This photo of Israeli soldiers appeared on front page of New York Times yesterday. It was taken by Abbas Momani of AFP
The phones must have been ringing off the hook yesterday at the New York Times.
For many readers of the paper of record were shocked/stunned/pleased to see this photograph by Abbas Momani of Agence France-Presse/Getty Images over four columns at the lefthand top of the front page (over Ethan Bronner's story about the Iranian issue eclipsing the Palestinian question). The caption said:
"Israeli soldiers fired at Palestinian stone throwers in the West Bank town of Al Ram, near East Jerusalem, last month."
If you go to that link now, you will find a different caption: "Israeli soldiers fired rubber bullets at Palestinian stone throwers in the West Bank town of Al Ram, near East Jerusalem, last month."
The article has this addendum:
A picture caption on Thursday with an article about the increasing marginalization being felt by Palestinians in the West Bank referred incompletely to the action of the Israeli soldiers shown. While the soldiers, whose activity was not recounted in the article, were indeed firing rifles at stone throwers in the West Bank town of Al Ram last month, the rifles contained rubber bullets.
As Hemingway said, you really need a good bullshit detector to get anywhere in journalism.
PS: Do I think those soldiers are firing rubber bullets? Yes. Do I think anyone knows just what they were firing? No. Do I think a lot of people with certain affiliations were asserting yesterday that they were firing rubber bullets? Yes.
And, fired straight on as the angle in the pic suggests, do US readers imagine that rubber bullets just bounce off t-shirt clad chests of Palestinian boys and young men? Do NYT readers assume the soldiers need all that protective clothing against stones thrown by Palestinians?
PS
I love the headline!
RE: “I love the headline! [Fact checker fact checker find me a fact]” ~ Bumblebye
MY CONTRIBUTION:
“…Find me a find,
catch me a catch…”
SOURCE – link to stlyrics.com
Exactly. Judge because it’s made of rubber is irrelevant. If you could accellerate a marshmallow fast enough it would explode on impact with the power of the Hiroshima bomb.
Fact checker fact checker find me a fact
Okay.
Exactly. Judge because it’s made of rubber is irrelevant. If you could accellerate a marshmallow fast enough . . .
Perhaps, but these are not marshmallows. They’re rubber-jacketed metal bullets:
Maybe they need that clothing for the occasions when the Palestinians use guns or bombs. Of course a 1-2 pound rock hurled from a sling at 100 MPH isn’t something I’d like to be hit with on non-protective clothing.
Who do you know can through a rock at 100 MP Fred? Wodl you rather face a sniper bullet? They tend to be a bit faster than 100MPH
What part of “hurled from a sling” didn’t you understand?
Who can hurl a stone 100 MPH with a sling? Just about anybody who practices.
As for “which would you rather”, the question isn’t “which would you rather be hit with” it’s “are the soldiers in danger from stone throwers”? The answer is “yes”. Not as much danger as the stone throwers are in from the soldiers, but the stone throwers choose to attack armed soldiers instead of protesting non-violently.
fredblogs-
you have it all wrong. israel chooses to put the soldiers there, on occupied land (or illegally annexed land- in this case).
they can just go away. they should not be there in the first place. and then they will not be at risk of getting hit with a rock. very simple concept.
but if they must be there, due to israel’s insane illegal policies, they really do not need to fire rubber coated steel bullets at people. they can sit in their jeep or some shit.
When a “rubber bullet” hits a head, knee or other parts of the human anatomy, the result is not that much different than a lead bullet. Just ask all Palestinian kids who are injured for life because of Israeli rubber bullets. Israeli soldiers like to shoot at the legs and knees.
Not that different? So it goes through and comes out the other side? They aren’t harmless, but if you get hit with one you’re a lot less likely to die than from a lead bullet.
I knew it wouldn’t be very long before someone would come along and defend these Zionist fascists.
Realy? I tell you what Fred, I’ll stand in front of a rock (wearing body armor and a helmet and you stand in fron a a bullet without that protection. Lets see who lives to tell about it.
You really are a sadist.
“You really are a sadist.”
Ad-hominem. Fred was arguing the lethality of rubber bullets and you accuse him of “sadism” and “fascism”. Check yourselves.
Fred is arguing that rocks are more lethal than rubber bullets fired from a gun – because the rocks are thrown by Palestinians and the bullets are fired from a gun by Israeli soldiers (in self-defense always, because they just wandered onto Palestinian land innocently).
Fred is arguing that Israeli soldiers have a right to police an entire population that is living on their own land and in their own homes – land/homes they’ve got more claim to than you ever will.
For more on Zionist etiquette by Fredblogs see this comment of his:
link to mondoweiss.net
Then again, you are as phony as he is. Portraying yourself initially as an impartial observer in this thread:
link to mondoweiss.net
But then later revealing yourself to be a Zionist fascist.
Or maybe they were just firing teargas cannisters. Sounds not-lethal too. And that is what NYT readers want to hear.
