Zionist denials

Zionist Denials are cases in which Israel itself has deliberately and falsely denied actions which Israel or others have later admitted.

Incidents post-2000

Full article: Zionist denials - post 2000

• 2010 Flotilla - First use of violence, violence on other boats, BBC "Death on the Med".
• 2008/9 Gaza War - White Phosphorus use in Gaza, UN Board of Inquiry, explosives deliberately left in Gaza.
• 2006 Lebanon - Use of White Phosphorus.
• 2004 accusations against Peter Hansen prove false but the US insists he be removed as head of UNRWA anyway.
• 2002/2003 Deaths of internationals - James Miller, Tom Hurndall and Iain Hook, British. Rachel Corrie American. Others maimed.
• 2002 Jenin Massacre - various.

Incidents before 2000

1985 Jonathan Pollard

U.S. Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States in 1985 for passing military secrets to Israel. The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard Wikipedia article] covers much of the spying side, but not the degree of denial.

Israel promised this would not happen again, eg "As with Pollard, this (Lavon Affair) was a rogue operation," David Kimche, a former Mossad deputy chief, said in 2005 "We knew never to go down that road again."

But in March 2008, another Israeli spy, 84 year old Ben-Ami Kadish was arrested on charges that he had spied for Israel for 20 years (ie recruited not long after Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment). Former head of Mossad, Labor MK Danny Yatom told Army Radio: "I think what primarily bothers the Americans is the feeling that Israel didn't tell them the whole truth two decades ago, in 1985, when the Pollard affair exploded". and added: "The Americans asked if there are additional people that Israel ran or are running in the United States. The answer, to the best of my knowledge, was always no".

In 2002, in the aftermath of the Israeli art scam and the crudely covered up spying allegations it was said that Israel's denial of spying in the US was "predictable" and that “Israel in the past has belligerently denied wrongdoing until long after the truth was obvious. Israel claimed Jonathan Pollard -- a super spy who did horrendous, deadly damage to the United States until arrested in 1985 - wasn't an agent.”

1982 Lebanon

Some denials (eg responsibility for Sabra and Shatilla, killing of UN soldiers) and a lot of deceit.

Deceitful reasoning for invasion

The claimed excuse for this fresh attack on Lebanon was a near fatal attack on the Israeli Ambassador in London on the 3rd June by Abu Nidal, a Palestinian and free-lance terrorist. Israel launched air-strikes against Beirut the next day, the 4th. On the same day, less than 24 hours after the shooting, the attackers had been caught. On 6th Jun 1982, Margaret Thatcher told the House of Commons that a hit-list in the possession of the terrorists included the name of the PLO's London representative, making Arafat's involvement even less likely.

Nevertheless, Israel had long wished to seize Lebanon and on 5th June Menachem Begin proposed a military operation. An earlier "Big Plan" had been aired and rejected by the Cabinet. Ariel Sharon and Eitan presented the Cabinet with the "Small Plan," which was an operation in south Lebanon only. This included no advance to Beirut and no move against the Syrians. The attack started on 6th June 1982 and turned into the "Big Plan". The "big plan" invasion turned into an occupation but not the ethnic cleansing of the whole of southern Lebanon, as repeatedly proposed by leading Zionists (eg Moshe Dayan and David Ben Gurion in 1954.

In the event the occupation lasted until 2000 but was increasingly fought by Hezbollah. Israel announced a planned withdrawal which they carried out prematurely. The militias (eg "The South Lebanon Army" or SLA) which had done Israel's dirtiest work for 18 years collapsed immediately.

Harassment of US Marines

See the Wikispooks article section on "Israeli forces clash with Marines" in the article on the 1982 Lebanon War. The original of the article is by Donald Neff, published in 1995 by the "Washington Report" and re-published by "If Americans Knew".

