. I see that the BBC have been revelling in showing what they allege to be the actions of four Jewish settlers (That’s if you think people on their own land can be settlers!) beating up Palestinians in Judea and Samaria aka “West Bank.” A group of extreme left-wing Israelis – B’Tselem – provided 100 video cameras to Palestinians to help them capture the innate wickedness of the Israelis. Funnily enough the world’s most oppressed people were able to get evidence of Israeli violence very quickly, to the BBC’s evident approval. In fact the BBC were singled out to be given this “exclusive” footage. I wonder why? I also wonder why the BBC cameras NEVER manage to capture the barbarity of the savages that live in Judea and Samaria? Odd, isn’t it?
THOSE JEWISH THUGS
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Knowing the BBC, that would be exactly what it would say
Hi Korova
It’s good to see the BBC showing some healthy scepticism about material supplied by Palestinian stringers. After the Al Dura affair, not to mention the sexing up of photos from the Hizbollah war, more discrimination on the BBC’s part would be welcome.
And I wonder when we’ll see the BBC showcasing interviews with Palestinian Christians about the thuggery and discrimination they regularly experience at the hands of some of their more militant fellow Palestinians, in the same way that they have showcased this?
Perhaps you could point us to some examples?
“Next thing you know you’ll be saying there was never such a thing as Palestine. What utter nonsense”
More ignorant, illiterate drivel from Korova.
There never WAS such a thing as ‘Palestine’ as a state, you sad ignoramus.
“Of course there is such a thing as “Palestine”!
It’s “the national home for the Jewish people””
Err, no: that one is called Israel. Palestine is a name invented by the Romans to show that the Jews DON’T have a national home.
John W: you are understating the case quite a bit. There has never been a Pali state, nation, culture, history, language and so on.
Bryan,
Go to
http://www.irfanview.com/
and d/l this great freeware prog, IrfanView.
To do a screen capture:
1. Press Prt Sc / Print Screen (top-right of your KB, usually). On a laptop you may have to first press a (blue, on mine) Fn/function key (bottom right of KB, on mine).
This copies the screen to the clipboard.
Open IrfanView (e.g. click on the shortcut on your desktop), which opens a new file. Ctrl-V to paste the clipboard to the Irfanview file.
Save As ‘whatever’.
Noga,
Bordering? The BBC has been a mouth-frothing antisemitic propaganda machine at least since the first Lebanon war in my personal experience, which is when I first noticed its total bias.
Thanks, NO, I’ll give it a shot when I’m a bit more awake. But as I said to Jack Hughes, dunno if the compt. will register the “print screen” function, cause I’m not hooked up to a printer.
Bryan | 13.06.08 – 10:51 pm |
“Print Screen” has nothing to do with a printer. It’s a euphemism for taking a snapshot of whatever is up on your monitor at the moment. Think of it as the equivalent of “Select All” plus “Copy”. As NO has explained, you then “Paste” that into a new document in whatever image viewing/manipulation program you have. Even Word will work in a pinch, as you can make a PDF from there.
After that, you can actually print it onto some form of dead tree, if you want.
Thanks, David, that clarifies things. Can’t do the dead tree, as I ain’t got no printer. But I suppose I could put it on a disc and shlepp it into town.
There is no such thing as Palestine, never was and it follows there are no Palestinians. History is on the side of those who make that claim but unfortunately it is almost irrelevant in the ‘real world’ of Israel advocacy.
Sometimes I get the impression that those who use this argument (and their mirror counterparts on the Palestinian side) think there is a judge, somewhere, who will weigh up the evidence and make a decision, end this intractable dispute and everyone will go home. Get Real – aint gonna happen!
The United States (President, Senate and Congress), United Nations, European Union, almost every state and international body that I can think of but most importantly the State of Israel have accepted the existence of the Palestinians. They use that term in speeches, official documents and briefings. That doesn’t mean there was a group calling themselves Palestinian in 1937 or 1956 (thanks Allan@Oslo | 13.06.08 – 7:53 am) but there certainly is – now.
I would argue that national identity is always a construct and that when Arafat and the KGB created the Palestinian Liberation Organisation before the Six Day War there was already a mass of people identifying themselves as Palestinian and nothing else (except, of course Arabs). Today if you take a minute to looking at sites that are not related to the Israel/Arab conflict, e.g. Matrimonial and Dating sites, you’ll see people identifying themselves as Palestinian and looking for fellow Palestinians.
