Is Information Clearing House cunningly manipulating the news in Israel’s favor??
I read yesterday “Articles of Impeachment against Cheney Hopefully Will Prevent War on Iran“ on Stephen M. Saint John’s blog. The article uses various sources out of which an important one is a report from Information Clearing House (ICH) which claims deriving its information from the Jerusalem Post (Israeli) and Al Jazeera (Arabic). As an Arab, I was naturally suspicious that the Jerusalem Post was quoting an important piece of information which we in the Arab had heard nothing about in Arab media. Something didn’t make sense here, so I decided to refer to the Jazeera article that ICH was quoting… and surprise: The article was not at all claiming that Arab sources agreed with Israeli sources on the Israeli raid over Syria last month.
The aim of this post is to show how Israelis create their own stories in media, connivingly attribute them to other sources around the world and later distribute the as “news” items when they really are nothing but 100% Israeli inventions designed to manipulate the political arena and public opinion. In short, Israel creates the news and the political circumstances that are needed in order to carry out its objectives. Israel invented without a shred of evidence the story of Syria’s nuclear facility and the USAF’s collaboration and attributed the “news” to one of the world’s most important sources of news, namely Al Jazeera. Of course the Israelis failed to say that Al Jazeera was also quoting Israeli sources.. the very same ones who probably invented the story.
I will post here the Information Clearinghouse House article that was used as a reference to the initial article posted on Stephen M. Saint John’s blog at http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/4510 as well as the English translation of the Arabic Al Jazeera’s article which was also used as a reference so that people can judge for themselves the accuracy of Information Clearing House’s article. I should ad here that until this article, ICH was one of my favorite sites.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18652.htm
USAF Struck Syrian "Nuclear" Site
By JPOST.COM STAFF
11/02/07 "JPost" -- -- The September 6 raid over Syria was carried out by the US Air Force, the Al-Jazeera Web site reported Friday. The Web site quoted Israeli and Arab sources as saying that two strategic US jets armed with tactical nuclear weapons carried out an attack on a nuclear site under construction.
The sources were quoted as saying that Israeli F-15 and F-16 jets provided cover for the US planes.
The sources added that each US plane carried one tactical nuclear weapon and that the site was hit by one bomb and was totally destroyed.
At the beginning of October, Israel's military censor began to allow the local media to report on the raid without attributing their report to foreign sources. Nevertheless, details of the strike have remained clouded in mystery.
On October 28, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the cabinet that he had apologized to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan if Israel violated Turkish airspace during a strike on an alleged nuclear facility in Syria last month.
In a carefully worded statement that was given to reporters after the cabinet meeting, Olmert said: "In my conversation with the Turkish prime minister, I told him that if Israeli planes indeed penetrated Turkish airspace, then there was no intention thereby, either in advance or in any case, to - in any way - violate or undermine Turkish sovereignty, which we respect."
The New York Times reported on October 13 that Israeli planes struck at what US and Israeli intelligence believed was a partly constructed nuclear reactor in Syria on September 6, citing American and foreign officials who had seen the relevant intelligence reports.
According to the report, Israel carried out the report to send a message that it would not tolerate even a nuclear program in its initial stages of construction in any neighboring state.
On October 17, Syria denied that one of its representatives to the United Nations told a panel that an Israeli air strike hit a Syrian nuclear facility and added that "such facilities do not exist in Syria."
A UN document released by the press office had provided an account of a meeting of the First Committee, Disarmament and International Security, in New York, and paraphrased an unnamed Syrian representative as saying that a nuclear facility was hit by the raid.
However, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, SANA said media reports, apparently based on a UN press release, misquoted the Syrian diplomat.
And now, here is the translation of Al Jazeera’s Arabic article:
01/11/2007
Israeli Source: The United States Participated in the aerial raid on Syria
An Israeli source reported, and an Arab one, that the air raid that was launched by the Israeli air force on Syria on the 6th of September took place with the participation of the United States and through Turkish airspace.
Important Israeli sources revealed via their connection with Israel secret sources that the air raid over Syria targeted a nuclear site under construction.
The Source who was an Israeli businessman and who requested that his name not be published added that the operation took place with the participation of two strategic American bombers (literal translation) carrying small tactical nuclear bombs and accompanying them was a squadron of Israeli F-15 and F-16 jets which assumed responsibility for surveillance and cover.
