10-Sep-17: Someone turned on the lights in Gaza. Will news editors see?

Gaza's Nusseirat power station, June 2017 [Image Source: AP]

If the news reporting industry had more integrity, there would be blaring headlines this morning focused on a simple decision taken by the thuggish Hamas terrorist regime who rule the Gaza Strip.

Hamas ponies up for fuel from Egypt, seeking to boost power in GazaSources says terror group has recently purchased $25 million worth of diesel, giving enclave six hours of electricity between blackouts and possibly staving off protests
By AVI ISSACHAROFF
September 10, 2017, 9:43 am | Times of Israel 

Hamas has recently bought large volumes of diesel fuel from Egypt in an effort to increase the output of the Gaza Strip’s only power station, after months of refusing to shell out money to provide electricity to the Strip’s residents. 

Already limited power supplies in the Palestinian coastal enclave have been further squeezed amid a spat between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas over who should pay for the fuel. The purchase of some 30 million liters of diesel from Egypt, at a cost of NIS 90 million ($25 million), indicates a change in attitude on the part of Gaza’s rulers, likely indicating a bid to stave off a repeat of street protests that roiled the enclave last winter. 

Most Gazans — aside from some areas in the north of the Strip — now get six hours of electricity instead of the previous four, but still must wait through the periodic 12 hour blackouts. 

Hamas, a terror group that is the de facto ruler of the Strip, has refused to pay for the Israeli electricity, claiming the PA is responsible for the funding. Earlier this year the PA reduced the amount of electricity it was pay for and as a result electricity supplies in Gaza were reduced from six hours to four hours followed by a 12-hour blackout. 

In June, former Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahlan struck a deal between Egypt and Hamas by which Cairo would begin trucking in fuel, paid for by the UAE. In a shift, Hamas will now begin paying the fuel and bring more of it in, sources told the Times of Israel...

Until now, Hamas had refused to pay for the fuel, insisting it was the responsibility of the PA, while spending millions of dollars of military infrastructure...

The cynicism of the two rival Palestinian Arab regimes - the one ruled by president-for-life Mahmoud Abbas and the one run by Hamas - is almost unfathomable.

The lives of the Gazan population - since 2006 following the savage blood-letting between fighters of the two that enabled Hamas to expel the Palestinian Authority and take control - have been held hostage to their aggressive ambitions and couldn't-care-less approach to the consequent suffering.

Indispensable to the whole unconscionable process has been the willingness of reporters, photographers and editors from almost all parts of the global news media to play along. There's nothing new in that. See for instance two of our posts from 2008, replete with photographs: "26-Jan-08: Humanitarian crises and dark manipulation" and "10-Feb-08: The lies that pictures can tell" and especially the photos embedded in each of them.

In the latter, we noted how

AFP photographer Mahmoud Hams and the Agence France Press newsagency concocted this piece of nonsense on January 22, 2008. His evidently-staged picture, published throughout the world the following day, shows Gaza "law-makers" meeting to do their vital legislative business in the Israeli-created dark... while bright daylight is blocked out by the drawn curtains. Hams obviously knew he was taking a snapshot in the full light of day. It's evident to anyone with eyes that he is a willing participant in a dangerous charade, a deliberate distortion of reality, a lie. And so are are his AFP masters.

And much more recently this from AFP 11 days ago: "When electricity comes on, life in Gaza begins" in which Hamas is mentioned but in effect exonerated of substantive responsibility. Today's developments make clear how materially misleading that view is.

Now let's sit back and wait as the news sites and blogs that have systematically concealed the manipulative cruelty of the Hamas jihadists against their own people own up to how Hamas could have solved Gaza's problems a decade ago and at every moment since then by making the decision to do what normal governments are expected to do for their people. They have the cash, they have the ability, they could have bought diesel fuel, they could have repaired the power station, they could have provided electricity at any and every point along the way.

But it made more sense for them to showcase a population suffering for the lack of enough electrical power. And to feed those news outlets that are predisposed to present a twisted reality, no questions asked. Literally.

Of course, reporting this would be to throw into the garbage the bogus convention by which the rocket-infested Gaza Strip is depicted as Israel's victim. That's not going to happen soon.

4-Oct-11: Both sides of the lens

Here's what Ruben Salvadori says about himself:

I'm an Italian student currently dual majoring in International Relations and Anthropology/Sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. I'm planning to get my MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography in 2011/12 at the London University of Arts, College of Communication, UK.

