The latest threat to the existence of Israel by Matt Giwer, © 2002 [June]
Flying soon to a city near you? You have to keep a sense of humor about these things. Once again Israel has made a laughing stock of itself while shooting itself in the foot. Israel claims the picture is real. The parents say the picture is real. The israeli army looters even steal family photos. And now that Israel has had the courtesy to spread the picture around the world the family is owed a small fortune in royalty payments. Want to bet Israel claims they stole the picture fair and square and the family is owed nothing? They do claim the right to collect evidence on terrorists and this is clearly a picture of a terrorist. There is something very interesting about the picture. Note the tilted floor; we don't expect perfection from amateur photographers. What is interesting is it was obviously taken with a strobe light as his front is without shadows. But the background is not illuminated by that flash. The background has been darkened. Not only darkened but clumsily. Look at the left and right edges of the child's legs, particularly the right edge. Not only is his leg not straight but he is missing his left hip and part of his left knee. A trick of the lighting? No as the left side of the "explosive" belt and the left bandoleer are fully visible around the curve of his body. Look to the left side, his right leg, and you see small black curved cutouts rather than the creases we would expect from wrinkles in cloth. My question is, what was in the background of the original that would make the picture even more laughable than it already is? So I lightened the background and made him stand up straight. As you can see there is nothing distinct not even a straight line. The background has been more than darkened, it has been covered over, airbrushed out. There does appear to be something in the upper left corner of the picture. The only thing I can think of is a drainpipe but as the floor is tiled he is indoors so it is not a drainpipe. It is a bit too regular to be an artifact of the airbrushing. Rather than anything sinister like the israeli army woman who dressed him and posed him for the picture I suggest there were simply other children there dressed for the same party. Maybe they were all in costume. Certainly there was no reason to modify the picture except to get the desired effect.
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