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Writer's pictureMaria Roberts

Israel's 'Hostages Held By Journalist' Myth *Source*: 'Specky Si, Secret Agent'

Following the horrific Israeli massacre of almost 300 Palestinian civilians during its ‘heroic rescue’ of 4 hostages this weekend, the hasbara fairytale department has been in overdrive to try and divert from the fact that the ‘world’s most moral army’ executed a sneak attack, posing as aid workers, before deliberately wiping out innocent people.


Indeed, as the Israeli High Court demanded the government justify blocking the Al Jazeera news channel in Israel, the busy tale-spinners tried to kill two birds with one stone, claiming ‘Al Jazeera staff are Hamas’ and ‘Hostage held by Al Jazeera journalist’


But even for Israel, basing this entire outlandish tale on the social media ramblings of a bespectacled, 24-year-old American burger-flipper is going a bit far…


The outrage was palpable as news outlet after news outlet exclaimed in horror that freed ‘hostage poster girl’ Noa Argamani was reported as having been held in the home of ‘Al Jazeera journalist’ Abdallah Aljamal – one of the 274 victims killed by the Israeli ‘operation’.


Abdallah was even reported as having been killed with his wife as the two ‘tried to prevent the rescue of the hostages’. Pearls were clutched!


I expect the Israeli government know that ‘the dead can’t sue for libel’…


Pretty much all of the reports on the ‘story’ cited the Twitter account ‘OSINT Defender’ as the source of the information, after it gleaned the name of the dead man from Abdallah’s friend, head of human rights watchdog EuroMed Monitor  Ramy Abdu, who mentioned his death online.

But ‘OSINT Defender’ – as the Israeli machine probably well knows, is hardly a credible source. Operated by one Simon Anderson from (presumably) his mum’s spare room or basement in Georgia, USA, the account has been regularly exposed as posting outrageous misinformation, without later retracting it, and is the subject of numerous complaints.

Despite 'OSINT Defender' being exposed as the inane ramblings of a boy thousands of miles away who presumably has no girlfriend, wife, or indeed life, to more positively fill his time, the Israel-backing press, almost to a man, took in Simon's drivel and cited it as gospel, presented the Georgia incel (who apparently 'talks to himself' online via sockpuppets) as a credible source...


Simon, described by author and expert strategist Emerson T Brooking as 'an 'absolutely poisonous' account, regularly posting wrong and unverifiable things (“sources say”). inserting random editorialization and trying to juice its paid subscriber count. 500k followers with most people retweeting it uncritically' is anything BUT 'credible'


Before last October, Simon – who claims to work as an 'Analyst' for the US Department of Defense (he was a trainee radio technician in the army for, as far as we can tell, three years) and would take a bullet for Trump ‘in a heartbeat’ mainly spent his Twitter time posting pro-Russian misinformation about the invasion of Ukraine – indeed he is pictured holding up a Russian flag, either alongside Army colleagues or, as seems more likely, cosplaying with his fellow oddballs. Said strange cohort presumably believe Si's a 'Miltary Researcher' - or at least pretend to, as long as he pretends to believe they were in 'special forces' - all of them, even the 16-stone teenagers...

Along with similarly strange account ‘War Monitor’ he was even promoted by Elon Musk – before the ‘X-man’ was roundly condemned for associating with such neo-Nazi misinformation accounts.


Oddly for a ‘genuinely important account that’s privy to all sorts of inside information’ Simon has a link in the OSINT bio to his BuyMeACoffee page, which has netted the lad a cool $30,885 since he set it up, doubtless useful to ‘augment’ or ‘buy’ much of his social media following. Nice ‘work’ if you can get it.


Topping the Ko-Fi leaderboard as young Si’s biggest coffee-buying financier is one Steven Salamon. “Who he?” you may well ask.


Well blow me down if Steven didn’t turn out to be the President of the Jewish National Fund (Au). The JNF, widely known for grabbing as much Palestinian land as it can get its mitts on, operates worldwide and has staggering amounts of money – some reportedly used to fund the Israeli Defence Forces.


And misinformation outlets like young Si, Steven?

EuroMed Monitor was quick to rebut the ‘held by journalist’ tripe – Ramy Abdu’s colleague Mohammed Shehada gave the tale a comprehensive debunking.


Strangely, the rebuttal was not given the same publicity as the fairytale and was completely ignored by the aforementioned press, who had latched on to the 'journalist hostage holder' line with such glee...

At the time of writing, Israel (apparently unable to tell the difference between one woman and three men) had rapidly adjusted its tale. Now, it seems, they can ‘confirm’ that the three male hostages were held in Abdallah Aljamal’s family home – presumably after Noa Argamani said she was with ‘a well-to-do Gaza family’, where she was well fed and learned Arabic. EuroMed’s rebuttal still applies – although the hasbara machine doesn’t seem to care.


Oh well, if Israel ‘confirms’ it…

Not to be left out, Israel’s fired liar-for-hire Eylon Levy jumped into the fray claiming Argamani was ‘treated like a slave’ because she had to do the washing up in the Gaza home.


(Despite not actually having a job, or indeed an office, Eylon has a suit, a backdrop, and a made-up looky-likey ‘ Official Israeli spokesperson’ crest, and keeps the fairytales coming!)


Unsurprisingly it was pointed out to him that Palestinians in Gaza had a deal more to put up with than rinsing a few plates – indeed Noa herself had more to put up with; before moving to the new home, she described thinking she would be killed as IDF missiles rained down on Gaza. Eylon didn’t mention that bit – he also didn’t mention the Israeli hostages who were killed during the rescue.


And just when you think he's gone quiet, the self-styled 'spokesperson chirps up again - does the delusionist never sleep!? 'We' are, Eylon would have us believe 'learning more about how Hamas abuses the hostages (and these are the ones held in civilian homes)'

The hostages were, Eylon would have us believe, subject to a range of 'abuses' even worse than having to do the washing-up - including daily beatings, 'almost no food whatsoever', malnutrition...muscle wastage! He would, naturally, have us ignore both the evidence of our own eyes and the testimony of actual hostages who say they were fed, watered, able to wash and change their clothes, and in at least one case given lessons in Arabic, during their time in Gaza. Even his reference to 'civilian homes' belies the fact that the vast majority of Gaza civilians no longer have 'homes' - the 'Israeli heroes' having blown them to pieces...


Perhaps 'forced to do domestic chores' wasn't quite outrageous enough for Eylon?


Helped by mainstream media worldwide, who focused on the ‘heroic hostage rescue’ and largely ignored the hundreds of dead Palestinians, Israel has touted around its poster girl and the three sidekicks for all they were worth.


They were certainly ‘worth’ distracting the world’s eye from the slaughtered children, the use of the ‘humanitarian pier’ in the sneak attack, the US/UK involvement in the bloody operation, and absolutely from the United Nations blacklisting Israel for killing children! They may as well have said "They're only Palestinian children, they don't matter as much as Israeli hostages", because that's exactly what their complicity implied.


As Israel killed even more children...


It’s often said that “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes”, and its true – by the time the actual facts came to light about this ridiculous fairytale, millions worldwide will have seen the lie, believed it, and moved on – they won’t read the later debunking. That’s how hasbara works…



 



UPDATE 11 July 2024: The UN Security Council has passed a ceasefire motion and a 'deal' has reportedly been agreed to by both Hamas and Israel, both of whom have officially announced the fact. Since the agreement of both sides, Israel is apparently having a few problems getting to grips with the fact that 'ceasefire' means they actually have to cease firing, as they have continued to conduct raids and air strikes on Gaza...



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