The security source also clarified that each US bomber was carrying one nuclear tactical bomb pointing that the targeting of the Syrian site took place with one bomb only which destroyed it and created a huge crater in its place.
Within the same context, an important political source from the 1948 territories found out from reliable Syrian sources and informed Al Jazeera.net that 6 jets participated in the bombing of a big site under construction in Deir al Zour without elaborating on the nature of the project.
The source also affirmed that Syria has been very troubled that the Jets had been allowed to fly through Turkish airspace before their raid.
The source also added that the Syrians were very astonished at the Turkish position especially that it came at a time when relations between Damascus and Ankara had seen much progress.
and now let us see what the Jerusalem Post says:
1. First of all, please notice the difference in the titles of both articles. The Jerusalem Post states that USAF struck Syrian nuclear site while the Jazeera title clearly states that according to Israeli sources, the US participated in an aerial raid on Syria.
2. Al Jazeera.net did not report that Americans participated on the raid on Syria. Al Jazeera clearly reported that according to Israeli sources Americans had participated with Israelis in that raid. Information Clearing House takes the exact same position as the Zionist Jerusalem Post by twisting the words of Al Jazeera and relying on the fact that 99.9% of the West do not read Arabic and wouldn’t have a means of double checking the accuracy of the information given to them.
3. Al Jazeera did not report that the attacked site was a ‘nuclear’ site. It reported that according to Israeli sources,, the attacked site was a nuclear site. Information Clearing House is clearly playing on words here and clearly trying to pin Israel’s imaginative and fictitious nuclear site story on Syria in an attempt to help build a case for war because there is no other explanation for ICH to make such flagrant mistakes
4. Indeed, Israel (and the US if Israel’s story is correct) did violate Turkish airspace and instead of seeing ICH paraphrase the Jerusalem posts second half of the article, it would have been more interesting to read an analysis by ICH regarding Israel’s constant violations of sovereign countries airspace and its possible consequences… especially concerning Turkey.
5. Information Clearing House also paraphrases the Jerusalem Post saying that Israel and the US struck the Syrian site because of relevant intelligence reports that they had seen. Excuse me?? Is their intelligence as relative as the one they gathered or rather invented for Iraq? Didn’t ICH think of questioning such lame and pathetic intelligence statements on the part of an Israeli newspaper instead of endorsing it without so much as a beep? What about the reports of the IAEA that discounted any nuclear activities in Syria? Or does ICH also rather believe Israeli propaganda rather than official professional bodies?
”According to the report, Israel carried out the report to send a message that it would not tolerate even a nuclear program in its initial stages of construction in any neighboring state.”
6. So according to ICH, Israel is the judge, jury and executioner. Does Information Clearing House give Israel authority over the IAEA and various Atomic agency commissions? Is the world now supposed to be judged and tried by Israel? Does ICH not realize that this world is run by the rule of Law and not by the rule of a Zionist mafia in Tel Aviv and Washington? ICH position is very questionable. Israel doesn’t run this world and Israel opinion means zilch to the people of the world. From the first day of its establishment Israel has been lying on daily basis in order to hide its criminal intent. It is Israel who came up with faulty intelligence so that the US could launch the Iraq war and today Israel is still doing the same thing… coming up with flawed intelligence about Syria, Hezbollah and Iran. The days when Israel use to claim that it was “a land without a people for a people without a land” haven’t changed. Israeli lies continue.. only they differ depending on Israel’s needs. Lying is an integral part of the Israeli fabric and one should not be fooled by the “civilized” look they project for the cameras.
”A UN document released by the press office had provided an account of a meeting of the First Committee, Disarmament and International Security, in New York, and paraphrased an unnamed Syrian representative as saying that a nuclear facility was hit by the raid.”
7. Why does Information Clearing House deliberately omit to mention that the United Nations apologized for the mistake made by its interpreter who included the word ‘nuclear’ when the Syrian representative had clearly not used it? One can understand that mainstream media would deliberately ignore the UN’s apology, but I frankly wasn’t aware that ICH behaved like mainstream media now. My only conclusion is that ICH wrote this article in bad faith and not in the name of reporting news or seeking truth. ICH clearly is pushing here the Israeli/Zionist agenda and that is frankly very sad for a site that I used to have admiration for.
Hereunder a 3 articles which I had previously posted about the error made in the translation of the word ‘nuclear’ at the United Nations which ICH failed to refer to although it is common knowledge. I am not astonished that the Jerusalem Post or the New York Times fail to refer to them, but I am astonished that ICH did and I shall be looking at ICH’s articles with a different eye from now on.
