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“The Boy Who Wasn't Really Killed”: Israeli State Violence in the Age of the Smartphone Witness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2021

Rebecca L. Stein Open the ORCID record for Rebecca L. Stein [Opens in a new window]
Rebecca L. Stein*
Affiliation:
Department of Cultural Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA
*
Corresponding author. Email: rlstein@duke.edu
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Abstract

Over the course of the first two decades of the twenty-first century, within the occupied Palestinian territories, photographic technologies and image-oriented politics would grow increasingly central as activist and human-rights tools of bearing witness to Israeli state and settler violence. This essay investigates the Israeli right-wing and international Zionist response to these Palestinian visual archives and their perceived threat. In particular, it tracks the rise and normalization of a repudiation script that impugned the veracity of these images, arguing that they were fraudulent or manipulated to produce a damning portrait of Israel. Drawing on post-colonial and settler-colonial studies, as placed into dialogue with digital media studies, the essay focuses on three cases studies of repudiation (2000, 2008, 2014, respectively) to consider how the long colonial history of repudiation in the Israeli context would be progressively updated by right-wing Israelis and their international supporters to meet the challenges posed by the smartphone age. By the second decade of the twenty-first century, the script had become an increasingly standard Zionist response to viral images of Palestinian death or injury at Israeli state or settler hands. Repudiation was thus marshaled as a solution to the viral visibility of Israeli state violence by bringing the otherwise damning images back into line with dominant Israeli ideology, a process of shifting the narrative from Palestinian injury to Israeli victimhood. The story of the “false” image of Palestinian injury endeavors strips the visual field of its Israeli perpetrators and Palestinian victims, thereby exonerating the state. Or such is the nature of this digital fantasy in the Israeli colonial present.

Keywords

digitalconspiracycolonialIsraeloccupationPalestine
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , November 2021 , pp. 620 - 638
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Ahed's mother, Naiman Tamimi, was also a celebrated activist in her own right. See Vered Maimon and Shiraz Grinbaum, eds., Activestills: Photography as Protest in Palestine/Israel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016).

2 Ahmed Tufayel, “‘There Is a Real Wonder Woman’: Artist behind Famous Che Guevara Print Turns Brush to Palestinian Teen Jailed by Israel,” Newsweek, 13 February 2018, https://www.newsweek.com/ahed-tamimi-wonder-woman-che-guevara-artist-805403.

3 “Ahed Tamimi, Palestinian Viral Slap Video Teenager, Freed in Israel,” BBC, 29 July 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-44995949.

4 Tamar Sternthal, “Cheap Shots: Palestinians Put Kids in the Line of Fire,” Times of Israel, 11 September 2012, http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/cheap-shots-palestinians-put-kids-in-the-line-of-fire.

5 Orly Goldklang, “Tamimi vetsahal: Tistaklu ‘aleyhem vetir’u et Betselem,” Makor Rishon, 22 December 2017, https://www.makorrishon.co.il/nrg/online/1/ART2/907/242.html. Accessed on 2 March 2020.

6 Yoav Zitun, “Bakhir be-Tsahal: “Meḥapsim li-Hyot Ḥakhamim ṿe-lo Tsodḳim,” Ynet.com, 20 December 2017, https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-5059341,00.html.

7 Ben Caspit, “Lo Pa'am Ne'emar she-yesh Miḳrim sh-Bahem Ipuḳ hu Koaḥ, Anaḥnu Be'itsumo shel Eḥad Ka-zeh,” Maariv, 19 December 2017, https://www.maariv.co.il/journalists/Article-614459.

8 Eli Ashkenazi, “‘Hayale Tsahal be-Adashat ha-Matslemah’: Ben Muḥamad a-Dura le-Tamimi,” Walla, 6 January 2018, https://news.walla.co.il/item/3124922.

9 Yoni Rotenberg, “Ha-Metsigah Falasṭinit, ha-Hafaḳah Yisre'el,” Arutz Sheva, 28 December 2017, https://www.inn.co.il/news/362542.

10 Raoul Wootlief, “Deputy Minister: Israel Probed Whether Tamimi Family Is ‘Real,’” Times of Israel, 24 January 2018, https://www.timesofisrael.com/deputy-minister-israel-probed-whether-tamimi-family-is-real.

