The Media Review Network (MRN), known on twitter as @mrn1sa, has appeared on the anti-Israel scene like a fish to water. The self proclaimed exposer of the supposed “Zionist Apartheid” against Palestinians, has taken the lead spouting lies and distortions of half truths about the conflict and so doing serves to perpetuate the libel of Israel's “crimes”. This group who claim to “foster bridges of understanding among the diverse people of [South Africa]” continuously prove themselves to be a divisive force, creating an environment of misunderstanding and hatred towards one thing, Israel. While aiming to “dispel the myths and stereotypes about Islam and Muslims”, they serve to reinforce a particular stereotype of the anti-Semitic Muslim who will ignore dictatorships, violence, human rights abuses, poverty and genocide everywhere in the world (especially those committed by fellow Muslims in Arab countries) except when it imagines Israel is the perpetrator!
In interactions with numerous pro Israel twitter accounts, MRN has been caught out blatantly lying about various aspects of Israeli society.
This article will point out some of the most obvious lies.
Lie 1
MRN claimed that Israel does not allow Arabs or any non Jews for that matter into the Israel defense Force (IDF). This vicious lie ignores the many Arab heroes who have faithfully served in the IDF. Most recently, Major Ala Wahib, a general in the army has written about his strong Zionist feelings. Anet Haskia, a Muslim Arab woman, has sent her children to the army and is proud of it and her country, Israel. The Bedouin Arabs are among the most sought after recruits as are the Druze who declare their loyalty to both Israel and the army regularly.
Lie 2
Another lie that MRN claim is that Israel illegally use White Phosphorus against Palestinians. Firstly, according to a Harvard law school document the use of WP is legal as an illuminator and a smoke screen. The Red Cross has stated that Israel's use of WP is legal under international law. This hasn't stopped MRN from making unfounded statements.
Lie 3
MRN recently claimed a member of the South African Zionist Federation said that South Africans are the best people to judge what is and what isn't apartheid. Thus implying he said “If South Africans say Israel is Apartheid it must be true”. What MRN failed to do is state the full quote and its context. Having spoken directly to Mr Avrom Krengel and many people who attended the seminar the truth was discovered. What he actually said was that "a tactic BDS movement people use is to get the South African government to encourage this view of Israel as an Apartheid State, as they “should” know what Apartheid is" he also added that "it is important to educate people the truth about Israel and its value as a democracy". That's a big difference and highlights one of the multiple manipulations MRN uses in promoting their vile smear agenda against Israel.
Lie 4
It would be interesting to know exactly which “Institutionalised regime of domination amounting to Apartheid” MRN is referring to. Israel is the only country in the Middle East to give those Arab refugees from the 1948 war, full citizenship and rights. There is no distinction between an Arab citizen or Jewish citizen of Israel. Indeed many prominent Israeli Arabs have arisen, for examples the Supreme court Judge who sentenced former Israeli President to jail. There are Israeli Arab ministers in Israel’s parliament. Arab doctors treat Jewish patients, next to Jewish doctors who treat Arab patients. Many Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza enter Israel to receive some of the best treatment in the world for free.
The Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have their own governments, the PA and Hamas respectively. These governments decide the day to day living of Palestinians and have been accused of corruption from Yasser Arafat hiding billions of dollars of aid in overseas bank accounts to Abbas who has similar accounts. While supposed to be democratic, Abbas is currently in the 9th year of his 4 year presidency term. Hamas was elected under through rule of might in a bloody civil war with the PA and has not had an election since 2006. With these facts one has to ask, who is really practicing Apartheid. The answer is NOT Israel.
Anyone who is proved to lie and manipulate should be called out. It is one thing to care about the Palestinians but it is quite another to use lies and distortions to promote a hidden agenda, which in the case if MRN, is undeniably the destruction of the State of Israel, rather than the rights of Palestinians.
