Brunel 2 March
Last night, 2nd March 2017, I was in Brunel for yet another event during ‘Apartheid Week’. There is a difference between an argument shaped to reflect your perspective and delivering raw propaganda. Opposition to ‘Apartheid week’ is not about a difference of opinion. The endless distortion provided by speakers is supported by pillars of outright deceit. Those standing in front of the students on campus must *know* they are telling lies. They *know* they are purposefully omitting information. I have seen scores of speakers at dozens of events deliberately mislead students. This is fodder for the pulpit, not the campus.
This propaganda is designed to incite hatred towards the Jewish state. Logically, it has no other purpose. These events are created to sell an image of an Israel so twisted, so beyond ethical reach, that only mass global action will save the Palestinians from their fate. At the same time, the image has to be so terrifying, so inhumane, that someone walking onto a bus and killing civilians, becomes the understandable event born of lack of choice and frustration.
Only when both of these elements have been successfully delivered, is the true anti-Israel activist created. Therefore the movement has to take university students on a journey to accept horrific attacks against innocent Israeli civilians. A clear strategy of demonisation through propaganda. We have been here before.
The English bloke at Brunel
About thirty five people have gathered to hear the three speakers at Brunel. Ben White is ‘Mr statistic’ and the English face of the BDS. White’s strategy is always the same. He is literate and articulate, and he hides the distortion behind an endless stream of numbers. White’s sleight of hand in magicians language, is a classic misdirection.
White uses the term ‘Palestinian’ to absurdly describe *only* the Muslim or Christian residents of British Palestine prior to 1948. Jewish residents, regardless of how long they or their families have resided there, are discounted. If he was to try the same trick to differentiate between white Christian British people, placing them on a pedestal, separating them from non Christians and immigrants, we would call him a Nazi.
White begins and the distortions never stop. He starts by speaking of Israel, creating a ‘Jewish majority’ by “forcibly expelling the majority of the indigenous population”. Fantasy stuff.
He misquotes, he twists, he distorts. More often though, there is a fake point, followed by a near endless sentence that recounts town names, people, numbers, dates, and leaves people so inundated with irrelevant detail, they are left in little doubt they are listening to an expert. Nobody realises he dealt them a dummy card at the outset. His talk of ‘Apartheid’ within Israel brought to light two examples, that had absolutely nothing to do with apartheid at all.
He quickly shifts onto the West Bank and Gaza, mentioning that house demolitions in Jerusalem reached a ‘peak’ year in the ‘destruction of Palestinian structures’ in 2016. There was a total of 203 units demolished (123 were residential). Just to put this into perspective, 300 residential homes were demolished in the Anfield redevelopment, that saw authorities wielding the “legal threat of compulsory purchase”. Apartheid in Liverpool anyone?
Of course this is the strategy of demonisation, so Palestinian violence is *never mentioned*. At no point during the entire evening, did any of the three speakers make a single comment that would inform anyone listening that there was ever *any* violence whatsoever directed towards Israel or Israelis.
I am familiar with Ben’s routine though. Last night at Brunel was no different. He slips in the keywords, he is careful with his terminology, and he builds his arguments through carefully selective sound-bites and decontextualised information. I have heard him speak many times, and dressed as an anti-Israeli activist, had detailed conversations with him about BDS strategy. These days he recognises me on sight, with or without a Keffiyeh and free ‘Palestine badge’.
Arrests without cause, blockades for fun
Nick Kardahji is currently the ‘Coordinator of the Student Palestine Solidarity Project’. In English, it probably means he is attached to the BDS Central Committee, with the aim of getting students to hate Israel enough to forgive terror attacks against civilians. Kardahji’s job is pure propaganda. This from last nights talk:
“The context for the emergence of BDS, was very much the failure of the peace process. The process that began in the early 1990’s, often referred to as the Oslo Process. And that process was one, that at least in theory, was supposed to lead towards some kind of justice, some kind of solution to the conflict. But was in fact one in which we saw an intensification of the process of settler colonialism and apartheid in Palestine. We saw a massive expansion of settlements, we saw increasing blockades and restrictions on freedom of movement to the Palestinian population. We saw arrests, we saw detention of children, we saw brutal crackdowns of protests and demonstrations, we saw massacres, we saw the ongoing reality of racist and discriminatory laws being imposed on Palestinians. So during the so called ‘peace process’ we saw a situation that was only worsening for Palestinians”
This is the central logic of BDS laid bare. The failure of the peace process led to the emergence of BDS. In reality it was the failure of the intifada, but I do not want to distract from the distortion above. Arrests? Detentions? Let us put Kardahji’s statement back into context:
I lived the Oslo Process every day between 1993 and 2000 with a front row seat. Israelis, like Palestinians, were wary of the process. But you cannot tell the story of Oslo, without mentioning that Palestinian factions opposed it, violently. That buses started exploding in the Israeli street.
