Max Blumenthal Swings Big at IDF, Misses Bigger

Max Blumenthal Swings Big at IDF, Misses Bigger

Max Blumenthal thought he had landed the big fish, catching the Israel Defense Forces “doctoring” an audio tape in which statements like “shut up go back to Auschwitz” were shouted by participants in the Gaza flotilla:

The IDF’s propaganda is increasingly unbelievable, yet the media is enthusiastically playing along. This audio, which purports to show flotilla passengers telling the IDF to “go back to Auschwitz,” appears to have been doctored by the IDF General Press Office or someone connected to it.

I addressed this earlier. When I first heard the tape, I assumed that the comments were accurate, but static and down-time were edited out.

I was right. The IDF now has released the full audio (below). Here is the IDF’s statement in response to the allegations by Blumenthal and others:

Yesterday evening on 4 June 2010, the IDF released an audio recording of a radio transmission between the Israeli Navy vessel and the Flotilla ships wherein unidentified flotilla passengers tell the Israeli Navy vessel to “shut up, go back to Auschwitz” and “we’re helping Arabs go against the US, don’t forget 9/11.” There have been questions regarding the authenticity of the recording as well as its attribution to a communication with the Mavi Marmara.

So to clarify: the audio was edited down to cut out periods of silence over the radio as well as incomprehensible comments so as to make it easier for people to listen to the exchange. We have now uploaded the entire segment of 5 minutes and 58 seconds in which the exchange took place and the comments were made.

This transmission had originally cited the Mavi Marmara ship as being the source of these remarks, however, due to an open channel, the specific ship or ships in the “Freedom Flotilla” responding to the Israeli Navy could not be identified.

During radio transmissions between Israeli Navy and the ships of the “Free Gaza” Flotilla on 31 May 2010, the Israeli Navy ship attempts to make contact with the ‘Defne Y’ on channel 1-6. Other ships from the flotilla respond on the channel, without identifying themselves. At some point during the radio exchange the Israeli Navy is told by one of the ships to “shut up, go back to Auschwitz” (2:05) and “don’t forget 9-11″ (5:42).

Here’s the audio (the original edited version was in my prior post); there are long periods of silence:

Max, this is your second strike, after your James O’Keefe fiasco.

One more, and you’ll have to get a real job.

Update: STOP DIGGING!

And he’s now added another post in which he claims the IDF full audio is “suspect” because one of the voices on the audio, a leader of the Free Gaza movement, denies making the statement. Oh, okay, that’s proof positive:

The lesson of the debacle is that nothing the IDF says can be trusted by anyone. Not ever. (Of course, that should apply to any nation’s military, and not just “the most moral army in the world”).

No, actually there’s another lesson. Think about it between thrusts of the shovel.

Update 6-6-2010: It has absolutely nothing to do with anti-Semitism (more via Doug Ross):

Strike Three? The IDF just release a list of Specific Flotilla Passangers Linked to Al-Qaeda, Hamas and Other Terror Organizations, which guts Blumenthals prior widely cited claim that “[w]hen placed under journalistic scrutiny, the IDF is being forced to admit that its claims about the flotilla’s links to international terror are based on innuendo, not facts.”

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Related Posts:
Saturday Night Card Game (Max Blumenthal)
The Friday Before The Storm
Helen Thomas’ Greatest Accomplishment

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