Rachel Corrie & The Bulldozer: The Photo That Falsely Fuels A Blood Libel
Shraga Simmons, an ordained rabbi who founded HonestReporting.com, is one of the foremost experts on media bias against Israel. Of Simmons's book David and Goliath, published earlier this year, another expert, Professor Richard Landes of Boston (who incidentally coined the term "Pallywood") has written:
In the wake of an Israeli court's verdict in the Rachel Corrie case, Simmons tells afresh why this photo, still being widely used in press reports (I saw it used last evening on CNN, for example, when Mark Regev was being grilled) gives the misleading impression that the bulldozer's driver had Ms Corrie in plain view when she was killed. As Shraga Simmons explains, the photo was taken hours before the tragedy, and when the latter occurred Ms Corrie was hidden. He also shows, as evidenced in another photo, that a different bulldozer was involved.
Incidentally, during the interview with CNN Mark Regev said that contrary to press reports Ms Corrie was not obstructing a house demolition but the clearance of shrubs and small trees used as "sniper positions". He also pointed to the extremist nature of the International Solidarity Movement (remember this exposé?) to which she was affiliated, reminding his interviewer that the ISM believes Israel has no right to exist.
"Simmons has produced an invaluable book on one of the most serious problems of the 21st century, the almost perverse and pervasively wrong-headed way that our western mainstream news media (MSNM) report the Arab-Israeli conflict. Not only are the problems he so thoroughly details critical as a problem of both epistemology and journalistic ethics, but the implications for the well-being of the civic polities which create and depend on a free press are dire... This book should be required reading in Journalism 101. Alas, I'm not holding my breath."
In the wake of an Israeli court's verdict in the Rachel Corrie case, Simmons tells afresh why this photo, still being widely used in press reports (I saw it used last evening on CNN, for example, when Mark Regev was being grilled) gives the misleading impression that the bulldozer's driver had Ms Corrie in plain view when she was killed. As Shraga Simmons explains, the photo was taken hours before the tragedy, and when the latter occurred Ms Corrie was hidden. He also shows, as evidenced in another photo, that a different bulldozer was involved.
Incidentally, during the interview with CNN Mark Regev said that contrary to press reports Ms Corrie was not obstructing a house demolition but the clearance of shrubs and small trees used as "sniper positions". He also pointed to the extremist nature of the International Solidarity Movement (remember this exposé?) to which she was affiliated, reminding his interviewer that the ISM believes Israel has no right to exist.
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