Anatomy of a 2015 Pallywood incident

I’m not sure if the man’s fall was planned or if he merely tripped as he moved backwards over a curb.

But whether the man fell on purpose or tripped, the story still made international headlines!

A different angle of this incident was uploaded to Facebook. The Arab who made the video claimed that the man heroically prevented the soldiers from shooting Palestinian children, and that he collapsed from inhaling tear gas.

Obviously that wasn’t true, but two weeks later The Independent wrote a story about the incident based on this second video that is just as grossly inaccurate. 

Video has emerged of an elderly Palestinian man confronting armed Israeli soldiers, telling them “you should be ashamed,” before collapsing to the ground.

Amid clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian youths in Hebron, 65-year-old Ziyad Abu Haleel was filmed asking the soldiers, “How do you fire your weapons on kids?”

As one of the soldiers raises his gun, Mr Abu Haleel is warned that he will be arrested if he does not leave. The elderly man responds by refusing to move.

After yelling at the soldiers for a significant amount of time, Mr Abu Haleel can be seen clutching his chest and then falling to the ground.

The Independent is painting a picture of a man about to have a heart attack. In fact his left hand was on his chest while he was yelling for many seconds before he tripped; he didn’t “clutch his chest.”

Also, the Independent implies that the IDF aimed a gun at him, when it was a tear gas gun that was being shot towards rioters regularly during the incident as the soldiers mostly ignored Mr. Haleel.

This all occurred during the height of the “knife intifada.” The Facebook videographer celebrated the murder of rabbis in a Jerusalem synagogue shortly after this incident.

The Independent did not care about the truth. A propaganda video was made, and the Independent constructed a narrative around it that has nothing to do with what actually happened.

Yet even the Independent notes that Mr. Haleel did not have a coronary, and that he was treated at the hospital for minor abrasions from his fall. 

Not quite as egregious as this one, though: