Can Public Broadcasting Really be THIS Contemptible?

Oh Yes, I think they can.

While working on a new post last night had to visit the NPR web page for a transcript. I allowed myself to become distracted by a gallery of pictures. (Look here and click on the picture entitled "Israel Attacks Targets in Gaza") Only two photos into the gallery, I came across this obvious fake.

It is a prototypical Pallywood tableaux, the very composition of which should be a dead give away at this point. Palestinians are, if we were to believe their fancifully posed pictures, the only people on earth whose immediate urge, when their friends and fellows are injured, is to grab them and try to twist them into cruel and dangerous positions. The Second Draft has documented Palestinians dragging, dropping, rolling and hoisting allegedly wounded comrades in savage disregard for their well being. Recall that even the recent mass carnage in Mumbai produced no photographs of a comparable level of callous and medically damaging treatment to that routinely published by mainstream media as representing the transport of wounded among the Arabs of Gaza and the West Bank.

If this were not damning enough evidence that the NPR photo editors are prepared to drop all pretense of integrity and professional responsibility in the cause of blackening Israel's name, let's look more closely at a couple of other aspects of this picture.

The caption alleges that the young man being pulled and twisted like a quid of taffy by his friends here was shot by Israelis using live ammunition. Generally when someone is shot there would be a hole of some sort in their person. Bullet holes are generally accompanied by profuse bleeding. At first glance, the vivid red on the arms that hold the feet of the subject alarms the eye but on closer inspection (below)

it is obvious that there is some combination of ugly clothing design (the right arm of the jacket clearly has white lettering that has no tinge or spattering of red on it) and, perhaps, idiotically obvious fakery (the right arm almost appears to have been either sprayed with or dipped in some red liquid while the hand on that same arm wears what appears to be a brown, fingerless glove with no red on either the glove or the exposed fingers). Since no blood is evident on the alleged victim, the photo is credited to an Arab working for AP- a notoriously suspicious combination to begin with and there seems to be a clumsy attempt to trick the viewer into thinking there is blood present, a photo editor who had the faintest spark of skepticism or wished to make even the feeblest wave at impartiality might have at least included the word "claimed" or "reported" in the caption.

The most pathetic aspect of this photograph and its obvious cynical maipulation, however, is the utter contempt that the Palestinian actors have for the western media. Just look at this close-up


The guy who has our victim in a very un-therapeutic full-Nelson here was not even alarmed enough to put down his orange flag or to feign much concern. And how about the victim himself? At greater risk of having his neck snapped by his flag toting rescuer than of discovering a bullet hole in himself, he betrays no trace of suffering. Far from a look of pain, panic or even shock, he appears to be bearing the man-handling with a mocking smirk. They may be manipulators and liars but the Pallywood crowd knows willing dupes when they find them and have the dignity to treat them with the contempt they deserve.

One more picture in the gallery caught my attention.

Another quintessential Pallywood scene. The only female I can see in this picture is the dead girl who's face is being displayed. The disgusting manipulation and politicization of their deaths is about the only respect that children, especially girls, get in Palestinian society. They get to be chattel and propaganda weapons and that is about it. NPR makes no judgement about any of that, though, they are far more concerned with fixing the blame on Israel.

Meanwhile, this video of one of the surviving sisters of those girls who died displays more courage, integrity and honesty than all the dupes at NPR in this video clip:


The Pallywood guys are not worried, though. They know that AP, NPR, CNN and the rest will suffer the contempt and mockery rather than abandon the narrative that they have swallowed and have sold their professional integrity to propagandize. They are not able to spare themselves even that humiliation.