This from an Israeli government website in 1998:
“A total of 279 men, women and children have been killed in 92 lethal attacks by Palestinian terrorists since the signing of the Oslo Accords. This does not include victims of attacks launched by Lebanese-based terror organizations or incidents along Israel’s borders.“
That without the foresight of the more than 1000 Israelis that would be slaughtered during the ‘Second Intifada’. Telling students that Palestinians were arrested or blockades were increased as a way of teaching people to hate Israel, without telling them that the blockade increased because hundreds of dead Israelis lay in the street, is something that *simply should not be permitted in a place of education*.
Mr Slick at Brunel
Following the BDS recruitment speech at Brunel, came a speech from visiting Palestinian Abed Salayma. I had seen Abed just three days before at UCL and called him ‘Mr Slick’. Abed is the face of Palestine that European financial support has purchased. Rather than spend money on developing state infrastructure, building a future for their children, or investing in the economy, Palestinians have been taking the money they receive and using it to spin the Palestinian cause. That ’cause’ is pushing Europeans to hate Israel and lobby for its destruction.
Salayma has a job to do. Ben White placed a fictitious legal framework around the claim of Apartheid. Nick Kardahji spoke of how Israel can be punished. These events are carefully choreographed. What is needed now is the human interest story, to reel in the sympathy of those attending. That is Abed’s role. His description of the death of Hadil al-Hashlamun was disgraceful. He suggested she had no knife (Even B’Tselem acknowledges the knife), he then reinforced that assertion by pointing out a picture where no knife was visible on the ground. He began to describe the incident thus:
“she entered the checkpoint, and the soldier asked her to open her bag, that she wanted to search her and she said no but they can bring a female soldiers so she can check”
Except nobody can possibly have heard that conversation. It is simply made up. He wanted to suggest that Israel simply goes around shooting innocent students. And he used a girl with a knife at a checkpoint and purposefully removed the weapon from the story.
Most of his talk was simply untruth after untruth. When I heard him on Monday, . The 1929 Hebron massacre was delivered to students as a positive message about the Arab treatment of Jews. Last night, he mentioned a five year old, who was arrested, except the five year old wasn’t arrested, but rather detained. The child had been throwing stones at soldiers, and after questioning the father, the Israelis handed both over to the Palestinian police. I would imagine, if a five year old child threw stones at heavily armed British soldiers, exactly the same would happen.
The issue is not to dispute that the situation doesn’t result in awful and sometimes horrific events. Nor does it suggest we cannot argue over proportionate force, whether security measures are always necessary, the situation in Gaza and other debatable elements of any event connected to the Israel /Palestine argument. It is simply to suggest that honesty has to place the story within the context of a conflict. If you remove the conflict, then you cannot claim you are interested in the truth. What those like Abed do, is take every event and ponder how to twist it around, which details to mention and which to avoid, so they can use that story to best demonise Israel. Even if they need to remove the knife of a terrorist to do so. Palestinian violence against Israelis is simply erased from view.
Disruption
I do not disrupt meetings, ever. My method is to listen and to report. As a witness to events, I see the way disruptions are used by the enemy to further bolster their cause. These people are propagandists. They will take whatever we give them and use it against us. Just as they removed the knife from Hadil’s hands at Brunel.
If we sit silently and politely, if we are fortunate, we will be given the opportunity for half a question, that will never receive a proper answer. If we do not turn up, then our silence would merely be taken as a sign we have no answer to the accusations. If I write on the events, then I am out merely to ‘smear the students’ (a ridiculous accusation thrown directly at me last night by Ben White). If we heckle, we are seeking to silence the truth. As Jews, how do we deal with this movement that is designed to nurture hatred against us?
To sit and home and do nothing, to believe that it will go away, is a tried and tested formula for total failure. We cannot act as if it is all going to be okay, as if we can trust others with our safety. No, no, Israel is not there because Jews can trust others with their safety. It is a fallacy, a falsehood without a single shred of supported evidence from all of history. To suggest ‘today’ is different from before is to speak without a single example to provide, to posit that tomorrow the sun will not rise. From an academic perspective that idea is baseless and without foundation.
At Manchester on Wednesday and last night at Brunel, there were protests, disruption. Last night at Brunel I saw Jonathan Hoffman begin to call out Abed Salayma for his lies. He was told to stop and he didn’t. As Abed Salayma spun a web of deceit, Hoffman responded. They quickly decided to evict him. He refused. Stand off, security, forcible eviction.