11 Joshua Davidovitch, “Who Are You, Ahed Tamimi?” Times of Israel, 24 January 2018, https://www.timesofisrael.com/who-are-you-ahed-tamimi. See also Yotam Berger and Jonathan Lis, “Israel Secretly Probed Whether Family Members of Palestinian Teen Ahed Tamimi Are Non-Related ‘Light-Skinned’ Actors,” Haaretz, 25 January 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-investigated-whether-ahed-tamimi-s-family-was-real-1.5762887.

12 Robert Mackey, “Senior Israeli Official Mocked for Bizarre Claim That Detained Palestinian Teen Is a Paid Actor,” The Intercept, 25 January 2018, https://theintercept.com/2018/01/25/israeli-official-mocked-bizarre-claim-detained-palestinian-teen-paid-actor.

13 Ibid.

14 Tova Lazaroff, “Palestinian Teen Filmed Slapping IDF Soldiers Arrested Overnight,” Jerusalem Post, 19 December 2017, https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Palestinian-teen-filmed-slapping-IDF-soldiers-arrested-overnight-518453.

15 Carolina Landsmann, “How Much Idiocy Can Israeli Society Take?” Haaretz, 26 January 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-how-much-idiocy-can-we-take-1.5766991.

16 Mackey, “Senior Israeli Official.”

17 Landsmann, “How Much Idiocy.”

18 Joel Beinin and Rebecca L. Stein, eds., The Struggle for Sovereignty: Palestine and Israel, 1993–2005 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), 1–26.

19 Tawil-Souri, Helga, “Digital Occupation: Gaza's High-Tech Enclosure,” Journal of Palestine Studies 41, no. 2 (2012): 27–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anan AbuShanab, Connection Interrupted: Israel's Control of the Palestinian ICT Infrastructure and Its Impact on Digital Rights, 7amleh: Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, December 2018, https://7amleh.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Report_7amleh_English_final.pdf.

20 See Adi Kuntsman and Rebecca Stein, Digital Militarism: Israel's Occupation in the Social Media Age, Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015).

21 See Jason Wilson, “Crisis Actors, Deep State, False Flag: The Rise of Conspiracy Theory Code Words,” The Guardian, 21 February 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/21/crisis-actors-deep-state-false-flag-the-rise-of-conspiracy-theory-code-words.

22 Edward W. Said, The Question of Palestine (New York: Times Books, 1979); Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (New York: Routledge, 2007).

23 Wolfe, Patrick, “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native,” Journal of Genocide Research 8, no. 4 (2006): 387–409CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 On the history of this charge, see William J. Mitchell, The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992); Mia Fineman, Faking It: Manipulated Photography before Photoshop (New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012); and Andie Tucher, “‘I Believe in Faking’: The Dilemma of Photographic Realism at the Dawn of Photojournalism.” Photography and Culture 10, no. 3 (2017): 195–214. On its wartime valence, see Errol Morris, Believing Is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography (New York: Penguin Press, 2011).

25 Kuntsman, Adi and Stein, Rebecca L., “Digital Suspicion, Politics, and the Middle East,” Critical Inquiry 1, no. 10 (2011): 1–10Google Scholar.

26 Recent scholarship on the discourse of fake news includes the following: Ward, Stephen J. A., “‘Digital Reliance’: Public Confidence in Media in a Digital Era,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 18, no. 3 (2017): 3–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mould, Tom, “Introduction to the Special Issue on Fake News: Definitions and Approaches,” Journal of American Folklore 131, no. 522 (2018): 371–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kalpokas, Ignas, “Affective Encounters of the Algorithmic Kind: Post-Truth and Posthuman Pleasure,” Social Media + Society 5, no. 2 (2019)Google Scholar; and Greenhouse., Carol J. “‘This Is Not Normal’: Are Social Facts Finished?” American Anthropologist 121, no. 1 (2020): 167–70Google Scholar. Scholarship that has attended to the histories of such processes includes Hill, Rebecca, “A Hundred Years of Fake News,” American Quarterly 70, no. 2 (2018): 301–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and James W. Cortada and William Aspray, Fake News Nation: The Long History of Lies and Misinterpretations in America (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2019).

27 Lisa Gitelman and Geoffrey B. Pingree, New Media, 1740–1915 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003).

28 Kuntsman and Stein, “Digital Suspicion”; Kuntsman and Stein, Digital Militarism.

29 Adi Schwartz, “In the Footsteps of the al-Dura Controversy,” Haaretz, 1 November 2007, https://www.haaretz.com/1.4993146. Much of the voluminous Israeli scholarship on al-Durrah is presented through a hasbara lens. See, for example, Eytan Gilboa, “Public Diplomacy: The Missing Component in Israel's Foreign Policy,” Israel Affairs 12, no. 4 (2006): 715–47; and Michal Shavit, Media Strategy and Military Operations in the 21st Century: Mediatizing the Israel Defence Forces (New York, NY: Routledge, 2016).