1967 War

Israel initially claimed that it had come under attack first, though all reputable sources later agree it carried out a pre-emptive strike. Nevertheless, widespread hasbarist deception continues, many sources claiming that Israel has suffered numerous attacks (even every year) with major attacks on numerous occasions, including 1967. Anti-Zionist sources claim that Israel has only ever been attacked by any Arab nation once, the Yom Kippur war of 1973. The two sides disagree on whether Israel itself was in danger in 1973, or whether Egypt was simply attempting to get the Sinai back by force.

USS Liberty Incident

Main Article: USS Liberty Incident

Wikispooks hosts an important (and unique) listing of reliable sources which suggests that few knowledgable historians and authors accept the "Friendly Fire" explanation of this incident..

There are two significant authors who defend Israel (Cristol and Oren) but both are generally recognised as hasbarists. A 1984 article by Israeli journalists H Goodman and Z Schiff defends Israel and is much quoted, but includes what appears to be a straightforward invention about a second "Friendly Fire" incident in the same war. Nevertheless, many Israel-firsters continue to insist that this attempt to sink a US ship during their 1967 attack on Egypt, Jordan and Syria was a case of "friendly fire".

For many people new to this supposed "controversy", a turning point may be the article in the Chicago Tribune of 2nd Oct 2007 which, as the Wikipedia says contains "numerous previously unreported quotes from former military personnel with first-hand knowledge of the incident. Many of these quotes directly contradict the US National Security Agency's position that it never intercepted the communications of the attacking Israeli pilots, claiming that not only did transcripts of those communications exist, but also that it showed the Israelis knew they were attacking an American naval vessel." Typical of the quotes in the Tribune is one from the late Dwight Porter, American ambassador to Lebanon during the Six-Day War, who told friends and family members that he had been shown English-language transcripts of Israeli pilots talking to their controllers. Close friend, William Chandler, former head of the Trans-Arabian Pipe Line Co., said Porter recalled one of the pilots protesting, "But sir, it's an American ship - I can see the flag!" To which the ground control responded, "Never mind; hit it!".

A partial re-opening of the case and re-hash of the arguments appeared again in the Israeli press in Feb 2012, a doctoral thesis having been published that apparently clears Israel. Well-respected Israeli historian Tom Segev says Over the years, various pieces of evidence have emerged that seem to support Israel's claim that the USS Liberty was fired on by mistake in 1967. However, a number of questions still hover over the affair, and these nourish the conspiracy theories..

Execution of POWs

In 1995 the mass graves of up to 1,000 unarmed Egyptian civilians and prisoners of war were discovered outside El-Arish and the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Jewish Telegraph Agency, and many other respected press organs both in the U.S. and Israel reported that IDF veterans had admitted that there had been mass-murders during the 1967 War. The 2001 book [on the National Security Agency, Body of Secrets] in which James Bamford mentioned the USS Liberty Incident also surmised that a possible motive for the attack on the Liberty was to conceal the 1967 massacre. Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel, Eli Dayan is said to have offered compensation to the victims families in 1995, but explained that Israel was unable to pursue those responsible due to the statute of limitations.

Bamford's book resulted in a new spate of denial, Michael Oren wrote that one of the witnesses (Israeli reporter Gabriel Bron, a former IDF soldier) told him The one hundred and fifty POWs were not shot, and there were no mass murders but that they were helped by the Israeli soldiers who gave them water, and in most cases just sent them in the direction of the Suez Canal. Oren had more to say about Bamford, and presented a second piece of Zionist Denial there are a lot of reasons to question Bamford's credibility, starting with his rather curious reading of Middle Eastern history. For example, Bamford says Israel initiated hostilities against Syria and Jordan, when it happened the other way around.

Steve Aftergood also denied the massacre in the July 17, 2001 issue of Secrecy News.

A further mass grave of 30 Egyptian soldiers was found in the Sinai peninsula in 2008.

