Palestinian Fauxtography: Gaza Pink T-Shirt Scam? - by Simon Plosker

Has that purple piece of children’s furniture been deliberately placed there for the benefit of the photographers? And how does the pink t-shirt look like it has just returned from the launderette?

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
27 May '19..

There’s nothing more pernicious than the charge that Israel deliberately targets Palestinian children. It’s something that the Palestinians and Israel-haters want the world to believe. But if you can’t supply a dead child’s body, you need to produce imagery that will suggest that a child was a victim of Israel. That’s where Fauxtography comes in.

One way to do this is through the deliberate staging of photos or footage, something that HonestReporting looked at in our Shattered Lens study of Photo Bias. So, for example, the deliberate placement of children’s toys at the scene of an Israeli air strike has been a favored ploy.

A piece in The Independent on the financial plight of UNRWA includes an accompanying and barely related video shot by correspondent Bel Trew in Gaza from the scene of what was presumably an Israeli air strike. There is no commentary, no subtitling and no context.

Amidst the rubble, most of which is concrete, one thing catches the eye – what appears to be a purple piece of furniture, most likely a girl’s. A Palestinian man holds up a child’s bright pink t-shirt.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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The Free Gaza Team Fraud: Another case of Pallywood rearing its ugly head - by Ari Lieberman

How a girl from Deir ez-Zor, Syria was miraculously beamed into Gaza.

Ari Lieberman..
frontpagemag.com..
28 December '18..
Link: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272369/pallywood-rears-its-ugly-head-again-ari-lieberman

Arab residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, who identify as “Palestinians,” and those who shill for them have a penchant for fabricating and staging photos and videos in an effort to advance a pernicious and false narrative depicting Palestinians as innocent victims of brutal Israeli occupiers. Photos are often photoshopped or simply lifted from other war zones with no nexus to Israel. Sometimes, videos are the product of elaborate staging events geared specifically for the cameras; where alleged dead and wounded make miraculous off-camera recoveries. Often, this tactic is employed for the express purpose of soliciting donations. This disgraceful and dishonest practice has been dubbed “Pallywood.”

Last week, I was provided with a fascinating, firsthand look into the makings of a Pallywood production. A Twitter account called Free Gaza Team inexplicably followed me on the social media platform. I took a look at the account and saw multiple graphic photos of a young girl whose arm had been sheared off. The injury appears raw, exposing bone and tissue. The account referred to the Girl as “Noor from Gaza” and provided a link to an online crowd funding site called “Social.fund.” Once at the site, the viewer is again exposed to the disturbing image as well as the following brief narrative;

“Help Noor from Gaza get an artificial limb.

Free Gaza Team visits people in Gaza to help people get their needs, some days ago, we visit Noor's family, after the mother invited us to visit them, we find this little beauty girl, but unfortunately, she is without left limb, it's due a shrapnel of Israeli rockets in the last war on Gaza, shee [Sic] needs some essential medications before the gangrene happens then we will help her to get an artificial limb, we should work together to restore her smile.

Free Gaza Team.”

Aside from the atrocious grammar and spelling, the entire storyline seemed suspicious. If the incident had indeed occurred as reported by the Free Gaza Team, it would have been plastered in the front pages of the New York Times, the Guardian and Al-Jazeera as these publications are notoriously anti-Israel.

I then proceeded to perform a Google image search and Voilà, Noor’s image magically appeared. Unfortunately, this Noor wasn’t injured by Israeli rockets. In fact, she wasn’t even from Gaza. The girl advertised by the Free Gaza Team was in fact a Syrian child from Deir ez-Zor, injured as a result of airstrikes. The images of Noor had been circulating on social media for more than a year. When I pointed this out to the Free Gaza Team, they quite predictably unfollowed and blocked me. I immediately reported the scam to the Social Fund, which responded positively to my complaint and promptly terminated Free Gaza Team’s donation drive. Having been deprived of the Social Fund platform, the fraudsters of the Free Gaza Team opened another “charity drive” for “Noor,” this time on PayPal. I have since filed a complaint with PayPal as well.

The fraud perpetrated by The Free Gaza Team represents the essence of Pallywood and is reminiscent of similar schemes perpetrated by Palestinians and their allies throughout the years. The list is too numerous to outline but here are some of the more notable ones.

Palestinian Culture, Fake News and "Alternative Facts" by Bassam Tawil

...Blood libels against Jews were once thought to be part of the dark past. They are not. That leaves us with some questions: Where is the international community's exposure of the lies that fuel the Palestinian murder of Jews? And: Will the international community once again in history fail to speak the truth about the murder of Jews?

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
09 March '17..

