NYT NOTICES THAT HAMAS HATES JEWS

JUST A LITTLE "COMPLICATION." WHY SHOULDN'T ISRAEL MAKE NICE WITH PEOPLE COMMITTED TO THE DEATH OF EVERY JEW ON THE PLANET? HAMAS JUST NEEDS A HUG!

Hamas Ideology Complicates Peace Efforts - Steven Erlanger
In the Katib Wilayat mosque in Gaza one recent Friday, Imam Yousif al-Zahar of Hamas told the faithful: "Jews are a people who cannot be trusted." At Al Omari mosque, the imam cursed the Jews and the "Crusaders," or Christians, and the Danes, for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. He referred to Jews as "the brothers of apes and pigs," while the Hamas television station, Al Aksa, praises suicide bombing and holy war. Such incitement against Israel and Jews was supposed to be banned under the 1993 Oslo accords and the 2003 Roadmap peace plan. Hamas, no party to those agreements, feels no such restraint.

Since Hamas took over Gaza last June, Hamas sermons and media reports preaching violence and hatred have become more pervasive, extreme and sophisticated, on the model of Hizbullah and its television station Al Manar, in Lebanon. No matter what Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agree upon, there is concern that the attitudes being instilled will make a sustainable peace extremely difficult. (New York Times)

ANTI-ISRAEL BIAS ON U.S. OP-ED PAGES

Study: On Nation's Op-Ed Pages, Israel's Voice is Stifled (Camera)

An in-depth CAMERA study finds that in 19 months, Arab officials, including Hamas leaders, published 12 Op-Eds in the New York Times,Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. Israeli officials got none.

NYT CAN'T TELL A** FROM ELBOW

The Dumbest Headline of the Day… Noah Pollak (Contentions)

…sits atop the New York Times‘ story on Mugniyah:

Bomb in Syria Kills Militant Sought as Terrorist

A militant who was sought as a terrorist? What the heck does that mean? Is the Times saying that Imah Mugniyah was not, in point of fact, a terrorist? Is there a person in the world who does not more perfectly deserve that appellation, or has the Times joined Reuters in refusing to use it? Sloppy thinking and sloppy writing. They go together.

Dumb Headline Alert  (BACKSPIN) 

How does the NY Times explain this headline?

Bomb in Syria Kills Militant Sought as Terrorist

UPDATE: Headlines in both the Houston Chronicle and the Globe and Mail give Mughniyeh the more respectable title of "Hezbollah official."

Notorious Hezbollah official wanted by U.S. killed

Leading Hezbollah official killed by bomb

But there's hope:

Hezbollah's most wanted terrorist died the way he lived

A STUDY OF NYT BIAS

New York Times 6 Month Study (HONESTREPORTING)

Are there any patterns of bias in New York Times reporting?

HonestReporting employs an array of tools to respond quickly to inaccurate or biased news articles. Our weekly communiqués identify and challenge the worst cases of bias, and our 24HR Megaphone tool instantly alerts subscribers to issues that require immediate attention.

However, not all cases of slanted reporting are instantly clear. It's often helpful to take a step back and examine a news organization over a long-term period. Subtle elements of bias such as headline or photo selection then become clearer. In our second in-depth media analysis, we studied six months of reporting from the New York Times, one of the most popular and influential newspapers in the world.

The New York Times: April-September 2007 - Summary of Findings:

• Balance: Despite an evenly balanced selection of stories on Israel and the Palestinians, the New York Times gave far more weight to Israeli military incidents in text location, headlines and photo selection than to Palestinian attacks. More than 60% of images sympathetic to one side or the other favored the Palestinians.
• Consistency: Israeli and Palestinian actions were not treated consistently in choice of language. Israel or the Israel Defense Forces were the subject of strongly worded, direct headlines in 18 out of 20 cases (90%). However, in the 20 cases where the Palestinians were responsible for attacks, the language was mostly passive and the group responsible was only named in eight instances (40%).
• Context and Accuracy: Inaccurate statements or important context that would give readers a fuller picture of news events was often omitted. Terms such as "militants", "occupied territory," and "illegal settlements" were used without providing a proper explanation.

