Captions worth a thousand words, but don't tell the truth

 Captions worth a thousand words

Unfortunately, caption writers editorialize

My latest column on Israel National News

Captions worth a thousand words

The art of writing anti-Israel skewed photo captions is another step on the slippery slope unobjective journalists and their anti-Israel editors have chosen to slide down.

 By Stephen M. Flatow

 If a picture is worth a thousand words, what are the words under the picture worth?

 Plenty—to those who want to turn international public opinion against Israel.

 The Reuters news agency recently distributed a dramatic photo of—according to its caption—“a Palestinian jumping next to a barricade with tires during an anti-Israel protest over cross-border violence between Palestinian militants in Gaza and the Israeli military.”

 Wow. How many facts can you distort in a single caption?

 Let’s start with the phrase “a Palestinian.” The young man in the photo is not just “a Palestinian.” For starters, he’s wearing the kind of headdress favored by Palestinian teenagers who are hoping the Israeli police won’t be able to identify and arrest them. That’s not a Covid mask. Law-abiding citizens don’t wrap their entire faces in cloth. Of course, the fact that he’s leaping through the air should make it obvious that he was not just an innocent civilian out for a stroll.

 And how about all the black smoke billowing behind him? It’s obviously the scene of a riot. The caption calls it a “barricade of tires.” They’re not just a “barricade.” They’re on fire—which is why there’s so much smoke. Palestinian Arab mobs roll flaming tires at passing Israeli automobiles. They burn piles of tires in the middle of roads in order to force Israeli motorists to slow down, so they can ambush them with rocks and firebombs.

 They should be called “Palestinian terrorists.” Or at least “Palestinian rioters.” But certainly not just “Palestinians.”

 Why were they rioting that day? According to the caption-writer at Reuters, it was a “protest over cross-border violence” in Gaza. In other words, the rioters with the flaming tires were actually peace activists. They were violently protesting against violence!

The Reuters editors evidently don’t consider Hamas or Islamic Jihad to be terrorists, even though they are on the official list of terrorist groups maintained by the United States and other governments around the world. And even though they fire rockets into kindergartens and blow up buses—including the one on which my daughter Alisa HY”D was riding in 1995. No, they’re just “militants.” Never “terrorists.”

 And, finally, there is the caption’s outrageous characterization of the Gaza wars: “cross-border violence between Palestinian militants in Gaza and the Israeli military.” Are they kidding? Hamas fires rockets; Israel shoots back. That’s “cross-border violence?” In the 1941 version, the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, America shoots back, and the Reuters caption reports “naval clashes between Japanese militants and the American military.”

 An even worse photo caption came out of the Middle East last week, courtesy of the Jerusalem-based “Flash 90” photo service. It read: "Palestinian worshippers gather rocks to throw at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City."

 Have you ever been to a synagogue--or a church, or a mosque, or a Hindu temple—where the congregants worshipped by trying to stone their neighbors to death? I haven't.

 A cynic might say: Yes, whoever wrote that caption actually got it exactly right, because these violent Palestinian Arabs have made a religion out of trying to murder Jews—they "worship" with rocks, knives, guns, and bombs.

 But that would be letting the caption-writer off way too easy--and missing an important lesson.

 The Flash 90 photo showed five young men, two of then wearing the classic rioters’ face-masks. While the caption claimed they were "gathering rocks," two of them are clearly poised to throw the rocks and we can assume the others were doing likewise.

 Anybody with even minimal knowledge of Israeli history—or just a modicum of common sense—knows that a rock, when hurled at a person or an automobile's windshield, can maim and even kill. We know that because it's happened so many times. By my count, at least 14 Israeli Jews, and two Israeli Arabs mistaken for Jews, have been stoned to death by Palestinian Arabs since the 1980s. Thousands upon thousands more have been injured, some of them permanently maimed, in such rock attacks.

 So, when young Arab men are “gathering rocks to throw,” as the young men in the Flash 90 photo were doing, they were doing so with the full knowledge that they were engaged in attempted murder. Of course, they were not trying to murder fellow-Arabs. They were throwing the rocks at Israeli Jewish police officers. Meaning, they were trying to stone Jews to death.

 Why would caption-writers call a riot a “protest,” describe Israeli self-defense against Hamas aggression as “cross-border violence,” and characterize rock-throwers as “worshippers”? And why would their editors approve such language?

