Israel gaffe reveals 'Iran ship photos' were forged

[bstender]

"After Israel released photos it said proved that a huge shipment of weapons for Hezbollah came from Tehran, Iranian news agencies publish evidence showing that the photos are forged. "

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=111410§ionid=351020101

[aranthus]

1. You do realize that PressTV is just a mouthpiece for the Iranian regime, right? n/t

[Tempest]

2. The evidence they provided is pretty damning

The article explained that Iran's Ministry of Sepah gave its place to the Defense Ministry more than twenty years ago. "So this begs the question of what the emblem of a nonexistent body was doing on the cargo?"

Not to mention the labels are in English.

Major FAIL.

[aranthus]

4. It's not evidence of anything at all.

[bstender]

3. but you realize that they nailed Israel with this, right?

not that it wasn't already clear it was just another dirty media trick. they're feelin the heat

[aranthus]

5. Those who want to believe that it was an Israeli trick don't need evidence.

No. They didn't nail anything.

[bstender]

7. what a remarkably clear projection of your bias

you don't need evidence, you don't want evidence. btw, the same picture is printed in the LA Times, but they were faithfully reporting the Israeli press release, they missed that detail too.

[aranthus]

6. One more question.

Why would Israel want to pick a fight with Iran if the Iranians were not arming Hezbollah and trying to build nukes?

[bstender]

8. when did you stop beating your wife?

iow

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. what a silly, perverted question.

hey, why not put your conclusion in your question next time? Better yet, why not join the Chamber of Commerce as their expert economist? They'd love your approach.

[bstender]

10. you're right, it is supposed to be "are you still beating your wife?"

less wiggle room.

[bstender]

11. woops, thought you were referring to my question

though equally silly of course. i thought your response seemed a bit overly-appalled!

[ChairmanAgnostic]

13. not to thee, but to the idiot to whom you posed your question

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

14. are you stupid, or do you simply play that on TV?

The vast majority of the "missiles" shot those hundreds of meters into land Israel stole from the original inhabitants, are home made devices, with little explosive power, and no directional control.

But, go ahead. Compare the supersized bottle rockets that the Palestinians shoot to the three stage missiles that Iran has, with Russian and Chinese help.

sheesh, illiteracy and lack of research abilities are growing at this site. Amazing.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

18. got any pretty pictures of the tanks that Israel uses on civilians?

or the cluster bombs it used on Lebanese, in so many numbers that they had to beg the Bush admin to send millions more, "for self-defense" purposes?
Or how about the snipers that kill innocents simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, while they prevent medical staff from going to save the lives of innocents that Israel massacred?

have you no shame? no sense of humanity? no regrets for the cold blooded murders committed by Israel so often over the past decade?

Obviously not.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

23. and may the rapture begin.

oh dear, another feith based poster here.

[parkia00]

28. I applaud you for your attempt at commonsense...

unfortunately I'm afraid singing to stuffed roasted turkey would be more useful. At least you can do something useful with the turkey later. Some people will hold on to their beliefs no matter what evidence is shown to the contrary. It's not actually that they believe what they believe but the need to believe it. The desperate desire they the side they support is "right" even against overwhelming evidence. So when ever some evidence or someone comes along and gives a report no matter how outlandish that support their claim, these folks will grab on to it like a drowning person will grab onto a lifeline. They will shout their new "evidence" they just got from their dubious source as loud as they can to all who will listen. It does not matter if they make themselves look ridiculous. What is important is that with this "facts" they can believe that they are indeed right and just and their opponents are wrong. This is the same mentality found in people who still hang on to the belief that Iraq was responsible for 9/11, Obama is a Muslim and it was the Hamas that fired white phosphorus rockets into Israel. I like roast turkey. They are very good.

[oberliner]

21. You do realize that Hezbollah is in Lebanon and are not Palestinian, right?

Your post appears to conflate Hezbollah in Lebanon with Hamas in Gaza.

