a one way ticket to the Islamic State.
    That’s who they help with their constant rewriting of history and twisting and mutilation of current events.

    • Quratu_A3uni

      Twisting of events? Have you ever come across Breaking the Silence? It is a website dedicated to providing the world with a realistic portrait of how Israel treats the Palestinians. It is created and maintained by former IDF soldiers:

      Yuvil Novak, former Israeli Air Force officer:
      “This is how it goes today. We notify the inhabitant about the imminent destruction of a house minutes before a bomb drops (via text messages, or by dropping a smaller bomb on the house as a warning). That is enough to turn it into a legitimate target for an air strike. In the past two weeks dozens of civilians have been killed in such strikes.
      What’s worse is that almost no one protests. Entire families are erased in a second…. Our moral lines are stretching away… A clear, loud voice that says that bombing a house with civilians in it is immoral must be heard. These killings cannot be accepted without question…”

      Idan Barir served in the Israeli artillery corps:
      Faced with so many innocent casualties, it is time for us to state very clearly: this use of artillery fire is a deadly game of Russian roulette. The statistics, on which such firepower relies, mean that in densely populated areas such as Gaza, civilians will inevitably be hit as well. The IDF knows this, and as long as it continues to use such weaponry, it will be hard to believe when it claims to be minimizing civilian deaths.

      As a former soldier and an Israeli citizen, I feel compelled to ask today: have we not crossed a line?

      2004 – Captain Oded Kemron from the Shaldug Airforce Commandos:
      “All the while I am being repeatedly asked by the force commander: ‘Why aren’t you shooting?’ ‘What is going on?’ ‘Why aren’t you killing anybody?’”

      SERGEANT, Paratrooper, 2002, Nablus
      “We took over a central house, set up positions, and one of the sharpshooters identified a man on a roof, two roofs away, I think he was between 50 and 70 metres away, not armed. I looked at the man through the night vision – he wasn’t armed. It was two in the morning. A man without arms, walking on the roof, just walking around. We reported it to the company commander. The company commander said: “Take him down.” [The sharpshooter] fired, took him down. The company commander basically ordered, decided via radio, the death sentence for that man. A man who wasn’t armed.

      The company commander declared him a lookout, meaning he understood that the guy was no threat to us, and he gave the order to kill him and we shot him. I myself didn’t shoot, my friend shot and killed him. And basically you think, you see in the United States there’s the death penalty, for every death sentence there are like a thousand appeals and convictions, and they take it very seriously, and there are judges and learned people, and there are protests and whatever. And here a 26-year-old guy, my company commander, sentenced an unarmed man to death.”

      If Israel were to stop its systematic abuse of Palestinian rights, then there may actually be hope for a two state solution. Israel is currently in direct violation of every single Human Rights Article that is documented in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Let us have a look at some of these discriminatory laws and human rights violations:

      1. Israeli Jews are unified by law. They share the same legal status, yet Palestinian Arabs are classed as a separate group. They have no right of return even though the UN Resolution 181 clearly states that Palestinians should be afforded the right of self-determination. Any Israeli, regardless of where they are living in the world, can obtain Israeli citizenship. This is codified in Israel’s 1950 Law of Return.

      2. Large number of civilian deaths and documented evidence that indicates the disproportionate use of military force upon the Palestinian people. This includes children, women, the elderly and also medics who are retrieving Palestinians who have been wounded or killed. Such force has been documented in the following Military operations: Operation ‘Defensive Shield’ (2002), Operation ‘Determined Path’ (2002), Operation ‘Rainbow’ (2004), Operation ‘Summer Rains’ (2006), Operation ‘Autumn Clouds’ (2006), Operation ‘Hot Winter’(2008), and Operation ‘Cast Lead’ (2008-9). Goldstone concluded that Cast Lead “was a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability” (Goldstone Report). And let’s not forget the recent massacre of 2,000 people.

      3. The torture and humiliating treatment of Palestinian prisoners is well known. Palestinian prisoners are classed as “security prisoners” and are subjected to a certain interrogation process that amounts to torture. Israeli prisoners on the other hand, are not given the status of “security prisoners” and interrogated in a different manner. Moreover, Palestinians can be detained without charge for up to six months at a time and such detention periods are constantly renewed. This law affects adults and children but of course it is not applied to Israelis. Moreover, those in the West Bank are subjected to Israeli military law which fail to give the Palestinians a fair and just trial. This is in stark comparison with Israelis who are prosecuted under a civil court system.

