Tuesday Links Part 1

From Ian:

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"Pro-Palestinian" lobby hijacks Boston mourners for political point scoring

An image being circulation of "young Palestinian children" expressing sympathy with the victims of Boston appears to be from Iraq, rather than the Palestinian territories
That so called "pro-peace" activists can hijack such images for their own political ends speaks to the lengths to which many will go to in order to either demonise their opposition, propogate lies on behalf of corrupt and violent regimes, or indeed simply try to naiveily paper over the cracks.
The attempts are not thought to be directly related to the latest Pew poll statistics showing that 40 percent of Palestinians polled belive that suicide bombings are justified, the highest of any Muslim country in which the poll occured.

Keeping prejudice under control

The pro-divestment movement wants you to believe that its cause is a struggle between the ethnic minority Palestinians and the “white” and “privileged” Jews and Israelis. By pretending that Jews are white Europeans, they argue that Israelis are foreign occupiers. But Jews are not a homogenous group of white people; we are an ethnically Middle Eastern people, comprising many unique communities from across the globe. After centuries of persecution, we have found security in this country and in our nation’s first home, Israel. And although we have achieved the privilege of statehood, our personal histories are defined by our recent struggles.

Richard Millett: From the Warsaw Ghetto to John Lewis for Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s Ewa Jaciewicz.

But what Jaciewicz, a member of the Polish Campaign of Solidarity with Palestine, never wrote about for The Guardian was her trip a few years ago to the Warsaw Ghetto.
Now, what would a reasonable human being do if they visited a site where some 400,000 Jewish people (or people of any religion for that matter) lost their lives? Say a prayer, lay a flower, place a simple stone in remembrance?
Jaciewicz helped daub the words “Free Gaza and Palestine” on one of the nearby walls. What did any of those 400,000 innocent lost souls ever do to her?

Honest Reporting Canada: CBC Airs Unsubstantiated Allegation Claiming Israel used Chemical Weapons on Palestinian Children

Ms. Glynn’s statement was tantamount to accusing Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity on vulnerable Palestinian children. These were incredibly serious unfounded charges that came from a pre-recorded comment. CBC journalists heard this comment before it went to air and chose to broadcast it over CBC airwaves. As such, CBC must take responsibility for this inflammatory and unfounded allegation it gave a platform to.

What the West Should Learn from the Fayyad-Cohen Spat

For a Palestinian, it’s always safest to accuse Israel of brutality and abuse, even if the accusations are completely false, because Israeli soldiers won’t kill him for such libels–whereas Palestinian gunmen very well might murder him as a “collaborator” if he went on record as saying, for instance, that Israeli soldiers treated him decently.
So perhaps next time, Westerners should stop and think before uncritically accepting Palestinian atrocity tales as truth. For if Fayyad could so brazenly lie about Cohen, then other Palestinians could just as easily be lying about Israel.

Michael Totten: Israel Bombs Syria, Syrians Blame Each Other

Assad is especially adept at this game. Everyone, especially journalists who quote people for a living, needs to understand that. Yet they don’t. The BBC let Assad write their headline. Israeli strikes on Syria 'co-ordinated with terrorists' it says. That’s the actual headline. It was literally written by Assad’s foreign ministry.
Of course the words “co-ordinated with terrorists” are inside quotation marks, and the article makes it clear that this accusation comes from the Syrian government, but most people who see the headline won’t read the article. Casual readers of the BBC Web site won’t even notice the quote marks. Israel is coordinating with Al Qaeda in Syria? Really, BBC? You’re broadcasting that ludicrous accusation with a straight face? (h/t Zvi)

CIF Watch: Robert Fisk convinces himself that Israel has ‘dragged the West into Syrian war’

It seems that the ethically challenged British ‘journalist’ Robert Fisk wanted desperately to impute the worst motives to Israel in analyzing reports of up to a dozen IAF strikes over the last few days on advanced Syrian weapons to prevent their transfer to Hezbollah. However, the weakness of his latest essay suggests that he may have found the case against Israel’s sober decision not to allow Iranian made Fateh-110 missiles to fall into the hands of the Shiite terror movement allied with Bashar al-Assad was simply too difficult.

Syria vows to retaliate for any future Israeli attack

The Syrian government extended the authority of the army to respond to “Israeli aggression” immediately and without prior governmental authorization, and granted Palestinian factions leave to carry out attacks against Israel on the Golan Heights, a Syrian government daily reported on Tuesday.
According to Al-Watan, the Syrian army has compiled a “target bank” inside Israel that will be showered by missiles immediately in case of another Israeli strike on Syria. The daily also quoted “high-ranking sources” who said that Syria was willing to provide the Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah with “all types of weapons, including new and quality weapons not previously provided.”

Israel strikes a blow to conventional Arab thinking

‘Israel is still my enemy, but when my enemy does a neat job — I admit it,’ writes one Syrian commentator
As the quintessential enemy of the Arab and Islamic world, Israel must be aligned with Assad, went the logic of many domestic Assad opponents. Now, though, Israel’s apparently brazen confrontation with the Assad regime — while many Arab leaders have spent the last two years merely verbally endorsing (or secretly dreaming) of such a move — has created something of a cognitive dissonance for these oppositionists.