NYT: GENOCIDE "MODERATE"

Rafsanjani, “Moderate” by Emanuele Ottolenghi (Contentions)
Today’s print edition of the International Herald Tribune—the New York Times-owned international paper—has an article by Michael Slackman on Hashemi Rafsanjani’s election as the new leader of Iran’s Assembly of Experts. Its title, in the print edition, runs “Moderate wins Iran election.” (In the online edition, the article has a different title, strangely.) It’s often a mistake to look for convoluted explanations where none may be found. Still, we’d like to know who decided that Rafsanjani is a “moderate,” and how they arrived at that decision. After all, it was Rafsanjani who said that

If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel, but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.

Is it this (rather peculiar) interpretation of nuclear deterrence that makes him a moderate?

SEE ALSO: Ex-President Rafsanjani Wins Leadership of Key Council in Iran - Michael Slackman (New York Times)
Former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, defeated in elections two years ago by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, narrowly won election to head the Assembly of Experts, a group of 88 clerics who select the replacement of the supreme leader when he dies.

WHAT THE MEDIA REPORTED...AND LEFT OUT

In and Out (BackSpin)

We're struck by the MSM's choice of Mideast coverage this Labor Day weekend. See what got into the news and what was left out:

In: The NY Times examines how the Palestinians scavenge Israeli garbage.

Out: Qassam rocket strikes Sderot nursery school. AP was the only Western news service we saw pick up on today's outrage.

In: The LA Times's take on Israeli porn for peace. And this was a staff-editorial.

Out: The Sunday Times of London took a rare, in-depth look at what Sderot residents are going through, with every street a ground-zero.

In: A BBC photo essay on the Lebanese army's victory in Nahr al-Bared. Imagine the photo selection if Israeli soldiers emptied out a Palestinian refugee camp?

Out: Britain's ambassador to Israel had a friendly meeting with settler leaders, a first of its kind. According to the Jerusalem Post, follow-up meetings are in the works.

HEBREW CHARTER SCHOOL SPURS DISPUTE IN FLORIDA

THE NEW YORK TIMES DOESN'T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THE NEW, NEW YORK PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHING ARABIC AND ISLAMIC MIND-CONTROL. BUT IF A PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHES HEBREW.....

Hebrew Charter School Spurs Dispute in Florida - Abby Goodnough
The Ben Gamla Charter School in Hollywood, Fla., is run by an Orthodox rabbi, serves kosher lunches and concentrates on teaching Hebrew. On Wednesday, the Broward County School Board ordered Ben Gamla to suspend Hebrew lessons because its curriculum referred to a website that mentioned religion. Opponents say it is impossible to teach Hebrew - and aspects of Jewish culture - outside a religious context. But supporters say the school is no different from hundreds of others around the country with dual-language programs, whose popularity has soared. "It's not a religious school," said Peter Deutsch, a former Democratic member of Congress from Florida who started Ben Gamla and hopes to replicate it in Los Angeles, Miami and New York. (New York Times)

NYT IMPLIES ISRAEL'S ROAD PLAN IS RACIST

New York Times Implies Israel's Road Plan is Racist (CAMERA)
A New York Times article about the construction of a divided highway meant to provide security for Israelis and territorial contiguity for Palestinians amounted to a partisan condemnation of Israeli policies.

ORTHODOX UNION CALLS FOR NYT TO FIRE EDITOR

A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO, THE NYT MAGAZINE HAD A LONG ARTICLE BY AN ORTHODOX JEW WHO CLAIMED THE ORTHODOX COMMUNITY HAD SHUNNED HIM BECAUSE HIS PARTNER ISN'T JEWISH. TURNS OUT HE WASN'T BEING COMPLETELY HONEST.

