Text & Video fwd: IDF FORGES COMMUNICATIONS TAPE

Bruce Gagnon blog
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
IDF FORGES COMMUNICATIONS TAPE

This video released on May 31 by IDF

The video apparently doctored by the IDF, released on June 4

Progressive journalist Max Blumenthal, reporting from Israel, has proven that Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) forged an audio communication that was intended to paint the Free Gaza Movement in a negative light. He was able to force the IDF to acknowledge they had edited the audio transmission and he was able to get the New York Times to report this story - even though it was buried in their paper.

From the New York Times:

The I.D.F. make public what they said were audio transmissions that Israel’s navy received from the Mavi Marmara before the raid. The clip suggested that a polite request from the navy to the ship was met with responses from three people who said: “Shut up — go back to Auschwitz,” “We have permission from the Gaza Port Authority to enter,” and “We’re helping Arabs going against the U.S., don’t forget 9/11, guys.”

This clip, posted on the I.D.F.’s official YouTube channel on Friday, was met with immediate skepticism by some bloggers and journalists in Israel. Max Blumenthal pointed out in a post on his blog that the I.D.F. had already released video of what seemed like the same exchange four days earlier in which the only reply from the ship was “Negative, negative. Our destination is Gaza. Our destination is Gaza.”

Mr. Blumenthal suggested that at least one of the voices making the inflammatory remarks in the clip “sounded like an impersonation of an Arab.” He also noted that Huwaida Arraf, one of the organizers of the flotilla, said that it was her voice saying “We have permission from the Gaza Port Authority to enter.” But Ms. Arraf was not on the Mavi Marmara, which suggested that the I.D.F. tape was not an unedited snippet of the exchange between the naval ship and the Mavi Marmara.

On Saturday, the I.D.F. published what it called a “Clarification/Correction” regarding the clip which said that the audio had been edited.