What US viewers were not allowed to know about VP Pence’ Knesset speech

The Arab Members of Knesset violated protocol by starting to interrupt the Knesset address by the US VP and to hold up posters with in English “Jerusalem is The [sic] Capital of Palestine” and a picture of the Golden Dome of the Rock Mosque and a Christian Church dome. In Arabic it read: East Jerusalem. Integrity has never bothered them too much.

This was expected, obviously, as they had announced to boycott his address but they were all sitting at their places. They were swiftly removed by the ushers while the rest of the Knesset was rhythmically applauding drowning out the shouts of those being removed.

Deviating from his prepared notes, the VP remarked: It’s deeply humbling for me to stand before this vibrant de-moc-ra-cy. [Applause]

This all could be seen in the streamed report of the Israeli broadcasting cooperations. But, curiously, the “life” video report from the US Tel Aviv Embassy (now removed from the Internet) suddenly went silent for minutes. The sound only returned after the incident and his impromptu remark had passed. The Embassy has censored the “life” broadcast. (Now the Embassy shows on the Internet a censored version that removed the censoring, but the removing of the Arab MKs is not shown.)

In another editing we can see the VP standing there, looking on while we hear the applause, after which he says his improvised sentence on the vibrant Israeli democracy. Not is shown what had happened. In this version, during the whole speech, they do not show who was applauding and who were giving a standing applause, while that is so telling.

CBS has a different “solution”: It cut out the beginning of the speech.

The US Christian version only showed the first seconds of the mêlée.

Fox News shows the whole thing but on a loop and with poor sound, so you have to wait 63 minutes to see the stir.

The WP had the whole thing after the Hebrew speeches.

YesWeCan shows all of the VP’s speech perfectly. It had 68 viewings.

Dutch TV had another shocking bias. It only showed the uproar and went on to talk for minutes on end on Palestinian refugees. I filed a complaint.

AFP didn’t do much better. It only showed that the Arab MKs were removed. It writes that the VP had said that the US Embassy would be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem by the end of 2019, suggesting that that was the reason for their unlawful demonstration. azfamily even wrote that this was the cause of their revolt. NBC News did not do that but nevertheless only showed this part. C hina Global Television Network went so far as to add to this incident a short interview with an Arab MK.

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By the way, the end of the Shehecheyanu blessing that movingly the VP said, contained, we know from his notes, a transliteration mistake. The correct word in the otherwise exquisite speech would have been vehigi’anu, but he was given the text as vehigiyanu [sic]. We now know that sadly a most famous and highly distinguished emeritus chief rabbi made that mistake. That’s fake news too.

And now I’m at it: If a Jewish leader was ghost writer for this speech, I would not have expected this sentence: “We will also support faith leaders in this region and across the world, as they teach their disciples to practice love, not hate.” All US political leaders always say things to this extent, playing into the anti-Judaic canard that Christians have a new-testamentary God of love, while the “blinded” Jews would have an old-testamentary God of hatred. Jew hatred blocks the peace process; don’t blame the Jews for it – not even subconsciously.

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At the end of the public welcome of the US VP at the residence of the Israeli President Rivlin, the latter openly raised points of discussion to be talked about after that open welcome. The US Embassy again did not want us to know. The camera zoomed out and the sound was cut off.

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This reminds me of the recent installation of the new US Trumpian Ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra [hookstrah]. He had said in 2015 that there are “no go” areas in the Netherlands, where radical Muslims are setting cars and politicians on fire. He now denied saying that, calling this accusation “fake news.” When the journalists showed him the clip he refused to say anything more. He would not apologize or admit to the truth. After Dutch journalists had caught him lying about his lies, he walked off refusing to answer any more questions. The Dutch journalist can be heard shouting at him that you can’t do that here. The norm in the Netherlands is that everyone should speak the truth.

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Apparently, freedom of the press in the US is more compromised than in the Netherlands or Israel. Media bias is heavy in the latter two, but what some US media and politicians think to get away with beats it all.