      4. The implementation of checkpoints is not only a security measure but it has been documented that they are a way of humiliating and terrorising the Palestinian people. For example, such cases include, denying access to ambulances and medical teams, denying Palestinians the right to pass in order to seek medical treatment, denying pregnant women in labour the right to pass and as a result, the woman is forced to give birth at the checkpoint. Women and babies have died as a result of such inhumane treatment. Forcing Palestinians to line up and wait for hours in a single line like a herd of cattle is demeaning and humiliating and this continues to occur even after Israel declared it had withdrawn from Gaza.

      5. The blockade on Gaza is a means of collectively punishing an entire population by preventing critical aid from reaching them. Basic needs such as food, medicine, clothing and blankets are not reaching the Palestinian people because of the restrictions Israel has placed by implementing the blockade. The blockade on the Gaza Strip is in breach of the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention (article 33), which forbids collective punishment.

      6. Restrictions are also placed on land ownership, access to water, access to electricity, freedom of opinion, demonstrations and building restrictions. Such restrictions are applied only to the Palestinian people. All these policies are described in Israel as “hafrada” which is Hebrew for separation. In English we refer to that as apartheid.

      7. The construction of the wall has been found to be illegal by the International Court of Justice as it restricted the movement of Palestinians and their ability to access natural resources. It has also been stated that the Wall is not a security measure but a means to appropriate more land by Israel.

      8. Forcibly removing Palestinians from their homes and demolishing their houses in front of family. Innocent people have been killed because of such a policy including a young American, Rachel Corrie in 2003 who was run over by a bulldozer. Moreover, the Land Acquisition Law (1953) and the Absentees’ Property Law (1950) allow Israel to seize the property of the Palestinian people without compensating them for their loss. This is in direct violation with Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

      There are over fifty laws that discriminate against Palestinians. This is fact, not misconstruing reality.

      • John C

        Yada yada. What utter crap.
        I’ll comment on just the following drivel:
        “The construction of the wall has been found to be illegal by the International Court of Justice” -
        it’s neither international, nor a court. nor has anything to do with justice (or law). It’s a political circus of ignorant political appointees. For example, they were too ignorant in the law to know that the Green Line was never an international border (their entire nonsense was based on the myth that it was).

        • Quratu_A3uni

          Why won’t you comment on anything else? Because it’s fact and you have nothing to say.

          • tickletik

            Why won’t you comment on anything else? Because he is correct in showing it is utterly dishonest, and you have nothing else to say.

          • Well Done

            No, Qur, it’s because you are completely full of carrion.

      • Nabukuduriuzhur

        As a writer, I could easily write such garbage, but I never would on moral grounds. Nor could I write something like that because it is untrue.

        Don’t mistake propaganda for truth.

        • Quratu_A3uni

          Propaganda? I know the difference between truth and propaganda. Propaganda is this website and the biased articles it displays.

          • tickletik

            Truth? I know the difference between truth and propaganda. Truth is this website and the honest articles it offers.

      • liz

        too bad your website doesn’t bother to provide a “realistic portrait” of why Israel defends itself against Palestinian terrorists.
        If the Palestinians weren’t terrorizing, bombing, and murdering Israelis, while refusing to honor ceasefires or peace agreements, none of what you describe would even be happening.
        Palestinians have no one to blame but themselves for every death in Gaza.

        • Quratu_A3uni

          What does Israel have to defend itself against? The only reason Hamas came into existence was because of Israeli oppression against Palestinians. Reasearchthe undertaken has demonstrated that Israel has broken far more ceasefires than Hamas ever has.

          Palestinians and the world blame Israel for Palestinian deaths. It is Israel’s lack of regard for international law and their inability to provide basic rights to the Palestinians that has forced the inhabitants to resist. Palestinians don’t even have the basic right to protest because there is a law against that. Learn the history of Palestine, educate yourself on the discriminatory laws Israel has in place regarding Palestinians and read up on the documented cases of human rights abuse by both international agencies and former IDF soldiers.

          • Moa

            What does Israel have to defend itself against?

            12,000 rockets, so far. Most of which came after Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza hoping to get peace, but it got rockets instead.

            The only reason Hamas came into existence was because of Israeli oppression against Palestinians.

            COMPLETELY FALSE. In fact, so false that by presenting this false meme you discredit yourself and highlight how little you actually know about the REAL situation.

            Hamas is merely the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Is it not? The Muslim Brotherhood aims to implement Islamic hadith Sahih Muslim 6985 and wrote this directly into their “Hamas” Charter. This calls for genocide of the Jews, everywhere (not just in Israel). Of course, this is simply a prelude to the total subjugation of all non-Muslims and conquest of the World under the Islamic political order (Sharia).

            Did you not know this? perhaps why you are helping people who are ideologically aligned with both ISIS and Hitler (the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini was Hitler’s homeboy, didn’t you know)

            It is Israel’s lack of regard for international law and their inability to provide basic rights to the Palestinians that has forced the inhabitants to resist.

            FALSE. Arabs who are Israeli citizens have full rights. Arabs who are under foreign governments (Hamas or the PLA) don’t. The issue is not about land, it is about religion and Arab supremacism. Here is Zuheir Mohsen telling the truth:

            Between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese there are no differences. We are all part of ONE people, the Arab nation. Look, I have family members with Palestinian, Lebanese, Jordanian and Syrian citizenship. We are ONE people. Just for political reasons we carefully underwrite our Palestinian identity. Because it is of national interest for the Arabs to advocate the existence of Palestinians to balance
            Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons. The establishment of a Palestinian state is a new tool to continue the fight against Israel and for Arab unity.

            A separate Palestinian entity needs to fight for the national interest in the then remaining occupied territories. The Jordanian government cannot speak for Palestinians in Israel, Lebanon or Syria. Jordan is a state with specific borders. It cannot lay claim on – for instance – Haifa or Jaffa, while I AM entitled to Haifa, Jaffa, Jerusalem and Beersheba. Jordan can only speak for Jordanians and the Palestinians in Jordan. The Palestinian state would be entitled to represent all Palestinians in the Arab world en elsewhere. Once we have accomplished all of our rights in all of Palestine, we shouldn’t postpone the unification of Jordan and Palestine for one second.

            You are simply repeating the Cultural Marxist Narrative of the political Left of the West, and not listening to the reasons that the “Palestinian” Arab Muslim leadership gives.

            What is the difference between Hamas and ISIS? from the point of Israel and the West there is none! they have the exact same ideological roots, they just use different taqiyya deceptions to fool the weak minded and those that don’t bother to do proper research.

            Palestinians and the world blame Israel for Palestinian deaths.

            No they don’t I’m part of “the rest of the World” and we can see that the real problem is the Palestinian Arab leadership and their underlying supremacist jihadi ideology – their lust for power is hurting the Arab people most of all, but also the Israelis too. Africans, Thais, Chinese, Westerners and even Mexican and South Americans are also starting to feel the evil of the Arab political ideology called “Islam”.

            Learn the history of Palestine, educate yourself on the discriminatory laws Israel has in place regarding Palestinians and read up on the documented cases of human rights abuse by both international agencies
            and former IDF soldiers.

            No YOU don’t understand the history of Palestine. You don’t understand that Soviet-invented Narrative that had been fed to you. This is the reality:
            http://www.al-rassooli.com/palestine/

            Stop aiding the jihad by propagating its lies. It makes you evil. Stand up for 21st Century Enlightenment Civilization (which Israel is an outpost of) against the evil of 7th Century Sharia barbarism. That is what a moral person would do.

          • liz

            Educate yourself in something besides leftist/islamist propaganda.

          • Quratu_A3uni

            I hold a Masters in Islamic Studies, I am educated.

          • liz

            Educated in Islamic propaganda.

          • Quratu_A3uni

            Master of Islamic Studies at a western univeristy… You resort to propaganda, I use facts.

          • liz

            Western universities are centers of leftist propaganda!

          • Quratu_A3uni

            I’d rather be a leftist if that means standing by the truth than a right wing racist propaganda machine churning out hatred on a daily basis.

          • Biff Henderson

            This comes from an “intellectual” that studied and tries to elevate a systemized cult of hatred.

          • Quratu_A3uni

            Once again, levels of ignorance are very high. Muhammad never killed anyone who said an unkind word against him and if you opened a book and read his biography, you would know that the Muslims had been persecuted, left to live in famine, and tortured for 13 years without retaliating. When they migrated to Medina and Abyssinia to escape persecution, they were faced with an army of 1,000 soldiers coming towards them to once again kill and persecute them because of their faith.

            Muhammad’s own family consisted of non-believers and he did not kill them. History versus your fairytales is quite different.

