As someone who spends a lot of time performing critical analysis of the press as well as studying propaganda in general, there are occasionally stories which prick my interest. A couple of days ago, a story appeared on the IDF Spokesperson's Website which did just that. The story essentially reports on an interview with one "Mathilde Redmatn", deputy head of the Red Cross in Gaza. The author quotes Redmatn as saying:
"There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza," she explains. "If you go to the supermarket, there are products. There are restaurants and a nice beach. The problem is mainly in maintenance of infrastructure and in access to goods, concrete for example. Israel has the legitimate right to protect the civilan population..."
As one might expect, this "bombshell" was quickly scooped up by the corporate press, and covered (sometimes with extra spin) by CNN, Haaretz, JPost and so on. Now, I'm naturally skeptical of anything that appears in the corporate press or in a government press releases, and this was no exception, although I do have respect for the ICRC.
The story was going to be important in terms of the War of Narratives, so I thought it prudent to check it since it didn't come in the form of an official ICRC publication. What became immediately apparent is that seemingly no one within the corporate media had bothered to check the veracity of the story. Had they done so, they would have found that there is no one bearing the name "Mathilde Redmatn" in the employ of the ICRC. There is someone called "Mathilde De Riedmatten", a trivial fact that I was able to glean from speaking with the ICRC in Jerusalem, a fact that not one journalist seemed to care about enough to check.
This is a perfect example of what Herman and Chomsky described as the corporate media's "symbiotic relationship with powerful sources of information" - the simple, reciprocal understanding that if you provide the information, I'll print it, without question.
The gloating of the Israeli right surrounding this story is an indication of just how far their moral compass is out of alignment. That one person at a respected human rights organisation, in an unofficial document stating that "there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza," can be a source of unbridled joy is certainly perplexing. We already knew from the Palestine Papers that:
"As part of their overall embargo plan against Gaza, Israeli officials have confirmed to (U.S. embassy economic officers) on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge," whilst keeping the Gazan economy "functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis".
A noble strategy indeed.
From the Palestinian perspective, the term "humanitarian crisis" is to be used by the corporate media, propagandists and humanitarian organisations. It in no way, shape or form alters the reality on the ground. What might amount to normalcy in Gaza would undoubtedly be viewed as a crisis in say the US for example. So, whilst it is of little value to debate the existence or non-existence of a "humanitarian crisis", it is useful to remind ourselves of the facts.
- We know from the UN's March update that a majority of Gazans are food insecure and rely on aid.
- We know that Gaza's fishermen are limited to fishing within 3 miles of the shore, in a stretch of water heavily contaminated with raw sewage. (Incidentally this raw sewage also contaminates Gazas "nice beach")
- We know that 35% of agricultural land is off limits to farmers, unless they wish to find death at the hands of the IDF, and this doesn't take into account agricultural land rendered inoperable as a result of the Gaza Massacre.
- We know that 90% of drinking water extracted from the aquifer is brackish and fail's to meet the WHO's standard for drinking water.
In the drive to reduce the plight of the people of Gaza down to a sound bite, the details get lost, the facts become noise. Let's not make that mistake. Let's look at the documentary record and let's expose the corporate media for what they are - the faithful servants of established power. I have asked the ICRC in Jerusalem for clarification on this issue, and await their reply.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza that (from what I’ve read) hurts the most is being shut off from human contact with the outside world. Students accepted by Bethlehem University are forbidden by Israelis to travel that short distance. Family members forbidden from contacting each other. I know that Constantine Dabbagh of a humanitarian aid group in Gaza , has a grown daughter in the West Bank. They haven’t been allowed to meet for many years. Gaza is a prison. No other country in the world would get away with treating people so cruelly.
Gee, so the story about what the ICRC supposedly said that DBG and others have been spamming us with was total bullshit. Isn’t that surprising, huh.
Thanks, and duly bookmarked.
