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Smart Bombs and War Porn Hit YouTube

By Alexandra Samur, The Tyee. Posted January 13, 2009.


Israel using Net to highlight 'humane action and operational successes.'
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As the bombing in Gaza intensified, so did the Israeli Defense Forces' (IDF) online propaganda campaign. The IDF had been uploading several gun camera videos per day of so-called "smart bombs" falling on Gaza to their YouTube channel.

But recently, following an onslaught of viewer complaints, YouTube yanked one of the IDF's videos that, like the IDF's other YouTube clips, ostensibly showed their "humane actions" (purportedly, it showed operatives loading rockets onto pickup trucks before a fireball from an IDF missile obscured all view of the scene).

Then, YouTube put it back after still more pressure from viewers. That day the IDF posted a response on their channel profile: "We were saddened earlier today that YouTube took down some of our exclusive footage showing the IDF's operational success in operation Cast Lead against Hamas extremists in the Gaza Strip. Fortunately, due to blogger and viewer support, YouTube has put back up some of the footage they removed."

YouTube's attempts to censor the videos seemed to spur the IDF to post even more extreme footage. In early January, 28 new videos shot of the Gaza offensive were uploaded to the IDF's channel. Of these, 20 or so show the army's precision strikes using smart bombs purportedly destroying the Hamas government's offices, and bombs "neutralizing mosques," each of which has been viewed thousands of times. So far, these "precision strikes" have been responsible for 540 deaths in Gaza, including at least 200 civilians. The Associated Press reported that 14 children died on Monday alone.

Though the IDF has claimed its channel is designed to "highlight the IDF's humane action and operational successes" in Gaza, the videos demonstrate the group's mastery of the art of war porn.

Perhaps even more depressing, the growing popularity of these violent videos -- together with the lower viewership for the channel's only two videos that purport to show the IDF's humanitarian side -- suggests there is a dark appetite amongst the viewing public for these mainstream snuff films.

If, when and how a truce will be restored to the region remains to be seen. Certainly, however, there's a new format for the media war being waged, with the IDF's YouTube channel showing "humane actions," and other media outlets focusing on the significant civilian casualties.


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See more stories tagged with: israel, bombing, youtube, gaza

Alex Samur writes regularly about online video for The Tyee.

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No comment allowed
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Posted by: mkdelta69 on Jan 14, 2009 6:15 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Only yellow lying cowards don't allow comment.
You will pay for the USS Liberty
Only total lying idiots couldn't discern USS Liberty from any other ship.
There is no hole deep enough to slime into.

IDF and NSA brothers in lies.

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The Media prohibits Israel's Self Defense
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Alan Sharavsky on Jan 17, 2009 10:35 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Hamas uses human shields, then parades the victims before the press to score sympathy points. Yet, when Israel issues a rebuttal, demonstrating in video how it attempts to reduce casualties, you call it "War Porn." Does Hamas engage in "Casualty Porn"?
There is no such thing as a good war, and the deaths in Gaza are horrible. Equally horrific, and naive, is to think that Israel should not defend herself as best she can. Hamas is to blame for all of it. The goal is to end the ongoing terror of the rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, numbering over 6,500, and the threat of suicide bombers. If it was your family and your house in the path of a rocket, what would YOU do?

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Sorry, this comment has been removed from the system.
» I wish! Posted by: ScoobyDoobyDoo
This comment has been removed from the site due to non-compliance with AlterNet's community policies.
The "Human Sheild" argument is a hollow one
[Report this comment]
Posted by: dauphin534 on Jan 17, 2009 11:07 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
hypothetical:
What if Homeland security had a tip that terrorists were hiding out in a neighborhood in Philadelphia. They drop a smart bomb on the house but also end up killing 15 of the terrorists' neighbors. Would we blame the terrorists for using their Philadelphia neighbors as human shields? No, everyone would see it clearly as disproportionate force.

This is all hypothetical, of course, as Homeland Security would never do such a thing, because the residents of Philadelphia are seen as people whose lives matter to some extent. Anyone who makes the "human shield" argument to justify civilian casualties in Gaza can't possibly see the Palestinians as people whose lives matter.

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"Smart" bombs? I...don't...think...so!
[Report this comment]
Posted by: monkeywrench on Jan 17, 2009 11:16 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Roughly 20% of laser- and GPS-guided "smart bombs" miss their targets, and another percentage of those that do land accurately fail to detonate, leaving unknown numbers of time bombs for whomever might find them, sometimes years later – including children.

It seems that "smart bombs" ain't so smart after all – just one of many dirty little secrets that Israel, and various other countries' militaries, including the US, don't want you and me to know.

