Showing posts with label Forensic Architecture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Forensic Architecture. Show all posts

Thursday, June 27, 2024




Bellingcat and Scripps News published a video report on the destruction of "heritage sites" in Gaza during this war.

Using satellite images and videos taken in Gaza, they identified  over 150 such sites that have been either damaged or destroyed in Gaza.

The well-known anti-Israel group Forensic Architecture has a prominent role in creating 3-D graphics of some of the sites, showing evidence of Israel using bombs, bulldozers and other equipment. The report suggests that Israel may be violating international law by deliberately targeting these sites.

It is nothing short of antisemitic libel.

Pretending to be even-handed, the report briefly shows that Israel has found weapons caches and tunnel entrances in mosques. 

Tunnel shaft in mosque

But it immediately dismisses that as saying that IDF "claims can't be verified for every mosque." As if the IDF would publish videos of blowing up mosques for no reason.

The report doesn't mention Hamas using cemeteries as rocket launching pads. In fact, it only mentions Hamas twice, and one of those times was to complain that Israel had tested out flooding Hamas tunnels which is considered, of course, an ecological disaster - but Hamas actually building the tunnels under Gaza mosques, cemeteries and hospitals doesn't merit a single disparaging word.

War crimes require intent. The evidence that Israel intends to target Gaza heritage sites is exactly zero. Hamas brags that it has built hundreds of miles of tunnels under an area that is only 25 miles long and less than 8 miles wide, and Israel has uncovered literally thousands of tunnel shafts in mosques, cemeteries, hospitals and children's bedrooms. The idea that Israel is targeting the mosques and bedrooms, and not the tunnels and weapons caches and Hamas terrorists, is simply libelous.

Beyond that, it makes no sense militarily. Targeting is not a casual activity - it requires multiple levels of oversight, legal advisors, and approvals. To think that that all levels of the IDF are secretly scheming to destroy Palestinian heritage during a war, using expensive bombs whose supply is not guaranteed to last forever, is nothing less than an antisemitic conspiracy theory. 




The clearest proof that this is nothing less than antisemitism can be seen in the report itself, when they describe how Hamas builds on top of archaeological sites, destroying them (a point I made when Forensic Architecture made the same absurd charges  in 2022.)  That is justified - because Gaza is under "occupation" and it is somehow Israel that forces Hamas to build on top of ancient Roman ruins. (See 5:40-6:20.)

Israel attacking heritage sites that have become military sites is terrible. Hamas using those heritage sites as military sites is justified, because where else can they do it - Gaza is so crowded!

Here's video of the IDF uncovering rocket launchers in a cemetery from January. 

This wasn't shown in this report, because that violates the holy narrative that only Israel desecrates cemeteries, not the religious Hamas members.





Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Sunday, October 22, 2023

We've already proven in the past that Forensic Architecture is an anti-Israel group that partners with media and human rights NGOs to pretend to use cutting edge 3-D modeling to prove its lies.

They helped create the Amnesty International "Gaza Platform" that is filled with data that is provably wrong to reach conclusions that are obviously wrong.

In 2021, using their signature 3D modeling, they claimed  that a Palestinian car ramming attack at a checkpoint was really a simple car accident whose driver was executed for no reason. Yet the video clearly shows both the car accelerating towards the soldiers - and that the driver jumped out of the car to attack them less than a second after the crash, something a stunned victim of an accident would never do. 

In 2022, they teamed up with Al Haq and falsely accused Israel of targeting "cultural heritage sites" in Gaza. Not only were they wrong - Israel was shooting at rocket launchers on top of the site -  but their own video proved that Hamas was building right on top of those old Roman ruins!

Later that year the two groups accused Israel is purposefully trying to create an ecological disaster in Gaza - using the worst possible munition for that purpose.

Now, Forensics Architecture is pretending that the explosion near the Al Ahli hospital was really from Israel:

Preliminary analysis by FA, @alhaq_org & @earshot_ngo  into the #AlAhli hospital blast in Gaza casts significant doubt on IOF claims that the source of the deadly explosion was a Palestinian-fired rocket travelling west to east.

3D analysis shows patterns of radial fragmentation on the southwest side of the impact crater, as well as a shallow channel leading into the crater from the northeast. Such patterns indicate a likely projectile trajectory with northeast origins.

In reviewing our analysis, investigator & explosive weapons expert @CobbSmith  agrees the fragmentation patterns may indicate the projectile came from the northeast—the direction of the Israeli-controlled side of the Gaza perimeter—and not from the west, as claimed by the IOF
Our/@CobbSmith’s analysis of the crater size suggests a munition larger than eg a Spike or Hellfire missile commonly used by IOF drones. It is more consistent w/ the impact marks from an artillery shell—but w/o additional material evidence, we cannot make a definitive assessment.

 @earshot_ngo analysed the recording released by IOF officials of an alleged exchange between members of Hamas implicating the Islamic Jihad in the attack. They found that the recording was manipulated and therefore not a credible source of evidence:

...A conclusive investigation into this attack requires full access to the site and munition fragments, as well as witness interviews. We continue our work on this case, and reaffirm our solidarity with Palestinian people under attack, including our friends & colleagues.
This is 9/11 Truther conspiracy theory level stuff. All evidence that shows it was Islamic Jihad, such as multiple videos of the rocket being shot from the same location as a salvo of other Gaza rockets, or how the rocket fuel would explain a huge fireball but no artillery shell would, is ignored. 



The videos clearly show a rocket that fell apart in mid-air. Any analysis of direction after a mid-air breakup is useless - chances are the part that hit the parking lot of the hospital was corkscrewing towards the ground as it has probably lost its tailfins. Assuming their debris analysis is correct, it probably simply hit the ground while facing a southwest direction.  (After I wrote this, I see that CNN's experts agree: "If the projectile malfunctioned and broke apart in the air, as CNN’s analysis suggests, the direction of impact reflected by the crater would not be a reliable finding.") 

Interestingly, CNN interviewed the same Chris Cobb-Smith and he said something nearly the opposite  than what Forensic Architecture says he said:
Cobb-Smith said that the conflagration following the blast was inconsistent with an artillery strike, but that it could not be entirely ruled out.

AP's analysis agrees with CNN and the IDF.  

Of course the IDF manipulated the audio. They edited out information that was sensitive. As far as the two audio channels, chances are that they were wiretapping both ends of the conversation separately and combined them, and chose to use stereo to make it easier to understand. 

But the most obvious proof that Forensic Architecture cannot be trusted - besides its track record of lying, that is - is that its own language calling the IDF the "IOF" ("Israel Occupation Forces," meaning that all of Israel is "occupied territory") and their statement of solidarity with Palestinians. They are admitting their agenda, proving that they are not even close to objective. They are only interesting in supporting their biases, not the truth. 

The question is why any organization would pay them for consulting services, unless they want manipulated and biased results to begin with. 







Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

The Guardian reported last week:

An investigation into a massacre in a destroyed Palestinian village carried out by Israeli forces in the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation has identified three possible mass graves beneath a present-day beach resort.

Palestinian survivors and historians have long claimed that men living in Tantura, a fishing village of approximately 1,500 people near Haifa, were executed after surrendering to the Alexandroni Brigade and their bodies dumped in a mass grave believed to be located under an area that is now a car park for Dor Beach. Estimates have ranged from 40 to 200 people.

In recent years, a growing body of evidence for the Tantura massacre has generated significant controversy in Israel, where atrocities committed by Jewish forces in 1948 remain a highly sensitive subject: an Israeli-made documentary about what happened in the village faced widespread backlash on its release last year.

The extensive new investigation by the research agency Forensic Architecture identifies what it says is a second mass grave site in the former village of Tantura, as well as two more possible locations, in the most comprehensive research yet.
There is a difference between history and conspiracy theory. In legitimate historical research, you start with all the facts that then look for larger historical patterns that the facts lead to. With conspiracy theories, however, you start with the theory, and then look for the facts (or half facts) that support the theory and ignore or disparage anything that contradicts them.

The Forensic Architecture "analysis" of Tantura, like their others, is a conspiracy theory dressed up as scientific research.

Historian Benny Morris has dismantled the Tantura massacre myth, using the tools of a historian. Morris has documented every major event that happened in 1948, including what would be considered war crimes today. In every case the Arab victims and victims of relatives spoke about the events in real time, loudly, to whomever would listen.  Yet, he notes:

If there was a massacre of 200 to 250 people at Tantura, it was the largest of the 1948 massacres. But there is no available document from 1948 that mentions a massacre at Tantura, apart from one document, which I’ll come back to below, that deals with the execution of a handful of Arab prisoners of war on the fringes of the village. Strange, very strange, because all the massacres perpetrated by Jews in 1948 are at least mentioned, if not described, in documents from 1948. These include documents of the Haganah, the main Jewish militia until the end of May 1948, the Israel Defense Forces, the UN (which had observers on the ground from May 1948), the Red Cross (whose officials operated in the country from April 1948), as well as records by the British and the Americans, whose representatives reported from Israel to London and Washington about the wartime events.

Deir Yassin, Burayr, Ein Zeitun, Lod, Hunin, Dawayima, Eilabun, Arab al-Mawasi, Majd al-Kurum, Saliha, Jish, Safsaf, Bi’na-Deir al Asad – the massacres perpetrated by Jews in these places and others are all mentioned in contemporary 1948 documentation, and in some cases are described in detail. Just not Tantura, not one mention.

Not that Haganah/IDF officers ignored Tantura in 1948. Accounts of the battle, the expulsion, the demolition of buildings afterward, all appear in the documents. Just not a massacre. On June 18, during the war’s First Truce, under the supervision of the International Red Cross and the United Nations, more than a thousand refugees from Tantura were transferred in an army convoy to Tulkarm, then under Iraqi army control. A document in the Haganah Archives sums up Arab radio broadcasts of that period (Haganah Information Service, “E.I. [Eretz Israel, Mandatory Palestine], June 21-22, 1948”): “An Arab woman from Tantura… relates that the Jews are raping Arab women and demolishing the place.” But according to the report, the woman did not mention by so much as a word that the Jews also massacred hundreds of her fellow villagers. (A slightly different version of this report states that the woman related that the Jews “raped women in addition to the acts of robbery, theft and arson.” Again, no mention of a massacre). These items were broadcast on Radio Ramallah.

In addition, as far as I was able to discover, the archives of the UN and the Red Cross – whose officials organized and escorted the move of the Tantura refugees to Tulkarm and reported frequently to their headquarters – contain no mention of a massacre at Tantura. Does it stand to reason that among the thousand deportees, who were no longer under Jewish control, not one bothered to tell the Iraqi officers or the UN and Red Cross officials that, by the way, they had endured a horrific massacre of their fathers, brothers, sons, as described by Katz and Schwarz and their supporters? It is simply inconceivable, if a large-scale massacre that they had eyewitnessed or at least heard about had indeed occurred.
Morris admits that there is evidence that the Israeli troops killed between 8-10 snipers in the village. That's it. No civilians. 

He brings plenty of other evidence that the modern blood libel is false and that the current "researchers" are knowingly lying.

Forensic Architecture, however, is looking for a huge massacre. And when you start from that perspective, just like with 9/11 "truthers" or Holocaust deniers, it is easy to find "evidence" that fits your preconceived notions.

In this case, the entirety of the "evidence" they discovered are two shadows in 1949 aerial photos that they didn't see in 1947 photos.



According to them, the only possible explanation for these shadows are that they are man-made earth mounds that would be the site of mass graves. They even do some helpful math:

We believe that if bodies were laid shoulder to shoulder and oriented northwards in a single layer, there could be around seventy bodies under a mound of this size. Were the bodies to be layered on top of each other, as one testimony suggests, the total number could be double that, up to approximately 140 bodies. Thus, our assessment is that the total number of bodies contained in a mass grave site such as this would be in the range of seventy to 140.

... As we did with Earthwork 1, we used the measurements of the mound to calculate the likely number of bodies which could be buried there. Our assessment is that the total number of bodies in a mass grave of this size is in the range of forty to eighty.
Ta-da! Shadows have now become proof of the murder of 240 people, coincidentally the highest amount that people made up fifty years after the event!

At times, FA doesn't even pretend that they are merely guessing. In this diagram, they refer to the supposed earth mound they claim the shadows indicate definitively as a mass grave, no questions asked:


So what if decades of research since this "Tantura massacre" allegation first appear in the 1990s have not uncovered the name of a single victim? We have shadows! 