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/4295
U.N.: Interpreter "error" led to incorrect Syria nuclear report
Unbelievable! Another translation "error"! The interpreter added the word "nuclear" by mistake??
Mainstream media is so complicit in war mongering. When Israel struck Syria, we were not told in the Middle East about any 'nuclear facility' until the US and Israel made up this story. The 'nuclear facility' story was very clearly launched in the West for Western consumption. Here in the Middle East we even saw coverage of the so-called facility that was bombed by Israel. Al Manar channel went all the way to the location in question (which Israel had shown on its television) and showed it to the viewer in detail interviewing even its staff. We never believed that ridiculous story about Syria's ongoing nuclear facility anyway! Both the United Nations and mainstream media are complicit liars and they know it. God knows what else is being mistranslated but not exposed... Shame on the United Nations!
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations blamed an interpreter's error for an erroneous report
The United Nations blamed an interpreter's error for an erroneous reportthat Syria claimed an Israeli airstrike hit a Syrian nuclear facility, a mistake that made headlines in the Middle East and heightened concerns over Damascus' nuclear ambitions.
Syria denied on Wednesday that one of its representatives told the U.N. General Assembly's committee that deals with disarmament on Tuesday that Israel had attacked a Syrian nuclear facility and added that "such facilities do not exist in Syria."
The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, SANA, quoting an unnamed Foreign Ministry source, said its representative was misquoted — and after more than seven hours of investigation the United Nations said that was indeed the case.
"There was an interpretation error made yesterday when the First Committee was in session," U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said. "There was no use of the word nuclear."
"Although in English the interpreter had suggested that the Syrian delegate had referred to an attack on a nuclear facility, what he said was 'like what happened on the 6th of September against my country,"' Haq said.
The incident started Tuesday night with a U.N. press summary of the First Committee that paraphrased an unnamed Syrian representative as saying that "Israel was the fourth largest exporter of weapons of mass destruction and a violator of other nations' airspace, and it had taken action against nuclear facilities, including the 6 July attack in Syria."
Israeli warplanes carried out an airstrike in northeastern Syria near the border with Turkey on Sept. 6, not July 6.
The target remains unknown but widespread reports say it may have been a nascent nuclear facility, a claim Syria has denied.
At U.N. headquarters in New York, the spokesman's office said Wednesday morning the Syrian representative spoke in Arabic.
After several hours, Haq said the exact words of the English interpreter were: "An entity that is the fourth largest exporter of weapons of mass destruction in the world, an entity that violates other countries' airspace, and that takes action against nuclear facilities, including the attack on 6 July this year on a nuclear facility in my country — that entity has no right to lie, which it has done consistently."
It took until late afternoon for the U.N. to issue the correct translation from the original Arabic words spoken by the Syrian representative.
According to the corrected text, the Syrian delegate said: "...the (entity) that is ranking number four among the exporters of lethal weapons in the world; that which violates the airspace of sovereign states and carries out military aggression against them, like what happened on Sept. 6 against my country, such entity with all those characteristics and even more, has no right for its representative to go on lying without shame..."
The Syrian representative was replying to a speech to the committee on Monday by Israeli Ambassador Miriam Ziv, deputy director general for strategic affairs in the Foreign Ministry, who accused Syria of continuing to transfer weapons to Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.
According to the U.N., the Syrian delegate accused Israel of planting "millions of cluster bombs in Lebanon" and refusing to hand over the relevant maps, of burying "nuclear wastes" in the occupied Palestinian territories, of building illegal settlements, and of trying "to change the identity of the Syrian territories" in the Golan Heights which Israel captured in the 1967 war.
On Wednesday, before the U.N. announced the error, the Syrian representative demanded at the disarmament committee that the U.N. investigate how the mistake was made, suggesting that it was deliberate, and correct the record.
Israeli radio stations, citing unidentified Israeli diplomats, on Wednesday quoted the Syrians as telling the U.N. meeting that a nuclear target had been struck. However, the Israeli radio reports did not say whether the Israeli diplomats had attended the session or merely had read the U.N. press release on the meeting.
President Bashar Assad said earlier this month that the target was an "unused military building."
