Between Dome of the Rock and a Hard Place
Defense Minister Ehud Barak described it as “false, distorted, and irresponsible“. Information Minister Yuli Edelstein called it “anti-Semitic“. Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren said it “insidiously… portrayed the Jews as the deliberate murderers of innocents“. Foreign Minister Lieberman argued that its true purpose “was to destroy Israel’s image, in service of countries where [...]
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Max Blumenthal published today a nice catch from the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot about how 550 Israeli officers and soldiers have been investigated for possible war crimes in Gaza. On July 15th, I published a little post on the two IDF soldiers prosecuted for shooting an unarmed, bound, and blindfolded man. I noted the revealing [...]
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The last few blog posts have focused on the contradictions—that is, fabrications—coming out of the “IDF” Press Office and Israeli Foreign Ministry about the flotilla massacre. Here, I focus again on the IDF effort to paint the humanitarian activists as terrorists. The point is not new; it has been making the rounds on the blogosphere, [...]
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The NY Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief, whose objectivity was cast into doubt because his son actively serves in the IDF, has just published a detailed article on the flotilla massacre. The second paragraph jumps off the page: The crack of an Israeli sound grenade and a hail of rubber bullets from above were supposed to [...]
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The Israeli government is very rapidly losing control of its own hasbara efforts. As documented in recent posts, Israel’s Consulate in New York first claimed no commandos were detained by activists, then Israel’s navy said there were, and just now the consulate wrote me again (@HybridStates) to say no IDF troops were captured at any [...]
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The Israeli government has decided to change its story, ostensibly because it felt it had generated enough sympathy in the international media through its confiscation and selective publishing of video from the flotilla attack. Israel’s orchestrated PR effort has only worked, of course, in generating jingoistic empathy for the soldiers among its own largely brainwashed [...]
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Yesterday Yuli Edelstein at the Israel Consulate in New York fielded questions via Twitter about the flotilla massacre. I asked directly: “Were IDF commandos detained by flotilla activists? If so, for how long? How were they released?” The Israeli Consulate responded: “Not true. Its a rumor.” About 30 hours later the world is informed that [...]
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It’s difficult to say precisely when the Gaza siege became a formal naval blockade (Update: a commenter, Marian Houk, points out that the IDF Spokesperson announced the blockade on Jan 3, 2009, a fact that raises an additional question of how the IDF views the siege from 2006 to 2009.) But in the language of [...]
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In an effort to frame an attack by pirates on a civilian ship in international waters as an act of self-defense, the Israeli Foreign Ministry has taken to publishing photos on Flickr of “weapons” they claim to have found aboard the now seized ships. The terrifying photos suggest a ship absolutely full of metal parts [...]
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Today is the anniversary of the establishment of Israel on May 15th, 1948. It is also the day that Palestinians commemorate as the Nakba (“the catastrophe”). Here are two excellent documentaries on the establishment of Israel and the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem. Spend some time today thinking about the history conveyed in these [...]
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