The irredeemably naive professor
Do I believe actions such as Jonathan took last night look pretty on camera? No I do not. But Jonathan has gone to four events this week. Four. That means he has sat through hour after hour of speakers, listening to people condone terror against civilian Israelis. Lie after lie. Those who sit at home should stand in his shoes before suggesting he should have acted differently. The game is set up to make us fail. This is an email response from Brunel regarding Jonathan’s eviction:
The first paragraph from the professor at Brunel says everything we need to know about the inability of the ‘powers that be’ to protect us from the oncoming storm. Either Professor Leahy is stupid (and his academic qualifications suggest otherwise) or his irredeemable naivety will undermine any good intention he may have. This event took place during Apartheid week, it is advertised on the ‘Apartheid week’ website. This was the very first sentence out of the first speaker:
“Good evening everybody, thank you for coming out to this event, and congratulations to the society for organising this event and for being part of “Israeli Apartheid Week”
As for the suggestion opposition speakers were invited to Brunel, this is at best distortion and at worst a lie. BDS, and anyone connected to the central BDS cause *will not normalise the occupation*. They don’t do debates such as this. Look around at the campus. You’d have to be blind not to see the lack of discussion. This is a deliberate tactic. Who could they possibly invite that these three speakers would agree to stand opposite? How many ‘opposites’ were invited, 1,2,3? It is a nonsense. The university has been challenged to bring forward the names. I will not hold my breath.
Throwing Jonathan out, is what they wanted to do. In my mind, even if I do not accept the disruption, once he suggested they could continue and he would remain quiet the ‘last resort’ cannot have been to forcibly remove him. That was an action of people who had already made up their minds that this is what they wanted to do. A statement.
Jew hatred
We are sitting in a room populated mainly by people who do not like Jews. The audience at Brunel was 70%+ Muslim. The Middle East is tearing itself apart in sectarian violence. Many of the students have backgrounds that connect them to nations that are witnessing horrific bloodshed or oppression. They do not protest that. Israel is just too different for them. Israel is Jewish. That’s the problem. If Israel was a Muslim country behaving this way to other Muslims, it would be held up by these students as a nation of virtue. Instead, just as sectarianism, the lack of tolerance for anything different, tears up the Middle East, these students are bringing it onto the campus as well.
I do not respond the same way Jonathan does but I am no less angry. This blog is my way of releasing the frustration that I felt last night at Brunel. These are people who want to spread lies, and deliberately provoke. To incite enough hatred against a people, a nation, so that others will join forces to seek its destruction. This has no place on campus.
The rules are being bent to allow these hate fests to go ahead. Student Tamara Berens pointed out in an informative piece yesterday, that her university (Kings) “has created a ‘safe space’ for every single student apart from Jews and Israelis.” This section from her post highlights the clear discrimination:
For our Israel society, there are extensive rules which are applied scrupulously. We must have an impartial academic chair, a safe space policy, safe space marshalls and other extensive measures for our ‘controversial speakers’.
The Palestinian society, KCL Action Palestine, however, is allowed to bring in speakers who promote terrorism and have been previously banned from other institutions without an academic chair or any provisions for ensuring freedom of speech for others.
Which of course is felt at every event we go to. Including last night at Brunel. When we ask a question, it is moderated by a Chair who boycotts Israel, before being answered by someone who cannot even speak ‘Israel’s’ name. As Jews inside the room, our identification as ‘bad Jews’ is because we sit in opposition to such hatred.
It has been a long week and despite one or two cancellations, the government, the university, and elements of our own leadership are letting us down. Our Jewish students *DO NOT FEEL SAFE*, and it is our duty to stand by them and make sure that changes. Even if every now and again, the photos don’t look pretty.
The law is being abused to persecute Jews, attack Jewish identity, deny them their rights and intimidate them. Why treat it as strange? Jewish history suggests it isn’t strange at all.
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Professor Leahy – the Deputy VC who emailed me – is an expert on Shakespeare. Which means he understands the antisemitism in Merchant of Venice. Which means he *should* understand how Jews have so often been being placed in impossible positions (when Shylock claims his pound of flesh he is told he was not promised any blood …. and he ends up being forced to convert to Christianity).
As David so eloquently explains, these mendacious events *also* place Jews in an impossible position. They have much of the quality of medieval disputations………. In the 21st century … Plus ca change …………
This is somewhat interesting
http://freespeechonisrael.org.uk/ofir-demolishes-david-collier/
I think I will take that as a badge of honour.
Good idea. I do a lot of that
Not surprisingly , many Jewish students individually or in groups have not got the courage of David Hoffman and you to sit in a hostile room , and listen to a talk containing tissue of lies making them palpably feel like the devil incarnate. Many of the students have not got the time or strength of experience to challenge the University authorities from applying discriminatory rules to their meetings like in Kings and Brunel and Manchester when compared to the rules applied to BDS meetings. From these IAW /BDS meetings and the carnival fest of hate from speakers and public demonstrations , the average unknowing students around campus who see and hear the ferocity of the assault on their sensibilities , and the message of inhumanity and lies being propagated, unsurprisingly they absorb these prejudices and hate by osmosis. Were it not for David H and you and all the hard working volunteers who take the political fight to the public them, surely more and more innocent students would being misled into antisemitic and anti Israeli hate. You are doing the work of social medics to rid Universities , as best you can of the scourge of the social disease of antisemitism and anti Israeli hate from our student society. It’s a tough job, but surely essential antidote to this manifestation, and essential to the recovery of our social health and to the future.
Another excellent post, David.
