Earlier this month, independent blogger/journalist Max Blumenthal created an international furor by producing a startling four-minute video titled, "Feeling the Hate in Jerusalem."

As many know by now, Max and cameraman Joseph Dana simply took to the streets of Jerusalem on the eve of Obama's Cairo speech and asked drunk young Israelis and Americans what they thought of the new US president.

The video revealed stunning hatred, ignorance and venom.

And it sparked a fevered debate. Did the video reflect reality? Or was it simply a well-edited propaganda piece meant to defame Israel and Jews?

The video was first banned by The Huffington Post, which said that it had no news value.

Now, after being viewed nearly a half million times, the video is apparently being banned by YouTube.

"I won’t ascribe motives to YouTube I am unable to confirm, but it is clear there is an active campaign by right-wing Jewish elements to suppress the video by filing a flood of complaints with YouTube," Blumenthal wrote.

When the video first appeared, Atlantic Monthly writer Ta-Nehisi Coats dismissed it on his blog as "a bunch of drunk racist white kids, doing what I'd expect a bunch of drunk racist white kids to do."

"The greater point about this style of 'journalism,' is made by this headline which I came across--'Drunk Americans=Israeli Public Opinion.'" Coates wrote. "Man listen, hand me a fifth of Henny, a video camera, and an hour, and I'll show you Negroes claiming that God's messenger lives in a space-ship orbiting the earth. The Henny is for me. The Negroes can be found, sober, saying anything. As can all people. That's the point. Bigotry is human. Why would the blacks and Jews be any different?"

Writer Jeffrey Goldberg was somewhat more sympathetic on his Atlantic Monthly blog. Goldberg refused to issue a blanket denunciation of the video and challenged people who accused Blumenthal of taking advantage of people when they were drunk.

"No one I know believes that Mel Gibson is anti-Semitic only when drunk," Goldberg wrote. "The fools in Jerusalem had these thoughts in their heads; alcohol cannot plant ideas that aren't there. And yes, they are not representative of anything much, and yes, Blumenthal would be a journalist, rather than a propagandist, if he had noted that American Jews voted for Barack Obama in overwhelming numbers. I understand all the arguments, and I of course understand the argument, as I'm sure Blumenthal does too, that anti-Semitism in the Arab world is expressed by religious leaders while sober. It is true: Max Blumenthal gets famous by highlighting the behavior of idiotic Jews. It's not a profession I would choose, but it's hard to blame him for the racism of other people."

Earlier this week, Blumenthal and Dana defended the video in an article in Haaretz.

Whether the video reflects any larger reality or not, it certainly captured a slice of life in Jerusalem that rarely gets much attention. And it sparked a healthy debate about public opinion and public policy.

So why has YouTube taken it down? Blumenthal says he hasn't gotten a clear answer.

One group, Jewish Voice for Peace, has launched a campaign to convince YouTube to reinstate the video.

Bloggers have also accused YouTube of banning another controversial video.

The Manges Zionist blogger said YouTube had banned a video that shows Israeli border police forcing a Palestinian to slap himself in the face while repeating that he loves the border police.

The video was revealed yesterday in a long Haaretz magazine piece that uncovered several videos like this.

At this writing, however, the video-in-question (below) appears to be working fine on YouTube and Haaretz...  

Veteran New York Times reporter Neil MacFarquhar has just published a new book on life in the Middle East: "The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You A Happy Birthday: Unexpected Encounters in the Changing Middle East."

The book is already winning praise.

The Washington Post review calls it "an intelligent and fascinating romp full of anecdotes, acid asides and conversations with everyone from dissidents to diplomats and liberal religious sheiks, and even a Kuwaiti woman with a sex-advice column."

The New York Times calls it a "sly, vivid memoir.'

In a recent Q&A with Asharq alawsat, MacFarquhar, who speaks Arabic, grew up in Libya and worked in the Middle East for 13 years, talks about the book.

"There are all kinds of people in the Arab world who feel that their region is out of step with the rest of the world when it comes to basic civic, human and political rights," he says. " When they look at the history of the region, with its rich history of scientific and artistic achievement, they wonder what went wrong. Where are the Arab Microsofts? Where are the Arab Apple computers? I think the young people understand that they need some basic freedoms and opportunities to advance, and it is sad that the young generation of new leaders appear more interested in just grabbing onto power and clinging to it like their fathers rather than improving the lives and educations of the young. One entire chapter, Arrested Development, talks about this phenomenon."