OU: Sack Feldman now that he's admitted photo wasn't doctored (JTA)
The Orthodox Union called on the New York Times Magazine to sack contributing editor Noah Feldman after he admitted that he and his Korean-American girlfriend may not have been cropped from a photo taken at his Orthodox school reunion.

Feldman sparked an avalanche of response with his essay in the July 22 edition of the New York Times Magazine, in which he used the example of the cropped photo as the launching point for a pointed critique of the contradictions he see in Modern Orthodoxy.

The New York Jewish Week reported this week that in fact a number of photographs were taken at the reunion and the one in which Feldman and his girlfriend, now wife, were pictured had a large number of people in the frame, a number of whom likely were eliminated from the final shot. According to the photographer who took the pictures, Feldman and editors at the magazine became aware of the situtation shortly before publication.

While Feldman acknowledged in the Jewish Week interview that the crop may not have been an intentional slight on the part of his alma mater, the Maimonides School in Brookline, Mass., he nonetheless stood by the broader thrust of his essay.

"They had several photos to choose from and they chose one that I wasn’t in. There’s no question that one could offer other explanations for what happened,” Feldman said. “It’s not as if [the photo] was an outlying event. It fit right in with the other things," such as the school's refusal to print notices of his lifecycle events in the school newspaper.

In a letter demanding an apology, the O.U. expressed "outrage" and added: "We believe that Feldman's own 'journalistic' credibility has been sufficiently shown to be absent, that we ask you to remove him from his position as a Contributing Editor to the Times, just as you would
remove any columnist or reporter found to be knowingly writing articles with false information."

NYT MAKES A QUIET CORRECTION

FOR THE RECORD (TNR)
There's a coy correction in Saturday's "For the Record" space of the Times, the first of seven such notes. It begins, "Because of an editing error..." and deals with mistakes in an article about Tony Blair's agenda as Middle East envoy of the Quartet. Specifically, the two errors concerned the statistics of Palestinian refugees and when they became refugees.

Apparently, the original errors exaggerated the refugee totals: the article said "millions," not, as was the case, "about 700,000;" and the timing of their departure, not afterward, but before and during the war. Please read the Tuesday Times for the offending article. But you can't find the errors. They've been shaved from the record, alas.

Now, the initial article was written by Isabel Kershner, a splendid recent addition to the Times Jerusalem bureau. Frankly, I can't conceive of Kershner making these errors. If there's anything she knows cold, it's the Palestinians and their predicament. So probably, the "For the Record" item was entirely honest: "due to an editing error..." This means that an ignoramus was doing the editing. And that the fact checkers, well, they were the distorters.

WHY DOES THE NYT CALL TERRORISTS, "MILITANTS"?

'Militant' media (JPost)
A New York Times July 6 report by Isabel Kershner had me mixed up. The headline read "Israeli Offensive in Central Gaza Kills 11 Militants" and the lead sentence began: "At least 11 Palestinian militants were killed in airstrikes and armed clashes during an Israeli Army incursion." It continued with these details: "Hamas officials said that seven of the dead were members of its military wing, known as the Qassam Brigades…The Islamic Jihad faction said one of its men was among the dead."

And to "balance" the information thus far provided, we next read that "Israeli military officials described the raid as a routine operation to root out 'terrorist infrastructures.'"

Why am I bewildered?

In the first instance, "militant" is used in the headline which is the main attention-grabbing element. It is also used in the lead sentence, the most important one, as any journalism student can tell you. But then the story acknowledges that 7 of the "militants" were members of Hamas's "military wing" and another was an Islamic Jihadist - individuals who generally specialize in anti-civilian warfare such as launching rockets into cities and blowing up buses.

However, when it comes to Israel's version, the term "terrorist" is in quotation marks, which means in the media lingo - don't believe them, that's only what they claim....

No matter how much we complain, the BBC, CNN, NYT and Reuters are stuck on "militants." They've taken a word that's synonymous with "combative" and employ it to describe those who specialize in killing unarmed civilians.

