<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Occupied Palestine | فلسطين]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[occupiedpalestine]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/author/hajarhajar/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[Spin’s “senior source” revealed: Who briefed the rightist&nbsp;bloggers?]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p class="byline"><abbr class="published" title="Tuesday, January 4th, 2011, 10:33 am">Tuesday, January 4 2011<span class="author vcard">|<span class="url fn n">Yossi Gurvitz</span></span></abbr></p>
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<h1 class="post-title single-title entry-title"><a title="Spin’s “senior source” revealed: Who briefed the rightist bloggers?" rel="bookmark" href="http://972mag.com/the-idf-media-blitz-speaking-in-two-voices/"><br />
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<p><strong><em>The IDF speaks in two voices in the Jawaher Abu Rahmah affair – because it knows its case is week</em><br />
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<p>Last night (Monday) the IDF went on a coordinated media offensive  against the Bil’in activists and the Abu Rahmah family, claiming not  only wasn’t Jawaher Abu Rahmah killed as a result of inhaling IDF gas,  she wasn’t even present in the demonstration on Friday. This comes on a  day when the Haaretz editorial <a class="external" href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-must-allow-palestinians-to-protest-in-peace-1.335091" target="_blank">questioned </a>the use of CS gas, claiming it may be especially deadly.</p>
<p>Or, rather, it wasn’t the IDF, but “an IDF senior source” or “senior  officer”. The IDF Spokesman told me its official position remains the  same: The death of Jawaher Abu Rahmah is under investigation, and that  it has some question regarding the official Palestinian position. The  briefing held last evening for all of the main Israeli media (as well as  a <a class="external" href="http://muqata.blogspot.com/2011/01/idf-press-conference-on-death-of-abu.html" target="_blank">select </a><a class="external" href="http://www.israellycool.com/2011/01/03/death-of-a-protester-the-latest-blood-libel-revealed/" target="_blank">group </a>of  right-wing bloggers, people you can rely on not to ask difficult  questions and who would understand their role in the Hasbara choir) was  given, according to a source, by Major General (Aluf) Avi Mizrahi,  general commander of Central Command. Mizrahi – first noted by the  public when his colossal failure to supply the troops in the 2006  Lebanon war led him to permit limited looting – is a major figure, which  may explain why his remarks were given such space by all of the Israeli  media, even though he was not named.</p>
<p>It should be mentioned again that this is not the official IDF  Spokesman position; it refused to answer the question whether it was  Mizrahi who gave the briefing, claiming it cannot expose a person  providing “background information”; but Mizrahi’s briefing was anything a  “background briefing”, it was entirely for immediate publication.</p>
<p>Why is Mizrahi’s position not the official one? Because it contains  holes the size of his incompetence in Lebanon. If necessary, the IDF  Spokesman can repudiate them and say, correctly as far as he is  concerned, that it did not make those claims.</p>
<p>In summary, Mizrahi’s points are:</p>
<p>A.	Abu Rahmah was not present in the demonstration at all.<br />
B.	The report of her evacuation was later than usual in such cases.<br />
C.	There is no good reason to believe Abu Rahmah was harmed by the gas.<br />
D.	There’s a mix-up in the records between the time Abu Rahmah reached the hospital and the time she received treatment.<br />
E.	Abu Rahmah received medications used by cancer patients, hence it may  be deduced she was ill with cancer, which caused her death.</p>
<p>He made some other remarks, with which Noam dealt summarily.</p>
<p>One should note the difference between the qualifying position of the  IDF Spokesman (“the issue is under investigation, we have some  questions”) and Mizrahi’s stentorian tone. The Israeli media adopted the  latter: Ma’ariv’s headline was “Bil’in’s blood libel?”, and Yediot’s  was even more decisive: “the death of the protester – a fabrication”. As  usual, the IDF is running a psyops campaign against the Israeli public  under the doctrine of shock and awe: drum your narrative, at once, into  all major media, and you nail it among a population already leaning  towards it. What will come later will be less important. No one will  remember the denial, just as few people remember that the IDF’s famous  claim in 2004 that UNRWA’s ambulance service delivered Qassam rockets  for Hamas turned out to be bogus. It tainted the organization for years.</p>
<p>Let’s take Mizrahi’s points one by one.</p>
