Another lie by "academic" Noura Erakat (UPDATE)

It's been less than a week since we saw an absolute lie from Noura Erakat, who teaches law at George Mason University and has taught at Georgetown and Temple U as well, according to her webpage.

Here's her latest:

While her last lie came from her quoting a thoroughly unreliable source, this one she made up from scratch.

Literally no one, even the most vehement anti-Israel sources, claim that Israel killed 100 members of the Samouni family in the 2008-2009 Gaza war.

The event she is referring to happened in January 2009. For reasons that are unclear, Israel bombed a house with over 20 members of the Samouni family after they were told to go there by Israeli forces.

One of the Samouni "civilians" killed

Several members of the Samouni family were Islamic Jihad Al Quds Force members, and Arabic sources at the time of the battle in Zaytoun bragged that their fighters barricaded themselves in civilian houses before attacking Israeli soldiers.

It seems unlikely that the Israelis who ordered the airstrike were aware of the number of civilians in the house; UAV images indicated that there were armed fighters in the house and the order was given to bomb it but there doesn't seem to have been proper communications with the ground forces who gathered the family into the house to begin with.  There was active fighting in the neighborhood at the time.

Regardless, Erakat is wrong on the date, overtly lying about the casualties, and ignoring the fact that there were valid military targets in the house.

If she lies so easily in public where she can be fact-checked, imagine how much she lies to her students in private!

UPDATE: In response to my calling her out on her lies, Erakat tweeted

As a critical thinker/scholar I create space for the narrative of the oppressed & scrutinize the history written by the powerful #Gaza

— Noura Erakat (@4noura) May 6, 2016

And then tweeted (twice)

Tho the lives of marginalized communities are fit 4 fiction, our truth speaks 4 itself. We see u & ourselves w/o blinders. #PrivilegeBubbles

— Noura Erakat (@4noura) May 6, 2016

It's really funny how things that might sound intelligent in the university environment look so stupid when taken out of that bubble.

Of course there are different ways of looking at events, but Erakat is justifying making up facts to "create space for the narrative of the oppressed."

And if she needs to lie to support her narrative, it is probably because the truth doesn't do a good enough job for her purposes.

Which means that what she calls "narrative" is more accurately characterized as "propaganda."

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