The above video was released by the IDF as they continue to make their case on the flotilla attack. Although it’s in Hebrew, it’s clear the Israeli story hasn’t changed. A Mondo reader who goes by gangreentv sent us the video along with this note:

The IDF claims that their soldiers were stabbed, axed, and shot at. But despite their multi-million dollar multimedia production and all of the footage that they stole from the journalists that they arrested, they produce no evidence for any of this. They claim to have been shot at, but can produce no photos or videos of injured soldiers, no firearms (except for the captured soldier’s gun that was never fired), no spent shells, no gunpowder on activists’ hands, nothing.

In light of the international outrage and Netanyahu’s weak backpedalling to at least appear to express humanitarian concerns, new audio is added to demonstrate this. If this was indeed said at that time, why wasn’t this audio released at the beginning of the propaganda war, in the days that followed the capture of the flotilla?

The IDF claims that “the activists shot first”. But for all of the video’s “play-by-play” style, it does not specify when these supposed shots were first fired. It also does not specify when the soldiers shot supposed "paintballs" and when they shot actual bullets. Instead of being revealed, the truth is obscured.

They also say the soldiers were attacked, and that they then “returned fire”. But returning fire implies that they were fired upon. So why not say, "The soldiers were fired upon, and then they fired back"? This is either because they were never fired upon, and they just want to imply that they were, to justify their own usage of live bullets — or else because they were in such a panic at not being able to easily round up the “evil” activists, that they didn’t even know what was going on, and they were just firing live bullets indiscriminately.

When the three captured soldiers are released by the activists, two of them abandon ship and swim towards their dinghies… they abandon the third soldier, who is left on the deck of the Mavi Marmara! That’s not exactly what I would call "courageous comradery". By reading between the lines, we can deduce that despite their best efforts to obfuscate the truth and present themselves as humanitarian and professional, the IDF come off as brutal scoundrels.

[Is this propaganda piece the best that billions of dollars in annual military aid could come up with? We’re only cash-strapped amateurs, and we picked it apart in minutes!]

Update – The video was just posted on youtube by the IDF with this description: