That mainstream media we keep hearing about, the responsible ones with layers of editors and fact-checkers to make sure things don’t go wrong? Well, MSNBC was suckered by a news parody site. Twice. In the latest one, they thought they found a blog by Al Sharpton on the Michael Vick case, and published quotes from it. They were informed it was a parody site. Their non-correction states that they determined the blog was “a hoax.” NewsGroper fired back with an utterly hilarious response. Really. Put down your drinks and click this link, because it is laugh-out-loud funny. (But first read the backstory at Hot Air.)

Here’s how NewsGroper starts the response to MSNBC:

Excuse me, Mr. Alex “Investigative Reporter” Johnson of MSNBC, but before you go calling people a hoax, maybe you should take a long look in the mirror. (If you don’t see your reflection, it means you are a bigot.)

It gets better.

Three more terrorist-slash-”civilians” were killed by the IDF today, as well as a boy who got caught in the crossfire when the IDF tried to arrest a relative of his and were fired on.

Four Palestinians were killed Friday by Israeli forces after gunmen opened fire at troops operating in the West Bank and outside Gaza. Among those killed is an 11-year-old boy, a relative of a wanted Islamic Jihad member who was apparently caught in the crossfire.

In the village of Seida northeast of Tulkarm a special joint IDF, Border Police and Shin-Bet force conducting an arrest operation came under fire from Palestinian gunmen as they approached the home of a wanted man and a gunbattle ensued.

[...] Also Friday evening an IDF force patrolling the security fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip came under fire from two armed Palestinians, just north of the Karni crossing.

The troops then crossed some 330 feet into Gaza and killed the gunmen after a short exchange of fire. No IDF casualties were reported. The soldiers recovered AK-47 assault rifles from the gunmen’s bodies.

Officials within the Gaza battalion said the gunmen had apparently been waiting for an IDF patrol to pass by in order to attack it.

So far, AP has not picked up the story. They appear to be too busy talking about the Fatah/Hamas “protest” clashes.

Hamas security agents clashed with supporters of the rival Fatah movement Friday, firing into the air and beating journalists covering a demonstration against the Islamic militant group’s rule in the Gaza Strip.

It was the second time in recent weeks that Hamas has scuffled with Fatah protesters, a signal of possible cracks in the Islamic group’s two-month-old takeover of Gaza. Harassment of journalists and political opponents has grown increasingly common in the coastal strip.

By the way, the anarchy that’s been subdued, and the freedoms that Ismail Haniyeh and his stooges keep writing about in American op-ed pages? Not so much.

When several Hamas security men roughed up a Reuters TV cameraman and tried to confiscate his camera, protesters surrounded the Hamas men, beat them to the ground and prevented the journalist’s arrest.

The Hamas men also detained a photographer for Agence France-Presse and a cameraman for the Russian TV channel Russia Today, along with two other reporters working for local news outlets. They also broke a TV camera belonging to the Arabic-language TV network al-Arabiya.

All four detained journalists were quickly released and got their equipment back, Hamas officials and witnesses said. Later, journalists staged a protest against the crackdown.

Khaled Bolbol, one of the local reporters detained, said he was abused and ordered to speak to Hamas’ al-Aqsa television station.

But I don’t understand—the Christian Science Monitor keeps running articles that prove Hamas is moderating.

Though many observers argue that Hamas’s political agenda dictates different behavior from its days as underground opposition to the Palestinian Authority (PA), Israel’s army continues to see Hamas as a group driven by an extremist agenda. Still, a military spokesperson acknowledged that Hamas has recently resisted the kind of sustained barrages on Israeli cities that provoked escalations in the past.

“It’s a matter of interests. The interest of Hamas now is to show the world stability inside Gaza. But the stability is only visible on the outside,” says Maj. Avital Leibovich. “Take Gaza as a metaphor for something that is [being] wrapped up. When you take off the wrapping, you see something different.”

Oh, it’s the wrapping. It’s coming off. All will be revealed, certainly the moment Hamas’ Iranian masters tell them to let loose.

The UN World Conference on Racism, held in Durban, South Africa, just prior to 9/11, went down in the annals of UN as one of the most infamous, hideously anti-Israel events, even by UN standards. Israel and the United States walked out of the conference which, of course, did not stop the haters from continuing with their Israel-bashing agenda. In the past few years, notables at the UN have insisted that the reforms enacted would change things. Things got so bad that even Kofi Annan even noted—without sarcasm—that the UN was anti-Israel more than, well, just about anything. And Ban Ki-Moon? Well, he said that he wouldn’t allow that on his watch. Nosirree.