In reference to several deleted posts. I hate deleting stuff, and it annoys me when I am forced to do it. Please lay off the personal attacks.
David your posts are almost entirely personal attacks but I can understand your embarrassment.
Stephen, you are an intelligent guy, don’t dumb yourself down. I think you are aware I almost never delete posts, but there is no reason I should want visitors to this site to see a circular abuse thread between two adults behaving as if they are five. That’s all. You often fish, but generally nobody takes the bait. So there are plenty of examples on this site of me leaving those attempts alone. This time however you caught one, take whatever kick you want from that success and let me keep the site relatively sensible in complexion
Thing is David the conspiracy theorists out there , obviously not me, might be starting to think that you actually are ok with disruption. That what we have here is an ongoing carefully coordinated bad cop, good cop type routine between you and he whose name may not be spoken.
You know, if I bumped into you in the pub, obviously with a strong CST guard to keep you safe, the discussion I would like to have is, what, beyond all the verbiage and rhetoric, EXACTLY, is it you are asking for ? I hope it wouldn’t be as McCarthyite as I fear.
Stephen. I am always more than willing to meet up in a pub for a chat. I will tell the four carloads of CST heavies, the Mossad Squad and the Elders to all wait outside.
I am totally against disruption. I think it is self defeating. We do ourselves no favours by doing it. One man sat in a room and spoke out several times against lies from the speaker. In a month, 50 will descend on an Israeli talk, disrupt it entirely and when we complain they’ll point and say we did the same. Additionally, you do not convert people to your side when you do it, you repel them. It is an act of frustration, of anger, and these are not the best drivers to dictate actions. Finally, there is the important element of free speech. Yes, they are lying, but shouldn’t they be free to lie, to distort, even to pick on Jews? Isn’t our role in such a case, to expose them for what they are through our arguments (which is what I do) and let others choose to distance themselves when they realise the driving force is NOT about Palestinian welfare.
Personal attacks? Seems to me he has provided ample support for any critiques he offered. What more would you want to satisfy your doubt? Cerebral MRI’s of those involved to prove that they are shovelling unadulterated propaganda bullshit?
Maybe you’re such an addicted consumer of anti-Israel lies that your whole identity gets its meaning through participation in this kind of twisted hate-fest? Could it be your fear that truth might force you into rehab?
Liza I provided plenty of support for the ” personal attacks” that got moderated out. The reality is that Davivid does not want you to see anything that contradicts the cosy fluffy picture of Jonathan that he paints.
And I even forgot to mention his false allegation of being the victim of anti Jewish chants at a meeting at SOAS a while back. This proved to be entirely ficticious and the BBC accordingly amended its report of it to reflect the reality. That is, that it never happened. Even the ultra fanciful CST
And I am not a consumer of anything. My attitudes are firmly rooted in direct and personal experience. In particular I am not much of a fan of Ben White who comes over as being more interested in Ben White than the Palestinians.
Nor am I a consumer of the ludicrous hysteria that David seems to have given his life over to whipping up, in the service of The State of Israel.
Nor am I a consumer of the ludicrous notion that Jonathan Hoffman is some kind of victim.
oops What I meant to say was even the ultra fanciful CST hurriedly removed this assault on poor Jonathan from its list of ” antisemitic incidents” . It was even too fanciful for them.
Just a note: based on the pictures, some released by IDF themselves, I don’t believe for a second to the story that the girl Hadil al-Hashlamun ever had a knife. I’m sorry, but what the photos show is that the knife was planted, placed on the ground subsequently to justify her killing (and it is not the only instance where such a planting by the IDF was documented).
Besides the remarkable fact that there is not a single picture showing Hadil wielding a knife or ever in any aggressive posture, the photos report that Hadil was shot, fell and died on the ground exactly on the same spot where the photo show her standing, facing an assault rifle (hold by a visibly scared young soldier) aimed at her. In that picture, the soldier is standing at several meters from her, a safe distance, way beyond her reach had she ever pulled out a knife. From that distance, pulling out a knife would not justify a response with deadly force by an assault rifle, and even if she advanced the soldier was still far enough had still plenty of room to pull away; but we know from the pictures she never moved from that spot. So nothing would justify the soldier killing her in cold blood from his safe position at that distance, even if she had ever pulled out a knife. But actually, the point is that would be also hard to make sanese that “terrorist” who intends to carry on a stabbing attack with some hope of being successful, would do so by showing his weapon to a soldier already aiming his rifle and from such a distance. And at a check point. Especially a person who so fully clothed would have no need to do that, since she could keep the knife hidden on herself and pull it out only when the range make it actually usable.
In fact what the photos show is that the soldier is just scared and unreasonably aimes his gun against a teenager girl who is not making any aggressive motion, or well before any action of the girl ever took place that could justify his aiming the rifle. And the reason that obviously scares him cannot be the knife: it’s her clothing. Because she is completely covered up, the soldier is afraid she might be wearing an explosive vest, he panics and decides to kill her.
