The Club PUBlication (Special Edition) 10/24/2023

Hi Everyone!  

We just completed a release on Truth and Lies.  During times as these, Lies proliferate.  Behind each lie is an objective.  That objective is to erase reality and replace it with an "untruth". 

False claims on war proliferate

Misinformation on Israel-Hamas conflict has flooded social media.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
In the days since Hamas militants stormed into Israel early Oct. 7, a flood of videos and photos purporting to show the conflict have filled social media, making it difficult for onlookers from around the world to sort fact from fiction.

Here is a closer look at the misinformation spreading online — and the facts.

CLAIM:
A video shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un saying in a speech that he blames President Joe Biden for the latest Israel- Hamas war.

FACTS:
The video is from 2020 and the version currently circulating online features incorrect English captions.

The footage actually shows Kim celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Korean Workers' Party; he doesn't reference the conflict in the Middle East or Biden at any point.

The video was shared on Instagram and TikTok, where one post garnered more than 223,000 likes. However, the video is old and the captions are completely inaccurate.

A transcript of the full speech translated to English by the National Committee on North Korea, a U.S.- based organization, does not mention anything about the Israel-Hamas war.

CLAIM:
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to intervene in the latest Israel-Hamas war.

FACTS:
The conservative Muslim president has said no such thing. A social media post he wrote recently about the ongoing conflict has been misquoted.

Social media users are sharing a quote they say is from Erdogan, in which the long serving leader warns his country will take decisive steps to end the conflict if the destruction of Hamascontrolled Gaza continues.

But the posts are misquoting a comment Erdogan posted Oct. 17 on his personal account on X about the deadly conflict.

In the message, which was written in Turkish, the president did "invite all humanity" to help stop the "unprecedented brutality in Gaza," as the posts claim.

But he doesn't write "If not, we will do it" or other threatening phrases suggesting a direct military intervention by Turkey, according to native Turkish speakers and other experts who reviewed Erdogan's social media posts for the Associated Press.

CLAIM:
The Israeli military confirmed it bombed a hospital in Gaza in a social media post written in Arabic.

FACTS:
A screenshot circulating online shows a Facebook post from an account posing as the Israeli military.

No such post exists on the military's actual social media pages and its top Arabic speaking spokesperson confirmed his office has issued no such statement.

In the wake of the Oct. 17 deadly blast at Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, social media users shared the screenshot, claiming it is from a member of the Israeli military's Arabic-speaking media relations team.

The user's profile image bears the blue-and-white emblem of the spokesperson's office, which features radio waves atop the Israeli military's traditional symbol of an olive branch-wrapped sword.

But the purported statement wasn't penned by the Israeli military's press office, its top Arabic-speaking spokesperson confirmed this week.

"Just to clarify: I did not issue any statement or comment regarding the Baptist Hospital in Gaza," wrote Avichay Adraee, head of the Arab media branch of the Israeli military's Spokesperson's Unit, in a post on X from Oct. 17, when the blast occurred. "All the news circulating in my name comes from the Hamas media outlets and is completely false."
Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a missile misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza that has dismissed that claim.

CLAIM:
A video shows Qatar's emir threatening to cut off the world's natural gas supply if Israel doesn't stop bombing Gaza.

FACTS:
Qatar's ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, says no such thing in the widely circulating clip, which is more than six years old. A spokesperson for the Qatari government also confirmed that neither the emir nor any other government official has threatened to cut off exports in response to the conflict.

Many online are sharing the video of the Persian Gulf nation's ruler, falsely claiming it shows him saying in Arabic that he's willing to halt the distribution of its gas reserves to achieve his desired end to the latest Israel-Hamas war.

"BREAKING: Qatar is threatening to create a global gas shortage in support of Palestine," wrote one user who posted the video on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. "If the bombing of Gaza doesn't stop, we will stop gas supply of the world."

But Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani says nothing of the sort in the video.

The 7-second clip is actually a tiny snippet from his opening speech at the Doha Forum in 2017.

Marc Owen Jones, a professor of Middle East studies at Hamad bin Khalifa University in Doha, the capital of Qatar, confirmed that the emir touches briefly on Palestine in the widely shared clip, but doesn't make any threats related to the current conflict.

Instead the emir, in his remarks, urged the international community to take more steps to address the region's refugee crisis, news outlets reported at the time.

"The exact translation is: 'The issue of Palestine, I'll begin by saying it's a case of a people uprooted from their lands, and displaced from their nation,' " Jones said.

Qatar on Oct. 16 confirmed the clip dates to 2017 and is being misrepresented.

CLAIM:
A video shows a BBC News report confirming Ukraine provided weapons to Hamas.

FACTS:
The widely shared clip is fabricated, officials with the BBC and Bellingcat, an investigative news website that is cited in the video as the source, confirm.

The clip, which includes the BBC's distinctive blocktext logo, purports to show a story from the outlet about a recent report from Bellingcat on Ukraine providing arms to Hamas.

"Bellingcat: Ukrainian military offensive failure and HAMAS attack linked," reads the text over the video, which has more than 2,500 comments and 110,000 views on the messaging service Telegram.
"The Palestinians purchased firearms, ammunition, drones and other weapons."

But neither the BBC nor Bellingcat has reported any evidence to support the notion that Ukraine funneled arms to Hamas. "We've reached no such conclusions or made any such claims,"

Bellingcat wrote Oct. 10 in a post on X that included screengrabs of the fake report. "We'd like to stress that this is a fabrication and should be treated accordingly."
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Remember to "fact check" information you receive on line.  Don't pass on what seems to be "shocking" news to others until it is thoroughly fact checked.  This exercise will serve you well as the Presidential election gets started.  You will be amazed at what you learn.  
Harv