It's science!

There are two years between the two photographs they are comparing. As is obvious, there are other changes between the 1947 and 1949 photos besides these shadows - new buildings and roads being built. Israel did move quickly in 1948 to build new villages to house immigrants, and Tantura was one of the spots where there was building activity (Palestine Post, August 2, 1948).

All of those require moving earth. 



The Nachsholim settlement was built there.

But Forensic Architecture knows that those shadows were created on May 24 or 25, 1948, and not in the months before or afterwards. How? 

Because, like all conspiracy theorists, they aren't considering any other possibility, and will not admit that any other theory is possible.

Let's say that they are correct and that these faint lines really represent two long 85 centimeter high earth mounds. What could be the reason?

Maybe the animals in the village who were not being fed died and needed to be buried. Maybe the graves of the snipers really are there and there are only 10 or so people buried separated by three meters out of respect. Maybe the kibbutzniks decided to build a fence between the trees and the field and cleared the area with a bulldozer. Maybe the leftover earth cleared for the new buildings and road was, for some reason, deposited on the edge of the field perhaps as a marker. Maybe there was a garbage dump that was attracting insects or animals that needed to be buried. 

The point is that when you only are willing to accept the most obscene explanation at the outset, you aren't engaging in research - you are just looking for proof of a conspiracy theory. 

And only antisemites would assume that the most likely explanation for two shadows is the existence of mass graves that contain some 240 people murdered by Jews whom no one can name and whom no one heard about until 50 years later.

No amount of 3D reconstruction can make up for the fact that the "researchers" at Forensic Architecture are anti-Israel bigots who consistently start their "research" with their conclusion and then connect the dots to reach it after the fact. 






Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Thursday, June 09, 2022

In 2015, Amnesty International created a website called the Gaza Platform, created with Forensic Architecture, that claimed to identify every casualty in the 2014 Gaza war and the circumstances around the incident.

As I showed at the time, the database was filled with inaccuracies, and many of the people that they claimed were civilian were in fact terrorists. Amnesty was aware of my research showing terrorists in their uniforms with guns that they called "civilian" and chose to keep the lies in the database - which is still available, today.

Airwars is another NGO that purports to document the innocent victims of war, and they do just what Amnesty did - they are calling legitimate military targets "civilians."

This is a Twitter thread by open source researcher DigFind on this:

Our investigation finds that award winning non-profit company @airwars is whitewashing terrorism with the help of high profile donors.

Airwars' interactive map project detailing the "civilian casualties" in Gaza was nominated for @amnesty media awards 2022.
ImageImage
Airwars is based at Goldsmiths, University of London @GoldsmithsUoL. Chris Woods @chrisjwoods is the founder and until yesterday the director. Chris also sits on Forensic Architecture @ForensicArchi's Advisory Board. 
Previously, Amnesty International @amnesty and Forensic Architecture @ForensicArchi teamed up to create the "Gaza Platform", an online data visualization app that describes many known Palestinian terrorists as civilian casualties of the 2014 Gaza War.ImageImage
Mohammed Barham Abu Draz (محمد برهم على أبو دراز) was a member of Al Qassam Brigades - a terrorist organization. He is listed as civilian casualty.
gazaplatform.amnesty.org/#1528

Same for Alaa’ Jamal Barda (علاء جمال بردع). He was a field commander with the same terror group.
ImageImageImageImage
Airwars receives funding from Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust @jrct_uk, Open Society Foundations @OpenSociety, Stichting Democratie en Media, Reva and David Logan Foundation, and J. Leon Foundation. 
Some examples of "civilian casualties" that were actual Hamas, Fatah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists.

