Electronic Intifada
Encyclopedia
The Electronic Intifada (ei) is a not-for-profit, independent online publication which covers the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
from a Palestinian
perspective, "aimed at combating the pro-Israeli, pro-American spin" its editors believe exists in mainstream media
accounts.
, an American citizen of Palestinian descent, and a lecturer and a researcher in social policy at the University of Chicago
; Arjan El Fassed
, human rights activist based in the Netherlands; Laurie King, an anthropologist and former coordinator of the International Campaign for Justice for the Victims of Sabra and Shatila (the Palestinian camps in Lebanon where Christian militias massacred Palestinians in 1982) and the managing editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies
in Washington; and Nigel Parry, currently an eclectic Internet consultant, writer and musician based in Pittsburgh.
reporter, described EI as a "cyberpropaganda" site which "may contribute to a better understanding of the Palestinian cause," but also said that it "is too biased to be of much use to mainstream publications."
Political journalist and editor of the magazine CounterPunch
Alexander Cockburn
stated "there are a number of excellent news outlets for those who want unjaundiced reporting.... The Electronic Intifada...is trusted."
Gerald M. Steinberg
, head of NGO Monitor
, described Electronic Intifada as "an explicitly pro-Palestinian political and ideological Web site" that hosts "anti-Israel propaganda."
In response to an article in EI critical of the organization Palestine Note, Arab
American Palestinian
journalist Ray Hanania
criticized Electronic Intifada and called their mission "narrow" and "misguided".
criticized the Dutch Interchurch Organisation for Development Cooperation (ICCO) for providng financial support to Electronic Intifada which NGO Monitor accused of being antisemitic and frequently comparing "Israeli policies with those of the Nazi regime." Marinus Verweij, chairman of ICCO’s executive board said "The EI reports frequently about the violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by the State of Israel. In no way is the EI anti-Israel or anti-Semitic." He described Electronic Intifada as "an important source of information from the occupied Palestinian territories" frequently used by newspapers such as The Washington Post and the Financial Times. Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman Ward Bezemer stated that whether ICCO had promoted anti-semitism, a criminal offence, is to be determined by the Public Prosecutor on the basis of Dutch law. On November 26, 2010 Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal who is Jewish and has an Israeli wife, said "I will look into the matter personally. If it appears that the government subsidized NGO ICCO does fund Electronic Intifada, it will have a serious problem with me." Rosenthal later told IKON radio that "anti-semitism is not the issue" but "my concern about calls to contribute to boycotts and embargoes".
The Electronic Intifada responded to NGO Monitor's statements regarding ICCO's financial support. The Electronic Intifada wrote: "NGO Monitor is an extreme right-wing group with close ties to the Israeli government, military, West Bank settlers, a man convicted of misleading the US Congress, and to notoriously Islamophobic individuals and organizations in the United States."
EI co-founder MP Arjan El-Fassed, who also wrote for the website Al-Awda, told major Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant
that the fuss created by NGO Monitor was related to one quote from an interview with the Jewish Holocaust
survivor and anti-zionist Hajo Meyer
in June 2009. Meyer told EI: 'I can write up an endless list of similarities between Nazi Germany and Israel.'
In the same article, the Director of the Centre for Information and Documentation Israel (CIDI), Ronnie Naftaniel, asserted that The Electronic Intifada is not an anti-semitic website. He did, however, state that, while everybody should be free to express their opinion, the Dutch government should not indirectly fund a website that regularly calls for a boycott of Israel.
On January 14, 2011, ICCO decided not change its policy even after a discussion held with the Dutch foreign minister. In response to ICCO's decision, the Jerusalem Post reports that Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal “will monitor ICCO’s activities. He will consider this as a minus when he makes up the balance when ICCO applies again in new a subsidies-round,” said Ward Bezemer, a spokesman for Rosenthal."
Partos, a national umbrella for more than a hundred Dutch civil society organizations in the international development cooperation sector, strongly condemned Rosenthal's threats to ICCO's funding. "Rosenthal's position vis-à-vis ICCO creates a dangerous precedent for the future. Development organisation will have to continue to fight for an independent voice in the debate. Partos will, as branch representative, stand tall for that." http://www.partos.nl/index.php?page=_&articleId=1287
In April 2011, Professor International Coopderation Studies Paul Hoebink argued that Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal has no say in Dutch government funding to ICCO because Minister Ben Knapen holds the portfolio. In addition, ICCO's contribution to The Electronic Intifada is paid with ICCO's own funds. Professor International Law Nico Schrijver considers Rosenthal's threat to cut government funding if ICCO continues its financial support to The Electronic Intifada as a very worrying muzzling."
members were published. The stated purpose of the group was "help[ing] us keep Israel-related entries on Wikipedia from becoming tainted by anti-Israel editors". Five Wikipedia editors involved in a CAMERA campaign were sanctioned by Wikipedia administrators, who wrote that the project's open nature "is fundamentally incompatible with the creation of a private group to surreptitiously coordinate editing by ideologically like-minded individuals".