Utter garbage. You believe what you choose to believe about this so-called planting of a knife not to mention the others out of many you claim have been “proven.” You are willing to accept that IDF checkpoint guards go on duty each day with a collection of ordinary kitchen knives in their possession so that they will be able to plant them on innocent Palestinians on the off chance oothat they should just pick someone to kill that day? Can you be so gullible?
The photographic evidence shows that the guard was not pointing a weapon at her initially but that he cautioned her to stop approaching. She did not stop and was then shot. To believe this was a premeditated homicide reveals your crude, unquestioning bias. and your willingness to side with the Palestinians who had quite intentionally instituted a knife intifada and which they incited relentlessly through Facebook and You Tubes to stir up the genocidal emotions of young impressionable individuals like Hadeel and others.
It seems Palestinian Solidarity rests on having credulous blind haters like you to push their agitation propaganda and keep their myth of being dispossessed indigenous inhabitants of Palestine alive. History is clearly not your strong suit.
Well,no Liza. This is not garbage at all, it’s only reasoning, and let’s see your first assumption, as you think I am implying that “soldiers go on duty each day with a collection of ordinary kitchen knives”. Such implication is arbitrary and unfounded.
Your argument about implausibility of IDF planting a knife is that they would not do it because they don’t have ordinary kitchen knives while on duty. The argument is manifestly ridiculous. The incident happens in Hebron: it’s a city center (no IDF forces would be justified putting up checkpoints and being here in primis, by the way). It’s adjacent to an area full of civilian residences of settlers and shops. It would be extremely simple for an army to fetch a knife within five minutes. It’s full of settlers, it’s full of kitchens. Even the soldiers themselves must have a kitchen, they must eat, they must have cooks and catering, they must have barracks, they must have storage rooms. And if they don’t have one, how long would it take for the army to enter a kitchen and fetch one? Five minutes?
The argument that they would have some difficulty in finding a kitchen knife should not require a comment.
Let’s see it in terms of plausibility of behavior instead. A soldier kills an innocent girl. Let’s say by mistake (but we know “mistakes” may look like the Azaria case). Once this happens, an immediate urge to cover it up, to “justify” it in the official record, would be quite logical. There is nothing implausible in that.
And as we’ve seen, doing that by just photographing a knife, would be also extremely easy and quick.
You are accusing me of believing implausible scenarios. I am not.
Let’s also ask ourselves by the way: did a judicial authority investigate that knife? Did forensics pick it up? Were DNA tests performed, for example? No? And why not?
About the proven instance of IDF planting or claiming false evidence. In this video, soldiers throw a knife on the ground (1’30’’), then force a girl to pick it up
https://www.alwatanvoice.com/arabic/news/2015/12/01/823754.html
A famous mainstream article by Amira Hass bears the explicit title “Does the Israeli Army Plant Knives on Palestinians?” pointing out the planting is reported by Palestinians to be a systematic praxis, and points out the actual plausibility of the claim and credibility of reports:
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.686280
As for shooting incident itself, a video of an innocent 13-yo girl who was shot by Israeli soldiers without any justification:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToPtS77ouNI
The internet is flooded with videos of Israeli soldiers carrying on extra-judicial executions of alleged knife attackers in moments while they are not posing any threat, and the internet is also flooded by comments of Israeli celebrating the idea that any Palestinian who yielded a knife should be killed even when it does not constitute a threat because any “terrorist” just “deserves to die”. The Azaria trial was an apotheosis of this sentiment, besides having his charge downgraded, Azaria himself, despite being a murderer, is celebrated on the streets, songs are written after him.
Another girl killed without reason while not constituting any threat:
http://www.daysofpalestine.com/news/new-israeli-execution-school-girl-west-bank/
In this video you can see soldiers emptying their magazines into 23yo girl Raheeq Shejin Birawi while she is *already* lying still on the floor. At 2’39’’ -45’’you can see her body from a closer distance, and you can see no knife there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5X2t98TKHM
However in subsequent pictures like this one
http://flotillahyvesarchief.weebly.com/uploads/1/6/1/7/16170628/1_3884_orig.jpg
a very conspicuous knife stands out, with something like a 30cm long blade – balanced on her hand in a rather strange position – it almost reaches the plant; you can see nothing like that in the same spot in the previous video. Look at 2’45’’ in the video above: her hand is empty.
There is another recent case of a young Palestinian man who was shot on his way to the hospital for his last chemo session (covered in the news by Gideon Levy). And we have an IDF making up an unsubstantiated claim of “knife attack” which never happened, but only after preventing any contact between him and his family or anyone else over the weeks while he was in hospital following the incident, until he succumbed to his wounds. We could go on listing examples of these kinds.
So back to our photographic evidence. Our first case.
What does it show? Does it show – as you say – that she “did not stop?”. It shows the contrary: it shows the girl still and standing, not moving, and then it subsequently shows the girl dead on *the same spot* where we saw her standing.
The armed soldier appears to be at about 6-7 meters at least: where is the evidence that he was ever approached b y the girl?