1960s Israel's development of nuclear arsenal

Israel continues to operate a policy of secrecy, refusing to confirm or deny that it is a nuclear armed power. However, all media sources accept the evidence presented eg testimony of the technician Vanunu who had worked at Dimona and whistle-blew to the Sunday Times. Estimates of the capability range from around 70 to 400 war-heads, with delivery by plane, missile and submarine.

Israel is widely thought to be planning a form of deterrence known as the "Samson Option", whereby it attacks other nations, including the US, all over the world if it is threatened by destruction. There is a bowdlerised Wikipedia account of the policy and the outlook for the world, but a fuller version of the article, written in 2009 is here. Wikispooks aims to bring this latter effort up to date and carry it forwards, see Samson Option.

1956 Suez

The 1995 discovery of a thousand 1967 victims led to further revelations concerning killings of Egyptians in 1956, as had been known but concealed by 40 years of military censorship. At least 49 of the dead were civilians, and their killings directly implicated Ariel Sharon and former Chief of Staff Rafael Eytan. In the Hebrew paper Maariv, Eytan denied any knowledge that Israeli soldiers killed the Egyptian workers. In two other cases, hundreds of bullets were fired into a truck full of civilians, and chained prisoners were massacred at Ras Sudar.

1954 Lavon Affair

Main Article: Lavon Affair

Israel used Egyptian Jews as fifth-columnists to mount terrorist attacks on American and British-owned targets in Cairo and Alexandria. That it was actually Zionist terrorism was discovered when one of the saboteurs was caught planting a bomb in 1954. Israel blamed antisemitism in Egypt for the accusations and anyone who dared repeat them, silencing almost all western comment.

Israel finally ended five decades of denial in 2005, presenting official citations to surviving agents, saying: "This is historic justice for those who were sent on a mission on behalf of the state and became the victims of a complex political affair."

Bias at the Wikipedia article on False Flag is not obvious, since the article is mysteriously thin, perhaps because Israel has denied or accused others of so many attacks. There is an article on the Lavon Affair which says that the affair was "disastrous for Israel in several ways" but fail to mention any of the very serious effects on Egypt or Egyptian Jews. Factually, the Wikipedia article is detailed and largely complete.

1953 Qibya

The Wikipedia article on this event accurately describes some of the deceit and denial of Israel but is wrapped up in excusatory tones eg "The international outcry caused by the operation required a formal reply by Israel". The references given are short of URLs and other material adequate to access or expose the dishonesty of the official Israeli response.

Prime Ministers Moshe Sharett advised that a denial of the involvement of their forces would make Israel appear patently "ridiculous" but on October 19th 1954 his predecessor as PM, David Ben-Gurion, asserted that the raid had been carried out by Israeli civilians.

None deplores it more than the Government of Israel, if ... innocent blood was spilled ... The Government of Israel rejects with all vigor the absurd and fantastic allegation that 600 men of the IDF took part in the action ... We have carried out a searching investigation and it is clear beyond doubt that not a single army unit was absent from its base on the night of the attack on Qibya. (Statement by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, ISA FM 2435/5)

On Israeli Radio that same day, Ben-Gurion addressed the nation and said:

The [Jewish] border settlers in Israel, mostly refugees, people from Arab countries and survivors from the Nazi concentration camps, have, for years, been the target of (...) murderous attacks and had shown a great restraint. Rightfully, they have demanded that their government protect their lives and the Israeli government gave them weapons and trained them to protect themselves.
But the armed forces from Transjordan did not stop their criminal acts, until [the people in] some of the border settlements lost their patience and after the murder of a mother and her two children in Yahud, they attacked, last week, the village of Kibya across the border, that was one of the main centers of the murderers' gangs. Every one of us regrets and suffers when blood is shed anywhere and nobody regrets more than the Israeli government the fact that innocent people were killed in the retaliation act in Kibya. But all the responsibility rests with the government of Transjordan that for many years tolerated and thus encouraged attacks of murder and robbery by armed powers in its country against the citizens of Israel.