(BLOG) At the "Media Review Network", if the truth doesn't suit them, they create their own version... http://t.co/9CjBgbEkbT
— Israel Muse (@israelmuse) March 29, 2013
During Yom Hashoah this year I managed to watch the latest documentary on the
Nazis titled "A Film Unfinished", it inspired me to write this article. It is about a 60 minute reel of raw
footage that was discovered in an East German archive labeled "Das Ghetto" and
which portrays the life of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto of 1942. The film not only
shows the life of Jews within the ghetto, but it deliberately intends to show
the extreme differences between rich and poor Jews. The differences, however,
had all been staged to service the needs of the Nazi propaganda machine.
To quote parts from the documentary trailer: "In 1942, one of the only known
films of the Warsaw Ghetto was shot. Scenes of Jewish life were documented. For
decades after World War II, this footage was presented as truth. Until 40 years
later, when a missing reel was discovered..."
"This is the story of a film that was never completed. A film designed to
service propaganda for the third Reich, that empire that knew so well to
document its own evil."
"Let the world see what a paradise the Jews lived in."
In short, the documentary exposes the methods in which the Nazis intended to
show the general German population and the world how "well" Jews were living in
the Ghettos, even though the scenes were staged, and then to show how the Jews
that were living "well" did "not care" about the poor, starving or already dead
Jews at all... Other staged scenes included leaving dead bodies out in the
streets and then having "rich" Jews walk past the bodies and not even budge an
eyelid or show any concern, as though Jews do not care that the dead lay in
their streets... Next they would show scenes of the "rich" having a proper
Jewish burial as opposed to the poor who were just dumped into mass graves one
on top of the other, to "show" that Jews do not value the lives of the
poor...
It then moves to another level whereby they intended to show the world the
"barbaric" rituals of Jews with regards to circumcision, keeping in mind that
the Germans of the time and most non-Jews did not circumcise their babies, so
seeing this could easily disgust people and lead them to believe that Jews are
inhumane, primitive and barbaric in our practices...Furthermore, they showed
staged scenes of poor religious men in a
Mikve, naked, with "rich" women who were also naked, in an attempt to portray our
religious practices as though they involve orgies of some sort, of course men
and women do not go into a Mikve at the same time or place and there is no such
religious practice that involves orgies of any sort...
Once the Nazis had convinced the general German population that the Jews were
living "well" in the ghettos, this would ease the minds of the Germans to not
ask any further questions, moreover once they convinced the Germans that Jews
were "inhumane and barbaric", this would be a reason for them to exterminate the
Jews and therefore have the support of the country to do so...
Here are some short examples of the continued use of anti-Semitic propaganda, I
say short because I could literally write a thesis with the full amount of
propaganda that is currently out there...
Pallywood & The Paparazzi
The use of visual propaganda rose up again with the invention of "Pallywood" and other forms of visual propaganda which I will go into in a moment...
Pallywood is a coinage used to describe alleged cases of "media manipulation,
distortion and outright fraud by the Palestinians and other Arabs ... designed
to win the public relations war against Israel."
It was publicized by
Richard Landes
who produced a documentary titled "Pallywood: According to Palestinian Sources"...
The documentary exposes the staged scenes which the Palestinians were setting up
with the intention of misleading the media and the world into believing that a
situation was far worse than it actually was and/or also staging violent
situations that were entirely made up and acted from beginning till end... All
"media" coverage was done by freelance photographers and cameramen not official
news sources...
Examples of this included the "Muhammad al-Durrah incident" where a
staged scene
was set to make as though the IDF had deliberately fired upon and killed Jamal
al-Durrah and his 12 year old son Muhammad al-Durrah... This was filmed by a
France 2 freelance cameraman but France 2 deliberately left out a
very important part of the video
which was discovered and
debunked by "The 2nd Draft"
in
this video... The part that was left out was at a point where the boy was supposedly
already dead yet he quickly peeks to see what he needs to do next...
