Gazan's stage injuries for reporters (video)
We often talk about the power of a narrative. People often do not remember facts but they remember a story (narrative) and the attitude it evokes. This goes for war as well as politics as we have posted before:
The rhetoric utilized by government has done more to defeat liberty than all the armies of the world. The war all around us is being fought over the very meanings of words. Meaning does not exist a priori. It is order imposed by individuals with arsenals of communication devices. Every inscription, every utterance, every gesture seeks to dominate the plain of meaning. Real violence is only an extension of this process. Culture, by definition a shared territory of meaning, inspires conflicts far more destructive than any other dispute over territory on the Earth’s surface. It is the message, the communication event that must be targeted.
This is exactly what Hamas does. They put rocket launchers in homes, at schools and mosques and they use children, civilians and even reporters as human shields.
They also stage injuries and fake the deatsh of children for the cameras. It is common in Gaza and behind the scenes the press calls it "Pallywood".
Israeli National News: Miraculous Recovery by Injured Gaza Man?
Pallywood is in high gear as Gazans dupe BBC viewers in time-honored style.
Barely one day into the fighting in Hamas-run Gaza, the locals are hard at work playing the victim for the world's press.
Footage from the BBC captured by watchdog group Honest Reporting shows a heavy man lying on the ground and being carried away by residents, apparently after being injured by an Israeli attack.
Moments later, that same man again fills the frame, except he is walking about and obviously unhurt.
The widespread staging of such victim situations is a favored tactic of Arabs fighting Israel and has come to be known as "Pallywood." Because Israel is stronger militarily, the Arabs cling to the underdog image of poor refugees under occupation and siege by evil Israelis, thus eliciting sympathy.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvaUmIB87-M]