 It can’t be that they don’t know the difference between riots and protests, between aggressors and victims, between terrorists and worshippers. So that leaves just one plausible explanation: Hostility to Israel and sympathy for the Palestinian Arabs. They may claim to be responsible editors and objective reporters and caption-writers, but in reality they have a political agenda. Their agenda is to hurt Israel.

 And the captions under the photos—the captions that, in their own way, help shape public opinion—are just another vehicle for achieving that despicable goal.

The captions may be seen here and here.

 Stephen M. Flatow is a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, an attorney in New Jersey and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is the author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror,” and an oleh chadash.

 

American Jews know anti-Semitism when they see it

By Stephen M. Flatow

 While the Jewish left keeps trying to convince us that most anti-Israel hatred is not anti-Semitism, a new poll has found that a large majority of American Jews see things such more clearly.

The poll, sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, asked Jews whether certain types of anti-Israel statements or actions are anti-Semitic:

•  “Saying Israel should not exist as a Jewish state” — 75 percent say it’s anti-Semitic
• “Comparing Israel’s actions to those of the Nazis” — 70 percent
• “Protesting Israeli actions outside an American synagogue” — 67 percent
• “Calling Zionism racist” — 61 percent
• “Calling for companies and organizations to boycott, divest from or sanction Israel” — 56 percent
• “Calling Israel an apartheid state” — 55 percent

 Why are these results significant? Because for the past year, the U.S. Jewish left has been fighting against the acceptance of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism. According to that definition, comparing Israel to the Nazis, calling Israel’s existence racist and applying double standards to Israel are examples of anti-Semitism.

 Jewish left-wing activists have grown worried because many governments, Jewish organizations and others have embraced the IHRA definition. The Jewish left has good reason to worry since many groups and individuals in their camp indulge in precisely that kind of rhetoric. Being labeled “anti-Semitic” means that their views are illegitimate.

 So, in a desperate ploy, they organized several hundred left-wing academics to come up with their own definition, called the “Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism.” The Declaration’s extremely narrow wording effectively excuses most anti-Israel vitriol as being just “criticism of Israeli policies.”

 Obviously, no reasonable person claims that every single criticism of an Israeli policy is anti-Semitic. But it’s also clear as day to most American Jews that a lot of extreme anti-Israel rhetoric, such as the examples cited above, is indeed anti-Semitic. Most Jews don’t need a legal definition to know, instinctively, that something or somebody is anti-Semitic. We’ve all experienced enough in our lives to know that if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck …

 This is a problem for several of the leading Jewish left-wing organizations, which in recent months have been edging closer and closer to the positions that most U.S. Jews consider to be anti-Semitic.

Calling for sanctions against Israel, for example. According to the ADL poll, 56 percent of Jews think that’s anti-Semitic. Well, in April, J Street and Americans for Peace Now publicly endorsed legislation that would stop U.S. aid to Israel if the Israeli army arrests Palestinian-Arab terrorists who are younger than 18 years old. That’s what we call a sanction.

 And just last week, the head of Americans for Peace Now went beyond that one bill and announced that there should be “U.S. aid reductions” if Israel is guilty of any “human-rights violations.” And who, exactly, will be the judge of what constitutes a “human-rights violation”? The United Nations? Amnesty International? Jimmy Carter? Clearly, the new Americans for Peace Now position is setting up Israel to be sanctioned.

Or the apartheid charge—most American Jews say that’s anti-Semitic, too. In recent weeks, J Street has publicly defended the outrageous Human Rights Watch report that accuses Israel of apartheid. While not directly using the “A” word, J Street has skated right up to the edge, by praising the report for “raising critical concerns,” and declaring that all criticism of the report is “vitriol” and “profoundly harmful to Israel’s survival.”

 J Street is now loudly complaining about the rejection of its recent application to join the American Zionist Movement. The J Streeters need only look in the mirror to understand why. Calling for sanctions on Israel and praising those who promote the apartheid smears are the kinds of positions that most American Jews consider anti-Semitic. And not too many Jewish communal umbrella groups are likely to admit an organization that advocates anti-Semitic policies.

 

(Stephen M. Flatow is a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, an attorney in New Jersey and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is the author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror.”)

This column first appeared on jns.org. 