In the end you put a quite, well, racist closing: the fact that Palestinians are dispossessed is a “myth”, in your opinion.
Let’s note that this is somethign David Collier would call a racist approach to history if a similar slur of being “non existent” was applied to other identities or groups (like Askenazi Jews for example). I note it because the main argument seems to accuse *others* of being “racists”, prejudicial, biased and blind.
Gabriel
I have absolutely no doubt that within the context of one army controlling parts of a civilian population, day after day, year after year, abuse happens. Humans are not the greatest of creatures and I would expect some individuals to abuse that power. The only way to end this situation is to find a workable agreement between the two sides that allows for disengagement.
Having said that, there is a long way, between an individual ‘making a mistake’ and a conspiracy involving, him, his friends, his unit, those around him, the witnesses and so on. Could it possibly happen, yes, of course. Can it happen as routine? No, it could not. Two people can perhaps keep a secret, three or four, and it is bound to escape. 10 witnesses? Time after time, event after event? Forget it.
Almost all of the links you have provided are edited, distorted, misrepresented and so on. The one were you see a soldier throw the knife to the ground doesn’t show what you say it does. You are seeing what you want to see within an edited video. The Hebron incident is being built by you into a conspiracy through one photo, that is taken prior to the incident. If someone shows you a photo taken half an hour earlier somewhere else, will you dispute she was even there?
The bottom line with these incidents is that there were calls for violence, there were many attacks caught on camera, and there was a lot of support from within Palestinian society for those who committed the attacks. Now you can spend your time, trying to find a photo that allows for distortion to be made. A before and after image of a dead person, without and then with a knife. Perhaps the soldier visibly and openly moved the knife, from the point of attack, to where the body lay. Thing is, if such footage existed, it is unlikely to be released. Or if it did, would be used to suggest the knife was planted. If the one who took the photo of the girl standing, also had a photo of the attack, would he release it?
We can argue over disproportionate response and whether in some circumstances there was a need to kill the attacker. But the conspiracy claim is baseless. You cannot have scores of Palestinians openly attacking Israelis with knives and then scurry around for a couple of photos that allow you to deflect attention away from what occurred.
Which just goes to illustrate why I don’t do arguing about Israel.
Gabriel commented on From Manchester to Brunel, polishing the propaganda machine.
Utter garbage. You believe what you choose to believe about this so-called planting of a knife not to mention the others out of many you claim have been “proven.” You are willing to accept that IDF checkpoint guards go on duty each day with a collection of ordinary kitchen knives in their possession so that […]
Well,no Liza. This is not garbage at all, it’s only reasoning, and let’s see your first assumption, as you think I am implying that “soldiers go on duty each day with a collection of ordinary kitchen knives”. Such implication is arbitrary and unfounded.
No-it is the only logical conclusion to the claims you have made –that the IDF planted a knife and that they had done so on other occasions. You apply the same rules of conduct to the IDF as those the Palestinian terrorists use. You choose to believe the IDF acts as a rogue army and that their military command structure is complicit in this rogue behaviour. Yet all impartial western observers have testified over and over that Israeli military rules of engagement are above board and in fact supersede those of other armies. Every army deals with incidents but to extrapolate those beyond individual cases is just plain bias. You are indeed biased and nothing I can say or show you would change that.
Your argument about implausibility of IDF planting a knife is that they would not do it because they don’t have ordinary kitchen knives while on duty. The argument is manifestly ridiculous.
The incident happens in Hebron: it’s a city center (no IDF forces would be justified putting up checkpoints and being here in primis, by the way).
Hebron has been at the centre of severe conflict that dates back to the 1920’s when the city’s Jewish community were massacred by Arabs, who were whipped into a frenzy by their Mufti Husseini, the same Mufti would become a Nazi collaborator within a decade and who had seen to it that thousands of Jews bound for Palestine were rerouted to concentration camps in Germany.
The Jews who were expelled from Hebron were never were compensated and have had to watch their holy site, the Tomb of the Patriarchs used and abused by Arabs who have burned it on more than one occasion and who have manipulated UNESCO to attribute this holy site to Islam-a disgraceful capitulation to Arab petrodollars. The tension in Hebron is high and is a hot spot for Arab protest and Euro NGO activism. There is every reason for the presence of IDF forces to maintain law and order.
It’s adjacent to an area full of civilian residences of settlers and shops. It would be extremely simple for an army to fetch a knife within five minutes.
Within 5 minutes??? So-shot, run out and get a knife and return within 5 minutes? Doesn’t warrant comment it is so ridiculous. As if there were not enough activists on hand with their cameras to note this behaviour. B’Tselem and many other hostile NGO’s have made Hebron their operations centre. They would have captured such an outrageous conspiracy and made political capital of it. That’s what they try to do with every incident that occurs as it is. It is also preposterous also the reason I gave above-it presumes that IDF is corrupt at every level of its command structure and is willing to manipulate evidence. That’s where your thinking is and nothing will change that.