This well executed (no pun intended) plan made Israel look bad just as much as
Nazi Germany was fated to be successful, and even if the intention was later
discovered to be fake, false or misdirected, the initial image always sticks in
peoples’ minds especially one of disgust… and no matter how much proof we can
later offer that debunks the incident, it will never convince people who have
already been convinced enough by seeing the first video…. anything else becomes
a conspiracy theory or a cover-up to them…
This one incident became an icon of hatred towards Israel, all the Muslim
countries had postage stamps honoring al-Durrah,
Daniel Pearl
was killed to avenge his "death",
Osama Bin Laden used the incident
to incite before 9/11 and streets, squares & academies have been named after
him... Al-Durrah was even referred to as "a tiny sleeping Jesus" - [Al-Quds, May
25, 2001] - He became a poster child for the Intifada...
"Jesus was Palestinian", "the Palestinians are Jesus"
Palestinians have gone as far as claiming that Jesus & Moses were Muslim
Palestinians and that Abraham was the first Muslim Palestinian, the use of
self-propaganda became a powerful influence on the people to justify their own
existence, history and heritage and in turn to make Jews look bad once again for
supposedly "killing Jesus their Messiah" as well as making the claim that we are
all "fake Jews" except for the "Hebrews or Israelites"...
Attempts to fabricate their own history to
convince people
that they are descendants of "Jesus the Palestinian" have gone as far as calling
Jesus "the first Palestinian Shahid – Martyr for Allah," [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, January 17, 2005]... Now whether Jesus was technically
called a Palestinian or not, because this area was known as Palestine, the fact
is that they are
rewriting their own history
as a direct connection to the Jewish Jesus which is of course impossible...
Palestine was only named Palestine 136 years after Jesus' death as part of
Rome's plan to cut the Jews' ties to their Land of Israel... Palestine was made
up of Palestinian Jews, Muslims and Christians. Palestinian is not a culture,
religion or race of people, at least not the same as the Palestinians that we
know of today...
Quotes such as the following are drummed into the minds of the Palestinians:
"We must not forget that (Jesus) Messiah, may peace be upon him, is
Palestinian, the son of Mary the Palestinian, who is sanctified by hundreds
of millions of believers in this world." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, November
18, 2005]
"It was quite natural that the Palestinians rose to save their sanctuaries
[in Nazareth] without anyone thinking there is a difference between a
Christian and a Muslim… since in the Palestinian situation, the lord Messiah
[Jesus] and his mother [Mary] are both Galileans and Palestinians
…"[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 9, 2006]
"The Palestinian Galilee village of Kfar Kana takes pride in the fact that
in [the village] the Palestinian Messiah succeeded to turn water into
wine." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, December 14, 2004]
"…And a child from the De’haisha refugeecamp will shout: "Yes, we have won,
just as the prophets and [Jesus’] Apostles won," and the shahids will cry,
‘We shook the palm trees alongside Lady Earth and the lady of the people,
the Virgin Mary, and with her son the first Palestinian
Shahid." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, January 17, 2005]
Artist: "Our struggle today against the other side is an eternal one. It can
be said that it started 2,000 years ago and continues until today. I
demonstrate this through the figure of Jesus… The Israeli soldiers are
wearing army uniforms while Jesus has nothing except for the truth. When
they searched him at the entrance of Jerusalem, they found a stone, a piece
of bread and fish and he was cuffed. This is the Palestinian from the
beginning of the struggle until the end." [PA TV, July 21, 2000]
The mere belief that these people are of a heritage and descent that they are
not, becomes a major problem when they have convinced the rest of the world, who
actually believes them, that everything they say is true because they believe it
with such conviction... This then reassures the Pro-Palestinian mob that
"Palestinians" definitely have ancestral rights to this land and possibly
others, dating back to the times of Abraham, Moses and Jesus... this fuels the
support for the Palestinians "struggle" to get "their" land back...
The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion
"The Protocols of the Elders of Ziyon
is a fabricated document; its content is demonstrably fictional in its entirety.
It was originally produced in Russia between 1897 and 1903, possibly by
Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky, head of the Paris office of the Russian Secret Police, and unknown others. It
is a fraudulent, anti-Semitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for
achieving global domination."
This famous piece of propaganda was used continuously to demonize the Jews and
is still in use today, the so called protocols have even been published online
by many anti-Semitic websites such as
JewWatch.com
and
BibleBelievers.org.au...