About a month ago I put the same argument that Nearly Oxfordian, Allan@Oslo, Biodegradable, John W, Noga (apologies if I left anyone out) to noted Israel advocate Brian Lazarus. He basically told me not to waste my time. The ‘there never was a Palestine’ argument is basically a dead-end. Even if the Palestinians had a valid historical argument that is no excuse for their actions; it is no better an argument that dozens of other groups who don’t have an independent state make (e.g. the Sikhs, Chechens or Tibetans) and no reason for Israel to endanger the lives of it’s citizens.
BTW Apparently the largest group of Palestinians is rapidly gaining a national identity, as Jordanians, and Jordan is a state that definitely didn’t exist prior to 1922. So there is a hope that if the Arab world absorbed them they would effectively disappear as an identifiable and dangerous group.
Unfortunately, Get Real – aint gonna happen! 🙁
I’m putting these links up here because they have a way of disappearing into the BBC ether. West Bank attack filmed
NB At end of video: West Bank attack filmed. The BBC has obtained footage of Palestinians attacked in the West Bank by men wielding bats. This BBC version doesn’t accuse the Jews although Tim Franks does.
Page last updated at 17:54 GMT, Thursday, 12 June 2008 18:54 UK
‘Jewish settler attack’ on film This BBC version does blame the Jewish (not the Israelis).
Page last updated at 18:35 GMT, Thursday, 12 June 2008 19:35 UK
An hour later the BBC was confident enough about this video of masked men to claim they know who did it.
Here is the text of my list of troublesome incongruencies.
Spot the ‘red flags’ and add your own.
1) The settlers don’t look Jewish
a) They are wearing keffiyas as masks;
b) The clothes look wrong. They wear coloured T-shirts instead of buttons with rolled-up sleeves; none has ‘tzitziot’ fringes and one is bare-chested. I have never seen a religious man bare-chested • on the rare occasions one doesn’t wear a shirt in public he wears a ‘tallit katan’ (like a singlet);
c) No one carries a firearm;
d) They look remarkably swarthy for European Jews.
2) Technical problems
a) Shouldn’t we hear sounds of shouting (Arabic, Hebrew or English), sounds of pain, and sounds of stick (baseball bat?) meeting flesh? The sound on the camera is turned on as we hear wind noise.
b) Shouldn’t someone whose cheek has been fractured by a blow have more bruising, swelling, medical dressing or stitches?
c) Shouldn’t someone with a recently broken jaw have trouble speaking? The ‘victim’ seems to have no problems;
d) Shouldn’t the man need treatment for something more serious than a broken finger?
e) If the daughter in law dropped the camera shouldn’t it stop moving? If she ran with it shouldn’t it move up and down in the direction of flight?
f) Why don’t we see any blows land?
g) Seems a little convenient (will accept this as odd editing) the scenes of Betzelem handing out cameras and then cutting to the scenes of victims on the TV in the tent.
Shame on the BBC and Tim Franks for rushing this to air with no confirmation at all and allowing no reply by anyone except a curt (but probably true) report that Israel Police are investigating. Mohammed al-Dura, anyone?
I asked about the effect of a fractured cheek. After some googling I found.
Frequently asked questions about facial fractures
In general, doctors will want to bring the broken bones back into a normal alignment (called ‘reducing’ the fracture) and keep it/them in this place (called ‘fixing the fracture’), preventing further injury. Sometimes they will need to operate to do this. Sometimes they will need to use plates, screws or wires (or other fixation) inside or occasionally outside the bones to hold the fractures in place.
How long it takes a facial fracture to heal will depend on the type and extent of fracture and what other problems and treatment you had. Bruising and swelling usually takes 2 to 3 weeks to settle down. At this point, you will begin to look more normal.
The facial bones have many channels in them in which small nerves run. These nerves are sensory nerves (sensing hot, cold, touch, pain etc). When the nerves emerge from the bones they distribute themselves through the soft tissues and skin of the face.
When you have had a facial injury (including a fracture) your soft tissues, skin and the bones are likely to be bruised, swollen and damaged. This can lead to short-term pain but also numbness or altered sensation to the face. Depending on the position and extent of injury, this change in sensation often takes a number of weeks or maybe even months to disappear completely. Very occasionally, only partial or no recovery occurs.
Motor nerves tell muscles how and when to move. They run between the facial bones and the skin and can be injured by trauma.
Conclusions The lack of swelling, lack of evidence of plates or operation and her clear speach in a period of only 6 days after the alleged attack, indicate the woman did not suffer from a fractured cheek. Her facial damage would appear to an older injury.
I am a political scientist not a doctor. If any B-BBC people would like to comment I’m sure we would all appreciate this.
