Middle East Misinformation: How to believe what you want to believe

04/11/2007

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by Moderator @ 05:18 PM CST [Link]

Replies: 11 comments

Interesting. In the spirit of fact-checking which you advocate, can I ask you to provide links to the original articles by Robert Fisk and Uzi Manaimi?

thanks

Posted by Chris @ 04/12/2007 04:17 PM CST

References:

Robert Fisk: Mystery of Israel's secret uranium bomb - Independent ...Robert Fisk: Mystery of Israel's secret uranium bomb.
news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1935945.ece

I am sure you read that one, as there are dozens of copies in all the usual places. In Google, type Fisk Independent Israel "Uranium Bomb" and there it is.

You can also quite easily find the refutations both by the UN and Lebanese authorities using a search engine.

If you do use a search engine you will see that this sort of rubbish and Mahanimi's stuff is parroted in the IHR and various "peace" Web sites.

Fisk's sort of reporting is called Fiskery by his journalistic colleagues. I thought it was an in-joke, but it has been used in fairly public places.

Mahnaimi:
israel planning ethnic bomb as saddam caves in
www.times-archive.co.uk/cgi-bin/BackIssue - Similar pages

But as you cannot read it there, you can read a summary in this liberal source:

Israel is Developing 'Ethnic Bomb' for Growing Biological Weapons ...... front-page report in the London Sunday Times, November 15, 1998 ("Israel Planning 'Ethnic' Bomb as Saddam Caves In," by Uzi Mahnaimi and Marie Colvin). ...
www.ihr.org/jhr/v17/v17n6p24_Weber.html
----
Likewise Mahnaimi has had several reports of iminent Israeli attacks on Iran with imaginary strategies. In the latest one, he and Sarah Baxter claimed that Israel would use tactical nuclear warheads on cruise missiles. Nobody knows if Israel has cruise missiles or tactical nuclear warheads, but that doesn't matter to Mahnaimi. Next time he will write that Israel will use Kryptonite. The story is here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article1290315.ece

Also that and other stories are at ihr, rense.com and probably in the stormfront Web site and other good sources.

A.I.

Posted by Ami Isseroff @ 04/12/2007 09:22 PM CST

Dear Ami,

Thank you very much for that article on misinformation. It is very enlightening; I just posted it on my facebook profile page because I think its messages (e.g. not to confuse "narratives" with "virtual realities") are worth spreading around.

Whenever I come across someone interested in following opinions about Middle East topics I usually recommend this website.

Best!

Posted by Gaston Yalonetzky @ 04/13/2007 01:14 AM CST

Thanks!

Posted by Ami Isseroff @ 04/13/2007 01:35 AM CST

Antoher Rense.com supporter is WhatReallyHappened.com. I know for a fact that their facts are not checked if not out right lies. They had a story they ran on a doctor who was supposed to be at the OK city bombing who witnessed some strange ATF activity and had proof it was an inside job. I proceeded to do a little investigation myself because the story went on to report that the doctor mysteriously died in a plane crash shortly after theincident. I found "Online" court documents in which this same doctor was the co-defendant in a case years after the story clamied he was dead. The net (and the media for that mater) is a wasteland of lies and BS.

Posted by OMFG @ 04/13/2007 06:34 PM CST

Thank you Ami for posting the Fiskery link. I had of course already tried using Google, but to no effect, principally because I was searching for your quoted phrase "nuclear bomb", which appears nowhere in the article.

The implication in your original essay is that Fisk is accusing the Israelis of using a nuclear device; in fact he claims there is some evidence to suggest that they might have used similar munitions to the depleted uranium shell-casings used by the US in Iraq. He also points out that Israel used phosphorous weapons in Lebanon (not refuted so far as I am aware).

I couldn't find the refutations you mention, but I have limited time to search.

I'm not actually familiar with Mahnaimi, but the gist of the only article you linked to which I can actually access is that Israel is "sabre-rattling" over Iranian nuclear ambitions. In this scenario, the suggestion that Israel has tactical nukes comes from Israeli intelligence, and is intended as a deterrent. Journalists do of course dramatise and exaggerate on occasion.

If Mahnaimi did say that Israel was developing a genetic weapon which could target Arabs and not Jews that was obviously stupid, but judging by the disconnect between your claims and the source articles, I'd want to reserve judgement until I saw the original.

Your main point about people believing what they want and cherry picking evidence to suit is well made, however it seems to me that you are indulging in similar practices.

Posted by Chris @ 04/17/2007 05:02 PM CST

Back in the 1980's a US journalist (Lawrence Randall?) described his experiences in the Middle East and how the situation sucked him in to the point where he constructed stories that would ensure his continued access to key individuals and not expose him to any life-threatening risks. The way he described it was as an incremental progression towards this point of fundamental journalistic corruption, and how fear coloured all decision making. Eventually this journalist left the region seemingly disgusted by his own decline in relation to the journalistic standards he had set himself at the beginning of his career. His account made clear that his experience was common amongst his peers.
We can only guess at the degree to which this tendency has become an integral part of journalistic culture in the ME. Certainly few journalists would own up to it. However the willingness we demonstrate to afford these journalist continuing credibility often begards belief. Perhaps the driving force is our own prejudices which various journalists pander to in order sell copy, and publishers papers, books and air-time. Why are we so willing to believe that the Israelis would massacre Palestinians in Jenin or deploy nuclear / chemical weapons in Lebanon. My own opinion is that it allows to put aside the continuing guilt we feel about historic treatment of the Jews and how our actions provided the rational for Zionism.

