The Al Jazeera Media Network logo is seen on its headquarters building in Doha, Qatar, June 8, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Naseem Zeitoon
The Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera reported a fake poll on Thursday claiming nearly half of Israelis support sexually assaulting Palestinian prisoners who are in Israeli jails.
The news outlet posted the fake poll on its Arabic language X/Twitter account with a custom graphic and a caption reading, “47% of Israelis support sexual assaults on Palestinian prisoners, according to a poll by Israel’s Channel 12.”
It has since deleted the tweet.
BREAKING: Al Jazeera just posted the fabricated poll that Rashida Tlaib promoted yesterday.
Al Jazeera — and its Qatari overlords — are the enemies. pic.twitter.com/Llf5puzbmN
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) August 8, 2024
The specific origin of the fake poll is unknown, but an image of it has made its way around anti-Israel social media circles within the past week.
Many users pointed out that it should have been obvious the poll was a fake because the question was clearly pasted in later and was not a part of the original image.
Nevertheless, it was posted by professors at American universities and even a member of the US Congress.
Rutgers University professor Noura Erakat posted the fake graphic with the caption, “When you tell a society it has a right to commit genocide, surely they believe they have the right to rape.”
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) retweeted Erakat’s post.
A @RutgersU professor posted a digitally altered photo accusing Israelis of supporting a soldiers right to rape Palestinians. As close to an actual blood libel as you’ll get in my opinion. It was RT’d by @RashidaTlaib, a US congresswoman.
Hope it is deleted w an apology soon. pic.twitter.com/i8FhmtDyUD
— David/Dovid Bashevkin (@DBashIdeas) August 8, 2024
Erakat later deleted the post and wrote, “Rep Tlaib trusted me & posting this wo cross checking was my mistake.”
She continued, “But surely u understand how one would take this poll to be true in light of video of gang rape of a Palestinian detainee & Knesset + public debate on whether such rape should be ok. THAT is the disgrace, Alex.”
In recent weeks, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has arrested guards at the Sde Teiman detention facility who allegedly sexually assaulted a Palestinian prisoner. Video later came out of the assault taking place behind a wall of guards apparently aimed at making sure the cameras did not catch it.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller called the allegations “horrific” and said, “There ought to be zero tolerance of any sexual abuse, rape, of any detainees, period.”
The detention facility has come under scrutiny for months after CNN reported on whistleblowers who revealed that torture and humiliation of prisoners allegedly took place there. It may soon be shut down and Israeli documents show that only 28 prisoners remain in the facility.
This is not the first time Al Jazeera has promoted misinformation it has later had to retract.
In 2019, it produced a video claiming the Zionist movement misrepresented the Holocaust. It was posted on Al Jazeera’s younger, more hip channel called AJ+ with the caption, “Gas ovens killed millions of Jews…So the story says. How true is the #Holocaust and how did the Zionists benefit from it?”
Two journalists were suspended over the incident.
More recently, Al Jazeera in June reported on footage of a dog from the Oketz canine unit of the IDF appearing to attack an elderly Palestinian woman. The brutal scene sparked outcry against the IDF online and throughout the Arab world.
According to the IDF, however, the German Shepherd in the video was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists, who subsequently used it to film the attack before killing the animal and booby-trapping its body with explosives in the event that Israeli soldiers tried to retrieve their canine comrade.
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