Oh, and by the way; those lovely fireworks-like displays of "stars" cascading to the ground from air-bursts of Israeli bombs that we've been seeing on the evening news? Most likely, those are phosphorus incendiaries which are designed to maim, cannot be put out by conventional means, stick and burn skin and muscle to the bone, and the use of which on civilians is considered to be a war crime.

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Suicide by stupidity
[Report this comment]
Posted by: monkeywrench on Jan 17, 2009 11:29 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In the last five years, 25 Israelis have been killed by Hamas' rockets – a tragedy to be sure. But, instead of using the Moussad or others to launch surgical strikes against the the militant few in Gaza, Israel decides to punish the entire population for Hamas' election, first with a withering blockade of even food and medicine, and then by initiating a "scorched-earth" policy of bombing the very structure of Gaza's government – by using phosphorus weapons and by bombing even UN and international schools for God's sake! – and killing or horribly aiming hundreds of civilians.

Doesn't seem much like a proportional response to me – and would anyone care to guess what will be the future "proportional response" from the rest of the arab world? I wonder if the Israelis have ever heard of The Little Big Horn or "Custer's Last Stand?"

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» RE: Suicide by stupidity Posted by: thejanet2
This comment has been removed from the site due to non-compliance with AlterNet's community policies.
Rogue State Israel
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Posted by: Jeffrey Levy on Jan 17, 2009 12:14 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Terror has been central to Israeli and pre-Israeli policy at least since 1948 when the LEHI group assassinated diplomat Folke Bernadotte. In 1953 Ariel Sharon's troops massacred 69 civilians; in 1982 the Israeli Air Force carpet bombed 20,000 civilians fleeing the onslaught on Beirut. Tragically, there are many more examples.

Israel and the US have stood unilaterally against the international consensus for peace since the General Assembly started voting in 1976. As long as the US continues to finance Israeli crimes -- most notably those of the Occupation -- they will continue, and the Israeli propaganda machine will continue to crank out lies.

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syed salamah ali mahdi
[Report this comment]
Posted by: salamah on Jan 18, 2009 5:19 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The Israeli leaders, I mean, the criminals who occupied Palestine in two steps , first in 1948 & the second in 1967, can try as much as they want, till Kingdom come, will never never never be able to wipe the blood of Palestinians on their hands, You Tube or No You Tube! Imagine the Nazis justifying their atrocities in 1944-45, had they not been defeated! The Nazi style Israeli racists will meet the same fate as their predecessors in 1945. Israel of today is where the Third Reich was in 1939-41. 1944-45 is only a few years ahead.

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Israel's Olympic Event
[Report this comment]
Posted by: weathered on Jan 26, 2009 2:54 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
breaking their arms patting themselves on the back about how wonderful they want you to think they are.

Im not sure whats worse, the self-promotion or the deceit?
Now we see just how sick the patient really is.

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Say no to the Apartheid state of Israel - one state solution is the only option left
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Posted by: MeyravLevine on Jan 26, 2009 5:45 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
How is it that people can actually defend any action that Israel takes?

Israel is an Apartheid state. It has built roads and settlements in prime West Bank and East Jerusalem which it doesn't want to give up.

These settlements are the "facts" on the ground that Ariel Sharon come up with in the 70s so that Israel can claim more of the Palestinian land.

All that is left for Palestinians is a concentration camp known as Gaza and bantustans known as East Jerusalem and West Bank.

Hamas has repeatedly declared that it accepts two state solution on the 1967 border. So has PLO, the 22 nation Arab League, the UN, and much of the world.

Israel, in its quest for Eretz Yisrael, continues the policy of ethnic cleansing.

Unless Israel draws back to the 1967 border, there won't be a viable Palestinian state. As such the two-state solution is dead.

Palestinians ought to demand a single state that includes the Gaza concentration camp, West Bank and East Jerusalem bantustans, and Israel as a single unified state.

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real life snuff movies
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Posted by: hilaryuk on Jan 26, 2009 12:12 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I am constantly amazed that the same people who protest vociferously if a singer's nipple slips out in a sports stadium, salivate happily over pictures of military death-dealing. But what really makes me despair is that the Israel PR machine read its audience so accurately. Perhaps the human race has reached its nadir, and it's time for the whole sorry genetic mistake to slip back into the slime - singing hymns while it does so, of course.

