Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily is the worst "news" organization in America, and its abysmal editing standards are just one reason.
On Jan. 10, WND posted an article with the provocative headline "New Hillary email dump: 'I hate Israel'."
WND's implication -- that Hillary Clinton is on record as saying she hates Israel -- would be news if not true. But it's not. The article, poorly written as it is, doesn't even support the headline.The unbylined article tries to desperately to claim that it's "an explosive development" that Clinton received emails from adviser and friend Sidney Blumenthal. The lead paragraph asserts that "Hillary Clinton’s emails reveal the front-running Democrat for president received communications that say 'I hate Israel' from the son of her most trusted adviser," but that's not true either.
WND eventually explains that Blumenthal had emailed copies of articles written by his son, Max Blumenthal, that came from a book he wrote that, in WND's words, was "a widely criticized and rabidly anti-Semitic volume that castigated Israeli policies." WND offers no evidence to back up its claim beyond noting that "The Nation’s media editor Eric Alterman referred to it as the 'I Hate Israel handbook.'"
And that's where the "I hate Israel" quote comes from -- not from Clinton, not even from Blumenthal or his son, but from a critic of Max Blumenthal that may or may not have applied to the specific pieces sent Clinton's way.
WND loves to play fast and loose with the facts, but any student editor would have done a much better job handling this piece than WND did.
WND seems to have recognized this, if only after the fact -- the article was quietly deleted from WND not long after it was posted (though it was live long enough to accumulate at least 23 reader comments). It's still available in Google cache. WND has not offered a public explanation of why, let alone who wrote and edited the article or whether it will publicly apologize to Clinton for putting words into her mouth.
Here's the entire content of WND's deleted article:
NEW HILLARY EMAIL DUMP: 'I HATE ISRAEL'
Communications with adviser reveal stance on Jewish nation
In an explosive development, Hillary Clinton’s emails reveal the front-running Democrat for president received communications that say “I hate Israel” from the son of her most trusted adviser.As Clinton’s email scandals goes “nuclear” with more and more classified material coming to light, one disturbing trend is becoming apparent: Hillary’s deep contempt for the state of Israel in general, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in particular.
When the U.S. State Department released more than 5,000 pages of Clinton’s emails from her private server on New Year’s Eve, it included correspondence with her one-time advisor Sidney Blumenthal. The communications revealed an exchange regarding Israel, and Blumenthal cited the work of his son, journalist Max Blumenthal, a self-described “anti-Zionist” known for his radical anti-Israel views.
According to the Times of Israel, “In March 2010, Blumenthal plugged his son’s work – this time, playing up links between evangelical Pastor John Hagee and Netanyahu – in the context of an article (written by a different writer) discussing a controversial Pentagon briefing on U.S. relations with Israel and the Arab world. … The briefing had dealt with the lack of progress in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and American concerns over a growing perception among Arab leaders that the US was incapable of standing up to Israel.”
The senior Blumenthal sent several articles written by his son and referenced the younger man’s plans to move to Israel for several months to write a book. “He tracks a lot of things that do not appear in the mainstream press,” he wrote to Hillary.
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Hillary then took the articles in question and instructed a staffer to print five copies “without the heading from Sid.” She noted the articles came from Max Blumenthal’s book “Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel,” a widely criticized and rabidly anti-Semitic volume that castigated Israeli policies. The Nation’s media editor Eric Alterman referred to it as the “I Hate Israel handbook” and wrote Blumenthal’s “case against the Jewish state is so carelessly constructed, it will likely alienate anyone but the most fanatical anti-Zionist extremists, and hence do nothing to advance the interests of the occupation’s victims.”
According to the Times of Israel, “Blumenthal also sent Clinton a piece by leftist Israeli Uri Avnery, who also analyzed the Pentagon briefing by leveling a damning critique against Netanyahu. Clinton asked Blumenthal, in response, how she should use this material in an upcoming talk she was supposed to have with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).”
Blumenthal speculated on Netanyahu’s psychological makeup by suggesting his actions were motivated by a desperate attempt to live up to his father’s expectations.
In an email sent immediately after the May 2010 Israeli raid on the Gaza-bound Turkish ship Mavi Maramara in which nine activists were killed, Blumenthal referred to the operation as “Bibi’s Entebbe in reverse.” Noting that Netanyahu’s brother Yoni was “heroically killed” in the 1976 hostage rescue mission, he said the brothers’ father Benzion “adored” Yoni, while the younger Benjamin has always lived in his brother’s shadow. “Bibi desperately seeks his father’s approbation and can never equal his dead brother…(he) has never measured up,” Blumenthal suggested.
The senior Blumenthal continued to push his son’s anti-Israel views on Hillary. As noted by the Times of Israel, “In 2012, Blumenthal sent his son’s article in al-Akhbar, ‘The Bibi Connection,’ to Clinton, who then relayed it onward. The article emphasized Netanyahu’s intent to campaign against Obama’s reelection in 2012, arguing that ‘Netanyahu’s shadow campaign is intended to be a factor in defeating Obama and electing a Republican in his place.’ … The article reflected upon Netanyahu’s ties to prominent Republicans such as Newt Gingrich, as well as the prime minister’s right-wing pedigree. It noted that when his father, Benzion Netanyahu, ‘returned to Israel to launch a political career, the elder Netanyahu was rejected by Menachem Begin, the (then-)Likud Party leader, who, as right wing as he was, considered him dangerously extreme.’”
Hillary offered a “terse” response on some of Sidney Blumenthal’s policy suggestions regarding Israel, upon which he backed off. However, “Blumenthal could not keep Netanyahu out of his semi-retraction, hinting at missed peace opportunities by the Israeli leader: ‘Of course, if Bibi were to have engaged Syria in negotiations taking its previous gestures seriously …’ he wrote, before changing the subject without concluding the hypothetical.”
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The email dump revealed Blumenthal was not the only one commenting on Middle East policy. Foreign-policy analyst Anne-Marie Slaughter, formerly the State Department’s director of policy planning, wrote to Clinton the “time was right” for the U.S. to recognize Palestine during the emerging of the Arab Spring.
“It would allow you and POTUS to have accomplished the goal POTUS laid out at UNGA last year and would make it much harder for Syrians, Iranians, even Saudis to use this issue to divert domestic opposition, strengthening the seismic shift across the region to create fault-lines around reform/no reform instead of Arabs/US-Israel,” wrote Slaughter.
The Times of Israel notes, “The emails also indicate the existence of a lengthy correspondence over attempts to reconcile Israel and Turkey following the events of the 2010 Gaza flotilla, but the emails are so heavily redacted as to expunge any clue as to what was actually discussed. … Another series details attempts in 2010 to broker direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, with significant input from the parties involved in the Arab Peace Initiative.”
With the increasingly incendiary situation in the Middle East in which the U.S. maintains a precarious diplomatic balance, some fear Clinton’s well-documented anti-Israel position might tip the balance in favor of terrorists.
We've asked WND editor Joseph Farah for an explanation of the editing process that allowed such a flawed, poorly written article to be published. We'll print his response if he chooses to provide one.