Ezz El-Din Mohamed Helles (عز الدين محمد حلس) - member Al Qassam Brigades
Image
Muhammad Yahya Abu Al-Atta (محمد يحيى أبو العطا) - field commander al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.Image
Muhammad Saeed Abu Al-Atta (محمد سعيد ابوالعطا) - field commander Al Qassam Brigades.Image
Osama Ashraf Abu Rida (اسامه اشرف ابو ريده) - Activist Fatah youth. Fatah Movement Eastern Region referred to him as their martyr hero.Image
Zaher Atya Anbar (زاهر عطية عنبر) - member of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - Nidal Al-Amoudi Brigade, a Gaza based armed group.ImageImage
Yasser Al-Masry Abu Musab (ياسر المصري ابو مصعب) - Commander of the Deir al-Balah Brigade in Saraya al-Quds. Recently he died of injuries sustained in May 2021. Airwars' assessment of the IDF strike on Al-Masry - "civilian harm"ImageImage



I'd like to add that when someone is misidentified as a civilian, it not only affects the raw statistics of the victims. If the IDF has a legitimate target that was of a high enough value, then under the laws of armed conflict they are allowed to attack it even if there are civilians that will be harmed. This is not a carte blanche to attack anyone without regard to civilians, but if the target is someone or something that is important enough, some collateral damage is acceptable according to the principle of proportionality.

This means that any civilians who were effectively used as human shields by the terrorists cannot be treated as if they were killed far away from any target. Unlike how NGOs like Amnesty and HRW frame it, their deaths are legal. Only if there was no military gain from the attack does it violate the laws of war. When NGOs pretend that every civilian is a victim of Israel, they have it backwards: they died because Hamas and other terrorists hid behind them.



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Monday, May 30, 2022

From The Guardian:
An Israeli airstrike on an agrochemical warehouse during last year’s war in Gaza amounted to the “indirect deploying of chemical weapons”, according to a report analysing the attack and its impact.

Incendiary artillery shells fired by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) hit the large Khudair Pharmaceutical and Agricultural Tools warehouse in the north of the Gaza Strip on 15 May last year, setting fire to hundreds of tonnes of pesticides, fertilisers, plastics and nylons. The strike created a toxic plume, which engulfed an area of 5.7 sq km and has left local residents struggling with health issues, including two reports of miscarriages, and indications of environmental damage.

The extensive investigation, which involved analysing mobile phone and drone footage and CCTV, dozens of interviews with residents, and analysis from munitions and fluid dynamics experts, used 3D modelling of the warehouse to determine the circumstances of the attack.

It is the first publication by Palestinian human rights NGO Al-Haq’s newly established forensic architecture investigation unit, a first-of-its-kind collaboration in the Middle East with Forensic Architecture, a research agency based at Goldsmiths, University of London, which carries out spatial and media analysis for NGOs and in international human rights cases.

We've seen just a few months ago how Forensic Architecture suggests Israeli crimes by backing up nonsense assertions with the illusion of comprehensive research filled with impressive 3D modeling that doesn't prove anything. To the average observer, the sheer amount of "research" and effort seem to give support for their charges, but when you look at it carefully, it is simply smoke and mirrors.

In short, Forensic Architecture and Al Haq say that Israel fired the Elbit Systems M-150 smoke projectile several times towards the Khudair Pharmaceutical and Agricultural Tools warehouse. They show video that shows that the projectiles are indeed smoke projectiles, and they seem to come from artillery to the southeast.

Those are reasonable assumptions, backed by their evidence.

Then they go off the rails. They claim that this was a deliberate attempt to burn down the factory to cause an environmental disaster and ruin the lives of Gazans. 

That is, of course, nonsense.

I am the first to admit that I have no idea why the IDF would use smoke munitions, usually used as a smokescreen for ground forces, in this attack. I do not know what was in the mind of the commander who decided to launch this attack, or what tactical advantage smoke munitions would provide.

One thing is clear, though: If Israel wanted to destroy the factory and cause an ecological disaster, this is the worst possible munition to use!

It took 8-9 minutes after two of the shells landed before a fire was started from materials igniting nearby. For most of the shells, no fire was started at all. If Israel wanted to blow up the factory, this is not the way any military commander would do it. 




A firecracker would be more likely to ignite the chemicals than a smoke bomb. 

The choice of munitions seems to indicate the opposite: that Israel wanted smoke, but no fire, in the factory. Perhaps it had intelligence that Hamas was building explosives with the factory's fertilizer, and wanted to stop the manufacturing while minimizing chances to burn down the factory. 

The report quotes their go-to "expert" - the same one that CNN used to "prove" Israel shot Shireen Abu Akleh - Chris Cobb-Smith, to say that there is no military reason to use the smoke bomb. 