The right word is "terrorist."

In this way, the media is taking sides and corrupting not only language, but our minds. They are being zealously "militant" in perverting political and historical truth while inverting reality.

NYT MISCHARACTERIZES RESOL. 242

After Seven Good Years, A NY Times Relapse on 242 (CAMERA)

In 2000, the New York Times was on a roll -- misreporting, and correcting, UN resolutions on Israel's boundaries three times in three months. A Sept. 8, 2000 correction, for example, stated:

While Security Council Resolution 242, passed after the 1967 Middle East War, calls for Israel's armed forces to withdraw "from territories occupied in the recent conflict," no resolution calls for Israeli withdrawal from all territory, including East Jerusalem, occupied in the war.

That series of corrections ensured that for almost seven years the paper of record did not repeat the error. Until today, that is. [Sunday]'s New York Times Magazine contains a lengthy feature by Roger Cohen on Tzipi Livni, which errs:

Livni brought out a map to make her point that a return to the precise 1967 lines -- as UN resolutions and the Arab peace plan reiterated this year in Riyadh demand -- was impractical.

CAMERA has contacted editors. Stay tuned for a correction. Let's hope that after seven good years, this is not the beginning of seven bad years.

UPDATE: Mediacrity does a fine job of fisking the entire feature.

PEACE NOW LACKS CREDIBILITY

Credibility Still for Peace Now? (CAMERA)
Dror Etkes, one of Peace Now's "settlement experts," doesn't have a good track record when it comes to the facts. In February, he falsely claimed that illegal Palestinian construction "is undertaken by private individuals in all cases;" that illegal Palestinian building merely serves families in need and serves no political purpose; that "Most of the Palestinian illegal construction is undertaken on their own private land," and that the Arab population in eastern Jerusalem has no right to vote in municipal elections. (This last claim is contradicted by Peace Now's own documents.)

And in October 2006, Etkes' Peace Now falsely reported that 86.4 percent of Ma'aleh Adumim land is privately owned by Palestinians -- an error of 15,900 percent!

All of which makes us scratch our head in response to the New York Times latest report yesterday on Peace Now's "findings." Just how many lies to you have to tell in order for the Times to no longer consider you a credible source worthy of coverage? Saeb Erekat, care to take a shot at that one?

HERE'S YESTERDAY'S NYT ARTICLE:

Israeli Settlements Found to Grow Past Boundaries
JERUSALEM, July 6 — Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank use only 12 percent of the land allocated to them, but one-third of the territory they do use lies outside of their official jurisdictions, according to a new report released on Friday by Peace Now, an advocacy group.

According to the report, based on official data released by the Israeli government after a court order, 90 percent of the settlements sprawl beyond their official boundaries despite the large amount of unused land already allocated to them.

More than 10 percent of the land included within the official jurisdiction of the settlements is owned privately by Palestinians, as is 70 percent of the land the settlements control outside of their official boundaries, said the report, whose findings were published in Haaretz newspaper on Friday. Peace Now opposes the settlements and tracks them.

FATHER OF VICTIM DECRIES NYT TERRORIST WHITEWASH

'That Female is Our Child's Murderer' (LGF)
At Solomonia, Arnold Roth, whose daughter Malki was one of 15 murdered by Palestinian terrorists in the horrific Sbarro Pizzeria bombing in August 2001, responds to a particularly despicable New York Times whitewash: ’That female is our child’s murderer’.

SEE: NYT MOVIE REVIEW CUDDLES UP TO TERRORISTS

NYT MOVIE REVIEW CUDDLES UP TO TERRORISTS

Middle East Moral Equivalency: Anti-Israeli Terrorists as "Warriors" (TimeWatch)
Neil Genzlinger on "Hot House": "The film, though, is necessarily ambiguous as to whether all this will lead either side to be more accommodating or will simply result in smarter warriors." The same "warriors" who kill Israeli children in suicide bombings?