Uri Avnery, founder and editor of the magazine HaOlam HaZeh, relates that he had both his hands broken when he was ambushed for criticizing the massacre at Qibya in his newspaper. The chief of the secret service in the 50s, Issar Har'el, later testified that the Ben-Gurion establishment considered Avnery and Haolam Hazeh as "Public Enemy Number 1".

1950 Baghdad bombings

The April 1950 bombings that helped panic most of the 150,000 Jews of Iraq to leave for Israel are still denied by the Zionists. But even the WP article on "Jews in Iraq" lists many credible sources who say the bombings were indeed Zionist. See False Flag Attacks.

1948 Tantura

While Israel rejects the claims made in the doctoral thesis, no investigation has been carried out on the mass-grave known to be under a carpark and the number of victims (either 70-80 or around 250) buried there being in doubt.

1948 Biological Warfare

It is convincingly claimed that the Israel used biological weapons at several times and in several different ways in 1948, though they have denied all charges.

pre-Independence WMD suspected

There were major epidemics in the run-up to the formation of Israel, a cholera epidemic in Egypt (first reported Times of London on 26 September, 1947, p4) rand until Jan 1948 and left 10,262. Eighteen were killed in a much smaller outbreak in Syria in two towns close to the Palestine border which were stringently quarantined (first reported New York Times 22 December, 1947, p5). Carus says that the Egyptian outbreak was originally said to have come from India, while the Muslim Brotherhood blamed the British for negligence. Another source blamed the Russians.

post-Independence WMD proven

David Horin [or Horeen] and David Mizrachi were caught near wells in Gaza carried liquid with dysentery and typhoid bacteria and disguised as Arabs on the 23rd or 27th May 1948. General Yadin reported the incident to the newly installed Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, who made an uncommented note of it in his diary. Israel made no official protestations when the two were executed three months later. Horeen’s sister, Rachel Katzman, said "I met one of his commanders in a lecture in Jerusalem. I asked him whether my brother had really attempted to poison wells. These were the weapons we had he said, and that’s that" The right-wing Zionist historian Uri Milstein is said to have confirmed these attacks, along with the attacks on the Acre water supply.

The Red Cross (ICRC) is said to have released documents (50 years after the event) which revealed that typhoid bacteria were released into the water supply of the besieged town of Acre. It is known that a typhoid outbreak hit the city a few days before it fell.

Naeim Giladi (d 2010) was a dark-skinned Iraqi Zionist who made aliyah to Israel and complained bitterly of the quite shocking level of racism there. Unable to publish what he knew in Israel due to military censorship, he moved on to the US but could still find nobody to publish his book "BEN-GURION'S SCANDALS" (sub-titled "How the Hagannah and The Mossad Eliminated Jews" Available for ther first time since it was banned in the US and Israel). He eventually self-published in 1992 at the age of 63. In an article based on his book before it was re-published by Dandelion, he wrote:

The world recoils today at the thought of bacteriological warfare, but Israel was probably the first to actually use it in the Middle East. In the 1948 war, Jewish forces would empty Arab villages of their populations, often by threats, sometimes by just gunning down a half-dozen unarmed Arabs as examples to the rest. To make sure the Arabs couldn't return to make a fresh life for themselves in these villages, the Israelis put typhus and dysentery bacteria into the water wells.

Uri Mileshtin, an official historian for the Israeli Defense Force, has written and spoken about the use of bacteriological agents. According to Mileshtin, Moshe Dayan, a division commander at the time, gave orders in 1948 to remove Arabs from their villages, bulldoze their homes, and render water wells unusable with typhus and dysentery bacteria.

Acre was so situated that it could practically defend itself with one big gun, so the Haganah put bacteria into the spring that fed the town. The spring was called Capri and it ran from the north near a kibbutz. The Haganah put typhus bacteria into the water going to Acre, the people got sick, and the Jewish forces occupied Acre. This worked so well that they sent a Haganah division dressed as Arabs into Gaza, where there were Egyptian forces, and the Egyptians caught them putting two cans of bacteria, typhus and dysentery, into the water supply in wanton disregard of the civilian population. In war, there is no sentiment one of the captured Haganah men was quoted as saying.

