Elon Musk now allows instant fact-checking of tweets, with the results of that fact-checking posted immediately below the tweet. A recent tweet by Rashida Tlab (D-Khan Yunis) has just been subject to such useful treatment. She doesn’t come off well. More on Musk’s “fact-checking” of Tlaib’s tweets can be found here: “Tlaib’s tweet calling Israel ‘apartheid state’ gets torn apart by instant fact check,” by Michael Lee, Fox News, May 3, 2023:
Twitter’s new fact checking system hit back at Rep. Rashida Tlaib after the Michigan Democrat called Israel an “apartheid state.”
Speaker McCarthy wants to rewrite history but the apartheid state of Israel was born out of violence and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,” Tlaib said Monday on Twitter. “75 years later, the Nakba continues to this day.”
Tlaib’s tweet, which was in response to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s post noting the “special relationship” between Israel and the U.S., was the subject of an instant fact check by Twitter, with notes below the post pointing out several errors.
The fact check first points out that Israel was created by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, linking to the document at the U.N.’s official website.
UN Resolution 181, the “Partition Resolution” that passed, by a vote of 33 to 13, on Nov. 29, 1947, recommended the partition of Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state, with Jerusalem as a corpus separatum under international control. UN Resolution 181 was accepted by the Zionist delegation to the UN but unanimously rejected by the Arab states. Israel, however, despite the Fox claim, was not “created” by the UNGA Resolution 181, but by the efforts of the Zionists to successfully defend themselves.
“]The fact check then points out that the “ethnic cleansing” Tlaib claimed happened only to the Arabs in fact “affected both Jewish and Arab communities caught up in the war initiated by 5 Arab states who opposed the existence of Israel.” To bolster the second point, the Twitter fact check linked to the State Department’s official history of the Arab-Israeli War of 1948.
There was certainly “ethnic cleansing,” but Tlaib has it backwards: The “ethnic cleansing” that took place around the 1948 war was of Jews by Arabs, not of Arabs by Jews. Ethnic cleansing took place in many Arab states where, through a series of pogroms against Jewish communities that had existed for centuries in Arab lands, ultimately caused 850,000 Jews living in Arab countries to flee, in most cases stripped of all of their property. Far more Jews left Arab lands than Arabs – at most 690,000 of them – left what became the state of State of Israel. While the Jews were hounded out of Arab lands, fleeing for their lives, the Arabs who left Mandatory Palestine and then the state of Israel, between late 1947 and 1949, left because Arab leaders had encouraged them to do so. Many Arab radio broadcasts from abroad urged the Arabs to leave “Palestine” while the fighting was going on, to avoid being caught in the middle, and then, once the Jews were defeated, and killed or expelled, the Palestinian Arabs could safely return not only to their own property, but would be able to seize the property abandoned by the Jews. Some Israeli officials, such as the Mayor of Haifa, tried to prevent Arabs from leaving; he went on the air to plead with his city’s Arabs to stay. Voluntarily flight doesn’t sound much like “ethnic cleansing” to me. The only “ethnic cleansing” going on, as a result of the 1948 conflict, was of the Jews forced to flee Arab lands.
Then there was Rashida Tlaib’s offhand reference – as if no evidence needed to be offered in support – to Israel as “an apartheid state.”
On Twitter, the response was swift, but incomplete: The note under her tweet pointed out that Israel has over 20% Arab citizens who have “full and equal rights,” linking to a Democracy Institute study that found the country’s Arab residents had declining rates of infant mortality and rising life expectancies.
That was an insufficient reply to the charge by Tlaib that Israel “is an apartheid state.” The phrase “full and equal rights” deserves to be fleshed out. The posted reply to Tlaib ought to have read thus: “Tlaib calls Israel an ‘apartheid’ state. But in Israel, Arabs serve on the Supreme Court, sit in the Knesset, go abroad as ambassadors for Israel. The chairman of Israel’s largest bank, Bank Leumi, is an Arab. Jews and Arabs work in the same factories, and offices. Jews and Arabs are treated in the same medical facilities by both Jewish and Arab medical personnel. Jews and Arabs play on the same sports teams and in the same orchestras. They appear together as cast members on television shows and in movies. They own businesses – everything from restaurants to high tech – together. They have exactly the same political, social, and economic rights. Only in one respect to they differ: Jews must serve in the military, while Arabs may do so. If Rashida Tlaib has some evidence of the “apartheid” she keeps mentioning, let her bring it forth to be examined. That’s what the Twitter response to Tlaib should have included, necessarily spread out over several tweets.
Twitter’s “Community Notes” system has been expanded by new platform owner Elon Musk, who announced last month that there would be “no exceptions” to fact checks for those who post “materially false statements on this platform.” Musk pointed out that anyone could be fact checked under the system, including heads of states and even the billionaire owner himself.
The fact check of Tlaib, a high-profile Democratic member of the progressive “Squad,” comes after conservatives have long argued social media companies unfairly target conservative views for arbitrary fact checks and bans, something that is evidently changing at Twitter under the leadership of Musk.
Tlaib’s tweet also received scorn from other users of the platform, including former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who argued the Michigan Democrat was “a bit off” on the facts.
“You’re a bit off on this congresswoman,” Friedman said in a response on Twitter. “Actually, the State of Israel was born notwithstanding the unsuccessful Palestinian attempts at ethnic cleansing to remove the Jews, through acts of terror and collaboration with Hitler (whose dear friend was Grand Mufti of Jerusalem).”…
Unpredictable and mercurial, Elon Musk is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. In allowing immediate fact-checking of tweets on Twitter, and the posting of results immediately under those tweets, as has just happened with the meretricious tweets by the rebarbative Rashida Tlaib, he is very very right.
somehistory says
And the smoke that is ascending…(she has been seen in pants, has she not?)
tlaib is a foul-mouthed liar. The snake wouldn’t know the Truth if it slapped her ugly face with a wide slab of bacon.
The “fact-checking” may show her up to be the liar she is, but she won’t tell the Truth because of it.
Bazz says
Actually the Jews were not living in Arab lands. The Arabs invaded those lands in the 7th Century including the the areas that were occupied by Jews.
Everybody not Arabs were driven out unless they converted to Islam
Is there a story there for Germans and French peoples ?
What do you think started the Crusades, when Christians wanted to recover Jerusalem ?
dazzleme says
Somehistory
+1
somehistory says
thank you, dazzleme
Mark Spahn says
Hi, SomeHistory. I don’t understand your remark, “And the smoke that is ascending…(she [Rashida Tlaib] has been seen in pants, has she not?)”
Is this a reference to some event involving smoke (e.g., election of a pope)? What does this have to do with pants-wearing? Please explain your witticism (if that’s what it’s intended as).
SALVATORE says
Mr Spahn Muslim woman are not allowed to wear pants as they are considered MEN’S CLOTHES BY Muslim savages. And bacon is bacon 🥓 simple enough FOR YOU?. 🙄
somehistory says
Yep. and thanks.
somehistory says
“Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
guy says
Finally, fact-checking that you can verify unless you are dumb and blind.
Guy Lepage says
Finally, fact-checking that you can follow and verify unless you are blind and dumb.
Salvatore says
👍👍😆yeah! Good for Mr musk
dazzleme says
Salvatore
I agree, good for Elon Musk!