Egyptian trucks carrying humanitarian aid make their way to the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, at the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Israel, May 30, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen

Earlier this month, I wrote about a PBS Newshour report that inaccurately described international law, and then portrayed Israel as breaking the law.

Not only did PBS refuse to correct this claim, but it has doubled down with more biased reporting. On the November 11 edition of PBS Newshour, Nick Schifrin began his report by saying, “this weekend, an independent famine review committee affiliated with the United Nations declared that across Northern Gaza, starvation, malnutrition and excess mortality are, quote, rapidly increasing, and famine thresholds may have already been crossed or else will be in the near future.”

But the statement that Schifrin referenced was not based on data.

The fuller passage that was quoted says, “It can therefore be assumed that starvation, malnutrition, and excess mortality due to malnutrition and disease, are rapidly increasing in these areas. Famine thresholds may have already been crossed or else will be in the near future.” [Emphasis added.]

When it comes to the UN, bias against the Jewish State is pervasive and ubiquitous, and the claim that there is such a thing as an “independent” committee affiliated with the UN is itself suspect. Such assumptions, therefore, ought to be met with some degree of skepticism. Schifrin, instead, elevated this biased assumption to a fact, and led his report with it.

Schifrin then introduced his guest, Jan Egeland, the head of a Norwegian NGO, who was permitted to make baseless claims about the way Israel is conducting this war — and PBS allowed those claims to go unchallenged.

Egeland falsely called Israel’s bombing in Gaza “indiscriminate,” and said that Israel is “carpet-bombing” Gaza.

In reality, Israel is targeting Hamas infrastructure in Gaza, just as it is targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon. The problem, as CAMERA and Algemeiner readers surely know, is that Hamas infrastructure is embedded and interwoven within civilian infrastructure. But only someone blind to what’s happening in Gaza — and the actions and tactics being used by Hamas — could claim that Israel is “carpet bombing” Gaza.

Schifrin did push back, mildly, on Egeland’s claim that Israel is starving women and children “deliberately,” by using the Israeli statement that 700 trucks filled with aid had gone in to Gaza within the past month.

In response, Egeland said, “I’m amazed how journalists sort of take one party in a very dirty war as a good source. Don’t believe the Israeli propaganda. Don’t believe Hamas propaganda. Don’t believe Hezbollah propaganda.”

Yet just a few sentences later, in the very same answer, Egeland himself regurgitates Hamas propaganda, claiming “Israel is deliberately starving the population,” and belying his claim to be “independent, neutral, [and] impartial.”

Karen Bekker is the Assistant Director in the Media Response Team at CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, where a version of this article first appeared. 

The post After Being Confronted With Facts, PBS Continues to Give Voice to Anti-Israel Propaganda first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a memorial ceremony for those murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and those who fell in the “Iron Sword” war, at the Knesset, the Parliament, in Jerusalem, Oct. 28, 2024. Photo: DEBBIE HILL/Pool via REUTERS

A joint statement of Group of Seven foreign ministers is set to avoid mentioning the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite an effort by the Italian hosts to find a common position on it.

Italy, which currently chairs the G7, said on Monday it wanted to try to forge a common position about the ICC arrest warrant at a two-day meeting it hosted in the spa town of Fiuggi and which ended on Tuesday.

A draft of the final statement due to emerge from the discussions, reviewed by Reuters, did not directly name the ICC and its decisions.

“In exercising its right to defend itself, Israel must fully comply with its obligations under international law in all circumstances, including International Humanitarian Law,” it said.

“We reiterate our commitment to International Humanitarian Law and will comply with our respective obligations,” the statement added, stressing “that there can be no equivalence between the terrorist group Hamas and the State of Israel.”

Last week, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence chief Yoav Gallant, as well as a Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.

The move was strongly criticized by the United States but other states including Britain and Italy did not rule out that they could make an arrest if Netanyahu visited their countries.

Israel condemned the ICC decision as shameful and absurd. The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which launched the Gaza war with its invasion of and massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, praised it as a step towards justice.

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Header of an instruction from Israel’s Chief Rabbinate for how to observe Shabbat during the war with Hamas. (Photo: Screenshot)

While the world’s attention has been focused on the American election, there has been a far less publicized, but still significant, election in Israel for the Chief Rabbinate.

After months of wrangling, the election was finally decided, with left and right fighting about egalitarianism, and who should sit on the electoral committee.

I have always been a rebel and disliked authority and power — particularly when it is associated with religion, from which I expect a higher level of ethics and morality than elsewhere.

And yet, I am constantly disappointed. When people achieve authority, they tend to make decisions based on preserving their power, rather than the moral criteria. That is why religion and politics are two very different areas of human activity that really ought to be kept apart.

Sadly, they rarely are.

Israel’s Chief Rabbinate controls important levers of income and authority — from marriage and divorce, to conversions and kashrut. It also provides extremely well paid and plentiful easy jobs for Orthodox boys (less so for the girls), and like all bureaucracies, is very bureaucratic.

This is fertile ground for corruption, and indeed unpopularity. Yet there are some wonderful, honest, devoted and impressive rabbis serving in Israel’s rabbinate today.

The tensions that we have witnessed in Israel between ethnic groups, the right and the left, secular and the religious, the Supreme Court and its critics, and the different voices within them, illustrate the near impossibility of reconciliation and compromise.

Caught between conflicting interests comes the Chief Rabbinate, whose courts run parallel with secular courts. It’s a government agency of great power and reach that is unpopular with many sectors of Jewish life in Israel today, for good reason.

Candidates for the Chief Rabbinate who are not approved of by the Haredi world stand little chance of getting elected. As a result, some Chief Rabbis have been convicted of crimes, and others were suspected of crimes. And the only criterion seems to be getting enough Haredi votes.

In the early years of the state, most of the state rabbis were committed to the cause of a Jewish State, even if they wouldn’t necessarily call themselves Zionists politically. The Chief Rabbinates performed very well given the constraints. Over time, the institution, like most others in Israel, was slowly infected by a bureaucracy of entitlement, laziness, and incompetence.

At first, the Haredi community simply ignored the Chief Rabbinate. Their religious and sometimes charismatic leaders and authorities were not elected or appointed. They emerged as natural leaders. They had their own standards and attitudes towards Israeli life. But then the Haredi community increased, and it saw opportunities.

The salaries of community and local rabbis were very attractive, and you didn’t have to have a secular education. Increasingly the Haredi world entered the rabbinate and over time, have come to dominate it, so that the moderates have largely been undercut.

This year, the Sephardi candidate got through easily in a predetermined election that saw yet another member of the Yosef dynasty intent on keeping it in one family. The Ashkenazi Lau family also tried to maintain their grip on the position, but could not gather enough support. The Ashkenazi election came down to two candidates. Eventually Rabbi Kalman Ber from Netanya was elected by 77-58. He defeated the more open and impressive Rabbi Micha Halevi of Petach Tikvah, who had support from the Religious Zionists.

Both rabbis have good reputations and claimed to be moderates. At the induction ceremony, they spoke of embracing all sectors of Israeli life, to support IDF soldiers, visit army camps, and comfort the families of kidnapped Israelis. Rabbi Yosef concluded in English with a Trumpian declaration that resonated with the audience: “We will make the Chief Rabbinate great again!” Chief Rabbi Ber echoed this commitment to unity, expressing the vision rooted in Rabbi Kook. “My greatest mission is to bring about unity among all parts of the people,” he said.

I have heard this before from Chief Rabbis across the world. Music to my ears. But given human nature, they rarely live up to their campaign promises. In Israel, as the winning candidates were elected thanks to Haredi votes, I cannot see any change in matters of law or the culture of the rabbinate. Any hope for a new era will once again be brushed under the carpet. And nothing will change. The only saving grace is that Chief Rabbis are only elected for 10 years. I pray I am proven wrong.

The author is a writer and rabbi, currently based in New York.

The post Israel’s Chief Rabbinate Promises More of the Same Flawed Policies After Election first appeared on Algemeiner.com.