More on Naeim Giladi

Naeim Giladi became extremely hostile to Zionism during his time in Israel (age 21 to 50+) (eg "It has been the age-old intention of Zionism to intentionally stir up anti-Semitism anywhere possible") but he does not dispute the distinctively anti-Jewish turn taken by Iraq in 1948:

The situation deteriorated. Reuven Bitat, a district judge, was put on trial for something he had done in 1924: he had permitted an object to be given to Jewish institutions in Jerusalem. The truth is that many were arrested, especially after two Israelis who infiltrated the Gaza Strip were caught as they were trying to lace the water wells with the microorganismsof dysentery and typhus. The two men were captured by Egyptian soldiers, pleaded guilty, and were executed. The news about their arrest was reported in late May 1948, and caused panic in Iraq among the Jews and Moslems who became fearful because of the spread of cholera in Egypt at the time.

Whenever a Jew threw an empty bottle in the public garbage, he would be detained and investigated, and the bottle and its contents would be scrutinized. Many Jews were arrested on phony pretexts, but as noted, the Iraqi government was adept at exploiting what was happening on the Palestine front in order to channel the bitterness of the masses towards the Jews. The atmosphere was charged, but it was still possible to live normal lives.

1997 Chemical Warfare cannot be denied

Israel is not in a position to deny that it has used Chemical Warfare, since it attempted to assassinate a Hamas leader, Khalid Mishal in Amman, Jordan in 1997 with the lethal nerve toxin levofentanyl. Its agents were caught red-handed. Bibi Netanyahu refused to accede to King Hussein's request that Israel provide the antidote until President Bill Clinton personally intervened. The agents were returned to Israel unharmed in exchange for the release of Shaykh Yasin and other prisoners. Seven years later in 2004, the paraplegic founder and spiritual leader of Hamas died on the streets of Gaza when a rocket was fired at him by Israel.

In January 1993, the Israeli government, seemingly pressed by the US government, signed the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) but has never ratified it.

Pre-Israel actions

Some pre-Israel actions were condemned by the Yishuv but were later admitted to have been carried out under their control/instigation.

1948 Deir Yassin massacre

This attack happened five weeks before the Independence of Israel, so not provoked by any attack on Israel on the day of its creation by Arab armies.

The massacre (the best known of some two dozen cases in total, according to Israeli historian Benny Morris was condemned by the Yishuv at the time although in fact, the massacre was only enabled by the Palmach arriving with mortars, putting down the last resistance in the moktar's house. (120 or so terrorists had failed to overcome the almost defenceless village without help).

Official denial/re-writing continued in some quarters until at least the 1970s and in many cases, reference to the massacre continue to be met by accusations of blood-libel. Deir Yassin is not marked in any way, despite being only some 800m from Yad Vashem. The Wikipedia article on the Deir Yassin Massacre (in Mar 2012) twice highlights the book Blood Libel at Deir Yassin: The Black Book by Uri Milstein (once in section "See Also" and once in section "Further Reading"). The book gets its own article at Wikipedia where it says the author claims that the Deir Yassin massacre was a myth created by the Israeli left to prevent the Irgun from forming an independent unit inside the IDF and keep Menahem Begin out of the first national unity government under David Ben Gurion.

1946 Bombing of the King David Hotel

Denied and condemned at the time. Binyamin Netanyahu attended a two-day 60th anniversary celebration in July 2006, with a tour of the hotel given by one of the surviving perpetrators.

1944 assassination of Lord Moynes

Denied and condemned at the time, the bodies of the perpetrators were brought back to Israel and buried in honour on Mount Herzel in 1975, provoking outrage in the British Parliament. James Callaghan, then Foreign Secretary and later Prime Minister, ordered a formal protest "to make it clear to the Israeli government that the British government very much regretted that an act of terrorism should be honoured in this way."

