BLACKFIVE: Actress Lies About Israel

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Actress Lies About Israel

Posted By Blackfive

The Chicago Sun-Times blasts Vanessa Redgrave for lying about the murder of Palestinian children. Of course, the UN representatives with her did nothing to debunk her accusations.

On Mideast, Redgrave isn't a straight shooter
BY JAY BUSHINSKY

JERUSALEM -- According to Vanessa Redgrave, the British actress and campaigner for human rights, especially on behalf of the Palestinians, Israel's troops practice wanton and deliberate infanticide.

She made this allegation in the course of a monotonal discourse about the suffering endured by the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as her United Nations colleagues and escorts sat beside her without batting an eyelash.

No mother could possibly be accustomed to the fact that her little girl will go to school ''and will sit with her classmates and an Israeli sniper will shoot at a classroom full of Palestinian children who are in their uniforms with their little scarves,'' she said.
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''Any Palestinian mother or schoolchild knows that a schoolchild who is dressed in the uniform can be and is frequently shot in the head -- not in the chest, not in the legs, in the head.''
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Redgrave based this horrendous allegation on one of four documentary films produced by UNRWA (the U.N. Relief and Works Agency) and screened last month at the world organization's alternate headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, where a conference was held on life in the Palestinian refugee camps. The camps are funded and operated by UNRWA.

But a query put to UNRWA's spokesperson in the Gaza Strip, Paul McCann, suggested that the 68-year-old thespian either was dissembling or simply misunderstood...

He cited one of the productions, ''Huda's Story,'' to which Redgrave also referred.
McCann said it was about a Palestinian schoolgirl who was shot in the head in the Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis. However, he pointed out that ''it was a ricochet,'' implying that it was not aimed directly at her head. The Israeli soldiers were not blamed for this incident because there was no indication of the source of fire. ''There was shooting at the time,'' he went on, suggesting that that was all that was known.

Huda, the heroine, who survived, but lost her eyesight, ''didn't get down and lie on the floor fast enough and neither did two of her friends,'' Redgrave continued, contending that Israeli army snipers routinely fire through the windows of Palestinian schools.

This is an astounding and highly provocative charge. It is verbal poison that conforms to the 2,000-year-old blood libel that Jews allegedly engage in the premeditated murder of non-Jewish children.

And it is astounding that the representatives of UNICEF (the U.N. International Children's Emergency Fund) and UNRWA who sat at the dais alongside Redgrave did not deign to disagree or correct her remarks.

Actually, the news conference was attended by only a handful of journalists. The overwhelming majority of the international press corps based here stayed away, perhaps because the proceedings were predictable.

A report carried by Islam online.com thatcontained an excerpt from the Washington Times ignored the alleged Israeli infanticide....

While combat between Israelis and Palestinians might result in civilian casualties, these charges by Redgrave are both calculated and dangerous. It's unfortunate that no other news source followed through on debunking Redgrave's accusations, and, therefore, allowed the Islamic media to be the source rather than the exception.