What brought this perceptive young man to our attention is a brief video that's online in various places (and now here, below) that thoughtfully examines the interplay between photographers and their subjects. In his words, it's "an auto-critical photo essay showing the paradoxes of conflict-image production and considering the role of the photographer in the events."

We've written often about the power of imagery in telling the stories of the complex Arab/Israel conflict. There's no lie greater than the old cliche "the camera never lies". In reality, the camera lies almost every time the shutter clicks. And when the photographer herself is animated by a political, activist agenda, the lies can be especially articulate.

Salvadori is not concerned with exposing lies. He takes no political or ideological position in his project. It's enough that he raises some important questions. We'd paraphrase it this way: Why are most people so unaware that photographers play a role in the news, and not only by reporting it? Their role is little noticed, rarely remarked upon or analyzed, and frequently manipulative. How dangerous is this?

Several of his images are below. Others can be seen at Ruben Salvadori Photography Blog – Open Your Eyes: Presenting Photojournalism Behind the Scenes.

He points out that the iconic imagery above of a young and (by obvious implication) angry Palestinian Arab is something of a co-production in which the assembled media professionals (below) are active and knowing collaborators.

Here's the action behind another iconic image: the child rock-thrower at the flaming barricades - Little David vs Zionist Goliath:

An especially evocative image below captures the reality that some (from our experience many, and some say most) of the media professionals capturing and marketing the imagery of Palestinian Arabs conducting a confrontation with Israeli society are themselves drawn from the same society. This picture below shows the videographer laying aside his tools of trade and praying alongside the subjects of his photography.

The video below includes some commentary by the young photographer himself.

Photojournalism Behind the Scenes [ITA-ENG subs] from Ruben Salvadori on Vimeo.

A picture is worth a thousand words. And as with words, it's important to know something about the author and the circumstances and never to suspend one's critical faculties.

10-Feb-08: The lies that pictures can tell

We're indebted to Solomonia who first brought to light the shabby role played by mainstream news-agency photographers and their editors in perpetrating the massive ongoing hoax of the Gaza electricity cuts, along with the no-less-fraudulent "humanitarian disaster" nonsense being peddled by mainstream news channels.

Now with Israel finally reducing power supplies to Gaza step by tiny step, it's a good time to review some of the lies and the identity of those peddling them over the past three weeks. Here's a selection.

1

AFP photographer Mahmoud Hams and the Agence France Press newsagency concocted this piece of nonsense on January 22, 2008. His evidently-staged picture, published throughout the world the following day, shows Gaza "law-makers" meeting to do their vital legislative business in the Israeli-created dark... while bright daylight is blocked out by the drawn curtains. Hams obviously knew he was taking a snapshot in the full light of day. It's evident to anyone with eyes that he is a willing participant in a dangerous charade, a deliberate distortion of reality, a lie. And so are are his AFP masters.

2

Mohammed Salem of Reuters was there the same day, taking the same snapshot, playing along in the very same charade. Perhaps Mohammed prepared the curtains for Mahmoud... or did Mahmoud switch off the lights for Mohammed? No matter - the pay-masters at Reuters lapped it up, and sent this pic off to their paying newspaper customers throughout the world. With bright daylight barely concealed by the semi-transparent curtains, they must have a considerable degree of contempt for the intelligence of their customers and their news-consumers.

3

Another newsagency snap - the Pal-Arab legislators of Gaza, forced to do their critical democratic duty by candle-light. Someone forgot to tell the editor in London to crop out the windows whose curtains barely manage to keep the bright daylight out.

4

Mohammed Salem again - same candles, same daylight streaming through the curtains. Does he have a complete moron for an editor at Reuters?

5

Hard to imagine a more tragic proof of Israeli heartlessness. Clear evidence the Zionists have cut off power indiscriminately. Collective punishment of the weakest in society, forcing even the preemie ward at this Gaza maternity hospital to pay an unbearable price. But wait a moment, could that be...? (See next pic.)

6

Yep. Same ward, same babe, different angle. Suddenly it's not a power-deprived hospital because (take a closer look) the electrically-powered monitor off to the side is working just fine. 

So who exactly was in the dark here? Certainly not the photographer. He knew the game he was playing. Did his editors?

7

Desperate Gazans, demonstrating in the pitch dark with nothing but their candles to light the way. Somehow the editors at head office forgot to crop those pesky electrically-powered street lights in the background out of the frame; they're clearly operating here in full force.