Youtube has its
fair share
of propaganda videos "exposing the truth" about Jews by using the Protocols as a
tool to convince people of the Jewish and Zionist "conspiracies" such as
world domination,
mass media control,
control of the banking systems
and more...
Facebook
is no different... It is sadly amusing what these people come up with... So far
only a few have put in the effort to
debunk
this
hoax...
Here is a list of some of the times this book has been used for propaganda
purposes:
1920: The Protocols were published in Poland, France, England,
and the United States. These editions blame the Russian Revolution on Jewish
conspirators and warn of
Bolshevism
spreading to the West.
1920: Automaker Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent
published The International Jew, an Americanized version of the Protocols to which he later apologized for
doing so. It is
available online
to read.
1933: Adolf
Hitler made "good" use
of it, he published 23 editions of it before World War II began.
1938: "Radio priest" Father
Charles E. Coughlin
serialized the Protocols in his newspaper, Social Justice.
1960: The Protocols were featured in an article published by
Salah Dasuqi, military governor of Cairo, in "al-Majallaaa", the official cultural journal.
1974: Idi Amin, the President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979, cited
the book as evidence of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world, and as
justification for his self-proclaimed plans to destroy Israel. He
reveals this
in an interview during the documentary "Idi Amin Dada".
1985: An English-language edition of Protocols was published by
the Islamic Propagation Organization and
issued in Iran.
1997: The Protocols become a
best-seller in Syria, it was exhibited and sold at the Damascus International Book Fair. It was
then reprinted in 2004 and 2005.
2002: Egyptian satellite television
broadcasts
a 41-part miniseries "Horseman Without a Horse", which is based largely on the Protocols.
2003: A 30-part television miniseries called "Al Shatat (The Diaspora)", produced in Syria, was
broadcasted
on Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV. The series depicts a “global Jewish government,”
as described in the Protocols.
2003: An exhibition of holy books of monotheistic religions at
the
Alexandria Library
in Egypt includes a copy of the
Protocols next to the Torah. UNESCO issues a public denunciation of the Alexandria Library exhibition.
2004: The Protocols are published in Okinawa,
Japan.
2005: A Spanish-language edition of the Protocols,
published in Mexico City, says that whether or not the Protocols are authentic, history shows that
Zionists intend to dominate the world.
2005: An edition of the Protocols was
authorized by the Syrian Ministry
of Information, claims that the Elders of Zion coordinated the September 11,
2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
2006: Saudi Arabian schoolbooks contain explicit summaries of
the
Protocols as factual.
2011: The
Charter of Hamas
explicitly refers to the Protocols, accepting them as factual and makes
several references to Freemasons as one of the "secret societies" controlled
by "Zionists".
The list goes on and will continue to go on as a powerful propaganda tool
against Jews, Israel and Zionists!
Israeli "Apartheid"
Since the term "Israeli Apartheid" was invented, vast amounts of anti-Israel
campaigns increased in numbers with intent to directly compare the real
South African Apartheid
regime to the current Israeli regime... It was in fact
stated back in 2004 by UN agent
John Dugard that the Israeli "Apartheid regime in territories is worse than in
South Africa"....
"In a 2007 report, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine John Dugard
stated that 'elements of the
Israeli occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law' and suggested that the 'legal
consequences of a prolonged occupation with features of colonialism and
apartheid' be put to the International Court of Justice. South Africa's
statutory research agency the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) stated in a
2009 report that 'the State of Israel exercises control in the [Occupied
Palestinian Territories] with the purpose of
maintaining a system of domination by Jews over Palestinians
and that this system constitutes a breach of the prohibition of apartheid.' In
2010 United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine Richard A. Falk reported
that
criminal apartheid features of the Israeli occupation
had been entrenched in the three years since the report of his predecessor, John
Dugard." (source)
The so-called "Israeli Apartheid" libel has spawned campaigns such as:
Once again the list goes on a mile long... Prominent Palestinians,
Jewish anti-Zionists,
South Africans,
Americans
and Europeans have been at the forefront of these campaigns.
