Time and again I have personally been the victim of such libels. Among them:
- I hacked his account or support hacking
- I have impersonated palestinians on social media to instigate trouble and generate hate towards them
None of this is true.
Following my exposure of the latest blood libel against Israel and the Jews, which I published a few days ago, Silverstein went into overdrive to come up with an explanation as to how the anti-Israel side could have disseminated such a lie. His explanation? I am behind it!
(http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2016/06/20/whose-hoax-is-this/)
I can’t allow the lies in his hit piece go unanswered, even though they are so ridiculous, they hardly dignify a response.
While it is clear that this story is fake, it’s only slightly less clear who created it. My strong feeling is that it comes from official or unofficial Israeli hasbara sources. The timing couldn’t be more convenient given the recent news cycle which offered a damaging story about Israel cutting off water to West Bank villages as they faced a massive heat wave. What better way to counter the bad press than to put out a hoax, which the pro-Israel press will jump on to ridicule the pro-Palestine media who swallowed the story hook, line and sinker.
Another dubious aspect of the story, which was first noted by Jett Goldsmith, is that the poisoning of wells is an ancient element of Christian blood libels against Jews going back to the Middle Ages. Besides poisoning Christian water supply, Jews were also accused of kidnapping and killing Christian babies and using their blood to make matza for Passover. It would seem the perfect dark, but juvenile joke for a Jew to create a fake blood libel in order to embarrass the progressive media who might run this story.
It may be no accident that the first pro-Israel blog to find and denounce this story as a fraud is [Aussie Dave’s] Israellycool. He posted his story one day after the Anadolu post was published. He was careful not to link to the Anadolu story itself, but to another site which republished it.
I am usually one of the first to debunk blood libels against Israel. It is one of the things I get much satisfaction out of. My ability to be relatively quick at identifying such stories is a combination of monitoring social media and receiving reader tips.
As for claims I was careful not to link to the Andalou story itself, I did.
The source seems to be the Turkish Anadolu Agency.
In fact, he says Anadolu was the source because I tweeted that to him!
As it turns out, I subsequently updated my post with the fact that the story actually originated last week – from the PLO! Silverstein also now knows this, yet maintains I am the source because I was apparently so quick off the mark with the story.
Silverstein continues:
[Aussie Dave] himself has engaged in serial frauds and hoaxes on Facebook and other social media in which he posted anti-Semitic material, then featured it in his blog in order to gin up hatred of Palestinians.
This is an oft-repeated accusation by Silverstein and another vicious lie. Anyone who knows me or follows my blog knows that I spend countless hours fighting antisemitism. There are unfortunately no shortage of antisemites or antisemitic material being disseminated. The idea that I would spend my valuable time (divided between my day job, caring for my family – including my wife battling stage 4 cancer – and my blogging) inventing antisemitism to drum up hatred of palestinians is patently absurd. And offensive.
There is only one “hoax” I have ever perpetrated online – the time I fed Silverstein false information so he would reveal my “real identity,” demonstrating how he does no fact-checking whatsoever. Clearly, he has never recovered from this damage to his credibility.
Most recently, he attacked 15-year-old, Leanne Mohamad, a UK schoolgirl who won a speaking competition with a speech on her love for Palestine. [Aussie Dave] and blog co-author, Brian Thomas. A hitherto unknown figured named Edgar Davidson also joined in the attack. Several activists told me that Davidson is none other than Thomas (in Davidson’s blog he mentions himself and Thomas in the same sentence and in this Israellycool post Thomas even concedes someone outed Davidson as him).
They all smeared Moahmad by calling her a ISIS recruiter and terrorist. As a result, the competition pulled her from the competition. This bullying was noted by the UK press, who caught on to [Aussie Dave] and Thomas’ MO and denounced his tactics.
The post in question was all Brian’s. He never called her an ISIS recruiter or terrorist. His point was her libels of Israel were the stuff that ISIS could use for a recruitment video. You can argue whether or not this is hyperbole, but it is not as Silverstein claims. You can read more of Brian’s response here. I can also confirm that I know Brian in real life and I can tell you now, he is not Edgar Davidson, who lives in the UK (Brian lives in Israel).
[Aussie Dave] and Thomas have been photographed together with IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, and they jointly form a clubby mutual admiration society. Thomas has also posted a tweet saying it was a shame halacha didn’t permit him to shoot me.
I have never meet Peter Lerner in my life, although I very much admire him and respect him and hope to one day. I am guessing Silverstein is referring to this photo. No me in it.
As for Brian’s tweet, that is his sense of humor (although he would admit this was not his best joke). I personally stay away from such jokes, but last time I looked, telling bad jokes is not a crime.
In his post attacking the alleged water poisoning story, [Aussie Dave] even connects the Israeli water shut-off to the so-called blood libel (his words) story about the settler rabbi. I strongly doubt this is a coincidence:
A few days ago, I was one of the first to report on and debunk a blood libel perpetrated by The Independent (and others) regarding Israel restricting the access of palestinians to water.
Now we see a new water blood libel doing the rounds in the Arab media: A report concerning a prominent Rabbi who has issued a religious decree “allowing Israeli settlers in the West Bank to poison Palestinian water sources in Palestinian towns.”
I made the connection because it is an obvious one. A few days after one blood libel around palestinian water supplies comes another one.
If there’s a smoking gun here, it appears to lead back to the shooter, [Aussie Dave] or his pal, Brian Thomas. Of course, it’s always possible that someone associated with them pulled the hoax and told them about it so they could be first to publish a story debunking it. Time will tell…
Notice how after being so sure I invented the hoax, Silverstein backtracks slightly. This is because he fully well knows there is no smoking gun here. His claims are unsubstantiated and utterly false and libelous. But as he regularly does, he publishes a wild theory to damage Israel or her supporters, with scant regard for its truth. He knows once it is out there, some people will fall for it hook, line and sinker.
I guess it also did not occur to him that the reason the anti-Israel side published a false story is this is what they do! Silverstein included, as his very libel against me attests!
Make no mistakes about it. Silverstein’s goal here is to damage me personally. He had no valid response to my debunking of the blood libel, so he invented this entire, ridiculous story.
The bad news for Silverstein and those like him is no matter what libels, threats and attacks I endure at their hands, I will continue doing what I do, which includes exposing these haters and debunking their lies.