As for US policy in the Middle East, he says:

"I think President Bush made a lot of promises about helping bring change to the Middle East that he did not keep. The policy of pushing democracy was something closer to 'We like democracy when our friends win.' I think it would have been better to push for some of the basic rights in civil society – a free press, the right to assembly, freedom of speech. Plus he should have tried to identify common values and common vocabulary, like the need for justice which is emphasized in the Quran. Arabs certainly need greater political development, but they need to find their own path in doing it. Hopefully President Obama can encourage them along the path without telling them how they should walk."

It's been two years since Hamas seized military control of the Gaza Strip, sparking a new -- and still unresolved -- internal Palestinian rift and leading to tighter Israeli restrictions that have made life in the isolated Mediterranean strip ever more bleak.

The Israeli human rights group Gisha has issued two years of numbers on the closure. Gisha notes that Israel lets in only 18 kinds of food items and no substantive building materials to rebuild Gaza after the three week Israeli military offensive last winter.

Earlier this year, Gisha also released a short animated film about Gaza, "Closed Zone," produced by the animator of the award-winning Israeli film "Waltz With Bashir."

Now a Palestinian animator is releasing what is billed as the first 3D computer animated film produced in the West Bank.

The 30-minute film, Fatenah, is inspired by the true story of a woman from Gaza who finds a lump in her breast and then has to battle Israeli restrictions so she can get out for life-saving medical treatment.

The movie was directed and animated by Ahmad Habash, a young Palestinian filmmaker who worked on the project for 15 months. It was funded by the World Health Organization, which, along with Israel's Physicians for Human Rights, provided Ahmad with the story that is the basis for the film.

Fatenah will have its world debut at Ramallah's Al Kasaba theater on July 1.

Below is a trailer for the movie...

Al Qaeda is reading Bibi.

Yes, it's apparently true.

In a new video, Adam Gadahn, Al Qaeda's high-profile US-born spokesman, one of the FBI's most wanted terrorists, a southern California kid (previously known as Adam Pearlman) who grew up on a goat farm and who is now known as "Azzam the American," says that he read Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's 1993 book, "A Place Among the Nations."

Not only that, Gadahn admits that he not only has Jewish ancestry, but that he also has relatives living in Israel.

"My grandfather was a Zionist and a zealous supporter of the usurper entity and a prominent member of a number of Zionist hate organizations," he says in the video. " He used to repeat to me what he claimed are the virtues of this entity and encourage me to visit ... where relatives of ours live."

Gadahn, as might be expected, gives Bibi a negative book review, calling the PM's arguments "feeble."

His review has done nothing for Bibi's book sales on Amazon, where "A Place Among the Nations," still ranks 236,895 (at last look)...

"The lack of eyes is leaving us partially blind."

That's the conclusion of Mark Seibel, McClatchy's managing editor, who has written a candid piece on the state of international reporting by US news outlets like ours.

In the Nieman Reports piece, Mark offers a blunt assessment of how McClatchy is trying to continue doing international reporting at a time when all our papers, facing dismal financial conditions, are laying off staff covering local news.

"We are not running at full steam in a world that deserves it," Mark wrote. "We’ve had a South Asia bureau in our budget for the past three years; I’m certain it will never open. The persistent hiring freeze has kept us from filling the Mexico City bureau with a full-time correspondent, even as drug crime explodes. When Hannah Allam took her leave to join the 2009 class of Nieman Fellows, we couldn’t replace her, and Egypt remained vacant. Her Cambridge time ends just as our Baghdad bureau chief, Leila Fadel, rotates home, and she won’t be replaced; we’ll cover Iraq with reporters rotated in from the United States, and Hannah knows that she’ll be spending much of her time there, too. China, too, lies fallow; Tim Johnson has gone off to write a book. We’ll rotate people in for six weeks at a stretch, but a lot of expertise will go missing."

McClatchy's leadership has fought long-and-hard to retain our overseas bureaus and continue with our international reporting.

We sent State Department reporter Warren Strobel to Iran to cover the elections. We sent White House reporter Margaret Talev to Cairo and France to cover Obama's recent trip. I just returned from helping cover Obama in Cairo and reporting on the election in Lebanon - and I am soon heading to Saudi Arabia. Shashank Bengali continues to travel Africa chasing pirates, covering Darfur and reporting from war zones across the continent. Tom Lasseter was recently threatened by Hamid Karzai's brother while reporting on the drug trade in Afghanistan. Pentagon reporter (and former Baghdad bureau chief) Nancy Youssef is heading to Afghanistan next week.

The list of McClatchy reporters still working overseas goes on.

As noted here in April, the number of reporters in Jerusalem is also rapidly dwindling.