Yet no matter how many of us attempt to debunk this myth, the damage is
already done... The usual suspects,
Youtube
and
Facebook, are of course overwhelmed with propaganda footage and campaigns of how
Israel is supposedly an Apartheid regime, even
Enrique Iglesias agrees...
This has become the "latest and greatest" tactic to use in the fight to
delegitimize Israel by demonizing Jews who support Israel, Zionists, Israelis
and well truthfully any Jews in general too but many will argue that they
"love" Jews but hate Israelis or Zionists, which is true for some, but many
who are actually anti-Semitic, hide behind the "political correctness" of
being anti-Zionist rather than anti-Semitic...
Illogical arguments in support of Israel being an Apartheid state usually go
something like
"Jews are against Israel's occupation and against Israeli Apartheid"-
this to them translates into meaning that because
some Jews are against Israel
and do believe that Israel is an Apartheid regime that therefore the majority
of Jews and Israelis MUST be wrong... Many a time I have seen this line used
and it holds no weight when it is analyzed properly, it is a meaningless
argument like saying
"some Americans hate America because of the Iraq War therefore America is
wrong and should be put on trial"- As absurd as this sounds, people use these as arguments all the time in
defense of their belief that "Israel is evil"... This is a direct result of
the "Israeli Apartheid" propaganda that is out there...
I used to live in Apartheid South Africa, I grew up there and witnessed many
incidents of real Apartheid on a daily basis. I now live in Israel for many
years and I can assure you that there is no Israeli Apartheid, there never has
been and never will be! During the Apartheid we, as Jews, were not allowed to
go to certain places such as country clubs where they had signs stating "No
Blacks, No Dogs, No Jews", you will never see a sign in Israel preventing an
Arab whether Muslim or Christian from entering, not even at the Western Wall
(Kotel). Perhaps I am hallucinating when I go to the shopping mall and see
well dressed happy Arabs
in the
same shopping malls
that I go to or when I visit the Tel Aviv University and see many Arab
students &
professors
walking around the campus without being hassled by anyone... Yet people
will then argue that it is the Palestinians who are suffering from the
"Apartheid" due to the wall but this too makes no logical sense because
Palestinians are not a part of Israel AT ALL, they have their own governing
body, laws, rules and regulations to follow that have nothing to do with
Israel in the least... they are no different to Jordanians or Egyptians in
that they are not a part of Israel so therefore have to pass through border
control points anyway if they wish to enter & exit Israel, what is the
difference? Every border has a fence, this particular one has a wall, where is
the difference besides cosmetically? Even
Egypt has a wall
on the border of Gaza but that is "apparently" acceptable...
"The Satanic Talmud & The Synagogue Of Satan & The Zionist
Illuminati"
Another new, or maybe not so new, form of anti-Semitic propaganda is the
comparison between the
Talmud, Kaballah
and Satanism / Devil Worship as well as a continued belief (Protocols) that
the Jews are actually the
Illuminati
who hide behind the world and seek to control it or who have been controlling
it for thousands of years like puppet masters... It has gone viral!
While no one is really sure who first came up with this preposterous idea that
Jews are Satanic or members of the so called Illuminati, but the conspiracy
theorists out there have really got the hang of this one and have managed to
"convert" many an ignorant person into believing this total nonsense....
An example of one such person is "Brother Nathanael" who is an Orthodox Christian street evangelist that warns people of the
dangers of the Jews being in control of the world... He started the "Brother Nathanael Foundation" and also runs the notorious "Real Zionist News" blog and interestingly enough was supposedly born a Jew but converted to
Christianity to escape from the "evil claws" of Judaism... His Youtube videos,
of which he
has many, show him explaining
why he left Judaism
and how to
break the Zionist power... His followers have been led to believe that all Jews, except ones that
convert to Christianity, are evil Satan worshipers and must be stopped... As
candid as he looks, speaks and acts is as dangerous as this man actually
is...