One after another, young Palestinians continue to carry out terrorist attacks against Jews. Why? We might start at the beginning: the campaign of incitement, indoctrination and lies that Palestinian media outlets wage against Israel. This campaign has poisoned the hearts and minds of millions of Arabs and Muslims. It ought to be no surprise, then, when the poisoned Palestinian youths grab a weapon and set out to do the death-work they are taught to cherish.

The anti-Israel incitement can even be quite subtle. Those injecting the venom do not always issue a direct call for Palestinians to go out and kill Jews. It is enough, for example, to tell Palestinians that Jews are "defiling with their filthy feet" Islamic holy sites, to drive a Palestinian to go out and stab a Jew.

Or when a Palestinian leaders repeatedly accuse Israel of seeking to "Judaize" Jerusalem and change its "Arab and Islamic character." This is like urging Palestinians to "defend" their city against Israel's "evil conspiracies."

The vicious rhetoric and the fairy tales they feed Palestinians provide ample incentive and ideology for would-be terrorists.

The epidemic of "fake news" and "alternative facts," which has recently flooded the internet, is not new to Palestinian culture. In fact, "fake news" has long been an essential component of the Palestinian campaign to delegitimize Israel, demonize Jews and even to cite false claims.

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Bassam Tawil is a scholar based on the Middle East.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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And if Israel was caught using just a single fake or distorted photo?

...Could you imagine the outrage if Israel was caught using just a single fake or distorted photo? On second thought, there's no need to imagine. Media outlets including Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, The International Business Times and Times of Israel covered the 2013 case in which the Israeli army's English blog posted a photograph misidentifying a Malaysian mall as located in Gaza. Will those same outlets now cover the Palestinian Ministry of Health's use of several egregiously mislabeled and even photoshopped images in an official submission to the World Health Organization?

Tamar Sternthal..
CAMERA Snapshots..
29 May '16..

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) decision last week harshly critical of Israel for "Health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including in east Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan" prompted Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid to describe it as antisemitic.

In preparation for WHO's publication of the decision, the Palestinian Ministry of Health submitted a report to the international organization. Apart from the usual allegations propagated by various NGOs, the official Palestinian submission also includes the following outrageous charges:

• Israel is damaging prisoners' health by "Holding prisoners in polluted areas, such as in the vicinity of the Dimona reactor or near areas in which waste from that reactor has been buried" (page 29).

• "In April 2013 the Russian newspaper Pravda accused Israel of injecting a number of Palestinian prisoners who were approaching their release date with cancer-causing viruses. Despite Israel’s rejection of the accusations made by the newspaper, the question remains: is it true that Israel is injecting prisoners with viruses?" (page 29)

• A Palestinian doctor contends that the Israeli practice of freezing terrorists' bodies and insistence that they will only be returned to Palestinians if they are buried immediately "makes it impossible to ascertain whether the deceased individual’s organs have been stolen" (page 49).

Beyond the unfounded, vitriolic allegations, the pictures appearing in the Palestinian Health Ministry's report highlight the submission’s total lack of credibility. Here are some examples:

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter.

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Hebron through the lens and mind of the febrile imagination

Dear Cody - Believe it or not, they are called safety bars and on the 2nd floor and above they do ensure that the children don't fall out the window to the stone pavement below. And no, they are not caged in their houses.

"Pictured here, a young #Palestinian, 
caged in their house, looks out
the window as #Israelimilitary...."

Yosef..
LOTL..
07 February '15..

As is true most every week, today's Hebron Casbah Tour had its normal retinue of European and American "activists" tagging along for the hour it takes. All in all, a rather sad and pathetic assembly, but certainly a dedicated collection, ensuring by their presence the continuing high levels of tension and violence in the area. Our friend Cody O'Rourke of CPT, is just a cut above the rest in having a rather febrile imagination when staging and captioning his photos. Below, an example from Cody's most recent excursions into the realm of pure fantasy.

 

codyorourke

3 hours ago

Pictured here, a young #Palestinian, caged in their house, looks out the window as #Israeli military, border police, and #Jewish settlers fill their streets, unable to leave because of restrictions.

Dear Cody,

Believe it or not, they are called safety bars and on the 2nd floor and above they do ensure that the children don't fall out the window to the stone pavement below. And no, they are not caged in their houses.


Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
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Stoking the Flames of War Through Fabricating Icons of Outrage

...The goal of these activists is to obtain images that can be used to undermine Israel’s legitimacy. But there is more to it. They also use these images to raise funds and generate support for their institutions back in the United States and Europe. It’s a reprehensible practice, but one that is all too effective.

International “peace” and “human rights”
activists in Hebron waiting for Jews to do
something bad so they can catch it
on camera. (Photo: Dexter Van Zile.)

Dexter Van Zile..
Times of Israel..
16 October '14..

The anti-Israel crowd is currently feasting its eyes on a photo of a Jew behaving badly in the Old City of Jerusalem. The photo, sold by Andalou Agency, a Turkish news organization, which has been Tweeted by Max Blumenthal and hundreds of others, shows an angry Orthodox Jew yelling at an innocent-looking Arab woman. She looks mortified and frightened.