Third Syrian Shell in 24 Hours Hits Golan

A stray mortar shell causes no casualties or damage. Two rockets were fired from Syria Monday.

Dayan: Israel Has a Choice Between Bad and Worse

Former IDF general says Israelis should give thanks each day for the Golan.
Israel has two choices regarding the ongoing civil war in Syria: bad and worse, said former IDF general Uzi Dayan, speaking to Arutz Sheva.
The Assad regime is anti-Israel, but several of the groups fighting him are affiliated with Al-Qaeda. “Obviously we shouldn’t support Assad’s ouster, because a weak plague is better than a terror virus that is growing stronger,” he said.
Israel must prepare for any scenario, and prevent unconventional weapons from reaching terrorist groups, he said.

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The creation of an anti-Israel conspiracy theory

The wildly anti-Israel Veteran's Today has a scoop:

Were Israeli false-flag terror experts – maybe even some who helped pull off 9/11, the operation that Mossad operative Mike Harari bragged about – flown in to Boston to set up a shoot-out as dénouement to the Boston Marathon bombing?

At this point it’s just a hypothesis. But suspicions were aroused two days ago, when Israeli Police Chief Yohanan Danino announced that his officers had flown to Boston to “meet with Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and other authorities” to participate in the investigation of the Boston bombing. As RT reported, Danino dispatched police officers to participate in discussions that “will center on the Boston Marathon bombings and deepening professional cooperation between the law enforcement agencies of both countries.”

But wait a minute…why would American police need Israelis, or other foreigners, to investigate an American crime? And more pertinently: How did Danino know that there would be any Boston Marathon bombings for his team to investigate? According to RT, “Israeli law enforcement planned the trip before the deadly pair of bombings on Monday that has so far claimed three lives.”

When government agents pre-plan their trip to a crime scene, it means they – or their governments – had foreknowledge of the crime.

Let's go backwards through the links and see how this conspiracy theory started.

The RT article says:

The investigation into Monday’s deadly bombing at the Boston Marathon has officially gone international: law enforcement officials from Israel have been sent to the United States to assist in the probe.

Israel Police Chief Yohanan Danino says he has dispatched officials to Boston, Massachusetts, where they will meet with Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and other authorities, the Times of Israel Reports.

Citing an earlier report published by the newspaper Maariv, Times of Israel writes that Danino has dispatched police officers to participate in discussions that “will center on the Boston Marathon bombings and deepening professional cooperation between the law enforcement agencies of both countries.”

The paper reports that Israeli law enforcement planned the trip before the deadly pair of bombings on Monday that has so far claimed three lives, but the discussions will now shift focus in order to see how help from abroad can expand the investigation.

OK, let's now go to the Times of Israel article:

Israel Police chief Yohanan Danino and other senior police officers left Israel late Tuesday night, heading to the US to meet with FBI officials and other law enforcement officials in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings.

Discussions will center on the Boston bombings and deepening professional cooperation between the law enforcement agencies of both countries, Maariv reported.

At least three other senior officers are accompanying the police chief, in what the paper described as the highest-ranking police delegation Israel sends overseas. The trip had been planned before the Boston blasts, but was refocused in the light of the bombings, the report said, without elaboration.

Note what TOI doesn't say: Nowhere does it say that the Israelis are going to Boston. Also, nowhere does it say that Israelis are part of the investigation. Those were RT additions, and the major parts of the conspiracy theory - planning to go to a crime scene before the crime.

What did Maariv say?

In the shadow of the attack on the Boston Marathon, the Chief of Police, Commander Yohanan Danino, the head of the Lahav 433, Commander Manny Isaac, and two other senior police officers went to the U.S. to meet with the heads of the FBI and law enforcement officials in New York and Washington.

Police say that the visit has been planned long ago, but some meetings will engage in strengthening cooperation between Israeli police and police units in the U.S. and the FBI in fighting terrorism.

My Hebrew isn't perfect, but I do not see Maariv saying that the meetings are being "refocused" because of Boston - although obviously the topic will come up. Nowhere does it say that Israeli officials are helping in the investigation, as RT added.

The New York Daily News reports on Danino's visit to New York, confirming he did not visit Boston and the trip was planned long in advance.

So the timeline of the smear is:

4/16: Israel sending top cops to the US to hold meetings in a trip planned long before Boston bombings
4/17: Israeli trip to US being refocused to also discuss Boston bombings
4/17: Israeli investigators going to Boston to help investigate bombings
4/19: Israeli trip to Boston, planned before bombings, proves Israeli involvement in the attack

The VT article goes on to accuse Israel of masterminding 9/11 - and the Haiti earthquakes!

So while VT is a fringe site, we know that the author Kevin Barrett also writes for Iran's PressTV, This meme is already starting to spread in tin-foil hat circles.

And now you can see how the haters find their material.

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