8

Abu Haykel must have forgotten to point out to his Reuters editors that those street lights and shop signs in the background needed to be edited out of the pictures he sent them to illustrate their "Gaza plunged into darkness" stories. There's plenty of darkness here... but it's not on Gaza's streets.

9

Same Abu Haykel, same idiot editor at Reuters who must have been transfixed by the subtle effect of the candles in the hands of the street protestors. And just forgot that the lights in the background - street lights, commercial signs - are powered by the electricity that isn't supposed to be there.

There's a serious message here. Some of the biggest brand-names in the news-manufacturing world - and certainly including AFP and Reuters - have no problem at all fabricating a story if it fits the agenda of the editors.

The Snapped Shot ("exposing photojournalism one frame at a time") website, among others, does a fine job of tracking the liberties these people are taking with our credulity.

Agenda-driven photographers, photo editors and news packagers are a menace because in a world existentially threatened by jihadists and other terrorists, if you get these stories wrong, you are liable to make the most catastrophic mistakes.

That's exactly what the terrorists want to happen, and their friends in the huge news factories (AP, Reuters, AFP et al) are either their willing accomplices or prize fools.

26-Jan-08: Humanitarian crises and dark manipulation

Far from the headlines of the mainstream media, there are things going on with the jihadist Hamas regime in Gaza that are being ignored by journalists, their editors and political analysts. The terrorist-generated narrative is being swallowed wholesale even while the clear evidence of manipulation is there for anyone (who cares to see it) to see.

Palestinian reporters told an alert journalist on Wednesday that, in the midst of the many tear-soaked international headlines of a threatening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Hamas staged a phony 'photo op' meeting in Gaza City while they were seated in front of burning candles. The picture at right comes from Reuters. Somehow the Pal-Arab journalists - but not the editors at the major international news agencies - noticed that the need for candles was completely artificial. Both meetings were being held in daylight.

The ever-quotable Khaled Abu Toameh writes: "They had closed the curtains in the rooms to create the impression that Hamas leaders were also suffering as a result of the power stoppage," one journalist told The Jerusalem Post. "It was obvious that the whole thing was staged. Another journalist said he and his colleagues were told to wait for a few minutes before entering the chamber of the Palestinian Legislative Council so that each legislator would have time to light his candle. He said that when he saw that the curtains had been closed to prevent the light from entering, he realized that Hamas was trying to manipulate the media for political gain."

Nothing especially profound here... except that not a single mainstream media channel reports it. But the pictures of a phony blackout are everywhere. And accurate reporting of the facts is practically invisible.

What sort of darkness really descended onto Gaza this week? Consider this analysis from Joel Leyden and Amir Mizroch:

"As the clock struck 8 p.m. this past Sunday night, prime time in the Middle East, Israel and Europe for TV news broadcasts, the Al Jazeera satellite TV network opened its top-of-the-hour news bulletin with a live scene from Gaza City. The footage was powerful and unforgettable: thousands of people gathered to light candles in a Gaza City plunged into darkness. The possibility that the Hamas PR machine itself had switched off the lights in the densely populated city to create the impression of an urgent humanitarian crisis was likely not considered by many watching the broadcast... How could Al Jazeera broadcast if there was no electricity? Where did those candles come from? Who organized this demonstration and how much were they being paid? Why wasn't this information getting out? The Israel decision over the weekend to reduce shipments of industrial diesel fuel to the Gaza power station, still fresh in the minds of worldwide viewers, was presumably seen overwhelmingly as the cause of the outage. Never mind the fact that Israel's Ruttenberg power station in Ashkelon was still streaming electricity into Gaza and that there had been no Israel action that shut the city's lights off."

Noah Pollak points out that less than a third of Gaza’s electricity comes from within Gaza. A tiny amount is supplied by Egypt, and by far the largest share is generated in and supplied by Israel. "It was the power station inside of Gaza that was shut down, and not shut down by Israel, but by Hamas, in order to lend credibility to its effort to generate international pressure against Israel’s blockade of the Strip. For the media, it staged candle-lit scenes and trumpeted the fiction that Israel had plunged Gaza into darkness."

To which we add that the Israeli power station that supplied, supplies and will continue supply electric power to the huddled masses of Gaza living under jihadist rule has been under constant fire (via Qassams) by the armed representatives of those same huddled masses since Israel removed its soldiers and its thriving communities from Gush Katif and the other Jewish enclaves in Gaza two years ago.

Seems the people kept in the dark are not limited to the areas under jihadist control. No sign that anyone's about to turn on the real lights.