30 Shavit, Media Strategy.

31 Richard Landes, “The Muhammad Al-Dura Blood Libel: A Case Analysis,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 6 October 2008, http://jcpa.org/article/the-muhammad-al-dura-blood-libel-a-case-analysis.

32 Landes's eighteen-minute film about al-Durrah can be seen at https://vimeo.com/65294892 (accessed 1 June 2021). Landes's blog can be found at http://www.theaugeanstables.com (accessed 1 June 2021).

33 Mel Frykberg, “Palestinian Village Takes on Israeli Military,” Electronic Intifada, 8 July 2008, https://electronicintifada.net/content/palestinian-village-takes-israeli-military/7610.

34 See B'Tselem for an elaborate account of the incident, including the trial that followed; “The Army Must Internalize the Gravity of the Ni'lin Shooting Incident,” B'Tselem, 27 January 2011, https://www.btselem.org/firearms/20110127_nilin_shooting_sentence.

35 Because the versions varied, the court employed polygraphs for the commander and soldier in an attempt to establish legal blame. Hanan Grinberg, “Ha-Yeri be-Na'alin: Ha-Magad veha-Ḥayal Hurshe'u ba-Averot Ḳashot,” Ynet.com, 15 July 2010, https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3920174,00.html.

36 Nir Dvory, “Ḥayal Tsahal Yarah be-Falastini Kafut mi- Ṭevaḥ Efes,” Ynet.com, 20 July 2008, http://reshet.ynet.co.il/%D7%97%D7%93%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/News/Politics/Security/Article,5260.aspx; “Temunot Be-tselem al Yeri ba-Falasṭini ha-’Azuk, ha-Milah ha-Aḥarona,” The Last Word, GLZ radio broadcast, 2008.

37 The legal details of this case provide additional information. See Eitan Diamond, “Law Trumps Hate? Enforcing Legal Constraints on Use of Force in Armed Conflict in the Face of Literal, Interpretive and Implicatory Denial,” unpublished paper, 2007. Scholars have also studied the original decision of the Israel military advocate general. See Orna Ben-Naftali and Noam Zamir, “Whose ‘Conduct Unbecoming’?: The Shooting of a Handcuffed, Blindfolded Palestinian Demonstrator,” Journal of International Criminal Justice 7, no. 1 (2009): 155–75. Abu Rahma along with several NGOs (including B'Tselem) would successfully petition the Israeli High Court of Justice; Grinberg, “Ha-yeri be-Na'alin.”

38 Uzi Baruch, “Duaḥ Ha-levi: Ha'ashamot Be-tselem Ḥasrot Basis,” Arutz Sheva, 21 July 2008, https://www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/177597.

39 Boaz Fyler, “Physicist: Naalin Shooting Tape Doctored,” Ynet.com, 1 June 2011, https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4010082,00.html.

40 Shahaf would also appeal to the Israeli public in a popular idiom, employing the language of “Whoever made this deserves an Oscar”; Josh Breiner, “Ha-zihuy ha-pelili: te'ud ha-yeri ba-mafgin be-Ni'alin ami,” Walla, 6 January 2011, https://news.walla.co.il/item/1776914.

41 Allen Tchaikovsky, “Havat Da'at shel Mumḥeh,” Israel Police, Digital Evidence Lab, 14 December 2010, https://www.btselem.org/heb/legal_documents/20101214_nilin_shooting_difs_report.pdf.

42 Grinberg, “Ha-Yeri be-Na'alin.”

43 Kuntsman and Stein, Digital Militarism.

44 Taghreed El-Khodary and Sabrina Tavernise, “U.N. Warns of Refugee Crisis in Gaza Strip,” New York Times, 19 January 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/world/middleeast/13mideast.html.

45 Charles Johnson, “More Death Cult Propaganda,” Little Green Footballs (blog), 10 August 2006, http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/22036_More_Death_Cult_Propaganda.

46 For background on the popular protests in Bil‘in and the role of cameras as activist tools, albeit at an earlier moment in the media ecosystem, see the documentary by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi, Five Broken Cameras (New York: Kino, 2012).

47 “Publication of the Report of the Government Review Committee Regarding the France 2 Al-Durrah,” Israel Prime Minister's Office, 19 May 2013, https://www.gov.il/en/departments/news/spokeadora190513.