[shaayecanaan]

15. Apparently one sharp-eyed commenter over at PBS noticed the discrepancy

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2009/11/selected-headlines-66.html

it then spread to Iranian blogs before turning up on presstv.

Personally, I was surprised that the Israelis released the crew and vessel that carried these alleged munitions as quickly as they did (within 1 day). 18-year old French backpackers get detained longer at Ben Gurion airport than in the case of this boat that was carrying however-many tons of arms to Hezbollah.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

16. LOL! Thanks for making me spit diet coke all over my monitor! nt

[bstender]

22. one of the many discrepancies in the story

> "Personally, I was surprised that the Israelis released the crew and vessel that carried these alleged munitions as quickly as they did (within 1 day). 18-year old French backpackers get detained longer at Ben Gurion airport than in the case of this boat that was carrying however-many tons of arms to Hezbollah"

yes, very strange. also the only evidence i've found for anything comes solely from Israel.

[shaayecanaan]

25. They allowed people to inspect the munitions...

http://www.canada.com/news/Israel+seizes+Hezbollah+bound+Iranian+arms+ship/2184298/story.html

The rocket at the front is a type 63 rocket, which is used by Hezbollah, however these seem to be Chinese originals (made by NORINCO) rather than the modded rockets that Iran produces.

They could well be munitions from Iran to Hezbollah. I think it would be easier and less risky to simply make the short overland journey of about 150 km from Iran to Syria rather than bother with an extended sea voyage, but perhaps thats just me.

[bstender]

26. ...Israeli officials said.

i don't see any third parties involved in that article either.

byline Jerusalem:
"Israeli naval commandos seized a ship carrying hundreds of tonnes of Iranian-supplied arms, including rockets that can hit Israeli cities, to Lebanon's Hezbollah group,

Israeli officials said on Wednesday."

Then Commodore Ran Ben-Yehuda said 7 more things.

Isreal military said 4 things

Netenyahu said one thing and Isreali leaders apparantly said some things to the public.

A cyprus based shipping source said the ship was due to call in Lebanon.

The ship's owner said "we have nothing to say"

Syria and Iran denied the Israeli allegations.

[oberliner]

27. So what is your theory on what took place here? nt

[bstender]

29. grabbing the news

While you all dither about alleged war crimes, there's terror i say, bloody terror. Terror!!! with a capital T, that rhymes with Farsi and that spells bloody terror my friend, right here in river city.

[oberliner]

30. But I mean do you think the entire incident was staged?

Was there even ever a boat at all? I would like to know what you believe actually occurred.

[bstender]

31. i'm flattered

that you would consider what i think happened is worthy of mention. but unfortunately i have no more information at this point than you do, all of which originates from the Israeli military, so everything is open to question, but do i think there was a boat? yes, that seems likely, did someone load some crates of weapons on that boat? i'd say that is also a requirement for the story to work. where are you going with this?

[oberliner]

Well isn't that what a discussion board is all about?

I'm amazed every time anyone on this board gives a hoot what I think about anything to be honest! Perhaps I flatter myself to think that some do.

In any case, I guess I am trying to learn from you (or anyone else who wishes to share their views) a potential plausible explanation for what took place if one accepts the claim made in the OP that the labeling shown in the photos is inaccurate and (presumably) faked or forged in some way.

If this ship was not, as Israel claimed, transporting weapons from Iran to the leadership of Hezbollah in Lebanon, then what really happened? What is another logical scenario here that one could realistically consider took place bearing in mind the discrepancy of the labels highlighted in the OP?

[bstender]

33. scenarios

the bogus label is just a small piece of weirdness. The ultimate destination is also here-say in any case, (unless they produce a new document saying; "SHIP TO: Hezbollah;) But isn't the scenario of planting some crates of weapons in a friendly port, then capturing the boat and blaming it on Iran a believable scenario as well as politically useful? (and also, more believable than the official story bearing in mind that shipping these arms makes no logistical sense in the first place?)

[shaayecanaan]

35. If what is being said about Egypt is true...

(that is, that Egypt specifically refrained from inspecting this cargo) then I suspect the event was quite possibly staged.

