HAZEM BADER/AFP/Getty Images

Not quite. According to the real caption:

An injured Palestinian construction worker screams in pain after an Israeli army driver drove a trailer hooked to a tractor over his legs, as he tried to block him when Israeli forces stopped workers on January 25, 2012 from building a house in al-Dirat village, south of Yatta in the southern Bank town Hebron region.

Now far be it for me to make fun of an injured man but..well, that’s just the thing:

Yet, after checking with both Palestinian and Israeli sources, it seems that the man was not at all injured, and there is no evidence that he was run over. On the Palestinian side, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), which provides comprehensive weekly reports about all injuries, fatalities, incursions, and other incidents in both the West Bank and Gaza, makes no mention of this alleged injury in its report for Jan. 19- 25. In addition, the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency did not cover the alleged injury, even though it does report on Israeli army activity that day nearby in Tel Rumeida. And Ma’an also reported a hit and run incident, in which a Palestinian teen was hit by an Israeli driver at a checkpoint this morning. Presumably, then had this worker actually been run over and injured on Wednesday, Ma’an would have carried the story. Nor does it appear that any English-language wire service or other media outlet covered the alleged injury.

On the Israeli side, Capt. Barak Raz, spokesman for the Judea and Samaria division who had spoken to soldiers at the scene, told CAMERA the following: IDF soldiers were on site to provide security for the Civil Administration, which was preventing Palestinian construction in an area not permitted for building. One Palestinian worker was lying on the ground next to the trailer when he started to scream that he had been run over. Nobody saw him get run over. First he complained that his left leg was injured. An army medic checked him and saw nothing. The medic did, nevertheless, wrap him in a bandage since the worker was carrying on that he had been run over. The man then subsequently claimed that it was his right leg which was injured. According to Raz, the Palestinian Red Crescent, which was also on the scene, checked him, and likewise found absolutely nothing wrong with him.

In short, at worst, this incident is staged, as Raz contends, and the man pretended to be run over and injured, while neither happened. At best, there is zero independent confirmation that he was injured. If neither AFP nor IHT can substantiate the claim, it ought to be immediately retracted.

So it looks like the only thing being trampled on here is the truth, while the lies gain traction.

People hold pieces representing two states living side by side in peace and security during a rally in support of the national reconciliation between the two rival moderate movements of Fatah and Hamas, in the West Bank city of Ramallah,Thursday, Dec. 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Nasser Shikyerbouti)

Real caption here.

But you get my point: The palestinian leadership has been speaking of the 1967 borders – at least to the international community – but to their people, the real message is – shall we say – more optimistic.

Yes, they are comparing the palestinians to the Israelites, and the Egyptians to Israel.

Methinks if the mainstream media existed at the time of Moses, the Israelites would be painted as “Zionazis” and the Egyptians as doing what was reasonable.

On 6 July I complained to the BBC about their publishing of two maps that deliberately mislead people about Gaza’s borders.

Here’s the first map and note the lack of the word Egypt and the way that there is no differentiation between Israel and Egypt in terms of colour as there would be in any normal map (I believe mapmakers usually work to a three colour rule)…

On 17 August the BBC responded thus:

‘NewsOnline Complaints to me
 
Mr Goat,
Thank you for your e-mail and please accept our apologies for the delay in replying. The first map is not intended to be an accurate geographic or political representation but to show the location of Gaza and where this particular incident happened. Had Egypt been involved in any way in this story, the map would have included Egypt.

The same applies to the second map, which illustrates a story about Israel and Lebanon. This map also does not name Saudi Arabia, which is also not mentioned in the report. In a story about England we might show an appropriate map, but it might not be necessary to name Scotland and Wales if they were not relevant to that particular report.
…

Best wishes,

BBC News website
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle.shtml ‘

*****************************************************

{Title:} Mr  
{First Name:} NotaSheep  
{Last Name:} MaybeaGoat
{Under 13:} No
{Email:} notasheepmaybeagoat@gmail.com
{Postcode:}
{Location:} England
{Phone:}

{Feedback Type:} I would like to… Make a complaint
{Summary:} Deliberate misdirection of readers of article
{URL:} http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14035536
{Complaint:} On 6 July I complained about the deliberate misdirection of
readers of the above article.
‘In the BBC article headlined ‘Israel forces ‘kill two militants in central
Gaza”, the BBC include a map. This map makes it seem as though Israel is
both enormous and surrounds Gaza thus explaining how Israel has been able to
 blockade it for some years now. There is of course a problem with this:
Israel does not surround Gaza. The country that borders Gaza to the South
East is Egypt not Israel, that is where the Rafah Crossing is… So why have
 the BBC omitted the word Egypt from that first map?’
A day later you published another map in this article -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14051618 – and yet again the map
 missed off any reference to Egypt.
I can see no excuse for this deliberately misleading of the public. I can
also not see why I have yet to receive a response to my original complaint.

{Reply:} Yes

I replied with this:

Thank you for your response but I am sorry I do not, as they say, buy it.

The first map shows the borders of Gaza just to the point where Gaza ends. If the map went any further south then it would have to show the border between Israel and Egypt. Contrary to your claim in your email ‘ the map would have included Egypt’ – the map does include Egypt, it is just that you choose not to denote that country. This is important as the BBC do often seem to try to spread the narrative that Israel controls entry to and exit from Gaza when in fact there is a long land border between Gaza and Egypt, the very border that you chose not to show on that map.

Your comparison with the omission of Saudi Arabia from the second map is a red herring as that country is more than one border away from the scene of the story.