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This comment has been removed from the site due to non-compliance with AlterNet's community policies.
It's funny how...
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Pirate1 on Jan 26, 2009 7:20 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Anyone resisting the suffocating oppression of Israel is automatically called Hamas... Trust me, if WE were getting the fuck bombed out of our cities and villages and some of us decided do something to resist, we'd be called terrorist or "enemy forces" by those we would be fighting. It is no different there. Anyone with the guts to stand up for their freedom and dignity against the Israeli War Machine is labelled Hamas, whether they actually are or not. Most of them are just fed up people with nothing left to lose. You fat asses who sit in judgement, whose biggest fear is the loss of your material comfort...
You make me sick. These people are the patriots of THEIR land. As were the Native Americans who resisted the white takeover of their lands. The Israel of today is as fascist as the one in 1930s Germany whose brutalities their own ancestors fled.

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What the Hell is a Smart Bomb?
[Report this comment]
Posted by: DrBrian on Jan 26, 2009 8:13 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
A bomb is an implement of death and destruction. There's nothing smart about that, nor is there much intelligence amongst politicians who think that problems can be solved through massive violence.

As my hero Dr King reminded us:
The ultimate weakness of violence
is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate....
Returning violence for violence multiples violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

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Watch TV - this video isn't nearly as violent as FOX entertainment
[Report this comment]
Posted by: leland61 on Jan 26, 2009 8:44 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Watch the material on the major broadcast/cable media channels. This stuff from Gaza etc., is kids stuff.

Try 24 for instance to see how the networks are busily softening up the American people to view torture, murder and mayhem as normal parts of the way the government and the American people do business.

Rotted and decomposing body parts are routine fare on the CSI programs, Bones and other such media. A long distance shot filmed in infrared or whatever it is, is less than child's play.

Then listen to the monstrous, hate mongering fulminations of the TV preachers. Let's not blame Israel for all of this. We have to take the blame for creating a world where violence is the best and often the first way of problem solving. America leads the way. We have invaded two countries without cause that would stand up in any international court of war crimes. And when I say 'we' I mean that this is at least on paper still a democracy and if you haven't been busy trying to bring the American war criminals to justice, you have absolutely no room to complain about the nasty responses of a nation surrounded by people who want to see it eliminated from the face of the earth.

GROW UP!!!!! GET A LIFE!!!! GET A GRIP ON REALITY!!!!

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It would be bettere if we all spent more energy...
[Report this comment]
Posted by: harryf200 on Jan 27, 2009 6:31 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
... campaigning against our own countries abuses of human rights and war crimes than complaining about other nations. Perhaps we need to put our own houses in order first?

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ISRAELIS ALREADY HAVE A HOMELAND
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Noor on Jan 28, 2009 10:46 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
THIS WHOLE "GIVE US A HOMELAND" THING IS A F*CKING FARCE. THE NECESSITY OF A HOMELAND WAS ~ AND CONTINUES TO BE ~ A FARCE. THE ZIONISTS HAVE ANOTHER HOMELAND THAT IS 20+ YEARS OLDER THAN THE STOLEN PALESTINE IN 1948.

http://www.birobidjan.co.uk/
Birobidjan

AND ALL OF YOU POOR DELUDED FOLKS WHO SUPPORT THESE ZIONISTS? THEY LAUGH AT YOU AS THEY USE YOU. WE ARE ALL GOYIM TO THEM AND HIGHLY EXPENDABLE. WHAT THEY DO IN GAZA IS NOTHING NEW. THEY DID IT IN POLAND, THE UKRAINE, ARMENIA, AND NOW IN PALESTINE. AND THEIR VICTIMS IN OTHER PLACES WERE CATHOLIC AND CHRISTIAN. NOW THEY FOCUS ON THE ARABS. THE HORRORS PERPETRATED ON THESE PEOPLE IS ALMOST BEYOND BELIEF BUT THE REPORTS ARE FROM CREDITABLE SCHOLARS. THE THINGS DONE ARE SUBHUMAN AND TRULY ABOMINABLE, WAR OR NOT.

http://www.answer-christianity.com/jewish-ritual-murder.htm
Jewish Ritual Murder

PLEASE EDUCATE YOURSELVES. WHAT THEY DID IN GAZA IS BUT ANOTHER RITUAL SACRIFICE OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN BY FIRE TO THEIR EVIL GOD. THE ACTS OF THE RED JEWS IN RUSSIA AGAINST GOOD CHRISTIAN WOMEN AND CHILDREN IS BEYOND FOUL.

I MAY SOUND LIKE I RANT, BUT THESE SITES ARE WORTH LOOKING THROUGH BEFORE YOU JUDGE ME. I JUST GET SO FRUSTRATED READING SO MANY OF YOUR ARGUMENTS. AFTER READING, JUSTIFY THEIR ACTIONS IF YOU CAN. NO, THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION AT ALL. AND THEIR YOUTUBE PROPAGANDA IS AS OBSCENE AS THE REST OF THEIR ACTIONS. HOW STUPID DO WE WANT TO BE FOR THEM TO CONTINUE?

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