Some argue that we are all well-served by the wire services, local papers and reporters from the UK and elsewhere who continue to report on world events.

But wire service reporters are often overwhelmed trying to cover the daily news that they don't have time to look into more substantive issues. And the fewer eyes we have that are able to look in the shadows, question the conventional wisdom and examine the issues, the less we will know.

Mark recently discussed the state of affairs on NPR's "On The Media." You can hear the report here:

Brazil, home of "the beautiful game" and site of the 2014 World Cup, is getting a not-so-pretty reception in Israel.

Earlier this month, Brazil announced that two of its most celebrated soccer teams -- Rio's Flamengo and Corinthians from Sao Paulo -- would come to the West Bank to play a 'peace match' at the new stadium near Ramallah.

"Brazil has no better greeting card than soccer," said Vera Centia, Brazil's foreign ministry sports coordinator. "We will try to deliver a good message to that suffering region."

There are reports that Brazilian soccer legend Pele plans to lead a delegation to watch the match.

Barring injury, the star of the game would most likely be "O Fenomeno" ("The Phenomenon"), aka Ronaldo, the high-profile Corinthians striker.

But, according to Yedioth Ahronoth, Israeli leaders are apparently none-too-happy with the plan to play in Ramallah, but not Israel. 

"Diplomatic relations between Israel and Brazil have worsened over a soccer game," writes Itamar Eichner in today's Yedioth.

According to Eichner, the Israeli ambassador to Brazil is protesting.

“I intend to make it clear to the Brazilians that if there isn’t a game in Israel, we will regard that as if we are being boycotted,” said the ambassador, according to Yedioth. “It would be best if there were two games—one in Ramallah and one in Israel—or a joint game that is played by Brazil, Israel and the Palestinians.”

Loyal readers of my colleague Shashank Bengali's blog, Somewhere in Africa, know that he has a regular feature called Obamarama, which documents the many places that President Barack Obama's name and image have been appropriated for commercial use in Africa.

There is the Obama bubble gum ("Yes We Want!) in Kenya, the Obama cafe in Benin, and the Obama video center in Ethiopia.

Obamarama isn't contained to Africa, of course.

Here in Jerusalem there is Obama pizza, started by Issak Ayzencot, who said he named his pizza joint after Obama because he's been told he looks like the new US president. (He doesn't really, but no matter...)

(AP photo/Tara Todras-Whitehill)

It began with an inflammatory quote from President Barack Obama's diplomatic point man charged with resurrecting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

“Our policy is simple,” US Middle East envoy George Mitchell was quoted as saying. “The Israelis lied to us all these years. And now it’s over.”

The statement was startling and provocative. It seemed to affirm concerns that Israel-US relations were reaching a potential breaking point.

There was only one problem. The quote, published in Israel's Maariv newspaper, wasn't true.

And the fallout offers some interesting insight into Israeli Journalism 101.

The diplomatic flare-up began on June 4, the day Obama was delivering his highly anticipated speech in Cairo.

That morning, the Israeli papers were filled with anxious stories and speculation about what Obama would say.

Among them was a piece by Ben Caspit, a leading political analyst for Maariv, one of the most popular tabloids in Israel.

"Shortly before he met Defense Minister Ehud Barak, special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell met in New York with a prominent Jewish leader," Caspit wrote. "In the nature of things, the conversation focused on the developing confrontation between the two new administrations in Washington and in Jerusalem. 'Our policy is simple,' Mitchell said, summing up the statements in a single sentence. 'The Israelis lied to us all these years. And now it’s over.' Mitchell is supposed to arrive here soon, to open an office in Jerusalem and establish a large working team. Mitchell’s team will be a headache for [Israeli PM Benjamin] Netanyahu..."

The article was largely overlooked that day because everyone's attention was focused on Obama in Cairo.

But when Mitchell got wind of the story, he was apparently so perturbed that he called the US Embassy in Israel and dictated a categorical denial to embassy spokesman Stuart Tuttle.

"Senator Mitchell was shocked and deeply dismayed to read in Maariv that he was alleged to have said 'The Israelis lied to us all these years. It’s over,'" Tuttle said. "He has asked me to state that the quotation is totally false. It is a complete fabrication. The supposed source was a 'prominent Jewish leader' with whom Senator Mitchell met in New York last Monday. The only private meeting he had that day was with Mort Zuckerman, who is a prominent Jewish leader [and editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report, and publisher of the New York Daily News.]"

To bolster Mitchell's case, the US Embassy also released a statement from Zuckerman:

“The Maariv article is absolutely false. I find it outrageous. I have met and talked many times with Senator Mitchell, and he has never made such a statement or anything that could be interpreted in this way. I share his dismay and welcome the opportunity to set the record straight.”