You forgot another ‘red flag’
Israelis don’t do anything bad.
deegee:
It’s hard to disagree with several of your points, but on the technical aspects the following need to be considered:
1. The images are shot on the far end of a zoom. That’s why they’re so jumpy. The scale of the magnification means that tiny movements of the camera are also heavily magnified.
2. Professionals would rarely shoot like this without using a tripod. The image is not stable enough to make sense.
3. This is not a professional camera, and its microphone would be adequate for close work, not distance. We can hear the noises of the person operating the camera, not any of the further events the lens is seeing.
4. The extreme jumpiness of the images of the alleged assault could reasonably be explained by the fear the assault engenders in the camera user: The zoom effect getting even worse as she shakes.
5. On the other hand, it’s a standard docudrama technique to shoot dramatic images at the end of a long lens on a shaky camera, because they have a “real” feel to them, and because it’s easier to create the effects, for instance, of violence without having to engage in the real thing.
6. One odd thing is the question why the men with the sticks don’t have a go at the camera. Thugs rarely like the idea they’re being filmed by their victims. A non-pro camera like this requires you to get reasonably close to the action – really good long lenses are very expensive – which would leave the camera vulnerable.
deegee | 14.06.08 – 11:26 am,
Good points. I’d add that it is just a tiny bit too convenient for “settlers” to come marching over a hill for an “attack” after Betselem hands out the cameras. Did they really think people would sit and twiddle their thumbs for months or years or forever waiting for an incident they could film? It was an irresistable invitation for Pallywood. As you point out, those four are Arabs. There’s no way they are Jewish settlers.
I complained to the BBC about their susceptibilty to Pallywood on the tail end of another complaint:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/1459313078873202038/#404143
Harry’s Place and most of the commenters there have swallowed the story hook, line, and sinker.
That’s the danger of (probable) lies like this one; they’re half way round the world before the truth can get its shoes on.
Israel needs to send spokespeople like this to be interviewed by the BBC:
http://backspin.typepad.com/backspin/2008/06/israeli-shows-u.html
Bio, got the same standard response to my complaint re Maqbool as you did:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/190244521193263191/#404065
Bryan,
So I see.
I can find nothing to back up their claim that the IDF retracted its initial version of events and admitted that “there had been no fire fight. They said forces had killed a militant as they tried to apprehend him.”
As HonestReporting and the CAMERA report they link to makes clear there are far too many contradictory “witness” reports to make any of them reliable.
I’d reply to the BBC response but I’m sure once they’ve formulated their answer they’re not interested in further correspondence.
The recent “work accident” is a good illustration of how they faithfully propagate the Hamas version and discard the IDF’s explanation, unless as in this rare case Hamas owns up.
By the way, perhaps I blinked and missed it but I didn’t notice Hamas expressing any regret at all for the children and “civilians” killed in that explosion. I suppose they’re considered to be martyrs and will all receive just reward in heaven (if only!)
Biodegradable | 14.06.08 – 2:18 pm,
I complained about the gross lie on the Middle East page re that incident. It really made me see red:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/1459313078873202038/#404072
So I sent a complaint off to Steve Herrmann, editor of the BBC News website, and copied and pasted it to the “Complaints” website as well as Raymond Snoddy at Newswatch. They probably got quite a few complaints because they changed it fairly promptly and made it clear as daylight at the link that Hamas had admitted reponsibility, and they also had a fair bash at impartiality in the linked article:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/1459313078873202038/#404117
I found this quite intriguing. Could be that people on the night shift take advantage of the lack of supervision to pump out lies and propaganda and those then get modified or deleted when the day shift gets in.
Joel:
You forgot another ‘red flag’
Israelis don’t do anything bad.
Joel 12:24 pm |
But not the other ‘red flag’
Joel makes infantile remarks that inadvertantly reveal his gross prejudice and ignorance.
Colon,
I don’t see Bio suggesting the film was a professional fake.
But.
The ‘thugs’ don’t look right
The facial injuries don’t look right
There were cries but no speech.
The person on the left with the white jumper, standing still, side on, looked odd. Was he the husband ‘standing his ground’?
It will be interesting to see what the investigation turns up. No doubt if it really was Israelis we’ll hear more about it, and if not – we won’t.
Nice of them to give the BBC exclusive footage, though, eh?
Especially as ‘when they have the camera they have proof that something happened – they now have something they can work with, to use as a weapon.”
“Now!??” That little old weapon has been used before methinks.
And it certainly proves ‘something happened.’ Yes indeedy.
deegee | 14.06.08 – 8:29 am |
Good point about national identity being a construct, and that arguing about it isn’t going to change anything at this point.