          • Biff Henderson

            “Muhammad never killed anyone who said an unkind word against him…”

            Deflection. Your defending a position that is irrelevant. That cowardly, sick f***k had flunkies that did his bidding. Whether he stood in the back of a battle array in two suits or armor, promised the Companions farcical rewards in Paradise if they would put themselves between an attacking foe and himself, or feigned death instead of putting to the test his boast of drying over and over again for Allah’s Cause, Hot air. If the nut job would have availed himself of the free counseling the Elders of Mecca offered him none of this so-called “persecution” of a thieving, murdering psychopath would have come to pass. He wouldn’t have spent periods of time wandering around like escaped looney bin patient. There is no doubt he succumbed to the influence of fallen angels and the tortures they inflicted upon him twisted him into a mentally diseased, hate-spewing Koranimal whose influence has poisoned the souls of countless victims.

          • Quratu_A3uni

            Read some real academic work, rather than fanciful fairytales.

          • Biff Henderson

            The whole of Islam is nothing but the fanciful fairytales of a desert pirate. I’m sure there has been some real academic work dissecting Batman comic books but to spend time looking at an analysis of fiction serves what end? The Koranimal movement, now that a threat to humanity worthy of becoming familiar with. The folks that cherish the gift of life that our Creator has bestowed upon us have to guard ourselves against the wack-jobs that see Shaytan’s sacralized deception of calling evil good. If you’re bathed in vomit your whole life you have need of an outsider to tell you you reek to high heaven of vileness and filth.

          • Well Done

            “read some real academic work”? LOL we’ve been reading your buffoonery, tinkerbell.

          • Quratu_A3uni

            Empty vesselol and perpetuating evil?

            “Have patience with what they say, and leave them with noble (dignity).” [73:10]

            Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land – it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one – it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. (5:32)

            Allah does not forbid you to deal justly and kindly with those who fought not against you on account of religion and did not drive you out of your homes. Verily, Allah loves those who deal with equity. (60:8)

            The good deed and the evil deed cannot be equal. Repel (the evil) with one which is better (i.e. Allah ordered the faithful believers to be patient at the time of anger, and to excuse those who treat them badly), then verily! he, between whom and you there was enmity, (will become) as though he was a close friend. (41:34)

            O you who have believed, do not consume one another’s wealth unjustly but only [in lawful] business by mutual consent. And do not kill yourselves [or one another]. Indeed, Allah is to you ever Merciful. (4:29)

            Whoever intercedes for a good cause will have a reward therefrom; and whoever intercedes for an evil cause will have a burden therefrom. And ever is Allah, over all things, a Keeper. (4:85)

            O you who have believed, be persistently standing firm for Allah , witnesses in justice, and do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just. Be just; that is nearer to righteousness. And fear Allah ; indeed, Allah is Acquainted with what you do. (5:8)

            And if they incline to peace, then incline to it [also] and rely upon Allah . Indeed, it is He who is the Hearing, the Knowing. (8:61)

            And whoever does righteous deeds, whether male or female, while being a believer – those will enter Paradise and will not be wronged, [even as much as] the speck on a date seed. (4:124)

            Indeed, the Muslim men and Muslim women, the believing men and believing women, the obedient men and obedient women, the truthful men and truthful women, the patient men and patient women, the humble men and humble women, the charitable men and charitable women, the fasting men and fasting women, the men who guard their private parts and the women who do so, and the men who remember Allah often and the women who do so – for them Allah has prepared forgiveness and a great reward. (33:35)

            O you who have believed, it is not lawful for you to inherit women by compulsion. And do not make difficulties for them in order to take [back] part of what you gave them unless they commit a clear immorality. And live with them in kindness. For if you dislike them – perhaps you dislike a thing and Allah makes therein much good. (4:19)

            O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted. (49:13)

            “Let him who wishes to believe, do so; and let him who wishes to disbelieve, do so.” (18: 29)

            “And We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], the Book in truth, confirming that which preceded it of the Scripture and as a criterion over it. So judge between them by what Allah has revealed and do not follow their inclinations away from what has come to you of the truth. To each of you We prescribed a law and a method. Had Allah willed, He would have made you one nation [united in religion], but [He intended] to test you in what He has given you; so race to [all that is] good. To Allah is your return all together, and He will [then] inform you concerning that over which you used to differ.” (5:48)

          • Biff Henderson

            What is the context of 5:32? Look to 5;33 – Hatred. I’ll not waste my time citing the verses that abrogated the passages you cited or to put them in their proper context Plucking sweet kernels out of context from the cob doesn’t do justice to the putrid husk. Take your condescending supremacist banter and shove it where the smooth stones caress the pucker.