Apparently the IDF seized quite a lot of type 63 rockets and Katyushas during the last war, so they would have the necessary props for such a spectacle. The timing is also suspect. So is the fact that the boat was released so quickly. Obviously, the manifest documents that refer to a now defunct Iranian agency are cause for suspicion as well.

[bstender]

24. announced on same day and time as Goldstone vote?

One of the commenters to your link:

Interesting that the Israeli 'discovery' of Iranian weapons on board the ship was publicized on exactly the same day -- apparently at precisely the same time -- as the Goldstone Report was being put to a vote in the UN General Assembly.

Furthermore, according to the Angry Arab News Service blog, the ship made an unscheduled stop in Mubarak's Egypt (serial accuser of Hezbollah, armer of the Dahlan mafia, and Israel's faithful accomplice in the Gaza blockade), and that the containers were not opened for inspection in the presence of the ship's officers, as is customary for inspections on the high seas.

I think this event can be reliably classified as an Israeli false-flag operation, and a very amateurish one at that.

Given the timing, it is obvious that even the Israelis themselves did not think that it would stand up to scrutiny beyond the 8-hour news cycle of the disingenuous Western media, and the sole purpose of this childish affair was to compete for headlines with the Goldstone Report on a critical news day.

[Scurrilous]

20. Israel faked Francop arms claims -- Iran

<snip>

"Israeli photos depicting shipping documents pointing to an alleged Iranian arms delivery to Hezbollah are forgeries, Iranian media claims.

The Israeli army in early November said it unloaded 36 containers of weapons at the Israeli port of Ashdod from the Antigua-flagged vessel Francop.

Thirty tons of weapons, rockets, missiles, hand grenades and ammunition were hidden behind thousands of plastic polyethylene bags, the army said.

Israel claimed the Iranian- and Russian-made arms were due to be unloaded in the Syrian port of Latakia and from there transferred to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Los Angeles Times and other media outlets published a series of photos that allegedly back the Israeli claims. Iran, however, says one of the photos -- an apparent shipping manifest from the Ministry of Sepah -- is from a defunct agency, suggesting Israel made up the story, state-funded broadcaster Press TV reports."

more

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Igel]

34. Hard call.

They get "ministry of sepah" wrong and yet misspell "tariff" as "tarrif" *and* get the tariff code right, presumably--not part of the WCO's harmonized system but the Iranian-specific tariff code for lances and bayonets?

Can't make heads or tails of the "M.O.U." business or other numbers. "Ministry" might well be "dept.", which sounds a bit forced to me, to be honest, but I'm not going to rule out that it is an old box of stuff or that "ministry of sepah" may be an accidental match for the pre-1989 organizational title.

In other words: If I were going to ship this in violation of sanctions and UN resolutions I'd try to strip out all identifying information. I assume the Iranians did precisely that. I infer that anything that slipped through was an oversight--buried in an obscure place, inside a box, or whatever.

As for most of the other attempts to say, "But the Iranians *must* be innocent," in order to make clear the previous assumption that Israel is guilty or to strive valiantly to prevent war at all costs (as though anything at DU would trigger or prevent war) amuse.

[azurnoir]

36. The story "smelled" in the first place

then Israel releases the ship the next day amid proclamations from Avigdor and Bibi who of course do not mention the ships release note Israel held reps from Free Gaza for much longer so whats the deal?

What Israel depended on was the Western and especially American media the story of the ships capture was front page news here but nary a line about its release the next day

[bemildred]

37. Yeah, reeks.

I stick by my original take:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=124&topic_id=292528#292571

[Lagomorph]

38. Iranian photoshop skills vs Israeli photoshop skills

None of this "proves" anything.

Weapons are made years in advance and stored for future use.

If they don't get used, they get sold or donated to allies, to make room for the newest war toys.

You can still find war materials out there that were made by companies, or even countries, that no longer exist.

Watching Iran and Israel calling each other liars is no reason to embrace either.