Suri Teller
Executive Secretary
National Council of Young Israel
3 West 16th Street
New York, New York 10011
212-929-1525 ext. 113
steller@...; www.youngisrael.org

It's an urban legend.

Jonathan Marks discusses it in this week's Jewish Week, "Tragedies Real

Imagined: Herzl's children and the myth of phantom e-mails".

We have enough legitimate gripes against the media, including Reuters.
(Their photographs and captions are often misleading and manipulative --
see CAMERA's "Reuters photos pictures of bias" at
.)

But we weaken our case when we spread misinformation. If you've circulated
this to others, please retract.

zvi

P.S. Here's an excerpt from Marks' article
( ):

One of the great phenomenons arising out of the confluence of politics and
the Internet has been the phantom e-mails, unattributable information from
obscure sources, that are forwarded around the world and, too often,
accepted as fact.

Among Zionists, these phantom e-mails often take the form of complaints
about the media's bias against Israel. The most recent example is the
deluge of e-mails we've received about a pair of photographs that are said
to have been "widely distributed" for the sake of Palestinian propaganda.

In the first photo, an Arab boy is seen in the far distance throwing a
rock. In the second photo, the boy is arrested, looking up in terror at

Israeli soldier-captors, supposedly having "wet his trousers," according

the caption. We're told that the "biased" media only ran the picture of

little boy under arrest, not the one of him throwing a rock.

How do these things get started? This campaign was the product of Politics
Now, a Hebrew-language Israeli political portal and Web magazine run by
Yossi Shturm, 39, who told The Jewish Week he's the former chair of the
student union at Tel-Aviv University, and later the National Union of
Israeli Students, before working in the press and communications division
of the Jewish Agency and striking out on his own.

Shturm says the photo campaign began on April 7, when he received an

from an Israeli in Japan containing the picture of the arrested

child, with a note saying that the picture came from a Palestinian source.

No, both photos were taken by Reuter's photographers, the one of the rock
throwing by Evelyn Hockstein; the one of the arrest by Natalie Behring.

pictures can be seen by going to the photos search on Yahoo! news section
and looking up the photographers by name.

The photo of the arrested child inspired compassion, said a worried

In an e-mail interview, he said that when he saw the photo a second time

a Web discussion group, "I felt that the Palestinians are starting a media
campaign."

In fact, the only media campaign was Shturm's. When questioned, Shturm
could not name one newspaper that used these pictures. All he could cite
was a mention of the picture by Yediot Ahronot (April 10), but Yediot did
not use the picture itself.

Shturm posted the two pictures on Politics Now, and warned that the media
was using one picture, but not of the boy throwing rocks. The form-letter
e-mails to us said that here was "The picture [of the arrested Arab boy]
that moved hearts. ? Be amazed at the TRUTH regarding media treatment of
the Palestinian war against Israel.... Undoubtedly, this picture is very
moving, and everyone can share the pain and panic of the child, that led

such an embarrassing moment [of the wet trousers]. The Palestinians, who
truly understand the power of the image, spread this picture worldwide
[but] they did not show the other picture [that] was not as widely
distributed."

Although the initial Reuter's caption on April 6 says the Arab boy "wets
his trousers" when arrested, that supposition was soon edited out by
Reuter's. The boy's pants were clearly mucked up, but throwing rocks in

dust and mud is mucky business. But while Reuter's edited that out within
hours, in later sendings of the pictures, Shturm and his e-mail army did
not reflect the changed caption. The e-mails sent visitors to Shturm's
Politics Now site, not to Reuter's or Yahoo!, where the change could be
seen.

All in all, the episode was a storm warning about a storm that never was,
reflecting a Jewish mood that takes bias for granted, is convinced that

Arabs are publicity geniuses, and that our fears are the same as fact.

of that, in this case, was true.


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Rabbi Aaron S. Tirschwell
Associate Executive Director; Director of Synagogue Services
National Council of Young Israel
3 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011
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