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
from a Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
perspective, "aimed at combating the pro-Israeli, pro-American spin" its editors believe exists in mainstream media
Mainstream media
Mainstream media are those media disseminated via the largest distribution channels, which therefore represent what the majority of media consumers are likely to encounter...
accounts.
History
EI was founded by Ali AbunimahAli Abunimah
Ali Hasan Abunimah is a Palestinian American journalist and co-founder of Electronic Intifada, a not-for-profit, independent online publication about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Born in Washington D.C., he spent his early years in the United Kingdom and Belgium before returning to the...
, an American citizen of Palestinian descent, and a lecturer and a researcher in social policy at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
; Arjan El Fassed
Arjan El Fassed
Arjan El Fassed is a Dutch politician, and former human rights activist and development aid worker. As a member of GreenLeft he has been an MP since June 17, 2010...
, human rights activist based in the Netherlands; Laurie King, an anthropologist and former coordinator of the International Campaign for Justice for the Victims of Sabra and Shatila (the Palestinian camps in Lebanon where Christian militias massacred Palestinians in 1982) and the managing editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies
Journal of Palestine Studies
The Journal of Palestine Studies is an academic journal established in 1971. It is published and distributed by University of California Press on behalf of the Institute for Palestine Studies. The current editor is Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University....
in Washington; and Nigel Parry, currently an eclectic Internet consultant, writer and musician based in Pittsburgh.
Reception
Hannah Brown of the Jerusalem Post calls EI "one of the most elaborate" sites of those that give a "Palestinian perspective of the news", going on to describe EI as "very professional, user-friendly and well written," and added that it "is adorned by photos, such as a picture of a lone, small Palestinian boy aiming a stone at an Israeli tank." Gil Sedan, a Jewish Telegraphic AgencyJewish Telegraphic Agency
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency is an international news agency serving Jewish community newspapers and media around the world. The JTA was founded on February 6, 1917, by Jacob Landau as the Jewish Correspondence Bureau in The Hague with the mandate of collecting and disseminating news among and...
reporter, described EI as a "cyberpropaganda" site which "may contribute to a better understanding of the Palestinian cause," but also said that it "is too biased to be of much use to mainstream publications."
Political journalist and editor of the magazine CounterPunch
Counterpunch
Counterpunch can refer to:* Counterpunch , a punch in boxing* CounterPunch, a bi-weekly political newsletter* Counterpunch , a type of punch used in traditional typography* Punch-Counterpunch, a Transformers character...
Alexander Cockburn
Alexander Cockburn
Alexander Claud Cockburn is an American political journalist. Cockburn was brought up in Ireland but has lived and worked in the United States since 1972. Together with Jeffrey St. Clair, he edits the political newsletter CounterPunch...
stated "there are a number of excellent news outlets for those who want unjaundiced reporting.... The Electronic Intifada...is trusted."
Gerald M. Steinberg
Gerald M. Steinberg
Gerald M. Steinberg is an Israeli academic and political scientist.-Biography:Gerald M. Steinberg obtained his doctorate in government from Cornell University, in 1981. M.A. Government Department, Cornell University, 1978. M.Sc. Physics Department, University of California, San Diego, 1975. B.A...
, head of NGO Monitor
NGO Monitor
NGO Monitor is a non-governmental organization based in Jerusalem, Israel whose stated aim is to generate and distribute critical analysis and reports on the output of the international NGO community for the benefit of government policy makers, journalists, philanthropic organizations and the...
, described Electronic Intifada as "an explicitly pro-Palestinian political and ideological Web site" that hosts "anti-Israel propaganda."
In response to an article in EI critical of the organization Palestine Note, Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
American Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
journalist Ray Hanania
Ray Hanania
Ray Hanania is an Arab-American Palestinian Christian journalist also known for his stand-up comedy. Hanania writes a syndicated column with a particular focus on the Middle East, and after the September 11 attacks, created Comedians of Middle East conflict, a comedy act with the hope of defusing...
criticized Electronic Intifada and called their mission "narrow" and "misguided".
