Ben Caspit’s article inciting sexual assault in the dark was post-edited to whitewash him! #FreeAhedTamimi

Ben Caspit defended his obscene article by blaming «bad translation» from Hebrew. Of course, he was lying! However, a few days later his article was edited, to suit his shameless lies: –Inciting unspeakable acts «in the dark» against Ahed Tamimi was changed to something completely different, consistent with his «cover story».

UPDATE: Later on, I discovered that Caspit had written a new article to defend himself against a so-called «shaming campaign». Here is a direct link to his shameless lie about «a phrase taken out of context, an inaccurate translation». However, at this stage I had no idea that an organisation called «CAMERA» (Committee for Accuracy in Middle-East Reporting) had agreed with Caspit’s faulty rhetoric, despite admitting that the translation was, in fact, accurate. According to «CAMERA»:

It should be noted that Caspit’s original wording was: «In the case of the girls, we should exact a price at some other opportunity, in the dark, without witnesses and the cameras.» At a later date, after a social media firestorm erupted in reaction to his comments, the text on the digital article was modified to state more clearly: «In the case of the girls, it is preferable that the arrest will be carried out later, at night, in the way that IDF carries out difficult arrests.» Contrary to standard journalist practice, no note is appended alerting readers to the change.

Thus, while the AP/Israel Hayom translation of Caspit’s words was sound, the statement that his words were a call for retaliation was not…

However, CAMERA’s assessment is also faulty, since it fails to take into consideration the phrase’s context, which is partly stated in Caspit’s next phrase (also post-edited):

The Tamimi family needs to learn the hard way that such systematic provocations against IDF soldiers will cost them dearly, and the IDF has enough capabilities, creativity and means to produce such inputs without paying an exorbitant public price.

Now, whether or not «learning the hard way» and «in the dark, without witnesses and cameras». was a form of «retaliation», is beside the point:

An army of occupation’s first and foremost goal is not to «retaliate», but «to teach a lesson» to the occupied population. «Retaliation» is not an occupier’s main motive, since there is a fundamental asymmetry of power between the occupier and the occupied. Retaliation is only meaningful between armies or adversaries that are able to inflict more-or-less similar damages to each other. In the case of an occupation, where the occupied population is more-or-less powerless, the meaning of retaliation changes accordingly, becoming much more a form of punishment to «teach a lesson». E.g. in world War II, when the nazis executed civilian hostages, they did it to «teach the civilian population a lesson» (that any resistance or support for partizans «had a heavy price»). This «heavy price» is precisely, quite inescapably, what Caspit was proposing, in his original (not the post-edited) article.

Now, since the mistreatment of defiant Palestinian children in Israeli jails, is always done «in the dark, without witnesses and cameras», and also since «writing about what should be done to girls in the dark is incitement to sexual assault» (as Shany Littman said to Ben Caspit) there is absolutely no reason to believe Caspit’s hypocritical «cover-story». He further undermined his own credibility by denying the very existence of the occupation (in that 7-minute interview where Ms. Littman was invited).

Anyway… initially I had no idea that Caspit’s article was quite officially post-edited to whitewash him, but I had discovered and proved the article’s falsification:

How I discovered the cover-up:

I realized this incredible cover-up while attempting -once again- to read the article through google-translate, since I don’t speak Hebrew. The newly translated text looked completely different than what I had previously saved using archive.is.

Initially, I thought someone had edited the results of the automatic translation, but this made no sense, since my older «safe copy» of the translation was completely different in far too many respects. So, I consulted the internet archive (archive.org) which stores successive versions of important web-pages. The results were quite amazing:

Ben Caspit‘s original article was archived on 22/12/2016. The latest version of it was archived on 30/12/20-17. Even for a non-speaker of Hebrew (like myself) the original article’s notorious segment is completely different now. Using google-translate once again, you can immediately check the blatant whitewash:

[1]

Here is a safe copy of the original article (22/12/2017):  https://archive.is/yRCtU 

Here is a safe copy of the original article’s translation: https://archive.is/ITRzl

Using a direct link to the original obscene text-segment inciting unspeakable acts «in the dark» against Ahed Tamimi (as well as against her family) here is the result:

[2]

Here is a safe copy of the post-edited article (30/12/2017): https://archive.is/CqOnY

Here is a safe copy of the post-edited article’s translation: https://archive.is/UOlyX

Using a direct link to the same text-segment, now severely edited (on 30/12/2017) to white-wash the author, here is the result:

As you can see, the evidence found in archive.org is undeniable. If you can read Hebrew, you can also check the forgery in Hebrew. It makes no difference!

Using the site www.diff-text.com, here is a screen-shot of an automatic text-comparison (in Hebrew) between the original article’s last three paragraphs and the forged later version of those paragraphs:

Finally, here is exactly the same automatic text-comparison using automatic translation:

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More information about Ahed Tamimi and the Israeli journalist Ben Caspit:

‘We should exact a price’ from Ahed Tamimi ‘in the dark,’ Israeli journalist says

Israeli journalist who called for unspeakable acts against Ahed Tamimi tries, and fails, to backpedal

Why Ahed Tamimi’s slap is so thrilling to Palestinians

Why Is the State of Israel So Afraid of 16-Year-Old Ahed Tamimi?