Syria claims Israel killed civilians in Damascus strike. They know they are lying, but the media parrots their lies anyway. (UPDATE) ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Tuesday, March 08, 2022

Syria claims Israel killed civilians in Damascus strike. They know they are lying, but the media parrots their lies anyway. (UPDATE)

An Israeli attack over the Syrian capital Damascus killed two civilians and left some material damage, the country's state media reported Monday, citing a military source.

No attempt it made to verify or refute the claim, even though to my knowledge no civilian has died in the scores of Israeli airstrikes on Syria aiming to stem the flow of Iranian weapons to Hezbollah.

It is like Hamas' Health Ministry - if it makes a claim of civilians being killed, reporters assume they are telling the truth. When people object, the reporters hide behind the fiction that they are only reporting what the officials are saying. But these reporters never even attempt to verify or refute the claim. It takes a lot less effort to act as a stenographer for Hamas or Syria then it takes to do, you know, actual reporting.

Al Jazeera's reporting is slightly better than that of Reuters. After parroting the claims, it added:

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a monitoring group, said the missiles hit “a weapons and ammunition depot operated by Iran-backed militias near the Damascus International Airport”.

The group, which relies on an extensive network of sources inside Syria, said it could not confirm civilian deaths.

Al Jazeera drops the topic there. But anyone who checks the website of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights can find an update to the story:

According to reliable sources, two members of Iranian-backed militiamen were killed in the Israeli attack, one of whom is from the southern Syrian province of Daraa and was operating under the banner of a local Iranian-backed militia, and the other was not identified whether he is a Syrian or non-Syrian fighter.

The Israeli attack also injured six Iranian-backed militiamen. Following the attack, the victims were transported to hospitals in the capital, Damascus.

So Israel didn't kill any civilians, only Iranian militiamen in Syria. Reporters could have updated the story with the truth - but the truth is not what they are interested in.

Syria's claim that Israel killed civilians has another angle, though.

The [Syrian] Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants affirmed that "the Israeli enemy's aggression against residential areas hours after a crime committed by the terrorist organization ISIS shows the reality of accurate and direct coordination between them."
The ministry said in a statement: "It was never a coincidence that the Israeli enemy launched a new aggression this morning against residential areas in the countryside of Damascus, hours after the terrorist organization "ISIS", on March 6, 2022, committed a crime that claimed the lives of a number of the valiant Syrian army."
"They were on their way home," she said, explaining that "this terrorist-ISIS aggression shows the reality of accurate and direct coordination between the two."

Syria has long claimed that Israel and ISIS cooperate, which would really surprise ISIS. But once in a while, they need to manufacture "proof." So an Israeli attack on weapons warehouses outside Damascus gets transformed into an attack on a residential area, and somehow since it happened six or so hours after an ISIS attack, that's all you need to know to prove collusion.

Syria's lie about civilians killed was done to foster the propaganda, for Arab consumption, of an Israeli/ISIS axis.

And how do we know that Syria is lying - and that Syria knows it is lying?

For one, here is Syria's SANA news agency showing some of the damage. Does that look residential to you?

Secondly, notice how they didn't release the names of the "civilian victims."

If Israel killed civilians, their names and photos would be all over the news along with interviews with the grieving mothers.

People are reluctant to think that official media or statements can be bald-faced lies even from the most murderous regimes. But here you see that Syria lied knowingly and deliberately.

And so does Hamas. And the PA. And a lot of others, when it comes to blaming Jews.

UPDATE: Even Iran admitted that the two people killed were members of their Revolutionary Guards.