It’s full of settlers, it’s full of kitchens. Even the soldiers themselves must have a kitchen, they must eat, they must have cooks and catering, they must have barracks, they must have storage rooms. And if they don’t have one, how long would it take for the army to enter a kitchen and fetch one? Five minutes?
So the IDF steals their own barrack knives? Really-I can’t believe you are serious in saying this. Arab and Druze and Christian soldiers serve in the IDF. Do you really think this would not come out? You have to be so gullible to believe this-and that it happens as a corrupt policy time and again. You are incapable of logical thought because like those people you gravitate to, real analysis and reasoning can never enter the picture. That’s why Ben overwhelms with his pseudo facts and figures, and the individual sob stories are trotted out to imply that the whole Israeli military is corrupt from top to bottom, that it is running the biggest show of legitimacy on earth and that only you and your Pal Solidarity mates know that behind the scenes the IDF is just doing the same as Pallywood. You don’t even factor in that they are governed by a Judaic code of morality. Jesus Christ. Can anyone be so duped as you are?
The argument that they would not have some difficulty in finding a kitchen knife should not require a comment.
They would have no trouble but they would be noted doing that. Stop being ridiculous. You are beyond reason. Look at how convoluted and obsessive you are with this.
Let’s see it in terms of plausibility of behavior instead. A soldier kills an innocent girl. Let’s say by mistake (but we know “mistakes” may look like the Azaria case). Once this happens, an immediate urge to cover it up, to “justify” it in the official record, would be quite logical. There is nothing implausible in that.
Yes there is nothing implausible for the very reason you yourself cite-mistakes happen in every army and Israel has never prevented full investigations from taking place. It would have been quite reasonable to say the soldier made a mistake-which they did eventually say. But she did have a knife and the policy was shoot to kill. The IDF changed the policy as a result of this single incident but that was to implement a take-down rather than shoot to kill. There was no question but that she had a knife.
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.683193
And as we’ve seen, doing that by just photographing a knife, would be also extremely easy and quick.
You are accusing me of believing implausible scenarios. I am not.
Let’s also ask ourselves by the way: did a judicial authority investigate that knife? Did forensics pick it up? Were DNA tests performed, for example? No? And why not?
Yes- a full inquiry identified the knife and in the context of widespread knife attacks, this shooting, no matter how regretful, came in the wake of many others. As for forensics-what were they supposed to show? That the knife belonged in the barracks? When it looks like a duck???
Do you know how many indisputable knife and other attacks were occurring at this time? Are you asking for extreme testing on just this one?
Again-basis underlying assumption you have is that IDF is corrupt at every level of command.
What is reprehensible is that you are willing to ignore the reality for Israeli civilians-169 stabbed, 139 shot, 55 vehicular attactks and 1 vehicle bombing. The result was 47 dead and 675 wounded. And you want to push the lie that the Israeli IDF is corrupt. You become more sickening to me as I fully process how you accommodated Palestinian propaganda fiction.
About the proven instance of IDF planting or claiming false evidence. In this video, soldiers throw a knife on the ground (1’30’’), then force a girl to pick it up
https://www.alwatanvoice.com/arabic/news/2015/12/01/823754.html
I do not subscribe to any videos made by alwatanvoice or other Arab language media. They are not “free” media outlets and are fully engaged in propaganda-not news. You are clearly the kind of audience for their fake news.
A famous mainstream article by Amira Hass bears the explicit title “Does the Israeli Army Plant Knives on Palestinians?” pointing out the planting is reported by Palestinians to be a systematic praxis, and points out the actual plausibility of the claim and credibility of reports:
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.686280
Amira Hass is a despicable ultra left writer who accuses Israel of apartheid and other offences, which she knows are not true. Not reliable any more than is the paper she writes for–Haaretz. Her venom has been exposed many times. If Israel were not a democratic state, Ms Hass would have disappeared by now.
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=6&x_article=2076
As for shooting incident itself, a video of an innocent 13-yo girl who was shot by Israeli soldiers without any justification:
There is no such thing as “innocent” among Palestinians who under the incitement and indoctrination of their leadership are taught to hate and to want to kill Jews from childhood. This kind of child abuse is rampant and you and others excuse it as somehow legitimate.
The internet is flooded with videos of Israeli soldiers carrying on extra-judicial executions of alleged knife attackers in moments while they are not posing any threat, and the internet is also flooded by comments of Israeli celebrating the idea that any Palestinian who yielded a knife should be killed even when it does not constitute a threat because any “terrorist” just “deserves to die”.
This statement is so despicable-you think that the knife attacks didn’t happen and that Israel conducted extrajudicial executions? That is a most reprehensible lie. The internet and You Tube are flooded with propaganda BS and actual teaching videos on how to kill Jews. You are so gullible not to understand that the whole Palestinian cause is founded on a propaganda war that was implemented by Yasser Arafat with the support and funds of both the Soviets and the Arabs as an alternative to defeating Israel militarily.