48 Ben Caspit, “Muhammad Al-Dura: The Boy Who Wasn't Really Killed,” Jerusalem Post, 12 May 2013, https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Muhammad-Al-Dura-The-boy-who-was-not-really-killed-312930.

49 “Publication of the Report of the Government Review Committee.”

50 Caspit, “Muhammad Al-Dura.”

51 Josh Breiner, “Ha-Yeri be-Ni'alin: Ha-Magad Burberg lo Yurad be-Dargah,”Walla, 27 January 2011, https://news.walla.co.il/item/1785582.

52 For a discussion of the uptake of similar claims by NGO Monitor, see Nicola Perugini and Neve Gordon, The Human Right to Dominate (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015).

53 B'Tselem is Israel's premier human rights organization, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.

54 Noam Sheizaf, “Beitunia Killings and the Media's Incredibly High Bar for Palestinian Stories,” +972 Magazine, 21 May 2014, https://972mag.com/beitunia-killings-and-the-medias-incredibly-high-bar-for-palestinian-stories/91166.

55 Eishton, “Pallywood: The Dark Matter of the Zionist Universe,” +972 Magazine, 17 February 2017, https://972mag.com/pallywood-the-dark-matter-of-the-zionist-universe/125274.

56 Jodi Rudoren, “Two Palestinians Killed in Clashes with Israeli Forces,” New York Times, 29 July 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/world/middleeast/two-palestinians-killed-in-clashes-with-israeli-forces.html?_r=0.

57 The Forensic Architecture team also worked closely on this case: “The Killing of Nadeem Nawara and Mohammed Abu Daher,” Forensic Architecture, 20 November 2014, https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/the-killing-of-nadeem-nawara-and-mohammed-abu-daher.

58 “B'Tselem's Initial Findings on Nakba Day Incident at Bitunya: Grave Suspicion that Forces Willfully Killed Two Palestinians, Injured Two Others,” B'Tselem, 20 May 2014, https://www.btselem.org/releases/20140520_bitunya_killings_on_nakba_day.

59 Ibid.

60 For a chronology of the events, see Uzi Benziman, “Im Ṭriḳ u-Shṭiḳ,” Seventh Eye, 29 May 2014, https://www.the7eye.org.il/110932.

61 International human rights organizations condemned the Israeli security forces for their unprovoked killing of unarmed Palestinians, and UN bodies called for an “independent and transparent” investigation of the killings. “UN Calls for Probe into Shooting of Palestinian Youths,” Haaretz, 20 May 2014, https://www.haaretz.com/un-probe-shooting-of-palestinian-youths-1.5249007.

62 “Ya'alon Says Troops in Nakba Day Killings Were in Danger, Acted as Needed,” Times of Israel, 20 May 2014, https://www.timesofisrael.com/yaalon-says-troops-in-nakba-day-killings-were-in-danger-acted-as-needed.

63 Ariel Kahana, “Liberman: Eyn Tsorech la-Ḥaḳor et Eru'ey Bitunia,” Makor Rishon, 21 May 2014, https://www.makorrishon.co.il/nrg/online/1/ART2/580/502.html.

64 Ibid.

65 Ibid.; Jack Khoury and Chaim Levinson, “IDF Says Forgery Likely in Video Showing Palestinian Teens’ Deaths,” Haaretz, 22 May 2014, https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-idf-shooting-video-forged-1.5249101.

66 For a review of the debates around the footage, see Eishton, “Ha-Eḳdaḥ ha-Me'ashen be-Bitunia hu bi-khlal Tarmil Me'ofef: be-Nigud le- Ṭa'anat Tsahal,” Eishton blog, 29 May 2014, https://eishton.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/nakba_day_bitunya_shooting_analysis.

67 Benziman, “Im Ṭriḳ u-Shṭiḳ.” For a critique of the military correspondent, Roni Daniel, in this instance, see Moran Sharir, “Roni Dani'el: zeh shelo Yode'a li-She'ol,” Haaretz, 21 May 2014, https://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/television/tv-review/.premium-1.2327148?=&ts=_1488994493519.

68 Kahana, “Liberman.”

69 See the Elder of Ziyon blog for frequent attention to Pallywood; for example, “Pallywood Again? IDF Denies Using Live Fire during ‘Nakba Day’ Demonstration,” 20 May 2014, http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2014/05/pallywood-again-idf-denies-using-live.html.

