Getting It Right

The Palestinian propaganda machine has worked overtime recently with the objective of legitimising the claim of the Jewish people to their homeland. The most effect weapon of the propagandists is the lie. Many lies are told Goebells style about both the past and the present to willingly believing audiences by the machine and its supporters distorting history as well as current events. The Mavi Marmara lie is one example where we've seen truth and facts distorted by the propagandists and their supporters who do their handiwork in a variety of places including the media and social networks.

Here's an example from Kenneth Lasson in the Baltimore Jewish Times:

Getting It Right

It's not easy to fight hypocrisy and fraud anywhere, much less the Middle Eastern variety.

Several months ago, a Facebook group called "Freedom Will Come to Palestine" published a photograph that appeared to depict an Israeli soldier with his foot on the body of a prone Palestinian girl, a rifle aimed at her head. Readers were urged to "share this photo and let the world see what is really happening."

Although scarcely covered by the international media, the picture predictably provoked a storm of Internet reaction, mostly vituperative responses condemning Israel. Among the milder ones: "I hope the Israelis rot in hell!"

A small Israeli news organization called Tazpit noted that the rifle was a Kalashnikov AK47 assault rifle — not the standard issue M16 and M4 of the Israel Defense Forces. Careful scrutiny disclosed that the soldier's outfit was not an authentic IDF uniform. In short, the photo was a fraud of the kind often perpetrated by the Palestinians — not unlike the infamous al-Dura hoax (the staged "killing" of a young Arab boy caught in "Israeli crossfire" provocatively telecast around the world).

Facebook enables yet another incarnation of the Palestinians' Big Lie Machine to spread incitement against the "ruthless and oppressive Israeli occupiers." Hundreds of pro-Palestinian groups use the social networks so readily accessible in cyberspace to spread false information and encourage violent responses to alleged Israeli "aggression."

Tazpit seeks to combat such fabricated images. Its founder, a young IDF veteran named Amotz Eyal, was originally motivated by the international media's unfair reporting on Israel and what he saw as unfair coverage by the left-wing Israeli press. His group has some 60 volunteers, equipped with still and video cameras, who stand ready to document reporting they consider patently biased against the Jewish state and expose it by distributing more factual accounts to newspapers and websites.

They also make effective use of YouTube to disseminate footage of everything from environmental infractions and life-threatening traffic violations on West Bank roads to more outrageous offenses — such as their video evidence that Arab olive trees claimed to have been cut down by settlers were in fact purposefully destroyed by Palestinians.

Tazpit is but the latest in a line of committed, underfunded grassroots groups combating Palestinian propaganda, which is supported by millions of petro-dollars and abetted by biased international media. Others are Americans for a Safe Israel, a political support group for the Jewish communities of Judea, Samaria and the Golan; Stand With Us, aimed largely at campus advocacy; and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, aimed at promoting "honest fact-based and civil discourse" on Israeli issues.

Better organized but still grossly outspent are the American-based Middle East media monitors CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) and Honest Reporting, which monitors the media for what it perceives as bias against Israel.

All are devoted to getting the facts right, lending a bit of balance to the world's perception of Israel's rightful place in the world of nations.

Kenneth Lasson, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, is a regular contributor to the Baltimore Jewish Times.
http://www.jewishtimes.com/index.php/jewishtimes/opinion/jt/op_ed/getting_it_right1