[Peace-discuss] Article in CUJF Newsletter

[David Green]

Friends, 

The Spring newsletter of the Champaign-Urbana Jewish
Federation, housed at Hillel, carried the following
article from C.A.M.E.R.A., (www.camera.org). I find
this disturbing, both because of the content and
because these charges are not made directly by CUJF to
the Daily Illini, but behind their backs to the Jewish
Community, so to speak, enforcing a kind of siege
mentality among Jewish people in C-U. Many officials
of CUJF are prominent campus teachers and
administrators, like Michael Shapiro and Peter Siege
l, who cultivate an image as moderates. Are they
willing to publicly support these charges against U of
I students? Are they willing to be held accountable
for CUJF's views? Naturally, it is also implied that
letters from people like me are simply propaganda.
Most interesting is the reference to Jim Ennes, who is
referred to as a conspiracy theorist rather than the
captain of the U.S.S. Liberty, which lost 34 men in
Israel's attack upon it in 1967.

In sum, I am enraged by the publication of this
article in the CUJF newsletter--although I supposed I
should be beyond that by now. While vile propaganda is
a consistent feature of their expressions about
Israel, this is a particularly cowardly manner in
which to express it.

I'd be interested in any feedback.

David Green

Anti-Israel Venom at University of Illinois Paper

The University of Illinois newspaper, the Daily
Illini, is making a dubious name for itself as one of
America’s more recklessly anti-Israel student
publications. Flouting journalistic norms that mandate
accuracy, ethics and responsible sourcing it has
repeatedly run false, anti-Israel and even
anti-Semitic commentaries.
“Stop turning a blind eye” (Dec 11, 2003) is on this
unfortunate list. Written by Mariam Sobh, a journalism
student and regular Illini columnist, the op-ed
contained a grotesque, invented quote attributed to
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as well as a
spurious reference to another non-existent quote, by
another Israeli official, supposedly from the New York
Times. This is a pattern with the Illini columnist. In
her zeal to vilify Israel, Sobh consistently turns to
unreliable sources to prove her point. Both the
extreme invective against Israel and the permissive
editorial policy allowing student and community
writers to use the pages of the newspaper for
propaganda are apparently habitual. A year ago, on Jan
22, 2003, for example, the paper ran a virulent letter
to the editor entitled “Jews manipulate America”
offering crude anti-Semitic allegations authored by
one Ariel Sinovsky from Seattle, Wash. Although an
editor claimed to have confirmation of the writer’s
identity, university alumnus Jeff Kamen told CAMERA
that students and community members searched all
available databases and directories, but did not find
an Ariel Sinovsky in Seattle or anywhere.
While a new editorial staff took over in early 2004,
little has changed.
Mariam Sobh introduced her Dec 11 piece with the
following statement, purportedly uttered by Ariel
Sharon, in order “to show a clearer picture of the
Israeli leadership:”
"I don't know something called International
Principles. I vow that I'll burn every Palestinian
child (that) will be born in this area. The
Palestinian woman and child is more dangerous than the
man, because the Palestinian child's existence infers
that generations will go on, but the man causes
limited danger. I vow that if I was just an Israeli
civilian and I met a Palestinian I would burn him and
I would make him suffer before killing him. With one
hit I've killed 750 Palestinians (in Rafah in1956). I
wanted to encourage my soldiers by raping Arabic girls
as the Palestinian woman is a slave for Jews, and we
do whatever we want to her and nobody tells us what we
shall do but we tell others what they shall do," Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon said in an interview with
General Ouze Merham in 1956.
This shocking quote, a staple on Arab propaganda Web
sites, is an internet hoax for which the journalism
student, not surprisingly, provided no source. There
is no record of any “General Ouze Merham” or any truth
to the claim that Sharon made the quoted comments. The
paper’s decision to run such an inflammatory statement
with no attribution is indefensible. 
The Sharon quote was not the only fabrication. Sobh
alleged that former Israeli Chief of Staff, Raphael
Eytan was quoted in the April 14, 1983 New York Times
as saying: “We declare openly that the Arabs have no
right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel
... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We
shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians
come crawling to us on all fours.” However, a Nexis
search of all Times coverage reveals that no one, not
Eytan or anyone else, was ever quoted by the paper
making the purported statement. 
As it did last year in the Sinovsky case, the paper
once again shirked its own direct responsibility. The
Daily Illini has not formally repudiated the
fabrications even though it seen fit recently to
correct several far less egregious errors. Instead,
the DI ran a letter to the editor by University
alumnus, Adam H. Fleischer (Jan 20,2004) saying that
the Sharon quote is a hoax. But, it is not a reader’s
opinion that the information was phony; it is a fact
which requires public acknowledgement by the editors.
The day after the Fleischer letter, the DI compounded
its failure to exercise editorial quality control by
publishing one from a local resident who claimed he
“did some research to validate the author’s quotes.
They all checked out.” Of course, the writer offered
no details on how he verified bogus information.
Sobh’s first column to appear after her Sharon
fabrications, airily alluded to the controversy, but
the aspiring journalist accepted no responsibility for
her falsehoods (“Drama, drama everywhere,” Jan 22).
She briefly referred to the issue saying:
My column even brings drama to the paper. I'm sure
it's because my picture shows that I'm obviously
Muslim. Some people are not yet beyond the judgmental
stage. They can only make up assumptions about a
person they don't even know. "Let's alert all our
lists and postings, Mariam Sobh is a terrorist and she
writes for The Daily Illini." I can't believe how
people have built me up into someone I'm not. It's
great, though, because now I'm famous.
Perhaps experiencing increased pressure, Sobh finally
acknowledged some dereliction in her next DI
contribution (“And the controversy continues,” Jan 29,
2004). She wrote that she knew the supposed Sharon
statement was “too good to be true.” She explained
that her source was an email from a “friend.” Sobh
assumed the quote was legitimate, because she looked
it up “online” and “found hundreds of Web sites that
had this statement.” It seems, the Illini columnist’s
idea of fact-checking is consulting a “friend” and a
Google search. 
Sobh’s recklessness in misusing sources is
longstanding.  In one of her first columns for the DI,
 Sobh wrote that the security barrier Israel is
building will separate Palestinians from the water
supply and that “they [Palestinians] will eventually
be driven to starvation if this wall is completed”
(“Modern wall of apartheid” Aug. 28, 2003) . She added
“I think that it is sad that we can pay for genocide
and act like it’s no big deal.” Her source for the
“genocide” charge was an article from the site
Antiwar.com. The Web site, which devotes an entire
section to Israel’s alleged role in the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks, can hardly be considered credible. 
In another column, the journalism student charged that
Israel’s attack on the USS Liberty ship in 1967 “was
one of the most horrific and deliberate attacks
against the United States” (emphasis added). Her claim
is primarily based on a conversation she had with Jim
Ennes, a leading conspiracy proponent who has called
Israel’s leaders “amoralistic murderers” who are
“worse” than the Nazis. She portrayed Ennes as
reliable while Sobh did not even mention the more than
six government inquiries into the event. Each and
every one of the probes concluded the attack was
accidental and not, as she claims, “deliberate.” 
Illini regular Mariam Sobh has had a free hand to
regurgitate baseless propaganda with little or no
supervision by the DI editors, faculty or board
members of the Illini Media, the entity that owns the
newspaper. No doubt the lax attitude toward Sobh’s
screeds encouraged other DI staff to vilify Israel and
Jews.
Middle East expert Daniel Pipes, who recently lectured
at the University of Illinois, criticized the Daily
Illini for, among other things, adding an incendiary
graphic to an article about him. He notes on his Web
site that an “editorial on Dec. 1 about me titled
‘Promoting Hate,’…included a graphic that is a true
disgrace to this school. The drawing shows a match
lighting a of Star of David – a clear antisemitic
provocation. Who, exactly, is promoting hate?” (Below
is the graphic which appeared in the Dec. 1 Daily
Illini .)
Indeed, isn’t a university paper that indulges the
recklessness of a Mariam Sobh–a journalism student no
less–literally “educating” students in hatred? 
 
 





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