Weekend long read

1) NGO Monitor reports on ‘EU Funding to NGOs Active in Anti-Israel BDS Campaigns‘.

“The European Union (EU) is the single largest donor to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in the Arab-Israeli conflict, accounting for NIS 28.1 million in 2012-2014 to politicized Israeli NGOs alone.

Indeed, NGO funding is a central component of EU foreign policy, claiming to promote peace, cooperation, and human rights. In contrast to the stated objectives, the EU funds a number of highly biased and politicized NGOs that exploit the rhetoric of human rights to promote anti-Israel BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions) and lawfare campaigns, inflammatory rhetoric, and activities that oppose a two-state framework.”

2) During the summer 2014 conflict between Israel and Hamas the BBC World Service broadcast a particularly egregious interview with an ISM activist called Joe Catron who also writes for an outfit called Mint Press News. As our colleagues at CAMERA recently noted, a document that purports to be a guide to help readers discern reliable and unreliable news sites and is promoted on the Harvard University Library website includes incorrect classification of Mint Press News.

“The lengthy document lists various websites, either news sites or sites designed to look like news sites, and rates each site using a combination of labels including (among others):

Fake News (tag fake): Sources that entirely fabricate information, disseminate deceptive content, or grossly distort actual news reports. … 

Extreme Bias (tag bias): Sources that come from a particular point of view and may rely on propaganda, decontextualized information, and opinions distorted as facts. …

Proceed With Caution (tag unreliable): Sources that may be reliable but whose contents require further verification or to be read in conjunction with other sources.

Political (tag political): Sources that provide generally verifiable information in support of certain points of view or political orientations.  

Credible (tag reliable): Sources that circulate news and information in a manner consistent with traditional and ethical practices in journalism (Remember: even credible sources sometimes rely on clickbait-style headlines or occasionally make mistakes. No news organization is perfect, which is why a healthy news diet consists of multiple sources of information). … 

Two listings on the site stand out as mislabeled. Dr. Zimdars lists the Alternet site as “political” but “credible,” and MintPress as simply “political.” Both of these sites are extremely biased, and have published false assertions concerning Israel and the Middle East. MintPress, moreover, appears to have affiliations with hate sites.”

Read the whole report here

3) Vimeo has an interesting video of a discussion between Dave Rich and Nick Cohen at Jewish Book Week.

“In his thought-provoking new work, The Left’s Jewish Problem: Jeremy Corbyn, Israel and Anti-Semitism, Dave Rich offers a judicious analysis of the Left’s increasingly controversial ‘Jewish problem’. He examines the widening gulf between British Jews and the anti-Israel left and, based on fresh academic research, demonstrates that while the election of Jeremy Corbyn may have thrown a harsher spotlight on the crisis, it is by no means a recent phenomenon. In conversation with journalist Nick Cohen.”

4) Ahead of Yom HaShoah Rabbi Sacks has produced a new video titled ‘The Mutation of Antisemitism’.

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