Asked about the Sept. 6 incident on Tuesday, before the erroneous report surfaced, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said "we have not received any concrete evidence and concrete information. We need to get more clear information."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h44iqu-AVtbml4EBgaBy7kkKduGQD8SB84UO2
UN Says Syrian Didn't Mention Nuke Site
By EDITH M. LEDERER – 4 days ago
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations on Wednesday backtracked on a report that had quoted a Syrian official as saying an Israeli airstrike hit a nuclear facility in Syria, blaming an interpreter's error for the purported comment that made headlines across the Middle East.
Syria's government had reacted angrily to the U.N. document released Tuesday night. It denied one of its diplomats told a General Assembly committee that Israel had attacked a Syrian nuclear facility last month, adding that "such facilities do not exist in Syria."
The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, SANA, quoted an unidentified Foreign Ministry official as saying the representative was misquoted.
After more than seven hours of investigation Wednesday, U.N. officials agreed that was the case.
"There was an interpretation error made yesterday when the First Committee was in session," U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said. "There was no use of the word nuclear."
The original report, which brought widespread media attention in the Middle East and heightened concerns over Syria's nuclear ambitions, came in a U.N. press summary of the disarmament committee's meeting Tuesday.
The paper paraphrased an unidentified Syrian diplomat as saying that "Israel was the fourth largest exporter of weapons of mass destruction and a violator of other nations' airspace, and it had taken action against nuclear facilities, including the 6 July attack in Syria."
Israeli warplanes carried out an airstrike in northeastern Syria near the border with Turkey on Sept. 6, not July 6.
Israel's government has not commented on the target, but there have been reports from unidentified sources saying the attack was aimed at nuclear facility in northern Syria. Syrian leaders deny they have any such site.
At U.N. headquarters, the spokesman's office said the Syrian representative spoke to the disarmament committee in Arabic.
Haq said the exact words of the English interpreter were: "An entity that is the fourth largest exporter of weapons of mass destruction in the world, an entity that violates other countries' airspace, and that takes action against nuclear facilities, including the attack on 6 July this year on a nuclear facility in my country — that entity has no right to lie, which it has done consistently."
After studying the Arabic comments, U.N. officials released a corrected English translation late Wednesday afternoon.
According to the new text, the Syrian delegate said: "... the (entity) that is ranking number four among the exporters of lethal weapons in the world; that which violates the airspace of sovereign states and carries out military aggression against them, like what happened on Sept. 6 against my country, such entity with all those characteristics and even more, has no right for its representative to go on lying without shame."
Syrian President Bashar Assad said earlier this month that the airstrike's target was an "unused military building."
Asked about the Sept. 6 incident Tuesday before the committee report surfaced, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had said: "We have not received any concrete evidence and concrete information. We need to get more clear information."
Associated Press writer Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/4436
IAEA flays Israel for taking `law into their own hands
Washington, Oct 29: Stressing that there is no evidence of Syria pursuing a nuclear programme, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog has flayed Israel for taking "the law into their own hands" with a raid on Damascus last month.
Mohamed Elbaradei said he was "very distressed" about the Syrian bombing because "we have not received information about any nuclear-related activities, clandestine nuclear-related activities in Syria."
"If countries have information that the country is working on a nuclear-related programme, they should come to us. We have the authority to go out and investigate. But to bomb first and then ask questions later, I think it undermines the system," the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.
In September Israeli jets bombed and supposed to have taken out a facility that was suspected of being a nuclear reactor built on the North Korean model.
Elbaradei said that there is not only no evidence of Damascus pursuing a nuclear programme but also nothing of a North Korea link in that country.
"And I would hope if anybody has information before they take the law into their own hands, to come and pass the information on," the IAEA chief said, adding that neither the Bush administration nor Israel gave "any evidence at all" that the bombed Syrian facility was a North Korean modelled nuclear reactor.
Bureau Report
http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?rep=2&aid=404385&sid=WOR&sname...
Cherifa, I've been subscribed to ICH for about 15 months now, and I agree wholeheartedly that their reporting on Israeli atrocities and all things zionism leaves much to be desired, but I'd just point out one thing.
ICH didn't paraphrase the JPost article, it reproduced it verbatim. Here is the ICH article and here is the JPost article. They're identical, except for the fact that ICH provided a hyperlink to the Al Jazeera article and JPost didn't; they only italicised "Al Jazeera Website".
I posted the JPost article as a blog here because I thought it was an interesting development on the Israeli strike on Syria, but it didn't make sense to me that the US would involve itself in an operation that Israel was capable of carrying out on its own, plus, it was a JPost article, not a trustworthy source of information.
