Blowing apart a monstrous Israeli lie

It’s a monstrous lie, but Israeli propagandists keep repeating it: Palestinians deliberately sacrifice their own children just to make Israel look bad.

I had the opportunity to debunk this vicious, dehumanizing libel to the face of one such propagandist when I appeared on CGTN’s The Heat on Thursday.

The show begins with an interview with Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi.

Then I was on a panel with two Israeli propagandists, Jeremy Saltan, a settler from Chicago and a member of Yamina, an alliance of extreme right-wing political parties, and Amotz Asa-El, a commentator for The Jerusalem Post.

Both regurgitated a predictable barrage of talking points aimed at justifying Israel’s targeting of Palestinian civilians.

Saltan claimed that the Palestinian resistance group Hamas “is putting the rocket launchers on top of the residential apartment buildings” and “choosing deliberately to put those innocent civilians in a place to have a situation of collatoral damage.”

It’s a version of the perennial lie that Palestinians use their children as “human shields.”

As this clip below shows, I responded to Saltan that if there was a shred of truth to his claim, Israel – with its drones and surveillance technology – would undoubtedly be able to provide evidence.

But instead, we have fabrications.

I pointed out that earlier this week, Ofir Gendelman, a senior spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, posted on Twitter a video he claimed showed Hamas firing a barrage of rockets from right next to an apartment building.

In fact, as The Electronic Intifada reported, the video was more than two years old and came from Syria.

Twitter actually labeled it “manipulated media” – in other words a lie – and Gendelman eventually deleted it.

You can watch whole episode of The Heat at the top of this article.

A family massacre

As of late Friday, the health ministry in Gaza reported that more than 125 Palestinians had been killed since the Israeli bombardment began on Monday, including more than 30 children and 20 women.

Almost 1,000 people have been injured. But that dreadful toll is growing by the hour.

In the early hours of Saturday morning, a reported Israeli airstrike hit a residential building belonging to the Abu Hatab family in Gaza’s Beach refugee camp.

At least 10 people – eight children and two women – were killed.

Pictures circulated by media show a months-old baby who was rescued from the rubble under which his family was killed.

Tags

Comments

picture

Ali all of this violence is horrible beyond words.
Please accept my condolences
Both sides must stop shooting immefiately. This cemtury-long conflict can only be resolved by negotiations leading to a Middle East Union, with open borders and a common currency. Amyonemay live freely anywhere.

In time, this union will unite with the EU as the world evolves to a single united and free entity.
Gil Zohar
Jerusalem

picture

As concise and complete a counterpoint to this colonist as one could imagine Ali! But what can one really hope for when the most basic of questions is posed to middle east "experts", or just no nothing's who are somehow positioned to be asked; what hope is there when the standard answer to "can you tell us how this all started wise one" is "it's the missiles from Hamas, no civilized country can tolerate such thing".
That's as far as our mass media goes, they're satisfied with a complete distortion of the recent series of events and not a word about what responsibility Israel must assume for the inevitable repercussions of its illegal occupation and genocide through harrasment and attrition of Palestine.
"Not out of proportion", "a work in progress", says our President. Putting it all together, I'm beginning to think Trump's lies were child's play compared to the ones coming out of the Deep State.

picture

Thanks for exposing Israeli lies to obscure grotesque criminality,
as well as demeaning the intense collective grief inflicted upon
the Palestinian people.

picture

Thank you, Prof. Falk, for your massive contribution to the struggle for justice on behalf of the Palestinian people.

picture

Great job Ali for debunking those Israelies on the show. You're so articulate and presented those facts beautifully. It was laughable when the Jerusalem Post guy said "next time make sure you include Egypt". Basically, he's saying "we're not the only one committing crimes. Egypt is helping us!". He's so stupid. I also loved it when you talked about what happened to S. Africa and how we'll see Israel in int'l criminal court someday.

