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| Middle East |
| Israel releases graphic aftermath video of bombing, catches flak |
| 2004-02-02 |
| Hat tip: Drudge. Edited for brevity. The camera jostled past the crush of rescue workers, entered the bombed bus and paused on bloody pieces of flesh hanging from a twisted window frame. It moved to a severed right foot flung against a curb, then halted on an arm in the middle of the street. For the first time in more than three years and after scores of suicide bombings, the Israeli government has taken the horror and gore of a bus bombing directly to the public via the Internet, bypassing what one senior Israeli official called the "distorted" coverage of the international news media. "We decided this was the only way for us to bring our message to the world," said Gideon Meir, a senior foreign ministry officer. "It took us 3Âœ years to show these pictures." The decision to put the graphic five minute and 38-second video on the Israeli Foreign Ministry Web site just hours after Thursday’s explosion, which killed 11 people and the bomber, has unleashed an emotional public debate in a nation weary of a conflict that has turned Israeli buses, cafes and public streets into targets and frustrated by political leadership on both sides that has not ended the violence. Foreign ministry official Meir said the agency’s Web site had received 600,000 hits on the video as of Sunday night. On Thursday, the day of the bombing, the site temporarily collapsed under the volume of attempts to view the footage, which carried the understated warning – "Caution: Video contains very graphic footage." "Showing bodies or body parts . . . lying on the ground and using it for political ends is disgusting," said Jeff Halper, who heads the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition, an organization that monitors Israeli military actions against Palestinians. He accused the Israeli government of "trying to sell a certain political program, the wall, and to recruit the dead for this mission." "We should ignore the dead and maimed because it will help my political ends." The video footage on the government Web site, www.mfa.gov.il, was taken by Ilan Sztulman, 45, who heads visual productions for the ministry of foreign affairs. He said he arrived at the scene of the Thursday attack only minutes after the blast and the opening shots of the video show the jerky movements of a cameraman running toward the bus amidst a crowd of rescue workers. "I get to the zone much faster than any other photographers because I have special permission to go in," said Sztulman. "Most of the journalists cannot go in until the bomb officers declare the area is bomb-free." At Thursday’s bombing, most journalists were kept more than 30 yards from the bus in the first minutes after the explosion. Many of the body parts video-taped by Sztulman had been collected by rescue workers by the time journalists were allowed to move closer. The 11th victim’s body was so mutlilated that the passenger, an Ethopian woman, was identifed only this weekend using DNA tests. |
| Posted by:Dar |
| #8 Let all the preachers of moral equivalence and those professing to be "fair minded" regarding Israel and the Palestinians watch the footage over and over until they get sick of seeing it. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-2-2 9:25:51 PM |
| #7 Time to show what the Paleo death cults are all about - I think the splodeydope remains should be broadcast all over Paleostine - let em ululate - some will be disgusted and turn away |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-2-2 9:12:03 PM |
| #6 reality is reality regardless of any political ends. LOL. Wait... are you serious? You supply the ends and TV will give you the reality. :( |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-2-2 6:41:15 PM |
| #5 I'm sure some idiot will protest that it's only Ok to show the footage as long as we are sure that the severed member is from an Isreali citzen. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-2-2 6:12:22 PM |
| #4 it's about time!!! Finally, Israel is playing the media game. All we've seen so far is (sometimes staged) wounded paleos crying for the camera. Let the world see what Israel suffers at the hands of these barbarians. |
| Posted by: PlanetDan 2004-2-2 5:38:41 PM |
| #3 reality is reality regardless of any political ends. |
| Posted by: Dan 2004-2-2 5:04:15 PM |
| #2 This Jeff Halper sounds a nasty piece of work. [google] Ah, he wants to honour Rachel Corrie. Went to Israel in 1973 and is a professor of anthropology at Ben Gurion University. I think Israel has done the right thing in making this video available. There is far too much censorship of what people *should* be able to see. The jumpers from the WTC, bits of bodies after a splodeydope detonates, the list goes on. If people don't know what the enemy are capable of, they won't be in a position to make reasoned judgements about what to do about the situation. Oh, I think I've figured it out... |
| Posted by: Tony (UK) 2004-2-2 5:02:48 PM |
| #1 Has the Security Fence gone up near Bethlehem? |
| Posted by: Daniel King 2004-2-2 3:41:39 PM |