NGO News
Reports
Courtesy of MidEastWeb (www.mideastweb.org),
December 23, 2004
Based on the research of CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East
Reporting in America) (www.camera.org). For
more information see "Quote
Busters," CAMERA, October 1, 2004 and "Quote
Busters II," CAMERA, October 4, 2004.
Dear Hanan Ashrawi,
As Miftah is associated with moderation and makes claims to integrity, I was
astounded to find the quotes at http://www.miftah.org/QuotesList.cfm?&StartRow=1
which are almost all either fake or taken out of context. I believe these
quotes are also scattered around various places at your Web site.
There are numerous quotes from a supposed interview that Ariel Sharon gave
to a General Ouze Merham in 1956. They are all fake. There was never any
Israeli general named "Ouze Merham" and Sharon didn't give any such
interview in 1956. He never said any of the things attributed to him in those
quotes. Why would Sharon have given an interview to a general, and why would
the general conduct an interview?
Likewise, Sharon didn't give any interview to Amos Oz in 1982. Amos Oz wrote
a book called "In the Land of Israel" that featured a fictional
parody interview with an officer called "Z." During the Intifadah,
someone - apparently an American journalist named Jensen, took the interview
text from Oz's book, changed the "Z" into "Sharon" and
claimed it was a real interview. You can easily find the book and check this
for yourself.
All of those quotes are certainly fake.
The following is an invention - "Every time we do something you tell me
America will do this and will do that ... I want to tell you something very clear:
Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control
America, and the Americans know it." Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001, to
Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio.
Sharon never said it. The radio never reported it.
The following is an invention:
"We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live
here as slaves."
Chairman Heilbrun of the Committee for the Re-election of General Shlomo Lahat,
the mayor of Tel Aviv, October 1983.
There was nobody named Heilbrun in any committee to reelect Shlomo Lahat.
Lahat is a moderate who supports the peace process. Neither Lahat nor anyone
else in his campaign would have had any reason to make bellicose remarks about
Palestinians.
As best as anyone can tell Rafael Eitan never said: "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."
Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces - Gad Becker, Yediot
Ahronot 13 April 1983, New York Times 14 April 1983."
The quote cannot be found in the NYT or anywhere else.
The Koenig memorandum was controversial, but it didn't contain any of the
following text:
"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and
the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab
population." Israel Koenig, "The Koenig Memorandum""
***
Some of the other quotes are dubious or slightly out of context, but the above
cases are clearly fraudulent or malicious distortion.
Even if all the quotes were true, they serve no constructive purpose. They
don't advance anyone's understanding, and they don't promote dialog and
coexistence.
Surely you know that it is possible to assemble very damaging quotes on any
topic. Without context, such quotes are worse than meaningless. But these
"quotes" that Miftah is promoting are not quotes at all - they are
mostly the creations of hate mongers that have nothing to do with reality.
It is discouraging that the Web site of an organization that supposedly
champions moderation is engaged in wholesale propagation of falsehoods and
incitement, and even more discouraging that you are associated with that sort
of cheap hate propaganda.
Sincerely,
Ami Isseroff, D.Sc.
www.mideastweb.org