Tag Archives: CNN

CNN complicit in fake West Bank “shooting”

I knew it the moment I saw the camera footage CNN showed claiming an IDF soldier shot an Arab with live ammo.  It was fake.

Not just because the guy fell to the ground in a way that would make an Italian soccer player blush.  But because the scene looked quite familiar.  And it is.  It’s a known “Pallywood” fake death site.

Take a look two screen grabs.  Here’s the current stage of the West Bank “shooting”:

West Bank "shooting" per CNN

West Bank “shooting” per CNN

And here’s the stage of the above Pallywood video:

pallywood

Everything is the freaking same.  They didn’t even bother to move the dumpsters.

Now, to me this isn’t another “gotcha” moment for Pallywood.  Arab sympathizers spam lies like Hamas spams rockets, and it gets tiresome to constantly catch them.  No, this time I point the finger at CNN.

Because, much like the White House State Department, established institutions need to do a basic level of fact checking before they make public statements.  To not make even this rudimentary level, before attaching it to the POTUS or a major media channel, is no longer a glitch or some oversight.  You become complicit in spreading lies and corrupting an institution.

To benefit terrorists, at that.

UPDATE: Turns out the two videos are actually the same video.  From back in May. Apparently CNN also likes to recycle old footage.

Pallywood fall (2:55):

Pallywood Fall

CNN fall:

CNN fall

Numbers, dammit! I need numbers!!!

It’s an old political science lesson: when the camera pans out, it’s journalism. When it pans in, it’s propaganda.
The former is what we saw in Egypt two years ago. The latter is what we’re seeing today.
It means the demonstrations calling the overthrow of Mubarrak numbered in the millions. Meanwhile, it looks like the demonstrations calling for the restoration of Morsi are numbering only in the thousands. It seems like a lot in a country like ours where nobody demonstrates over much of anything, but it confirms my opinion in my last post that the Morsi faction is a small, well organized minority which “sees it as an all or nothing battle” (to quote a CNN correspondent).
With this in mind, struggle and death is as inevitable as it is in any revolution. At least if you want to move forward to a democratic society.
And the media continue to forget any real numbers while they fumble around blindly with their senile moralistic lens. We need numbers, goddammit! How big are these pro-Morsi demonstrations, really? What people in Egypt are saying about it? Where are the 33 million who came out in support of Morsi’s ouster?
Killing 500 people to crush a small minority aimed at strangling a fledgling democracy is really a small price to pay, especially when they say it’s an all-or-nothing battle. Consider how many are dead in Syria over that battle.
Or heck, look at how many are dead in Iraq, and how much money have we spent there? This is a doubly vexing point, considering John McCain just went on the rampage calling this a coup and saying we need to take out all our money from Egypt. Okay Mr. Finish-The-Job-10+years-In-Iraq guy. Though maybe it’s not so vexing considering the party out of power in DC always plays the anti-imperialist bullshitter card.
Please, the moralistic bullshit needs to stop. These people are journalists, not philosophers. They are not qualified to pontificate on political matters. Give us some real numbers. Tell us what’s happening on the ground. Don’t pan to shots of one person here, a few there, and scream how horrible it is. You know what’s horrible? These guys taking up airtime.