Why would the army use it, then? The "expert" is silent. But his quote is framed to make it appear like it was a deliberate attempt to burn down the factory, which is absurd.

Of course, the anti-Israel Al Haq and Forensics Architecture did not look to investigate any alternative theory to the one that makes Israel look as bad as possible - a deliberate act of WMD against Gaza. They don't bother to explain the inexplicable of why Israel would choose the worst means to accomplish its nefarious goal.

Because they don't care about the truth. The entire report is meant to be make a completely ridiculous accusation, and assume that the audience's antisemitism is higher than their bullshit meter. Which it almost invariably is - because of reports like this being treated respectfully in outlets like The Guardian.


(h/t Adam Levick)




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Friday, February 25, 2022

Al-Haq has teamed up with Forensic Architecture, a notoriously biased anti-Israel organization that uses cutting edge research techniques to "prove" whatever it wants to prove. From the Al Haq press release:

On 23 February 2022, Al-Haq launched its report titled “Cultural Apartheid, Israel’s Erasure of Palestinian Heritage in Gaza”. The report builds from an investigation by the London-based research agency Forensic Architecture using advanced technologies and ‘open-source’ techniques to reconstruct one of the most significant archaeological sites in the occupied Gaza Strip. The report draws on Israel’s strategic bombing of the Gaza coastline to exemplify the erasure of Palestinian cultural heritage and the denial of the relevant human rights. Israel’s bombardments not only breach the principle of military necessity in violation of the laws of armed conflict, but also aim at gradually erasing Palestinian cultural heritage to deny the Palestinian people of their right to self-determination over their cultural resources, and by extension threatens their existence as a people. Such bombings are a gross violation of the Rome Statute, constituting war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

In the report, Al-Haq outlines that the bombing of the site may amount to a war crime and contributes to the crime against humanity of apartheid.[1] The targeting of Palestinian cultural heritage, fundamentally affects the core of their identity and existence as a people. For example, the International Criminal Court underlines the nexus between destruction of cultural heritage and crimes against humanity, especially when the former occurs within the context of an attack against the civilian population, forms part of a state policy and is carried out in a widespread or systematic manner.[2] Additionally, under the Rome Statute, the crime of apartheid when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against the civilian population, with knowledge of the attack, amounts to a crime against humanity.[3]
This is utter garbage.

Israel never targets "cultural heritage" sites when Hamas starts its wars. Israel targets terrorists.

And terrorists tend to be in some "cultural heritage" areas. After all, they are open spaces that are ideal for shooting rockets. 

The Forensics Architecture team spent lots of time and money to document Israel's bombing of the Roman-era ruins near the Shati camp. But not once did they - or Al Haq - mention that terrorists both shoot rockets from that area, and that they have even been known to shoot rockets accidentally to that area. 

The areas marked by Forensics Architecture are north of the Shati camp. 


Here's that same spot from a Google Maps satellite image:


Look at that open space, just begging to be used for rocket launches. And which just happen to be on top of these old Roman and Byzantine ruins.  (Screenshot from Forensic Architecture.)


Palestinians shoot rockets from whatever open areas they can find that have unimpeded paths to Israel. Favorite launching sites include cemeteries for that very reason. The open areas shown here are ideal for rocket launches. 

In 2014, the Al Mezan center admitted that there was a "military" site north of Shati, documented in Amnesty's Gaza Platform:


This Gaza Platform, which I've shown is consistently filled with false and provably biased data against Israel, was designed by this same Forensic Architecture. When it grudgingly admits a site was military - believe it. 

More about Shati:

Senior Hamas members live in or near Shati. One was once bombed by a rival Hamas group. The Gaza Platform notes that Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar lived in Shati.

In 2014, a misfired terror rocket fell on the Shati camp, killing many children. Hamas cleaned up the site so no one could tell that it wasn't an Israeli rocket. Was that near an archaeological site? Maybe. It almost certainly left a crater. Forensics Architecture sure won't report it, even as they tacitly admit that parts of the Shati camp, like a sports stadium, are themselves built on top of some of this priceless cultural heritage they pretend to care so much about. 

At 5:20 of their video, they show that buildings have been built between 2014 and 2018 directly on top of what was once a Roman-era city wall. 

