Thomas Wictor

To be Israeli. No, of course I don’t know what it feels like to be Israeli. Nobody’s shooting rockets at me or trying to kidnap me or murder me. But I know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of “arguments” that are utterly demented, dishonest, and distorted. Since I wrote my first post on Pallywood—“A fake atrocity video from Gaza”—I’ve been subjected to a torrent of twisted irrationality from Israel-haters and Jew-haters.

Oops! Pardon the redundancy.

Don’t get me wrong: I knew this would happen. Therefore I don’t regret writing my posts. But I have to say to Israelis, “How in the world can you stand it?”

If I had a button that would dematerialize anybody I chose…

Enough about my fantasies. On to the fantasies of the Jew-haters.

Death threats

Like this one.

They don’t scare me. I’m fifty-two years old, with several chronic illnesses, and I’m in possession of knowledge that eats at me and prevents me from sleeping. Though I’d like to keep living for a while, just to see what happens to this tiny planet and its inhabitants, I’m not afraid of dying.

But you should know that I’m also heavily armed.

“You wanna talk to God? Let’s go see Him together. I’ve got nothing better to do.”

—Indiana Jones
Raiders of the Lost Ark

Lying and moral equivalence

Here’s an email I got today.

This guy admits that he doesn’t know what’s going on in Gaza, but he wants to argue with me about it. People say this to me all the time. “I don’t know what’s happening, but I know you’re wrong.”

Can you not see what a waste of time it is to engage someone who has no factual knowledge?

As for the accusation that the Israelis used “human shields,” it was actually called the “Neighbor Procedure” or the “Early Warning Procedure.” When the Israeli Defense Forces had a wanted man cornered, they would encourage a Palestinian acquaintance to try and talk the suspect into surrendering. The IDF says that it never forced people into carrying out the Neighbor Procedure; Palestinians volunteered so that the area wouldn’t become a battle zone.

“Human rights” groups claim that the Palestinians volunteered only because they’re terrified of armed Israeli soldiers.

Look at these poor, frightened, cowering Palestinians.

Doesn’t it break your heart to see them so afraid of armed Israelis?

The troops of the demonic apartheid state of Isra-hell are monsters who create panic wherever they go.

I have to stop! I can’t stand to see these powerless, cringing Palestinians in such fear!

In 2002 the Israeli Supreme Court put a temporary injunction on the Neighbor Procedure, aka the Early Warning Procedure, and in 2005 the court banned it altogether. When individual IDF soldiers actually use human shields, they’re punished. For whatever reason the Israelis have allowed their opponents to deliberately distort the Neighbor Procedure into “using human shields.” Anyone capable of critical thinking can see that the Neighbor Procedure is entirely different from Hamas’s use of human shields.

The idiot who sent me the e-mail equating the now-outlawed IDF Neighbor Procedure with Hamas’s use of human shields conveniently overlooks the FACT that Hamas has itself said that the purpose of involving civilians in their military operations is to get them killed.

“For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry.”

Right from the source. In plain language. The IDF Neighbor Procedure was created to save lives, while the Hamas use of human shields is to kill as many people as possible, on an industrialized scale.

Before you try to debate me, learn the basics of this conflict, mm-kay? Thanks.

Straw men and smilicons

Last night I did an experiment on Twitter. A Thai took issue with my Pallywood posts, calling them propaganda. This person was completely incoherent and played all sorts of games, even though it styles itself a “truth teller.”

Beware of anyone who has the word “truth” in their user name or Website. They’re all lunatics.

I wanted to see how far this Thai thing would go, so I kept answering it. The way it “scored points” was by completely distorting what I said and then heroically taking down its own fabricated argument.

What the Thai thing was talking about was my observation that in three weeks, Hamas set off more than half the IEDs that insurgents blew up over five years in Iraq. I never said Hamas used five times the amount of IEDs detonated in Iraq in five years. And it’s completely sourced. The IDF reported that Hamas had set off over 1000 IEDs. That’s reality. The Brookings Institute says that Iraqi insurgents set off 1869 IEDs from 2003 to 2008.

Here’s how the Thai thing responded.

Right. I’m the only person who’s published the FACT that Hamas compressed two and a half years’ worth of asymmetrical warfare into three weeks; as a result my Website is the only one where you can find that information. Is it my fault that nobody else thought to compare Operation Protection Edge to Operation Iraqi Freedom?

The Thai thing only pretended to not understand my point. Being deliberately obtuse is another power trip. It’s a way of forcing you to continually explain yourself. Only deeply inhumane, sadistic, narcissistic swine are deliberately obtuse. Just so you know. I’m an expert on these creatures; they’ve had a terrible impact on my life. When someone is being deliberately obtuse, don’t cut them any slack. Hit them where it hurts. They richly deserve it.

Another straw man the Thai thing built was this.

I most emphatically did not say that. What I said is that the overwhelming majority of the damage was caused was IEDs either deliberately set off by Hamas or detonated by the Israeli Defense Forces using inert bombs or engineers. The Thai thing can’t tell IED damage from damage caused by aerial munitions, artillery, or tank rounds. Fine.

But I can tell.

The Thai thing made a statement that took me a long time to figure out.

What the Thai thing meant was that the IDF had provided NO VIDEO that showed secondary explosions. That allegation confused me because it’s like saying, “Barack Obama is not the President of the United States. Miley Cyrus is. Here she is at her inauguration.”

So I linked to an IDF video that showed massive secondary explosions. The Thai thing acknowledged that they were indeed secondaries.

Then the Thai thing moved the goalposts and said that the IDF had provided only a few videos that showed secondaries. For me to state that most of the damage in Gaza was caused by IEDs, I had to have seen every single explosion, according to the Thai thing. It was projecting its own ignorance onto me.

I really don’t know how you Israelis can deal with this. Being confronted with such implacable mental illness every day has been very depressing. But it’s also made me more determined to continue debunking the slanderous accusations made against Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces.

And all you Jew-haters do me a favor: STOP TELLING ME THAT EVERYTHING I WRITE IS ONLY MY OPINION. I myself am very clear that it’s only my opinion. Therefore you don’t need to remind me.

I guess you think I’m going go, “Jumpin’ catfish, he’s right! This is only my opinion! I can’t share my opinion! That would wrong!”

My unsourced opinion of Thailand True News is that it looks like this.

Just a hunch. I could be wrong.

But you know I’m not. 🙂