That’s why I stopped using the scare quotes around Palestinian some time ago. A couple years back some commenter here (I’ve forgotten who it was) didn’t use scare quotes, and somebody else asked why not, with the usual protests of “There’s no such thing,” etc. The commenter responded by saying that they had a Palestinian football team entered in the World Cup, and that pretty much ended the argument.
That to me was a sign that some sort of constructed national identity was eventually going to be accepted internationally for these Arabs rejected by their former home countries of Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, or who fled their homes in what is now Israel because they were told to by the other Arabs or they just didn’t want to be around the Jews. It’s phony, I know, and the very existence of this body of “refugees” was planned as a human weapon to use against Israel. But I agree that we’re going to have to accept this construct.
This little video is still an amateur fake, in my opinion. I have yet to see anything in it which doesn’t point to fraud.
Sue:
I don’t see Bio suggesting the film was a professional fake.
Nor did I. I was outlining the reasons why it could be believed.
And also the reasons to be worried about it.
“Even Word will work in a pinch”
Yes
“as you can make a PDF from there”
Or just print the Word doc … 😉
Deegee: yes, it may be a deadender, but it’s still relevant to point out that the Arabs lie on this point.
Your red flags are spot on.
I can assure the asker that a fractured cheek does NOT heal completely in 6 days. That’s just ridiculous. I know this first hand (well, not me but a family member).
Joel: just the usual reading comprehension problem and dumb antisemitism from you. No surprise there, then.
Palestinians. They don’t exist. Yes they do, but only as a football team of Arab refugees who came from the area formerly know as Prince. And. They were constructed by Yassir of the Arafat Advertising Agency who knew a good brand name when he saw one. The implications, (of indigenousness and unity) were falsifications, but not the actual brand name, because Palestinian could obviously be a term for people who ‘came from’ Palestine. (the logo)
People who say that there’s no such thing as the Palestinians are wrong, but they’re also right. Because the ‘the’ is misleading. They should really be known as ‘some’ not ‘the’. Some Palestinians demand their own state. “Why?” people may ask. “They sound neither indigenous nor unified.” ‘The’ Palestinians, well that’s a different thing.
Telling me to shut up contravenes my uman rights BTW.
Saying “there’s no such thing as ‘Palestinians’ ” is slang for “the people you refer to as Palestinians are not the indigenous, unified, entity who were violently displaced by Jewish interlopers from Europe-who-stole-their-land that you imply when you use the term.
Political Resignees. They exist.
Say political resignees formed a party and demanded to be recognised under the name ‘The Politicians.’ And somebody came along and said there’s no such thing as Politicians. When obviously there are. Is. That somebody would be seen as malicious, as would the appropriation of a deliberately misleading name. No doubt the political resignees would be as unified as the palestinian refugees.
If their brand name became established as a ‘fact on the ground’ then eventually it would discredit the original politicians who would have to be known henceforth as the conservatives, the labourians, and the liberal democrats. ians.
Top secret documents.
Did anyone hear Professional Cynic Marcus Brigstocke or whatever his name is, the pwofessional webel who’s meant to be funny, this morning on radio 4?
He was investigating “politicians” with his cynic-ometer. He had to travel in a northerly direction from Euston which gave him an excuse to wisecrack “are we nearly in Scandinavia” to show that he’s normally too cool to go oop north, to interview David Davis on a train.
David Davis has been left on a train by a civil servant exercising his final remaining civil liberty. Marcus’s cynic-ometer didn’t even flicker when David Davis spoke to him entirely without enunciating any ‘Ts’ as one does when one wants to pander to the masses.
There was suspicious fakery in the way President Bush strode across a quadrangle to meet President Sarkosy on news 24. The strides themselves looked fake. My fake-ometer is very sensitive. It has to be.
Colon.
You know what?
You’re on our side. Yes you are. You agree with us.
Sue,
PS. to my recent post:
It is also important to keep exposing the big lie of the ‘Palestinians’, because it’s part of the other big lie, namely ‘the Palestinians are the indigenous nation of Palestine – DUH!’ and ‘the Jews are white European colonialists who are not indigenous to Palestine – DUH!’.
I will, therefore, continue to object to this Goebbelsian creature, pace all the appeasers and even all those whose heart is in the right place but refuse to see this issue.
Nearly Oxfordian, if you are going to accuse me of racism, you should really substantiate that.
The BBC are now reporting that: “Israeli police say they have arrested two Jewish settlers over an apparent assault of Palestinians that was filmed as part of a human rights project.
An adult male and a minor were arrested in Susia settlement overnight and will appear in court on Tuesday. ”
See the story here
Court releases youths arrested on suspicion of beating Palestinians