Fatah uses false video as evidence
Khaled Abu Toameh , THE JERUSALEM POST Oct. 1, 2007
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As part of a campaign to discredit Hamas, Fatah has been using a video
showing the killing of a girl in Iraq as "evidence" of Hamas's "atrocities"
in the Gaza Strip.

On Friday, officials from the Fatah-controlled General Intelligence
contacted The Jerusalem Post, offering the "exclusive" video and story for
publication in Sunday's Post. They claimed that it provided fresh evidence
of Hamas's "barbarity."

The officials even gave the Post the phone numbers of two men in the Gaza
Strip who claimed that they had witnessed the "honor killing" of the
16-year-old girl. The two confirmed (by phone) that they had witnessed the
lynching of the girl in the Gaza Strip.

Since the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, the IDF has banned Israeli
journalists from entering the area. Consequently, the Israeli media (and
many foreign journalists) are forced to rely on local reporters and Fatah
and Hamas officials as a main source of information.

The girl, along with her two sisters, was murdered in the Gaza Strip in July
for "dishonoring" her family. And according to Palestinian human rights
groups, at least 11 Palestinian women have been murdered in the Gaza Strip
since the beginning of the year in what is known as "honor killings."

But thanks to the awareness of readers and bloggers, who responded to an
article on the video that was later removed from the Post's Web site on
Saturday night, the Post did not carry the article in Sunday's paper and has
ascertained that the supposed fresh "evidence" of another such killing is
actually a Fatah hoax.

The video was authentic, but was filmed in April in Iraq. It shows members
of the Yazidis sect killing one of their young girls for carrying on a
romance with a Sunni Muslim boy.

According to Dion Nissenbaum, who covers the Middle East as Jerusalem bureau
chief for McClatchy Newspapers, the same video was feverishly sent around by
e-mail and cell phone last month in Syria. Only the Syrians were telling
each other this was an honor killing perpetrated by the Druse minority in
southern Syria.

The Fatah security officials behind the story claimed on Sunday that they,
too, had been misled by some of their colleagues. An investigation revealed
that the two "eyewitnesses" who talked to the Post were former Fatah
security officers living in the Gaza Strip. The two have since disappeared.
Those who answer their mobile phones claim the numbers are wrong.

Last week, Fatah claimed that its security forces in Bethlehem had thwarted
an attempt by Hamas to launch rockets at Jerusalem. Fatah later admitted
that the "rockets" were old pipes apparently used by Palestinian children
during a game. IDF sources told the Post at the time that the pipes were not
suitable for use as Kassam rockets, but nonetheless praised the conduct of
PA security forces for handing them over to the Civil Administration.

Both Fatah and Hamas are engaged in a campaign of disinformation aimed at
discrediting each other. But the timing of the latest Fatah hoax was clearly
intended to coincide with PA President Mahmoud Abbas's visit to New York.

The goal: to show that Fatah is combating terrorism and that the Hamas
followers are ruthless murderers who don't hesitate to brutally kill a
16-year-old girl.