With year-end Top Ten lists filling newspapers, magazines, TV shows and the internet, one of the most important concerns the way in which the media portrays Israel. Entitled "Top Ten MidEast Media Mangles for 2015," it was compiled by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), as part of its proactive efforts on behalf of fairness and truthfulness in reporting on Israel.
A condensed version of the list:
1. Trivialization of the wave of Palestinian terrorism against Israelis. A prime example is a report by The New York Times of a "Boy Scout" type knife "allegedly" used by the murderers, when actually the facts were already known and verified – including that the knife was a dangerous and widely illegal "butterfly" knife. To this may be added the famous BBC headline of early October, "Palestinian Shot Dead after Jerusalem Attack Kills Two."
2. A New York Times report included a prominent graphic about Democratic opposition to the Iran deal, highlighting the Jewishness of lawmakers or their constituency – thus signaling that Jewishness is the central factor to be scrutinized when looking at opponents of the deal.
3. The general media silence on the frequent, pervasive and acute incitement by PA leaders towards violence against Israelis.
4. MSNBC's made-up map showing the "State of Palestine" in 1946 – when in fact none ever existed – implying that Israel had usurped a pre-existing state. Days earlier, a live MSNBC report from the scene of an attempted terrorist attack at Damascus Gate in Jerusalem repeatedly cast doubt that the terrorist who was shot by Israeli security forces actually had a knife – even though the knife could be clearly seen in his hand, as the anchorman attempted to make clear.
5. BBC reporter Tim Wilcox's correlation between the murderous Muslim attacks against the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices and Jews at the Hyper Cacher market, on the one hand, and Palestinian "suffering" at Jewish hands, on the other hand.
6-9. Specific instances of anti-Israel bias. These include Elle Magazine's providing a platform to an unsubstantiated accusation that Israel had sentenced a "protestor" to nine years in jail; AP's feature article accusing Israel of "questionable" democracy, based on the fact that non-citizens cannot vote; a mis-translation by the UK's Guardian; and a false claim by Haaretz that there are no swimming pools in Gaza.
10. The Washington Post and other media pretend that ‘Breaking the Silence’ is a credible news source – even though the "reports" and testimonies by the anti-IDF organization “are anonymous and impossible to independently verify,” as Washington Post Jerusalem Bureau Chief William Booth acknowledged.