1940 sinking of the Patria

Death of over 200 Jews. Denied and condemned(?) at the time, in 195? one of the perpetrators went public and explained the previously unknown actions of the Haganah.

1924 killing of Jaacob de Haan

Main article 1924 killing of Jaacob de Haan (under Wikispooks "Zionist Political Violence")

This killing is the first known pre-planned and organised terrorism committed by the Zionists. Howver, it was not aimed at Palestinians or at the British, but at the spokesman of the very anti-Zionist native Jews.

The Zionists waited 40 years before confessing in their official history (1964) that this was indeed their work. However, they blame just one man within their organisation, Joseph Hecht, for the killing and he is said to have used a couple of (anonymous) immigrants, too recently arrived to have heard of De Haan. The writer of the history cites the case of Colonel Redl, an Austro-Hungarian staff officer who was blackmailed into selling military secrets to the Russians, and implies that De Haan had been similarly induced to collaborate with the Arab Executive.

Zionist newspapers have since named the assassins as Abraham Krichevski (Giora) and Abraham Silberg (Tahomi) - the former is said to have died in Tel Aviv in 1942, the latter to have emigrated to California - and identified Isaac Ben-Zwi, his wife, Rachel Yanait, Moses Eisenstadt and Aviezer Yellin as prominent in the Haganah's Jerusalem branch at the time.

The Wikipedia article on Jaacob de Haan covers more of his life and dwells rather more on his alleged homosexuality than the political angle. However, it confirms that his murder was indeed carried out by the Haganah and his sexual preferences had nothing to do with it.

Denial of Zionist Policies

Denial of Transfer

Supporters of Israel (including many of the most prominent such as Alan Dershowitz, Melanie Phillips, Daniel Piper) in the West deny that "transfer" (ie "ethnic cleansing") was always intended by the founders of Israel. They claim that "peace" between the parties, living in the same places as they are now, is a realistic option and the aim of Israel.

Rabbi Chaim Simons lived in Kiryat Arba, the notorious Hebron settlement which may have displaced 30,000 Palestinians. He believed in ethnic cleansing and full annexation of the West Bank to Israel. In 1990 he listed many of the pre-1948 claims that transfer was necesary and continues: "As we shall see, this phenomenon of restricting transfer plans to diaries, private correspondence and closed meetings, was not the prerogative of Herzl, "but has been emulated by many other Zionist leaders."

Denial of "from the Nile to the Euphrates"

A common thread of Zionist denial is the presenting of a list of the allegations and then their "debunking". In 1994, Daniel Pipes did this in some detail for the "from the Nile to the Euphrates" aspiration, which he calls a "calumny" and a "groundless fantasy".

Pipes nevertheless admits that the founder of Zionism, Theodore Herzl (and at least one other early leader Isidore Bodenheimer) "routinely referred" to Jewish settlement in areas far beyond Palestine, as did organizations such as the Jewish National Fund and the Zionist Congress. In 1898, Herzl planned to ask the Ottoman sultan for a territory stretching from the Egyptian frontier to the Euphrates. Four years later he spoke of settling Jews in Mesopotamia and his diaries speak of his "Judenstat" stretching "From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates." (The "Brook of Egypt" is not necessarily the Nile, it may be a lesser waterway 100 miles East of the Nile) However, Herzl's attempts to speak to the Sultan in Constantinople were unsuccessful and he is only recorded as wanting Palestine on that occasion.

While some Zionists were careful not to claim more than Palestine the aspiration for a much bigger area was being openly expressed at the time of the formation of Israel, and was presented to the UN Special Committee of Enquiry on 9 July 1947 by Rabbi Fischmann, member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine: "The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon."

