Nothing can be more valuable to supporters of Israel. Zionism and the war against terror than the integrity of the information that we provide. That is why it is appalling to find that hoaxsters have repeatedly abuse the credulity of audiences to spread disinformation. They are helped by anyone and everyone who is willing to pass on an email letter or post an article that has no provenance, and who will not take the time to check information. The examples are legion. The people who start them are harming the cause. They invent these lies from egotism, boredom or malice. If you circulate them you are harming the cause. Bloggers and others who post this nonsense are undermining their own credibility. After circulating so many obviously false items, when they try to tell people about fake Reuters newsphotos and other things that really happened, who will believe them?
Please check information carefully before forwarding it. Be certain to include the origin. If you don't know the origin, and cannot find it on the Web, ignore the "information" entirely.
False rumors and disinformation distributed by our side are worse than anti-Zionist propaganda, because they undermine our credibility. Never circulate or post items that proport to be "news" unless you can find a credible source for it and give that source, or unless they are clearly labeled as satire or spoofs.
The Middle East is always rife with rumors that Israelis perpetrated the 9-11 attacks, Israelis are injecting Palestinian children with AIDS, Jews bake Matzoth with the blood of Christian children and other such inventions. Web sites are full of fake
"Zionist Quotes" in which Ariel Sharon and others are made to say horrendous things in imaginary interviews, and fake
anti-Semitic Talmud quotes. None of us find these rumors and hoaxes amusing. Why should we be circulating the same sort of disinformation?
Below I review a few of these hoaxes. Undoubtedly these particular examples may see less coverage because they have been debunked, but there will certainly be new ones. It is usually easy to spot the fakes. They do not have a provenance, and they contain "information" that you really really want to believe.
Photos of Israeli soldiers fraternizing with Lebanese - Photos of soldiers fraternizing with Arabs were circulated with the explanation that these are Israeli soldiers helping Lebanese. In fact the photos showed American soldiers in Iraq, as was evident from the uniforms and the fact that the photos had appeared in 2003.
Robin Williams' Plan -Comedian Robin Williams was supposedly the author of a "World Peace Plan" Here is one of the items in this provocative and xenophobic rant:
8) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not "interfere." They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.
Robin Williams never wrote any such thing, and people who follow his approach to the human condition and human relations would not be fooled. See Snopes and Urban Legends. Nonetheless, bloggers insist on proudly advertisiting this xenophobic rant.
General "Schwartzkopf" and the Hezbollah - Several people sent me this one, which is also widely quoted by bloggers:
In a recent interview, General Norman Schwartzkopf was asked if he thought there was room for forgiveness towards Hezbollah.
The General said: "I believe that forgiving Hezbollah is God's function.
The Israeli's job is to arrange the meeting..."
General Schwarzkopf (note correct spelling) never said any such thing. The origin of this hoax is an earlier hoax which claimed he had said the same thing about the perpetrators of the 9-11 attacks. See Snopes.
Dear World Letter - A letter that begins:
Dear World,
It Appears That You Are Hard To Please.
and recounts the supposed sins of the world against the Jews, has been circulated as a "letter from an anonymous Israeli." In fact, it is not "anonymous." It was written by Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the US government. See http://www.kahane.org/meir/openLetter.htm for the orginal.
Michigan Professor - This one is pretty recent. It is very malicious, and fairly elaborate, as it mixes truth and fiction, and manages to attribute racist and reactionary sentiments to the Snopes Web site, without quite lying. The letter begins:
Michigan professor tells Muslim students to leave the country -
Status: True (according to snopes.com)
Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2006]
Looks like the whole thing came from Snopes (a politically neutral hoax-debunking Web site), and it looks like you are getting the Snopes commentary as well, right? Not quite.
The letter is about remarks of Professor I. S. Wichman about Muslims, who wrote, among other things:
I counsel you dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceeded with your infantile "protests." If you do not like the values of the West ‹ see the 1st Amendment ‹ you are free to leave.
...
Please return to your ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves instead of troubling Americans
The letter continues, attributing by inference the following sentiments to Snopes:
How's the left going to handle this one? If you're in favor of the freedom of speech, as in the case of Ward Churchill, will the same protections be demanded for Indrek Wichman? I doubt it.
Hey folks, send this to everybody and ask them to do the same and tell them to keep passing it around till the whole country gets it.