70 “How Vulnerable Is the U.S. Power Grid?; Outrage over Teens’ Death Growing; Violence in Ukraine; Balance of Senate Power Up for Grabs,” 22 May 2014, CNN, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1405/22/wolf.02.html.

71 The Israeli investigative blogger, Eishton, provides a thorough review of the case; see “Pallywood.”

72 Diamond, “Law Trumps Hate?”

73 Wolf Blitzer interview with Benjamin Netanyahu (transcript), CNN, 20 July 2014, http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2014/07/20/netanyahu-to-cnns-wolf-blitzer-i-support-taking-whatever-action-is-necessary-to-stop-this-insane-situation.

74 “Of Course Nadim Nawara Was Killed by Live Fire: But Where?”Elder of Ziyon , 12 June 2014, http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2014/06/of-course-nadim-nawara-was-killed-by.html.

75 Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1979).

76 “Video: Soldier Executes Palestinian Lying Injured on Ground after the Latter Stabbed a Soldier in Hebron,” B'Tselem, 24 March 2016, https://www.btselem.org/video/20160324_soldier_executes_palestinian_attacker_in_hebron. The photographer was Imad Abu Shamsiya. He would experience abuse and intimidation after the footage aired; Yael Marom, “The Camera That Made Elor Azaria ‘Man of the Year,’” +972 Magazine, 2 October 2016, https://972mag.com/the-camera-that-made-elor-azaria-man-of-the-year/122371.

77 Natasha Roth-Rowland, “Nobody Should Be Shocked at the Hebron Execution,” +972 Magazine, 16 March 2016, https://www.972mag.com/nobody-should-be-shocked-at-the-hebron-execution.

78 Yonah Jeremy Bob, “IDF Finds Ambulance Driver Tampered with Knife after Shooting of Hebron Attacker,” Jerusalem Post, 1 June 2016, https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/IDF-finds-ambulance-driver-moved-knife-closer-to-Hebron-attacker-after-shooting-455675. On the legal history of this exculpatory military narrative, see Diamond, Eitan, “Killing on Camera: Visual Evidence, Denial and Accountability in Armed Conflict.” London Review of International Law 6, no. 3 (2019): 361–90Google Scholar.

79 On the mainstream Israeli response to the military, see Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, “Nearly Half of Israeli Jews Support Extrajudicial Killings, Poll Finds,” +972 Magazine, 14 September 2016, https://972mag.com/nearly-half-of-israeli-jews-support-extrajudicial-killings-poll-finds/121904; Gili Cohen, “Hebron Shooter Elor Azaria Sentenced to 1.5 Years for Shooting Wounded Palestinian Attacker,” Haaretz, 21 February 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/hebron-shooter-sentenced-for-shooting-wounded-palestinian-attacker-1.5489979; and Isabel Kershner, “Israeli Soldier Who Shot Wounded Palestinian Assailant Is Convicted of Manslaughter,” New York Times, 1 April 2017, http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/04/world/middleeast/elor-azaria-verdict-israel.html. On the legal context, see Omer-Man, Emily Schaeffer, “Extrajudicial Killing with Near Impunity: Excessive Force by Israeli Law Enforcement against Palestinians,” Boston University International Law Journal 35 (2017)Google Scholar.

80 Gili Cohen, Barak Ravid, and Jonathan Lis, “Thousands Rally for Soldier Who Shot Palestinian Assailant; Netanyahu Urges Calm” Haaretz, 19 April 2016, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-thousands-rally-for-soldier-who-shot-palestinian-assailant-1.5436631.

81 Marom, “Camera That Made Elor Azaria.”

82 Jonathan Cook, “Elor Azaria Case: ‘No Hope of Equality before the Law,’” Al-Jazeera, 5 January 2017, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/01/elor-azaria-case-hope-equality-law-170105070408594.html.

83 Yaniv Kubovich and Noa Landau, “Elor Azaria, Israeli Soldier Convicted of Killing a Wounded Palestinian Terrorist, Set Free after Nine Months,” Haaretz, 8 May 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-hebron-shooter-elor-azaria-released-from-prison-after-nine-months-1.6070371.

84 Lahav Harkov, “Likud Deputy Minister Enlists Elor Azaria in Primary Campaign,” Jerusalem Post, 23 January 2019, https://www.jpost.com/israel-elections/likud-deputy-minister-enlists-elor-azaria-in-primary-campaign-578417.

85 Gitelman and Pingree, New Media, xii–xiii.

86 Wolfe, “Settler Colonialism,” 387–409.