"An Odd Understanding Reached in Israeli Prisons" is a review by staff editor and frequent Times contributor Neil Genzlinger of "Hot House," a Cinemax documentary airing tonight,about Palestinian terrorists being held in Israel prisons. Genzlinger's piece was accompanied by a flattering photo of a young, smiling female prisoner, Ahlam Tamimi, identified in the caption as "among about 10,000 Palestinians being held in Israeli jails."

Genzlinger added: "A former Palestinian newscaster, Ahlam Tamimi, recalls the day she dropped a suicide bomber off at his target, then coolly went on television to report on the resulting bombing."

What the Times didn't mention is Tamimi's actual target, a Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem in August 2001, one of the most infamous of all the myriad Palestinian suicide bombings, one which killed eight children, a fact that failed to wipe the smile off Tamimi's face.

Genzlinger didn't use the word "terrorist" in the course of his short review, which is suffused with a tone of moral equivalency.

"Mr. Dotan, who grew up in Israel, is so successful at revealing the world inside the prisons, where about 10,000 Palestinians are held, that by the end of 'Hot House' you may feel more than a little annoyance at the two sides in this endless conflict. These enemies know each other absurdly well. They learn from each other, and talk openly about doing so. Yet they can't seem to break the cycle: a cat and mouse addicted to their own game."

He even lumped the terrorists along with Israeli soldiers as "warriors" in the last line: "The film, though, is necessarily ambiguous as to whether all this will lead either side to be more accommodating or will simply result in smarter warriors."

The same "warriors" who kill children in suicide bombings?

REUTERS: HOW HAMAS DUPED THE NYT AND WASH. POST

Hamas scores publicity coup in U.S. (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Shunned by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization, the Islamist group Hamas scored a publicity coup this week by defending its policies in Gaza with opinion pieces in two of the country's most influential newspapers on the same day.

The New York Times and The Washington Post gave space to Ahmed Yousef, a senior Hamas figure, on Wednesday to argue that the United States should not interfere in Gaza, where Hamas took control after six days of bloody fighting against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah fighters.

Yousef is senior political adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, who became Palestinian prime minister after elections last year. He is now contesting his dismissal by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who formed a new government in the West Bank after Hamas took over Gaza.

Hamas leaders rarely have access to major U.S. media to express their views unfiltered, and getting an opinion piece into the Times and the Post on the same day appeared unprecedented....

Neither op-ed piece mentioned what the United States, Europe and Israel see as the key obstacle to dealing with Hamas: its refusal to recognize Israel and a world view of Jewish conspiracies and domination laid out in the organization's charter.
SEE PREVIOUSLY: WASH. POST SHILLS FOR HAMAS ; NYT SHILLS FOR HAMAS

AP/NYT DISCOVER "TERROR"

AP Discovers Terror (BackSpin)
AP discovers "terror." At least the word applies to Hamas and Fatah's Palestinian victims:

In the latest violence, however, the hospital became part of the conflict. Gunmen took positions on the hospital's rooftops and surrounding towers. Militants fired at each other inside the facility, terrorizing patients and doctors alike.

The Gray Lady Discovers Terror (BackSpin)
The NY Times discovered "terror." And the victims are Israeli:

A green Hamas flag flies over the building, a tourist site for Hamas members and their families. Um Omran came to see where her son had been tortured. She said he was killed in 2003 by Fatah. Her husband’s brother had also been held there. He was Adnan al-Ghul, the man credited with inventing the first Qassam rocket in 2001, a weapon that Hamas has used to terrorize Israeli cities like Sderot. He was killed by the Israelis in 2004.

First AP today, now the Times. With the Palestinians literally terrorized by their own people, is the MSM starting to acknowledge the T-word?

NYT SHILLS FOR HAMAS

TODAY THE NYT PRINTED AN EDITORIAL BY HAMAS LISTING ITS "DEMANDS."