Thanks for the blog. ICH is definitely dubious, I agree.
I think it's important that you brought this up for a number of reasons, the most important being that it demonstrates that when we grow to trust a source, to a certain degree we tend to read or hear things from that source 'with our guard down.' (See, "I shall be looking at ICH’s articles with a different eye from now on.")
Now - because of a vast history of honest and accurate reporting by ICH - I am not convinced that it had any ill-intentions with respect to this piece, although I think it was a poor editorial decision to reproduce the JPOST article verbatim without at least pointing out the obvious contradictions between the report and reality - (especially the part about the UN apology).
I think someone here at WUFYS did something similar (republished a YNET article verbatim - title and everything) and I warned them that readers might get exactly the same impression that you got of ICH from this JPOST piece - that we were peddling their propaganda.
However, if you'll note, ICH did make a feeble attempt to cast doubt on the assertion that the bombed site was "nuclear" by using quotation marks around the word.
Furthermore, the JPOST accurately cites what Al Jazeera published about an israeli and Arab source (“An Israeli source reported, and an Arab one, that the air raid that was launched by the Israeli air force on Syria on the 6th of September took place with the participation of the United States and through Turkish airspace.”).
If anything, I think Al Jazeera should be blamed for slavishly repeating these “reports” from such dubious ‘unnamed sources’ without pointing out that they are not reliable for obvious reasons.
Finally, I ran into an article a couple of days ago - which I had been intending to share, but didn't have a chance – that casts a shadow on the credibility of another source - Al Jazeera English.
Now, is a good time to share it. The title alone puts a huge dent in the site’s credibility. But, I’ll reproduce it in whole for the record.
Now, there’ a source you should REALLY read with a great deal of scrutiny.
But, then again – I recommend being careful when reading any source – ICH and WUFYS included.
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"Money" has no value - people do.
"Does ICH not realize that this world is run by the rule of Law and not by the rule of a Zionist mafia in Tel Aviv and Washington?"
Uhh, it is? Did some monumental even take place in the last 24 hours that pushed the Zionists out of power and put back in place the rule of law?
Cause if it didn't happen, then the world i live on is run by the nutcases in London, D.C. and Tel Aviv.
In May of this year, several existing board members of Aljazeera were removed, including Chief director Wadah Khanfar. The board was effectively replaced by a totally new board directly appointed by Emir of Qatar.
It is notable that one of the new board members is Abdul Aziz Al Kuwari, the former Qatar ambassador to Washington, who was appointed to oversee the political and administrative aspects of the channel. Al Kuwari is reputed to have strong connections with many U.S. politicians from both sides of the house.
See The Peninsula Online
Qrswave…, regarding al Jazeera International you do have a point and I understand from where your coming. I share the same frustrations with it. The first day AJI launched Riz Khan’s first guest was no less than the terrorist Shimon Peres! I was livid and send Riz a furious email in which a said exactly what I thought of his invitation of his guest Shimon Peres. Riz read the email on air and in front of Peres saying that these were some of the reactions he had been getting. Shimon was of course delighted that he was a guest of honor on the opening day of an Arabic new network station. I’ve been watching AJE for quite some time now and that is what I can come up with:
Al Jazeera Arabic did a great job and showed everything the US wanted to hide in Afghanistan and Iraq. While the US was shutting down free media and installing “imbedded” “reporters” to control and manipulate media, Al Jazeera showed the reality. Arabs understood at that point (belated of course..) the importance of media in politics.
The owner of Al Jazeera started developing the idea of an English Al Jazeera. Of course, it was fought very hard by the Unites States’ Zionist lobby and all the Zionist groups in Europe. At first only Japan agreed. I think that Al Jazeera realized that if it wants the reach it aimed for it would have to make certain concessions….. and they are of course to the damned Zionists. I think that Al Jazeera chose and agreed to be a little sympathetic to Israel in order to in return manage to place itself on several satellites to air the Arab point of view.. the ultimate aim being to counter Zionist media inside the US. The only country that has still not let AJE in is the US… the ‘undeclared’ reason being that the American viewer cannot be allowed to see what his/her taxes are being used for. The rest of the world can watch however because none of us pay Israel anything. AJE is now very ready to bid for the American market again… and it cannot be criticized for being anti Israeli or not covering Israeli concerns. As you have noted, they can even be complementary of Israel (although what the article really is doing is basically being critical of the Arab countries which have had problems with Al Jazeera )