Weekly humor: more distortions from Pallywood

April 5, 2018 • 9:00 am

Well, it would be funnier if there weren’t lives involved. In this case there are also lies involved.

As we all know, the Palestinian media constantly lies and stages fake incidents for the benefit of the Western press, which buys the fakery uncritically since it fits their narrative (see here and here for lots of examples; these are must-read articles). Palestinian propaganda includes using fake photos (dead infants from Syria rather than Palestine), displaying pictures of Israeli children murdered by terrorists but labeling them as Palestinian children killed by the IDF [they really should have removed the mezuzah from the wall before posting that one!], photos of a dead child depicted as having been killed by Israelis but really killed by a misfired Palestinian rocket, staged photo ops, the conflating of Palestinian civilians with Hamas or other terrorist-group militants, and so on. Because the press is generally Leftist, and one Leftist narrative is that the Israelis are “apartheid staters” and “occupiers”, the press haven’t looked too hard at this stuff, and it’s been up to Israel—and sometimes American right-wing media—to debunk it (see the first two links in this post).

This genre of staged dramatic photos and videos, often involving children (who of course arouse the most empathy), is so common in Palestine that it’s received its own monicker: “Pallywood”. Here’s an example from yesterday posted by Palestinian media; the post (yes, it’s for real) was put up by the Palestinian Information Center (PIC; “the voice of the Palestinian people”) on their Facebook page. As Wikipedia notes, “It’s one of the most viewed website in Palestine.”

This is a screen capture (the post has been removed).

Do you recognize the “French doctor?” If you watched “Grey’s Anatomy”, you would. It’s Katherine Heigl!

The ruse was quickly discovered; after all, she’s a popular actress in America:

 

Here’s an enlargement of the comments on the right:

Note that one person (there’s always some of these!) claims that Israel actually posted the photo. But no it didn’t; the photo came from the PIC, who apologized when caught out:

If they were committed to truth and credible news, how did this get past them in the first place?

And, of course, the wags on the internet ran with the meme:

And reader Pliny the in Between did a cartoon:

 

Seriously, though, the uncritical acceptance of the Palestinian narrative, because of the anti-Israel bias of the press and the Left, is appalling. And so long as journalists don’t look too hard, Pallywood will burgeon.

h/t: Orli

38 thoughts on “Weekly humor: more distortions from Pallywood”

  2. Oh come on! They missed a perfectly wonderful oportunity to say that the ‘doctor’ on the bottom right came from South Korea.

  3. Seems the Reich Minister of Propaganda’s Big Lie technique is alive and well, and not living in Argentina.

  7. As to that “American right-wing media” — beware the false friends; they’re looking to ensure access to the “Holy Lands” until the End Times, when Jews will be put to the choice of converting or perishing in the flames of the Great Tribulation.

    1. Two things:

      (1) That’s not why most right-leaning publications are better when it comes to reporting on Israel and Palestine. Most of them seem to think (rightly, in my opinion) that Israel, for all its faults, is the sole democracy in its region, beset on all sides by people who would like to destroy it. Regardless of the reason, it’s not what you describe for the vast majority of them. The publications that do support Israel for the reasons you mention are exclusively evangelical Christian, and that’s a very limited subset of right-leaning sources.

      (2) I don’t really care why an outlet is writing more fairly about Israel, so long as they’re doing so. Considering that those End Times are never coming (at least not the biblical ones), they’ll be doing this for the foreseeable future.

        2. Oh, sure. Both sides have a history of antisemitism. Hell, I don’t think there’s any large political group in the world that doesn’t!

          But it has been the case in at least the last couple decades that the Republicans have been better supporters of Israel than the Democrats, policy-wise.

      2. It’s interesting how those who seem to consider themselves secular leftist take on right wing religious values when it comes to Israel and Palestine.

        2. Israel is a rogue nation run by racist terrorists. Pointing out the related problems is a right wing religious value? Since when?

          Many on the left are anti-Israel. People on the right are anti-Jewish. Do you see the difference?

    2. Some of them certainly are. Some people are politically conservative, but just oppose antisemitism.
      Personally, I was pretty pro-Palestinian and very skeptical of Israel, from my time at University right up until I ended up working in Israel for several months.
      I am not particularly conservative, and was not raised in Christianity, Judaism, or Islam.
      The restraint that Israel shows against constant aggression is amazing to me.
      It is an old saying, but fairly accurate-
      “If the Palestinians laid down their arms today, almost instantly there would be peace. If the Israelis laid down their arms today, within a few days there would be no Jews left alive in Israel.”

  9. This fits perfectly with some of the discussion in yesterday’s post about the NYT. It seems that, even in large and still well-respected media outlets and publications, many journalists and editors believe it’s their job to use their power for activism and spreading preferred narratives to mold people’s beliefs in a desired direction. If you do a Google search or two, you’ll find reams of articles about how journalism shouldn’t be objective, or attempting to be objective is the province of the “privileged,” or objectivity is just a word for oppression, or objectivity actually means reporting in a way that supports one particular side because that side is the correct one. More and more, we have professors at colleges teaching students that objectivity is not what they should strive for, and being a journalist means having a platform you can and should use to push for their specific brand of/what they consider to be justice.

    In many places and for many people, the job of a journalist is no longer considered to impartially inform citizens of information so they can think for themselves and draw their own conclusions, but to help them draw the “right” conclusions by reporting in a way that forces this. It’s much like an aspect of ideology: give people a set of rules and limit as much as possible their exposure to inconvenient information, and thus force them into your worldview before they even know it’s happened.

    1. Journalists gave up on objectivity when they decided that overwhelming scientific consensus on issues such as climate change should be given equal weight to “well it’s pretty cold where I live so how can the Earth be warming?”

      Declaring their open hostility to objectivity is just turning a cold war hot.

    1. Or Days of our Lives even.

      I remember being totally gobsmacked when I found out that Days of our Lives was a real show since it was satirised mercilessly by Friends.

  11. Agreed but thinking of the next post by PCC[E], bu Fuld says, “This is a thing. I can’t.” ?! I can’t finish a sentence? Why not just say ‘this is nonsense & another example of either fake news or shoddy research, or maybe to be charitable a daft joke.

    1. I was surprised Jerry didn’t take a paragraph to lament that. I was looking forward to it.

  12. Maybe Heather should add a third category in the “Third Month Mania: Bullshit Bracket” Trump, everyone else, and PIF.

    1. I’m trying to find out about the circumstances under which Israeli troops used live fire, so I wouldn’t categorize it as either. I try not to rely on just one source.

    2. I would say that it is completely accurate to state that Human Rights Watch made those claims.

      From NGO monitor-
      “Human Rights Watch is a powerful NGO, with a massive budget, close links to Western governments, and significant influence in international institutions. Its publications reflect the absence of professional standards, research methodologies, and military and legal expertise, as well as a deep-seated ideological bias against Israel.”
      “HRW disproportionately focuses on condemnations of Israel and that publications related to Israel often lack credibility. HRW also promotes an agenda based solely on the Palestinian narrative of victimization and Israeli aggression.”

      https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/opinion/20bernstein.html?_r=0

    3. HRW has been found in the past to repeatedly spread misinformation about Israel. It’s also curious how an international organization that’s supposed to be committed to human rights around the globe always has more to say about Israel than nearly every other conflict where anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands more people are being killed. It’s even more interesting that they never seem to have much of anything to say about human rights abuses by anyone on the Palestinian side.

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