Ynet Turns To The Douche

There’s jumping the shark…and then there’s Ynet:

US blogger Richard Silverstein said Saturday that Israel was the mastermind behind the blast the killed at least 17 people at an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps base near Tehran.

In his blog, Tikun Olam, Silverstein quotes an Israeli expert as saying that the Mossad was responsible for the explosion, in collaboration with the Iranian militant opposition group Mojahedin-e-Khalq. 

“It is widely known within intelligence circles that the Israelis use the MEK for varied acts of espionage and terror ranging from fraudulent Iranian memos alleging work on nuclear trigger devices to assassinations of nuclear scientists and bombings of sensitive military installations,” Silverstein said.

He attributed an incident similar to Saturday’s explosion which occurred at a different IRGC missile base last year to Mossad sabotage.

Silverstein noted that his source “has never been wrong so far in the reports he’s offered.”

‘External sabotage unlikely’
Meanwhile, a former IRGC soldier said that the explosion occurred at military storage facility where Shihab missiles are stored. Hamed Ebrahimi, who served at the base for two months, told the Iranian online daily Rooz that the tough security at the facility makes it highly unlikely that the blast was caused by an act of external interference.

The soldier said that the base is split into two divisions; one stores missiles, while the other serves as an air force training center.

A senior IRGC officer was among the massive blast’s victims. The officer, identified as Hassan Tehrani Moqaddam, held a rank parallel to brigadier general, the Fars news agency said. He reportedly served as a researcher at a Tehran university and headed the “Jihad Self-Reliance” unit, mostly tasked with developing arms and missiles following the embargo imposed on Iran since 1979.

The explosion occurred 40 km (25 miles) outside Tehran, and was felt in the capital.

The IRGC ruled out the possibility that deliberate sabotage was behind the flare-up. On Saturday, it was reported that the blast occurred while munitions were being moved.

“The primary cause for the explosion is being determined, and will be made public at a later date,” IRGC spokesman Ramezan Sharif said, stressing that the 17 people who died in the incident and the 16 who were injured were all IRGC operatives, and not civilians.

The funeral procession for the victims has been scheduled for Monday, and is to leave the IRGC’s headquarters in Tehran.

In other words, Ynet has quoted Silverstein – who has a track record in either outright lying or otherwise getting things completely wrong (see here, here, here, and here for more examples of his dishonesty) – as if he is a valid source.

What makes this worse is Silverstein has a track record in doing things to undermine and harm Israel, so such stories put out by him should be treated as if they are designed to do exactly this.

Sure, Israeli television is also guilty of giving him way too much air time, but they at least acknowledge he is not the most reliable source. Plus I don’t recall them doing any puff pieces on him as Ynet did earlier this year.

Shame on you Ynet. 

Update: The palestinian Pal Today website has used the Ynet article as a source in reporting that the Mossad was behind the blast in Iran (hat tip: EoZ).

13 thoughts on “Ynet Turns To The Douche”

  1. YNET has long disintegrated into leftist anti-Israel stupidity. Its reliance on Kapo Dickie as a source shows that YNET is nothing more than a joke.

  2. Arguably, this could help discredit them as a Wikipedia source. (Juvanya, are you listening?)

    The question is – was just on YNET, or was it in the actual newspaper (“Idiot”, Israle’s largest newspaper, which runs YNET)? Anyone know? Is it on Hebrew YNET?

    No wonder LATMA compared them to Al Jazeera.

  3. I’ve come to the conclusion that for you, AussieDave, a day without exposing the unreliability of Richard Silverstein is like a day without sunshine. This is the only explanation I can come up with for this thematic treatment of the doucheblogger as a touchstone for IsraellyCool.

  4. Just saw him spout off on TV, on Channel 2. Disgraceful! How dare they give that Israel-hater a podium while systematically banning people of the land-faithful Israeli Jewish Right?!

  5. Silverstein credibility warning:

    http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2011/11/12/iran-blast-may-have-hit-missile-base/#comment-174028

    “UPDATE: Ultra-liberal Seattle blogger Richard Silverstein is creating quite the stir in Israel with his assertion that the Mossad, working with the MEK, is behind the explosion. Silverstein has broken stories before by circumventing the Israeli censors.”

    Roger Simon is extremely pro-Israel. Someone with some facts might want to set this straight.

  6. I’d better not be hearing this nonsense about Mossad being responsible for the Iraqi explosion in the Australian major news stations and papers/websites. They report enough libellous garbage about Israel as it is. Stupid Dickie. How dare he call his website “Tikkun Olam”. In my opinion, the best “Tikkun” (fix) for the “olam” (world) is for Dickie to leave it!

    1. Why should he be different, when everybody else also misuses the term? Remember the, “you are a bad Jew” clip. In this case, wikipeida got it right.

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