          • Quratu_A3uni

            No, you’re supposed to look at 5:33 in the context of 5:32 not the other way around. And don’t forget verse 5:34.

            Verse 5:33 is not speaking in terms of disbelievers, it is not punishment for ordinary individuals. It is punishment for those who wage war and spread evil and destruction throughout the lands. Today you might interpret such an offence to be that of terrorism. The severity of the punishment is in relation to the severity of the offence. Moreover, this is not in relation to a person who commits one offence, but one who continues to commit these crimes of terror. Scholars have interpreted this to be in reference to those who are violent and ruthless in killing fellow human beings. If you read the verse prior to this, you will see that it is prohibiting the unjust killing of a single individual and likening it to the killing of all humanity. The crime is so severe that a severe punishment has been applied. Moreover, God provides a number of punishments. It is up to the judge to decide on the punishment. In regards to crucifixion, Muslim scholars have yet to find evidence of a single crucifixion to have taken place historically in an Islamic state

            You need to understand that this is not about fighting those who are not Muslim. This is purely in relation to those who cause destruction and corruption within the Islamic state.

            I’m not cherry picking, it is non-Muslims who sit there and cherry pick violent verses without understanding the context and the reason for revelation. They completely ignore the Old Testament and its violent ideology but seek to criticise the Quran.

          • Biff Henderson

            “No, you’re supposed to look at 5:33 in the context of 5:32 not the other way around. And don’t forget verse 5:34.”

            Well “learned one,” if that’s the case (I’m calling bulls**t) you shouldn’t be wasting your time in this exercise in da’wa when there are so many of your co-religionists that are deficient in their religion. Many a cleric and expounders of tafsir would call you deficient in your religion. They don’t hold to the same interpretation of the hokey writ as yourself. You have much work to do convincing the Muslim world the whole duel ethics mumbo-jumbo is a bunch of hogwash. Sura 9:5, now that’s a doosey you can spend a lifetime on.

            As to your moral equivalence concerning violent passages between the Holy Bible’s Old Testament and the Hokey Writ of the Death Cult this article addresses the fiction you are promoting -

            http://www.meforum.org/2159/are-judaism-and-christianity-as-violent-as-islam

          • Well Done

            Quratu_A3uni = empty vessel Trolling bozo. The left have them assigned to every comment board on the ‘net. None of them even debate, for they would lose the debate in seconds. They’re paid to look the fool, apparentl.

          • liz

            Leftists don’t stand by the truth. They are exactly what you profess to despise – “a racist propaganda machine churning out hate on a daily basis”. They’ve been doing that for decades. You should study some history on it – try reading one of David Horowitz books.

          • tickletik

            He resorts to logic and reason, you resort to rhetoric, unsubstantiated assertions, and irrelevant facts.

          • Well Done

            Islamic studies is propaganda. You’re proving it here, gilligan. Hamas has killed more falestinians than Israel has. Study that, bimbo.

          • tickletik

            You have a masters in Islamic Studies, which shows you managed to pass exams and are capable of getting an easy degree.

          • Demetrius Minneapolis

            Okay MR.Masters in Islamic study, I have Masters in economics and International relations, spend 11 years in the army and another 5 in a governmental capacity, mostly spent in the near/middle east. Have level 2 arab language proficiency and have studied islam with the assistance of 3 theological academics on and off since 2005. All that bragging aside, please allow me this one, yet simple question: How many qur’ans were written, and please elaborate quickly the differences between them. You’re on….now…..

