Middle East Roundup: April 28, 2016

PBS map
PBS map

Freedom House slammed for downgrading Israeli media to ‘partly free’
(JNS.org) Media commentators slammed the U.S.-based Freedom House NGO for downgrading its designation of the Israeli media from “free” to “partly free” in its 2016 Freedom of the Press report.

Israel was ranked 65th worldwide in media freedom, with a score of 32 points on a 0-100 scale (with 0 being most free and 100 being least free).

“Israel declined from ‘free’ to ‘partly free’ due to the growing impact of Israel Hayom, whose owner-subsidized business model endangered the stability of other media outlets,” the report said, noting that the newspaper “is owned and subsidized by Sheldon Adelson, a wealthy American businessman who is openly aligned with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his conservative Likud Party.”

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post quoted former George W. Bush administration official Elliott Abrams as saying, “Israel Hayom was founded in 2007 to provide Israelis an alternative to the left-leaning press. It has become the widest-circulation newspaper in the country, not just because it is free, but because so many Israelis want an alternative view. To say that Israel is suddenly only ‘partly free’ because it now has a popular center-right newspaper is malicious and ignorant.”

In 2014, Israel Hayom’s business model was targeted by a proposed Knesset bill that tried to ban the distribution of free print newspapers in Israel. Had that bill succeeded, “Freedom House and other media monitors would have had good reason to question Israeli press freedom, since the bill targeting Israel Hayom would have amounted to a legislative bill of attainder that would have silenced one of the few mainstream alternatives to left-wing political orthodoxy,” wrote Commentary magazine’s Jonathan Tobin.

“But fortunately,” he wrote, “the effort failed and, after Netanyahu’s third consecutive election victory and the formation of a right-wing majority government, this genuine threat to press freedom is no longer on the table.”
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French embassy in Israel says major bank is violating BDS-related law
(JNS.org) France’s embassy in Israel said that Credit Mutuel, a major French bank, is violating a French law by servicing an account held by an arm of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

“The French opposition against any form of boycott is well-known. There are strict rules in France against calls for a boycott. These rules apply notably to all economic operators,” the Embassy of France in Israel said regarding the bank account of BDS France, the Jerusalem Post reported Tuesday.

France’s 2003 Lellouche law prohibits discrimination based on nationality and has been applied to penalize BDS activists who aim to hurt Israel’s economy.

Frédéric Monot, a spokesman for Credit Mutuel, had told the Jerusalem Post last week, “We do not disclose information covered by banking secrecy, but we strictly respect the application of French law.”

Roger Cukierman, head of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions, said that “a boycott is forbidden by law” in France, and that the BDS France account in Credit Mutuel should be closed.
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Study finds 90 species of endangered plants in Israel
(JNS.org) Ecosystems in Israel and particularly in its coastal plain have 90 species of endangered plants, 28 of them being unique to Israel or the countries that surround it, a newly released study discovered.

The Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA) conducted a survey and mapping project over the last two years in order to determine whether Israel meets international standards on biodiversity protection.

The international Convention on Biological Diversity treaty requires at least 17 percent of a country’s land mass to be protected with the highest level of biodiversity. The INPA survey found that almost 20 percent of Israel is protected at that level, with 60 percent of those areas concentrated in the southern Negev desert region.

In some areas with more residential development and farming, such as Israel’s coastal plains, the ecosystems are only minimally protected. Ninety species of endangered plants, such as irises, were found in areas that are inadequately protected. An area is considered legally protected when it is defined as a nature reserve, national park, or forest.
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British Labour MP suspended over Facebook post on Israel’s ‘relocation’
(JNS.org) A British Member of Parliament (MP) who suggested that Israel should be relocated to the United States as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been suspended by the United Kingdom’s Labour Party.

Labour MP Naz Shah had already quit her role in the U.K.’s “shadow cabinet” (the parliamentary opposition’s alternative cabinet to that of the ruling coalition government) over the controversy. She “unreservedly” apologized for a 2014 Facebook post that included an image of the country of Israel superimposed on a U.S. map, with the comment “solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict.” The Guido Fawkes political website was the first outlet to report on the post.

“Problem solved and save u bank charges for £3 BILLION you transfer yearly!” Shah wrote in the Facebook post.

The post gives a list of reasons for why Israel’s “relocation” plan would be beneficial, such as Palestinians getting “their land and life back.”

“This post from two years ago was made before I was an MP. [It] does not reflect my views and I apologize for any offense it has caused,” Shah said in a statement. “I made these posts at the height of the Gaza conflict in 2014, when emotions were running high around the Middle East conflict. But that is no excuse for the offense I have given.”

Additionally, London’s Jewish Chronicle on Tuesday cited anti-Semitic posts Shah made on Twitter in 2014, alluding that Jews rule the government. Shah is a member of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, which is currently investigating the rise of anti-Semitism in the U.K.

Shah is not alone in her controversial remarks. The Guido Fawkes website also reported that Shah’s parliamentary aide, Mohammad Shabbir, has used an offensive term for Zionist, “Zio,” on Twitter. He has also posted that Orthodox Jews “are involved in the sex trafficking trade,” has compared Zionists to the Al-Qaeda terror group, has called Israel “a ‘terror’ and ‘apartheid’ state,” and has equated the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the Holocaust.

Shabbir was suspended from the Labour Party in the wake of these revelations, prior to the suspension of Shah.

“[Labour leader] Jeremy Corbyn and Naz Shah have mutually agreed that she is administratively suspended from the Labour Party by the general secretary,” a Labour statement said, according to the BBC.

“Pending investigation, she is unable to take part in any party activity and the whip is removed,” the statement added.

Corbyn himself is no stranger to accusations of harboring anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments—he once described the Hamas and Hezbollah terror groups as “friends”—placing his Labour Party under continuous scrutiny in Jewish and pro-Israel circles within the U.K.

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