Israel Matzav

Moonbat blogger's commenters force him to retract murder claim

On Friday, moonbat blogger Richard Silverstein published a claim that a 'Palestinian' teenager had died in Shabak (General Security Service) custody under horrible circumstances.

An Israeli source confirms the horrifying news that one of the five Israeli Palestinians detained a few days ago in secret by the Shabak has been killed today (or possibly yesterday) in custody in Jalameh prison near Haifa. The victim was Ashraf al-Baladi of the northern Israeli Palestinian village of Sachnin. Here is a description of what happened to him: he was bound to a chair, he either fell over or was pushed onto the floor. The fall cracked his head open, punctured a lung, and broke a rib. The secret police didn’t know what to do. They couldn’t bring him to a hospital for treatment since he’d been secretly detained.

A doctor was summoned but he arrived too late. The boy died shortly thereafter.

On Saturday, Silverstein was forced by his own commenters to retract.

Trees Kosterman says:
February 19, 2011 at 6:31 AM

Dear Mr. silverstein. I live in the village of Sakhnin. And when I read your article, i asked people around me if they know about those 2 people. Sakhnin is a community that, if something like this happen, it become known immediately. And I didn’t hear about it. Please can you tell me what your news resources are? I really hope that it is not true. Again, if it is true, I wonder why we don’t know. Also the names are very unfamiliar to me.

In sakhnin, everybody knows everything from everybody, and if this happened, then the whole village will talk about it. I hope you can give me some more information

*
Richard Silverstein says:
February 19, 2011 at 9:53 PM

It appears that the names of the detained individuals have been identified but that they don’t live in the villages my source indicated. Plus, both the Shabak and Ahmed Tibi are denying any boy has died in custody. So I’m afraid that the story as my source told it to me is so far unconfirmed. Thanks to everyone who’s done research on this & written to me. And again I apologize for any possibly error there might’ve been in this story.

While it’s possible that this story or some version may be true. I don’t consider it authenticated.

...

Rechavia Berman says:
February 19, 2011 at 12:29 PM

OK, people, calm down. As of now there is zero corroboration for any of this – even the existence of an al-Baladi family in Sakhnin or the existence of any of the names reported by Richard. An aide to a leading Arab MK in Israel whom I asked to look into this got back to me with “No such thing”. Absent further data, I’ma go out on a limb and say this isn’t true. This could change, but as of now there is simply no evidence, so hold off on the letter to your MP and so on.

*
The Answer Giver says:
February 19, 2011 at 5:33 PM

Rechavia,
i have access to a program known as חיפושון
it is a database of all israeli citizens, my version is up to date.
all names and ID numbers exist in the DB.
i can’t publish them, but if you would email me i will provide them to you.

o
Richard Silverstein says:
February 19, 2011 at 10:00 PM

But they don’t live in the villages my source reported & no one in Israel can confirm that any child has been killed in Shabak custody. It’s easy to look in an ID directory & find a bunch of names & claim things happened to them. But that doesn’t constitute evidence that what the source says happened did happen.

And finally this at the top of the post:

Important Update: After numerous attempts to confirm the information published here and being unable to do so, I am sorry to say that at best the account is uncorroborated, and at worst it’s possible the information was not correct (or perhaps credible) to begin with.

I will continue my attempts to verify the details. Meanwhile many thanks to those Israelis who went out of their way to make inquiries on my behalf and apologies to my readers if this story turns out to have been wrong.

I think that's what's called a hoax. Promoting one does wonders for your credibility.

Heh.

Labels: blogosphere, moonbats, Palestinian lies, self-hating Jews

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:34 PM