picture

Whenever Ali Abunimah has access to the airwaves, listeners and viewers are granted all too rare access to the truth about Israel/Palestine. In his response to the charge that Palestinian guerillas launch their munitions from apartment buildings which then have to be blown up by the IDF, he pointed out that a video recently posted by Netanyahu's senior spokesman claiming to show this use of "human shields" wasn't from Gaza at all, but was recorded in Syria in 2018. Neither Israeli interviewee promoting this racist rubbish even bothered to acknowledge the fact that their government circulates false material of this type to justify war crimes. And when he added that Israel with all its surveillance capability has failed to provide any visual evidence to back up its "human shields" canard, they behaved as though the question hadn't even been raised. That's a measure of both the arrogance and ineptitude of these colonial propagandists. There's something depraved about an opponent who when exposed in this way merely moves on to the next lie.

picture

Richard Engel mentioned the long provocations at al Aqusa briefly.
He seemed irked a bit that IDF took out his building. I'd call that an endorsement of Hamas' strategy, don't you think?
Heck, I wouldn't even go that far but then I don't have a building being razed by...

picture

I’m sorry for taking up space with multiple postings but the cynicism and, not hypocrisy, it’s something more pervasive, make that the evil that’s driving Israel runs so deep that bits and pieces of it keep rising to the surface of my consciousness like buoyant turds.
As Ali say’s it’s incomprehensible that Israeli propagandists wouldn’t have slam dunked their bull with footage by now if there was anything to run. Maybe we’ll get a Golan-Globus production soon. But as we all know, the Israeli leadership would have to invent the rockets if Hamas didn’t have them. They know the rockets are there and will be launched, they have to be, they’re a pathetic show of resistance but they’re at least something, some exercise of a will that won’t be crushed.
So with Israel's provocations, which even the mainstream is beginning to recognize as evident, with that, who’s really using their populace for tactical advantage? I think that's been pointed out before but it bears repeating in this repeating nightmare.

picture

Israel is not defending itself, but an illegal occupation. When Israeli spokespeople say "itself" what do they mean? The WB? Gaza? "Itself" should apply to the Israel of the 4th June 1967 borders. But Gilad Erdan, the biggest liar in the world, has just addressed the UN. This is the world's supreme international body and before it Erdan lies like a pupil who hasn't done his homework. It really is that pitiful. Sheikh Jarrah is a "property dispute"; Israel is a democracy; it upholds law; it is doing everything it can to prevent civilian casualties; Hamas planned all this in advance; Israel condemns all terrorism..Oh, not even the Third Reich, Stalin, Pol Pot or Richard Nixon could lie like this. But don't make the mistake of thinking the Israelis don't believe all this. They have fallen for their own despicable propaganda. Lying is what they have always done: "Palestine is a land without people for a people without land" etc. Israel is founded on lies and the principal is racial superiority. Its claim to Palestine is messianic and founded on blood ties. It is a doctrine straight out of the age that sent Henry Morton Stanley shooting people of colour like monkeys in Africa. Herzl proposed the Jewish State as the means of rescuing the Jew from what he saw as a despicable character. His doctrine was without question one of racial distinction. To fulfil the vision his followers employed vicious terrorism for decades. And now Erdan pleads the case of an Israel which loves democracy, respects human rights, wants to protect Muslims and, in short, is true angelic. Israel should try to be a little less angelic and a little more decent. Out of their belief in their superiority the followers of Herzl brutalise and oppress while claiming their hands are clean. Truly, Erdan should be mocked out of the UN. Israel should be forced to pull out of the settlements. But the only person who can do it is the craven Biden. Feeble. Despicable. Pathetic. We must rise up in global revolt.

picture

Not only does Israel use this lame excuse - without evidence - every time they level an entire residential building (or ambulance etc etc etc), but it is an especially cold-hearted way to Blame The Victim. If Israel had anything BUT joy in murdering families of the people it displaces and locks up, and if it had any conscience, it would NOT bomb a building full of families... in other words, there is NO SUCH THING as a Human Shield to the IDF. They do it no matter what, and after all these years, it appears that they target families and feel nothing. except maybe joy?

But it is Israel's bombs, Israel's military, Israel's crime. Excuses don't change who is at fault.

Also, I understand they wait until midnight just to make sure there are as many people home in their residence as possible.

picture

Ali, you were brilliant. Keep it up. Don't stop.