I won't go too much into these 2 deranged people but I will say that they have
both influenced the minds of ignorant people in many ways... For one Texe Marrs, the author, was inspired by Andrew Carrington's Synagogue of Satan as
well as Youtube, once again, is full of "proof" that "Jews are evil Satan worshippers"...
These 2 people have opened the door to many Christian fundamentalists who
believe that the Jews killed Jesus as well as white supremists, to enhance
their belief that Jews are, yes I said it again "evil Satan worshipers"... I
cannot begin to tell you how many arguments I have had with these people
online to try get them to see the ridiculousness of this belief of us being
what they claim we are...
I am sure you get the point of all of this by now but I did feel the need to
go into as much detail as I did above so that the people out there who may not
be aware of all of these things, as much as I am aware, can at least get a
taste of the very real "Unfinished and continued" use of anti-Semitic
propaganda that the world has to offer on a daily basis, at the click of a
mouse and also
for entertainment...
All of the above examples are propaganda tricks and fabrications of the truth
that are used only to re-assure people’s anti-Semitic approach or to convince
"new recruits" in the same way that the Nazis used false films and other
methods to convince their own people that killing the Jews was the right
solution... Today it is no different, whether it means killing the Jews or
destroying Israel, there is no difference whatsoever... Israel is a Jewish
homeland, always was and always will be and the need that these people have to
destroy Israel is directly connected to the reality that Israel is Jewish, no
other reason whatsoever can excuse the need for all of the above, even Yunis
al Astal, a member of the Palestinian Authority parliament
agrees...
The film unfinished continues today....
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When we seek information on new technologies, new medical discoveries, economic statistics, social networks and countries of interest who do we turn to? Google of course!
So we open up the Google homepage, enter the search criteria and voilà there it all is displayed to us in a matter of seconds... but how does Google decide which results to display first?
The way that Google determines which results to display first is based on a technology called PageRank... "PageRank is a link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of "measuring" its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references." ...Confused?
In simple terms the algorithm determines multiple factors such as the amount of other webpages linking directly to a website in question plus the ranking level of the referring websites... So for instance if 1000 websites link to your website then you will have a high ranking and if a few of those 1000 websites are already ranked highly then your ranking goes up even more which means your pages will be displayed higher up in the list of Google search results... Got it? Ok moving on...
If you run a search for Israel and then for Gaza you will see results from commonly used and high ranking websites such as Wikipedia, NY Times and the BBC... These results will contain links to articles and information regarding the search criteria you insert and is usually fairly balanced in the quality of the results displayed...
But as most people prefer to look 'n' learn from pictures and videos rather than to have to read up about a specific subject - "seeing is believing" - then who do they turn to? Google Images of course!
Google Images works on a similar but simpler system to display their results... It relies on the naming conventions used for the images as well as the content of text displayed around the images on the webpage it appears on, nonetheless also relies on the PageRank system and a few other SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tricks...
By now you are probably wondering why I am explaining all this to you, what the in's and out's of Google search has to do with Israel or Gaza... while it may seem irrelevant, it is in fact an important foundation for what I will explain to you next...
If you did not click the links I posted above that referred to the Google search results comparing between Israel and Gaza then please use these links here as it is important that you see the results that are displayed: Israel | Gaza
When comparing the results of the above links, it is clear that the results displayed seem fairly balanced: each had a Wikipedia link, a Guardian link, NY Times link and a CIA factbook link; however as "seeing is believing", a picture is literally worth a thousand words, a thousand words more than any article of information could ever deliver... especially when the results are visually shocking to us...
Let us see what happens when we run a Google Image search for Israel and Gaza... well we end up with this...
Google Image results for Israel
Click the image to enlarge it...
...and this...
Google Image results for Gaza
Click the image to enlarge it...
It is clearly and visually a whole different impression you now have of Israel and Gaza, for obvious reasons... the shock value!
You will notice that if you scroll down the results of Israel, out of a selection of 13 pages you see nothing more than pictures of Israeli flags, maps of Israel, the Dome of the Rock, some of the major cities and the IDF... Here & there you will see a few out-of-context propaganda pics showing Israel & the IDF as the aggressor as well as some pictures of war, but all in all the impression people have of Israel is as clear-cut as the images of Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Libya portray... it all looks pretty normal considering what is currently taking place in those countries...