A catalogue of Zionist and Israeli statements on this topic appear in a book (now out of print) by Ass'ad Razzouq, Greater Israel: A Study in Zionist Expansionist Thought (Beirut: PLO Research Center, 1970). This reference was provided by Daniel Pipes in his 1994 article] at his own web-site, he says that the claims are both "real and alleged"..

Former chief rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau said in 2005 that he was resigned to the possibility that realizing Eretz Yisrael Hashlema might not be immediately attainable. "It is unreasonable to expect too much of one generation," he said. "The curses mentioned in Leviticus and Deuteronomy came true during the Holocaust. That same generation experienced the ingathering of the exiles, fought seven wars and built the Jewish state. Perhaps Eretz Yisrael Hashleima will have to wait."

Arafat and the 10-Agorot coin

Confusion (and some merriment) has been added on this topic by Yasser Arafat claiming, throughout 1990, that the shape shown on the 10-agorot coin is the planned extent of Eretz Israel. An article by Dr. Gwyn Rowley of the University of Sheffield in England contains a diagram of the Middle East with a superimposed outline reaching from the Sinai peninsula to the Iraq-Iran border. The legend accompanying the map says The real dimensions of Israel according to the current (1989) Israeli 10 Agorot coin but the resemblance is not very clear.

Moreover, there is an ancient coin of this shape (ie non-circular) in existence and the logo is in use by the Bank of Israel. See the shape of the original coin here.

Denial of the Zionist flag

There seems to be no evidence for the claim that the two blue lines on the Zionist flag represent the two rivers, the Nile and the Euphrates, between which lies the land of Israel. The flag was first adopted in 1891.

Daniel Pipes calls this idea a yet more imaginative argument from Yasser Arafat who discerned a hidden symbolism of expansionist intent in the Israeli flag: its two horizontal blue lines represent the Nile and Euphrates rivers. Pipes and others claim that that the blue lines come from the Jewish prayer shawl, the tallit.

Blood-libel allegations

In many cases, when allegations have been made against Zionists, the critics have been accused of making blood-libels or of general anti-semitism. In some cases, the allegations against the Zionists have either been proved true or found to be very well evidenced.

2009 - Organ-harvesting affair

When a Swedish newspaper broke the organ-harvesting story, the so-called Aftonbladet-Israel controversy, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister demanded that Sweden condemn the piece, compared it to the Dreyfus Affair and compared Sweden's response to its "silence" during the Holocaust. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "echoed colleagues in comparing the article to medieval "blood libels," which alleged Jews used the blood of Christian babies in religious rites" and curbs were placed on Swedish journalists.

In fact, it was an old story - Dr Yehuda Hiss, Israeli chief pathologist at Abu Kabir Forensic Institute, had been exposed for selling body parts in 2000 (by Israeli newspaper, Yediot Aharonot), was on tape talking about freely taking organs at the time, was in possession of numerous organs when searched in 2002 and had been reprimanded in 2005.

In October 2011, a Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics press release claimed that Israel holds tens of bodies of male and female Palestinians killed during the second Intifada as well as hundreds of corpses of others killed in previous years.

2000 - Muhammed al-Durrah

Mohammed al-Durrah

Great effort and expenditure have been expended on this case by defenders of Israel trying to prove that Mohammed al-Durrah was shot by Palestinians (or is not dead) and that the famous picture is a blood-libel. Over ten years later, the cameraman and the head of the television channel, France24, which first aired the footage, are still being pursued through the courts in an attempt to remove them.

The new narrative contradicts the response of the entire Israeli establishment at the time and for many months afterwards, which freely admitted the killing. The head of IDF operations General Giora Eiland stated on an Israeli radio broadcast that the boy was apparently killed by Israeli army fire at the Palestinians who were attacking them violently with a great many petrol bombs, rocks, and very massive fire. Eiland further claimed It is known that Mohammed al-Dura participated in stone throwing in the past. General Yom-Tov Samia, then the head of the IDF's Southern Command, which operated in Gaza, asked what a twelve-year-old was doing in such a dangerous place to begin with. Ariel Sharon (who had provocatively invaded the al-Aqsa mosque 3 days earlier leading to the deaths of 4 Palestinians and the beginning of the intifada) called the death a real tragedy but added The one that should be blamed is only the one ... that really instigated all those activities, and that is Yasir Arafat. It was 7 years (2007) before the IDF started claiming they'd not shot the child dead.