Israeli “rubber bullets” aren’t necessarily all rubber:
The Israeli soldiers in the photograph are firing what appear to be rifles, so the “rubber” bullets are apparently of the first kind, metal cores covered by rubber, and that kind of bullet can inflict serious injury.
You are absolutely correct as for the ammo type being used, also you can see in the picture, ammo cartridge of the soldier is painted in white to distinguish it from the regular ammunition.
re: can inflict serious injury. Correct. So can a sling hurled rock.
Also, the numbers you gave don’t make sense. A steel sphere 2 cm in diameter would have a volume of about 4 cm^3 and mass about 32 gms. Even with the rubber, that’s way heavier than you said. You probably mean a steel cylinder 2 cm long and of some smaller diameter.
I said nothing. I quoted Wikipedia.
Wikipedia cites as its source T. Lavy and S. Abu Asleh, Ocular rubber bullet injuries, Eye (2003) 17, 821–824, link to nature.com :
I believe Eye is a peer-reviewed journal of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists.
It could be a peer reviewed journal of the Royal College of Steel Spheres. That doesn’t change the fact that a 2cm in diameter steel sphere masses about 32 grams, much more than the 14 grams he’s talking about.
Do the math yourself instead of just counting on some journal article to be infallible.
I’m no scientist. I trust a peer-reviewed scientific journal to get that sort of thing right.
If, by some chance, they didn’t, what does that mean? You say they got the mass wrong. Even if they did, does that change their point?
That doesn’t change the fact that a 2cm in diameter steel sphere masses about 32 grams, much more than the 14 grams he’s talking about. Do the math yourself instead of just counting on some journal article to be infallible.
Steel is an alloy with various densities based upon the constituents that are used. Why don’t you show us the infallible steps you employed to conclude the specs cited by the authors are incorrect? I provided a link to an X-Ray of the standard spherical round that was originally published by Time Magazine. It shows an object that is about 2cm inside a 14 year old’s head. So you must be suggesting it is heavier and more lethal than the journal report, because it damn sure isn’t any smaller or cylindrical.
P.S. Here is a YouTube video of the IRB and SRB rounds and the X-ray. link to youtube.com
Volume of a sphere (4/3)*pi*r^3
mass of a sphere=volume times density
r=1 cm
pi=3.14159 (approximately)
density of steel is minimum 7.75 g/cm^3
Mass=at least 32.463 g
mass of a sphere=volume times density . . . density of steel is minimum 7.75 g/cm^3
We’ve already explained that steel is an alloy with various densities, based upon the constituents that are used in the production process. You are simply assuming the bullets are made from solid steel products.
Porous steel stock with a relative density as low as 0.21-0.30 compared to solid steel can be manufactured by sintering (heating) a metal-carbonate, like steel and potassium carbonate. The resulting products are lighter than solid steel and can have improved elastic, flexural, and compressive properties.
Israel leads the world in developing and supplying hardware for suppression of the masses!
“A light unto the nations”, NOT!
Do you prefer to be shot by the live ammo?
Live ammunition or rubber bullets is not the issue.
The occupation and on-going colonization of Palestinian land is the issue.
How about preferring to end that instead of preferring to be shot by rubber bullets.
RE: “Do you prefer to be shot by the live ammo?” ~ dimadok
REPLY: “Give me Liberty, or give me Death!” ~ Patrick Henry
Language police alert! Avoid GOV-SPEAK. GOV-SPEAK is a euphonious circumlocution to remove the bad odor of something disreputable. Call a spade a spade.
“Rubber bullets” is a GOV-SPEAK code for, “We are not bad people.” Doesn’t that “rubber” make you all warm and cozy? Aren’t you sure that no harm was done by such fuzzy bullets? That’s what GOV-SPEAK is for.
Saying they shot “rubber bullets” does not answer three questions: WHY were they firing and WHAT did they seek to accomplish by firing and WHAT did they in fact accomplish by firing.
When WE talk, we should avoid GOV-SPEAK code words. We should even avoid using the so-called “live ammunition” phrase, itself a weird GOV-SPEAK code for something (which might even embrace the worst sort of ammunition, dum-dum bullets) with the word “live” thrown in, I suppose, to suggest to the unknowing that being hit by one leaves you alive, and to suggest to the knowing, “A-ha, live ammunition, we — the knowing folks — know what THAT means, ho-ho-ho”.
I’d just say, “Soldiers shot bullets at people.” Don’t engage in GOV-SPEAK.
I wouldn’t even use “solider” to refer to these bastards. These brownshirts are worse than mafia hitmen.
This deserves a thread of its own
link to haaretz.com
“Ultimately, Oren concludes, the only place in the Middle East where Christians aren’t endangered, but are actually flourishing, is in Israel.
“Since Israel’s founding in 1948, its Christian communities (including Russian and Greek Orthodox, Catholics, Armenians and Protestants) have expanded more than 1,000%,” he added.”
He should have started counting in 1946 . That would have captured all of the palestinian Christians ethnically cleansed by the Zionists.
