Anti-Israel propaganda Facebook page Olive Palestine recently posted this photo and caption, which went semi-viral:
They seem to have found it from fellow anti-Israel propagandists QNN, who posted the same a month earlier, with similar results:
What struck me when I first saw this photo is how the house does not look Israeli at all. A Google image search reveals why – this is a photo above Ben Shemen Forest, showing the Israel-Thailand Friendship House.
Thai Pagoda Pavilion in Ben Shemen Forest – The Thai Pavilion is a spectacular spectacle in the middle of the forest. The pavilion was given as a gift to the people of Israel from the people of Thailand as a token of friendship in honor of the 50th anniversary of the State of Israel’s independence and 50 years from the coronation of the king of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej. This is one of three pagodas in Israel. It is designed as a traditional Thai temple made of wood and marble in shades of gold, red and white.
The building is located at a point overlooking the hills of Modiin Forest. A fence surrounds the compound to guard it. The place is open only by prior arrangement for fear of destruction.
See also here.
So either the propagandists knowingly used this photo, which is not of Ramla at all, or did it mistakenly because they are not so familiar with what they claim is their “beloved” land after all. Either way, it speaks volumes they did so.
Hat tip: David G
Update: I have written about Ramla before:
Ramla was established by Suleiman Ibn ‘Abd al-Malik as the capital of Jund Filistin (the army or military district of Palestine), and was the only “civilian” city that was built by the Muslims in the Land of Israel and Syria.
It’s establishment also hints to the “second fiddle” nature of Jerusalem to the Muslims.
When the Muslims conquered the Levant in the seventh century they at times changed the meaning of ‘Palestine’. They preserved its erstwhile sense as a region but also came to see Palestine as synonymous with the city of Ramla. From the tenth to the early twentieth century, dozens of Muslim exegetes, travellers and chroniclers explained that Ramla and Palestine were the same place. Others thought Palestine was a small region based around Ramla, one that did not include Jerusalem, or that Palestine had much more to do with Ramla than it did Jerusalem
And as Mordechai Kedar writes:
After Palestine was occupied by the Muslims, its capital was Ramlah, 30 miles to the west of Jerusalem, signifying that Jerusalem meant nothing to them.
