Immediately after the Israeli military reportedly killed a number of unarmed demonstrators in the occupied-Golan Heights on June 5, Israel’s propaganda machine went into high gear. Newly-released details from a United Nations report authored by the Secretary General clearly show that the Israeli spin on the Naksa protests was just that: spin.
The principle claim was that the Israel Defense Forces only shot at the bottom half of protesters’ bodies, and therefore did not kill them. Instead, as a New York Times report put it, the Israeli military said that “10 protesters were killed after they threw makeshift firebombs and started a fire that set off land mines near the border town of Quneitra, on the Syrian side of the lines.”
It turns out that there was indeed a fire that killed demonstrators, according to the UN. But according to published accounts of Ban Ki-Moon’s report on the demonstrations, it was Israeli weaponry that caused the fire which ultimately killed protesters.
A UN report on the Naksa day events said the IDF used tear gas, smoke grenades and live fire to prevent the demonstrators from crossing the ceasefire line.
It stated: “Several anti-tank mines exploded due to a brush fire apparently started by tear gas or smoke grenade canisters near UNDOF facilities at Charlie Gate, resulting in casualties among protesters.”
The brush fire was put out by Syrian and Israeli fire squads, and UNDOF, the report read.
Meanwhile, the Zionist blogosphere is all over this story by Michael Weiss of the Telegraph (UK) that purports to show Syrian state documents proving that “Assad orchestrated [the] Nakba Day raids” on the Golan Heights. Weiss, who works for a pro-Israel advocacy group, claimed that the document was authentic and originated from the “‘Office of the Mayor’ in Al-Qunaitera province.” But blogger Richard Silverstein throws cold water on Weiss’ report, writing that it was Israeli intelligence–which has a history of pushing false stories in the media–who leaked the memo to him.
Alex Kane, a freelance journalist based in New York City, blogs on Israel/Palestine and Islamophobia at alexbkane.wordpress.com, where this post originally appeared. Follow him on Twitter @alexbkane.
Zionists- they lie to us and they lie to themselves
They should get into a different job that also relies on such a mentality, say, used car sales person, or Wall St securities packager.
The Witty Recourse, huh?
Seems Zionism is losing is ability to hold a sharp edge. If there was a historic need for the state, certainly it shouldn’t have been atop another people, but the state is way, way, way past the point of necessity and now some see them as a greedy & racist state, their ethnic cleansing objectives plainly exposed.
IDF spokeswoman: “… to open fire at the feet of the protesters”. Is where the mines are. And you knew that, you lying Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich.
What morons, they expect us to believe blatant lies. The Telegraph is a well-known right wing paper which regularly prints briefings from military sources dressed up as ‘reporting’. So worthless and stupid.
Ha ha. The man from “Just Journalism”, writing in the “Torygraph”… Yeah, that sounds like a reliable source. Why do they even bother :(
“Captain Samer Shahin from the military intelligence division is hereby appointed to the leadership of the group assigned to break-in and infiltrate deep into the occupied Syrian Golan Heights with a specified pathway to avoid land mines.”
Such a sloppy fake why would the Syrians refer to the Syrian Heights by the hebrew name Golan and notice the word “infiltrate” which is heavily used in Israeli propaganda when referring to Palestinians wanting to return to their homes.
And it’s funny and pathetic how hasbarist Michael Weiss refers to these unarmed protests as “raids”.