But Caspit, co-author of a biography on Netanyahu, didn't back down.

Instead, Maariv fired back with a second story from Caspit titled: "Mitchell Denies, But Reality Proves Otherwise."

The article began by quoting a "telegram" [Telegram? Are people still using telegrams?] from the US:

“Re: Meeting of Senator Mitchell with senior Jewish figure," the article began. "On June 1, a senior Jewish figure met with Senator Mitchell, prior to his meeting with Defense Minister Ehud Barak. According to him, Mitchell said that the US was determined to reach an arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians. He says that the issue of settlements has become a problem because Israel had deceived the US with regard to their development, and ‘the days of winking are over.’ In his assessment, Israel has nothing to fear from Obama’s speech on Thursday, but as far as the settlement issue is concerned—the current administration is determined to ‘go all the way.’

"This is the precise wording of a telegram that reached the tables of decision-makers in Jerusalem last week," Caspit continued. "The telegram was sent from a large Israeli delegation in the US to numerous people in Israel. The rumor about Mitchell’s sharp statement spread quickly. The main points of the telegram were published in Maariv on Thursday.

"Yesterday, at Mitchell’s request, the US embassy in Tel Aviv issued a blanket denial of the facts reported to Jerusalem. Mitchell also recruited the 'Jewish leader' with whom he spoke that day, to join the denial. The leader joined. As if he had a choice.

"Now for the facts: Mitchell has come to Israel in an effort to ease the tension and lower the flames. This is the American interest now...

"In his eagerness to close ranks and clean the slate, Mitchell hurried to deny facts that are known to all. After all, President Obama himself, in his own voice, referred to the relations between Israel and the United States until now as lacking in honesty. Lacking in honesty is a polite way of saying 'culture of lies.'

"Now it also becomes apparent that in the talks in London, which were held about two weeks ago, Mitchell and his aides recited the exact same texts to the Israeli envoys: 'There were understandings on the settlement issue, but you deceived [us] and did not uphold them.'

"Onward: Similar statements, some even more sharply worded, were spoken in recent weeks by many other senior American officials in closed forums. Some were published, others were not. In the past week, Israeli diplomats have reported a large wave of such statements, which were recently uttered to a good many people in Washington and New York.

"The 'Jewish leader' whose testimony is the basis for the telegram in question, spoke with at least three people. All three confirm that they indeed heard the statements from him, and that he was 'shocked.' They too were shocked.

"Now, apparently, Mitchell is also shocked, after the matter found its way to the media. It is Mitchell’s right to deny the statements. It is our obligation to bring them to the knowledge of the public. Someone in the chain of information, on the way to the telegram’s dispatch to Jerusalem, cut corners. We have a feeling that it was Mitchell. If this is how he is starting the impossible mission of making peace in the Middle East, then we have a problem."

The indignant article spends a long time obfuscating one simple fact: Caspit put words in Mitchell's mouth.

It may be, as the "telegram" suggests, that Mitchell told Zuckerman that Israel had deceived the US in the past and that those days were over. But that is not the same thing as hearing Mitchell say "the Israelis lied to us all these years."

The incident highlights a routine practice in Israeli journalism: It is common for Israeli reporters to put words in people's mouths.

"It's more than acceptable for Israeli media to do that - it's downright standard," said one journalist who worked in the Israeli media for years and asked not to be quoted by name. "I've seen reporters from Maariv, Yedioth Ahronoth, Haaretz, etc. stand outside meetings, ask exiting officials/secretaries/spokesmen/anyone they can get their hands on what went on inside and then attribute it as direct quotes."

In traditional US journalism, it's simply forbidden to do this. (See: "Are Quotes Sacred" in American Journalism Review for an in-depth examination of how much reporters can clean up quotes...)

There is often a presumption that Israeli journalists follow the same standards.

They don't.

Another Israeli journalist said that it's not acceptable to put words in a person's mouth "unless it is an adviser for a politician who gives you the permission to write the quote as a direct quote or something of that kind. Some, but not many, cautious journalists try to avoid this trap and, even when they receive a clear permission to quote the source as if they heard the words from first hand, they stay away from it."

"I don't know what happened with Ben Caspit," this reporter said, "but a serious journalist would never take the risk to quote mistakenly someone as senior as Mitchell. You need to be either a rookie or a stupid, unreliable reporter and usually one doesn't get so far without being caught."

If you see direct quotes around a person's words in an Israeli paper that doesn't mean the reporter heard the person say those words. And it doesn't mean the quote is reliable.

