Nate's blog

Over all I had a pretty good fast this year. I had pasta right before the fast and it seemed to do a good job of keeping me full.

On Yom Kippur night I went to Beni David and about half way through the service I met a very important person. No it was not Dad or my Uncle, it was the Mayor… Yes Antonio Villaraigosa the mayor of Los Angeles sat in front of me and talked with me for a good two minutes during the night time service.

The day time service was less eventful, I spent most of the morning in Shul, went back around 5pm and broke my fast on cake there, I then went home and had left over pasta from the night before.

Did you know that Israel is not the only place where Jews self govern? There is region in Russia where Yiddish is an official language and judaism is taught in the public schools. This place is called the Jewish Autonomous Oblast and even though Jews now make up only about 1% of its population they once made up more, also it looks like the Jewish community there is growing.

Israel recently decided to close up shop in Ethiopia and to stop facilitating the immigration of the Falashmura. Jews, who had been practicing Christianity. (look here for more info).

This decision kind of worries me, because IMHO these people are Jews, and even if they are not then they are stilled allowed into Israel because of the Law of Entry.

I don’t think that it is any secret that CNN often manipulates stories about Israel to be pro Arab and anti Israel and Jewish. Recently I read an article that talked about the current “cease-fire” in between terror/government group Hamas and  the state of Israel. The article is here and its neutral POV (point of view) equivalent on Fox News is here.

After reading the well crafted CNN piece of propaganda I decided to break down the article and show how CNN takes a story about Israel upholding a peace agreement that the other side broke by hurting Israelis and makes the story seem anti Israel.

The article’s first line is “Hamas leaders in Gaza are still committed to a cease-fire agreement with Israel despite numerous rocket and mortar strikes Tuesday, a Hamas spokesman said.” Right off the bat CNN takes the story and makes it seem like Hamas is the good guys without outright lying. This first paragraph fails to mention that the rocket and mortar strikes come from Hamas controlled territory and that the attacks hurt Israelis.

Next, the article talks about how Israel is thinking of canceling the treaty. But the article has still not mentioned that the attacks carried out hurt Israelis. They make it seem like the attacks hurt Hamas, but despite all that Hamas still wants peace. Now, it is not like CNN outright lied, on the contrary, CNN has yet to lie, but they have very carefully crafted an article that blames everything on Israel.

The article next talks about the people who carried out the attack and that they did it in response to an Israeli military operation in the West Bank. Then it talks about how the treaty says that Israel will stop military activity in the Hamas controlled Gaza strip. But it talks about them in such a way that it seems like the treaty included PA controlled West Bank as well as the Gaza strip. Yet the treaty did not.

Another way in which CNN sets the tone for Israel hate is by the picture that it put up next to the article. The CNN article shows a Hamas soldier smiling apparently about the truce. This sets the tone of the article by making it seem like that it is Hamas that is trying for peace and that is what the Gaza residents want. But this is not true, so even though CNN has not lied, they have implied something that is not true. In fact 67% of Palestinian Arabs support terror against Israel even after the creation of a Palestinian Arab state. On the other hand, if you look at the Fox News article then you will notice that the picture that they show is of Israelis and how they have been effected by the most recent terror attack.

I really wish that I knew why CNN likes to manipulate stories like this all the time. It is because of missreporting by news sources like them that Israel gets so much international poltical pressure every time it tries to protect its people. It may also be the reason that so many people have died in places like Sderot.

If you have ever though “Nate should get a blog in Hebrew”, well your thought has been answered! You can now go to Nate.co.il or click the עברית above to get to my new blog!