The man looks angry and terrifying.

The photo has been re-Tweeted hundreds of times with the misleading caption “Israeli religious fanatics stop Palestinians from praying at Al Aqsa mosque in #Jerusalem…”

There’s just one problem. As bloggers Elder of Ziyon and Israellycool have pointed out, the woman being yelled at is holding a Hebrew prayer book. Videos of the confrontation reveal she grabbed the book from the man’s hand prior to the photo being taken.

She grabbed the Orthodox Jew’s prayer book out of his hand and he responded with anger. Observers might argue that he overreacted to the provocation, but the fact remains, the woman perpetrated an aggressive and provocative act. This was no “micro-aggression.”

It was not the Israeli Jew who was interfering with the woman’s right to pray as Max Blumenthal and others stated on Twitter. It was the other way around. She was messing with someone trying to worship and intentionally provoked an angry response that was captured by a nearby photographer from a Turkish news agency.

As a result of the woman’s successful act of provocation, the photographer’s well-timed click, and a dishonest caption attributed to the photo, thousands of people, many of them who already hate Israel, have been exposed to an image and a narrative that portrays Israeli Jews as unable to leave peacefully in the land with Palestinian Muslims.

The image affirmed what many people already believe about the Jews and their state – that they are an intolerable presence in the Middle East.

This is a textbook example of what Nidra Poller calls a “lethal narrative” – a story told with the intention of encouraging violence against a particular group of people.

The manner in which the Andalou Agency photo was manipulated to promote a lethal narrative raises a larger issue – the willingness of so-called peace and human rights activists to assist in the ongoing cognitive war against Israel perpetrated by Islamists and jihadists throughout the world.

Shattered Lens Revisited – Photo Bias and Double Standards in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Coverage

Honest Reporting..
First Posted 09 December '10..






With yesterday's posting of an excellent piece, Palestinian Fairytales by David Katz, I was reminded of his Shattered Lens series done in conjunction with Honest Reporting 2 1/2 years ago. With the al-Dura hoax once again occupying the headlines these pieces are both timely and worth reviewing even for those who may have seen them the first time around. Y.

Images have unprecedented power to mold public opinion. The three international wire services – the Associated Press, Agence France Press / Getty Images and Reuters – have assumed a central role in presenting images from Israel and the Palestinian territories to the world.

HonestReporting first became intimately involved in the role of the wire services in photo choice when we exposed Reuters’ 2007 calendar gaffe, which followed the Fauxtography affair from the 2006 Lebanon War.

Since then, we have covered numerous instances of photo bias, including a blatantly staged photo of Hamas taken by Reuters photographer Mohammed Salem in 2008. Reuters continues to publish Salem’s photographs of the region, including another series of staged images we documented shortly after the Gaza flotilla in June.

Until now, however, nobody has commissioned a study to examine the imagery produced by the wire services to see whether there are any identifiable trends that may indicate bias.

To find out if Israel is being treated fairly by the wire services, we embarked on a three-month in-depth study of how Israel is portrayed by all three wires. This study covers the period that began with the Gaza flotilla on May 31, 2010 and ended with the murder of four Israelis at the hands of Palestinian terrorists on Aug. 31, 2010.

The study was carried out by David Katz, a professional photographer with 25 years experience working at the highest levels in the media together with HonestReporting. Over three months, some 13,500 photos from Israel and the Palestinian territories were reviewed.

The study revealed a pattern of double standards and bias that has become a norm in coverage of the region, particularly in regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Distortions of images mostly fell into the following categories:

Mohammed Dura - Redux: Another Attempt at a Blood Libel against Israel?

Lenny Ben-David
I*Consult
11 October '10

The film clip showing an Israeli car hitting two Arab children in Silwan on Friday was horrifying. No one can sit quietly and indifferently while children - any children - are hurt before your eyes. Thank God the children survived and were not seriously injured.

Then came the subtext: The children were part of a gang attacking the driver with rocks, and rocks can most definitely kill. The boys, emboldened by some militant organizer, covered their faces to avoid identification and arrest. There's no doubt of their intention and premeditation. The driver was David Be'eri, a leader of the Jewish residents in Silwan. Be'eri's son was in the car.

The story and YouTube clip spread around the world in nanoseconds. Arab witnesses charged that the "settler" deliberately ran down the children.

But, I've now watched the clip scene-by-scene and in some parts frame-by-frame, and there's a deeper, even sinister, subtext.

Most viewers focus on the victims. It's natural. They don't notice at least seven still photographers in addition to the video cameraman. With the exception of one photographer standing across the street, all the others filmed the scene from the same vantage point at the bottom of the hill. There could have been more. I identify the photographers as:

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