What Hamas Wants (NYT)
Sadly, it became apparent that not all officials from Fatah were negotiating in good faith. There were attempts on Mr. Haniya’s life last week, and eventually we were forced into trying to take control of a very dangerous situation in order to provide political stability and establish law and order.

The streets of Gaza are now calm for the first time in a very long time. We have begun disarming some of the drug dealers and the armed gangs and we hope to restore a sense of security and safety to the citizens of Gaza. We want to get children back to school, get basic services functioning again, and provide long-term economic gains for our people.

OH YEAH. THEY ALSO WANT TO KILL JEWS.

HERE'S A VIDEO (SEE CLIP #2) AND TRANSCRIPT OF THE EDITORIAL AUTHOR'S (AHMED YOUSEF) ON HEZBOLLAH'S AL-MANAR TV, EXPLAINING WHY ISRAEL WAS BEHIND THE 9/11 ATTACKS ... JUST AS THE U.S. WAS BEHIND THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACKS.

NYT VIOLATES OWN POLICY TO RUN ANTI-ISRAEL, ANTI-SEMITIC AD

Anti-Semites in the New York Times Advertising Department (Laurence Jarvik Blog)
On page twelve of the Week in Review section of [yesterday's] Sunday New York Times there appears an anti-semitic full-page advertisement from the so-called "Council for the National Interest"--an anti-Israel lobbying organization engaged in a demonization campaign against the Jewish state, American Jews, as well as gentile supporters of Israel in America. Indeed, it is not only anti-semitic, it is also obviously anti-American in its overt attack on our democratic process. IMHO the ad is clearly misleading, inaccurate, fraudulent, makes unfair claims and fails to comply with community standards of decency and dignity.

Today's CNI advertisement mocks a line of presidential candidates--Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, et al.-- as tools of the Jews, depicted lining up to reach a podium emblazoned with a Jewish star (the Israeli flag). The accompanying text decries the influence of the "Israel lobby"--and by implication attempts to slime America's political leadership for seeking Jewish support.

The ad is both offensive and ugly, beyond bad taste as hate speech--it employs anti-Semitic tropes familiar to those who have studied Nazi propaganda. It obviously violates the terms of advertising acceptability published on the New York Times advertising department website:

Advertising Acceptability Guidelines
The New York Times maintains an Advertising Acceptability Department whose function is to examine advertisements before publication to determine if they meet the standards of acceptability The Times has developed over the years.

The Times may decline to accept advertising that is misleading, inaccurate or fraudulent; that makes unfair competitive claims; or that fails to comply with its standards of decency and dignity.

If an advertisement contains statements or illustrations that are not deemed acceptable, and that The Times thinks should be changed or eliminated, the advertiser will be notified. The Times will attempt to negotiate changes with the advertiser; however, if changes cannot be negotiated, the advertisement will be declined by The Times.

In addition, an advertisement must sometimes be declined because of the applicability of laws dealing with such matters as libel, copyright and trademark, the right to privacy, the sale of securities, the sale of real estate and political advertising.

The New York Times maintains clear separation between news and editorial matter and its advertisements. Accordingly, ads that include elements usually associated with The New York Times editorial matter will not be accepted (for example, but not limited to: Times-style headlines, bylines, news-style column arrangements or typography). Additionally, The Times reserves the right to label an advertisement with the word “advertisement” when, in its opinion, this is necessary to make clear the distinction between editorial material and advertising.

The Advertising Acceptability Department can be contacted directly at 212-556-7171 for questions or for a pamphlet containing detailed information on acceptability guidelines.

The fact that [yesterday's] advertisement was published--despite that it obviously is misleading, inaccurate and fraudulent; that makes unfair competitive claims (all manifest in the cartoon illustration); and that it fails to comply with its standards of 'decency and dignity'"-- indicates that the advertising department and publisher of the New York Times are either completely blind to incitements to Jew-hatred, or insensitive to the problem of anti-semitism and anti-Americanism, or more worryingly--openly endorse anti-semitism and incitement to Jew-hatred.

