Richard Silverstein Defends Arch Terrorist Samir Kuntar’s Honor
David Lange
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Yesterday, I posted about anti-Israel DouchebloggerTM Richard Silverstein and his run-in with someone who refused a job from him because of his vile politics. I had to chuckle, and many of you probably did too. With his hypocrisy, constant gaffes and bizarre, bug-eyed appearance, it is easy to mock and deride him as the buffoon he is.
But let us not forget he is an evil buffoon. This is someone who spends practically every waking hour demonizing Israel and emboldening terrorists, whether it be his appearances on Iran’s Press TV, or his defending terrorists or otherwise minimizing their crimes.
We now see the latest example of this. With Israel offing arch terrorist Samir Kuntar, I am absolutely not surprised Silverstein found a way to minimize his crimes.
(http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2015/12/20/israels-lies-regarding-kuntar-murder-flow-in-abundance/)
Yesterday, Israel murdered Samir Kuntar, a Hezbollah militant involved with a terror attack that killed three Israeli civilians in 1979. Until he was freed in a prisoner exchange in 2008, he’d been the longest-serving security prisoner in Israeli jails.
Notice from the outset he accuses Israel of “murdering” Kuntar. It is already clear what side he is taking. And he cannot bring himself to call Kuntar a “terrorist” but rather a “militant.”
In the years following the original attack, Kuntar became the embodiment of the bloodthirsty terrorist, supposedly personally bashing in the head of a little girl with a rifle butt. At least this is the story they told. But this narrative, like so many spun by Israeli military-intelligence circles, and lapped up so eagerly by an adoring Israeli media, is largely fiction.
According to Aviv Sela, a noted Israeli psychologist who served in that capacity for years with the police and Shabak, Kuntar did not kill the girl or her father. Instead, he claims he had left the boat to help his comrades who’d been attacked by Israeli security forces. The firing that killed the Israelis came via friendly (Israeli) fire and not the Palestinians. As with so many ugly facts Israel tries to conceal in such circumstances, it creates comfortable narratives that obscure the truth.
For a start, the man’s name is Zvi Sela, not Aviv. The fact Silverstein cannot even get his name right is indicative of his regard for facts and truth.
But yes, he is referring to an old Ha’aretz article (don’t get me started on them) to back up his statements.
“We turned Kuntar into God-knows-what – the murderer of Danny Haran and his daughter, Einat. The man who smashed in the girl’s head. That’s nonsense. A story. A fairy tale. He told me he didn’t do it and I believe him. I investigated the event within the framework of the next book I am writing, about hostage-taking incidents. As far as I am concerned, it was no more than a newspaper report. I sat with him; he was very intelligent. He was a squad commander at 17. He told me that his motive for infiltrating Nahariya was to take hostages. He said [his organization] knew that would both humiliate Israel and get them media publicity.
“He told me: ‘If I had wanted to kill Danny and his daughter, I would have shot them in the house. I took them to the boat because I wanted hostages. I had no interest in hurting them. After I got them into the boat, wild gunfire started and I went back to help my squad on the shore. Danny, the father, kept shouting, “Stop firing, you crazy people.” He and his daughter were found shot in the boat. I was on a small rise, shooting at your forces, and the boat was 20 meters away in the water, with Danny and the girl.'”
So you say that Kuntar did not murder Haran and his daughter?
“That is what he says, and in my opinion there is support for the fact that they were killed by fire from the Israeli rescue forces. You can accuse him all you like, but it was obviously the rescue forces that opened fire. There were all kinds of legends about Kuntar. People also said that he would return to being a terrorist [after his release]. Nonsense. He told me then explicitly that he would not go back to terrorism, that he was too old to execute operations – and that’s also clear.
Silverstein accepts this without question, even though Samir Kuntar clearly lied about not going back to terrorism.
On his return to Lebanon, Kuntar was welcomed by Hizballah, a U.S. Department of State-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, and he has since emerged as one of the group’s most visible and popular spokesmen. Since Kuntar’s return, he has also played an operational role, with the assistance of Iran and Syria, in building up Hizballah’s terrorist infrastructure in the Golan Heights.
Which renders Sela’s appraisal of his testimony as to what happened on that fateful night completely unreliable. Clearly, Kuntar was a liar, in addition to being a terrorist.
But Silverstein is not a truth-teller, and does not approach these things with critical thinking skills. Rather, he approaches them with criticize Israel skills. So he blindly accepts this because it fits his agenda.
Which is ironic, considering he accuses others of exactly what he is doing.
Not only will he not question the veracity of these sources, he will not consult critics or skeptics in order to qualify the accuracy of his reports.
He even goes further, and dismisses any talk of Kuntar’s return to terrorism.
He continued his evil ways as a mastermind of terror in Assad’s regime. Read this fantasia:
As I linked above, even the US State Department designated him a terrorist. More fact than fantasia.
Silverstein refers to another terrorist incident to show how Israel spreads disinformation.
Something similar happened with the 300 Line bus hijacking in which the Israeli media initially dutifully reported that all the Palestinian hostage takers were killed in the bus assault. This concealed the fact that the Shabak chief personally approved the cold-blooded murder of the two surviving Palestinians. In this case, it was Israeli security forces who stove in their heads, this time with rocks instead of a rifle butt. The moral being: the only good Palestinian terrorist is a murdered one, the gorier the better.
Again, Silverstein uses the word “murder” – adding “cold-blooded” for added dramatic effect – and refers to the terrorists as “palestinians.” As if they were minding their own business, and not hijacking a bus with 41 innocent people.
But notice Silverstein’s Freudian slip.
In this case, it was Israeli security forces who stove in their heads, this time with rocks instead of a rifle butt.
He is clearly implying someone stove in someone’s head with a rifle butt – and we know that is what Kuntar did to 4-year-old Einat Haran. So he is either subconsciously admitting Kuntar did that, or inadvertently suggesting Israel did (even though he has accepted Sela’s claim she was killed from friendly fire).
This is yet another example of Silverstein’s contempt for the facts – and Israel.
It is no wonder he is quoted almost exclusively by extreme Israel haters and antisemites.
Most of the rest of us treat him as the poison that he is.
Update: Notice Silverstein’s response to this commenter.
So blinded is he in his pathological hate for Israel, he does even notice the commenter taking issue with his use of the word “murder” – or chooses to ignore it.
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David Lange