Rubber, real, tear gas cannister…..who cares, they still kill people, children included.
link to nytimes.com
reading bronner’s propaganda article ‘Mideast Din Drowns Out Palestinians’ i can’t help but notice his quoting the radical rtwg dore’s framing of ‘ harder for israel to yield territory‘ and “Israel has to be extremely cautious and ratchet up its security concerns” makes absokutely no mention of israel’s expansion and why all those protestors are protesting! check out this photo from today
link to facebook.com
“Israeli forces grab an Israeli activist during a protest against the expansion of the nearby Jewish settlement of Halamish in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh near Ramallah, Friday, March 9, 2012. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)”
of course we’re going to get the Zionist spin in the American media. They’re a wholly-owned subsidiary of Israel, Inc. No crime against the Palestinians too big to spin out of existence…
Well, pictures are important. Early in Intifada II, a NY Times printed a picture of a bloodied man with an Israeli soldier standing over him holding a nightstick. The photo identified the bloodied man as Palestinian. The clear implication was that the soldier had bloodied the Palestinian. He was actually an Israeli who had been hit by a stone.
I think we both know that if this was your side, you’d be just as ready to send in the correction.
“…the correction.”
It wasn’t a correction. The caption was correct, but it didn’t push the zio-fascists’ line far enough, and the NYT caved to their pressure.
Well, to be fair both are just examples why people should not trust the media. Especially pretaining to a volitale and sensitive topic like I/P. Or anything that’s going on in Syria. When the media reported the ‘celebrating’ Libyans, BBC ran this:
link to shahidulnews.com
Strange… what do all those Indians waving the flag of India have to do with Libya? Reminds me of the footage they showed of Palestinians ‘celebrating’ after 9/11 which turned out to be file footage taped years prior after they were given food. Who is the insane media whore who thought it would be funny to run that?
It is all about the small things and how to interpret them. That’s why the big picture is always missing here.
Dim said:
Above you said,
That is missing the big picture.
The issue is not really about live ammo or rubber bullets. Of course, the latter is preferable.
But the big picture is the underlying cause of the conflict. That is Zionism itself and the continued colonization of Palestinian land.
On a related topic, look at who isn’t mentioned in this NYT story today?
In Israel pondering Iranian threat but taking panic off the table
All the usual cliches trotted out, heroic Israelis, constantly facing doomsday threats, etc….
Not one word about the views of Palestinians (I believe a few still live in Jerusalem, not having been expelled yet) or that 20 percent of the Israeli citizenry that don’t count in such stories. But surely if the Dastardly Evil Iranian Nuclear Armed Hitler-Loving Islamofascists were going to nuke Israel with their Doomsday Weapons of Muslim Evilosity (okay, I made that word up) , a few Palestinians would be killed too. Why not tell us if they are equally heroic and nonchalant, eating hummus and laughing in the face of danger?
I was checking what looked like a catalog of weapons with ammunition that you could order for your military force, and in the lists of the types of ammunition there were two main categories: normal and “less lethal”. For example, exactly same launcher of “self-propelled grenades” can be used for normal anti-tank projectile and “less lethal” tear gas containers. That explains why soldiers are trained to accurately aim tear gas containers.
If you want to import such stuff, the distinction of “less lethal” and “non lethal” is important, because you cannot simply sell stuff to civilians just because it is less lethal than some other stuff. Just as a thought experiment, try to board a plain with “less lethal” ammo in the hand luggage.
The Oakland Police can tell you what you need to know about “non-lethal” ammunition and its success in causing brain damage.
I wish we could get them to correct the correction: these are not rubber bullets, but rubber-coated bullets.
@ Phil,
The picture is too blurry to make out much, but it looks like he has an old M-16 in his hands. It’s modified with an additional grip and what looks like a silencer. It’s not. It also looks like the IDFfer holds a canister in his hand or has taped his clip [but that would mean he'd have a second one below it]. I’m guestimating here, but I think he shoots teargas canisters. We have seen what those canisters can and will do to Palestinian demonstrators, so I’m still not happy with it.
The one firing in the photo is the one in the back, not the one in the front with the M-16. (The flash is only shining on the left of the guy in the front.) Who known what he has.
@ Woody Tanaka,
Have you had a look at the color temperature of the flash [in for example photoshop]? When I use ‘vibrance and saturation’ that flash doesn’t match up with either barrel. Any ideas?
I don’t know about the soldier in the back, but the one in the front is holding an M-16, fitted with the kind of cannister used for firing rubber-coated steel bullets (simply calling them “rubber bullets” is incorrect and misleading). These bullets can cause serious injury and death, even when regulations (e.g. minimum range of 40 metres) are followed. As with tear-gas however, the regulations are often ignored, with devastating results.
Even “blanks” fired from a firearm can kill. If you are close enough to a victim when you fire a blank cartridge, the gun powder alone can have a combination of mass and speed to cause a lethal wound. A number of people have received wounds from “blanks”, which sometimes prove to be fatal.