So why then do search results for Gaza make it look like a complete war-zone full of the 3-d's namely death, destruction and disease?
Well the answer is really simple! The more websites, news sites, blogs and forums, that are of high ranking on Google, which post articles with images of Gaza in the context of war only, the more the results of Gaza appear as shown in the image posted above... While it is important that news agencies and activist bloggers want to and should show the world what takes place in Gaza, like any other place, the major problem is the fact that they only report on and show the negativesituations that take place, which therefore creates only a negative impression of the subject at hand... The same goes for image results of Iraq... if I was educated by Google Images then Iraq would seem like a country full of American soldiers along with death and destruction only...
I am 100% sure that if every Pro-Israel website out there, be it news sites, forums and blogs, had to excessively display the images of the destructive force of Palestinian terrorism during the 1st and 2nd Intifada's and thereafter, that the standard image results of Israel would look something along the lines of this... not a pretty picture of Israel at all... I doubt any tourist would want to risk visiting such a "war-zone" and I am sure that almost every humanitarian/peace activist of the world would be flocking to Israel to save us from this destruction... but as it seems we are not in the business of lies, distorted truths and propaganda so we always fall short in the media game...
Now you could be asking yourself, but what if the images of Gaza shown in the results of Google Image search are actually the only images of Gaza due to it really being in a complete war-zone? This would be a fair assumption and question to ask yourself but if you are like me then you would use your common sense and dig deeper to find out more about Gaza instead of taking it at face value like a large amount of people clearly do...
While researching, keep in mind that the Gaza-strip is only 360 square km's versus Israel being 20,700 square km's, its borders with Egypt and Israel total 62km's and Gaza City itself is only 45 square km's which means that from a low height one can pretty much see the whole of Gaza. So logically if Gaza was truly a complete war-zone then it would only take one aerial photograph to show Gaza in total ruins...if it were true... but from the research I and many others have done regarding whether Gaza is in fact a complete war-zone, it turns out that it is completely untrue... you will see more below.
If, based on the Google results of what Gaza looks like as a whole were true, then how would it be possible that such up-to-date images of Gaza exist like the one's below? Surely you would see at least some destruction in these images below, after all Google has shown us what Gaza "really" looks like, right?
Note that almost none of the images below, including the 5 albums of images I have uploaded of Gaza, were found by searching Google Images at all...
As you can see below, Gaza is as normal looking as any other place on the planet...
Click the images to enlarge...
Now let's perform a comparison between Israel and Gaza, does it really look that much different when put into context? The left column shows Gaza and the right shows Israel...
This shows that one should not educate oneself by using Google, Youtube or Wikipedia alone, like so many do... I spend much time discussing the Israel/Gaza situation on various different forums & social network sites and a large majority of opposing arguments rely solely on the use of out-of-context imagery/videos as their source of knowledge regarding what Gaza is like, the same out-of-context imagery that people obtain from Google Images... This tells me one thing, that these people who argue against Israel are seriously lacking in a complete picture of what Gaza is like and their entire argument is therefore based on their own out-of-context impression that Gaza is a complete catastrophe "all thanks to Israel"... A lot more attention to detail and solid information is required in order to determine facts and realities...
Based on all of this, it is understandable why so many people find it so easy to condemn Israel and to blindly support the Palestinians purely from the things they see and not from the things they know... We face a serious problem when people across the world are educating themselves with only the use of Google Image search to learn about Gaza, all thanks to Pro-Palestinians only showing negative imagery of Gaza in blog posts and news sites while Pro-Israelis show balanced imagery of Gaza, but obviously not enough of it as it seems...
Our honesty, lust for life and refusal to publicize or parade the dead around makes us always fall short when up against the media whores but I honestly wouldn't trade any of that for the world and neither should any other Israeli or Jew...Am Yisrael Chai!
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To see more positive imagery of Gaza, feel free to peruse through these albums that Google Image search will not display to you so easily... there will be many more albums to come...