No, this ICRC rep exists, and hasn’t retracted her statement about “no humanitarian crisis in Gaza” nor anything else AFAIK:
1. Palestinian-Police’s site says she’s an ICRC rep: link to police.ps
2. link to icrc.org shows ICRC itself admitting her existence.
…so where is DBG’s “total bullshit,” Chaos 4700?
Many of the anti-Israel people replying to (and reposting) this story are the bullshitters, e.g. here we have Chaos4700 claiming that timhoughton’s story means that DBG are “total bullshit[ters]” — what have they bullshitted about? You (and seafoid when he says “The ‘interview’ is obviously bullshit”) can’t prove Weizman (the interviewer) bullshitted about her existence, nor that Weizman bullshitted about Radmatten stating that there’s “no humanitarian crisis in Gaza” & other statements: and BTW…
. . . Redmatten was also quoted as criticizing Hamas actions, calling them humanitarian crimes, so here are 2 ICRC webpages with a similar position to Rattmatten’s position that “all” or “both” sides, not only Israel, must be more careful not to commit humanitarian crimes — contrary to many people here giving 100% of the blame to Israel for those war-crimes: link to icrc.org link to icrc.org
…yet Schmuel’s claim below, that “the spin–balance between the actions of Israel and of Hamas [is one of the things] inconsistent with previous ICRC statements” is contrary to the last 2 ICRC webpages which have a “balance” of blaming “both parties” or even “all” parties; yet none of mondoweiss’s regulars points that out to Schmuel.
None of the regulars on mondoweiss corrected Chaos4700 (nor Schmuel, nor article, nor seafoid…) despite that Chaos4700′s is the 2nd comment on this article — a sign that mondoweiss’s regulars are brainwashed (drinking each others’ kool-aid: i.e.”intellectually incestuous”), IMHO.
I see “the simple, reciprocal understanding that if you [timhoughton] provide the information, I [Chaos4700 and others] will — not only “print it” and parrot timhoughton’s original story — many of the anti-Israel crowd even DISTORTED timhoughton’s original story until the claims from many anti-Israel bullshitters were that the IDF journalist & other journalists (allegedly) were lying to protect Israel.
(NOTE: mainstream reliable journalists aren’t making that mistake, as they don’t take credence from a hack like timhoughton, whose hyperbole in this blog is beyond belief, and IMHO his semantics only encouraged his comrades to make such distortions. Also, Tim, did you ever think of the ways some journalists might have fact-checked her existence & still got her name misspelled such as: Israelis have no vowels nor double-consonants & thus should be expected to miss that type of misspelling, and Western journalists might have called-in to confirm her existence & thus would also miss the misspelling; the Palestine-Police also misspelled her name link to police.ps SO I GUESS THE PNA POLICE MUST BE IN ON THE PRO-ISRAEL CONSPIRACY: declare a national emergency! :-) More seriously, a misspelling/mistranslation does not affect the SUBSTANCE of a story.
. . . So Noam Chomsky’s critique of bullshitters –which timhoughton was nice enough to call attention to– who magnify each other’s bullshit “without question” is applicable to the anti-Israel crowd in this case, and in contrast I can’t CONFIRM any bullshit as being applicable to the mainstream journalists…in this particular case.
Actually, many such as a “SandraW” and “mountain birds” on other websites went beyond Chaos4700 in the bullshit department. These people are a DISGRACE, and even most of the obtuse & dishonest anti-Israel historic revisionists I’ve seen are usually more careful & sly than the OBVIOUS lies that Mathilde doesn’t even exist or a refusal to acknowledge that ICRC blames Hamas too for crimes that have caused Gaza’s humanitarian situations (NOTE: I think everyone objective should hesitate to use the loaded-words of humanitarian “crisis” unless they create an immutable definition, applicable worldwide, of what they consider a “crisis” to be; I’d just call every unique case a “humanitarian situation” rather than using a “check-box” for, just as Tim’s also stated on other webpages that as a doctor can’t apply just 1 checkbox to diagnose his patient, we can’t apply a simple check-box to unique geopolitical situations; reality is more complex than that).