About the Author

MM is a prolific and creative writer and thinker, an almost daily blog contributor to the Times of Israel, and previously, for decades, he was known to the Jerusalem Post readers as a frequent letter writer. He often makes his readers laugh, mad, or assume he's nuts—close to perfect blogging. He's proud that his analytical short comments are removed both from left-wing and right-wing news sites. * As a frontier thinker, he sees things many don't yet. He's half a prophet. Half. Let's not exaggerate. He doesn't believe that people observe and think in a vacuum. He, therefore, wanted a broad bio that readers interested can track a bit about what (lack of) backgrounds, experiences, and education contribute to his visions. * If you don't know the Dutch, get an American peek behind the scenes here: https://youtu.be/QMPp6h6r72M * To find less-recent posts on subject XXX among his over 1600 archived ones, go to the right-top corner of a Times of Israel page, click on the search icon and search "zuiden, XXX". One can find a second, wilder blog, to which one may subscribe, here: https://mmvanzuiden.wordpress.com/. * Like most of his readers, he believes in being friendly, respectful, and loyal. Yet, if you think those are his absolute top priorities, you might end up disappointed. His first loyalty is to the truth. He will try to stay within the limits of democratic and Jewish law, but he won't lie to support opinions or people who don't deserve that. He admits that he sometimes exaggerates to make a point, which could have him come across as nasty, while in actuality, he's quite a lovely person to interact with. He holds - how Dutch - that a strong opinion doesn't imply intolerance of other views. * Sometimes he's misunderstood because his wide and diverse field of vision seldomly fits any specialist's box. But that's exactly what some love about him. He has written a lot about Psychology (including Sexuality and Abuse), Medicine (including physical immortality), Science (including basic statistics), Politics (Israel, the US, and the Netherlands, Activism), Oppression and Liberation (intersectionally, for young people, the elderly, non-Whites, women, workers, Jews, LGBTQIA+, foreigners and anyone else who's dehumanized or exploited), Integrity, Philosophy, Jews (Judaism, Zionism, Holocaust, and Jewish Liberation), the Climate Crisis, Ecology and Veganism, Affairs from the news, or the Torah Portion of the Week, or new insights that suddenly befell him. * His most influential teachers (chronologically) are his parents, Nico (natan) van Zuiden and Betty (beisye) Nieweg, Wim Kan, Mozart, Harvey Jackins, Marshal Rosenberg, Reb Shlomo Carlebach, and, lehavdil bein chayim lechayim, Rabbi Dr. Natan Lopes Cardozo, Rav Zev Leff, and Rav Meir Lubin. * One of his rabbis calls him Mr. Innovation [Ish haChidushim]. Yet, his originalities seem to root deeply in traditional Judaism, though they may grow in unexpected directions. In fact, he claims he's modernizing nothing. Rather, mainly basing himself on the basic Hebrew Torah text, he tries to rediscover classical Jewish thought almost lost in thousands of years of stifling Gentile domination and Jewish assimilation. (He pleads for a close reading of the Torah instead of going by rough assumptions of what it would probably mean and before fleeing to Commentaries.) This, in all aspects of life, but prominently in the areas of Free Will, Activism, Homosexuality for men, and Redemption. * He hopes that his words will inspire and inform, and disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. He aims to bring a fresh perspective rather than harp on the obvious and familiar. He loves to write encyclopedic overviews. He doesn't expect his readers to agree. Rather, original minds should be disputed. In short, his main political positions are among others: anti-Trumpism, anti-elitism, anti-bigotry and supremacy, for Zionism, Intersectionality, and non-violence, anti those who abuse democratic liberties, anti the fake ME peace process, for original-Orthodoxy, pro-Science, pro-Free Will, anti-blaming-the-victim, and for down-to-earth, classical optimism, and happiness. * He is a fetal survivor of the pharmaceutical industry (https://diethylstilbestrol.co.uk/studies/des-and-psychological-health/), born in 1953 to parents who were Dutch-Jewish Holocaust survivors who met in the largest concentration camp in the Netherlands, Westerbork. He grew up a humble listener. It took him decades to become a speaker too. Bullies and con artists almost instantaneously envy and hate him. * He holds a BA in medicine (University of Amsterdam) – is half a doctor. He practices Re-evaluation Co-counseling since 1977, is not an official teacher anymore, and became a friendly, empowering therapist. 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