TOO LATE FOR THIS YEAR"S ACADEMY AWARDS

An ideologically opposed workmate yesterday directed me to a video from Press TV showing a parade of Palestinian children arriving at a Gaza hospital following an Israeli air attack. This was to bolster her claim that the "Middle East's most powerful air force" was executing a "disproportionate" and "indiscriminate" attack on "one of the most densely populated regions on Earth". She doesn't blog, knows that I do and wanted me to write an anti-Israel post linking to the video. I thought she was going to punch me after being told that Israel's air force, if it did aim to kill civilians, would have to be supremely incompetent in managing to kill only some 400 people during a multi-day air assault. But rather than continue down a path that could only lead to a full blown argument we decided to have another drink and switched the discussion to Western Australia's economic prospects.

It was only after my friend left that I watched the video closely. Several viewings convinced me this is something more than the typically grotesque Palestinian media carnival. Approximately one minute into the video a little girl with a large blood-absorbing pad taped to her head above her left eye is shown in the arms of a woman.














The commentator (possibly Syrian) says,

"These pictures are giving us a new evidence that the war is not against Hamas only... it is against Palestinian people. They are killing civilians. Look for the pictures, they are killing kids, children, women, elders. So this wild war is against Palestinian people. It's against Palestinian innocents. It is not against Hamas movement."

So this little girl is part of the evidence that Israel is in fact targeting civilians. This same little girl – recognisable by her distinctive striped top and somewhat chubby build (what food shortage?) – appears again later (at 6.30). The girls forehead is unbandaged and she's on her back on a gurney so this footage was obviously shot BEFORE the earlier footage showing the prominent bandage. The odd thing is, her forehead is unmarked. As the clip plays the girl is attended by five medical personnel (no shortage here either), two of whom apply thin gauze pads to her left temple. Not only does the girl appear to be uninjured, no blood is visible on the guaze pads when they are lifted from the invisible wound. The girl is soon thereafter (at around 8.45) shown with her left temple lightly bandaged being carried toward the hospital's exit.

An al Jazeera video clip, much more widely viewed than the one above, also features the same little girl.
















This clip also features (at 1.28) a little boy wearing a black and white striped top and blue pants standing in a group of men. He appears to be the same boy carried into the hospital in the earlier clip (at 3.50) and later receiving treatment (at 5.50) – watch as medical staff ignore the "wound" on his back, roughly flipping him over.

It is possible that this little boy is injured, perhaps as a result of Israeli action. The little girl's injuries appear to be purely imaginary, however. So, it's obvious that al Jazeera and PRESS TV are not to be trusted, ever.

Update: Israel-hater Antony Loewenstein is also not to be trusted. He not only erroneously claims to spend a lot of time in the Middle East, he later claimed to have traveled to Lebanon. (The Lebanon claim is made in remarks at the Berkman Center, Harvard, during which he can't even get the temperature right, claiming it was 90º F in Sydney on the day he left, when it was, in fact, 68º F.) Also, transparency advocate Loewenstein has recently stealthily deleted at least one comment at his blog. The guy is not to be trusted.