Two maps; both not mentioning Egypt, a country that borders Gaza; not that someone relying on the BBC for their facts would see that.

…

Regards

NotaSheep MaybeaGoat

PS: I am not Mr Goat, I am Mr MaybeaGoat

Over two months after the last reply, three plus months after the original complaint, the BBC have responded seemingly to the original complaint(?), and there’s an apology in there:

NewsOnline Complaints to me

Dear Sir,

Sorry not to reply sooner to your complaint.

One of the maps http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14035536 is plain shoddy work, for which we apologise. It should mark Egypt.

On the second map http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14051618 there is no space to mark Egypt. Our standard maps of this kind are made by journalists using a map making programme – size of frame and the options for labelling are limited. While Egypt is not marked, for lack of space, it is in a different colour to Israel, so there is no impression of Israel surrounding Gaza.

Best regards,

Middle East desk
BBC News website

http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle.shtml

Usually, the BBC gets on our goat; it’s great to see a goat (or at least Maybe a Goat) get on the BBC for a change.

Is an Israeli life really more important than a Palestinian’s?

The transfer of prisoners tacitly acknowledges acceptance of that obscene idea

—-

All this, I fear, is simply an indication of how inured the world has become to the obscene idea that Israeli lives are more important than Palestinian lives. Netanyahu argues that he acted because he values Shalit’s life so greatly.

Yet who is surprised really, to learn that Netanyahu sees one Israeli’s freedom as a fair exchange for the freedom of so many Palestinians? Likewise, Hamas wished to use their human bargaining chip to gain release for as many Palestinians as they could. They don’t have much to bargain with.

At the same time, however, there is something abject in their eagerness to accept a transfer that tacitly acknowledges what so many Zionists believe – that the lives of the chosen are of hugely greater consequence than those of their unfortunate neighbours.

Yep, I called it correctly (I just got the gender wrong).

As Honest Reporting explains, the Jewish concept of the Chosen People* has nothing to do with notions of superiority, and the swap deal shows just how much Israel values human life.

But I would go a step further. The swap deal also tells us how little the palestinians value human life, including their own. As if sending their own people to blow themselves up, and murdering each other in honor killings did not already tell you.

* The Hebrew for this concept is ‘Or LaGoyim’, being a ’Light Unto The Nations’ So Deborah Orr’s very surname alludes to this. Sweet!

Freed blind Palestinian prisoner Ala'a al-Bazian (R) from Jerusalem's Old City is helped by his brother to walk around his family house following his release from an Israeli jail after 28 years of imprisonment, on October 19, 2011. The Palestinian Hamas movement exchanged Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who spent more than five years of isolation in a Gaza hide-out, for hundreds of Palestinian militants being held in Israeli jails (Getty Images)

Seems to be like this photo and caption is designed to elicit sympathy for this elderly blind man. Heck, Israel probably blinded him, in addition to imprisoning him.

What Mr Caption Writer fails to mention is 1) Ala’a al-Bazian was blinded by an unsuccessful foray into bomb making  2) He was imprisoned for life for terrorist activities 3) Despite his terrorism, Israel allowed him to travel to Jordan for medical treatment and 4) He was a member of our “peace partner” Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah

Which is true, if by “killed” they mean “blew himself up.” 

"Oh my son, how you blew up so quickly" (Reuters/Mohammed Salem)

A 22-year-old man was killed in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday afternoon, after witnesses reported Israeli troops fired at him near the border with Israel.

The military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed Ahmad al-Azazmeh, from the northern city of Beit Hanoun, as a fighter in their brigades, and said he was on a “jihad mission.”

An Israeli army spokesman said soldiers identified two people planting an explosive device near forces at the border in northern Gaza early Monday afternoon, and a loud explosion was heard. She denied Israeli troops opened fire.

Witnesses told Ma’an that al-Azazmeh was by the wall when troops shot him and blocked an ambulance from reaching the man before he died.

Israeli forces impose a no-go zone in the border area of the Gaza Strip.

Besides all that viagra, the number two cause of premature explodation in Gaza is “jihad missions.”

Here’s the video. It is worth watching the whole thing to see exactly how journalist Eric Campbell tries to manipulate the viewer.

Of note:

• A palestinian activist called Cairo Arafat. Sounds to me like her namesake, her family’s from Egypt.
• Cairo Arafat speaking of a two-state solution, despite the clear chants of “From the River to the Sea” (i.e. one state called Palestine supplanting Israel) by her fellow palestinians
• Palestinian workers celebrating with their Jewish bosses, prompting Campbell to editorialize “it did feel slightly played up for the benefit of our camera”
• Eric Campbell asking the pro-palestinian Israeli “Are you anti Zionist”, followed by “Are you antisemitic?”
• Arab-Israeli Member of Knesset Ahmed Tibi speaking of apartheid. I repeat: Arab Israeli Member of Knesset Ahmed Tibi.

Color me paranoid, but the NY Times…really?

Israel Reoccupies Embassy in Cairo

]]> http://www.israellycool.com/2011/09/20/headline-of-the-day-12/feed/ 9 http://www.israellycool.com/2011/08/30/honest-reporting-invokes-their-inner-monty-python/ http://www.israellycool.com/2011/08/30/honest-reporting-invokes-their-inner-monty-python/#comments Tue, 30 Aug 2011 06:09:32 +0000 Aussie Dave http://www.israellycool.com/?p=30313 Starring my friend Joe Hyams, other members of Honest Reporting, and some guy who looks like a mix between Doc from Back to The Future and Larry David.

Winning!