You know, this sort of shit is how we were duped into sacrificing our men and women in uniform for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. In case people forgot.
Excellent work, Tim. It is unfortunate that the so-called journalists of today have to be schooled by those outside of their profession on ethics, honesty and integrity, and a basic compnent of journalism, called fact-checking.
We also know that Israel bombed sewage treatment facilities in Gaza. I recall video footage showing young men wading through the sewage with their pants rolled up as they carry sandbags to contain the contamination. Imagine living in a refugee camp and then being flooded with raw sewage because those who took your home are the Only Democracy in the Middle East™ and the Most Moral Army on Earth™.
I’m not too fond of that term, “War of the Narratives.” It implies that there are always two sides to the truth, as though the truth lies somewhere in the middle. One can’t be somewhat pregnant, can she?
I’m not fond of the term either, but it’s a reality. Objectivity is something for philosophy students to debate, everyone has a point of view.
I choose to base my view on the documentary record, as do many. The vast majority base their views on what they read in the corporate media, so when I use the term “war of narratives” I’m simply recognising that there are many different narratives in this conflict which compete for mind space, and the foundations of these narratives are not equal.
“everyone has a point of view”
But everyone else’s is wrong.
While that is true, my comment was in reference to claims often made by Zionist Hasbara that the Zionist “narrative” is important as it gives readers the Jewish side’s chronology which often seeks to create equivalence between the two parties. In addition, there are myths that have become a large part of the Zionist “narrative” — a land without a people for a…etc.
Certainly. I agree in that regard.
I just received a letter from the Monthly Review Foundation in which they write “about a world in which “news” is little more than lies and hypocrisy.”
This IDF spin is really shoddy. But it has 3130 hits.
“There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” she explains. “If you go to the supermarket, there are products.
This is basic Gaza hasbara. I have seen it all over the place. It’s nonsense.
The fact that there is food in certain shops doesn’t mean that the 80% of people who don’t have any money can suddenly buy from the shops.
“There are restaurants and a nice beach.”
This is a fascinating insight into neoliberal Zionism. If there are restaurants and a nice beach then obviously there is no problem. The poor make themselves poor. They just need to get up and work.
Er OK. I s Mathilde Redmatn real or not. That should be a simple question.
See above. The ICRC woman’s name is De Riedmatten.
Redmatn is an IDF fabrication.
Gentle Question: If the Israelis translated this story — and her name — into Hebrew, and then re-translated back into “English” or “European alphabet”, might it come out this way?
Suppose she really exists, is really an ICRC employee, and really wrote this, even (let’s say) in an “official” (or “for publication”) document.
Does it make it the case that [1] there is NO humanitarian crisis in Gaza, [2] that THIS is an “official” ICRC position?
Has anyone asked ICRC?
Pabelmont,
The confusion regarding the name is obviously the result of a poor transliteration back from Hebrew. The name appears in the IDF statement as מטילד דה רידמטן – a reasonable Hebrew transliteration of Mathilde De Riedmatten. Silly translator didn’t bother to check original spelling and even sillier media picked it up unquestioningly.
Exactly, I’m sure it isn’t a fabrication, just an indication of how unquestioning the corporate media are when it comes to official sources of information.
There is no “Mathilde Redmatn” at the ICRC, but “Mathilde De Riedmatten” is the deputy head of the ICRC in Gaza.
I haven’t had confirmation of the interview or its content, but I’m sure that she will have spoken to the IDF Spokesperson.
The “interview” is obviously bullshit. Why would a senior official of the ICRC parrot bog standard hasbara? Israel desperately needs to move world attention away from Gaza. It is very hard to keep the Zionist myth alive while the Jewish state, which was set up so that people would never again be dehumanised is now dehumanising Gazans by denying adequate food access to 80% of the population.
AIPAC’s line about Israel being unfairly accused of creating a humanitarian crisis is the most interesting aspect. Gaza is toxic for brand Israel.
