YouTube "Not so cool facts about Israel"

[Mandy]

Dear oh dear we are clutching at straws now aren't we?

When there's an elephant in the room, clutching at straws isn't needed. Israel's actions speak loud and clear.


The pro-Israeli video (uploaded 5 Dec 06) feels like an Israeli government video to encourage tourism, inward investment, and a better image for Israelis.

The anti-Israeli video, with images from Flickr, has a pro-peace message at the end .. now which government in the region would pay for that?

[maycm]

There's clearly no way to discuss this with you. You state an objection to my assertion that you endorse this view and then go ahead and continue posting comments in support of it.

I'll leave you to chat to yourself on this one. Have fun.

As far as I'm concerned this one is "Topic closed"

[Mandy]

Address the facts .. say which facts are wrong .. and why .. and hopefully the creators of the video can correct it for next release.

[DavidGig]

Maycm, do us a favor and just mention a single factoid from the "Not So Cool" video which you thought should not have been mentioned. Then we can discuss it and maybe all learn something new.

Personally, I think it's far more important that people learn that Israel's supreme court has, at various times in the past, legalized torture, collective punishment, house demolitions, and the use of human shields, than it is to report how many swimming pools they've got. Because Israel's human rights record has not been well reported.

Which factoid shocked you?

[major.tom]

I thought propaganda was the product of states, not just something you don't like. The litmus test should rest on facts; ad hominem attacks place the emphasis on the messenger rather than the content.

I've watched the video -- it is one-sided, but so is the occupation and (for the most part) how the media covers it. This is a drop in the bucket.

It makes some questionable claims, apparently in an effort to speak consistently in superlatives. ("the most ____"). While this does detract from the presentation, it does not disqualify the substance, which is that checkpoints, the Apartheid wall, racist laws, state assassinations, collective punishment, jailing of children and political activists, etc are wrong.

[nekokate]

Both videos are propaganda, and both have completely different objectives. The rosy "Cool Facts About Israel" one was likely made in the same vein as those "come to australia, we've got kangaroos" type vids - just a long, benign list of acheivements, whereas the "Not So Cool" video seems to have been made as a politically charged parody of the first.

I'm not sure what I think about the "Not So" vid, because while it seems the vast majority of factoids it gives are technically true, there's nothing a long list of horror-facts coupled with pictures of suffering and supposedly "moving" music could be intended to acheive other than to deepen hatred.

At least it didn't say "Not So Cool Facts About Jews" or something, but it's still a very uncomfortable viewing experience as it seems to dance on that invisible, imagined line between what classes as legitimate criticism and exposure and what classes as encouraging hatred and racism.

If the video I found with the rose-tinted facts and photographs reminded me of anything, it's that there's a heck of a lot of people in Israel living ultra-Westernised, happy lives, who have nothing to do with what's happening on the outskirts. Must remember not to hate the Israeli people!

[rendition]

Not one respected Farsi translator has seen what Ahmedinejad said as "Wipe out Israel".

I'll list some of ths "facts" mentioned in this later - but I'll have to turn the sound down to do it, that music insults my soul...

What is your take on this line from the president.ir site?

"He further expressed his firm belief that the new wave of confrontations generated in Palestine and the growing turmoil in the Islamic world would in no time wipe Israel away"

https://www.president.ir/eng/ahmadinejad ... x-e.htm#b3

Anyone?

I realise this summary was not written my Ahmadinejad, but nevertheless, it's there in black and white on the President's own site. "Wipe Israel away". I've emailed the webmaster about this and others and have had no response as yet. I understand the differences to what was actually said and the printed mistranslations but when you get those 3 little words on his own site, you can't argue with the wiped off the map crowd.

[luke]

i don't quite agree rendition, reading the whole thing doesn't leave me with that impression - sounds to me more like if israel continue the way they are they will self destruct, nothing good can come out of what israel is doing - security, support, justice - nothing

remember this is at a conference called 'World without Zionism', not a world without jewish people, not a world without israel

and thats before addressing the issue - iran isn't capable of wiping israel of any map

[Mandy]

Anyone?

From the date on the page referred to, it says "Wed 26 October 2005". It is therefore referring to the SAME speech which the BBC was reporting on 28th Oct 05 https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 384918.stm .. and this speech has been analysed by experts.

The link provided seems to be to the old web site. I tried to access the archives on 26 Oct 05 on the current site :
https://www.president.ir/en/ but it gave an error on page :
https://www.president.ir/code/eurl_check ... 10&day=25e

It says : "Sorry! There is no news for your requested date"

So, please point me to how you can access this article via current https://www.president.ir

This archive points to appears to be a bad translation by someone who doesn't speak English properly .. after all who writes "News Headlines in Wed 26 October 2005" ... as opposed to "News Headlines on Wed 26 October 2005".

So is your view we should go to war on Israel's behalf for a bad English translation ? I think there are some black comedy movies about such "mis-communications"


p.s. I agree with Luke .. even taking the speech as given, it refers to "growing turmoil" being the cause of Israel's problems, not Iran.

[Mandy]

I contacted the maker of the original video [Benquasha], and he wrote (in 2 e-mails) :

-----------------

We had a similar discussion like yours in the comments section of this video. It went for so long but no person actually did the effort of seriously discussing any of the facts in this video. The pro Palestinians said that it was a great video and insulted the pro Israelis. The pro Israelis thought that it is a piece of lies and insulted the Palestinians. So I ended up deleting all th comments because it was useless.

But there was an interesting observation. Many of the pro Israeli persons, and person who do not know any thing about the situation in Palestine, they just rejected the video not because they know that the actual situation is different, but because the facts in the video seemed too bad to be true. They had an image of Israel that makes very difficult for them to even start watching this video.