Yeah, Durban II is good to go. Libya has been elected to head the committee that’s planning next year’s anti-racism conference (which shall from now on be referred to by me as Durban II). And Iran has just been selected for a leadership role on the committee as well. This is all on top of the anti-Israel fest that will be hosted by the EU in just a few days:

Israel has protested to the European Parliament about plans to host a conference under the auspices of a U.N. committee for Palestinian rights, saying it was biased and anti-Israeli, a spokesman said Monday.

Israel’s ambassador to the European Union wrote to the president of the European Parliament last week urging reconsideration of plans to host the U.N. International Conference of Civilian Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace from Aug. 30-31.

The conference has been called under the auspices of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, which was established in 1975 and Israel considers anti-Israeli.

‘To put it mildly, this is not the most balanced committee in the United Nations,’ said Sagi Karni, spokesman for the Israeli mission to the European Union. ‘This committee is very biased and often their discussions are aimed at Israel-bashing.’

The committee is refusing to announce ahead of time the panel events that are occurring. Funny, that. It’s almost like they have something to hide.

What the conference will pronounce is pre-determined. Carefully pre-determined: the UN’s Palestinian Division runs a tightly-controlled operation that accredits only anti-Israel NGOs and speakers. And recently they’ve become quite clever. Without altering the virulently anti-Israel nature of their meetings, the organizers instead seek to mask their activities — under such innocent-sounding titles as “support for Israeli-Palestinian peace.” Moreover, to add credence to their cover, they invite specially approved “Israelis” — a select group of radicals who openly espouse hatred of Israel, claiming the license to do so because of their citizenship. Both tactics give conference organizers the cover they need for their allies and enablers to then use the material.

Among the speakers at the conference are Michel Warschawski, who proudly describes himself as a “well-known anti-Zionist activist.” Others speakers include Nurit Peled Elhannan, Amira Hass, Raji Sourani, Jamal Jumaa (Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign), Mohammed Khatib (Popular Committee of Bilin Coordinator), and David Shearer (OCHA). See the recent meeting in South Africa, featuring Gideon Levy and others, to get a sense of what to expect in Brussels.

None of the radical Israeli Jews at the Brussels conference represents even a tiny segment of the Israeli Jewish population. So it’s like holding a conference on U.S.-Islamic rapprochement and inviting John Walker Lindh—the American who joined the Taliban—to represent America’s position. Technically, Walker is as American as Warschawski and Hass are Israeli. But only a scoundrel or a fool would treat either exercise as anything but a sham.

But the two committees, though united in their hatred for Israel, are actually two different organizations. Here’s information on the one with Libya and Iran:

Despite its numerous calls for Israel’s destruction, and repeated denials of the Holocaust, Iran has been selected by the United Nations for a leading position in a committee that will plan the 2009 UN World Conference against Racism.

The planning committee, which will meet for the first time in Geneva on August 27, will be made up of an inner circle of 20 UN member-states, to be headed by Libya.

Of course, the UN is in hear-no-evil mode:

A spokesperson for the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights confirmed to Ynetnews that “Iran is one of 20 States who are members of the bureau of the Preparatory Committee,” but added that “Iran does not occupy a leading role.”

When asked how a state which openly denies the Holocaust could find itself in such a role, the spokesperson said: “The Preparatory Committee is an inter-governmental body, meaning States were chosen freely to sit on the Prep-Com. It is the Member-States who decide.”

And here’s how they did it: The Arab bloc, which effectively controls the UN. Funny, the Arab bloc never gets mentioned by people like Mearsheimer and Walt. And yet, it is powerful enough to keep Israel the world’s pariah, year after year, and to name Palestinian refugees separate and above all of the rest of the world’s refugees, giving them a decades-old renewable mandate, and declaring even their American-born grandchildren refugees. Anne Bayefsky has been keeping an eye on the UN for years:

Bayefsky explained that the structure of the UN’s Human Rights Council has effectively been taken over by the countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), allowing Iran and Libya access to key roles.

“The states were selected by the UN Human Rights Council and the Council is controlled by the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The majority of seats on the Council are held by the African and Asian regional groups and the OIC has a majority of seats on each of these groups. Western states do not have the votes to block this outrage and it is another example of the hijacking that has occurred of the UN’s lead human rights agency,” she said.

The conference is going to be every bit as much an outrage as its predecessor. Guaranteed. The foxes are guarding the henhouse. Egypt is on the committee, too. That would be the selfsame nation that’s been murdering Sudanese refugees.

No way this turns out well.