Indeed, the text appears at the Snopes Web site, but they are only quoting the letter, it is not their opinion. Moreover, according to Snopes, Professor Wichman apologized for the remarks, which he thought were being sent to one person, and the university is not prosecuting him. The "left" handled it as free speech. Hey folks, bury the xenophobic racism and don't send it to anyone.
Martin Luther King and Zionism - This one unfortunately did a lot of harm. It was apparantly the product of an academic fabrication by Rabbi Marc Schnier who invented a letter by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and invented a reference for it as well. In part, this letter reads:
…You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely ‘anti-Zionist.’ And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews — this is God's own truth.
This was debunked by the Zionist media monitors, Camera.
Apart from abusing the memory of a great man, and showing unethical practices by a Rabbi, the really hurtful part of this episode is that King really did say, in verbal remarks in 1968 at Harvard University:
When people criticize Zionists they mean Jews, you are talking anti-Semitism.
I saved this example for last, to illustrate the harm that hoaxes can do. King was a warm supporter of Israel and a friend of the Jewish people, but the hoax sadly undermined the credibility of his remarks in order to boost the career of a charlatan.
Ami Isseroff
Original content is Copyright by the author 2006. Posted at ZioNation-Zionism and Israel Web Log, http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000218.html where your intelligent and constructive comments are welcome. Disributed by ZNN list. Subscribe by sending a message to ZNN-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Please forward by e-mail with this notice, cite this article and link to it. Other uses by permission only.
Replies: 1 Comment
"Islam: What the West Needs to Know" is an excellent documentary The film had an extremely limited release a few months ago in three cities, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles but is now available on Amazon.com or directly from the film makers at
www.whatthewestneedstoknow.com
It consists of interviews of a number of former Muslims who disavowed Islam after being indoctrinated by radical clerics and even associating with terrorist groups. They each in their own way discovered that "radical" Islam isn't as "radical" or out of mainstream Muslim thought as they would like the world to believe.
From the beginning, Mohammed was a war lord and Islamists still are bound by his original war-like tenets:
1. "Convert" all faiths and peoples of the world to a very conservative version of Islam.
2. If unsuccessful in forcing a "conversion" either kills the infidel or...
3. Enslave, subjugate or heavily tax the people or nations who decline this “invitation” to convert and insist on maintaining their religion.
These primary goals have never been changed, modified or disavowed and there is little evidence that "mainstream" even want to change the underlying philosophy of their "religion". Various Islamic groups only differ in the timing of this world wide "conversion" process.
The "radical" elements, including the terrorists, are in a war to enforce Islamic principals today in our time whereas the more conservative Muslims think that the worldwide Islamic "take over" is in the future.
The "terrorists" are merely the courageous Muslims who are truly living their "religion" of intolerance and forced conversion and are secretly admired and supported by the less radical Muslim peoples... they are all of one mind in this quest for world domination.
This makes all the negotiations, treaties, political posturing and calls for "peace" futile efforts since the basics of the "religion" call for this worldwide jihad. When the Muslim armies were defeated and turned back at Vienna centuries ago on 9/11, they only made truces and retreated in order to rebuild and rearm to enable them to attack again when conditions were more favorable. The radical elements of Islam are operating on this same principle centuries later… they think the time is now.
Unless our leaders wake up to these non-politically-correct realities, we will always be at war with Islam. Israel and their allies (primarily the US) are in the unfortunate position of being the "catalyst" for this jihad. The hatred for the Jews dates back to the beginning of time because they are God's chosen people... making them a target of hatred and violence since the beginning of recorded history. Israel is now being made the target of a worldwide campaign of disinformation and has been unjustly blamed for the present unrest around the world.
This is merely a diversion in an attempt to disguise the true goals of Islam - world-wide domination. They dream of a universal return to a very primitive, suppressive culture where women have no rights at all and everyone else is dominated by "Taliban-like" primitives.
If Islam ever succeeds in its un-ending quest, we will all be forced to return to the "stone age". The rest of the world should wake up and realistically confront the reality of the Islamic quest. At least the rest of the world would not be fighting, confronting and negotiating from a position of ignorance and disinformation.
The film drives home these facts in a stark, forceful manner and every thinking person should see this movie, research its premise for themselves. The present debates over the causes and solutions for terrorism is oblique to these facts and therefore misses the point and the present attempts at diplomacy, treaties, cease-fires and compromise are doomed to failure.
John McMahan, Monday, September 11th
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