Every time this dipshit publishes a piece about Israel’s war plans, the blogosphere and the media are abuzz with the rumors of war. Joe’s Dartblog put paid to this man’s reputation in a well-researched post months ago.
From Mr. Mahnaimi especially, this flavor of reportage should not be cause for surprise. Such august organizations as The Institute for Historical Review—yes, review of that—count themselves fans of his work. In 1998, before the West awakened to the specter of Islamism, Mr. Mahnaimi was issuing other wild-eyed news bits about the evils of Israel. “Israel Planning ‘Ethnic’ Bomb,†one headline read. Mr. Mahnaimi claimed in his article that Israel was trying to isolate Arab-only genes so that a biological weapon could be developed to destroy them all. These were published in the International Herald Tribune, Uzi’s ravings were, and fell about as flat as this latest news that Israel is going to turn the deserts of Iran into ones even more barren than they are at present.
Israel Matzav has also been keeping an eye on the creep who wrote the long-discredited article that Israel was developing a “gene bomb” that would target only Arabs (an absolutely impossible weapon, by the way), and I am writing this post so that my readers will know to pretty much ignore this idiot’s accusations.
Allison Kaplan Summer also outed the motivations of our man Uzi:
First and foremost – one must consider the source of this story. The Sunday Times journalist in question Uzi Mahnaimi, is a controversial figure, who co-authored a book with Bassam Abu Sharif, former senior adviser to Yasser Arafat and PLO press officer.
While some may believe he has actual military sources in Israel who use him to leak stories that won’t make it past censors, others think he is used by foreign agents to push stories that embarrass Israel. Still others go farther, calling him unprintable names and charging that that despite the fact he works for a mainstream British newspaper, his sources makes Jamil Hussein look like the White House press secretary.
One thing is clear: Mahnaimi makes a regular habit of reporting that Israel is about to attack Iran. If his reporting was accurate, Iranian nuclear facilities would already be a smoking ruin – not once, but multiple times.
And now he says that Ehud Barak’s first move will be to turn Gaza into a war zone, citing, of course, unnamed sources.
So when Uzi Mahnaimi claims that Ehud Barak is going to send 20,000 troops into Gaza to clean out Hamas, you can pretty much discount, well, every word. Except the fact that the IDF has troops. And that Ehud Barak is the new Defense Minister. Uzi’s record is one of, well, let’s see—wrong, wrong, and wrong—yeah, that’s about it. He gets it wrong, every time.
And yet, the Times of London continues to publish his crap and, indeed, was the paper of record where Uzi’s “ethnic bomb” lie was first printed. What does that tell us about them?
UPDATE: Hello, Lizards. Actually, I like this post a little better, as it delineates how many times Mahnaimi has been wrong on invasions of Iran, Israel, and Gaza.
Of course, we can always hope that this time he is correct (he is never right) and that Israel will finally clean out Hamas (using the word in its original Hebrew meaning – violent robbery)
If Israel does so, then there might actually be a chance for peace (and the Mashiach will arrive).
Yourish, would you actually not support the development of a gene bomb, if it could be built?
On what grounds?
What’s wrong with a gene bomb?
At least it’s more selective than a regular bomb.
I think that a gene bomb would be illegal under the Biological Weapons Convention. (That convention did not stop the USSR, a signatory, from developing a supersmallpox weapon, starting innediately after signing it. Totalitarians never abide by treaties, something the advocates of engagement with the Pharaohs of Teheran should bear in mind.) I don’t know if Israel is a party to it but I rather doubt that the Jewish state, of all countries, would countenance such a genocidal weapon even if it were possible. Going by what I’ve read of Meryl’s postings over several years, I am certain that she would not countenance such a weapon either, for the same moral reasons. Israel’s enemies, of course, have no such moral scruples, and you can bet that Gorilla Boy and other Muslim tyrants would have their scientists hard at work on one for Jews if they could.
But the whole idea is ludicrous. Do you suppose there is any significant genetic difference between Arabs and Sephardic or Mizrahi Jews? The genetic differences among ethnic groups and human races are exceedingly small, variations in the numbers of repeats of certain small DNA sequences for example. Even genes we tend to think of as characteristic of a particular race, such as sickle-cell genes among people of African ancestry, are not unique to them. The same mutation crops up among Italians whose ancestors lived in the Romagna, and for the same reason: endemic malaria.
This sort of idea never would have passed the smell test if the Sunday Times editors had had the slightest critical faculty where an opprobrious story about Israel is concerned. That they did not, and published it, can be attributed either to gross incompetence, sheer ignorant stupidity, or antisemitism. That pushing such a scummy story has not totally discredited Mahnaimi is a testimony to the low and vicious nature of contemporary journalism.
Israel has plans to turn Gaza into a war zone? And how would that look different from right now?
Michael is quite right that since half the population of Israel shares some genes with Arabs, this is an absolutely idiotic assertion, one that fails the slightest test of credibility, publishing it as a straight story is suspiciously close to a modern blood libel…so it’s not surprising that the Sunday Times printed it.
Eli: No. On moral and ethical grounds. I am not a believer in genocide, and that is what a genetic weapon is for.
I can’t believe you even asked that question. You are really making me think less and less of you as time wears on.
There is also the fact that a gene bomb is a myth, and it was exploded as such in a very early blogwar between me and someone named Aziz Poonawalla.
Look it up.
Meryl, I have no doubts it is a myth. I’m only considering the hypothetical.
The world has plenty of chemical and biological weapons. I would tend to think that a targeted weapon is less indiscriminate than a non-targeted weapon … unless equal-opportunity-of-death is a moral consideration for bomb-making.
I’m sorry, but all I see here is the answer to a “Have you stopped beating your wife?” question.
Have you?
I am skeptical about anything written about Israel that appears in British newspapers (including The Daily Telegraph) especially from “unnamed sources.” What would be the point of reoccupying Gaza when you would have to leave eventually. Gaza could be brought to its knees (and I am not trying to sound like a military know-it-all) by a combo of artillery, jet strikes, and cutting off of power and water. Last summer they (the IDF) did not even use a third of the fire power that was available to them in Lebanon yet still inflicted enormous losses on Hezbollah. By the way I am thrilled that Peretz the putz is gone, how long before the odious Olmerde follows suit?
No, Meryl, it’s not a have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife kind of question. You’re free to reject any kind of such weapon (which you did). I was just asking what the grounds were, since on the one hand, there is this benefit to them.
And, to tell you the truth, I don’t see how this conflict ends without massive death on one side or the other. And if it is us or them, it might as well be them.
Actually, there was such a weapon in the past. However, I doubt that we will be able to see makas bechoros again because we no longer have overt miracles occurring. Besides, that time 80% of us were left behind in Egypt.
A mythical bomb which, when dropped, only kills the enemy, spares your own soldiers and civilians, and has no long-term effects would be wonderful.
But no such thing exists, and it is likely that no such thing ever will exist.
Any weapon capable of selecting on genetics would be incapable of discriminating between enemy soldiers, civilians from the same population, and allies from that population.
And like other biological weapons, it is doubtful that the area of effect (both in space an time) could ever be controlled.
The Russians call this Dezinformatsiya.