I know that in this video I have only presented the ugly side of the occupation. It is not a neutral video. It is not balanced. I aim at provoking thinking and discussion. I know that there are ugly sides of the Palestinian actions towards the Israelis. I know that some of Israeli actions were done in response to critical situations that Israel had to face. But the fact is that after 40 years of occupation things have gotten very bad and ugly and this is what this video is about. You may notice that this video was made in the same style of a video titled "cool facts about Israel".

I did it because I have seen on youtube few videos that praise the "good" israel. Yes Israel deserves to be praised for few good achievements, but there always should be a video like this to remind us that there is an ugly side too.

Alsop plz note that some of the "facts" are just sarcastic. Like "the israeli engineers developping the first eye-spicific" rubber bullets". Of course these were not developped to be eye specific. But this sarcastic "fact" points to the other fact that a strangely great number of Palestinians were shot in the eyes with rubber bullets. I think there are two or three sarcastic "facts" like this one. But these hide more disturbing facts.

As for the citation and reference, it was hard to insert it in the video due to size limitation. actually I was limited by 10 minutes and thus I had to cut off many other facts. The video window is small. If I added citation with small prints it would have been not readable. But the information is now on the internet.

For the UN resolutions about Israel, you can find an article about that in wikipedia with proper citation at its footer.

But your remark makes me think of doing an text version of this video with all the citation I depended on in my research.

Thank you

B

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Yes I did go through the "discussion" in your forum and I found it exactly having the same pattern I had in the comments section of this video. I believe that the process of trying to know the truth of things or the point view of others is a process that needs effort and a degree or moral labour, and I did not see many ppl willing to do so. They just have a pre-made image of the situation and they do not want to even think about the alternative.

Thats why I get a little uneasy seing the many posts about how "cool' is Israel. It is not because I think Israel is not cool, I indeed do think that the Israelis are cool in many ways and they did achieve alot, but I was afread that many posts about the coolness of Israel will emphasize the imaginary picture of Israel that does no bad at all.

Yes of course you can copy/paste my comments on your forum. Actually I will look moe closely at that forum soon and may join it

Al the best

B

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Yep, we might get a new addition to the couchtripper. Do I get any frequent flyer miles or store points for this?

[nekokate]

I think Benquasha is a she not a he, since it's a girl's name...

Interesting to hear her validations, though.

[nekokate]

What is your take on this line from the president.ir site?

"He further expressed his firm belief that the new wave of confrontations generated in Palestine and the growing turmoil in the Islamic world would in no time wipe Israel away"

https://www.president.ir/eng/ahmadinejad ... x-e.htm#b3

Anyone?

I realise this summary was not written my Ahmadinejad, but nevertheless, it's there in black and white on the President's own site. "Wipe Israel away". I've emailed the webmaster about this and others and have had no response as yet. I understand the differences to what was actually said and the printed mistranslations but when you get those 3 little words on his own site, you can't argue with the wiped off the map crowd.

I echo what Mandy and others have already said regarding this. It appears to be an interpretation from the same speech that has already been debunked by Farsi speaking professors, so it doesn't hold much clout at all.

Incidentally, even if it was an accurate quote, Ahmadinejad is saying "Israel" not "Jews". Just because Israel is a so called "Jewish Homeland" doesn't mean that ire towards it's government's stances is automatically race specific.

Let's not forget that while it is almost certainly true that there are some Iranians out there (civilian and governmental) who would love to see the end of The Only Jewish State, there are far more organisations out there who are currently engaged in propaganda aimed at deepening hatred towards The Only Shia State, and taking into account the fact that Zionism/Israel has actually (not hypothetically but actually) wiped another country from the map, can you really blame them for being extremely angry and spitting poison at Israel?

The Persians, like the Arabs, are a very proud people with a very strong sense of justice.

[rendition]

So is your view we should go to war on Israel's behalf for a bad English translation ?

No. I understand what was said by Ahmadinejad and the context. The words from the president.ir website 'wipe Israel away' is what David Cameron uses to justify his stance on Iran because those words are there in English on Ahmadinejad's site, this is what in his opinion entitles him to say Ahmadinejad wants Israel wiped off the map.
Webcameron

president.ir > speeches > domestic > page 1 of 2 > 26th Oct 2005

• after providing word-for-word translations for the quote from the world without zionism speech,
  
  after highlighting the fact that no threat military or otherwise was made against anyone or anything, especially not the state of Israel,
  
  arguing that no such idiom exists in Persian i.e. wipe out or wipe away etc

My point is, some will use Ahmadinejad's own website to contradict people like Juan Cole and to undermine everything else. This is why I emailed the president.ir webiste along with Arash Norouzi, the author of 'rumor of the century' for explanations. I doubt I'll get replies from either. The argument, the summary on Ahmadinejad's website is wrong, is a weak one. I'd be grateful for any light you can shed on this.

[Mandy]

this is what in his opinion entitles him to say Ahmadinejad wants Israel wiped off the map.

I don't want to be legalistic, but in an earlier post it was quoted :
""He further expressed his firm belief that the new wave of confrontations generated in Palestine and the growing turmoil in the Islamic world would in no time wipe Israel away" "

That sounds like a statement of what he thinks will happen with the growing turmoil in the Islamic world. Where does Ahmadinejad say he WANTS "this" to happen ? i.e. he wants "growing turmoil in the Islamic world" and he WANTS "Israel wiped off the map" ?

[Mandy]

president.ir > speeches > domestic > page 1 of 2 > 26th Oct 2005

I went to the site, clicked on English, to get to : https://president.ir/en/

I click "Speaches" (mis-typing a menu item doesn't fill me with confidence on their English)

I don't see "domestic" .. and Archive only goes back to 2006.