ICCO financial support
NGO MonitorNGO Monitor
NGO Monitor is a non-governmental organization based in Jerusalem, Israel whose stated aim is to generate and distribute critical analysis and reports on the output of the international NGO community for the benefit of government policy makers, journalists, philanthropic organizations and the...
criticized the Dutch Interchurch Organisation for Development Cooperation (ICCO) for providng financial support to Electronic Intifada which NGO Monitor accused of being antisemitic and frequently comparing "Israeli policies with those of the Nazi regime." Marinus Verweij, chairman of ICCO’s executive board said "The EI reports frequently about the violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by the State of Israel. In no way is the EI anti-Israel or anti-Semitic." He described Electronic Intifada as "an important source of information from the occupied Palestinian territories" frequently used by newspapers such as The Washington Post and the Financial Times. Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman Ward Bezemer stated that whether ICCO had promoted anti-semitism, a criminal offence, is to be determined by the Public Prosecutor on the basis of Dutch law. On November 26, 2010 Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal who is Jewish and has an Israeli wife, said "I will look into the matter personally. If it appears that the government subsidized NGO ICCO does fund Electronic Intifada, it will have a serious problem with me." Rosenthal later told IKON radio that "anti-semitism is not the issue" but "my concern about calls to contribute to boycotts and embargoes".
The Electronic Intifada responded to NGO Monitor's statements regarding ICCO's financial support. The Electronic Intifada wrote: "NGO Monitor is an extreme right-wing group with close ties to the Israeli government, military, West Bank settlers, a man convicted of misleading the US Congress, and to notoriously Islamophobic individuals and organizations in the United States."
EI co-founder MP Arjan El-Fassed, who also wrote for the website Al-Awda, told major Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant
De Volkskrant
de Volkskrant is a national daily Dutch morning newspaper, the leading centre-left broadsheet, although now in tabloid size.-History:...
that the fuss created by NGO Monitor was related to one quote from an interview with the Jewish Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
survivor and anti-zionist Hajo Meyer
Hajo Meyer
Hajo Meyer is a German-Dutch physicist and Jewish political activist.Born in Bielefeld, in 1938 Meyer fled from Nazi Germany to the Netherlands alone, without his parents. He went into hiding in 1943, but was arrested after a year and spent ten months in Auschwitz...
in June 2009. Meyer told EI: 'I can write up an endless list of similarities between Nazi Germany and Israel.'
In the same article, the Director of the Centre for Information and Documentation Israel (CIDI), Ronnie Naftaniel, asserted that The Electronic Intifada is not an anti-semitic website. He did, however, state that, while everybody should be free to express their opinion, the Dutch government should not indirectly fund a website that regularly calls for a boycott of Israel.
On January 14, 2011, ICCO decided not change its policy even after a discussion held with the Dutch foreign minister. In response to ICCO's decision, the Jerusalem Post reports that Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal “will monitor ICCO’s activities. He will consider this as a minus when he makes up the balance when ICCO applies again in new a subsidies-round,” said Ward Bezemer, a spokesman for Rosenthal."
Partos, a national umbrella for more than a hundred Dutch civil society organizations in the international development cooperation sector, strongly condemned Rosenthal's threats to ICCO's funding. "Rosenthal's position vis-à-vis ICCO creates a dangerous precedent for the future. Development organisation will have to continue to fight for an independent voice in the debate. Partos will, as branch representative, stand tall for that." http://www.partos.nl/index.php?page=_&articleId=1287
In April 2011, Professor International Coopderation Studies Paul Hoebink argued that Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal has no say in Dutch government funding to ICCO because Minister Ben Knapen holds the portfolio. In addition, ICCO's contribution to The Electronic Intifada is paid with ICCO's own funds. Professor International Law Nico Schrijver considers Rosenthal's threat to cut government funding if ICCO continues its financial support to The Electronic Intifada as a very worrying muzzling."
CAMERA and Wikipedia
In an April 2008 article on Electronic Intifada, e-mails sent between CAMERACommittee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America is an American non-profit pro-Israel media watchdog group. The group says it was founded in 1982 "to respond to the Washington Post's coverage of Israel's Lebanon incursion", and to respond to what it considers the media's "general...
members were published. The stated purpose of the group was "help[ing] us keep Israel-related entries on Wikipedia from becoming tainted by anti-Israel editors". Five Wikipedia editors involved in a CAMERA campaign were sanctioned by Wikipedia administrators, who wrote that the project's open nature "is fundamentally incompatible with the creation of a private group to surreptitiously coordinate editing by ideologically like-minded individuals".