Ilhan Omar and her inability to say truly "I am sorry"

 My latest column appearing on JNS.ORG focuses on the inability of Rep. Ilhan Omar to say "I'm sorry" for another anti-Israel outburst.

Ilhan Omar and the art of not apologizing.

By Stephen M. Flatow

Ilhan Omar has perfected the art of not apologizing.

It takes considerable skill to come up with the words to sound just apologetic enough to get your critics off your back, but without actually apologizing. It took Omar several tries, but the U.S. congresswoman from Minnesota seems to have finally figured out the formula.

First, she tried the tactic of pleading ignorance. This goes back to 2012 when Omar was serving as campaign manager for a Minnesota state senator. During that year’s Hamas missile jihad against Israel, Omar was furious that the international community, which was criticizing and pressuring Israel for defending itself, was not criticizing and pressuring it strongly enough. So, she tweeted: “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”

Nobody complained about it at the time because Omar was, literally, a political nobody. But in January 2019, soon after she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, the tweet resurfaced, and she issued what was to become the first in a series of non-apologies.

According to Omar, she didn’t know that the words she used in 2012 would bother anybody. It was only afterwards, she said, “that I heard from Jewish orgs” that there was anything offensive about her language.

It was a classic shifting of responsibility. What she was saying, in effect, was that she couldn’t possibly have known, on her own, that anybody would be offended by her saying that Israel is “evil” and controls the world. Those tardy Jewish organizations told her only after she said it, not before!

She added defiantly, “I will not shy away of [sic] criticism of any government when I see injustice.” Of course, saying the Jewish state controls the world is not “criticism of a government,” but that’s how Omar deflects.

Omar’s second non-apology came in February 2019 after she tweeted that the support of many U.S. congress members for Israel is “all about the Benjamins baby.” In other words, her colleagues support Israel only because they are paid off. And in a follow-up tweet, she named AIPAC as the one doing the bribing.

The uproar was so intense across the political spectrum that this time Omar had to actually use the word “apologize.” This is the defense strategy in which you use the A-word, but you don’t mean it because, in the same breath, you assure your supporters that you will continue saying the same things that got everybody mad in the first place.

“I unequivocally apologize,” she said in a statement, but then vowed to continue attacking what she called “the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics.” In other words, she will continue accusing Jewish lobbyists of bribing members of Congress.

Last week, Omar found herself in search of a new formula for not apologizing. The controversy began when she asserted during a congressional hearing that the United States and Israel have committed “crimes against humanity,” just as Hamas and the Taliban have.

Twelve Jewish Democrats in Congress publicly condemned her despicable analogy, and some other prominent Democrats reportedly complained to Omar behind the scenes. This time, she didn’t even bother using the word “apologize.” Instead, she responded to her critics: I didn’t say it. You misinterpreted me. And also, you’re a bunch of racists.

Naturally, she led with the racism accusation. That’s usually a sure-fire argument-stopper. In a tweet, Omar accused her critics of using “Islamophobic tropes.” Because that allegation was so obviously contrived, it did nothing to stifle her critics. So, the representative then issued a second statement: “I was in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems.”

Of course, she was equating them. That was obvious to anybody who can read and understand English. It was just a rhetorical strategy for Omar to blame everybody else instead of taking responsibility for her own words.

It was actually quite a calculated little formulation of words. Look closely at her sentence. Notice how she left herself just enough wiggle room to in effect assure her followers: “Don’t worry; I’m not really retracting the analogy. I don’t believe that Israel is either democratic or has a well-established judicial system. So, all I’m saying that terrorists—Hamas, the Taliban and Israel—are different from the U.S., which does have a judicial system, even though it’s flawed.”

It was both clever and effective. Omar’s latest non-apology was just enough to satisfy her Jewish Democratic critics, and with that, the controversy has subsided—until next time.

But that leaves the rest of us to ponder several important questions. How is it that only 12 of the 25 Jewish members of Congress were willing to publicly challenge Omar’s equation of America and Israel with terrorist groups? And how is it that only 12 of the 223 Democrats in Congress spoke out? Do they agree that America and Israel are terrorist regimes? Or are they just completely intimidated by the fear of being accused of racism or Islamophobia? And what does that say about the future of the Democratic Party and its positions on Israel and anti-Semitism?

Stephen M. Flatow is a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, an attorney in New Jersey and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is the author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror.”