there is a certain subset of liberal zionist (and or self-proclaimed anti-zionist) user who will call you an antisemitic conspiracy theorist for stating that israel has a documented history of lying and falsifying records (including video and photographic evidence). these people learned nothing from mohammed al-durra to shireen abu akleh's deaths because they will often be offended at the idea that the israeli military has a systemic credibility issue and that it is reflected on a state level as a systemic credibility issue. they will not realize that their offense in and of itself is incredibly revealing of their blinkered view of israeli politics and its treatment of palestinians.
it might be enlightening to read about how israel had a huge PR problem based on the international outrage to mohammed al-durra's death, a child who was killed by israel snipers in his father's arms as he tried to shield him. it was caught on video by a french photographer, and israel first claimed it was actually palestinian shooters who had killed him, and then they started claiming that the entire thing was staged.
in “The Boy Who Wasn’t Really Killed”: Israeli State Violence in the Age of the Smartphone Witness, Rebecca L Stein writes:
The campaign to repudiate the al-Durrah footage would unfold gradually in the months and years that followed, waged chiefly from France and the US in both the courts and the media, championed by self-described defenders of Israel. Repudiators seized on key issues within the footage, and the management thereof, to make their case, raising suspicions about the volume of footage shot, the blurred frames at the moment of impact, the editing done by the French team, and so on. At its core was a group of self-styled forensic experts: an American academic, Richard Landes, an “expert in Palestinian media manipulation,” and an Israeli, Nahum Shahaf, a physicist and “forensic expert” who would lead the military's investigation of the incident.
In May 2011, I visited the Jerusalem offices of the Israeli military's social media team, housed within the division of the military spokesperson's unit, the unit tasked with the military's official public relations work. This was only their third year working with social media, a project that had begun improvisationally during the 2008–9 Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip.Footnote 43 I had come to their offices to interview the head of their social media team, but I'd arrived early and was invited to join their team's consultation session with Richard Landes. They sought his wisdom on matters of anti-Israeli media bias and Palestinian media manipulation, the focus of the English language blogs that he maintained.
Landes was proposing a new kind of communications offensive focused on repudiation. And the response, at least within this military crowd, was charged. They listened closely, raising questions and sharing ideas about media strategy, implementation, and narrative focus. Landes recommended working with bloggers to spread the military's narratives: “They will be a magnifier for your story. Use them to amplify your media reach.”
A question from his audience: “But should our focus be empirical refutation of these events, or spinning new stories?”
Landes: “Depends. What do you have in mind?”
The soldier's response: “Like, the goods going to Gaza through Israeli checkpoints. We could play up that stuff.” It was a story line in which the Israeli government had already invested considerable energy, a narrative about the extent of Israel's state-sponsored humanitarianism to temper all the bad press from Israel's Gaza blockade.
Landes liked the idea. “When you emphasize the good stuff, we [bloggers] can help you. You provide the stats, we can do the work.” He spoke about the overblown nature of the Israeli occupation in the international media, their failure to cover Israeli military restraint. This, too, should be the subject of their work. “Show just how disciplined the Israeli army is. Document it. And if there are some articles you need written, we would be happy to write them.”
A suggestion from the crowd: “What about going out in the territories and filming photographers, watching what they are doing?”
Landes agreed, this was a crucial element of their media strategy.
“Pay attention to the NGOs. They are also cognitive warriors.” It's a phrase he returns to frequently over the course of his lecture and his numerous blog posts on Palestinian media manipulation. “You should go to the weekly demonstrations at Bil‘in and see what the photojournalists are doing.” He repeated his Pallywood argument, reminding his audience about the ways Arabs “stage scenes of people being shot in cold blood.” As a corrective, he proposed employing a “team of forensic experts” to examine all video evidence published by Palestinians and the Israeli NGOs that support them.
[...]
Landes's work would pay off. A year later, a government review committee would be convened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to examine the Al-Durrah affair in light of the continued damage it has caused to Israel.” The committee's expertise, “comprised of numerous specialists,” would be praised by the Israeli media. In the lengthy report they produced the following year, they concluded that the Israeli military was not responsible for the incident and cast doubt on Palestinian claims: “The review revealed that there is no evidence that Jamal [the father] or the boy were wounded in the manner claimed . . . and that the footage does not depict Jamal as having been badly injured. In contrast, there are numerous indications that the two were not struck by bullets at all.” The state committee did more than exonerate the Israeli security services in al-Durrah's death; they argued that he was not actually dead. Right-wing Israeli newspapers put it succinctly in their headlines “Mohammed al-Dura: The Boy Who Wasn't Really Killed.” The committee would not heed the family's calls to exhume the body.
this script is often accompanied by the other strategy of the israeli military. some of you might be familiar with the "israel's style of public relations" meme by now, which has held up considerably well:
this was followed perfectly during the denial of shireen abu akleh's death (and pretty much for every other time the israeli military has sensed any potential backlash to killing palestinians). i recommend clicking the link to read about this in detail.
the reason i'm coming back to this today is because it was immediately obvious that israel had used the hannibal directive on october 7th, but literally not a single tumblr liberal zionist would hear this. in fact, merely suggesting this idea would get you relegated as an atrocity-denier. assassinated poet refaat al-areer is one of many palestinians who pointed it out, as early as october 7th:
within a couple of weeks, when the number of those killed was revised from 1400 to 1200 as it turned out the idf had misidentified 200 palestinians as israelis, it was clear that the idf had been shooting indiscriminately, but it was still considered atrocity denial to say the hannibal directive had been used.
and now, nine months later, there is conclusive confirmation from the only people zionists will listen to (israelis) that they actually did use the hannibal directive, killing an "unknown" amount of israelis, including civilians
this has already been confirmed earlier multiple times, although of course it is not covered in mainstream western media except for the killing in be'eri, which was briefly covered as a tragic accident and not part of the orders issued by the idf during the day, as the article above outlines.
the point of all of this is just to say that zionists on here have baselessly accused many people, particularly palestinians, of antisemitism for pointing out basic and observable facts that are completely in line with israeli strategy historically and politically. they refuse to confront this, instead preferring to believe anyone who casts doubt to israeli narratives clearly just hates the victims and wants them dead.
this has been a recurring pattern, and while it was always a bad faith and racist argument to pretend palestinians are unreliable narrators, it was particularly galling to see this in october and november while palestinians were being killed in their hundreds daily on the basis of israeli (and american) lies. it was particularly galling to see people claim that they couldn't make mental or emotional space for palestinian trauma when the palestinian death toll for children alone had already surpassed the total number of civilians killed on october 7th within days. it was galling to see them act as though questioning the media push manufacturing consent for genocide occurring across the world was a personal attack by antisemitic leftists. and most of all, it is galling that there will never be an apology for this. there will never be accountability for it. they will still believe whatever israel lies about next, and still cast doubt on what palestinians say, in the exact same disingenuous tone, no matter how many times it happens.
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