UPDATE
Only hours after the publication of this critique and in a response to a complaint from HonestReporting, the Daily Mirror appears to have removed not only the offending photo but the article in its entirety. A cached version of the article can be viewed here.
UPDATE 2
The Mirror article is back up but the offending photo has been removed and replaced with a tweet of the “picture of Israelis eating popcorn.”
* * *
This is the incendiary picture of Israelis eating popcorn and cheering as they watch the bombardment of Gaza which has sparked outrage on Twitter. — The Daily Mirror
Actually, it’s not.
Under the headline ‘Israelis pictured eating POPCORN and clapping as they watch deadly bombardment of Gaza,” the Daily Mirror reports on a tweet by Danish journalist Allan Sørensen accusing Israeli residents of Sderot of turning the conflict in Gaza into some form of sick entertainment. The picture makes it appear that the Israelis are enjoying watching Palestinian civilians burn under an attack using white phosphorus.
But there’s something wrong here. Actually a few things are wrong.
Residents of Sderot and other southern Israeli communities have suffered years of rocket attacks from Gaza. Their children have virtually grown up in bomb shelters. Anyone in such a circumstance would be happy to see that those who have launched rockets at them are now being attacked. Perhaps they are watching the Israeli strikes against Hamas rocket launchers that have terrorized them for years. Perhaps they are watching the Iron Dome system intercepting these rockets high in the air. From the picture of the Israelis, there is no way to tell what they are looking at.
But we DO know what they are NOT looking at. They are not looking at the the scene depicted by the Mirror. How do we know? Aside from the fact that it is not possible to see that level of detail from afar, the larger accompanying photo was actually taken years ago.
Here is the original taken by Getty Images on January 17, 2009:
The Mirror have simply found an old picture and set it up to back up their headline. What better way to frame the false narrative of bloodthirsty Israelis?
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