          • Quratu_A3uni

            There has only ever been one Quran. During the time of Muhammad we have records of of the Quran being collated and his followers writing on palm tree branches and leaves, white stones, pieces of wood, earthenware pots and other materials. The Quran was written in its entirety during the life of Muhammad. After his death there was a need to compile these in one book in order to avoid errors and also because many of those who had memorised the entire Quran had died. So the Caliph Abu Bakr, with the suggestion of Umar ibn Al-Khattab created a committee dedicated to collating the Quran into a single book. Zayd ibn Thabit was responsible for this task. He checked the written texts he was given and compared them with the recitation of the most learned amongst them. He required to witnesses to credit that the written materials had been recorded in the presence of Muhammad. So written records of all the revealed verses were required along with those who had memorised the Quran and a further two witnesses were needed.
            The copy of this Quran was placed in the state archives and passed on to the new Caliph, Umar ibn Al-Khattab when Abu Bakr passed away.
            During the time of the third Caliph, Uthman, disputes began to arise because of the seven readings of the Quran. Seven readings refers to the seven dialects of the tribes at the time. Some of the Quran’s also had personal notes written by the teachers which were causing confusion. Again under a committee led by Zayd ibn Thabit, Uthman asked Zayd to collect the Quran again and copy the Quran using the following criteria:
            To use the collection of Abu Bakr as the base, to copy the Quran according to the final recitation of Muhammad, to exclude the abrogated verses, to maintain the Quraysh dialect, to make multiple copies and send them to each islamic state and have the previous readings burnt, to arrange the order of the chapters and to exclude the personal notes added by teachers.
            They completed these copies within five years and distributed them to Medina, Mecca, Kufa, Basra, Damascus, Yemen and Bahrain. Uthman also sent teachers (qurra) along with them to teach the recitation style . He sent Abd Allah ibn Sâib to Mecca, Mughira ibn Shihab to Damascus, Abū Abdurrahman as Kūfa and Āmir b. Qays to Basra.
            The Early Uthmanic texts were mostly consonantal and contained no dots or vowel marks. The end of the verses were not marked and the only sign that a chapter had ended was with the phrase bismillah which is used at the beginning of every chapter. They were written in ancient kufi script which modern day arabs would not be able to read. The Arabs at that time were able to read such a script. However, as more non-Arabs converted to Islam, it became difficult for them to read. Therefore, diacritical markings were added under the authority of Abu al-Aswad ad-Duali in order to assist non-Arab readers.
            Difficulties were still being encountered because the dots were still not present to distinguish letters that looked alike. Ajjaj b. Yusuf asked Nasr b. Asim and Yahya b. Ya’mar to help readers with identifying the letters correctly. They put dots on the letters, known as I’jam to differentiate them from one another. To prevent confusion, they used different coloured inks to mark the letters. Halil b. Ahmad created the system we use today and the Quran has not been changed since.
            It is not the content that was changed, but choosing a single reading (one dialect), and the adding of dots, diacritical markings and numbering the verses to highlight the ending of a verse.

          • Biff Henderson

            You have wasted your energies on studying the fantastical ramblings of a hustler that couldn’t hold an intellect conversation with a donkey.

      • Well Done

        LOL yup, we knew one of you lefty trolls would come a’runnin’ with some heinous boilerplate nonsense about falestinians being victims. If you’re going to quote human rights laws, you had best inform yourself as to the nature of Hamas and other falestinian cover groups. They routinely murder anyone found cooperating with Israel; they shoot people who are trying to vacate a house Israel has targeted because it was a rocket launching site; they divert aid spending to weapons and war infrastructure. As for the UN, they allow falestinians to store rockets and ammunition in UN facilities. Nothing you can accuse Israel of originates with Israel. Israel is fighting a war with the worst of Islamist cowards. The idiots from the West who support Hamas look just as stupid as the people who claim Mike Brown was shot because racism.

  • hitz

    Gerald Steinberg has been doing wonderful work outing the traitors in the Israeli Left

  • halevi

    Israel should kick all of these groups out of the country, including the journalists.

    • Bamaguje

      Indeed, I’m surprised Israel tolerates this nonsense. She can never get fair reporting from these pro-Palestinian hacks, so she has absolutely nothing at all to loose from booting them all out.
      Israel could borrow a leaf from Egypt which jailed pro-Brotherhood Al-Jazeera journalists.

  • tickletik

    You’ve zeroed in on the problem.

    Now we have to figure out the solution.

  • http://gerardjackson.com/ gerard jackson

    These NGOs are nothing but Israel-hating leftwing fronts and should be treated as such. As for the so-called ‘journalists’: they are calculating liars.

  • Stosh777

    Whatever the Israelis have done, it is nothing compared to what the Muslims have done to the Jews over the years. Centuries of forced conversions, pogroms (there were over 3 dozen anti-Jewish pogroms in the Arab world in the century leading up to the liberation of Israel), even an inquisition carried out by the Almohads during Islam’s so-called Golden Age. The crowning blow was the harassment and expulsion of 850,000 Jews from their homes in the Arab world in the years following 1948…talk about collective punishment! It would be best for you if you learned a little about the victims of a millennium of Muslim supremacism and xenophobia, and start apologizing for your crimes rather than casting stones at the West, which was kind enough to let you in to go to school.

    We see this behavior continuing into the current day, from Boko Haram to the slavery and murder carried out by al-Baghdadi and his Islamic State. By the way, al-Baghdadi’s got a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies, so on that basis he is your superior in understanding Islam, no?