[ by Charles Cameron — and yes, “p.16 below the fold” is pretty much the news equivalent of “at the back of the bus” ]
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A prime-time Dutch TV news show, De Wereld Draait Door, regularly includes a satirical segment, and the other day the segment editors spliced together a number of snippets of Netanyahu speeches to produce this clip, which they may feel represents Netanyahu’s true feelings, but which clearly isn’t what he actually said.

As the Jewish news agency JTA noted:

The video, made to appear genuine through seamless splicing of sound bites from previous speeches by Netanyahu, was spread by thousands of Twitter and Facebook users who advertised it under the headline “Netanyahu finally tells the truth.”

“We are conducting these surgical operations against schools, mosques, hospitals, children,” Netanyahu is heard saying, adding, “This is something I don’t have to explain to Americans.”

That video is satire. You may like it, you may not like it, but it is satire.

**

Here for comparison is the genuine news video on which it was partly based:

Two friends of mine, from different areas of my social life, reposted the faked video on Facebook, one of them with the comment:

fourth reich innit

No it isn’t. It’s a satirical mashup of Netenyahu speeches, spliced together to make him appear to say the exact opposite of what he actually says.

And the lady who posted the satirical video got 26,422 (and counting) people to “share” it.

Look, anyone who can post or share that satirical video piece without noting up front that it is satire is either

believing Netanyahu would say such a thing as “We don’t not share your concern about civilian casualties at all .. one of the things we are doing is trying to maximize the number of civilian casualties, we prefer that” to Hilary Clinton, with world news sources watching, without a ripple of suprise or condemnation — or

knows it to be a smear, and is using it to stir up hatred in an already hypertense situation

**

In this case, the hatred stirred is against the Israelis. Earlier this week, two other Facebook posts by friends of mine passed along equally misleading memes whose purpose was to stir up hated for Muslims.

There are important things that need to be said about both Israelis and Muslims in these volatile times — but stirring up hatred is hardly a route that’s likely to lead to peace.