Strictly, it sounds as if it could be a case of misspelling. If you would spell the German name phonetically it may well render something like Redmatn in English. German may not be that far off, if she is from German speaking parts of Switzerland.
This may well be more complicated. Could her statements be somehow related to the constant propaganda by the hawks that the Red Cross is some kind of Hamas co-conspirator, e.g. Commentary? Was she in fact simply trying to get better condition to get building material into Gaza?
Which still leaves us with the “special spin” the story is given.
Hmmm? more Reedmattn, maybe?
It is highly unlikely that a Red Cross employee would compromise the nature of their work by giving an interview, or offering a political point of view which would undermine the organisation and their work. So I would be very interested to know if this person did indeed offer these opinions. It doesn’t ring true to me. Nor does it sound anything like the views of someone who has actually been there. It sounds like a rehash of the propaganda we have already heard emanating from the Israeli media. Trying to paint an idyllic picture of Gaza is so far from any reality it is laughable.
Subject: Gaza Blockade – Forthcoming June 2011 Flotilla
link to haaretz.com
…”At this stage, the Netanyahu government has not altered its policy, … But .., alternative policy scenarios are likely to be discussed. One possibility being entertained by Foreign Ministry officials and IDF officers is to allow the vessels to reach Gaza, but only after they pass security checks at the Ashdod port or some neutral harbor….”
What about the following the suggestion?
Ships to Gaza supplying goods (anything but arms) to Gaza will go to the British Navy base in Cyprus first where an official EU team inspects the cargo (possible even with an IDF representative present) and issues a Clearance=No objection certificate. Ships, so inspected and cleared, will be allowed to deliver their cargo to Gaza without hindrance by Israeli Navy…….
Such an arrangement should completely satisfy GoI “Security” concerns. It would greatly ease the work of e.g. the Word Food Programme commodity shipments and other humanitarian and commercial supplies.
Can i have your views? Feasable? Acceptable – as an interim arrangement?
I would find no objection to such an arrangement, so long as all commerce in and out of Israel was subject to the same inspection regime with Palestinian inspectors assisting the British.
LOL, it is stuff like this which will make any solution impossible. you people live in a dream world.
You mean like Cyprus? Or like the various European ports at which the last flotilla departed? You mean like how NORMAL INTERNATIONAL MARITIME LAW works? Netanyahu’s “novel new possibility” is to just follow the law as its written, huh? And he’s only maybe considering it?
Excellent idea.
Here is another organisation that are worth supporting.
‘On Wednesday 20th of April, at 11:30 (local time), more than 40 international and local organizations launched a human rights monitoring mission to report potential violations in Palestinian waters.
Deploying an international third-party nonviolent Civil Peace Service in Palestinian territorial water is not the initiative of a single organization, but a project done with the effort of many.
It comes as a response to the needs expressed by Palestinian fishermen and identified by local organizations such as the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, an organization with consultant status in the United Nations, and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees. These groups denounce the continuous attacks suffered by Palestinian fishing boats even inside the limits imposed by Israel, which are reduced to three nautical miles from the original 20 nautical miles established in the Oslo Accords (1994).
The launch of the Oliva, the boat that will carry on the mission, was part of the activities of the 6th International Conference about Palestinian Popular Struggle in Bi’lin, organized by the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee. Large number of international and local media covered the event. High representatives of the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and more than twenty European consulates were present for the launch.
The Oliva will start its mission next week. It will have an international crew, trained in human rights monitoring and international law, and will be equipped with video cameras and radios to maintain permanent contact with the land team.’
link to cpsgaza.org
link to aipac.org
“Israel is often incorrectly blamed for causing a humanitarian crisis in the region”
link to guardian.co.uk
According to UN statistics, around 70% of Gazans live on less than $1 a day, 75% rely on food aid and 60% have no daily access to water
The dissemination of these facts is obviously “bad for the Jews” who operate the siege.