By Eyal Plotkin: "The 'Kameri' Theater has commissioned 'The Human Scale' to be performed in Tel-aviv – these are my 2 cents on it: (I direct my words to the creators of this endeavor; this is how this composition is written)
I have been talking to quite a few people about the notions raised in the presentation which includes coworkers, friends and even someone dear to me who had lost someone dear to them in an “abhorrent act”; that by itself already makes the purpose of 'The Human Scale' known and its affects evident.
When you hide behind the facade of the stage, you have the luxury of relinquishing any factual basis to your words so throwing numbers around is automatically believed without question (by some), which serves the angle in your case: I think you try to paint a picture of balance, of a common problem the Palestinians and Israelis share in this conflict of hatred but what comes across in the end, to me, is an imbalance of forces which puts Israel once more in the seat of 'the evil one'.
I thought the presentation about the conflict suffers from the same media oscillation on a world scale, it is a Macro Vs Micro really: the suffering on both sides is great – it just always looks like we are causing more damage intently.
We (Israelis) need to deal with an unknown enemy which uses its civilian buildings as military encampments while they (Palestinians) need to take back what was lost during a war which was started by their brethren who, now, want nothing to do with them.
In a densely populated area, which is so small; while keeping in mind the need to blend in, I don’t blame them (I would expect these are some of the cores to guerrilla tactics) – but it’s residue after effect reverberates in the world media and we become Goliath instead of David.
It is no news that their civilians, (I say civilians but really they are subjects) are being subjected to all sorts of brain washing with the sole purpose in mind to create new warriors in the name of Islam and word of Jihad – a proof of that you’ve shown when you presented children’s shows that perpetuate that same cause.
It is also not a big secret that we are stronger, we have a bigger army – better weapon technology, which (I’m assuming) its research is being fueled by Americans for reasons of your choosing, as better ways to kill a man are always a welcome commodity in warfare. Point being, we are using the smallest weapons you can use but when it comes to kill or be killed what would you tell a soldier who’s being shot at by a sniper from the third floor of a school when children are hiding on the second floor? What would you do?
The R&D capabilities of our country and its relations to the Americans would also explain the American aversion at stepping in, with the virtuous purpose and intent at changing the status quo.
What would you have us do, equip all our soldiers with Paintball guns? – We all know how that turned out on the 'Mavi Marmara' - Next water balloon grenades, and origami knifes.
On the other hand, I do believe that we need to be the better entity here; we need to do something extreme that would prove our intent at peace especially as the anvil of democracy hammers at the Muslim community – this is our time to shine but we are missing it and we are doing nothing about it.
As to the way you chose to receive feedback: the afterhours debate is scheduled at a very poor hour, when you actually want feedback, when you actually want to listen to people – you give them more than 30 minutes of time and you don’t bicker on how they should ask the questions, you give them space and you listen.
I thought the debate was the most important part of the presentation, but it felt it wasn’t your main agenda in how it was given attention.
The presentation was conducted in a Democratic society with people in a higher demographical and socioeconomically state, which albeit ensued response doesn’t really hit the ears of the people that are feeding the reciprocal rage that is going on – they are comfortable with their lives, wouldn’t count on them to do anything than speak about it over cocktails and shrimp.
Ask yourselves this:
How many people in the audience had lost someone dear to them in an “abhorrent act”, a terrorist bombing if you will?
How many of them were Palestinians?
How many of them were soldiers (Active or reserve)?
How would the Palestinians - a non-democratic society that brain washes their "subjects" receive you when you want to show them your piece?
Debating the purpose of this presentation as being good or bad is irrelevant – it is important at inciting talk and the exchange of ideas, which in itself is something that in my view would be almost illegal to contain and is obligatory to spread.
I would be really intrigued to see how the presentation pans out in a room parted by Palestinians and Israelis, the debate after the show on that would be fascinating.
When the ripples caused by the boulder of freedom that hit the Muslim world find their way to the shores of Gaza, I hope they will amount to no more than the foam of democracy rather than a tsunami of bigotry." (source) -Eyal Plotkin
