The following statement was posted by the administrators at the Israeli message board Fresh.co.il, where the supposedly top secret leaked Israeli attack plans for Iran were posted a few days before DouchebloggerTM, or someone duping him, ripped it off [links were added by me, JD].
Over the past two days, most of the people in Israel (ourselves included), have seen news reports all over the media, detailing the “Israeli Iran Attack Plan”, allegedly originating from one Richard Silverstein, an American Anti-Israeli blogger.
Silverstein, whose lack of integrity is shown by his claims to have never visited www.fresh.co.il though he has an active account, which he used to write 11 posts(the 12th was an attempt to publish classified information and resulted in deletion and a six month suspension of his account – suspension which was ended over a year ago), published yesterday a translation of what he claimed to have been a document obtained from “a high-level Israeli source who received it from an IDF officer”.
Since we can’t read minds, we can only guess whether Silverstein source actually exist, and whether the source was informed on this “attack plan”. What we don’t need to speculate about, is the fact the first publication of the said document (in a different version, which defined it as “an optimistic scenario for an attack in Iran” and clearly stated that it was based on foreign and non-classified sources and on the author’s own imagination) – was published four days before Silverstein’s publication, right here, on this website, in the Army and Security Forum, as a thread which was started by the forum’s moderator, Sirpad, on behalf of one of the forum’s most veteran and respected users, who was the original author of the document (yes, he and non-other).
Since we have no expectations that a man who dedicates his life to causing harm to the State of Israel and its citizens, will be honest enough to admit that his “scoop” is neither scoop nor his, we were hoping that at least the Israeli Media, which rushed to quote Silverstein, Will know to give Sirpad, the real author, and original place of publication, their due credit.
Needless to say they we were disappointed. Since yesterday there were articles in NRG, YNET, Channel 2, Ma’ariv (whose printed version did point out that Silverstein wasn’t in fact the first publisher of the story, but failed to name Sirpad, The real author, or fresh.co.il and identified the true origin as “an Israeli Forum” ), Israel army radio and “Israel Hayom” – and none of them gave the credit which media outlets are supposed to give.
Worthy of a positive mention is Avri Gilad who named the true origin of the story both in his morning show in Channel 2 and in his radio show in the Army radio.
We understand there is great deal of embarrassment among the media, which had quoted a dubious and irresponsible blogger, but that shouldn’t, in our opinion, cause them to refrain from correcting their articles, now, when they know the truth. In fact the seriousness of a news publication can be measured in its willingness to admit its mistakes and to correct them.
We hope that media outlets, mentioned here, all of them among the most respected in Israel, will know to set thing right, and clarify that the original publication was written by a veteran and well known member of the fresh.co.il community, and was publish on his behalf by the Moderator of the Army and Security Forum, Sirpad. That is how a responsible media should act – and this how any news organization would expect other to treat him or its reporters were things different.
Sincerely,
Fresh.co.il team
Unlike certain bloggers, Fresh abides by strict censorship rules. Thus there is no chance whatsoever that the fictitious plot has any hint of an actual Israeli attack plan. Moreover, if it was truly a leaked plan, we would’ve seen the formal format and wording used by security establishments i.e. mission and objective, and not some half-baked what-ifs.
Adamantly shilling for Dick, is Velvet Underground, who cannot possibly think he’s lying, when he’s been proven time and time again to be wrong, to lie, to expose his sources, to go on personal vendettas and to take some Aussie bait. Also on the list of Dick suckers [yup, I just said that], are 972+, the Guardian and AlJazeera favourite as-a-Jew, Mya Guarnieri. It is interesting to note that the writer of Velvet Underground is making a film on Silverstein, and according to some, she is the one who picked up on the posted plan and gave a translated version to him.
We’ll have to wait and see if this time around, the media – spearheaded by Israeli tabloids Yediot and Maariv – has learned its lesson, and will think twice next time Silverstein publishes a forum post, because luckily for us, he’ll continue to be a douche.