Project Censored claim (based on figures from the Israeli NGO, Btselem and citing "Remember the Children") that In the first three-and-a-half months ... Israeli forces killed 84 Palestinian children ... During this period, not one Israeli child was killed. Not one suicide bombing against Israelis occurred.

A degree of polarisation has been observed in French society, when a court decision absolved the pro-Israel Karentsy of libel, a petition was cirulated and signed by more than 300 French journalists and intellectuals who denounced allowing anyone to smear with impunity the honor and reputation of news professionals. This reaction itself has led to recall of the Dreyfus Affair. Israeli newspaper comment has sometimes been robust, Haaretz stating that Our heart is impervious to the fate of other children who have been killed ... maybe he is even alive, as some eccentrics claim ... tasteless questions designed to divert attention from the truly important issues ... Israel is responsible for killing more than 850 Palestinian children and teenagers since al-Dura was killed and that some investigators have an eccentric obsession with their denial.

Wikipedia treatment of al-Durrah

The Wikipedia article is largely taken up with a discussion of the two denialist Zionist narratives, that al-Durrah was murdered by the Palestinians (as a kind of "False Flag") or that he was not dead. The iconic nature of the image and it's part in the Palestinian narrative is barely discussed, and even subsequent events that were apparently linked and merited comment in the media (eg the October 2000 lynching of two Israeli army reservists in Ramallah and the beheading of Daniel Pearl in Feb 2002) have struggled to get a mention.

1948 Deir Yassin

Official denial/re-writing continued in some quarters until at least the 1970s and in many cases, reference to the massacre continue to be met by accusations of blood-libel. Deir Yassin is not marked in any way, despite being only some 800m from Yad Vashem. The Wikipedia article on the Deir Yassin Massacre (in Mar 2012) twice highlights the book Blood Libel at Deir Yassin: The Black Book by Uri Milstein (once in section "See Also" and once in section "Further Reading"). The book gets its own article at Wikipedia where it says the author claims that the Deir Yassin massacre was a myth created by the Israeli left to prevent the Irgun from forming an independent unit inside the IDF and keep Menahem Begin out of the first national unity government under David Ben Gurion.

Interference with the historical record

In some cases, Israel has claimed to be quoting Palestinian sources for the death-tolls of massacres, and these totals are both much smaller than believed at the time and impossible to confirm. In Deir Yassin the internationally observed death total was some 250, this has been reduced to 107 and in Jenin 2002 the total reduced from 500 or so to 52.

What is denial, what is cover-up?

In some of these cases the state of Israel has first denied but then later admitted liability. In other cases Israel has paid compensation despite denying intent eg the USS Liberty Incident, widely and predominantly reported by "reliable sources" as being a case of the Israelis deliberately attacking a US ship, see this chart.

Also included in the category of "denials" are cases in which Israel has obstructed access or failed to assist investigators. Wikispooks is treating such obstruction in a fashion broadly similar to incidents such as Tiananmen Square where the state party has acted in a non-transparent fashion and has allowed a presumption of guilt to be widely (though not necessarily generally) held.

There are also denials of Zionist policy. "Transfer" (what we came to know as "Ethnic Cleansing" after incidents in the Balkans in the 1990s) was once denied while others such as the Judaization of Jerusalem and the total annexation of the West Bank are still officially denied. In other cases eg expanding the frontiers of Israel to "from the Nile to the Euphrates" is hotly denied even though it is established settler policy.

Cases of fraudulent denial or mis-reporting of Israeli massacres include cases where death-tolls have been reduced in suspicious circumstances.