2014 showing outline of visible Roman wall:


New buildings on that exact spot, 2018:


But for some strange reason,  these NGOs who claim to care so damn much about Palestinian cultural heritage don't say a word about how Hamas is directly erasing that heritage! (All of the "Palestinian" heritage sites mentioned in this report are actually Greek and Roman. But Hamas has destroyed Canaanite sites as well, whom Palestinians claim as their ancestors.)

In 2021, the IDF published a map showing where Hamas rockets were shot from and where they landed. While the resolution of the image isn't very good, it is obvious that some of the rockets came from, and landed in, the very areas that Al Haq is now pretending were purposefully bombed by Israel. (I added an arrow to point to where Shati is.)



The IDF published a similar map during the initial stages of the 2014 warm showing again that Hamas fires (and explodes) rockets in the very area that Al Haq and Forensics Architecture are claiming Israel targets archaeology:


Throughout the Forensics Architecture video, and the Al Haq report, not once is it mentioned that terrorist groups were ever in those areas. Not once do they even consider that the IDF was aiming at military targets. The words "rocket" or "Qassam" or "militant" or "resistance" are not mentioned once, and neither was "Hamas" mentioned in the report's body (one footnote referred to a story with Hamas in the title.)  And not once do they mention that Hamas is knowingly destroying priceless archaeological treasures - which has happened many times, not just here. 

This is not just bias. This is purposeful whitewashing of the truth.

Because for all the high tech, 3D models that Forensics Architecture generates, truth is the last thing it is interested in. The report and video are intended from the outset to be pure anti-Israel propaganda. 

If they would even briefly mention that, sure, there are "resistance sites" in those areas - legitimate military targets - then their entire thesis of Israel violating international law disappears. It is obvious that Israel would prefer to target weapons caches, command and control centers and rocket launch sites over wasting expensive missiles on old Roman ruins at or near a beach. 

There is literally no evidence that Israel targets these areas to erase Palestinian culture and plenty of evidence that there were valid military targets there. And even more evidence that Hamas doesn't care at all about Palestinian "cultural heritage."  By not mentioning that, this proves that these two NGOs also don't care about cultural heritage, except as a weapon to attack Israel.

This is the state of anti-Israel bigotry. Package up half-truths, give only one possible explanation no matter how farfetched it is, and know that the audience will lap it up.

They know they are lying. They know that they are misleading their readers. And they do it on purpose.







Wednesday, February 24, 2021

From The Guardian:

Israeli forces executed a 26-year-old Palestinian at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank last year, a report has alleged, challenging Israeli police claims that the man was a “terrorist” conducting an attack.

Forensic Architecture, a British research body based at Goldsmiths, University of London, said it had conducted an analysis into the death of Ahmad Erekat, who was shot seconds after his car crashed into a booth and lightly wounded an Israeli border guard.

The incident last June was described on the day by Israeli police as a “vehicle attack”, saying that its forces had “quickly neutralize [sic] the threat from the terrorist”.

In the past few years, Palestinian attackers have used car-rammings against Israeli security forces and civilians.

However, Forensic Architecture said its investigation, which reconstructed the scene using available film, including security footage published by police, cast “significant doubt” on claims Erekat was involved in an attack, and suggested the crash may have been an accident.

It takes a video to fisk a video, and I made one to demolish the major two claims: that Ahmad Erekat was innocent and that the Israeli border police "executed" him for no reason.

Both of those are not only lies, but easily proven lies. Forensics Architecture, an anti-Israel group that pretends to be objective and scientific, uses "computer models" and hand waving to obfuscate the simple truth that is obvious from the 11 second video of the attack: that Erekat accelerated, on purpose, into an Israeli checkpoint and then jumped out of the car one second later, something that innocent accident victims never do.






Monday, July 20, 2015

(written by Bob Knot, edited by EoZ)

As we've seen over the past couple of weeks, Amnesty International is at the forefront of a coordinated political warfare against the state of Israel by numerous NGOs who want to see Israel investigated and brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged “war crimes”.

Amnesty’s current campaign started almost as soon as Israel responded to the massive rocket and missile attacks from Gaza with air strikes and ground invasion, accusing Israel of “war crimes” in Gaza during and a short while after last year’s war in Gaza and even calling for UN and international investigation against Israel for violations of international humanitarian law and promoting arms embargo on Israel .