Strange! Google “Mathilde De Riedmatten” and ICRC and you get five entries, two of which are Mondoweiss. However, Google “Mathilde De Riedmatten” and irc (International Rescue Committee) and you hit paydirt, about 1430 entries. Looking at the International Rescue Committee website, they have two programs in the Middle East and neither is in Gaza.
Phil, why don’t you just call the woman up and ask her what she said and how it was or was not distorted? That would be true investigative journalism…
One of the things which also aroused some interest for me, whilst trying to verify the story, I stumbled across Ms. De RiedMatten’s Facebook Profile.
It was originally, quite open, it listed her friends at the UN and her employer as the ICRC. It has, in the last couple of days seen something of a lockdown, so I suspect some flak has gone her way.
But the thing which caught my eye was her profile picture:
link to twitpic.com
Now I could be entirely wrong, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the photo before. I think it is a photo of a market stall in Gaza, and has been used, in the past as a way of saying “Look! The Gazans have food!” – hopefully someone will recognise the photo or tell me I’m talking nonsense, either is fine.
Like I said, I could be reading too much into it, it just looked familiar. And if I’m right, it’s odd that this would be her profile picture.
You are right – the image is out there online. I haven’t time to check each of these but you can have at it.
Other instances of the photo
Tim,
What did the ICRC Jerusalem office tell you about Mathilde De Riedmatten? The title “deputy director of the Red Cross in the Gaza Strip” also sounds fishy (although it may just be a sloppy translation through Hebrew). On the ICRC website, there are heads of delegations, heads of missions, heads of operations, spokespersons and media contact persons, but no directors or deputy directors. There is contact information for a Gaza office, but no names or titles, although there is a media contact person (based in Jerusalem?) “also covering Gaza”:
Media contact person (also covering Gaza): Ms DIBSY Nadia
Mobile: (++972) 52 601 91 48 / 59 723 67 08
Languages spoken: Arabic/English/French
Gaza
ICRC office
Jalaa street 50 / 43 Rimal
PO Box 29
Phone: (++972) 8 2828 874 or (++972) 8 2822 644/5
Fax.:(++972) 8 2828 884
I think braciole (April 27, 2011 at 6:42 am) may be on the right track: Google “Mathilde De Riedmatten” and irc (International Rescue Committee) and you hit paydirt, about 1430 entries.
According to Sourcewatch, the IRC (International Rescue Committee) “Board of Overseers” included (as of 2006) such luminaries as: Madeleine Albright, Henry Kissinger, Tom Lantos, and Elie Wiesel.
link to sourcewatch.org
Very little, all I did was confirm her name and that she was head of ICRC operations in Gaza.
I’ve asked ICRC for an official clarification of their position. Still waiting.
Shmuel, on the French net they constantly seem to allude to her as assistant of the Swiss Red Cross delegation. On the other hand, yes there are the International Rescue Links, e.g. on the business/professional networking site linked in site. There her job profile is given as Human Resourses Manager at International Rescue Committee, but her location again is Switzerland. The IRC offered such a job, not long ago. Maybe she was working for the Swiss Red Cross before? And works for the IRC now?
I saw the French links. The real problem in the interview published by the IDF Spokesman’s Office (an odd place for an ICRC official to express her views) is the spin – balance between the actions of Israel and of Hamas, the framing of the situation in Gaza in terms of “no humanitarian crisis” and using the products on the shelves as a measure of wellbeing. This is the standard PR line taken by the IDF and the Israeli government, inconsistent with previous ICRC statements. So either Ms. De Riedmatten doesn’t work for the Red Cross (and the ICRC Jerusalem office told Tim that she does), or her positions are not those of the ICRC, or her views and words were distorted. Clarification is definitely in order.
Assessing the presence or absence of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza is akin to a doctor measuring a patients health by ticking a box which says “Is Dying”.
“Humanitarian crisis” has become a sound bite, the details are more important.
the framing of the situation in Gaza in terms of “no humanitarian crisis” and using the products on the shelves as a measure of wellbeing.
thanks Shmuel, that’s what’s been on my mind and has puzzled me. But strictly you had to enforce a policy on a multitude of NGO’s never call it “humanitarian crisis” since there will be always parts in the world were pure survival may not be guaranteed.