The Caspit-Mitchell dust-up offers a clear example of why and how this standard can lead to problems.

(AP photo/Bebeto Matthews)

When African pirates targeted an Italian cruise ship off the coast of Somalia earlier this year, they were repelled by former Israeli military officers who were said to be the first security team to successfully fight off a pirate attack in the dangerous waters.

Now another private Israeli company has launched a new training academy to teach security teams to fight off pirates.

 "We do not give up," Mirza David with the International Security Academy told CNN. "I will say it the American way: We give them an offer they can't refuse."

After weeks of hand wringing, political step dancing and increasingly pointed pressure from the Obama administration, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu last night unveiled his foreign policy agenda that was as significant for what he didn't say as for what he did.

In his first major foreign policy speech since taking office 10 weeks ago, Netanyahu offered conditional support for establishment of a Palestinian state.

That, Israeli commentators said, was a major step for the hawkish Israeli leader who has long opposed the idea. But it was a small step for a peace process in which Israel has already embraced the two-state solution.

"It was one small step for the peace process, one giant leap for Binyamin Netanyahu," Maariv commentator Ben Caspit wrote today. "Even the most difficult of treks has to start somewhere. Yesterday, at Bar-Ilan University, Netanyahu took his first small and hesitant step. Welcome, Mr. Prime Minister, to the twentieth century. The problem is that we’re already in the twenty first."

In the speech, Netanyahu laid out the conditions under which he would accept a Palestinian state alongside Israel: The nation must have no military. Palestinians cannot control their air space. Palestinians must agree that no refugees can return to ancestral homes they left in 1948 that are now inside Israel. Palestinians must explicitly recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. Palestinians must give up on the idea of having any part of Jerusalem as their capital. Palestinians must not forge military pacts with any other nations.

"The truth has to be said: this is not the way one makes peace," Caspit wrote. "When one comes with innumerable conditions, and if and if, and only if, and then perhaps, and only in the distant future, and only when they recognize, and accept and prove — one will only get an angry and humiliated Palestinian partner. True, we are in the right. We always were. But everyone who was sitting in Bar-Ilan has already known this for quite a while. An historic peace to be forged between such bitter rivals will not be reached when both sides are also so right. Peace is forged with generosity, not righteously. It will be achieved when each side recognizes that also the other has a case, and that painful concessions are necessary. Not just talk."

As Nahum Barnea wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth, the speech was, in many ways, primarily directed at the US: "Netanyahu’s speech was meant for one pair of ears – the most prominent and famous pair in the world: the ears of Barack Obama."

Repeating a talking point from Netanyahu's aides, Caspit said that the PM had "finally crossed the Rubicon of the Palestinian state, fashionably late and with a sour expression on his face, but one does eventually get used to the cold waters. Especially when its so hot outside the water. Let us put it in a footnote: Benjamin Netanyahu leaped into the stormy waters yesterday, and wisely so. A long stormy ocean still awaits him."

Commentators also took note of what Netanyahu did not say:

He did not explicitly mention the Road Map for Middle East Peace, the document that lays out the formula for a two-state solution, including explicit calls for Israel to immediately halt all settlement construction in the West Bank.

Netanyahu did not mention dismantling of the smaller, renegade outposts usually set up by zealous Jewish activists opposed to the establishment of any Palestinian state in the West Bank.

The PM did not talk about a settlement freeze and implicitly reasserted his position that Israel will continue to build new homes for Jewish settlers in existing settlements. This is something Obama has made clear is unacceptable to his administration.

Netanyahu, commentators also noted, did not talk about the Golan Heights. This was seen as an oblique opening to Syria and a signal that, despite his repeated vows not to compromise on this issue, Netanyahu is willing to talk about land-for-peace with Syria.

Palestinian leaders, as might be expected, immediately rejected Netanyahu's speech as a non-starter.

The bigger question is: What will Obama do next?

"You have President 'Yes We Can' squaring off against Prime Minister 'No You Won't' and the only way this is going to be resolved is if the two are willing to give," said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. Middle East peace negotiator and author of "The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Middle East Peace."

"Obama's prestige is on the line," Israeli political commentator Yossi Alpher, "particularly with regard to the settlements."

The White House issued a quick statement calling the speech "an important step forward."

Now it will be up to Obama to decide how to deal with an Israeli PM who has gone part-way towards meeting his calls for change.
 
Israeli FM Avigdor Lieberman will be in DC this week to meet with Obama administration officials.

It will be interesting to gauge the tenor and tone of those talks.

(AP photo/Bernat Armangue)