Amnesty teamed up with Forensic Architecture to create what I called the “ bash Israel app ”, recycling provably wrong information by the biased Gaza based Al Mezan and Palestinian Center for Human Rights .

To put it simply, the “Gaza Platform” was created to make up for the lack of credibility on the part of the Arab political NGOs and for the lack of evidence to support the “war crimes” allegations.

That is also the case with the “Forensic” team; there is nothing such as fact-finding methodologies or technical tests in their scope of work, it is just a bombastic name and the end product is just an online data visualization app fed with unreliable data sources.

And that brings us to the Forensic Architecture team members:

Eyal Weizman is the project’s Principal Investigator.



Weizman is a former board member of B’Tselem. His anti-Israel agenda is well documented in a 2013 IsraCampus op-ed and in Goldsmiths College - Eyal Weizman Attacks Israel with 'Forensic Architecture' .

Weizman also signed a petition during Operation Cast Lead (2009), “ calling for the UN Security Council and the EU to impose sanctions on Israel ”. He is a signatory for “ Jews for Justice for Palestinians ” and for a Pro-Hamas Petition in the Jew-hating Counterpunch Magazine as well:
We the undersigned watch with horror yet another ruthless and criminal Israeli assault on the defenceless [Sic] people of the Gaza Strip. The assassination of the Hamas’ military commander, Ahmad al-Jabari, by Israel was intended to disrupt any chance for a permanent cease fire between the two sides and caused the current cycle of violence. For the last five years al-Jabari had been responsible for limiting rocket attacks on Israel.
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And just in case anyone has doubt about his bias, Weizmann supports the BDS movement as well; Weizman is one of 65 academics, cultural and political figures backing the RIBA’s stance on the motion calling for the suspension of Israeli architects from the International Architects Union (UIA) .

Other examples of his anti-Israel political agenda can be found by his speaking at conferences ":
"Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine" and "The Power of Inclusive Exclusion: Anatomy of Israeli Rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territories."



Francesco Sebregondi is the Project Coordinator.


His tweets and re-tweets from organizations such as "Free Gaza Movement", " Al-Haq", “Breaking the Silence”, "Electronic Intifada", "Palestine Solidarity Campaign", "Yesh Din", and "Palestine Legal" demonstrate his heavy bias against Israel. Some examples of the lies that he disseminates on Twitter and the animosity towards Israel that he stirs up include:










Jacob Burns is the Research and Campaign Assistant at @Amnestyonline.


His Twitter profile is at https://twitter.com/JacobTBurns, an Instagram one is at https://instagram.com/jacobtburns. He “supports the Palestinian struggle for justice” as evident from a piece he published on anti-Israel Website Mondoweiss .

Jacob, just like his colleague, tweets and re-tweets the “Palestinian” narrative. Apparently, when it comes to Israel, fact-checking and giving audience to the Israeli side is not needed,

His bias against Israel is manifested in some of the photos he uploaded to Instagram, the captions are telling. To him, Palestinians have houses, Jews have colonies:

Because they are "colonists":



Jerusalem, of course, is not in Israel but in "Palestine" according to this "researcher":


And Jews asking for equal rights are a "source of tension" for this human rights advocate:



Apparently, this “great” researcher never heard of the Cave of the Patriarchs or maybe he believes that Jews have no connection to Hebron and have no right to pray there?



Impartial he is not and he seems to be suffering from an ICC for Israel obsession too. On 4 May 2015, he tweeted tens if not over a hundred “Breaking the Silence” “testimonies”.

I found this tweet of his unintentionally ironic and typical of Burns' bias:




The entire Gaza Platform that he is working on is based on initial reports from biased sources that in many cases have been proven wrong!

These are the people who were behind Amnesty's Gaza Platform. They have an agenda, and it has nothing to do with objectivity.



I had thought that Forensic Architecture wrote the code for this tool. They didn't - it was written by a group called Tekja Data Visualization. So Amnesty didn't choose Forensics Architecture for its coding skills - they chose Forensic Architecture for their ability to come up with new, innovative ways to demonize Israel.

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