I don't blame CNI for wanting to spread its hateful message of intolerance. I do hold the New York Times responsible for accepting their ad for publication. The CNI ad was not "fit to print."

Shame on the New York Times.

UPDATED: REACTIONS TO THE WINOGRAD REPORT

The Arab media is greeting the Winograd Report as proof that Israel was defeated in Lebanon last summer and is vulnerable for further defeat.

Arab Media Trumpet Signs of Israel's Defeat - Khaled Abu Toameh
Political commentators throughout the Arab world said the Winograd Report on last summer's war in Lebanon is a sign of Israel's military weakness and hailed Hizbullah for defeating the "invincible" IDF. However, some looked at the positive aspects of Israel's democratic system. "By establishing commissions of inquiry after wars and holding those responsible for failure accountable, Israel is showing how strong it is," said newspaper columnist Hassan Khader. "We failed to establish commissions of inquiry into the way decisions were being made or the way money was being wasted," he said. "That's why we have reached a stage where gangs and militias are popping up as fast as mushrooms and are hijacking our cause." (Jerusalem Post)

The NY Sun praises the report as an example of what a free and open society Israel is.

The Winograd Report - Editorial (New York Sun)

The Israeli political system is already dealing with the findings of the interim report of the Winograd Committee, established to evaluate Israel's difficulties in last summer's war in Lebanon.

From where we sit, here in America, the report itself, and the capacity for self-criticism it indicates, is a sign of Israel's strength. Can one imagine an independent government commission in Jordan or Saudi Arabia writing a report scathingly criticizing the Hashemite or Saudi king, then seeing the report published in the local press and debated and discussed openly by the population? Such an action would be impossible in Egypt or in Syria - anyone who tried to convene such a committee would be thrown in jail.

So in our view, those enemies of Israel who see in the Winograd report a sign of weakness or of self-doubt in Israel are mistaken. It is through such open debate that societies are able to improve themselves, which is why Israel, whatever its faults, has an economy that is much stronger than its neighbors, a military that is mightier than its enemies, and a population that is more free.

The NYT says the lesson, as always, is that Israel must make sacrifices for peace with its peace-loving neighbors:

One major lesson of the Lebanon experience is that Israel cannot defeat its most dangerous enemies by brute force alone. Its security and survival require a more active diplomacy toward the Palestinians and Syria--and a willingness to take risks. More than ever, Israel needs a government and a leader strong enough to steer it wisely through the uncertain hazards of war and bold enough to test the equally uncertain possibilities for peace.

Of course, Israel has never relied on brute force alone. It has always taken "risks for peace," and as the fruits of those risk (the Olso accords, the unilateral Gaza pullout) show, they make bitter wine. Needless to say, it is Israel's "neighbors" who need to show some diplomatic flexibility.

UPDATE: Inquiring Minds Want to Know (BackSpin)
While the MSM spills ink and breaks quills assessing the unfolding fallout from the Winograd report, Jonathan Freedland and Roger Cohen raise important points about the bigger picture of Israeli democracy. Freedland, of The Guardian, writes:

Israel's boast that it is the only democracy in the Middle East is often met with a snort. But this exercise has shown that - at least within its own borders - Israel is capable of a democratic accountability entirely absent in its region. Imagine for a moment a panel of Syrian wise men or Egyptian elders delivering a similar message to Bashar Assad or Hosni Mubarak. They could expect to receive not plaudits, as Winograd has, but at best a lengthy spell in prison.

In the International Herald-Tribune, Cohen suggests more issues for inquiring minds:

How about a Saudi commission on how 15 of its citizens came to be among the 9/11 hijackers? Or a Lebanese commission on how Hezbollah has been able to operate as a quasi-independent armed entity within the state? Or an Iranian commission on how the hopes of its 1979 revolution led only to another form of dictatorship?

When those commissions convene, the Middle East will move forward.