Israel haters lie. They KNOW they are lying. We can prove it. Exhibit A: @LaraFriedmanDC. Exhibit A: @EuroMedoPt

Lara Friedman, the president of the anti-Israel Foundation for Middle East Peace, tweeted:

Israel built 5000 housing units in Jerusalem in four months?

Anyone who follows the issue of settlements would know instantly that this is a ridiculous lie. The total number of housing units that began being built in all of 2020, in all the territories, was less than half that. If 5,000 units would be built in Jerusalem it would be making world headlines. And to build and complete them in four months would be really remarkable!

The very first sentence of the EMHRM article explains the story a little better: "Israel has demolished 31 homes and 27 Palestinian facilities after plans to construct 4,982 new settlement units were approved, since the beginning of this year, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said in statement. "

So no houses were built - plans were "approved." Most of the planned housing units never get built, as any knowledgeable person on the topic would know. And there are many stages of approval, which means that each housing unit can be "approved" up to eight separate times before actual building! 

Lara Friedman knows all of this. She knows the headline is false and keeps the tweet up anyway.

One way we know she knows is because the error was pointed out to her almost immediately after she tweeted, and then many times again - and she didn't respond or remove the tweet, even as she continued to tweet on other topics during the day. (After I pointed it out, she tweeted the first sentence of the EMHRM article without explaining that her first tweet was wrong, giving the impression that Israel built 5000 units and approved 5000 more.)

But the other way we know that Friedman is purposely pushing lies is because of her previous job - at Americans for Peace Now:

Lara Friedman is Director of Policy and Government Relations for Americans for Peace Now. As a leading authority on US foreign policy in the Middle East, Israeli settlements policy, and Jerusalem.

Friedman is an expert on settlements! She knows that Israel doesn't build anything close to 5000 settlements a year, let alone in Jerusalem over for months. Peace Now knows the entire building process intimately - they wrote a detailed article and slide deck while she was at APN that describes the process in detail. 

Friedman's knowledge is clear from her attempts to twist the facts without technically lying in this Haaretz article I picked apart when she worked at Peace Now. 

Most reporters don't understand the intricate details behind the stages of building housing in Judea and Samaria - but Lara Friedman knows it well.

Friedman lied - and deliberately maintains the lie. Because she wants to demonize Israel.

Now, how about the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor? Could this have just been a headline mistake, and the article is accurate?

Nope! Here are the first two paragraphs of the article:

Israel has demolished 31 homes and 27 Palestinian facilities after plans to construct 4,982 new settlement units were approved, since the beginning of this year, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said in statement. 

During the past four months, Israel has escalated its policy of demolishing Palestinian homes and facilities and removing Palestinians from their neighborhoods, while building thousands of settlement units in East Jerusalem. Such a conduct aims to  perpetuate racial discrimination and eliminate the Palestinian Arab presence in the city.

Right after admitting that only plans were approved, the EMHRM says again that was building thousands of units in Jerusalem! 

Lara Friedman lies - and knows it. The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor lies - and it knows it. 

For normal people or organizations, being proven a liar over and over again tends to damage credibility. But for people who are anti-Israel, it burnishes their credibility among their audience who is eager to believe the lies - the bigger the lie, the better. 

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