Posted by Rod Davies @ 04/19/2007 09:45 PM CST

Well the reason Fisk was inclined to suppose there might be a massacre in Jenin was that he personally witnessed the massacres in Sabra & Chatila which took place under the watchful eyes of A Sharon and others.

It seems to me, from fairly regular reading of his stuff over the past few years, that he is prepared to have a go at pretty much anyone without fear or favour, including people he claims he liked personally such as Hariri.

Posted by Chris @ 04/23/2007 03:54 PM CST

Chris,
I would have perhaps agreed with you re: Mr. Fisk, until a couple of years ago. I read an article of his in which he compared the response of a rabbi who lives in the same block as flats as himself in Tel Aviv (I was surprised that Mr. Fisk has a flat in Tel Aviv) and the general demeanour of Mr. Fisk Snr, his father.
The rabbi's car had been vandalised and this rabbi uttered some angry words, which in the heat of the moment were not meant. But Mr. Fisk took this incident and wove it into a parable where Jews are inherently cruel and murderous and Christians are somehow saintly.
Underlying the entire article was an anti-Jewish thread which echoed the religious intolerance of the past. It was like a window into Mr. R. Fisks soul and not a pretty scene at all.

Posted by Rod Davies @ 04/23/2007 09:56 PM CST

Now that I managed to find (excerpt follows). Please note Fisk does not say he has a flat in Jerusalem. People can decide for themselves if the rabbi meant what he said or not, but it does accord precisely with views I've seen expressed elswhere on the internet. And I think the point about old/new testament would be just as valid if applied to, say, George Bush/Helena Cobban:-

One Sunday afternoon, my phone rings in Jerusalem. It's from an Israeli I met in Jaffa Street after the Sbarro bombing. An American Jewish woman had been screaming abuse at me - foreign journalists are being insulted by both sides with ever more violent language - and this man suddenly intervenes to protect me. He's smiling and cheerful and we exchange phone numbers. Now on the phone, he says he's taking the El-Al night flight to New York with his wife. Would I like to drop by for tea?

He turns out to have a luxurious apartment next to the King David Hotel and I notice, when I read his name on the outside security buzzer, that he's a rabbi. He's angry because a neighbour has just let down a friend's car tyres in the underground parking lot and he's saying how he felt like smashing the windows of the neighbour's car. His wife, bringing me tea and feeding me cookies, says that her husband - again, he should remain anonymous - gets angry very quickly. There's a kind of gentleness about them both - how easy it is to spot couples who are still in love - that is appealing. But when the rabbi starts to talk about the Palestinians, his voice begins to echo through the apartment. He says several times that Sharon is a good friend of his, a fine man, who's been to visit him in his New York office.

What we should do is go into those vermin pits and take out the terrorists and murderers. Vermin pits, yes I said, vermin, animals. I tell you what we should do. If one stone is lobbed from a refugee camp, we should bring the bulldozers and tear down the first 20 houses close to the road. If there's another stone, another 20 ones. They'd soon learn not to throw stones. Look, I tell you this. Stones are lethal. If you throw a stone at me, I'll shoot you. I have the right to shoot you.

Now the rabbi is a generous man. He's been in Israel to donate a vastly important and, I have no doubt, vastly expensive medical centre to the country. He is well-read. And I liked the fact that - unlike too many Israelis and Palestinians who put on a "we-only-want-peace" routine to hide more savage thoughts - he at least spoke his mind. But this is getting out of hand.

Why should I throw a stone at the rabbi? He shouts again. "If you throw a stone at me, I will shoot you." But if you throw a stone at me, I say, I won't shoot you. Because I have the right not to shoot you. He frowns. "Then I'd say you're out of your mind."

I am driving home when it suddenly hits me. The Old and New Testaments have just collided. The rabbi's dad taught him about an eye for an eye - or 20 homes for a stone - whereas Bill Fisk taught me about turning the other cheek. Judaism is bumping against Christianity. So is it any surprise that Judaism and Islam are crashing into each other? For despite all the talk of Christians and Jews being "people of the Book", Muslims are beginning to express ever harsher views of Jews. The sickening Hamas references to Jews as "the sons of pigs and monkeys" are echoed by Israelis who talk of Palestinians as cockroaches or "vermin", who tell you - as the rabbi told me - that Islam is a warrior religion, a religion that does not value human life. And I recall several times a Jewish settler who told me back in 1993 - in Gaza, just before the Oslo accords were signed - that "we do not recognise their Koran as a valid document."

Posted by Chris @ 04/24/2007 03:41 PM CST

Chris the article I read, I recall being somewhat different. There was much more about R. Fisk's childhood etc. It also was much longer. Perhaps my memory is failing in my old age! Nevertheless your efforts are appreciated.

Perhaps I was wrong. But in my defence I have had to deal directly with various journalists of similar standing over the years and I am afraid I have rarely been impressed. I think I found Pilger the worst... horrible manipulative man who I felt couldn't give a damn really about the people he wrote about. He seemed to be nothing more than a grubby mercenary.

Posted by Rod Davies @ 04/24/2007 10:16 PM CST

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