Hamas carried out a series of extrajudicial executions where they lined so-called traitors against the wall of a mosque, put bags over their heads and shot them in cold blood. NEVER EVER did Israelis kill extrajudicially. Again-the underlying assumption you have is that IDF is corrupt from the top down.You are misinformed to believe that libel but what is more obvious is that it fits the story you want it to fit. You are motivated by such hatred that you have no capacity for reasoned thought.
The Azaria trial was an apotheosis of this sentiment, besides having his charge downgraded, Azaria himself, despite being a murderer, is celebrated on the streets, songs are written after him.
This one case shows how willing Israel is to follow through on improper behaviour-and the young man in question was shown to have genuinely thought the terrorist had a suicide bomb on him.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/new-video-may-corroborate-hebron-soldiers-testimony/
Another girl killed without reason while not constituting any threat:
http://www.daysofpalestine.com/news/new-israeli-execution-school-girl-west-bank/
No one was ever killed without reason. You must be so blind and hating as to believe that these individuals were innocent and were just shot out of hand. And of course you use the most egregious propaganda sources to back you up. Days of Palestine is just lying propaganda. This incident at Al Aqsa is BS-The whole area is policed by the Waqf-Jordanian security. Any attacks almost exclusively come from Palestinians and the women of Al Aqsa. You are dripping with propaganda and doubtless you will never be able to rise above it.
In this video you can see soldiers emptying their magazines into 23yo girl Raheeq Shejin Birawi while she is *already* lying still on the floor. At 2’39’’ -45’’you can see her body from a closer distance, and you can see no knife there:
However in subsequent pictures like this one
a very conspicuous knife stands out, with something like a 30cm long blade – balanced on her hand in a rather strange position – it almost reaches the plant; you can see nothing like that in the same spot in the previous video. Look at 2’45’’ in the video above: her hand is empty.
There is another recent case of a young Palestinian man who was shot on his way to the hospital for his last chemo session (covered in the news by Gideon Levy). And we have an IDF making up an unsubstantiated claim of “knife attack” which never happened, but only after preventing any contact between him and his family or anyone else over the weeks while he was in hospital following the incident, until he succumbed to his wounds. We could go on listing examples of these kinds.
Produce the actual stories from a reliable source. I cannot get any references to either of these. As for Gideon Levy-an anti-Israel who craps all over the country that gives him the freedom to lie. http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=55&x_article=2985
Haaretz has a 3.9% readership in Israel. Only Westerners who want to trash Israel take anything from this paper seriously. It’s used to line the bird cage-especially when it contains Amira Hass’s garbage.
So back to our photographic evidence. Our first case.
What does it show? Does it show – as you say – that she “did not stop?”. It shows the contrary: it shows the girl still and standing, not moving, and then it subsequently shows the girl dead on *the same spot* where we saw her standing.
The armed soldier appears to be at about 6-7 meters at least: where is the evidence that he was ever approached b y the girl?
This is futile rambling and has no bearing on reality. You were not there and you are trying to analyse as if you were. The photographic evidence does not support your in-depth claims of same spot, 6-7 metres, You are not able to determine all this from the photos.
In the end you put a quite, well, racist closing: the fact that Palestinians are dispossessed is a “myth”, in your opinion.
No I am not a racist. It is a myth for the single reason that Palestinians Arabs arrived in Palestine at the turn of the 20th century to work for Jews who had begun to develop the land a quarter of a century beforehand.
Let’s note that this is something David Collier would call a racist approach to history if a similar slur of being “non existent” was applied to other identities or groups (like Askenazi Jews for example). I note it because the main argument seems to accuse *others* of being “racists”, prejudicial, biased and blind.
I have no idea what you are mumbling about here. It certainly does not obviate what I said about the Palestinian myth about their dispossession. What is clear to me is that you are blind to reason and incapable of logic-exactly what Palestinian Solidarity is founded upon.
I am done with this thread, however, as it is clear to me you thinking is so entrnched and further exhange is futile.
I have interspersed my responses to your comments but the bulleted formatting I used may not copy into this document. I did my best to make it coherent for you to read. Ciao.
http://hurryupharry.org/2017/03/05/something-is-rotten-in-the-state-of-academia/
Week 1 Wrap-Up
Hi Jonathan. I just read your ” piece” on the Muslim hating/ baiting cess pit Harrys Place. Fascinating it was too.
I particularly liked your acknowledgment that a large part of the motivation for PREVENT is to circumscribe discourse on Israel. Who wudda finked such a thing.
I also like your assertion that VC’s have to show some respect for the joke we know and love as the IHRA definition because it is the government’s adopted position. This view that a government adopted position settles a matter is very touching.
Of course the government has also adopted the position that the Israeli colonies in the territories are illegal. Presumably that is now your position too and the position you require of VC’s.
Anyway well done. I look forward to following your adventures further.
Just before I went to Brunel in the early 1980s, the Palestinian Society was banned for carrying out an activity, which included the practice of throwing hand grenades