So either Ms. De Riedmatten doesn’t work for the Red Cross (and the ICRC Jerusalem office told Tim that she does), or her positions are not those of the ICRC, or her views and words were distorted.
I do not want to represent RW here, but strictly I can imagine that if you work in these NGO field all over the world, you may well have met people that don’t even think about freedom, or freedom to move since they struggle with pure survial.
She may even may have wanted to help the Gazan people by pointing out were the real problems lie. Some of them might accept whatever Israeli diet dictates Israel likes to enforce, as long as they could see their relatives in the WB or visit the school, university of their choice. Now it’s obviously a PR strategy to focus on that: look the people you care so much about may well be better off than some that are starving at the very moment.
But on the other hand that’s how some on the other side frames it. You simply need to carefully select the weak point in the other sides argument.
A clever strategy.
If you now google “international red cross humanitarian crisis gaza” you get endless instances of this statement which seems to have been spread like wildfire everywhere.
This is probably another lame attempt at stopping the flotilla. “Guys, there’s nothing to see here, no problems, and FYI you might get kidnapped and assassinated while trying to intervene in the non-crisis situation, so just go back to your regular programming and forget about Gaza.”
Most likely, this is part and parcel of this initiative reported in today’s Haaretz:
I would have thought so, Bijou.
Israel can’t afford to have its work in Gaza exposed to the world.
It’s like the picture of Dorian Gray. Beautiful Dorian Israel with Gaza in the attic .
The Red Cross is normally absolutely scrupulous in avoiding media comment, in order to further their work, which is strictly humanitarian and not political. So it would be hugely surprising and almost unheard of for one of their employees to offer such a blatantly political opinion, and especially in such a dubious place as an IDF mag. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Red Cross are very upset about Israel trying to use them to further their propaganda campaign. Whether it is a lie, or an employee spoke out of turn, it would be unlikely that the Red Cross would want to get involved in a media war, which is maybe what Israel has calculated. However, their neutral stance and good work is at risk, so it would surely be in their interest to issue a statement about this attempt to use them in such a partisan way.
I’d say the very idea of an “employee spoke out of turn” is damaging.
My assumptions (based on the oh-so-Israeli misspelling of Riedmatten’s name) is that she expressed a view in what she thought was an off-the-record conversation, and this was used for spin. A view that only makes sense in a very narrow legalistic conversation, and useless when taken out of context.
Any request for clarifications from the Red Cross makes her statements (that there is no humanitarian crisis per se) official and therefore adds more fodder to the spin machine.
Regardless of the veracity of the original story, the underlying fact is that there are items for sale but there also is a humanitarian crisis. First is nutrition. Gazans seem to get enough calories, but they do not get a balanced diet that leads to malnutrition. And malnutrition means children will be permanently marred.
Second, the Gaza economy has been destroyed causing massive unemployment which leads to personal and family disfunction.
Third, there is no freedom of travel for family, education, medical, or business purposes.
Fourth, the civic infrastructure has been demolished which leads to, among other things, unclean water and overflowing sewage.
The Israeli siege is not directly killing people, rather it is aimed at killing their spirit. But as I saw on my 2009 trip to Gaza, and as I glean from reports since then, the Palestinian spirit remains strong.
link to blog.camera.org
CAMERA has posted a blog about Tim’s Mondoweiss article. Gloating, of course.
Yes, they seem predictably intent on missing the key points:
- No one in the corporate media bothered to check the story, if they had, they would have found the transliteration error.
- Whether or not we use the term “humanitarian crisis”, it doesn’t affect the actual facts on the ground, just the terminology.
Predictably “Camera” :)
For the REAL position of ICRC and this lady in particular on the situation in Gaza, please read:
link to icrc.org
I thought it would be worthwhile to go back into the archives and link to the the new Mondoweiss post on this
link to mondoweiss.net