There are surely many things to be said about this “Freedom for Palestine” music video, but I will limit myself to the animation which begins at about 2:00, in which we see Israeli soldiers deliberately destroying a Palestinian school, and pushing down a Palestinian woman holding a baby and trying to cross a checkpoint, apparently to get medical treatment for the child.
Libel number one: The depicted attack on the school may be a reference to the reports during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in 2008-2009 that Israel shelled a UN school, killing more than 40 people taking refuge there. In fact Israel shelled a Hamas mortar battery near the school, but no one in the school at the time was killed– although unfortunately a number of civilians in the vicinity were killed. As Richard Goldstone of Goldstone Report fame recently admitted, there is no evidence that Israeli forces ever deliberately targeted civilians during Cast Lead.
Libel number two: While Israeli soldiers sometimes behave in an unnecessarily humiliating or brutal manner to Palestinians at checkpoints, and deserve to be punished for it, I have never heard of an IDF soldier deliberately knocking down a Palestinian woman carrying a baby in need of medical care. Unfortunately due to certain incidents, including one in which four Israelis paid with their lives for their humanitarian concern, passage for Palestinians to Israeli hospitals isn’t always swift or easy.
However even during Cast Lead, Gazans in need of medical care were admitted to Israeli hospitals. And Israeli organizations such as Shevet Achim continue to arrange for Gazan children to receive urgent medical treatment in Israel.
It will come as no surprise that the supporters of the video include such anti-Israel groups as War on Want, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Friends of Al Aqsa and the Stop the War Coalition.
The band Coldplay linked to the video on their website, but have since removed the link.