<p>A + B: A clear lie. Several people saw Abu Rahmah at the demonstration, and as Rechavia Berman was quick to point out (<a class="external" href="http://www.kedem.info/?p=63340" target="_blank">Hebrew</a>)  today, a twit by Jewish Voice for Peace noted the evacuation of Abu  Rahmah at 14:36. Mizrahi claimed that Palestinian sources did not  respond as quickly as usual; as the Popular Struggle Coordination  Committee <a href="http://972mag.com/physicians-family-challenge-armys-narrative-re-death-of-jawaher-abu-rahmah/">noted today</a>, the Palestinian Wafa newservice reported it shortly afterwards (<a class="external" href="http://www.wafa.ps/arabic/index.php?action=detail&amp;id=94821" target="_blank">Arabic</a>).  Even assuming Abu Rahmah was not at the demonstration but at her home,  some 500 meters away, anyone who joined the Bil’in protests knows the  IDF does not, shall we say, limit itself to surgical strikes of gas on  the protesters; all too often, the clouds of gas reach the village  itself.</p>
<p>C. A series of eyewitnesses testified (see the report of the Popular  Committee, above) Abu Rahmah was hit by the gas, and that she reacted  unusually. The ambulance driver who brought her to the hospital notes  she told him suffocated on the gas. The medical report on her death  names asphyxiation as a result of inhaling gas as cause of death. The  IDF’s retreat position in this case is that it can’t be held liable for  harming people suffering from abnormal health problems; as Israeli  advocate Ro’ee Rothman notes (<a class="external" href="http://roeerotman.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/you-break-you-pay/#comment-9988" target="_blank">Hebrew</a>) the standard judicial position in such cases (the “<a class="external" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull" target="_blank">Eggshell Skull Rule</a>”) is that it actually is.</p>
<p>D. Mizrahi hints Abu Rahmah’s medical documents were forged, pointing  to the fact that according to them, she arrived in the hospital at  15:20 and started receiving treatment at 14:45, i.e. allegedly 35  minutes before reaching it. What we see here is a minor typo: if the  treatment would begin in 1<strong>5</strong>:45 instead of 1<strong>4</strong>:45,  there would be no suspicion. Berman notes that if the document was  purposefully forged, this is the sort of errors which would be avoided.</p>
<p>E. Mizrahi hinted during his briefing that Abu Rahmah was ill with  cancer, and she conveniently died during the demonstation, just to screw  the IDF. His proof? She received medicines <a class="external" href="http://www.jeremiahhaber.com/2011/01/more-on-how-idf-spin-machine-works-in.html" target="_blank">which may also serve cancer patients</a>; this made him jump to the conclusion that she was sick with cancer, and died of it.</p>
<p>Let us hope Mizrahi does not get access to sensitive intelligence,  because if that’s how he deduces, we’re in deep trouble. The report of  the Popular Committee notes that “Jawaher had an inner ear infection,  which affected her balance, for which she was recently given a CT scan.  The radiologist who performed the CT scan, Dr. Hamis Al Sahfi’i,  confirmed that the brain scan was normal (for the CT scan results click <a class="external" href="http://ygurvitz.net/Jawaher%20had%20an%20inner%20ear%20infection,%20which%20affected%20her%20balance,%20for%20which%20she%20was%20recently%20given%20a%20CT%20scan.%20The%20radiologist%20who%20performed%20the%20CT%20scan,%20Dr.%20Hamis%20Al%20Sahfi%E2%80%99i,%20confirmed%20that%20the%20brain%20scan%20was%20normal%20%28for%20the%20CT%20scan%20results%20click%20he" target="_blank">here</a>).  Jawaher had a minor health issue involving fluids in her inner ear. Her  physicians insist that she did not suffer from any illness or from any  symptoms that might, if combined with tear gas, lead to her death.” Dr.  Uday Abu Nahlah, with whom she worked, testified she was in fine  condition.</p>
<p>In short, the IDF asks us to believe that a 36 years old woman died  suddenly, just on the day of the demonstration from cancer which showed  no earlier symptoms; that a large number of people conspired to fake her  death; all of which, by the way, without any results of an autopsy  (which was not held). All of which takes place a day after the IDF was  forced to admit that the soldiers who supposedly prevented a “stabbing  attack” fabricated much of the event. And this steaming pile of  semi-lies, combined with full lies, comes to us from a senior IDF  officer who insists his name must not be used, while the IDF Spokesman  refuses to provide us with his own version of the events.</p>
<p>In short, the same old psyops which the Israelis have learned to  expect from their military, who is extremely proficient at using it  against those who keep it in existence.</p>
<p>The annoying thing is, it works on most Israelis.</p>
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<p><a href="http://972mag.com/the-idf-media-blitz-speaking-in-two-voices/">Spin’s “senior source” revealed: Who briefed the rightist bloggers?</a>.</p>
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